The plague is insane!

[Werner]

Thats the other thing I have a hard time understanding, merrying Princesses. It seems like every princess I run into has "0" charm rating. I don't think I've ever seen a non-start princess with more than 1 charm rating. Whats the point of merrying her? Besides, my ally factions seem incapable of letting me merry them, it always says "Very Demanding" when I try. Wouldn't it be good to merry your princess to my faction leader?

[Wizzie]

Concerning buying regions:

I've only every bought one region so far, and that was while I was playing a Venician campaign (fitting that the merchant civ buys their first conquest ). The major pain playing as Venice is that the HRE have Bolgna, splitting your empire in two if you take rebel Florence early on. Then they end up attacking you for sending various troops and generals between Florence and Venice (over their territory). So to remedy it once and for all I purchased the duchy of Bologna for 6000 florins on the first turn - that is 1000 florins per turn for 6 turns. Went down a treat, as I just had to stick a fort in the pass in the alps, and after booting Milan and Sicily off my peninsula, I now have "Fortress Italy", with forts blocking all points of access through the alps