just got the game this week, i've done about 170 turns as the english, and its 1160 odd. i conquered all of britain, plus the rebel cities on the coast of mainland europe. i sent a successful crusade to jerusalem, and also hold cagliari and rhodes. after wars with just about everyone else in western europe, at the same time, i control all af france, a spanish border of leon, toledo and valencia, and bern, staufen, magdeburg, frankfurt, hamburg, arhus and oslo.

but i have some questions:

1. how do you get cardinals?? i have alot of cathedrals/ huge cathedrals, yet all i can make are priests and i've had no papal influence since Aston died.

2. why are assassins so hard to train up... they have to have a really high subterfuge rating if they can get a decent success level on anyone. only one of my assassins has 'made it'.

3. am i doing something wrong... but when i have say 2 full stacks and want to attack another army in the field, why when i attack with the first one does the battle take place before the second stack can join in.

4. do you have to have a family member in a settlement for the auto-manage to actually work?

thats all for now.