Quote Originally Posted by Test112345
i mean...without cheating how the hell can i win?

Out of no where the Mongols decide to invade Italy and eastern Europe, and they are just destroying all of my places. besides that, HRE, Venice, spain, and Denmark are all attacking me. oh, besides that, my towns are falling to civil revolts, and i cant figure out why, even with the settlement scroll. unrest? how can i fix that? oh...and with the patch the Mongols will be MORE aggresive? great. this is impossible...how can you win without cheating lol
In addition to what the others have said (especially the FAQ reference), here's a few more tips:

1. Start with Easy or Medium campaign difficulty while you're learning the game. Higher settings cause constant slipping of your relations with other factions unless you do something proactive to stop it, like constant bribes. At the lower settings (easy and medium), your relations slowly improve with each turn.

2. Start your first campaigns in protected map positions like England, Portugal or Spain, so you don't have to watch your back, and you don't have to receive the full impact of the Horde.

3. You need at least some military presence on your border provinces (strong garrisons in settlements or standing armies at major border crossings), otherwise your neighbors will see you as a juicy target for conquest. That's another advantage of starting with England, Portugal or Spain. Once you lock up your home territory, you only have to fight on, or protect, one or two fronts. The AI doesn't do many (any?) amphibious invasions.

4. If the unrest level (the yellow trident) is over 15% in your settlements, it probably means there's one or more enemy spies in there. The campaign AI is very aggressive about that. Get your own spies into those cities, preferably ones you've trained up a little, and you may need more than one.