forts

[Sandouras]

Yeah, i was really disappointed by the enemies. At first you must be very careful and tactical but once you grow in size, you can arrange your economics a bit and kick everyone's ass.
Here is what i do:
1) Put good governors in richest/biggest/most profitable cities
2) Garrison up to 6 units => free
3) Keep castles to a minimum. One next to the capital to protect it and then one castle for each huge part of the map. For example, a fortress in the middle of Spain, one in France, one in Germany-Austria-Poland, etc. Unfortunately i have to keep every settlement (except Antioch) in the middle east as a fortress preparing for the stupid Mongols-Timurids. Imagine my surprise and anger when they appeared at the Caspian sea/Russian region!!!
4) Monopoly of silk and other resources. Build forts to protect your merchants and put more than one in each point. Also: gold and silver mines.
5) The spine of my economy: farms and trade (markets, ports, docks).
6) Trade rights with other factions
7) Some little money you get from the byz council when you do the tasks they appoint you. Helps a lot early in the game. Probably the pope helps the catholics likewise.

After all that tidying up, my empire has more money than the rest of the world put together.

Then, even if the enemies attack you, they dont invade a lot into your lands. They advance slowly and stupidly, unlike what the Venetians did to me (byz) at the beginning of the game when i was almost annihilated. Even when i reached northern italy they fought with all they got, even capturing a province in Gaul to survive and let Milan hold me back, or landing in the dalmatian coast to hit me hard. Their armies fought smartly and valiantly too!
The rest of europe is too heavy to follow my Vardariotai horse archers and too stupid to stop my cataphracts from charging right into their rear.
Right now only Scotland remains for me to conquer and i have almost 4 million in money. I almost gave them half a million so that they could mount a challenge and fight back, but they remained weak and pityful.

The only challenge now are the Timurids who are stupidly hard and invulnerable (i already beat the Mongols. They are just as lame). I used 10 super-armies to destroy the Mongols and now i await the Tim (yeah, i have slowed down time, so each turn is half a year.... i think. So i have plenty of time before they arrive). But they are almost impossible to beat. Yes elephants were a powerful weapon those days, but jesus this is stupid! Its impossible to catch them and pin them down and even when you do, their peasants can destroy your best general in a matter of seconds. Seesh! I used the automatic option in a previous game to beat them. You put 5 of your armies against one of theirs and hope for the best. If you dare to play it on the battle map, heh, be prepared to watch your armies break!