Many, Many, Many questions!

[Innocentius]

I have been here for a while, but is till have some unanswered questions, so bear with me.

1.During the High period, the Honenstuafen family rules Germany. Yet they also control the Sicilians (It says so in the factions bios too.) So why can't you control the Sicilian provinces as HRE, or vice a versa?

Probably because of gameplay reasons. I'm no expert on the subject though so there might be historical correctness behind the decision as well.

2.Can you convert other factions like you do with the vikings? It would be great to make the Pope orthodox; He'd start suffering from low self esteem because he refuses to acknowledge himself.

You can never change another faction's religion. Pagans are always pagans etc, but you can convert the population of certain provinces using agents (like Catholic Bishops).

3.What's up with the Byzantines keeping three stacks of units in places like Bulgaria when their getting crushed by the eggies or turks? In fact what's with all the factions doing this? Does the computer think that if it doesn't know about them that it can launch a suprise attack on itself?

I don't know. If you are talking about XL (I honestly can't remember how MTW was like before I installed XL) then it is probably to hold off the Serbs and the Cumans (who tend to stack up in Wallachia).

4. On heroes, for famous kings, do you need a certian amount of influence for you to get them? For famous heroes, why exactly do they appear in a random year after the date their supposed to appear? I had Henry the Lion appear in 1176!

1: No.
2: The game generally tries to find a suitable unit for a general (like FMAA or FK) and will sometimes wait untill you train a good "general candidate" unit.

5. Whats with the computer controlled factions and hating the English, Germans, Byzantines and the Turks? For instance, I conquer most of France as the English, my armies are in suberb condition and number, and yet the Aragoese, Germans, Danish, Italians, Spanish and Sicilians all attack me at once! I could even be allied to them, have the French excomm and they still do it!

Once you grow big enough the AI will automatically gang up on you. Generally the AI actually acts in very illogical and downright stupid ways.

6. How exactly are vices and virtues determined? I wonder because I continue to get wierd or contradictory vice/vitrue such as Humanist and Fanatic every time I play. Is their a way to influence them at all?

By increasing the good vices of your current king and by increasing his influence. This is, quite basically, done by winning a lot of wars and conquering lands.

7. I understand how Command, Influence, Loyalty and Acumen work, and I sort of know how Dread works, but what does Peity do? Like what would a Pious governor do to a provence? And just to be thorough, what do all the stats do/ what are they capable of?

Piety is indeed the figure that matters the least, but a pious general might be popular in a province with high zeal, and a king with high piety is more likely to get gifts from the pope (given that he is a catholic, of course).

8.Certian factions seem predispoesd towards certian things, English/French rivalry an obvious one. But what about Custom factions, the Free_# ones? In the Xl mod for instance, the Bohemians seem to have the same problem with generals as the poles do.

This might have to do with the poor lands that are Bohemia and Poland. This means they can only field small armies, thus they don't win too many wars and thus their influence is low.
Also, the very fact that they are small kingdoms might help in reducing their influence.

9. During a civil war, what decides the ring leader? Obviously loyalty, but does royal blood, ex-prince, marriage, or some other factor such as dread also play into it?

Don't know honestly.

Short answers I know, but hopefully they are to some help. Someone with more patience and knowledge might be able to answer them better.