Hmm, couple of queries for ATPG:

1/ I see you recommend a catholic faction to accomplish the goal. I assume this is due to tighter logistics in western europe (territory density) to give an early boost to conquest coupled with easy availability of heavy infantry to push up autoresolve? I was thinking of trying this with the turks, but could see this putting me at an initial disadvantage over a catholic faction.

2/ Spies and sieging. Do spys travel at crusade stack speed when contained within a crusade stack? or is the stack limited to spy speed? Also, do you settle for taking 2 turns to take each settlement (building siege on site vs logistics/time constraint of training siege engines and lugging them about etc), or do you run spies ahead of your expansion paths to allow spyrushing of settlements?

I'm thinking of giving this a go, and am tempted to use poland or hungary for a bit of variety. (played england/france/HRE in the last few long games, so fancy a change)