I have played and won long campaigns on VH/VH with all but Byzantium and Milan. I love infantry what can I say and those two dont have squat until late game.

My personal favorite was with Sicily taking a crusade to the middle east and taking Gaza off the bat quick teching to Normans and Spamming them like hot cakes took me maybe 12 turns to squash egypt and the turks :) Poor Mongols were so CONFUSED when they showed up expecting to shoot arrows into paper thin eastern armor :P