Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Do any of you just play the loyal subject?
I did in one game, as a duke in the Kingdom of Sicily. The AI drove me to utter ruin in the space of a few years. When it wasn't declaring war after war on large Muslim realms, it was giving me useless lands which left me strategically vulnerable. It loved to ignore the enemy armies and the numerous rebellions back home, and, since the AI had taken the troops abroad, I was the only person left to do anything about these massive armies rampaging across my dukedom. Mercenaries are the only reason I survived longer than a year. I spent the entire brief game bankrupt, out-numbered, and fighting frantically to survive. Each time I managed to pull through the AI would give me more useless provinces and over-stretch my resources. By useless I mean zero income, zero manpower, super-high revolt risk due to different religion and culture, and across the sea. Each time I scraped my way to almost-recovery after the last war, off the king would go on a new one. I swear that my liege had a trollface avatar!

After that, I'm sticking with independent realms.