Europe will be mine soon!

[Erkki]

Knights of Honor is a bit too easy, as I suspected. Look at how I have expanded Lithuania, and it hasn't taken that much effort actually, only time. And I think I'm playing on the 'hard' difficulty (or perhaps 'normal', don't remember). I could have won the game a long time ago -- was voted to become uber-emperor of europe but declined the offer.

I chose to keep playing and my mission is to convert ALL of Europe into Paganism. That was my intial religion and when I conquer the provinces, they will convert to my religion in a short time.

I have tolerated Suzdal and Kazan (in the upper right) from the beginning of the game as allies despite their different religion -- in the beginning it meant that I was not attacked from all sides at once and as my empire grew and I also conquered their enemies' territories, I've cut them off from many potential wars and they have prospered economically, being able to support my war efforts with quick cash if I need some.

But there aren't really any difficult challenges. In the beginning, you just have to make trade agreements with the largest nations, hire lots of merchant knights and soon you will be the richest kingdom. Then you can support your militaries well and can start expanding.

Sure, I have made some small mistakes and loaded a saved game from time to time, but not so much because it's difficult but because I don't want to spend time getting back something I lost in a stupid decision.

One time a spy caused all my 4-5 Marshals (who had loads of experience) to revolt. And because I had no counter-spy, the spy didn't get caught yet and managed to kill my king shortly afterwards. It didn't even take very long to recover from that (but made things a bit more difficult as my new marshals had zero experience).

All my towns are almost fully fortified and I don't even need marshals in any of them to survive sieges. Not once have I taken control of the battles; I've relied on strategy only, not tactics. I think I suck at tactics, but probably a good tactic could win battles I would lose when letting them take place automatically. And when I see that I'm losing a battle, I retreat and modify my strategy.

ETC

This game is certainly very good, but it could be so much better. And more difficult. And I haven't used some options that would probably make the game even easier.