I did try EU II; never really got into it. I miss the tactical combat and simplifying it all down to “infantry, cavalry, artillery” rubs me the wrong way.
I don’t want to have to conquer Portugal; I’ve got my hands full with Venice, Scotland, the HRE, and the Papal states. Besides, I need my navy available to blockade Antioch, Cyprus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria in a desperate attempt to slow the Mongols down. Boy, Rome is really profitable to sack. Good move, that. Pope not happy, though.
This game sounded like the game I always wanted, and in some ways, it is. With that being said, I think the game would be a perfect mate for Medieval 2. I’d love to play their offspring. That could very well be the perfect game…at least until Spore comes out.
I wonder why. You sound like the ultimate crusader!
I remember when I first got Medieval 1. I played my first game as the Milanese and started flexing on some Christian nation in the region. The Pope came up and told me to knock that shit off, so I killed the Pope. That was a fun start. That was, until everyone took offense at me doing that.
It went downhill pretty quickly after that.
Playing any stripe of Italian in MTW1 was great for the abusive relationship with the papacy. In one particular game I had Rome encircled with assassins, and excommunicating me meant instant death for the pope foolish enough to do it.
Except one time, this one pope, he just wouldn’t die. It went on for years, dead assassins everywhere, and the pope getting crazier and crazier, more and more paranoid with every year. Eventually that poor pope had traits that basically described him as a batshit hermit living in a cave surrounded by traps and bodyguards and foodtasters, and as a result he had this huuuuuge bonus to security and was basically impossible to assassinate. I thought that was pretty funny.
I had to ride out his lifespan excommunicated.
That’s when you kill the bastard.
Ah yes, I remember how the Papacy started hating me after I tangled with them. I figured I’d install a sympathetic Pope, but the prick excommunicated me after attacking the French. I tried to re-kill the Pope, but he whooped my ass with a belt.
Just to qualify, they add to your income in M1, not in M2. If you connect a line of ships from one of your ports to another port – owned by anyone, you should see an increase in your income over the course of several turns. If you have lots of ports it makes for a nearly exponential income spike, but I can’t pin down exactly the formula because sometimes you have to wait several turns to get it and sometimes it seems to not come at all.
I never knew that.
Ever. It’s not mentioned in the manual.
Geez, I can make a fortune now, assuming I can keep the Byzantine “completely unsupportable miracle army from nowhere with 18 free units of prince’s heavy cavalry” from taking Byzantium back.
You might consider hanging out on an M: TW board then. Or ask me. 
I’ve not got MTW:2 but I can bore on about the original game until the cows come home.
Rebellions (and resurgences) are more easily prevented than dealt with. Still, in my last campaign as the English I was just waiting for the Pope to keep reappearing with chivalric knights, feudal knights, feudal foot knights and what not. I didn’t care. I had arbalests, gold-armoured chiv sergeants, plus-valoured Mercian billmen, generalship, and defender’s advantage, and I sat dumb, fat and happy on my hillside and blew him away. One resurgence led to two massive battles in which my combined losses barely totalled 20. 
Arbalests make that game fun, much like culverins did in Medieval 1.
On the other hand, he didn’t see it coming. Hey, I just rolled down from Krakow and exterminated Florence and I was on a roll. It was unavoidable, really.
No, I’m playing as Russia, so it’s not quite as wacky as it sounds. Plus, he started it! Crusade on Jerusalem- how unrealistic is that? He deserved it.