sorry, didn't notice this one before:
Spain: are you running the appropriate civics (slavery, agriarianism or merchantilism)?
Portugal: Spain never controlled effectively Portugal. Moreover, if Portugal was historical for Spain, then Spain would found cities in its core area.
Moors: If they spawn at war Moors will be conquered in just one turn. There is no way to protect Codoba even for the hyman player.
Techs: Generallyt speaking AI don't want to trade with the human player. They know that the human player knows what he is doing.
Spain:
Running Agrarianism (somehow I didn't notice in the beginning that I wasn't in slavery and then I didn't want to change it any more) but not Mercantilism (trade routes to vasalls would also be stopped, right?)
I can use them for plantations, like I should but not as specialists in the cities.
Portugal:
I have to say, I'm definitely no expert on this but I remembered from RFCE that "Portugal was granted independence from Leon&Castilia", also Wikipedia says that Portugal was a vasall of Spain (Leon) untill 1139
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Portugal_(1139–1279)
sure, making it "historic" would be too much, but "contested" might fit, but I don't want to argue too much about it, next time I'll just burn Lisboa down
Moors:
Okay, I agree, that might be too tough, even if Cordoba started with walls or something similar, I have RFCE for this fight, so it's okay
Tech-trading:
usually the AI is willing to trade brand-new-monopoly-techs to you, if you're just friendly with them. I am not only friendly with these civs, they are my damn servants! they should do my bidding! seriously, though, why can I buy a tech from some asian civ who I am at "pleased" with, while my 2 friendly vasalls have it but don't want to sell it to me? (we all know Mansa trades everything, so I don't even count him)