So, I the whole demesnes size limit thing was clarified and I'm having a lot of fun but I've noticed that I'm a lot better at internal politics then warfare.
Every time I've tried to play as a warring state things have gone fairly badly.
First I gave Leon a try, one of the beta versions I've seen had the guy playing Leon and it went pretty well, slowly conquering the muslim states.
Main difference between mine and his start was that unlike him I did not manage to imprison my sister, the scheming Urraca, throwing me into a civil war that another baron joined in on that after some trouble I was able to supress, perhaps I did not wait enough for my military to regenerate after crushing the revolt but when I delclared holy war on Bada Joz it caused a chain declaration of war by the other muslim states, most with armies far greater then what I even had at my peak (possibly mercs though).
My second try was as Poland, I figure spawning next to some pagans means free Holy War, but they spawn absurd amounts of armies, read something about a fertility shrine that's supposed to increase their armies but they where raising 3000 man armies from a 3 land duchy while Poland with about 7-9 lands was only able to raise about 1500, the other small pagan countries then declared war on me flooding my land with about 10,000 pagans and forcing a ragequit.
Third was Leon again, after watching a bit of the aforementioned LP again (this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxI_ukQkJJA&feature=related might be useful if you want to see what the game is like being played by a competent player), things went bad with Urraca again, rebelling and dragigng another duchy with her and forcing me to focus internally again, after a while my Castillian brother died, with me as the only heir, these barons where quite displeased with me though and quickly rebelled, smashing down the revolts would not have been too difficult if the Bada Joz and some other Muslim states did not simulataneously decide to attack me, altough their army sizes where manageable with some mercs, dealing with them and the revolt at the same time was impossible.
Historically they are all quite likely events, which I find amusing, but is there any way to decrease the likelyhood of horrible death a bit? I guess I should consider France or the HRE a try if I want to do some major conquering but somehow I want to save them for when I'm a bit more used to the game.