The game will tell you you have achieved a victory as soon as you get them, but if I recall correctly, you can keep on playing regardless. Go for all the exotic trade goods as fast as possible, they are immensely helpful, and same goes for the ideas they give you. Generally, it's more worth it to save the piety (or learning or whatever it was) for kingdom power and upgrading your spies/merchants/clerics.ДЄlways abstain from voting the ruler of Europe, unless you want to take a minor victory. I don't remember what the Orthodox power was, but the Catholic one kinda sucks most of the time.

Don't forget to turn it off, otherwise you don't generate any piety. If you are Muslim, make sure you abuse your Jihad power when at a tough war. The HRE makes for a very mighty ally if you are Christian. He can easily get mad at you and just get up and leave your court. If you manage to get one of your clerics as the Pope, make sure you treat his abilities with extreme and gentle care. Especially useful if they have a good army. If a spy becomes a Marshal, does his action and returns back home, then his army he had as a Marshal will turn mercenary. Only Constantinople and Rome will resist an assault from two armies with a combined force of 18 crossbowmen and 4 ladders. I usually have my armies operate in pairs like that, one with siege equipment and the other without. Just get ladder guys in some of your armies.

While it helps, siege equipment will make your armies extremely slow. It's not really necessary to get siege equipment. Also building up those Universities and Cathedrals is helpful, but only a bunch of provinces will meet the requirements to let you do it, so make sure you know where you can build them and don't waste money on other minor buildings. Get all the trade goods you can, and always aim to conquer provinces with trade goods you don't have. It will prevent you from getting relationship penalties. Right-click to dismiss messages you are not ready to answer with a yes or no. Get kingdom power maxed out as soon as you can. 9 out of 10, they are spies and they are gonna fuck you over if they are Marshals, since they can make every single one of your armies turn rebels (and you lose the experienced Marshals along with that). The downside is that they'll really slow down your army's speed on the map.ДЄfter you start gaining momentum, treat every new noble you get as a spy. They are really hard to kill, so having a couple in your army is a guaranteed victory against any enemy. Teutonic and Templar knights are the most OP melee unit in the game. I usually had all my armies with crossbowmen except one, which was filled out with the best cavalry units gathered from all over Europe (mercenaries usually), and a Marshall fitted out with perks for quick movement and cavalry bonuses for rebel control (Rebels will spawn every 30 minutes to the clock after a while). Works great with the Camp perk I mentioned earlier. Kinda hard to make it work though.Дon't bother too much with mixing and matching your army if you are mostly gonna let combat to the AI, just fill up all your armies with archers, or even better crossbowmen. And then you just assimilate their kingdom into yours. Also, two spies are quite good, since you use one to infiltrate the enemy as whatever and then use the other to kill off the royal family and all the enemy nobles, until your other spy becomes king.

This only happened once for me, but my spy actually managed to become the Pope, which led me conquering half of Europe in one ruler's lifetime. A good spy can lead to some really interesting situations. You only really need Marshals and Merchants, maybe a Spy and a Cleric for extra flavor. Enemy approaching? Just have them camp outside the target city or in the enemy's predicted path and let them shoot arrows at the enemy army and then obliterate them with the massive defensive bonus. This is gonna be quite long, brace yourself:ДЇor first general skill always go for the one where they can set up a fortified camp as the first skill. I played this game to the death back when I first found it.

Knights of honor