Top 10 Things About Medieval 2

10. Factions vie for power, playing as one of the many countries available, the player always tries to become the most powerful faction in the game.
9. Good Construction helps, constructing better recruitment buildings allow for better armies, and better technologies come from other buildings. You cannot get anywhere without money, so build those economic buildings like markets and roads!
8. Ensuring the Royal Line Continues, without the Royal family, your faction crumbles to revolt and dies. To ensure this doesn't happen, help heirs to marry and procreate.
7. Use your Agents wisely, Spies and Assassins can do wonders for the problems your facing. Too much unrest by the people in a specific settlement can cause revolt, so keep spies in your towns to keep enemies spies out and put them in enemies towns to cause revolt. Assassins can kill off that problem general that has been terrorizing your citizens, or rid a province of an unwanted guest.
6. Religion is your key, having your religion being followed by more citizens keeps them happy, where as another religion causes unrest. Use priests, cardinals and imams to your advantage to raise the amount of followers of your religion in a specific area.
5. Crusades and Jihads can show the power of your faction, when the Pope calls a Crusade, all Catholics should try to participate. This not only shows your faith, but allows for expansion into Muslim territory. On the other hand, Muslims have Jihads and can fight back with almost the same process to take out Catholic factions in their lands.
4. Diplomacy is a useful tool, without it there can be no alliances or trade agreements. Trade agreements make both factions more prosperous, and alliances are beneficial, especially if both of the parties share enemies.
3. The Size of the Army is always a deterrence, having a strong army can be the difference from winning a war or losing. It can also dictate whether or not an enemy will be more likely to attack a specific area or not, because with a stronger army comes more casualties to both sides.
2. Wealth is the glue of the faction, if you don't have money, you cannot buy construction materials or fund armies or navies. Your faction's wealth is what keeps you able to fend off attackers and helps to become more technologically advanced than another faction.
1. It all comes down to Influence, whether it is the influence of your Ruler or the influence of the Pope, or even of smaller persons, influence will deem how much people respect you. The higher the influence of your King, the easier it will be to have others do what you ask. The same goes for others, like the Pope's influence will determine how much Catholics abide to his rules.