playing France at medium difficulty.
1) at first it was not really a problem as conflicts were small and short, so the cycle of recruiting go on the offensive then disband worked pretty well. diplomacy/marriages helped avoid war on multiple fronts otherwise low income and small recruitment pools/refresh could have been a problem. the ai too seemed limited by it since it rarely was able to filed more than 1/2 large armies every 5/7 turns. having reached almost 250 turns the system seems mostly redundant for large ai factions. currently fighting a war against the almoravids (they hold roughly 13 settlements in spain + some other in north africa) and they are able to field 4/5 armies every 2/3 turns. this makes facing them very tedious as im able to fend them off easily holding the choke point south of bordeaux and having 5 citadels providing reinforcements. the trick was to cheese the upgrade system as gold upgrade spearmen have actually more armour than bronze upgrade sergeant spearmen (2 base + 7.5 from upgrades vs 6 base + 2.5 from upgrade) and are far more abudant. replacing cavalry is easy too if you build landowners in all your territory. ai army comp feels not affected by the system too as they are able to field 7/8 cavarly units per army (a mix of adath, black guard, faris lancers and tawashi) plus a mix of dismounted faris and arab infantry plus the occasional skirmishers.
2)AI cities seem to be well devoloped and large by this stage of the campaign, did not put much attention to the rate at which that happened.
3)didn't put much attention to this factor. i mostly limit myself to expand within the boundaries of historical kingdom of france so conversion was not really an issue. trying just now to use an army of 8 priest to cause religious unrest in almoravid held pamplona, but conversion rates do not seem particulary fast even with that many priests
4)right now merchants are providing as much as, if not more, than overall taxes or trade income. but the limiting factor is availability. only now (turn 250) i'm able field four of them. for the first half of the campaign i was limited to just one, which had a very limited impact on my income.
A)no army ever emerged when i conquered a region
B)i've built up until level 2 notre dame it did unlock mount san michiel in rouen
C)seen several events and i've built schools and libraries in all my cities and castles and still no option to build a university (currently 1248 AD)
D)No
E)just notre dame. it just seems an alternate version of the church building line
F)missile troops seem very scarce. regular archer disappeared from the pool with the heavy mail event, levy with some other event down the line which leaves me only with cross bows and basque archer. crossbowmen are extremely bugged when shooting from walls due to engine limitations rendering them useless in defensive sieges. the english fielded few levy archers during initial part of campaign, now almoravids mostly field bediun javelin and sometimes bedouin archers.
G)it works. their frequency of spawning feels quite right. i used them as diplomats, for marriage within the family or with other factions. it depends on my needs at the moment.
H)no supply at normal difficulty
I)i check them occasionally just for the flavour.
J)event pictures are nice
K)AI seems pretty aggresive even in normal difficulty. plenty of wars going on. i had war delcared on me by pretty much all bordering factions in the course of the campaign (enlgand, HRE, almoravids).
L)No