its suffiently difficult. while i didnt play EU3, ck2 really is hard enough(especially in tis current state). start in ireland to get a hang of the ropes(and will be pretty easy). once you united brittannia(the easy part) and held it together(the hard part), ditch the game and choose a ruler in scandinavia, eastern europe, the middle east or asia minor. doesnt matter if you start as the byzantine empire(bonus points if you start with the sultanate of rum or the latin empire), poland or a OPM in russia, just play. expand. cower in fear when the fatamids boast 50k troops while you have 20k and hope they dont set their eyes on you. defeat them. grow. have a revotl. and then, when you finally achieved total domination over your neighbours and vassels, cower in fear again for the mongol hellstacks of utter doom knocking on your doorstep. or play as a german duke and gain control of the HRE throgugh marriage, elections and war. struggle to keep it together. unite europe. and cower in fear again fro the mongols(or aztecs invading western europe if you plan on buyign sunset invasion).
the starting position and date basicly decides the difficulty. a OPM in iberia stamford bridge date is going to have UCH upon MUCH harder time then playing the kign of england during the third crusade. setting some houserules(i.e. no fabricatign claims) make it even more intresting: they severly boost the difficulty level and make the game mor eintresting. IF you buy it, i'd advise you to take the ruler designer and LoR at the very least, and SoI if you;d like to play as a muslim sometimes as well(easier war, no marriage game, constant threath of decadence ruining your rule). the rest is purely optional, though i'd get them ASAP or in a sale if you dont need them that hard. the music is great and the faces add nice flavour. LoR is pretty much the only "required" dlc mechanic wise as it unlocks retinue's. the ruler designer makes it very easy to just create a custom ruler, and its ridiculously easy to mod away the restrictions on it.
