So what are some good characters to play in 1178?

[Leonello d'Este]

enrico dandolo

at least he should be alive, maybe i can avenge constantinople... (or play as him with the unlanded mechanic)

The new mechanics of the estates can be an excellent springboard for mercantile republics (in which the power of the nobility was linked to wealth and commercial success, rather than to the extension of feudal dominions) and for nomadic factions, instead of the estates there would be the camp structures.

I have high hopes for this new mechanic.

Conrad of Montferrat. During this time, he would've been in service to the Byzantine Empire, but after the Battle of Hattin he quickly rushed to the Holy Land to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem's only remaining city, Tyre, and did so successfully when Saladin tried to take it. He then played a major role in the Third Crusade and was briefly King of Jerusalem before he was killed by the Assassins who were potentially hired by Richard the Lionheart, although there's severe disagreement over whether he did or didn't.

A great character, however his presence would require a redefinition of the game map already in 1066: Conrad was the son of the marquis (duke, in the game) William of Monferrato, and Monferrato, in the simplification of the game, should be the Duchy of Piedmont. Duchy which, however, did not exist in 1066, and whose territories did not belong to the House of Savoy, which in that period had been ennobled a few decades earlier, in 1003, and which in 1066 had the title of Count and possessions in Savoy and Aosta, and very few in Northern Italy.

Since the possibilities of historical adherence are so limited in the game, I think that the Piedmontese fiefdoms should go to the Aleramici and Monferrato, if only for the importance of that dynasty.