Finding it very confusing but I'm going to stick through it. Any good places to start? England?
I haven't played CKII, but in CKI I liked starting in these provinces:
- Madrid/any of the higher-level Iberian provinces: you start surrounded by the Cordoban Caliphate, which means you have a lot of foreigners to attack for fame, glory, and territory. Conversely, though, they're all probably more advanced than you, so this is a challenging yet action-packed start.
- Steiermark/any of the richer provinces in the Austria/Switzerland region - your province is fairly wealthy, and you're on the southern edge of the HRE - with allies to the north of you, and the juicy, rich Po River region to your south. Often in these games I'll expand southwards, claim Venice or Genoa, and then use the wealth of that city to hit way above my belt in the Crusades. You can then ply your Crusade glory into domination of Italy, including Rome, if you so desire.
- The Crimea region - if you want to take it slow, this is fairly remote and a cool-looking place to center a kingdom. The provinces tend to be pretty poor, though...
- Sjelland - I like the idea of my capital province being an island! To do well here, focus on developing your province while you keep throwing political wrenches up at the Holy Roman Emperor. Once provinces start rebelling, smash them for the Emperor, and create a duchy for yourself!
- Ireland - Ireland is fairly removed from most of Europe and a good place to quietly build yourself a kingdom. None of the provinces are particularly rich, but all you have to do is grab Alexandria in a Crusade and you'll be flush with cash anyway...
- The pre-Russian provinces around the Volga - very rich, especially if you grab the Ukraine, but the line of succession is an absolute mess. You have to be aggressive with both war and politics here to carve out a strong kingdom before the Mongols arrive.