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[Wiles]

I prefer vassal kings myself. It makes managing levies so much easier and there are less vassals for me to worry about. Vassal kings also have more power to conquer lands of their own. In my last game my vassal kings conquered the entire iberian peninsula on their own. Another bonus is that they are more able to deal with peasant uprisings on their own so I don't have to worry about handling most of them.

Once I felt secure in my position I gave them away like candy. I occasionally had dangerous factions but I didn't mind because it kept the game interesting, which is good because the game can get pretty dull once you hit the empire level.

[Sheb]

I find larger vassals easier to manage. The ability to placate a King with your spymaster is useful, and it help a lot to be able to raise large stacks of troops at once.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

When I get big enough I tend to treat my vassals just like enemies and do everything in my path to weaken them. I tend to avoid using levies since if you build your retinues correctly you can take out stacks five times bigger, the addition of levies tend to screw up tactics.
I love constructing great big stable empires which nothing could ever crush. My crowning achievement in the game is when I go into observe mod and the AI empire doesn't collapse and even expands. Feels good to make something that even the brain dead can control.
I've always strangely prefered stable, sustainable and renewable systems to sheer "power gaming". One of the reasons I have trouble with survival and city building games. 

[Cthulhu]

Maybe I don't understand how military works in this game, because it seems like every time I'm starting to do well some enormous fucking army shows up and ruins everything.  Fucking sjaelland, why do you have so many guys?

[Wiles]

I've always strangely prefered stable, sustainable and renewable systems to sheer "power gaming". One of the reasons I have trouble with survival and city building games. 

But wouldn't destroying all titles be a more power-gamey approach then handing them out? :p

Maybe I don't understand how military works in this game, because it seems like every time I'm starting to do well some enormous fucking army shows up and ruins everything.  Fucking sjaelland, why do you have so many guys?

Norse can do something called a "prepared invasion". If they are small enough (less than 40 in realm size) they can target larger realms for an invasion. The longer they wait before the end date the more troops they get.

Mercenaries can also give a substantial boost to a realm's troops.

[Sheb]

Lolcat, can you explain your retinue tactics?

Cthulhu, mercenaries maybe?

[PanH]

Plus Sjaelland is the richest duchy of the North of Europe.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Lolcat, can you explain your retinue tactics?

Cthulhu, mercenaries maybe?

There was a wonderful guide written up on the forums with a whole bunch of information. I'll try to find it. I'm terrible at trying to explain the combat mechanics of CKII, they're a little bit all over the place.

EDIT: Couldn't find the guide but I found some good information here.

Unit Types
Combat tactic

As you can see from the combat tactics it's generally best to stack a sole unit type or unit types that complement each other so you get the good tactics. Since you should always stick to cultural retinues (unless it's light infantry or light horses) you generally want to stack those unit types together. Vassal forces will come with a vast mix of units which will influence tactics to be much more random. On top of that they generally have a bunch of light horses which you must always avoid. LH have pretty useless stats and they will employ tactics that will gimp your other units. 
Note that non-cultural retinues will not have any bonuses while cultural retinues will have bonuses equal to the highest cultural building you can construct.

It's always best to find a leader with leadership traits that will benefit your stacked army. If there are cultures with a cultural tactic that will heavily benefit your army, such as Schiltron, you'll want to either employ some from over seas to lead or make a ghetto for renewable leaders.
If you have light horse or light infantry you'll want to employ a non-cultural retinue and mix in vassal forces. Light infantry cultures can survive off self and vassal levies alone since the cultural building will give a massive increase to the brunt of your army.

Do note that to effectively "game" warfare you'll need to be a fairly big size to have decent stacks of retinues. King level and higher is generally required. It also helps to invest all military tech into retinue size as well. 

[Dutchling]

Note that the above only even remotely matters when you face enemies who are around the same strength as you.

Avoid fighting those is a lot easier than actually doing everything Cat just said

[Digital Hellhound]

Or you could just try to get bigger or equal-size forces with a good commander and terrain advantage. Usually you can wear down enemy doomstacks to manageable amounts by them assaulting and whatnot, though sometimes you do get really unlucky. The stuff described sounds like a bunch of annoying micromanaging, but if you absolutely do need a victory...

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Well as I said it can be brutally effective especially with the right cultural retinue. I was blasting apart armies 5-10 times bigger than my own using an Italian pikemen retinue with Scottish leaders. Made uniting Italy and taking Byzantium way too easy.
CKII still favours having a bigger army than someone else though which is a shame. It can be quite fun to use in a MP match especially against someone used to throwing piles of units at each other. A good tactic is to use retinues against armies and use cheap levies to throw at sieges to quickly end a war. I really wish EUIV would have CKII's style of unit types, it would have made the combat infinitely better.

[EnigmaticHat]

One thing that I've found is that the AI has a tendency to keep going with depleted armies even if their levies refill.  AKA if they were to dismiss their armies and raise them again, they'd get a whole new army, but instead they stick with their half-dead one.  So in a long war continually drawing up new levies and throwing them into battle can be more effective then it really should be, especially if you don't focus on completely killing enemy armies.  This assumes that your forces are roughly equivalent of course, not going to help against a doomstack.

I've never used retinues.  Part of that is that I played most of my games before the expansion came out, but the other reason is that once I reach a certain size realm I find that I no longer get into wars with anyone who has a hope of winning.  Including my vassals, because I typically have most of my vassals as single counts with the occasional duke.  So early I can't get significant amounts of retinues, late I don't need them.

[Cthulhu]

Being a Christian sucks.  If I were a Norse I'd already have taken over Ireland but since I'm Christian "I want your land, buddy" isn't a valid justification.

I also hate how you can't have levies up when you declare war.  I want to march an army up to a dude's castle holding a sign that says "by the way i'm declaring war"

Are there more ways to secure land than fabricating claim and family shenanigans?  I'm getting old waiting for my chancellor to fabricate a claim. I suppose I could get the pope to excommunicate him...

[Dutchling]

The excommunication CB doesn't give you the land if you win

[Sheb]

=> Find a lesser lord you'd like as vassal
=> Look for a claimant to the title and invite him to your court
=> Give the claimant some lousy barony somewhere
=> Push his claim
...
=> Profit!