Milan needs to be patient with expansion to avoid accumulating too much infamy that it has trouble reducing. Penalties from the 2 unlawful HRE territories make it difficult to reduce infamy.Milan starts with poor sliders for trading and cash-flow is tight in the early period.Italian minors quickly form web of alliances and guarantees.Several things make it difficult to expand in the peninsula though: If you take Firenze while still having Siena and Pisa with the unlawful HRE territory penalty, this will increase the stacked penalty to -3% prestige and -.75 infamy each year. Thus, you will incur the unlawful HRE territory with Firenze. Note that Ancona and Roma are not HRE territory, but Firenze is. The country only needs cores on 3 more provinces (Roma, Firenze, and Ancona) to enact the unification decision. Milan's starting sliders also lean towards a militaristic route. In terms of strategy, Milan is in a good position to unify Italy and this should be the priority in the early game. And finally, Milan is in the Genovese trade league. On a more positive note, Milan has 3 provinces with Universities, giving a great boost to government research.

Of note, Modena is the junior member in a personal union with Ferrara. To the south, Milan is surrounded by Italian minors. To the north, Milan has several strong neighbours - Austria and Switzerland especially. These penalties (which continue for 50 years) make it difficult to expand early on (One option is to release the nations as Vassals and annex them later on with a mission that grant core). These two provinces thus contribute -2% prestige and +0.50 infamy each year. Milan is a member of the HRE, and when the game starts, the 2 cut-off provinces (Siena and Pisa) are both unlawful imperial territories. Both the current king and heir are 5/5/5.

In 1399, Milan starts with 7 provinces-5 around Lombardia (the capital) and 2 further south (cut off by Modena).

Victoria 2 reduce infamy