[Shabbaman]

Originally Posted by Kingreno

About Holland being a vassal of (tiny) Hainaut. Is declaring war the only option?? I immediately suffer war from Brittany and some other province...

Take a look at this strategy guide. If you're only half as interested in obscure game mechanics as I am you'll love that wiki. I'll copy/paste the part about Hainaut:

1. Follow the classical path by sending insults to Hainaut. The relationship level with Hainaut must drop below 0: after the death of the king, Holland will get a separate king and become an independent nation. This path to independence can be long and exhausting.
2. Dissolve the alliance with Hainaut and simply declare war on them. Holland will immediately get a new, independent king. But here's the catch: Hainaut is protected by the Holy Roman Emperor (most likely Bohemia) and also allied with Trier. So though it's possible to quickly win against Hainaut and get peace (most likely with Trier), Bohemia can send huge armies that are just too strong.
3. This path towards independence is the most recommended. Simply dissolve the alliance with Hainaut (because you don't want to fight Burgundy) and wait until Burgundy gets the mission to annex Hainaut and declares war on them. Burgundy will quickly win and annex Hainaut. This will automatically free you from the union.
The most crucial part here is not to forget to dissolve the alliance with Hainaut because otherwise you will be having lots of trouble (when having alliance in personal union as lesser partner, you automatically become dragged into war when somebody declares war on major partner of the union). I actually recommend to dissolve alliance right away at the start of the game, because Hainaut is too weak to protect you anyway.

Originally Posted by Kingreno

What I did now was autosend traders to Antwerp and Lübeck (closest tradehubs) and I get the idea this gives me ducats.

Well, you're lucky for a change: those are the most valuable centers of trade, so you'll receive the best revenue. Merchants can make you very rich.

Originally Posted by Kingreno

Ok will do. How about tradetreaties? Do or don't? It's not like in civ or total war that trade is always good?

Trade agreements are good when you're ahead, but bad when you're behind. In my France game I got into the Hanseatic trade league (which is a trade agreement with multiple nations at once, basically), and it screwed me out of competing in Lubeck. Luckily it screwed everybody else out of competing in Antwerp and Genoa (CoT's I owned), so it wasn't that bad for me. With the over 9000 infamy it helped me compete in foreign CoT's that nobody else had reached, but I don't know if it's worth it. At the time it wasn't a conscious decision, it just sounded cool (an important factor in any Paradox game). Anyway, about trade agreements, I wouldn't bother. Another related topic is "open markets", but you shouldn't have problems with that already.

Originally Posted by Kingreno

Magistrates = paintings?? I have some other "envelelopes with the green V on it" is that what they do?

Yes, all green envelopes make paintings There's a ? symbol next to the envelope, it has a tooltip that tells you what it does and what the requirements are.

Originally Posted by Kingreno

How much military do I need? I have 16 units in Holland at teh moment while Gelre has only 1. Yet without a CB... it seems in vain. Thta's a don't right, attacking without CB?

You don't have a core on Gelre?

Well, you can attack without CB, but you'll get a stability hit (that's what the information in the "declare war" screen means). You're small, if you hire an artist you should be back at +3 stability rather quickly (especially if Propain has told you how you can move the sliders...). Sometimes you get a mission to conquer or vassalize your neighbours (which means you get a CB), so it's worth pursuing the mission objectives you receive. If not for the mission itself, perhaps for the next mission.

Which brings me to this: what are you planning to do with Gelre? You're in the HRE, so it's likely the emperor will force you to release provinces you don't have a core on. You could vassalize them, usually you get a mission to integrate a vassal which also grants a core on that vassal.