okay, i am playing as byz, early, hard. after i gave up naples in the first turn, i turned my attention to the imminent turkish threat in the east. of course, i bribed serbia and khazar first. the war with turkey soon started. i took rum asap, killed the royal family in one of the first battles. a lucky shot, because the turkish threat disintegrated and i was able to take the land from the rebels. meanwhile, in the north i took volga territory, north of khazar, thus expanding my abilities to produce more steppe cav. here my territories are surrounded with russian armies, but so far there has been no attack from their side.
sicily made a silly move and made a few amphibian attacks on serbia. every time i defeated them, killing their royal line eventually: no more sicily.
i tried to build up my provinces but hungary attacked me. in a quick war i took croatia and hungary, 2 of hungary's 3 provinces, leaving them with karpathia, i think. no more hungarian threat. i kept three armies to secure my western boundaries however: hre and italy were there too.
in the meantime i tried to expand my trade empire, and i had a vessel in front of the egypt coast. after a few turns, my egypt ally stabbed me in the back by sinking that vessel.
of course i didnt wait to attack my muslim neighbour with my 3 stack and 2 stack army made up with mainly horse archers, byz inf, spearmen and treb archers. i conquered antioch, palestine, syria making sure i kept all the initiative when it came to attacking. i had an army of priest in neighbouring egyptian provinces in anticipation of my arrival.
again, in battle, i killed off the royal family, thus terminating the egyptians. my forces hold arabia and sinai too. and face a seemingly growing almohad force.
while i conquered the south-eastern realms, almo has been on the rise in the west. all northern africa up to egypt is almo, spain is almo and i think even parts of france seems to be almo too: they seem to be gotten very strong. aragon, spain is no more. france is a somewhat big player in western europe but i am unsure if they can stop almo. i don't know anything of the english. hre and italy don't seem to be too powerful and i wonder if almo defeats france, whether hre or italy can stop almo.

it is mid/end 12th century and that is were i am right now.
the almo threat is again imminent. i have a lot seemingly weak opponents on my western borders (polish, hungary, hre), one bigger in the north (russia) and one big in the south (almo). of course i would like to extend my trade networks, bring in more cash (10k now) and build up my new acquired provinces.
question is a strategic one: what should i do?
attack almo? finish my smaller opponents in the north? if i go on the offense again, i cannot invest as much in provinces nor trade.
almo is an obvious threat to any vessel in the medditeranean... maybe i should form an army of emmisaries and build up an intelligence network all over western europe.
and: how strong is AUM? i never fought them. will my byz inf. match them?