I enjoy much playing Byz in high period.
After taking some pains killing Turks I allied myself with French against egypt and let the crusaders to take many attacks which weakened Eggies to the point where I attacked. I took them in few years blitz finished by marvellous bribe of Cairo and establishing nice empire with few borders.
This tactics however led to sad situation when Tripoli and Cyprus are in french hands. Fortunately, poor them got involved in mainland war against english and HRE at the same time. They will either lose their royal line in some far-away battle and then I will take their Outremer possesions by bribe, or I will simply attack them in the unlikely case they will turn the anglo-german tide.
I play quite conservative style, leaving my fellow christians alone and attacking the muslim solely. Now it will have to change soon, as Almos are steadily beaten by many crusades (Morocco owned by HRE now!). Hungarians are now most likely target as I have no trade with them.
However I have not tasted the european steel yet and I fear that the attack on Hungarians could force my italian allies to leave me/attack me and disrupt my trade. I am at the point where without trade my Romanoi would be poorest of poor...
The Horde somehow posed no threat at all, since in 5 years they were beaten by my fellow Russians. I did not have resources and time to move from Georgia to Khazar, but quite conveniently and historically I took Crimea.
Basically I performed so far following steps:
1. Unification
2. Seljuks elimination
3. Trip to Egypt
4. Expanding trade ad absurdum
Now I slowly prepare for Hungarians and/or Sicilians who foolishly angered my imperial pride by siding with egyptians.
Sorry for boring first post.
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