Moving twice...

[Imperial Buffoon]

I haven't tried doing this yet, but this is what happened:
Playing as the Turks, early, hard. I try to attack the egyptians towards the south (palestine) in order to circle their king, who is having a holiday in edessa.
When I attack the king moves, but then retreats because I have to many troops, only he doesn't go back, instead he retreats south, so I only manage to circle some of the troops.
Now, I suppose that's not really cheating as a player could do the same, but is there any way of controlling where you go if you withdraw before the battle starts?

[Quokka]

You withdraw to the province that you originated from if you Call off an attack. If you abandon a province you will go to any possible retreat province that is safe, so you can in effect move two provinces in one turn.

The geography is a little messed up here. The Egyptians have captured Edessa? Or is the Sultan in Antioch? Attacking Palestine can't possibly trap the Sultan if he is in Edessa. You would need to attack Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli to cut off all possible avenues of retreat.

[Imperial Buffoon]

Sorry 'bout my geography, it was a bit messed up http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-oops.gif
I was attacking Tripoli and the egyptian sultan was in Edessa, although still besieging the fort at first. The idea was to cut him off from the rest of his forces, but I took too long to prepare
turn 1: I kick him out of edessa (he retreats) and prepare my attack
The year after, I invade Tripoli with a sizeable force, that's when it turns out that he's moved to Tripoli but as he retreats, he goes to Palestine.
Although it's not cheating in any sense, I guess I still find it odd that he would not be forced to retreat to where he's coming from

[PseRamesses]

The trick is to engage Tripoli on the first round with a reasonable force that won´t intimidate the Egyptians. Either the king, in Antioch, will join in the defence of Tripoli or he just stays in A. If he stays - you got him. If he joins - you can kill him but if he retreats, after joining the battle of Tripoli he can retreat to Palestine - which you don´t want. But your odds will increase if you go into battle will a smaller army that they think can be beat.

Another thing is to go for Palestine, then Tripoli, then Antioch. Now you will have the Egyptian king in a box because he can´t retreat through your territory, right? This approach has a downside though. In Arabia the E has a 6 star general and if you go for Palestine the chanses are that he will aid the Palestine prov.

Good luck and hope you´ll get him http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-behead.gif

[Imperial Buffoon]

I guess that's what I was trying to do but put too large a force in Tripoli and he fled

Attacking palestine first is a good idea but in the early game, while still a bit unsure of the Byz's intentions, I thought it was risky - you need to keep sizeable forces in conquered provinces or you risk rebellions = giving Egypt forces for free

In the end, I crushed Antioch and got some units rolling - including a couple of sons, as the Turks seems to get a lot of breeding early on, baited an attack on Syria, and followed it up with an attack on Arabia (my 5star camel general now has "expert attacker").

This is slightly off topic but if you play the Turks and attack south, always send emissaries down at least as far as tunisia/morocco. It turns out that the Spanish were attacking the Almos and the Almos were really weak. Had I known, I would've taken north Africa a lot quicker. Instead, I left an Egyptian province as a (useless) buffer against the almos http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif and lost about 20 years.

So whether taking Palestine works actually depends on what the Almos are doing, if they attack egypt, it will work more easily, if they're in trouble with the spanish, the egyptians might be able to defend themselves if the Turks spread too thinly