Golden Horde!

[tigger_on_vrb]

I had an interesting experience with the Mongols playing the turks on high, expert. I has been kicking the Byzantines of the mainland and had taken Bulgaria, Constantinople and relieved the byzs of all their provinces except Khazar and the one to the south of it (Georgia?). Their back was broken, but they had a few decent troops left. As I was fighting off Italian, German and English crusades to Bulgaria and Constantinople I decided to leave the Byzs as a buffer between me an the Mongol invasion buying me a few turns extra to balance my troops defending east and west.
The turn in which the mongols arrived the byz emperor died whithout an heir and their provinces went straight over to the Mongols! I've seen "a number of rebel provinces have joined them", but never a faction dying out in the same turn going over. They gained a whole bunch of horse archers and byz cav, assorted infantry and even some VG.
I was looking forward to a good fight but, unfortunately, the golden horde made their usual mistake of spreading their forces too thin attcking the Russians, Poles and me and they were easily wiped out in about 15 years

[OliverWKim]

Playing as the Brits, I have the Isles, France, Northern Germany, Denmark, Spain and North Italy, which adds up to 43 regions. The Pope commissioned a crusade for Jerusalem, and, recognizing my luck, quickly fielded a 20-unit army of crusader sergeants, armored swordsmen and Hospitaller knights, then set off for Jerusalem. I planned to conquer Antioch then head south and take Jerusalem, as Antioch was very lightly defended. I conquered Antioch with ease and prepared to move on to Jerusalem. Then, suddenly, 6 Golden Horde units invaded Antioch region and besieged the city. Even when my general turned on night mode, I was still outnumbered around 5 to 1. Obviously, my outmatched and outnumbered troops were completely massacred (though I did manage to inflict around 900 casualties). Just an account on how annoying the GH is. TWO REGIONS AWAY FROM VICTORY!!!