About the Turks starting position

[Randarkmaan]

The Crusades started because the Byzantiums asked the Pope for help.

It's not as simple as that... If you want to know more I or someone else (if they want to) can ramble on.

Both Turkey and Egypt seem to have very good starting positions. Egypt: Wealth, open spaces, rebels to the west. Turks: Rebels all around them and a powerful army list. But both will be bothered by the Crusades, especially Egypt, and the Turks will likely get hit by both the Mongols and the Timurids if they manage to establish a big Empire.

[YankeeDoodle14]

I believe that I was correct in my reasoning behind the Crusades.

The First Crusade was started after the loss of the Battle of Manzikert, which cost the Byzantine Empire what is now modern Turkey. Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for mercenaries to assist in the fight against Muslim advances, and Urban sent a large force not only to protect Byzantium, but to retake Jerusalem. There were other contributing factors of course - the excess of military forces in Europe, the religous zelousness of the period, and other causes - but the actual trigger of the First Crusade was in fact the request for aid from Alexius, and the later Crusades owed their existance to this act.

[KhaderKhan]

Does anyone know what the Turkish position (in terms of provinces) in the late period? Does it still push-over rebels to the east?

[econ21]

There's only one starting date for the SP game - no high and late periods, unlike MTW.