Something that puzzles me is the reliance on horse archers: everyone seems to think they are the bee's knees, but they are absolute garbage for assaulting. And the other thing? You're in the East! EVEYONE's infantry is garbage!

My strategy these days is simple: Take every one of your garrisons and converge on Antoich. If you feel like you're really good at assaulting, you can have Mosul and Yereven garrisons join together, then take Baghdad, while Ceasera and Iconium take Antoich. I generally have my Sultan take my two units of starting Turkomans and head down to Acre, to starve out the Garrison(Mustafa has a habit of turning rebel if he's left alone for too long), while I take antoich. Once you take antoich, the FIRSt thing you should do is build a leather tanner and then upgrade and retrain your spear militia: all the rebels use Town and spear Militia, and the extra 4 defence from padded armor really helps for those early turns. Just use lots of Militia, and always try to make sure you can exploit multiple openings.

What I mean, is that if you're taking a settlement with the lowest level walls, that can be destroyed by rams: knock down two holes in the walls, THEN the gate. For larger walls, use siege towers and rams, and make sure you can reinforce your assaulters quickly. Generally, I let my towers go in first, and when they're about half-way to the walls, I send the ram at the gate. By the time your ram knocks down the gate, your siege towers will generally have dropped their bridges, and you can assault through multiple points: then just pour it in. If you can break through the gate, get your generals to ride into the city square, mopping up any routing infantry, while you break them on the walls.

Also, try to avoid the really tough nuts, like Adana and Eddessa for a while, goign after the softer targets of Antoich and Aleppo. Antoich will fuel your rebel consolidation, and allow you to rapidly dominate the region. Most of the time, I get a mission to take Adana that wil lreward me with 4 units of Sipahi: once you get those Sipahi, you need to use them to patrol the approachs from the West, so the Byzantines(who I ally with ASAP but they still turn traitor) don't surprise you with a massed stack of spearmen.

Mosul, Aleppo and Adana should be turned into cities: they're terrible castles, and you need lots of merchants to exploit the rich natural resources available in the middle-east. Baghdad should be a priority target after your upgrade your spear militia at Antoich: get a crusade, and you can get there in a few turns and take another minor city. Once you have added Adana, Antoich, Aleppo, Edessa, Damasacas and Baghdad your empire, you are really quite ready to go to war with anyone.

Also, taking Smyrna rapidly can help: 4 units of upgrade spear militia and a General can easily take that small castle, and the key reason for this? To prevent the Byzantines from having a castle in Asia Minor that can produce Vardatoi, who well be a problem from the get-go as they are the BEST horse archers in the game: they can out run anything they can't outfight and outfight anything they can't out run. Sure, Mameluke Archers and Mongol Heavy Archers are better in melee, but they're not nearly as fast or well protected, nor do they have as much moral/stamina. Prevent those Vards from being produced in Asia Minor, and you're halfway to beating the Byzantines.

Trebizond is a tricky nut: it's well protected early on with good troops, and it's vulnerable to attacks from the Byzantines. I prefer to ignore it for a while, and concentrate on Syria, Armenia and Iraq, as those provinces can make you rich beyond measure.

In my current VH/M game, I'm on turn 35ish, and I'm pulling in about 8k a turn. The biggest problem I have is that my Sultan(Still Jalal) is only Cmd 2, Chiv 3, Authority 2 and Piety 3, while hist heir, the venerable Mustafa is CMD 8-9, Chiv 9, Loyalty 7 and Piety 8. I'm actually thinking about suiciding Jalal to promote Mustafa, so I can enjoy having an UBER sultan.

And don't forget to Tech up your cities: Spear Militia will serve you well into turn 20 for taking rebels, Saracens with upgraded armor(armourer) are solid, and the Halberd Miltia arn't bad(though you'll replace them with Jan. Hvy Infantry later). But you're really in it for the Jannisarry Archers and Musketeers, who come much later. You want to be able to produce them ASAP when gunpowder is available. Wasting turns building your barracks up, when you could be making cannon shops is bad business, because Cannons, Jan. Hvy Infantry and Jan. Archers are GREAT against the mongols.

My last Turk campaign was fun, but I stopped after a while, because I have about 6-8k troops tied up as blocking forces against the mongols.

Also, don't forget your stables. Qapakulu are awesome, but for a long time, the stables seem useless, as they only increase the numbers of cavalary you can already field. And it's a bother teching up AFTER the mongols show up.

And lastly, remember: You are patient Zero for the Mongols. They will, 9 times out of 10, show up in your territory. Your whole early game is about taking over the middle east so you have the finances to break them.

Allahu Ahkbar!