Quote Originally Posted by Kavhan Isbul
If the Cumans aren your allies, I will not bother taking Khazar and Volga Bulgaria. It is much easier to stop the Mongols at rivers, such as in Levidia or Muscovy. Georgia will give a defensive army a serious height advantage, and it helps a lot. I would leave them a chance to establish a foothold and simply defeat army after army they send in Georgia. They usually will send the major part of their armies towards Levidia and Muscovy, so it should not be so hard to hold them in Georgia with a good defensive army with JHIs and plenty of missile troops. And the Armenians are great for dealing with the Mongol Horse Archers - sooner or later they catch up with them and then it is a massacre. Finally, Georgia is close to your production centers and replenishing you army there should be easy, compared to having to cross the steppes to get to Volga Bulgaria. I would worry more about the French, especially if they have built a huge navy, rather than the Mongols, as with the latter it is a matter of weathering the storm in a few battles, and with the former it may take a long war of attrition before you can feel your Empire is secured.
Quick note of intrest: There are no more russian factions, the Volga Bulgars got all the way to finland and have crushed the Lithuanians. Kiev is contolled by the cumans as they have most of the black sea, up to Volaniya and now have parts of Poland proper.

So my guess is that the volga bulgarians will face most of the mongol wrath, still I have seen on more then one occassion the mongols head south and play in the holy land.

The French have taken most of germany reclaimed all of france and have reduced the danes to scania and the home province. England is half scottish, half rebel, I am anticipating a reemergence of the English sometime and that might help to offset the french later on.

Iberia is half portugese half aragon so no real threat to the french thier and thier western borders are now touching me, the pope (who has taken all of Italy except for sicily), and a surprisingly robust Bohemian empire that expanded into the Baltic.

Its only a matter of time before a french army shows up on my door step, and with the prospect of the mongols coming in 30 years I could be in a protracted two front war.