Quote Originally Posted by Xdeathfire
The turks are on of those factions that do not require castles to field decent armies since you can hire your horse archers from cities. I personally wouldn't try to go for all of africa and would stop once i get to the egyptian provinces since the cities are really far apart and not extremely useful. It would be better to expand in two directions at once with one army southwards and one westwards. You can wipe out the Byzantines fairly quickly if you call a jihad at a good time and get multiple jihad armies.
I rather keep the Byzantines around as long as possible for trade and to have a nearby jihad-target. As for the unit-rooster, HA´s are not the only answer, and the castles has excellent foot-units which are more useful in settlements against the mongols and timurids.
Setting my final borders at Kaukasus, Bosphorus and Gibraltar lets me defend my empire wit only 3 field armies. You´re right that it would be the same if, instead of Gibraltar, my border was set at Alexandria. I do like though to have a monopoly on ivory, slaves and with strong merch´s in Constantinople a monopoly in silk is feasible. Having Arguin is also cool since I in one game conquered the new world so Bush was brought up a muslim, he he!