Caravel

Turning Rhodes into Antalya makes a lot of sense to me (as said before, Rhodes is a bit of an oddity unless there is a Hospitaller faction, and even then it's not as though they could realistically forge a land empire). Sinope would be good too if you have the provinces for it - but I guess you could go with one and not both if things get really tight.

It's all looking very interesting and a whole lot more historically accurate.

I've also been thinking that this dead zones idea adds a nice new dimension.