HI all,
Started off with this campaign and found it to be really good fun (if wholesale slaughter and backstabbing can be described as fun!). I started by engaging the Egyptians straight away (nothing like a pre-emptive attack!!) and when I had them on the run started sending out units to take the rebel cities in the deserts to the east and managed to up my city numbers by taking them. sweeping west across north africa, to set up a platform for later attacks on the Byzantines. Part of Cyprus was rebel so I took that giving me a toehold for attacks into Anatolia.
The inevitable friction with the Byzantines was brought to a head when a message flashed up to say they were close to victory, so I quickly diverted some units I had ben building for my Mongol campaign and took five of their cities in Northern Iraq area, starting an all out war with them which cost lots of lives and money but finally resulted in their being wiped out.
I avoided contact with the Mongols until late on in the game when I needed only to Take Baghdad and blitzed them with six full stacks, using one to take the city and the other five to form a ring of steel around it until the ten turns were complete.
I found that keeping on good terms with Antioch was worthwhile, as they form a nice buffer between you and the Byzantines and they even did me a favour and wiped out the Turks for me! I even bought a couple of their cities, which was nice...

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