How many years till it's all over?

[naut]

May I also ask you if you can play beyond the concluding point. It would just be a shame to have it all end in 1453 without being able to go onwards.

Actually there is.

Go to you main game folder, and open the folder campmap, then startpos, (usually C:\Program Files\Total War\Medieval - Total War\campmap\startpos).

Open Early.txt and add the following to the end of the file, (where "YEAR" is any year after 0).

SetGameEndDate::			"YEAR"