I am a big fan of Broken Crescent and completely understand the focus on Muslim factions to fill out the world between Constantinople and Delhi, but it would seem to me that there ought to be more influence from the West. I know there is the Fourth Crusade and the arrival of Crusading armies should Jerusalem be lost, but I was rather surprised to see that there was no Russian reprisal to the Kypchak conquest of Kiev, or further meddling from the Italian City-States like Venetians trying to take Crimea.
I know development is slow lately, but is there any intention to consider such things?