great seljuks and turkish sultanate

[redmanPH]

im sorry, this will definitely come off as noobish, but what's the diff between both? aren't turks supposed to be seljuks anyway? if anyone can care to tell, or at least post a link, i'd greatly appreciate it. sorry again, dunno that many stuff about history, but the mod just rocks really so thats why i play it lol

[Miraj]

Yeah, historically the "Turkish Sultanate" was just a branch of the Great Seljuk empire that was established by Seljuk nobles and generals in Anatolia after Manzikert. If we were going for precise accuracy the faction should be called "The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum".

However, it would be boring to simply make them another Seljuk clone, so AD and the team agreed we'd make them a Rum+Ottoman combo faction and make then totally unique from the Seljuks. It is indeed ahistorical, or more precisely "anachronistic", but BC is uses history for inspiration - not necessarily imitation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuks#Division_of_empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_Seljuk_Sultanate

[Samariten]

Great Seljuq Empire was a turkic-persianate empire which stretched from anatolia to india to be very short in history. When the Great Seljuq Empire was divided after Malik Sha I death into four pieces one was called the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and was formed or what word to use in 1077 and lasted to 1307 when it demised and splited up into several ghazi emirates. Osman I was the one to bring them together sort of into the Ottoman empire so the turkish sultanate is something of both Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and Ottoman empire i should guess. Fill me in im not very well read in its history.

[redmanPH]

yes, indeed i know about how you treat the history part of the game, and indeed gameplay is still a balancing factor to historical accuracy. many thanks for the quick and informative reply. i'd give +rep, but... looks like you don't need any more LOL

btw, it says on the link that the split happened during 1092, somewhat during the timeframe of the first crusade. so was this the reason why the crusades became successful at all, because the turks weren't unified enough to stop the latins? interesting, i never really knew why the turks weren't able to stop them in the first place

[Heinz Guderian]

many thanks for the quick and informative reply. i'd give +rep, but... looks like you don't need any more LOL

never...ever say that to Miraj.

[teh.frickin.pope]

btw, it says on the link that the split happened during 1092, somewhat during the timeframe of the first crusade. so was this the reason why the crusades became successful at all, because the turks weren't unified enough to stop the latins? interesting, i never really knew why the turks weren't able to stop them in the first place

That's precisely the reason; the crusaders never had to face a single unified opponent, rather taking on each individual bey/city state at a time. Not to say that they did not take their toll, as by the time the first crusade reached Jerrysalem it was only a fraction of it's starting size(though you would also have to account for garrisons being left in conquered territories, they faced almost constant harassment along the way).

[CtrlAltDe1337]

Well, IRL there was no unified "Seljuk" faction, it was split between tons of different states.

[Miraj]

Also the region of the fertile crescent had been devastated in the past few decades prior to 1099 by a Sunni-Shia smackdown (Fatimids VS Abbasids/Seljuks). The Fatimids had reached as far as Baghdad at one point only to be rolled back by the new Sunni "Crusaders" of the Seljuks who captured and controlled Jerusalem until 1098, which was taken back by Fatimids in 1099 and then stormed by Franks in the same year. :-S

So the place was a bit of a mess in any case.

[Darvist]

Maybe more historical for them to start allied or with nicer approval rating anyway. Being Allied might make them Cocky very early on however.