The Anatolian Turks

[christof139]

At the time of the 1st Crusade the Great Seljuk Empire had broken up, though in Iraq with Bagdhad as its capital it was still strong and the Anatolian Seljuk Turks were once members of the empire.

There were 6 major groups and regions of the Anatolian Turks:

1) The Emirate of Smyrna in the west on the coast and inland in a bulge around the ports of Smyrna and Ephesus. Smyrna was the capital. Maybe have 2-provinces, Smyrna and Ephsesus, and maybe make them as Rebel provinces with a Pagan culture as they were at odds with the Byzantines and Seljuks of Rhum or Rum (Rome). This way a faction slot is not used.

2) The Seljuks of Rhum controlled the area flanking the Emiratte of Smyrna to the north and south and east, and included the coastal area of the Bosphorus region except the small Byzantine sliver of land pointing toward Nicea. Nicea was the capital of the Seljuks of Rhum. Their lands extended to the southern coast of Anatolia and included the city of Iconium and the Lands of Hassan in the south, and extended eastward to just west of the city of Tarsus which the Armenians held, and just east of the cities of Iconium and Ankara/Ancyra, the later of which the Danishmend Seljuk Turks held. Maybe give the Seljuks of Rhum 3-Provinces named Nicea Rhum/Rum, Iconium Rhum, and Lands of Hassan Rhum (or whatever), maybe even give the Rhum Seljuk Turks a 4th province in the southwestern parts of their lands along the Med. Sea south of the Emirate of Smyrna and the emirate's city of Ephesus. The Rhum leaders began entitling themselves as Sultans in oppositon to the Sultan of the Great Seljuk Empire and Caliphate of Bagdhad.

3) The Danishmend Seljuk Turks control the area to the east of the Seljuks of Rhum and north of the Armenian lands around the city of Caeserea and Ankara and north to the Black Sea but the Byzantines still controlled the cites/provinces of Sinope and Trebizond along the Black Sea coast. Maybe make the Danishmend lands into 2-Rebel provinces named Ankara Danishmend and Caeserea Danishmend, or as a faction or mini-faction.

4) The Menguchekid Seljuk Turks controlled lands to the east of the Danishmends. Their area of control centered around the city of Erzinjun north of the Armenian lands and south of Trebizond. They also controlled the area of the Black Sea coast to both the east and west of Trebizond, thereby seperating Sinope and Trbizond. Maybe give the Menguchekids one large province named Erzinjun or Menguchekid.

5) The Saltukid Seljuk Turks controlled the lands around the city of Erzerum to the east of the Menguchekids and north of the Armenian lands of Tarsus and Edessa. They controlled the Black Sea coast to the east of Trebizond. Maybe give them one large province named Erzerum or Saltukid.

6) Rebel Province(s) of various Emirs of the Seljuks existed to the east of Saltukid lands and to the north of Armenian Edessa and southwest and south of Lake Van, but did not include the city of Mosul. The city of Mosul was part of the Great Seljuk Empire and Caliphate of Bagdhad, although Mosul was quite independent and rebellious. These lands of the independent Emirs/Atabegs could be made as 1, 2 or 3 provinces.

Source is 'Victory in the East, A Military History of the First Crusade', by John France, Fig. 13 on page 109, and many other books and inet. sites.

The remanant of the Great Seljuk Empire was centered in Iraq with Baghdad as its capital and the Caliph of Bagdhad still had great sway amongst the Anatolian Seljuks and the Muslim Arabs etc. in the region.

I hope you all can use all or some of this info.

I can post info. on the Arab/Turkish Emirate of Aleppo and Antioch, the Arab Duqaq of Damascus, and the Holy Land itself which control of was in dispute between the Egyptian/Tunisian Fatamids and the Great Seljuk Empire.

Chris

PS: Also have some good info. on the Armenians who were a force to be reckoned with at the time the 1st Crusade arrived in Lesser Armenia. Also of interest is the fact that Frankish mercenaries and adventurers had already served for the Armenian noble lords, so the Franks had plenty of knowledge of local affairs and geography etc. prior to the start of the 1st Crusade, not to mention all the Frankish mercenaries that served in the Byzantine army and all the pilgrims both noble and common that had been to Jerusalem in the tens of thousands prior to the 1st Crusade. The Maronite Christians in Lebannon were still independent in their mountain forts and villages and provided troops and help to the Crusaders. Many Syrian Nestorian Christians, regarded as heretics by Catholic Rome, also served as good mercenaries in the Byzantine army. the population of Jerusalem and the Levant and the Holy Land was mainly Christian but ruled by Muslim overlords at the time of the 1st Crusade.

[Dr. Oza]

were the armenians really a force to be reckoned with , as soon as the crusaders left, they collasped... i am not trying to demean them but am curious because i do not know a lot about the cilician armenians i mostly know about turks/arabs/caliphate

[John I Tzimisces]

were the armenians really a force to be reckoned with , as soon as the crusaders left, they collasped... i am not trying to demean them but am curious because i do not know a lot about the cilician armenians i mostly know about turks/arabs/caliphate

At the start of the first crusade the Armenians were busy consolidating their power in Cilicia with the rather sudden vacuum of power in the region, with the withdrawal of the Byzantines. It was a rather chaotic place, as various feudal lords were vying for power, until ultimately a branch of the former kingdom in Armenia proper was able to unite the region and gain the title of Prince, and Later, King.

However they were united in their support of the crusaders and supplied food, horses, and siege engineers as help, and this in turn allowed the armenians to consolidate themselves, as the crusaders were a border that was no longer hostile (save for the takeover of Edessa, which was largely populated by armenians and arabs, ruled by armenians, the christians of which were largely evicted when edessa fell to the arabs.).

Later on, as Cilicia became a unified state, it existed in what was more or less a constant state of war, battling the Byzantines, the Rum turks (paid by the byzantines to attack them), the County of Antioch (a major goal of cilicia at it's peak was to unite Cilicia, Cyprus, and Antioch under one banner, and came quite close), and the merchant city states of Venice and Genoa, who feared competition in eastern mediterranean trade.

They were pretty tough bastards to say the least who were well able to use the topography to their advantage, but lost this advantage as fertile lower cilicia was devastated by the byzantines and....later mamluks I think, and could only watch as the economy collapsed and succession got out of hand, as conflict between the clergy and nobility increased (aka native Oriental Orthodox vs. foreign Catholics).

[christof139]

were the armenians really a force to be reckoned with , as soon as the crusaders left, they collasped... i am not trying to demean them but am curious because i do not know a lot about the cilician armenians i mostly know about turks/arabs/caliphate

Yes the Armenians were a force to be reckoned with, and their nobility had already started adapting Western European armor and arms by the time of the 1st Crusade, and they also had hired Wsetern European mercenaries including knights prior to the 1st Crusade.

There were two major Armenian noble famileis that basically controlled Armenia and one family was in western Armenia and one was in eastern Armenia (Lesser Armenia is what the entire region was known as).

Later, in the 1200's, Armenia existed for some time (300 years) before the Muslims finally conquered it. During this time, the Armenian nobles and professional soldiers were well armed and armored just as the western Europeans.

The Armenians, after being driven form their original homelands located farther to the northeast of Lesser Armenia, were forced to fight for existance and were good fighters, even their village militias were useful. Armenians served all over the eastern Mediterranean for both Muslim and Christian lords including some in southern Russia, and they were noted for their fighting ability.

To leave out the Armenians from the Early and Late (Middle) periods would be a big mistake and the game would not be at all historical.

There is plenty of info. including details of the Armenian soldiers etc. on the inet.

The two Armenian provinces would be Cilicia in the west and Edessa in the east, and both together were known as Lesser Armenia.

Further south, in the cedar forested mountains of the Levant or Lebannon, the Maronite Christians still held out against the Muslims, and the Maronite Christians were tough fighters and still are to this day, and they were noted for their archery and light infantry skills. They also greatly helped the 1st Crusade and the subsequent Crusading states of Jerusalem and Tripoli.

Ancient or Greater Armenia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Armenia

http://www.world66.com/europe/armenia/history

http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-2...reater-Armenia

Lesser or Little Armenia

http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-3...Little-Armenia

http://www.123exp-geography.com/t/18624366576/
Links on right side of the page in red. These are very good links.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi...TWO.I0032&isiz
Deals a lot with the later days and late Crusades.

http://www.hayastan.com/armenia/hist...ia/index06.php
Fall of the Kingdom
Under the ruling of Constantine IV, the Cilician Armenians gained perhaps their last victory, defeating the troops of Mamelukes near Alexandria. After Constantine's death in 1364 the Cilician throne remained unoccupied for more than 2 years. Finally, Leon VI, the last Armenian King, was elected in 1366. 8 years later, after a series of fatal battles against the superior enemy he locked himself in the Kapan fortress, but soon surrendered. The Mamelukes sent him to Egypt when he remained imprisoned for several years. Later the King of Castile mediated for his liberation. Leon VI died in Paris in 1393.

http://medievalcoins.ancients.info/Armenia.htm

http://www.hyeetch.nareg.com.au/arme...istory_p1.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=BfN...l=en#PPA138,M1

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/f...al_armenia.pdf
Good link showing chronological list of Lesser/Cilician Armenian Kings and their names and dates of rule.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...URARM/29*.html

http://www.littlearmenia.com/html/li...an_history.asp

http://www.worldcoincatalog.com/AC/C...ia/Armenia.htm

http://www.mousaler.com/armenia/data/war.html

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpag...efid=761555976

http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Places/Place/797435

http://umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/...y/Armenia.html

http://www.armenian.com/crono.html
Another chronology of the Kings and their dates of rule.

http://wiki.verkata.com/en/wiki/Medieval_Armenia
Main article: Arab conquest of Armenia
After the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632, the Arabs expanded their religion by force throughout the Middle East. In 639, with a force of 18,000 warriors, Abd‑er‑Rahman took Taron and sacked the country. In 642, the Muslims took Dvin, slaughtered 12,000 of its inhabitants and carried 35,000 into slavery.[3] Prince Theodoros Rshtuni organized resistance and liberated the enslaved Armenians.[4] However, Theodoros eventually accepted Arab rule of Armenia. Thus, in 645, the entirety of Armenia fell under Islamic rule. This period of 200 years was interrupted by a few restricted revolts, which never had a pan-Armenian character. Most petty Armenian families were weakened in favor of the Bagratunis and Artsrunis.

Main article: Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
The Kingdom of Cilicia was founded by the Rubenian (or Rupenian) dynasty, an offshoot of the larger Bagratid family that at various times held the thrones of Armenia and Georgia. Their capital was Sis.

Cilicia was a strong ally of the European Crusaders, and saw itself as a bastion of Christendom in the East. It also served as a focus for Armenian nationalism and culture, since Armenia was under foreign occupation at the time. In the mid-1200s, King Hethoum I of Armenia voluntarily submitted the country to Mongol overlordship, and tried to encourage other countries to do the same, but was only able to persuade his son-in-law, Bohemond VI of Antioch, who submitted in 1259; however, Antioch was then wiped out in retaliation by the Muslims in 1268. Cilicia remained as a Mongol vassal until it too was destroyed in the mid-1300s by the Egyptian Mamluks.

http://www.mumbaiforums.com/Armenian...ic_Church.html
Official standard of the Patriarchate of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

http://info.hotelsinarmenia.com/cilicia.htm

http://www.bvahan.com/ArmenianWay/AW...sties_Eng.html

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=88816&page=11
A thread here showing an Armenian infantryman. From Broken Crescent mod.

http://visualrian.com/images/item/146556

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showth...t=38508&page=2
Thread here from another RTW mod.

http://www.dbaol.com/armies.htm

http://www.dbaol.com/armies/army_132_figure_1.htm
Picture of medieval heavy Armenian noble cavalry.

http://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=37359
A thread at the Total War.org on Armenians etc. This is the METW1 XL mod, a great mod. Read through the threads for this mod and allso search the archives for more info. and pictures of Armenian troops.

http://www.virtualani.org/marr/index.htm
Excavations at the Lesser Armenian capital of Ani, showing a good pic of a church.

http://members.fortunecity.com/jonhays/crusades.htm

http://www.tabletopkontor.de/histori...4190995e2c.php
Picture of miniature soldiers, which are Armenian Knights equipped in heavy western European and Byzantine fashion with kite shields etc.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1811310
Excellent thread on medieval Armenia at the TWC, and there are liks to other sites I do believe.

Chris

PS: A King Leon of Armenia was one of the founding members of the Teutonic Knights if I am not mistaken (info. is in one or two of the links above), and the TK's were granted lands along Armenia's eatern frontier. The Armenians and TK's worked closely together and had a firm alliance.

[Dr. Oza]

but they fell pretty easily when turks attacked rite?

[christof139]

but they fell pretty easily when turks attacked rite?

No. They lasted hundreds of years, and the Turks were fighting each other and the Arabs and the Mongols.

The Armenians were simply outnumbered in the end.

Chris

PS: It was the Mameluks of Egypt that finally destroyed the Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia in the mid 1300's. Visit and read through the links I posted. It was a Turkish 'cake walk'.

[Dr. Oza]

btw this is getting off topic so after you answer my question.... ill post turkish units and get back on topic

[christof139]

btw this is getting off topic so after you answer my question.... ill post turkish units and get back on topic

Not too much off topic since the Armenians had a kingdom in Lesser Armenia for 300 or so years and had lived there even longer than that for about 400 plus years, and Lesser Armenia is in Anatolia and the Armenians fought with and were also allies of the various Turkish peoples in Anatolia.

Turkish units; Ghulams, Sipahis etc., Englishized names of course. Some more original Turkish names would be good.

Chris

[Dr. Oza]

personnaly i think we should not have Armenians as they were minor at best during this time

we should use the faciton slot to add a more interesting faction

maybe Beylik of Karaman



Karamans were one of the most powerful beyliks , and continually harrased ottomans

The Karamanids traced their ancestry back to Hoca Sadeddin and his son Nure Sufi, who emmigrated from Azerbaijan to Sivas. He moved from there to the western Taurus Mountains, near the town of Larende, where he worked as a woodcutter. Nure Sufi's son, Kerimeddin Karaman Bey, gained a tenuous control over the mountainous parts of Cilicia in the middle of the 13th century. A persistent but spurious legend, however, claims that the Seljuk Sultan of Rum, Kayqubad I instead established Karaman in these lands.[2]

Karaman expanded his territories by capturing castles in Ermenek, Mut, Ereğli, Gülnar, Mer, and Silifke. As a reward for this expansion of Seljuk territory, the sultan Kilij Arslan IV gave the town of Larende (now Karaman in honor of the dynasty) to the Karamanoğlu. In the meantime, Bunsuz, brother of Karaman Bey, was chosen as a bodyguard (Candar) for Kilij Arslan IV. Their power rose as a result of the unification of Turkish clans that lived in the mountainous regions of Cilicia with the new Turkish elements transferred there by Kayqubad.

Good relations between the Seljuks and the Karamanids did not last. In 1261, on the pretext of supporting Kaykaus II who had fled to Constantinople as a result of the intrigues of the chancellor Pervâne, Karaman Bey and his two brothers, Zeynül-Hac and Bunsuz, marched toward Konya, the capital of Seljuks, with 20,000 men. A combined Seljuk and Mongol army, led by the chancellor Mu'in al-Din Suleyman, the Pervane, defeated the Karamanoğlu army and captured Karaman Bey's two brothers.

After Karaman Bey died in 1262, his older son, Şemseddin Mehmet I, became the head of the house. He immediately negotiated alliances with other Turkmen clans to raise an army against the Seljuks. During the 1276 revolt of Hatıroğlu Şemseddin Bey against Mongol domination in Anatolia, Karamanoğlu also defeated several Mongol-Seljuk armies. In the Battle of Göksu in 1277 in particular, the central power of the Seljuk was dealt a severe blow. Taking advantage of the general confusion, Mehmed Bey captured Konya on 12 May and placed on the throne a pretender called Jimri who claimed to be the son of Kaykaus. In the end, however, Mehmed was defeated by Seljuk and Mongol forces the same year, and executed with some of his brothers.
Statue depicting Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey declaring Turkish as the official language of the state and all its institutions.
Statue depicting Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey declaring Turkish as the official language of the state and all its institutions.

Despite these blows, Karamanoğlu continued to increase their power and influence, largely aided by the Mamluks of Egypt, especially during the reign of Baybars. Karamanoğlu captured Konya on two more occasions in the beginning of the 14th century, but were driven out the first time by emir Chupan, the Ilkhanid governor for Anatolia, and the second time by Emir Chupan's son and successor Timurtash. An expansion of Karamanoğlu power occurred after the fall of the Ilkhanids. A second expansion coincided with Karamanoğlu Alâeddin Ali Bey's marriage to Nefise Sultan, the daughter of the Ottoman sultan Murad II, the first important contact between the two dynasties.

[christof139]

In 1450 the Armenians were minor, but BEFORE THAT THEY WEREN'T. There are many excellent and HISTORICAL mods with the Armenians in them, and Broken Crescent is one of them.

You keep saying the Armenians were not important etc., and that shows that you don't know the history. If it wasn't for Armenian aid it is quite possible the 1st Crusade wouldn't have succeeded. You also ignore the fact that the Armenians even beat the Mameluks in Egypt in I believe it was the 1300's.

By 1450 the Kingdom of Armenia was gone!!!! So, you don't make a valid point concerning the Kingdom of Armenia which was present in the area unitl the mid-1300's.

So what is your point?? If the Armenians aren't in a mod that states in starts in about 1074 and the Armenian Kingdom lasted into the mid-1300's and even defeated the Mameluks in Egypt, then the mod will not be historical and it will be a lousy mod.

Chris

[Dr. Oza]

thr are too many factions than i can count that were present in our campaign map and probably were more important than armenia that we havent included



and thats only a map i could find

karamans were present ever since the battle of Koce dag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...%B6se_Da%C4%9F


and please calm down, do you understand that i am not making the final decision and that in a mod that can only have 20 factions, some one the smaller, less important ones have to be overlooked

thats one of the reason i bet that LOTK didnt include armenia in the original 1.5 or even 2.0


no disrespect, but just because you are Armenian or like them a lot doesn't mean we have to have them, and you reply as if i have said something blasphemous and unacceptable.

ps: half those links on your post about armenian histroy are out of the mods timeline and tlak about "archaic armenia" instead of medieval armenia

and even during crusades, armenians were never a major power, like the ayyubids, or the mongols, or ERO, they were a small little country that provided expendables to the crusaders, and collapsed as soon as crusades and mongols stopped coming

they survived 150 or so years after the crusades onyl because of the mongols, and throughout its lifetime, the cicilian armenians could never really expand and were only protected by bigger powers ( ERO, MONGOLS, LATIN CRUSADERS)

[christof139]

Hey, I am not Armenian but you seem to obviously be Turkish, and unhistorical. If the Armenians are not included up until the mid-1300's then the mod will be historically inaccurate and NO GOOD.

You miss the whole point, and that point is to be historically accurate.

Armenia is also included in certain excellent MTW1 mods, although Early, Late and High time periods are used in MRTW1.

You should calm down yourself and quit telling others to do so when those others are being historically correct and you are not.

1450 is very late in the time period of the mod and the Emirate you speak of was in earlier times not powerful enough to rule over the Armenians, and the Emirate had Mameluk help.

You also disregard the the fact that the Armenians were well established in the area before the Turks ever arrived in the area, and even the Byzantines did not fully subdue/incoporate all of the Armenians, and that without Armenian aid the 1st Crusade may likely have failed during the Siege of Antioch.

20 Factions may be enough to cover the most important peoples in the area and the Armenians are one of those important peoples and factions. Only way to not include the Armenians would be to make their 2 provinces, eastern and western provinces for simplicity's sake, as very strong rebel Christian provinces, just as the same would have to be done for the several diverse Turkish groups already mentioned in this thread as being in Anatolia.

Fact is that everyone had a problem with those Armenians that held out in their high mountain strongpoints and towns and villages.

More of a problem is with the Turks themselves, as there could be 4 or 5 or 6 Turkish factions, and that would be historical but impractical.

Chris

PS: The links I gave, some of them cover ALL of Armenia's history both ancient AND MEDIEVAL, so you are being biased and only seeing what you want to see.

[Dr. Oza]

20 Factions may be enough to cover the most important peoples in the area and the Armenians are one of those important peoples and factions. Only way to not include the Armenians would be to make their 2 provinces, eastern and western provinces for simplicity's sake, as very strong rebel Christian provinces, just as the same would have to be done for the several diverse Turkish groups already mentioned in this thread as being in Anatolia.

No problem with this

and please note that historical facts have nothing to do with controlling your anger

You should calm down yourself and quit telling others to do so when those others are being historically correct and you are not.

and also please note that i said "

personnaly i think we should not have Armenians as they were minor at best during this time

we should use the faciton slot to add a more interesting faction

maybe Beylik of Karaman

"

we do not have to do karaman
but you seem to miss the fact that armenia was not a "major player" and now in rm2 i think thr area is occupied by european crusaders'

and yes i do not need to see biased, glorified armenian history, only the part about the cilician kingdom are relevant

[christof139]

No problem with this

and please note that historical facts have nothing to do with controlling your anger

and also please note that i said ""

we do not have to do karaman
but you seem to miss the fact that armenia was not a "major player" and now in rm2 i think thr area is occupied by european crusaders'

and yes i do not need to see biased, glorified armenian history, only the part about the cilician kingdom are relevant

Ummm, quit attacking me and I was not angry but responding to your insinuations and accusations.

You had better control yourself.

Armenia was a major player for sometime.

Also, SOME AND NOT ALL of the links I gave you contained info. on BOTH ancient and medieval Armenian history, so it was upt to you to read them and find the parts dealing with Medieval Armenia, and I also posted links that dealt with only Medieval Armenia. As for 'glorified Armenian history', well. it seems every nation 'glorifies' its history a bit, but maybe you haven't noticed that?? I also did not write all those articles etc. Armenians do have a right to be proud of their history though, just as other people do.

Chris

[John I Tzimisces]

The Cilician Armenian kingdom was at the very least on par with any of the crusader states and competed with the Genoese and Venetians for control of trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Although failing in their effort they made serious attempts to seize control of Antioch and Cyprus (Antioch was little more than a puppet of Cilicia after a certain point). The methods used were both by force and by attempting to inherit the lands. (Such a candidate did exist in Antioch, however this person was defeated in his attempt to hold power)
In addition they expanded into anatolia, but failed to hold onto these territories. Larande/Karaman is one of their old posessions.
They have the benefit of being bolstered in numbers by refugees from the conquest of edessa and an advantage in terrain.

Far from it, the Cilician Armenians only ever enjoyed an alliance with the invading mongols prior to their conversion to islam. In all other periods of the state's existence it was fending off neighbors. They were only finally brought down when there were no other enemies to fight, literally, as the Mamelukes had dealt with the crusaders handily enough. This was accomplished in the second of two invasions. The first was repelled but resulted in the devastation of the flat part of the country and made things easier when the ramazonoglu turks were sent by the mamelukes to invade.

The ERE invaded but failed to conquer the entire region (the mountainous bits were spared). As the kingdom rec

overed the Anatolian turks were bribed by the ERE to attack this state, seen as occupiers of land rightfully belonging to or at least subservient to the Empire (indeed the first king of Cilicia received a crown from both the Pope and Byzantine emperor, both expecting concessions. Concessions to the catholics led to massive internal divisions among certain nobles and the clergy).
Antioch also attempted but this nearly ultimately resulted in the total conquest of Antioch.
They were not a strong state.
And neither were any of the crusader kingdoms at any point.
They had the benefit of terrain, being of largely local stock, and a willingness to adopt things they found advantageous (largely from the crusaders...the influence is still seen today in the form of certain names, such as Zabel/Isabel, Gadar/Katherine, and that their noble titles changed from Sparapet to Gundstapl/Constable and ...the term fails me now, but the lordly title became Paron/Baron. Vestments are also somewhat similar to Catholic vestments as well as a result of this melding)

That's my off topic two cents. I'm somewhat well-read on the subject, but I don't profess to be an expert. They were finished in 1375 and enjoyed status as a regional power in the 13th century.

we should use the faciton slot to add a more interesting faction

That doesn't betray sympathies or lack thereof at all.

[AnthoniusII]

I can see two to argue what happened in Cilicia and all of you seam to forget that officialy the armenians revolt and took cilikia from their saviors(Romans) and found them selvs surounded with ennemies(Romans and Seljuks)...
Even after 1180 ad Cilician kingdom considered by Armenians indipentand(with the recognition of the crusade states)but an other roman province of the empire by Romans...
Afcourse turks won easily...my friend E Pasha but you seam to forget that there was no opponet to win to that days...
Even after the fall of the Kurdish dynasties(the most powerfull before the Osman)turks could not take new provinces even from the Small Trepzond Empire...Only the civil wars of the late roman states gave turks the opportunities they needed to expand!!

[John I Tzimisces]

I can see two to argue what happened in Cilicia and all of you seam to forget that officialy the armenians revolt and took cilikia from their saviors(Romans) and found them selvs surounded with ennemies(Romans and Seljuks)...
Even after 1180 ad Cilician kingdom considered by Armenians indipentand(with the recognition of the crusade states)but an other roman province of the empire by Romans...
Afcourse turks won easily...my friend E Pasha but you seam to forget that there was no opponet to win to that days...
Even after the fall of the Kurdish dynasties(the most powerfull before the Osman)turks could not take new provinces even from the Small Trepzond Empire...Only the civil wars of the late roman states gave turks the opportunities they needed to expand!!

Ugh, I'd love to respond to this in length but the idea that the Romans were ever the saviors of the Armenians is silly and plain wrong considering no other state in history had devoted such efforts to destroying the identity of "Armenian" as the late Roman Empire. Cilicia was essentially given to the Armenians as part of the policy of the pre-manzikert Roman empire in which Armenian nobles were given military commissions outside of Armenia proper in order to subdue Armenia Minor (not Cilicia), uprooted along with thousands of their constituents as military colonies. When Cilicia and northern Syria/Edessa/etc were isolated from Byzantine authority it was only natural the local lords following the example of Philaretos Brachiamos (the Armenian-Byzantine in charge) would take charge of things.

And what is "easily?" They fended off the Anatolian Seljuks, Romans, and hostile Crusaders for 300 years, 100 years of which they were not a united political entity.

[Jingles]

I would love to see Armenian Cilicia in the mod, Chivalry Total war has them as a faction, and they are incredibly fun to play as. In a mod I think you have to have a measure of underdog factions as well. We already have some in the form of Scotland, Portugal and the Tunisians. Armenian Cilicia would make a great addition, I think.

I suggest you read DrTad's excellent AAR for the Cilician Armenians, as it shows you just how much fun is to be had with a faction in that region:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=98079

[Dr. Oza]

lol i got served

very well, i support Armenia as a faction, but who would you guys suggest we replace in order to have them
as that is the essential question

[Dr. Oza]

attack?, you seem to be having a quite aggresive view towards this entire discussion

btw armenia was not a major player but not all factions are, and i have no problem with a aremnian faction as long as it doesnt replace other factions