Turks in Lands to Conquor Gold -- what next?

[Viking Prince]

OK -- LTC Gold and I am playing the Turks. It is 1120 and Bagdad recently fell by Jihad. Peace was achieved with the Byzzies a few years prior after a series of battles around Iconium. They still send a small stack every few years to take a closer look.

The starting position has been increased with Iconium, Tbilisi, Antioch, and Bagdad settlements. The small frontier castles have a pair of spear militia and some Turkish archers as a garrison with Tblisi having some javalins thrown in for good measure. The Saracen Militia are starting to become the garrison at Antioch and are about to be trainable in Iconium and Bagdad. Iconiom has a full free upkeep garrision of 5 militia plus 5 Turkish Archers. A small field army of missile cavalry is also in the area to protect both Iconium and Caesarium from the Byzantines. The costs of upkeep are keeping the florins pretty tight, but the economy is improving.

The Byzantines are currently at peace with no place to expand without a war breaking out. They seized Sofia from Hungary and now have a (hopefully) uneasy truce.

The Turks do not have a port yet. Experience tells me that a port will trigger the Byzantine Empire to launch a war. So building a port is clearly an intention to go back to war with them.

So what to do from here? I see several options:

• Wait for Crusades to be called against Cairo and when the time is right, drive and take the eastern Mediteranean settlements held by Egypt. This would break the alliance.
• Build up and hope the Byzantine Empire weakens before consolidating Anatolia and drive on towards Constantinople (which is a victory objective).
• Wait for the Mogols on a turtle defensive mode.
• Somthing else?

30 settlements are needed for victory since I am playing the Kingdom Campaign. Where should they come from? I think that the byzantine Empire holds about 12 settlements at the moment. I have attached a sceenie after toggling FOW to help in the discussion.

[PoleCat]

I'm not familiar with LTC, but my two cents would be to build those ports regardless of risk of war with the Byzzies. At some point you're going to need those settlements so war is unavoidable - especially if your relations are already tenuous.

Try to scrape a decent army together while expanding ports and markets for the cash. It looks to me like it's your only option unless you want to betray Egypt....

[Aristarchus]

Viking Prince! Check out my LTC AAR Turkish Heroes - I just posted the chapter on Turks and Timurids. This, of course, after already suffering the Mongols several times - but I was on grand campaign. Ports are slow in coming and expensive, and the economy is a nightmare at first, but as soon as I had them I shipped armies off to take the Byzantine islands. Before that, though, you should find rebel settlements up north in Sarkel and Bulgar, if Russia hasn't made it that far yet. But wait ... you didn't mention Trebizond. You have to have it and make it a port city. The mines are rich, and you can't afford to let the Byzantines stay there so closeby. In another thread someone said to use the Tblisi-Yerevan hub to fight the Mongols in the mountains where they have to move single file, which I eventually was able to do, but at first there's no way I could get enough power up there to do anything and both settlements were burned repeatedly, making them pretty useless for the rest of the game. In the chapter on Catholic Wars, notice that I waited to launch across the sea from Smyrna only after Hungary hounded Byzantium into a solitary corner at Corinth; but then I had a superb general to lead a hopelessly outnumbered assault and pull it off. As for units, the sipahi cavalry are not so strong, but they do fantastic work, and they're about all you have for a long time. The thing is, field a lot more of them than the enemy cavalry and they can hold their own in numbers. I relied on them heavily, and used generals as the bulwark. Mostly, you're going to need the naffatun to face the armored soldiers of Europe and the heavy lancers of the hordes. The scare factor of Greek fire is a beauty to behold.

PS. Never betray Egypt! That safe southern border is your one solace in a very dangerous world.

[Viking Prince]

Trebizond starts firmly in the Byzantine hands at the start of the Campaign. I agree the mines and the port are important latter. with the cost of infrastructure and the aI ability to grow faster than the Human faction, it is sometimes best to let these gems stay in enemy hands. Besides, there is no source of troops to easily take the place. There is only one castle that can even produce 2nd level archers and cavalry at the start - Caesarium. Antioch is the only center for third level militia infantry. Both of these are essential for any near term armies. Of course we all know the problems of holding Antioch.

Also -- do you take a jihad immediately or would you hold off and go after the Byzantines after securing Iconium (yes, this starts rebel) and Antioch?

[Aristarchus]

I imagine you are as good a judge as anyone on strategy and timing, and only you can see your specific resources and situation, but I'd say you have to go fight for Trebizond. In my campaign, I accepted that the Byzantines were always at war with the Turks, we just laid down arms periodically to resume trade and income; so I kept the sultan around Caesaria fending off invasions, and sent the prince north to rally troops from Tblisi. You can't relax and divert resources westward until the threat from the north is eliminated. Once the Byzantines lose Trebizond, they won't make an effort to cross the sea to reclaim it, and the mountains make it too remotely inaccessible by land. As for jihad, you already have Baghdad apparently. Are you thinking Constantinople? On that score, I'd say emphatically no. You know that Hungary and the whole Catholic world are hungering for that prime real estate. Only take it when you know you can hold it. And you can't hold it with troops from Caesaria or even Smyrna. You have to have the fortress at Sofia, and ideally Bran, too, which is typically more advanced. That means you have to be a lot more advanced than you are now. Good luck. Can you post an AAR or somehow give updates where you're at as you go?