ALRIGHTY.
I was at it for awhile, but I'll share what I've learnt.
First up, what do we start with?
Well, our capitol is Nicaea.
Along with a castle and a town, we have three settlements in Western Anatolia, all at risk from the Turks.
Who also are a danger to Trebizond, isolated and to the east.
Over in Europe, we have a castle and town in Epirus, which are at danger from Venice.
And that's it.
Here's what I did.
You'll notice two naval stacks, I combined these together as fast as possible, and moved them to Epirus.
Meanwhile, I forgot about Trebizond. 
I left the garrison in Nicaea as is. And moved as many troops as I could from the remaining anatolian settlements as south as possible, so they were just above Rhodes.
These movements took one or two turns, and meanwhile, I added all the troops I could recruit to said gatherings.
The turks don't attack Nicaea for a couple of turns, but they will, and thus you should be keeping a strong garrison there.
Then, with a small army in Epirus and another across the sea from Rhodes, I took the force from Epirus and conquered Crete.
Then, I joined together the two groups at Rhodes and conquered it, too.
At this point a significant army was nearby one of the anatolian towns, as well as one besieging Nicaea.
And another one was approching Trebizond.
I noticed that Isparta was almost defenceless, and I thought it an easy target for the army now in Rhodes.
And thus I set sail for it and landed my soldiers.
The Turks didn't like this one bit, and pulled back both armies to defend Isparta.
So, I too pulled back, and the army set sail for Nicaea.
Meanwhile, Durazzo was under siege by the Venitians, and Trebizond by the Turks.
Both battles I expected to lose, Trebizond because I forgot about it, and my two additonal units of Scoutari didn't finish training when the Turks started the siege.
And Durazzo because the Venitian army was quite large, heavily armoured and led by a general, and I only had a few militia units.
I crushed the turks by camping the castle square.
In Durazzo, I tried the same thing, but thought my chances of winning were next to nothing.
My spearmen held out for awhile, while my archers shot over their heads. But the spearmen were dying quickly, and so I sent my general into the fight to occupy them a little longer.
Eventually, my archers were left alone, with only the general himself holding off the Venitians.
At this point the archers could shoot the venitans straight in the back, which killed many.
The general lasted a very long time, when suddenly, either he or the archers killed the venitian general.
And just like that, a total rout and I was victorious.
I sat there stunned for awhile.
One man certainly made all the difference in the world:
So, the defences had gone well, as had the conquest of Crete and Rhodes.
But I was hardly secure, and I was losing more money each turn.
I thought of taking southern Greece, but there were too many rebels to grind though and not enough time.
I needed Constantinople.
And thus, when my abroad army reached Nicaea(which at the time was Turk-safe), I combined the most potent soldiers of both groups, filled the gaps with milita, and moved to attack the army outside of Constantinople.
It was a grand battle, and I nearly lost it a couple of times, due to the unexpectedly strong morale of the second army, when a cavalry unit got around into my archers, and when the inital force countered my charge and broke it up.
But I had won, although many brave men died that day:
And thus, I had my capitol back, and my income was in the green significantly enough to have hope for the future.
(I suppose you can get a massive injection of funds if you exterminate or sack it, but I simply couldn't bring myself to do anything less than occupy it.)
From here, the possibilities branch, and a lot hangs on what the AI does, but you're out of the dog house, at least:
Annnd, I think I may have gone overboard with the detail.
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Originally Posted by Tears of Destiny
