Post your empires here
I've wondered why this thread doesn't already exist but nothing has been stickied.
My second time playing this game was as ERE, on VH/VH. I crushed the Seljuks of Rum and eventually vassalized them, same for Georgia and the Kypchaks. Egypt was incredibly tough, probably the hardest to fight besides the paramaras, because they had endless hordes of really OP units.
Funnily, the Ghorids, my rivals, got smashed by the Mongols and I ultimately got to kill them. I also vassalized Makouria to get their +150,000 cash before sacking them again. I've noticed that Byzantine merchants are the worst in the game, and that their infantry for the most part is horrible (Pronoia HI are missing, where's the macemen?) And the Pelek axeman were historically two-handed, not 1-handed.
But I suppose the great availability of cavalry makes up for it, and the extreme mercenary recruitment (I sure hope I can recruit mercenary elephants). The Abbasids became my next premier rival, but when it finally came to war they had more than 20 provinces from the Arabian peninsula to Amid, I think, and I unleashed a serious wave of Mongol spam. Crushed them utterly, they were begging for peace, I crushed their citadels and forts. They went from 20 to 4 in just 8 turns (My generals from the campaigns against Kypchaks and Iraq Seljuks, two of them were night fighters with some serious command stars and dread.)
Mongols exterminated Ghorids of course and took like +30 provinces, but then got smashed by Paramaras and are now going extinct, so all that is left is the Paramaras. (Unfortunately when I declared war on the Abbasids my idiot vassals Rum-Turks and Georgia broke their alliances with me. They died very, very quickly.)
Oh yeah, Armenia put up quite a fight with their citadel Sis. I ended up taking everything around it and just besieged it for 10 turns, while keeping their reinforcements blocked across the river with a diplomat at the bridge
Kypchaks were tough too, they were like a version of the Mongols but I jumped the gun on them with armies of siege weapons when their settlements had almost no men (Because garrison script sucks and Byzantine infantry are utter crap)
But they're by no means invincible. Heck, just by playing as the Romans for such a lengthy campaign, I know their weaknesses. I knew this mod had greater focus for Islamic factions and that the Romans would be portrayed weaker than they were for infantry, so it should be much easier to kill the Romans as the Abbasids, Rum-Turks, Ayyubids, or even the Kypchaks or Kwarezmshahs.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
I forgot to mention that one of my favored generals who crushed the Kypchaks, Iraq-Seljuks, Crusaders, and Abbasids had the "Ark of the Covenant" ancillary. I got the Holy Chalice and the Holy Grail and the crown of thorns and the Bridle and the shroud, but the two chalice/grail ancillaries were lost when generals died (Wish I paid more attention). But man, that Ark carries death wherever it goes, it's always with my main campaign forces. It was taken when I captured Cairo. (I also renamed a lot of the cities I took back to their original Roman Empire names, so Al-Kahira is Heliopolis).
Edit: I also vassalized the Iraq-Seljuks. Vassalizing in this mod has been far easier than in any other, and my reputation is deplorable, but after exterminating and sacking the Abbasids, the Iraq-Seljuks love me.
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