Lazy man's though? Only if you look at it that way. And why not the lazy man's Candar, Moldavia, or Ramazan? I prefer to look at it as the less-alternative history option in Asia Minor. Do post pictures once there's a story to tell!
It seemed like the lazy man's Byzantines at first to me at first because you start with a lot more land, it's easier to expand, etc.
It's 1480 in my game now and I have just finished connecting Alexandria to the rest of my empire. After securing all of Greece, Anatolia, some of the Balkans, and most of the islands, I had been been focusing on expanding southwards instead of into Europe, mostly to get my hands on Alexandria, which is a cot. Right after I annexed Gaza, Castille moved into the region and started fighting the Mamluks as well. I acted fast, declared war again shortly thereafter (I was having problems with war weariness - this wasn't a good time for a war) and managed to connect Alexandria to everything else.
I haven't fought Castille yet, but it seems that war might be inevitable. Expansion is possible for me in other directions, but I'm not sure if I want to declare war on Hungary yet, besides.. I don't like any power having land so close to my important cot. I might just have to kick them out from there once the opportunity presents itself - meaning that I'm going to wait until they get into a decently sized war with someone else before striking - kicking them out then should be far easier.
Hungary doesn't have any major allies and they continue stealing land from the horde every once in a while.. I need to go after them soon, before they get too strong, but I am going to wait until they get involved in a big war too. One with Austria or Poland would be perfect. It's a lot easier stealing land when there's chaos
Hedjaz (just to the south) are in a personal union with me, Bosnia is a vassal, and I have faithful allies in Montenegro and Albania. Serbia used to be my vassal but I devassalized them with the intent of annexing them by force - but there was never an opportunity (they were always allied with the wrong powers), so Serbia slipped out of my grasp completely.
My empire is tolerant of heretical faiths and I haven't been in any wars with any European bigwigs.. We've been largely ignoring eachother for now and I've been moving towards westernization fairly rapidly.. All I need is the right leader and I can westernize now.. I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but the only thing differentiating me from the western powers is pretty much religion.. which is a big divide, but the upcoming European - Ottoman wars are not going to be religious in nature at all.
How do you take those super slick screenshots with more land showing? I'm playing EU3 complete via steam, whichever version that means I'm under. I know about F11, F12, and shift F12 and neither of those do it. Is that a death and taxes thing?
