a really great scenario
currently i`m playing as the zangids, and since i just captured Jerusalem
i thought about sharing my opinion.
since the first turn was skiped for me and i knew the crusaders would deal with the trukish quite fast, i decided to declare war on the trukish and fatimids right away. the less citys the crusaders get the less i would have to conquer in the end
additonally i declared war on syria, to unite the arab lands under my control.
it was a real fast war, with the ansars quicly advancing throuh the syrian teritory, i was able to capture ma`arrat (turkish) Masyaf (fatimid) and all syrian citys sparing damascus and dara in a few turns.
then i captured marajoun (turkish) right in front of the crusaders eys
and went for dara and later damascus wich lasted the longest of the syrian citys.
meanwhile the turkish were reduced to tyrus and amman,madaba (east death sea) tafilah had fallen to jerusalem,
and while tripolis captured tyrus i took amman and finaly madaba.
the turkish gone, syria destoyed and the fatimid assassines out of the way, i prepared for the first goal: edessa.
storing troups along the edessan border and defending units along all crusader broders i was getting ready when the byzantines declared war on me
i bribed antioch to join me against the byzantines and soon all crusaders were at war with them
i had to fight off ONE byzantine unit, the rest was done mostly by antioch and later the seldjuks that joined against byzanz.
and since edessas toops were send west as well a few turns later i declared war. waiting for 5 or 6 turns defending my territory from invading edessan toops i finally went for their citys.
intention was to capture some citys and declare peace before the other crusaders launched a mass invasion on me.
since neither antioch, tripolis and jerusalem were launching major attacks on me and edessa was falling quicly to my fast moving ansar warriors,
i whiped edessa from the map in about 4 turns.
then defending the few crusader units coming to my borders i accepted peace about 3 turns later.
this was about 1160 AD, and i now controled 19 % of the land area, streching my sulatanate from the far north down to the shores of the dead sea.
again i stored units, now along the jerusalem border, Jerusalem itself and the dome of the rock were the grand price now.
another byzantine war, wich i handled again with a crusader coalition including this time armenia and the rums as well,
and later on a small war against armenia and later the seldjuks delayed the real war as well.
but jerusalem was bribed by armenia in the end to declare war on me and while i made peace with armenia, i did again like with the edessans, killing all jerusalem units that came into my borders and waiting for the right moment to attack.
when i finally launched the invasion i had about 5 ghazi 2 ansar, 2 saracens and spearmen for beersheba tiberias and nablus, and about 15 ghazi and about 10 ansars more for jerusalem itself.
as i crossed the border tripolis and antioch declared war on me but 4 truns later and with an aproximate loss of 10 ghazi 5 ansar and some saracens i captured jerusalem.
its 1202 AD now:
the mid sinai city on the map is El Ashira wich i placed under fatimid control to close the territory gap.
now the crusaders are reduced to the coast strip and i`m thinking about conquering the fatimids, wich would have been historical correct in the first place.
i have now 23% land and 44% population, so on the other hand i could research hospitals and just win as well
but i guess i`ll be going for egypt, and if there is time, really defeat the last crusader citys in the end.
as conclusion
i think the zangids are a bit over powered, haven`t seen them as AI player yet, but as human player it`s a fairly easy game so far.
or maybe less movment for the ansar warrior, and later more movement for the saracen knight? so the danger would increase.
maybe syria should be a bit stronger, since the turkish are just place fillers as was said before.
the only other anoying thing is the razing of cyties....
jerusalem devasted the south, wich is now really anoying if i want to take egypt i won´t get a connected territory anymore
