(Genghis)
In Europe, Germany made the EU - they took out Greece, France and some city states. England still had Britain, and a colony in Greenland (for that city on another continent bonus?). Russia expanded into Kazahstan and conquered Scandinavia from Norway. In Africa Zulus took out Congo and were blocked to the north by Nubia. Nubia conquered Mecca and South Egypt. Cleopatra was forced to expand into subsaharan West Africa - Nigeria, Ivory Coast and so on. Sahara was a big spanish colony. In Asia, Gilgamesh managed to keep his Mesopotamia, Persia expanding north. India was pretty much like in real life, the same for Japan. The Khmer expanded into whole Indochina before being conquered by the mighty horde. Indonesia had only one city until well into the modern era. China was the first victim of the horde, so not much to talk about. New world was one big happy family: Cree had West Canada and Alaska, Monty had whole central America, Mexico and the west of the USA, Teddy had everything east of the Mississippi. in the South, Pedro had practically Brazil, while Mapuche has all the spanish-speaking regions.
The horde conquered China in the ancient era, afterwards colonized peacefully the uninhabited regions of Siberia and Central Asia. They met the russian and the persian to the east, but there was enough room for everybody. Genghis thought about invading Japan, but without some effective ships decided to let the japanese be. A really peaceful classical period and medieval beginning, and we trained hard to shoot our arrows while riding at full speed. Out of nowhere, Java tried to convert OUR cities to his pagan religion. This insult must be bathed in blood. Keshiks and swordsmen with a few catapults and galleass conquered his puny empire. Now the khanate spread from the cold Siberia to the warm waters of Thailand.
Meanwhile we explored and met many other civilizations of the world. Afterwards, the irish cried for our help - some barbarians from England conquered their beautiful city. They were not the first to beg for the help of the khanate, but before we didn't quite know where Vilnius or Kabul are located. Now we had ships, mighty galleass which were prepared for Japan. They received a new target - conquer England. Oh yeah, and liberate Armagh if you get there quick enough.
Some 50 years later, England was conquered and with the help of our governors remained loyal to the horde. The khanate was the largest empire, but lag in military might behind Germany, Russia and the south african zulus.
Getting a few more years of peace, we developed our navy so that they could travel further without supplies. Some savants theorized that if we sail east from our main ports in Shanghai and Seoul, we could reach our english colony quicker. We set sail and discovered a NEW World! We could make friends with almost all the leaders there, and made some great deals with our pals Teddy, Monty and Lautaro. Pedro was a nuisance - what's his problem if the great people love Genghis? We thought about conquering Brazil for his insolence. But it was really too far away, so we let him live... for now. On our continent we were best buddies with Gilg, really a great guy. Our traders came everytime with useful information from him.
Another cry for help came to our ears - this time Geneva was being conquered by the germans. We now knew where Geneva was, but we still had only a navy in England. Our land forces were half a world away. We decided to liberate Geneva with a mixed sea-land attack from the mediterranean region. Germany would live to see another day. We bought right of passage from the spaniards, since they controlled the Strait of Gibraltar. And when preparing for war with the germans... the russians start a surprize war against us in Kazahstan. We had now the two world's strongest armies against us.
They say don't fight a land war in Asia... They're wrong. We fought. We fought for fifty years. At first, we lost many keshiks and knights against the new russian cossacks. We managed to kill a few, and our scientists managed to create the same weapons for our horsemen. We called them cavalry, and that's when the tide of war changed to our advantage. We even managed to convince some of the cossacks to fight for us - great fighters, they pushed forward after the fight, even when our cavalry remained on the battlefield to lick their wounds. City after city, we pushed to Moscow... and Moscow fell to the horde.
On the german front our navy ruled the waters, and bombed every german soldier and city in range into oblivion. But we didn't have any army to start taking these cities for our own. We managed to conquer one puny city on the coast - Nantes. To our surprise, the mayoress came to thank us for liberating them. Since Cathy was nice, we let her keep her city as a vassal to the khanate. Now we had a landing bridge in Europe, and from there managed to send some quickly trained riders to liberate Geneva. The swiss bankers payed us a huge amount - we were swimming in gold.
So we decided to sponsor some festivals in the russian cities and pushed from Moscow forward into Germany. We found and liberated Vilnius, but they said we were four centuries too late and didn't pay us anything. After a few more years the khanate spread from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The nantese people of Cathy revolted, killed her, and decided to join us. Shame, I kind of liked Cathy.
Our empire developed peacefully, we made a great industrial revolution. We even learned to drive in machines! These tanks were much more powerfull than knights, but we still kept our cavalry and our quite large army of ex-russian cossacks. We made more friends with the small independent cities. The people complained that the khanate isn't fit for governing our huge empire anymore. So we made a real revolution, and now we are called the Soviet Republic of Mongolia. I am still Secretary General, of course.
I made sure to stay on his good side, because my Mapuche Empire was just to his south. (Brazil was in the game, but I managed to get my expansion in gear faster than Pedro and controlled most of South America--I was fortunate to have all of South America's natural wonders in my empire. 
)
Warsaw uprising notwithstanding. Seriously this dark age has been a serious problem. I'm struggling to even get monuments built. This game is giving me serious challenges. I can't get enough builders built, or enough buildings. I can't even get the basic building builts in order to start work on Hansas. I'm determined not to give up on this game. There must be some light at the end of the tunnel. The 3rd Reich shall prevail.
