Bapheus

map picture: http://fs5.directupload.net/images/151229/sjruppww.png

This scenario is about the rise of the Ottoman empire, the map roughly shows the western part of nowadays' Turkey, one can identify the Dardanelles and the Bosporus on the upper left edge of the map.

-- other factions --

Rum Sultanate (red): they are allied to you, but also to everyone else, and they don't do anything. Their gates are open to your enemies, but you can hide in their castles and towers if need arises.

Turkish Nomads (grey): these are small static groups of opponents littered all over the map that provide a nuisance in the early game but are not really a threat.

Byzantine Empire (purple): main enemy, has three towns along the coast in the north, will keep sending groups of mainly pikemen and cavalry.

Candar (turquoise) / Karesi (blue) / Germiyan (yellow): fellow turkish towns that will offer you a bride, the one you pick will be a good ally to you, however the other two will turn against you.

Catalan Company (orange): will appear later in the game, build a base within the northernmost Byzantine town and will send well equipped troops.

-- first phase --

You will be tasked with meeting five tribes and then return to where you started. As long as you don't progess in the story, the game will not really start to run, i.e. noone will start gathering, build up troops etc. That means you should use this opportunity to explore the map and wipe out the Turkish Nomads completely. But do it very slowly and carefully, as you only have a limited amount of units, which is only cavalry and mounted archers. You will come across a few units that join you, and one place allows you to upgrade your current units' armour a bit, both not really important for the later game.

You can also thoroughly plan where to put your base. One of the three towns (Candar/Karesi/Germiyan) will become your ally, so it may be a good idea to hide behind them. I chose the yellow one, built my base in the lower corner and found that he built a market on the west side, between his walls and his outside town center, so that was a good way to establish a well secured trade route. The other two already have a market. The blue town is only protected with palisades. The turquoise town has a lot of forest behind it and enough space for a big base, but harder to wall of than the corner behind the yellow one. You may also want to gather the sheep from all over and roudn them up in a safe place.

Of the five camps, one will yield a healer (the upper blue one), two will comply with the order and dissolve, and two (the lower blue one and the turquoise one in the far east corner) will resist and fight you, until their leader is down, so attack only him. The other units will then instantly change to red (Rum Sultanate) and ride away.

-- second phase --

As you return with the Osman unit to the Sultan, the Byzantines will be switched to enemy, so you can attack them now. You are tasked to attack the town center of Sogut (left of the lake in the center of the map), but before you should attack and destroy as many Byzantine structures as you can (e.g. the unsecured villages in the northeast and the barracks to the right of said town center). As long as you stay away from the town center objective, the game will still be stopped, i.e. noone does anything yet. Be sure to have exploited this as much as you can before you take the town center.

-- third phase --

As soon as you take the town center, the game goes live. The carts should be kept close, because they are the only ressources you start with, i.e. you can't even build a villager before they are there. As this is a geostrategically very bad position (you are attacked from all sides), you should quickly gather just enough ressources so that you can build a new towncenter elsewhere when you raze it.

The Rum Sultanate main base shouldn't be filled with buildings, because they are not safe there anyway (the Rum Sultanate is allied to everyone, see above), but also because you will receive very useful reinforcements (e.g. Husars, Imperial Camelriders, Mameluks, Cannons and Monks carrying a relic) over time until the end of the game (can be hundreds of units eventually), but they might be blocked if you put houses on the map edge.

You will be offered a bride by all three Turkish towns, and the one you decide for will become you ally, the other two will turn against you, so you will have three enemies. The Catalan Company will become your enemy at a certain point later.