Take that rebel African settlement, build some boats and hit Italy from the east and from that African settlement

I'll do that and much more (such as rewriting history so Egypt takes the Americas lol). But I have many problems.

Mongols have fought for my city of Kiev for 20 battles, and don't want t give up.
Timurids are trying to take Gaza from me.
Sicily is attacking Cairo.
And the Pope called a crusade on Constantinople. I defeated the Papal army, but the HRE army doesn't want to give up.
And the HRE army is still very strong, it sieges like 5 of my cities per turn.

I'm trying to calm them down, or at least reduce HRE's power, before I do anything else.

P.S.: Back to your previous question, yeah, also if you were playing as the Turks you would want to take out Egypt and expand North at the same time. There are many strategies but those are the ones that work for me.

I think thats because Egypt and the rest of the ME are the most important trade cities, so economically to fuel your wars you need to conquer them ... because you make nothing with the Turks in the beginning with the cities they have to conquer ... Antioch is probably the most important of all ..

Also the Mongol horde is much bigger in the original than in the crusades campaign

It really depends on what you build in those cities. Initially, they are all about the same.
But besides the economic factor, you need to look at the region strategically. For example, many of the islands (Nicosia, Iraklion, Rhodes, Palma, Ajjaccio, Cagliari and Palermo) are important because you could launch attacks to any region from them (assuming that you have a strong navy). They also are very good for trading since their network is huge. They are often overlooked, though.

EDIT: That makes sense. The Mongols hit Russia, and Baghdad. Original has both places. Crusades just has one of them. So the amount of Mongols would be less.

how come you didn't expand into Russia btw? Mongols went there too?

They used to be my allies, so I have't attacked them. Later on they became the vassals of HRE and therefore, my enemies. But they have't done anything to me yet, so I'll let them be for now.

Yeah, the Mongol Golden Horde had Russia as their vassal for a while: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horde

alliances are a joke

btw hungary wanted a ceasefire as soon as I took a Turkish fortress

yeah you basically have to attack the Turks if your Egypt and vice versa

Alliances get really improved in SS. They actually help you out lol.

You could also send a diplomat to your ally and ask him to attack a faction. But you need to make sure that you are also attacking that faction, ally isn't weak and could handle it. Otherwise, they refuse.

Turks attacked me anyway even though I had a trade agreement with them

its useless bro ... the AI in the original requires you to attack the Turks, no matter what

Not really. You don't HAVE TO. But it'll be even more difficult to win if you don't. You could always sail elsewhere and fight there (like when I went to Spain).

i usually take Constantinople without messing with the Turks

Have you ever seen a successful empire that has a breach in its connection? No. It'll fail.

i told u man, i take what i want

like I took Rome and Constantinople ... but I never connected them

Show me your map.

dude i just started again yesterday ... only 60 turns in, chill ... Mongols about to arrive tho, soon ..

expanded like a boss lol ... got the message that the Mongols have arrived as soon as I besieged Baghdad -_-

If you're lucky, they'll enter from the Russian side.

i was planing on expanding into Russia tho

nah I'll do what I always do ... conquer Constantinople and then sttttaaack up my armies there since like always, they'll go crazy once I conquer Constantinople ...

then build up all my ports and hit Italy hard and sack all their cities for mad cash