Saladin consolidates power throughout Syria and northern Iraq, becoming the greatest power in the Muslim world and strangling Outremer. After a crusader provocation, he assembles a great army and marches it into the Levant, ultimately crushing the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin. Jerusalem itself soon falls to the Ayyubid Sultan. And the shocking news of the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem causes fear and guilt to spread across Europe, leading the Third Crusade. Soon, the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, is leading a great crusading army to the Holy Land by way of Anatolia...

After the battle of Myriokephalon, Kılıç Arslan II consolidates Seljuk rule of Anatolia. The Sultan of Rum negotiates with the rising power of Saladin, and conquers further in the West after the death of Manuel Komnenos. But as the elderly Sultan continues to cling to life, and as great invasion is summoned from the West, the future claimants to the throne in Konya start sharpening their knives...

With Kılıç Arslan II consolidating his power over Anatolia, Emperor Manuel Komnenos sets out to reverse the verdict of Manzikert. The Imperial Armies move on to the plateau to rebuild Dorylaeum, and expeditionary forces are sent off to northern Anatolia. And a great Roman army is assembled and set on the road to Konya - a road that will, along the way to Konya, take them to an abandoned fortress guarding a steep mountain pass. A fortress named Myriokephalon and a pass named Tzivitzre...