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...

As the Danishmend Beylik falls into crisis, Kılıç Arslan II sets out to conquer Anatolia. But fearful of the growing power of the Sultan of Rum, Nüreddin Zengi, the greatest force in the Muslim world, sets out to oppose him. An alliance is constructed against Konya - an alliance that will stand for so long as Nüreddin lives... And in Constantinople, Emperor Manuel Komnenos watches the events in Anatolia with growing trepidation, and decides to take a gamble on reversing the verdict of Manzikert.

In Anatolia, Kılıç Arslan II rides East to confront Yağıbasan and begin the reconquest of Anatolia. He makes an alliance with the Saltukid Bey İzzeddin, whose beylik has been raiding Georgia since Manzikert. And in Syria, Nureddin Zengi dispatches to Egypt two obscure Kurdish commanders...

Kılıç Arslan II finds him surrounded by enemies on all sides, as the Sultanate of Rum faces an existential war against enemies in the West, the East, the North, and the South. To end the war, the Limping Lion is forced to come to terms with Emperor Manuel Komnenos. And thus, the Sultan of Rum makes a visit to Constantinople.

After the death of Mesud, his son Kılıç Arslan II succeeds him as the next Sultan of Rum. However, the succession of the second Sword Lion to the throne is not bloodless. A series of murders in Konya ultimately kick off a chain of escalating events that spiral further and further out of Kılıç Arslan's control. And the falling dominoes ultimately end with the new sultan facing a truly existential war on all sides...

The aging Mesud organizes his new conquests on the southern marches of Anatolia into a new satrapy run from Elbistan, and sets up his son and favored successor, Kılıç Arslan II, as its ruler. A new power arises in nearby Cilicia as Thoros the Great lays the foundations of the coming Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, prompting the Sultan of Rum and the Roman Emperor to organize joint military campaigns to topple this potential threat. And we say goodbye to Mesud, as the longest-reigning Roman Sultan departs from this world.