@TickTock The Witch's Dead (
#2,968) - TBH, I won't promise new maps for the time being. :/
@redfire - Thanks for the support!
@Icedaemon - Thanks for the compliment. As for the Kingdom of Syria and its relation to Jerusalem... Sort of. The Kingdom of Syria is very much independent from Jerusalem, but, for the sake of diplomacy, they will preserve the facade of subordination to the Jerusalem - even if they might stress that their allegiance is in fact to the Papacy - as long as it is convenient to them.
@Babyrage - Thanks for the support! Well, the Catepanate of Syria is still intact (comprising the former Frankish County of Tyre), but it is in a complicated situation in terms of manpower. The nobles until then affiliated to the Bohemondines abandoned it, and likely found service under Emese or Damascus. They still have a standing army of Rhômaîon soldiers and local Syrian mercenaries, but they are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. This doesn't means this will be the last we'll be seeing about them, though.
@TickTock The Witch's Dead,
@Gabrielico - I'm excited as well with exploring this idea of the Crusadist movement expanding as far as India. As you predicted, this spirit of military adventure will go hand-to-hand with the maritime discoveries. IOTL it did had a significant impact in the Portuguese and Spanish endeavors in the Americas, in Africa and Asia, so here ITTL will be even stronger.
@Quinkana - as
@DanMcCollum said below your post, England is still under the rule of the House of Normandy. Currently, the monarch is William IV, the son of OTL deceased William Adelin (who "allohistorically" ruled as William III). They have yet to play a more relevant role in the Crusades, and this explains why they are seldom mentioned, but I intend to explore their situation in better detail.
@
सार्थक (Sārthākā) (
#2,980)
@Asasyn13 @bobbins @cmakk1012 @Noblesse Oblige @St. Just - About the fate of Islam, so far I have some broad ideas. Overall, Islam will be severely impacted not only by the Crusades, but also by the Mongol Invasions, as per OTL, and by the successive fragmentation of the Khanate. There, will, however, be a significant ressurgence under what would be analogue to the Ilkhanate, and under the later Persianate dynasties which come to rule Persia. As some of you predicted in other discussions on this matter, with the loss of Egypt, North Africa and Syria (and later likely of Baghdad, but its demise won't necessarily happen as it did IOTL), the intellectual and cultural heart of Islam will be firmly consolidated in the Persian region - here including the Persianized parts of Central Asia (mainly Khorasan and Khwarazm). Which will have important consequences, because, much like it happened with the Ottomans, the idea of the Caliphal dignity being associated with the hegemonic ruler will be a constant allure of the Persian dynasties.
Afterwards, I can't really say more as I'll await for the TL to develop more to think about important details. I have some ideas for a Timur-analogue (even though Timur himself likely won't exist, because by then the TL will have diverged to much from the POD). Its interesting to conceive an era of "gunpowder empires", and how they will interact with the Crusader States. As always, ideas are welcomed.
However, I'll be making a conscious effort to avoid the "pendulum fallacy" which is often criticized in AH works (meaning that if Islam "fails" in Africa and western Asia, it somehow should be more successful in, say, Southeast Asia or eastern Africa). I'll try to address the question as I believe its plausible in the context of the TL.