Myriocephalon

WI: This battle had never been fought. Manuel instead goes on a tour of inspection of the Byzantine territories in Asia Minor. There are a few minor skirmishes with the Turks, but he is mainly occupied with re-fortifying the frontiers.
 
WI: This battle had never been fought. Manuel instead goes on a tour of inspection of the Byzantine territories in Asia Minor. There are a few minor skirmishes with the Turks, but he is mainly occupied with re-fortifying the frontiers.

In the long run, I doubt it would make much difference. Myriocephalum was a bad defeat, but it was no Yarmouk or Manzikert. Plus, the rapidity with which the Empire started to unravel after Manuel's death suggests that there were probably some major structural issues which were being masked by a sequence of competent rulers, but which would inevitably come to the surface once a less competent Emperor ascended the throne.
 
Did the stress of the defeat impair Manuel's health? Because if so you could argue that without the defeat at Myriokephalon Manuel lives a few more years and thus Alexios II is of age when he comes to the throne and there's no regency of his unpopular Empress.

Though even if Alexios is an adult when he comes to the throne he could easily be incompetent, his mother could still cause trouble, he might be confronted by structural issues (as mentioned above) and preyed upon by rapacious cousins, so...
 
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