The Ottomans in 1444 are a regional power, in the process of securing control over Anatolia and the Balkans. In the east, Ottoman control has been reimposed in the aftermath of the Timurid invasion, but several beyliks remain independent. These Beys jockey for a position between the expanding power of the Ottomans on one side, and the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and Syria, still the strongest state in the Middle East, on the other.

In Europe, the Ottomans have defeated the Crusaders in the Battle of Varna, killing Wladyslaw, the Polish and Hungarian king. Byzantium now lies exposed and Hungary has been forced on the defensive, but with the fortress of Belgrade, still serves as a strong bulwark against further Ottoman expansion. The lesser princes in between can survive only by playing the great powers off one another. Further south, Skanderbeg leads Albania in revolt against the Ottomans, supported by Venice, which still dominates the seas.

The realm ruled by the Ottoman dynasty is not yet a centralized state in 1444. The sultan's authority is enforced only by his small household of servants, recruited from slaves captured in war and from the 'devshirme', the periodic conscription of Christian youths from the Balkan countryside. These are the famous Janissaries, who will in time grow into a powerful standing army. The Ottomans have come to power with the military backing of numerous marcher-lords, still highly autonomous on the Balkan frontier, while the administration lies in the hands of the Turkish aristocracy, literate in the ways of statecraft, but largely independent of the sultan's authority.

All this is about to change. Having defeated the Crusader armies, the old sultan Murad II is now on his way back to his estates in Manisa, leaving the government in the hands of the young Mehmed II. It is he who will go on to transform the Ottoman state into an empire, acquiring Constantinople as an imperial capital and establishing a centralized administration to rein in the marcher-lords and old Turkish families. For 'The Grand Turk', there can be no compromise – the House of Osman is to be the supreme authority in the land. The only question is this: where will his armies turn to first?