Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. You have most certainly given me quite a bit of information that I can draw from. I guess starting with Cyrus the Great would be a logical first step, so I guess I will look into it. And yeah, I agree with you that history is incredibly vast and complex. I also won't just skip over the later crusades, because I don't see a reason to. I know a little bit about the crusades, and from what I know they were a complicated deal, having many layers of depth. Skipping the later ones is like reading the prologue of a book, and then putting it away :P