There is a lot of implied overlap with The Caligula: While most of the emperors are remembered as kind and just, they murder their wifes, execute half their councils, and purge half of the officer corps from time to time. The Emperor: The story follows the Angelos dynasty of "Roman" emperors to survive the attacks of Pagans and Heretics. Deliberate Values Dissonance: The morality of the setting as a whole is a very medieval one, with violence in the name of God and the rulers both expected and (in some cases) explicitly condoned by all sides involved. Decadent Court: The inner court of the Byzantine Empire is no less immune to power plays than the aristocracy as a whole, and their schemes against one another are perhaps all the more vicious because they don't involve armies in overt conflict. Life in this setting is often nasty, brutish, and short. 
The known world is largely divided amongst three (later four) great powers that regularly fight one another and even more often attempt to cause and exploit strife within their enemies' realms.
Crapsack World: This is not a happy setting. Over the next decade, it's followed by famine, strife, and disease, culminating in the great Sunset Invasion that kicks off the main plot. Comet of Doom: One of these makes an appearance in the final chapter of the backstory - it ends up being named Wormwood. Bookends: The first chapter of the main narrative for the Crusader Kings 2 segment is titled "World Without End" the last chapter is titled "War Without End." Both chapters focus on conflicts involving the Aztec invaders and the Teutonic Knights, and both reigning emperors at the time are named Markos. One could argue Evil Versus Evil as well: One the one side, there's the Xenoi, who just seem to want to conquer and sacrifice, and on the other side there's the Imperium, which. Even the protagonists engage in their share of violence and cruelty as a means to both discourage attacks against them and to quell internal unrest. Black-and-Grey Morality: There are no clear-cut heroes in this story. As the Good Book Says.: The story is rife with both direct quotes and allusions to The Bible, as befits a story where religion plays such a central part in the narrative. Alien Space Bats: 13th century Mesoamericans suddenly having both the society and the technology to mount a massive invasion of Europe's Atlantic coast.
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