Your challenge should you choose to accept is to devise a scenario where the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII has more things go right for him.
In otl Michael VIII was a very successful ruler who did the best he could given his current situation, and through cunning and ruthlessness he achieved all of his aims. But despite the seemingly advantageous position he left the Empire in, the supposed success of the start of the Palaiologian Renaissance, was hollow if anything. The Empire was still surrounded on all sides by its enemies and its attention was divided onto multiple fronts.
Within the Empire a large swathe of the population was alienated from the Emperor for his unpopular policies. Within Anatolia particularly, he had alienated a lot of people with his decision to blind and depose the child emperor Ioannes IV Laskaris to the point that it led to the Aresnite Schism. Michael then faced a revolt in Anatolia which he eventually crushed, but it came at the cost of him eroding its local defense structure setup by the Laskarids.
He also agreed to a Church Union with the West which ended up alienating a lot of people to the point that he couldn't even be buried within Constantinople. At certain points in his reign he tried to militarily intervene in Bulgaria to exploit its issues but those attempts were largely for naught.
In otl Michael VIII was a very successful ruler who did the best he could given his current situation, and through cunning and ruthlessness he achieved all of his aims. But despite the seemingly advantageous position he left the Empire in, the supposed success of the start of the Palaiologian Renaissance, was hollow if anything. The Empire was still surrounded on all sides by its enemies and its attention was divided onto multiple fronts.
Within the Empire a large swathe of the population was alienated from the Emperor for his unpopular policies. Within Anatolia particularly, he had alienated a lot of people with his decision to blind and depose the child emperor Ioannes IV Laskaris to the point that it led to the Aresnite Schism. Michael then faced a revolt in Anatolia which he eventually crushed, but it came at the cost of him eroding its local defense structure setup by the Laskarids.
He also agreed to a Church Union with the West which ended up alienating a lot of people to the point that he couldn't even be buried within Constantinople. At certain points in his reign he tried to militarily intervene in Bulgaria to exploit its issues but those attempts were largely for naught.