[TIPS] Surviving as Byzantium

[Marshall Daub]

I'm beginning to think it's impossible to play as the Byzantines. Is there any way to survive the opening war against the Ottomans? I have tried multiple times with various strategies and end up overrun. Even though it says they only want one province, they will never negotiate for peace, no matter what I offer them. In my current game they have siezed all my provinces except Constantinople. I negotiated for military access with Serbia and pulled my troops out to keep them safe. Now I have no idea what to do except wait for the Ottomans to take Constantinople and then try again to sue for peace. Thanks.

[Hedgepig]

Now I have no idea what to do except wait for the Ottomans to take Constantinople and then try again to sue for peace. Thanks.

Wait for them to give up. I'll relate my experiences to show I'm not being sarcastic. :P

I've only done a successful start as the Romans in '56 once, but in my attempts I found the Ottomans incapable of taking Constantinople by siege. As a result of this I was able to get a white peace out of them after 13 years of sitting around. They only offered it after getting involved in some wars and accumulating a bunch of war exhaustion. My advice to is hire some inflation reduction advisers to stay solvent, dock and station your army and navy somewhere safe and hope one of the Mediterranean powers wreck up the Ottoman navy. With some luck you'll be able to get to 0% war exhaustion and end the "Wrath of God" before they re-invade. Naval superiority at this point is a matter of luck, but if you can get it then Gallipoli can be had through defection. Don't bother trying to fight the Ottoman army until at least the first sultan is dead.

[gigau]

Any other players care to give their input, their tips one other possible strategies ? or do everyone rely on this one ?

(actually quite interested as i'd like to play the Roman empire some day )

[Piconte]

ok here is what I remember from a previous game and from what I just tried:

On day 1, recruit an Admiral and take a loan so you can build up your army, move the slider one to navy, hoping to get this navy adviser, that gives your navy a morale bonus.
When ottomans declare war, move out your navy to block their passage. They will probably attack you as they have 4 ships more, but with your admiral you should be able to beat them
Then occupy Gallipolli and wait until it defects, after that white peace or concede defeat to the ottomans and start rebuilding the empire, but keep an eye on building up your navy. Once the ottomans loose their Blessings, you can start the counterattack.

Tthats pretty much all

[DDRJake]

I'll stick it on my list of things to break when 5.3 comes out. I'm doing Switzerland first though.

[Marshall Daub]

I'll try out both of these strategies. I really want to play as Byzantium and lead them back to greatness, but the DOW within a few days of starting the game and the seemingly endless hordes of Turks made it seem almost impossible. I figured stopping them at the straight was the best strategy but I didn't even think to recruit an admiral. Thanks!

[RexLegend]

I used block strait tactic as mentioned above, but even when Gallipoli defected, Ottomans weren't interested in peace at all. To add some challenge, I crossed one of two straits attacking Ottoman army there, causing riot and havoc amongst their ranks. Took many tries until their army size was smaller than armies of mine, attacked and wiped them out to last man. After 12 years of war, when Ottomans were 100% defeated, I took cored provinces as much as I could.

[Duke of Britain]

I used block strait tactic as mentioned above, but even when Gallipoli defected, Ottomans weren't interested in peace at all. To add some challenge, I crossed one of two straits attacking Ottoman army there, causing riot and havoc amongst their ranks. Took many tries until their army size was smaller than armies of mine, attacked and wiped them out to last man. After 12 years of war, when Ottomans were 100% defeated, I took cored provinces as much as I could.

IF you manage to build enough ships to keep the blockade whiout problems :
Attack your european neighbours.

It will give you something to do while you wait until the Ottoman ruler dies and they probably will get some atrittion as well, also, it will allow you to build up a bigger army to properly invade them...

[Hedgepig]

I gave up on trying to beat the Ottoman navy after a few tries, but it seems I may have to give it another shot. Playing dead left me fighting giant rebel stacks for a decade.

[Marshall Daub]

I've done the naval tactic and it has worked so far but my navy is starting to suffer, as I'm having huge naval battles with the Ottomans every 4-6 months. I've started building new galleys to replace the ones I've lost and have also taken Gallipoli. My plan now is to build up my army and take the fight to the Ottomans. I do have a question though about the navy - the icon says "5" which I thought meant five ships left. However, when I click on the formation, I see tons of galleys. So is this displaying ships or men left on the ships? Also, can damaged ships be repaired? I sent some back to port but they don't seem to be repairing.

[Hedgepig]

I do have a question though about the navy - the icon says "5" which I thought meant five ships left. However, when I click on the formation, I see tons of galleys. So is this displaying ships or men left on the ships?

I believe the number represents the number of ships that are fully repaired.

Also, can damaged ships be repaired? I sent some back to port but they don't seem to be repairing.

They're repaired at the end of the month, but only while in port. The amount they're repaired depends on how high your naval funding is.

[Piconte]

at full funding you get a 10% repair at the end of month, so while you blockade, move your ships into the port just before the end of the month and move them out again after that.
This way you will get the repair and the ottomans don't have enough time to cross over.

[Marshall Daub]

I was going to rotate ships in and out of port to get them repaired while keeping a presence in the strait, but I will try that tactic instead.

[gigau]

at full funding you get a 10% repair at the end of month, so while you blockade, move your ships into the port just before the end of the month and move them out again after that.
This way you will get the repair and the ottomans don't have enough time to cross over.

Looks like an exploit

[James_Manring]

Looks like an exploit

Aye, but the only way around it is to make ships repair daily. Which makes more sense to me. At 10% a month it could take 10 months to fully repair a ship that only took 7 to build. At 1% per day it would only take 99 days at most. That seems more realistic to me.

[oberstbrooksy]

Not going to lie, I have to edit the save game in order for me to get beyond the first 5 years of the game as Byzantium, I try to bring Serbia into an alliance but they always fall to Hungry.

[Marshall Daub]

I've played some more. I have a fully repaired navy of around a dozen galleys holding the Bosporus, so the Ottomans can't hang with me anymore and haven't even tried to venture into the straits. On the down side, the land war is ponderous. I've been building up my forces and I have about 16 regiments parked in Gallipoli, which defected. Tarnova took a white peace out of the war, so I lost their war score and the war subsidies they were giving me. The Ottomans have been scrambling around their own territories fighting small rebel stacks after their King died, but they still have at least two 16-27 regiment stacks roaming around.
I still can't hang with them in a pitched land battle; I lose pretty easily. I guess I need to use a general other than my ruler. I've been biding time hoping that WE would help but it's only around 6.5 for the Ottomans now and they still won't negotiate.

[Poputt]

You should just delete this thread. None of these tips work anymore. The naval battles have been fixed, you can't even raise a navy worthy of defeating the Ottomans' without going significantly over your force limit. None of your armies will have any morale, so good luck engaging an Ottoman army. Also, not just the Ottomans will become involved, they'll call in allies which will invade from the Aegean as you try to cover your strait. Did I mention that none of the armies/navies under your command will have any morale, and will break after losing 200 men and killing 3000? Also, your allies will not come your aid, no matter who they are. You will get spammed with Dishonored Call messages. Ottomans will raise stacks of over 50. That's bullshit, the Ottomans didn't have that manpower in 1600, let alone 1356. Also, they didn't hold Gallipoli in 1356, they only held it during the civil war. And the Byzantine navy was larger than the Ottomans' at that time by an order of magnitude. The only reason the Ottomans were able to get a foothold on the continent during the civil war was due to Alexios Apokaukos being an asshole.

tl;dr don't play as the ERE without cheats. You will die.

At least as of the 5.5 update.

[Matt714]

MEIOU attempts to be as historical as possible, it's hard to balance gameplay for certain factions as a result.

Is the 1359 Rise of Romanion start date any helpful for those that want to play them? It's been an alpha version for a while now.

[gigau]

You should just delete this thread. None of these tips work anymore. The naval battles have been fixed, you can't even raise a navy worthy of defeating the Ottomans' without going significantly over your force limit. None of your armies will have any morale, so good luck engaging an Ottoman army. Also, not just the Ottomans will become involved, they'll call in allies which will invade from the Aegean as you try to cover your strait. Did I mention that none of the armies/navies under your command will have any morale, and will break after losing 200 men and killing 3000? Also, your allies will not come your aid, no matter who they are. You will get spammed with Dishonored Call messages. Ottomans will raise stacks of over 50. That's bullshit, the Ottomans didn't have that manpower in 1600, let alone 1356. Also, they didn't hold Gallipoli in 1356, they only held it during the civil war. And the Byzantine navy was larger than the Ottomans' at that time by an order of magnitude. The only reason the Ottomans were able to get a foothold on the continent during the civil war was due to Alexios Apokaukos being an asshole.

tl;dr don't play as the ERE without cheats. You will die.

At least as of the 5.5 update.

Starting army and starting fleet aren't our doing : they are defined by game on start of scenario.

From what i know, Gallipoli was evacuated by the Greeks following an earthquake, swiftly occupied the city... and then gradually occupied the peninsula.