Yet Another Byzantine OP Thread (Rant)

[Hootieleece]

In my current game as Saxon England the year is 1420. (I'm trying to finish an entire campaign) I'm the 2nd or 3rd biggest Catholic power. Realm Size 240, army about 75000. Only the main island and Southern France. #1 HRE RS 530, Army 115000. All moslem or Mongol are about same size. Biggest Problem is Byzantine Superpower. Realm Size 830, Army 500,000. How does one compete with an Empire that Doesn't destabilize, has Absolute Authority from beginning and Tech advantage. No wonder the Turks,Mongols,etc AI doesn't attack. Even if everybody else in game ganged up on ERE they'd probably lose. Every game I've played the ERE has never fallen apart it is a monolithic Superpower. It is probably my biggest complaint about game..........Byzantium never falls in this sandbox. (I know Paradox for being Byzantine Fanboys, but this is ridiculous.)

If anyone from Paradox reads this please NERF the PURPLE BLOB. This is worse than the Big Blue Blob (France) of EU3 fame. End Rant

[Zedwardson]

I had the Byzantines fall apart before. And if it does get to be a silly superpower, there is a way to make sure it falls apart a bit (same with france, though you cannot do this with the HRE) is give it a generation of short term rulers with the assassination. (if they are getting game breaking for you, save and reload the failed attempts) and pretty soon you will have enough revolts that a few of them will stick.

[moldeh]

If you play to expand, you'll expand. You can have an 800 holding by the 1300s without trying too hard. People have conquered the whole damn world by the 1300s. It's not hard, you just need the press ducal claims and then make sure that you make the new dukes' kids are of your culture. That's it. It's really easy. Once you get big, the blobs are the only challenge you have left in the game. You'll learn to love them. If you wanna stay small, you cannot expect to beat them and you shouldn't, either.

[Bylandt]

I agree with the OP. The same goes for the HRE. Both the HRE and the ERE should be a lot weaker, a lot more fragile.

In 1081 the Normans of Sicily invaded(!) Byzantium. They destroyed the Byzantine army in Dyrrachium. They eventually had to withdraw part of their troops to face an attack by the German Emperor in southern Italy. The tiny Norman Kingdom was figthing the ERE and HRE at the same time and still managed to win most battles before it had to retreat from Byzantine territory.

Now imagine an Norman attempt to invade Byzantium in the game in 1081. And only failing because the HRE intervenes ...

[Moltke]

Byzantium doesn't need to be nerfed, strategic warfare in general needs to be improved. When any large power suffers a catastrophic defeat, there should be severe ramifications; be it HRE, England, or the Byzantine Empire. What you see now is they get wiped out, then just whip together a new army and go back to business.


What would singling out Byzantium accomplish? The game would still have all the same flaws except one power would be unrealistically handicapped.

[Meneth]

My mod makes Byzantium considerably weaker, in addition to various other balance changes. They'll still almost never collapse completely, but they tend to not expand much, and sometimes lose eastern Anatolia. It can be downloaded here.

Byzantium doesn't need to be nerfed, strategic warfare in general needs to be improved. When any large power suffers a catastrophic defeat, there should be severe ramifications; be it HRE, England, or the Byzantine Empire. What you see now is they get wiped out, then just whip together a new army and go back to business.


What would singling out Byzantium accomplish? The game would still have all the same flaws except one power would be unrealistically handicapped.

Byzantium itself is also too strong. There is very little internal tensions, especially during any defensive wars. Anything similar to Manzikert for example almost never happens.

[Alerias]

1.5 will allow you to join the independence wars of other nobles to help them gain their independence. This alone should make it much easier to weaken major empires. Byzantium was already weakened and its enemies strengthened in the last major patch, and I'd be wary of going too far in that direction.

Byzantium in 1066 was still a powerhouse, strongest realm in the land, heir of Rome. If you start post-Manzikert they dont do nearly as well. To me this suggests they are correctly modeled, but that catastrophic defeats are difficult to fully represent given how limited victories get to be under the current war goal system.

[Corporatejive]

In the 6 games I've played through to a reasonable point I've seen the ERE get severely weakened twice. A couple of shoddy emperors and the whole things collapses on itself.

[Rozmarzony]

If you start post-Manzikert they dont do nearly as well.

U joking? THEY ALWAYS EXPAND, NERF BYZ.
(Started in 1082, when Rum have all Anatolia.)
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wP.../s720/poli.jpg
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/57...1921CD9EA3557/
(Don't complain about Turks, in 1082 they started with a lot of grounds).

[InnocentIII]

In my current game as Saxon England the year is 1420. (I'm trying to finish an entire campaign) I'm the 2nd or 3rd biggest Catholic power. Realm Size 240, army about 75000. Only the main island and Southern France. #1 HRE RS 530, Army 115000. All moslem or Mongol are about same size. Biggest Problem is Byzantine Superpower. Realm Size 830, Army 500,000. How does one compete with an Empire that Doesn't destabilize, has Absolute Authority from beginning and Tech advantage. No wonder the Turks,Mongols,etc AI doesn't attack. Even if everybody else in game ganged up on ERE they'd probably lose. Every game I've played the ERE has never fallen apart it is a monolithic Superpower. It is probably my biggest complaint about game..........Byzantium never falls in this sandbox. (I know Paradox for being Byzantine Fanboys, but this is ridiculous.)

If anyone from Paradox reads this please NERF the PURPLE BLOB. This is worse than the Big Blue Blob (France) of EU3 fame. End Rant

This is far too calm to be a rant. My Denmark game features a Byzantium which ate the HRE. It is unstable enough to let me win a war every ten years, but it's still a bit much on the map. Oh, and Sweden at Lithuania and more. It looks like a close up of the old Burgundy at the start of EU map.