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Hm... seems like I need to restart my game. Or at least go back to my "day 1 save".



Now, for some reason I can't pay tribute. I can concede defeat, but the "+" is greyed out, so I can't offer any. Might be because I play 5.2.

I had to bounce back and forth assaulting Trebizon when they take it until they got bored and started to offer terms.
 
So, finally I'm in a position to challenge the Ottomans: I own al Turkish minors, Georgia is a vassal, and I have a fleet of 11 against theirs of 8.

And now there allied to Algiers, which has an enormous fleet...
 
So, finally I'm in a position to challenge the Ottomans: I own al Turkish minors, Georgia is a vassal, and I have a fleet of 11 against theirs of 8.

And now there allied to Algiers, which has an enormous fleet...

Keep an eye out. Algiers will almost invariably end up on the wrong side of a war with Castille and friends. At that point there is a reasonable chance they tell the Ottos to get stuffed when you DoW, particularly if the war is going poorly.
 
I like just allying with Hungary Day One, watching until the Ottomans are bogged down with the Timurids and then having Hungary take care of Bosnia/Serbia while I seize their European provinces. It usually works fine for me.
 
Thanks for the advice, I did it, Destroyed the Ottomans in 2 wars, with Algiers offering a White Peace. Had to take on Morocco to, but Georgia played it's part very well.

So, now the next challenge: taking Greece from Milan. Not that big of a problem, on first sight: I can take them. But Austria, the Emperor, is their ally, and England defender of the faith. Any thought on that?

Also: I took Liberum Veto, which, in hindsight, I didn't need, but now I get spammed by requests from the nobles to grant them more. How do I cope with this: if I admit, will they be content? Or should I keep fighting them?
 
The solution for the early Byz game is galleys, galleys, cogs and more galleys until you have the biggest fleet in the med. They are super cheap in maintenance and they fight very good in the mediterranian also vs carracks so you can easily rule the mediterranian in like ten years. Starting in 1405 really helps aswell.
 
Forcelimits are not a set in stone limit :p

I remember getting 20 odd ships and still being easily able to function, this without gaining many or even any of my cores back.
 
I've always found vassalization and vassal consolidation to be helpful with Byzantium. For example, if you can get Bosnia, Serbia, and Montenegro as vassals, pick one of them. Annex the other two and sell the same-culture provinces to the third, because Greater Serbia is a much more potent vassal than Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro - and you only have to maintain relations with one instead of three. If you vassalize Wallachia and Moldavia, give the Romanian provinces of one to the other. Larger vassals are much more helpful against hordes, for example.

If you vassalize Georgia, encourage their expansion east. They get cores on horde lands through event just like you do, so watch for that. In my last BYZ game I handed them Astrakhan in addition to all their normal cores and they were able to fend off a weakened Golden Horde without any help from me. That made the game much more fun. I like to make Armenia a vassal and help them eat the Azerbijani provinces. Those are long-term projects, though.
 
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You can pretty much totally ignore naval force limits IF you keep yourself to galleys and cogs. Maintenance on them is seriously dirt cheap and even doubled or more is not a problem. Problem is that at some point you want/need to get to Big Ships since they own DW naval combat. And for THOSE you can't just ignore maintenance. So yeah, you can afford to ignore naval force limits, more or less - you just need to time your naval upgrade shortly after you get cash after getting your heartland back.