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Legacy of Rome will be released next week, so this dev diary will be the last of this cycle. Doomdark is busy hammering away at the game, so this week the honor of writing it falls to me. As he said last time, we'll finish off with some of the unique decisions, events and mechanics we've added to the Byzantine Empire in the DLC. Note that the following stuff is for the DLC, not the free 1.07 patch.

Succession in Byzantium works the same as in the rest of Europe, except for one thing. Children born to an emperor during his reign will get the ”Born in the Purple” trait, which gives them a stronger succession claim than any older siblings born before their parents ascended the throne. If you, as emperor, still want your gifted firstborn son as your heir instead of his snotnosed younger brother who had the good fortune of being born during your reign, infanticide is not your only option. Granting the Despot honorary title to your firstborn will rank him the same as if he had the Purple trait, and given his seniority in age, he will become your heir again.

View attachment LoR_02_ERE_Events.jpg

Ambitious emperors will no doubt try to reclaim some of Rome's former glory by restoring the Empire's lost territory. If they or their imperial vassals hold certain provinces, they will have the opportunity to restore the Roman Empire. This decision essentially signifies that the West has no choice but to accept the Byzantines as the true heirs of Rome's legacy. You will get a new title (complete with a new flag, of course), and the rulers of a restored Rome always get the ”Augustus” trait, which gives a slight boost to vassal relations. If you wish it, there is a decision to move your capital to Rome, though the city scarcely compares to Constantinople in this era so you will likely have to invest a lot of gold and time to rebuild it.

Another major decision, of course, is to mend the Great Schism between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. You will need to reunite the Pentarchy (Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Rome) under Byzantine and Orthodox rule and accumulate a great deal of piety. When this decision is taken, Catholicism will become a heresy and Catholic rulers across Europe will have to decide whether to convert or not. A few will refuse, and Europe will likely be plagued by religious unrest for some time, but the first step has now been taken to unite Christendom under a single church.

View attachment LoR_01_ERE_Events.jpg

As you have probably seen, Byzantine rulers can elect to blind or castrate their prisoners. This can be an efficient way of permanently crippling your rivals without executing them outright. Have an obnoxious brother that covets your throne? If he is blinded or castrated, he will be removed from the imperial succession, and you will have one less pretender to worry about. Just don't expect him to like you much afterwards.

Castrated rivals aside, eunuchs played an important role at the Byzantine imperial court, and from time to time one of them will distinguish himself enough to be brought to your attention. This eunuch will be very loyal to your ruler and quite skilled in his chosen field. When other lords turn their backs on you, you will usually still be able to depend on his service, whether it's as a skilled general or a gifted spymaster.

Other events you can expect to see are triumphs being held when you emerge victorious from decisive wars, unruly Varangians in the capital, Hippodrome races and much more.

View attachment LoR_03_ERE_Events.jpg

Finally, let me stress that this does not mean that we have created a supercharged Byzantine Empire that will always go on to dominate Europe as the Romans did before them. Skilled and dedicated players will be able to stage a miraculous recovery and recreate the borders of the Roman Empire and maybe even hold it all together afterwards, but we have naturally taken care not to upset the balance of the game. Just wanted to put that out there. :)
 
And that while posting something that has been posted a million times before on these forums. This is probably the worst case of necromancy i have ever seen.
 
Man, i thought that it was a new dev diary for Sons of Abraham at first glance! O.O
 
We all were fooled...
 
Man, i thought that it was a new dev diary for Sons of Abraham at first glance! O.O
Same here, with the only small difference that I thought to myself, as I read the title: "Humm... Dev Diary 5? Shouldn't they have released the 4th...?" (I didn't even notice it was LoR and not SoA at first :D )
 
Did you seriously just necro'ed a thread more than a year old and responded to a post just as old ?

Also, use punctuation and capital letters.

Please.

I honeslty thought we'd seen the end of thread necromancy since EmperorBjorn was banned...
 
Excuse me for off-topic in a necro thread (double offense!) but where do you learn about bans, warnings etc.?

Here you go
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/faq.php?faq=new_faq_item#faq_faq_user_agreement
Off Topic only
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...*-OFF-TOPIC-FORUM-RULES-AND-REGULATIONS-*****

The only thing I would add is that the moderators allow an amount of latitude towards posting off topic, as long as the discussion is productive, entertaining, genuinely interesting and has some connection to the original subject.
 
You also neglect that Byzantium has to carve a bloody swath through the Levant and Egypt. If a resurgent Byzantium can -beat back- the Muslim hordes that trounced it thoroughly only three centuries ago, what hope does Catholic Europe have?
I completely agree and if you take a look into history books for most of its history Byzantium was the topmost power of Europe(most stable,best longterm economy,most dissiplined and well lead army) And if you look at it the europeans at that time were a shattered group so yes they could defeat them
 
I like how people were up in arms about formable empires but a Greek speaking guy sacking Rome and being recognized as the roman emperor while ending the schism because he controls some cities in the middle east is totally okay.
WEll technicaly The byzantines were the ERE and thus it makes sense that control of rome would give them that not that they werent romans already
 
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