The Great Byzantine Conquest of Rome, 1444-1821

[Adamgerd]

The Great Byzantine Conquest of Rome, 1444-1821

An EU4 World Conquest Narrative Style AAR With All DlC apart from Cossacks due to the favor system. as well as Mandate of Heaven, Third Rome and Conquest of Paradise due to not owning them at time of launch. Modded with Polish-Hungarian Historical Relationship, Purpura Regenerati, Better Byzantine Colors and Cleaner Peace Terms Mod

The Mighty Sultanate of Rom has appeared. The once powerful Byzantines are now reduced to their last holdings in Greece under threat from the Ottomans. The Crusade of Varna, the last hope of the Byzantines suffered a tremendous defeat in the fields of the land of Magyars. The Turks are at the gates of the last Byzantine Strongholds. The defeat of Byzantine seems imminent or is it?

Only a true roman general with masterful intelligence surpassing even Caesar and Alexander could stem the losses of Rome and reverse the losses suffered during the centuries before!

Only a true roman general the likes of which wasn't seen since the time of Caesar could stem the losses of Rome and reverse the losses suffered during the centuries before!

Welcome to my first ever AAR. I am playing as the Byzantine Empire and will try to Reform the Roman Empire. I am going to post up chapters weekly starting today, Saturday. I will post a chapter up each week regularly. As this is my first AAR, any criticism or feedback is helpful


Aims

Aims of this play-through:

• Ally Hungary and Poland [Completed]
  
  
• Crush any Ottoman threat [Partially Completed]
  
  
• Control directly all cores of the byzantine empire [Partially Completed]
  
  
• Restore the Pentarchy
  
  
• Crush the so called Holy Roman Empire
  
  
• Restore the Roman Empire

Introduction

“Thinking is the great enemy of perfection” - Constantine The Great

Our story starts in 1444. John VIII Palaiologos is on the throne as the roman emperor and is much more competent in this alternate timeline. The Crusade of Varna under Hungarian control was crushed in the fields of the ancient tribe of Magyars. The byzantines are scared of the Ottomans, but many accept it and many more would rather be under Ottoman rule than be helped by the traitorous venetians and Catholics who are planning a last crusade to help Byzantium as all Byzantines know better than to trust the traitorous Norman Catholics due to the 4th crusade. The Emperor, a competent administrator knows along with all Byzantines that the only chance Byzantine has, lies in allies. There are many strong allies nearby such as Hungary, Poland, Russia, Venice even the mamluks who all hate the ottomans. However it is complicated as due to being so small we can't afford a revolt, which would give Ottomans the opportunity to finally destroy us. We need to hope our emperor is strong enough to overcome all these obstacles and restore the Roman Empire of old! Restore glory to the Empire! Show the Holy Roman Empire, the real romans!

Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Byzantium

Edit 1: Edited DLC's

Edit 2: Edited vocabulary and Aims to signify completed aims and partially completed aims

Edit 3: Edited DLC's

 

[Tom D.]

Byzantine AARs seem to be rare here, so I am delighted that you started one. Ever since I did my first AAR as Byzantium too I got a soft spot for Byzantium and its challenging position, a phoenix ready to rise from the ashes. That's my long introduction to just say: consider me subbed .

 

[Adamgerd]

Chapter 1: The General Assembly of 11 November 1444

11 November 1444.

2 hours earlier...

I said to a courtier “Advisor, call an immediate general meeting of the Senate, which is required to be attended by all senators.”

30 minutes earlier...

I opened the meeting with a speech “I am Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Byzantium as you all know. I have called this meeting to discuss a pressing issue we face, which I think all of you know. We only have 8,000 troops and 15 ships currently, with no diplomatic allies and only our vassal Athens, which I’ll allow the ambassador from Athens to discuss.”


“Hello, I am the ambassador from Athens. I am here on behalf of Nerio II Acciaioli. Although we lost Thebes to your royal majesty’s heir, our government now realizes the folly of it’s way and so serves Byzantium well as a tributary state and wishes for a friendly relation. However we only have 3,000 troops and 5 ships and so in an offense, we can’t spare you a lot, although we are currently planning to build more troops to better help you” says the Athenian ambassador, Eugenio II.


“So as you all see, we have together only 12,000 troops and 20 ships. My spies in the ottoman government show that they have more than double our troops. They publicly announced us as rivals and we know that they dream of reclaiming the city of the world’s desires from us and possibly the rest of our territories. So my first orders are to build troops in all 3 provinces to max out the amount of troops, our economy can comfortably sustain without debt to help our eventual war against the ottomans. Alone however we still would not win the war” i ordered.

However, we do have a small chance to still win as our spies also tell us, that they have other enemies before us and estimates we have about 6 years, before the Ottomans attack us.” i then added.


A senator asks dumbly “How is this useful?” .


I reply “Well you see the ottomans have lots of rivals. We need to get some powerful allies to counter the ottoman threat and scare them from attacking us too early and who better to ally than rivals of our rival. After all they’re as much interested in a weakened ottoman empire as us..”


I saw most of the senate applauding my excellent plan if I say so

“I have a statement. I think we should declare the ottomans as our rivals and tell publicly our mission to reclaim Yanya” says a senator loudly. Oh i know him. He is the main supporter of the military ….


I see that the other senators reactions are mixed. Another senator says “What! If we do that, The ottomans will murder us. That’s insane”. Still another one said “And. It’s time for our cowardice to end.” Then others start shouting at the opposing side, until it looks like they’re about to fight. I intervened and shouted “Silence!” They kept ignoring me, so I shouted even louder “Silence! I am the Emperor and you will obey me. Understand? Understand?!” When they finally calmed down and said yes, I replied “While both sides have valid points. I agree that we should declare the ottomans as our rivals and put as our mission to reclaim Yanya.”

Suddenly there was a huge uproar as half the senate shouted at me “You will destroy Rome.”, “You are an idiot’, or other such insults. Enraged at how the senate dared to insult their god given sovereign, I called the guards, “Guards! Attention! Guards!”. Immediately guards surrounded me and fired warning gun shots into the roof to silence the senate. Scared of the shots, they immediately became quiet.


I shouted at them “Is this how you treat the Emperor?! The ottomans are at our gates and you argue among yourselves, like little children?!” Humbled, they apologised to me and I accepted the apologies, except for their ringleader, an arrogant politician who I recognised as he disagreed with me several times before and installed revolts, Cevil Ansari, ½ venetian, ¼ byzantine and ¼ muslim. I needed to make sure that people feared me enough to prevent revolts and so blinded and castrated him and then exiled him to make sure that people feared me enough to not revolt against me or later my beloved son and heir to the Roman Empire or rather what’s left of it.




So I publicly accept all apologies, but then added “However Cevil Ansari for repeated offenses against his sovereign ruler and due to several times installing revolts, along with that the army is threatening a revolt if he isn’t exiled, due to several incidents making his loyalty to Byzantium questionable, especially since he’s ½ venetian and ½ muslim. Do you remember the 4th crusade? Do you remember the betrayal by the venetian forces? They betrayed us once already, how do we know that they won’t betray us? How do we know he won’t betray us for his father who serves as a venetian general. Muslims are our enemies! The damm turkish heathens are our enemy and his grandfather is one of those false god heathens. How do we know he wasn’t sent to spy on us and won’t sell us out in return for a ducal title. After all, we all experienced his injustice and greed. Thereby to preserve the Byzantine Empire, I hereby sentence Civil Ansari to be castrated, blinded and then exiled out of the Byzantine Empire with all his wealth and subject to the pain of death, if he returns to the borders of the Byzantine Empire.” After this revelation of his background as previously only i and my spymaster knew of it, everyone supported his exile and booed him as he walked the walk of shame forever out of Byzantine affairs or so i thought at the time.


After that disruption, I went on to our next point on the agenda. I announced “As i mentioned earlier, I have decided that we need to gain allies among the rivals of the ottomans and to improve our diplomatic reputation, I have decided to give more influence and power to the postal Logothete in the government, since their policies are the most beneficial to my current plan, as their +1.00 diplomatic relation will be really helpful in my plan to help Byzantium grow. So congratulations to the members of the postal Logothete, you are now the ruling party of the government”

After some polite applause and very loud applause from the Postal Logothete, I announced that “Now, I will continue on to our ally policy, which i mentioned earlier in the meeting. As I said earlier, we should focus on allying our rival’s rivals. The possible allies are Wallachia, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Mamluks and Venice. Out of these possible allies, the people wouldn’t accept if we agreed with those treacherous Venetians and anyway I don’t trust them to not create a second latin empire. The Mamluks loyalty would be questionable as we shouldn\t trust them since we all know that all muslims are greedy bastards who would easily betray us for their false god, Allah. So that leaves out Wallachia, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Austria. So my first diplomatic order is to send well trained diplomats to compliment and butter up Poland, Hungary and Austria enough to allow us to later ally them”

After my last speech, most of the senate applauded and gave me a standing ovation in support of my policies. I then ended the session by announcing "Thank you all, for coming to the last general meeting of 1444 and I now call the General Meeting of 11th November 1444 at an end. You are dismissed." The people turn and leave. I then retire to my quarters to rest. Ahh, that was a tiring day. Hopefully not all days are that tiring, I think before going to bed.

 

[Tom D.]

11 November 1944

Small typo mistake there. It seems that everything is set for a grand campaign against the Ottomans to restore true and rightful Byzantine control over the Balkans. Hopefully all will go well with the new faction in power.

 

[Adamgerd]

Small typo mistake there. It seems that everything is set for a grand campaign against the Ottomans to restore true and rightful Byzantine control over the Balkans. Hopefully all will go well with the new faction in power.

Edited the title. I didn't even notice that. Thanks. I also hope all will go well, and this won't be the end of Civil Ansari. You might see him again. Oh and rule won't only be restored to the Byzantine. Let's just say, that there can only be one Roman Empire alive.

 

[stnylan]

Roma aereterna.

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

I'm in.

 

[Adamgerd]

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. Was sick. Also the narrative will soon pick up and any constructive criticism would be helpful in improving it. Hope you enjoy

Chapter 2: The Months of the Ottoman Threat

15 November 1444

7 AM

I was sleeping. When I the Emperor was rudely interrupted by a guard from the walls of the palace. I was about to question why did he leave his post at the palace and interrupt me, when he answered for me.


The guard, a junior guard, answered “Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome. Sorry for the interruption, but there’s a slavic wallachian messenger waiting at the gates, who says he has urgent news, which is for the eyes of the Emperor only.”


I promptly asked “And who are you?!”


The guard immediately snapped to attention and answred “Sir, My name is Pyramus Nassos. Sir!”


After deep thinking, I answered “Pyramus Nassos, Junior Guard of the Imperial Palace. I command you to bring the wwallachian messenger to the dining room along with yourself and two other members of the palace guard.”


He them promptly left and i changed into something more suitable for recieving guests. I then left to the dining room.


10 Minutes Later…

I arrived in the dining room, where I waited 5 minutes for the wallachian messenger to appear. True to his word, Pyramus Nassos brought the 2 members of the varangian guard for my safety in case the wallachian was an assasin. I asked the messenger some questions about the world outside, where i discovered that the ottomans were plannning to retake Epirus and then take Albania along with Byzantium as I already suspected, because of my spies in the ottoman court. I then asked the messenger what his purpose was and instead of answering he gave me a scroll, which I immediately opened.


The scroll said

Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome,

I hereby offer you an alliance against the ottoman threat on behalf of hte Wallachian govenrment and myself.

Signed,

Vlad II Draculesti, Voivode (Prince) of Wallachia

House of Basarab

I immediately agreed to the alliance, as we were both orthodox and so a minority in the christian world and also that he reffered to me by my true title as the King of Rome, not like those pesky Norman barbarians in Italy and Germany, which dare to call another country the Holy Roman Empire and call me the Byzantine Empire and so signed the treaty in purple ink and after sealing it with the royal seal sent the messenger with it to deliver it to the Voivode (Prince) of Wallachia.

16 November 1444

1 PM

Just as i ended eating my lunch, Pyramus Nassos again arrived. Seriously, why do these messengers have to keep interrupting me.

Pyramus Nasos said “Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome. Sorry for the interruption, but there’s a greek trebizondian messenger waiting at the gates, who says he has ur

gent news, which is for the eyes of the Emperor only.” Almost instinctively, I answered “Pyramus Nassos, Junior Guard of the Imperial Palace. I command you to do as you did last time.”



He them promptly left and I finished eating my meal.


10 Minutes Later…

I cleaned up the plates and sat in the chair, where I waited 5 minutes for the wallachian messenger to appear. True to his word again, Pyramus Nassos borught the 2 members of the varangian guard for my safety in case the trebizondian was an assassin. I asked the messenger what his purpose was and instead of answering he gave me a scroll, which I immediately opened.


The scroll said

Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome,

I hereby offer you an alliance against the ottoman and qara qoyunyu threat on behalf of the Trebizondian messenger, Government and myself.

Signed,

John IV Megas Kommenos, Emperor of Trebizond

House of Kommenos

(Sorry, forgot to screenshot this one)

I however was hesistant to the alliance, as although we were both orthodox and so a minority in the christian world and also that he reffered to me by my true title as the King of Rome, not like those pesky Norman barbarians in Italy and Germany, which dare to call another country the Holy Roman Empire and call me the Byzantine Empire, trebizond was not only threatened by the Ottomans, but the uncivilized hordes of Qara Qoyunlu. So I had him in my court, entertained and convinced him to stay for a bit over a month to give me time to decide, before he would leave and the alliace would be seen as rejected.


There were pro’s and con’s to both. On one hand their troops although weak could still distract the ottomans a bit and open up a second front. However on the other hand, I could be called to war against Qara Qoyunlu or the Ottomans before the Byzantine army was ready to defend roman land and they did betray ronme in leaving us during the tyranny of the Latin Empire and the 4th Crusade.


26 December 1444

Today on his last day as my guest, I decided at the end to sign the alliance in purple ink and after sealing it with the royal seal sent the messenger with it to deliver it to the Emperor of Trebizond. Oh how I regretted it later and how much it cost me. I was a fool, back then.


27 December 1444

Today another trebizondian ambassador came and I immediately agreed to a royal marriage with Basilisa Flavia, who is horrible at administrative jobs, but excellent at diplomatic jobs and decent at military jobs, smitten by her radiant beauty. We celebrated it lavishly with what little glory, the Byzantines still have on the 2 January 1445

28 December 1444

1:30 PM

Just as i ended eating my lunch, Pyramus Nassos again arrived. Seriously, why do these messengers have to keep interrupting me? I mean they always interrupt wme in bed or when I eat. Pyramus Nasos said “Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome. Sorry for the interruption, but there’s a gothic theodoran messenger waiting at the gates, who says he has urgent news, which is for the eyes of the Emperor only.” instinctively, I answered “Pyramus Nassos, Junior Guard of the Imperial Palace. I command you to do as you did last time and before that.” He them promptly left and I finished eating my meal.


6 minutes later...

I cleaned up the plates and sat in the chair, where I waited 5 minutes for the Theodorian messenger to appear. True to his word again, Pyramus Nassos borught the 2 members of the varangian guard for my safety in case the theodoran was an assassin. I asked the messenger what his purpose was and instead of answering he gave me a scroll, which I immediately opened.


The scroll said

Ave Emperor John VIII Palaiologos of Rome,

I hereby offer you an alliance against the Crimean Horde threat on behalf of the Theodoran Govenrment and myself.

Signed,

Alexios I, Prince of Theodoro

House of Gothia

I again was hesistant to the alliance, as although we were both orthodox and so a minority in the christian world and also that he reffered to me by my true title as the King of Rome, not like those pesky Norman barbarians in Italy and Germany, which dare to call another country the Holy Roman Empire and call me the Byzantine Empire, trebizond was not only threatened by the Ottomans, but the uncivilized hordes of Crimea.. There were pro’s and con’s to both. On one hand their troops although weak could still distract the ottomans a bit and open up a second front. However on the other hand, I could be called to war against Crimea or the Ottomans before the byzantines was ready to defend roman land. As before I also wondered about whether t was doing the right decision, as decided at the end to sign the alliance in purple ink and after sealing it with the royal seal sent the messenger with it to deliver it to the Emperor of Trebizond. Oh how I regretted all these alliances later.


11 March 1445

Today, I asked for a meeting with my steward and a full detial on our economy. He explained in a very detailed manner that we had achieved a budget surplus of 1.07 gold ducats at aprice of 0% military maintanenance. After a short discussion, we decided that our economy needed to be able to sustain at least 50% military maintanenance and so I tasked him with increasing our trade and income enough to sustain 50% military maintenance without loans by 1450.

 

[Tom D.]

When I the Empeorr

when they naswered for me

bring the wwallachian messenger

Nassos borught the

the byzanitneamry was

If you don't mind I pointed out some typo mistakes, in case you would want to correct it.

6 minutes later...

I cleaned up the plates and sat in the chair, where I waited 5 minutes for the wallachian messenger to appear.

and qara qoyunlu threat on behalf of the Trebizond Govenrment

You probably oversaw that in this case it should probably say Theodorian messenger & Government and Crimean threat instead of Qara Qoyunlu?

Also don't apologise for the delay, can't do much if you were sick . Definitely keep going.

 

[Adamgerd]

If you don't mind I pointed out some typo mistakes, in case you would want to correct it.



You probably oversaw that in this case it should probably say Theodorian messenger & Government and Crimean threat instead of Qara Qoyunlu?

Also don't apologise for the delay, can't do much if you were sick . Definitely keep going.

Thanks. That's what I get for forgetting to spell check

 

[stnylan]

Quite an amusing representation of the game messenger spam.

 

[Sir Dippingsauce]

Another one.
Another one.
Another one.

 

[Adamgerd]

As I have the IGCSE exams coming up, I need to study and so there will be a 1-2 week hiatus

 

[stnylan]

No worries, good luck in the exams

 

[Tom D.]

Don't worry, take all the time you need and good luck.

 

[Adamgerd]

Sorry for the bigger than expected delay, The exams take longer than expected and will finish on 5th June. However as I have only a couple per week, I'll try to release the chapters when I can, about 1 per week on Saturday. The schedule might be irregular though, so keep that in mind

 

[stnylan]

No worries

 

[guillec87]

subbed!!! Oh how I wish to know why the Basileos regreted all those alliances

 

[Tom D.]

Take all the time you need, exams go before everything else.

 

[Adamgerd]

subbed!!! Oh how I wish to know why the Basileos regreted all those alliances

Don't worry. You'll find out soon, indeed (in 2 or 3 chapters)

Spoiler: Hint

Ally's location