1.8 Byzantium
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I seemed to have a lot of luck allying with the Hordes behind the Ottomans while vassalizing the Caucasian regions.
When Ottomans attack they go for the horde allowing you to siege down the provinces around. The Horde will at this time actually kill the Ottomans and you should be able to have troops ready in Georgia to move down and besiege the Anatolian Coast.
Once his navies are weakened you move in to finish him with yours and then its just waiting for him to get 20 war exhaustion and let the Greek Rebels reign with the new rebel system.
When Ottomans attack they go for the horde allowing you to siege down the provinces around. The Horde will at this time actually kill the Ottomans and you should be able to have troops ready in Georgia to move down and besiege the Anatolian Coast.
Once his navies are weakened you move in to finish him with yours and then its just waiting for him to get 20 war exhaustion and let the Greek Rebels reign with the new rebel system.
It formed in my game and it is HUGE. I kinda betrayed them thou and they lost some territory but they are still HUGE. They killed Crimea, Golden Horde, Teutons.... I have to ask you guys, is it standard to play on normal difficulty or Hard? Just asking, I'm playing Normal Ironman. (ppl will laugh I think)
I went the long way of allying Austria, getting West Balkans first, joining the HRE then kill Otto with the other emperor on my back.
Not too hard in my try since Austria also rivaled Venice (seem to be frequent), who also got its navy guttered by English when it joined HYW. I got Istria and then joined HRE after coring it.How did u join HRE? I never can do that
For all the people saying Byzantium is easy, play with aggressive AI and AI bonuses. That gives them +50% income, manpower, naval and land force limits. In my game, the Ottoman fleet was 120 ships strong thanks to naval ideas (base limit of around 60 and they could afford to go over it 2x), so holding the Bosphorus with your fleet is not realistic. Also aggressive expansion is much higher: declaring on Bosnia/Serbia without a CB and vasalizing or full-annexing gives -60 AE, making instant coalitions and an early alliance with Austria nearly impossible. It makes your first Ottoman was a Real Thing, since you have to deal with the full might of their armies.
My starting provinces+vassal Bosnia+Istria. I was planning on gaving Athens some of my lands but it seem not necessary
Oh, I wish I had thought of the HRE thing.
The Otto's can warn all they want, with cheese I took Albania, crafted a claim on Serbia (rival), force vassalized them, took over their war with Bosnia.
I play on Hard AI difficulty, with no bonuses and the Otto's just had a regular fleet by the time I got around to declaring on them (when Poland and Austria would join).
With or without cheese...
With a diplo rep advisor or a better relations over time advisor it's not hard to get an alliance with Austria and Poland before the Otto's can get to you, they will not join any war with those two on your side, certainly not to save Serbia.
Ya, I should have joined the HRE first, it would have made life a lot easier.
Hungary allying France for all time is not especially awesome. I ended up in a huge war against France with Austria (after the Inheritance) which we won, got France to 95%, every province had troops on it, they were toast, Hungary was not in that war. France had declared on Liege to start all of that. I think the AI would have been toast if I wasn't looting with a 5 stack of mercs, mostly split up, to reduce the French income, because damn Austria sucks at fighting the French doom stack.
So, even with France 982 ducats in debt, they would still join if I declared on Hungary, and I really don't want to do that war again because my family is on the French throne heh. At least it's not worth it for 3 Hungarian provinces that will be crap for 20 or 30 years.
The Otto's can warn all they want, with cheese I took Albania, crafted a claim on Serbia (rival), force vassalized them, took over their war with Bosnia.
I play on Hard AI difficulty, with no bonuses and the Otto's just had a regular fleet by the time I got around to declaring on them (when Poland and Austria would join).
With or without cheese...
With a diplo rep advisor or a better relations over time advisor it's not hard to get an alliance with Austria and Poland before the Otto's can get to you, they will not join any war with those two on your side, certainly not to save Serbia.
Ya, I should have joined the HRE first, it would have made life a lot easier.
Hungary allying France for all time is not especially awesome. I ended up in a huge war against France with Austria (after the Inheritance) which we won, got France to 95%, every province had troops on it, they were toast, Hungary was not in that war. France had declared on Liege to start all of that. I think the AI would have been toast if I wasn't looting with a 5 stack of mercs, mostly split up, to reduce the French income, because damn Austria sucks at fighting the French doom stack.
So, even with France 982 ducats in debt, they would still join if I declared on Hungary, and I really don't want to do that war again because my family is on the French throne heh. At least it's not worth it for 3 Hungarian provinces that will be crap for 20 or 30 years.
i tryed again many time iroman game,and without taking bosnia or serbia is almost impossible to find the right moment to attack ottomans,u need to grow up while waiting the right moment,the war they start are too random and if wait too many years they become too much big to be beaten even with austria/poland+lit/muscovy u can still lose the war.
Well, you should war with them as soon as you have Austria and or Poland/Lith on board. In the end, thanks for the ability to tell them what to do Bosnia and Serbia can boost your army to kill any Otto stacks on your side of the ocean, and then siege two provinces for you, so it's nice that way. On the other hand you can hide until Austria arrives. It should be entirely possible for you to gain a serious tech advantage over the Ottos. I haven't had glorious leaders, though I did manage to kill my first heir to get a better one, but focus military DO NOT TAKE A MIL IDEA, and get to the break points before them, declare when you have the advantage. I beat the poop out of the Ottos with a same sized stack and a slightly worse general because I had some canons and they didn't have any. The first canons are kind of crappy, but hey, it's extra fire from the back row, nothing to complain about.
More tactics as well, just nice.
It'll work, but jacking their navy to get freebies on everything your side of the strait is easier IMO, and relies on no AI ally other than to deter the Ottomans from attacking you super early ^_^.
Don't want to boast, just showing how you can blob Byzantium in Ironman
1000k Manpower maximum
500k troops
400 ships
Poland, and Austria have my dynasty on throne, but I had a huge bug when a war for PU turned into imperialistic and I couldn't force a union. Twice...
Venice is my vassal and will be annexed soon.
I'm tired of blobbing, after taking Portugal's Afrcan territories I will destroy take back Italian provinces. This will be my final blob.
I never played in HRE region before, how can I become a member of HRE as Byz?
1000k Manpower maximum
500k troops
400 ships
Poland, and Austria have my dynasty on throne, but I had a huge bug when a war for PU turned into imperialistic and I couldn't force a union. Twice...
Venice is my vassal and will be annexed soon.
I'm tired of blobbing, after taking Portugal's Afrcan territories I will destroy take back Italian provinces. This will be my final blob.
I never played in HRE region before, how can I become a member of HRE as Byz?
Don't want to boast, just showing how you can blob Byzantium in Ironman
1000k Manpower maximum
500k troops
400 ships
Poland, and Austria have my dynasty on throne, but I had a huge bug when a war for PU turned into imperialistic and I couldn't force a union. Twice...
Venice is my vassal and will be annexed soon.
I'm tired of blobbing, after taking Portugal's Afrcan territories I will destroy take back Italian provinces. This will be my final blob.
I never played in HRE region before, how can I become a member of HRE as Byz?
Nice - but opening strategy & idea groups is always useful to indicate how you made it.
Joining HRE needs high enough relations with Emperor and adding your Capital. The trick is relations with Emperor which will partially be determined by size (i.e. if you are too big you won't get in).
This is false, you can vassalize the electors, become emperor and add all your provinces that connect to any other HRE territory.
I really hope this doesn't happen to me, I have my family on the throne of France and Castile (who had the wedding fire). Allied to Castile and Austria I am looking for France to fail to produce a good heir, then Castile!
Standard for 1.8 strategy:
0. Send diplomat to Austria, build army and fleet, rival Venice and Genoa and hire +dip avisor
1. DoW Albania day and annex
2. Fabricate claims on Ragusa nad Bosnia
3. Dow-annex Ragusa
4. DoW-vassalize Bosnia and inherit war with Serbia
5. Vassalize Serbia
6. Marry-ally Austria
7. Improve relations - ally with Poland
8. Wait for turks to DoW any minor and attack them when HALF of their fleet in Marmar sea (they kinda patrol area). I got screwed, but 20 galleys survived. Then played hide-and-seek with their fleet to prevent their 40k army cross to Balkans.
9. Take cores back.
Ideas:
1. Humanism -- allowed me to accept Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian and Romanian cultures early on. Helped a lot.
2. Influence -- Ottos were very strong, and I dared not start taking their Asia Minor province, so I started conquering Balkans and take islands cores
3. Aristocratic ideas: that huge coring cost discouraged Hungary and overblobbed Bohemia from attacking me, and the event for calling aid helped me once.
4. Offensive
5. Defensive
6. Innovative for constant 90-100 army traditions mostly
7. Quantity -- more forcelimits
8. Will take diplomatic or quality just to crush France or Russia.
My best allies the whole game are Austria, Poland and Lithuania.
After taking Balkans I was still weak, so I turned my eye to Theodoro, vassalized them, crushed Crimea for Kaffa, vassalized Circassia, fed them all Caucasusian nations and then stomped Ottos.
Would vassalized electors vote for me, especially when they hate me for my aggressive expansion?
Should I be already in HRE for electors could vote for me?
Actually now all colonizers are very strong: I had to murder around 200k (!!!) Portugal's troops to before I could freely besiege their provinces. They have around 250 forcelimit and 900 naval, which means that their max army was around 400k and 1200 (!!!) ships. Take Castile first )))
So, this is a cheese strategy, which is fine, but if you don't do the back in time thing you can't get Albania.
I take Diplo first, almost all the time, even then I am +2 diplo relations. You can RM proactively then to get your family on the thrones of Europe. Look for any of the top countries to show up on the alert. I am constantly at +100 improved relations with Denmark/Austria/Poland/Lithuana/Muscovy/France/Sweden/Novgrarod (if they are doing well)/Castile/England and anyone else significant.
That way when they show up on the list, boom, marriage. Since I am constantly near 100 prestige with good score, my family moves to the front of the heir list and now I have a chance for PU or to claim thrones.
Have you had anything just outright flip to you? I think during war time there must be some event to protect Orthodox provinces. I got a core on Vidia, and Kaffa just flipped to me outright. You have to find some way around Austria to get Genoa, for me that came with an alliance to Venice, two birds with one stone there.
With and without cheese you should have more than enough money to not really need to worry about accepted cultures. I think it will help long term with large conquests to have humanism, but it would never be my first choice, my second choice is religious. Too many free points from missions to convert, good events and easy CBs and other bonuses. I will take a mil idea finally 3rd because I am just building armories like crazy and have had war taxes for every war, and am typically 19 years ahead of time on mil tech, but man, those break points are key.
Humanism...hmmm, maybe after another diplo choice. Did you Westernize?
Thanks for the advice, I will go for Castile, but then I get 3 relations...ouch. Yes, you can easily repair your relations with your vassals, they are no different than force vassalized, you get a big bonus to the voting because they are your vassal, keep in mind that the first vassal doesn't get the AE from taking the second, generally you only need two if you kick the crap out of Austria, but this is the tricky bit, you will need 3 if Austria is intact. You can get these vassals without fighting the Emperor easily enough, just guarantee strategically. Still, the best way is to declare on the Emperor and vassalize every elector they are allied to.
I hate strategies that revolve around the diplo adviser. It just feels dirty that some people will chain restart until their RNG is good.