I tried playing Byzantium with the latest hotfix, on Ironman. After two attempts that failed miserably due to myself thinking that 30 galleys would be enough I was finally somewhat successful in my third. This time I took even more loans and spammed the crap out of galleys, to a point where I had 45 ships. With this, I declared war on the Ottomans who at the time were allied to Crimea, Tlemcen and the Timurid horde. I had a standing army of 12.000 and no allies willing to go to war with me (defensive pacts with Georgia and Wallachia).
So, the war commenced and I proceeded to intercept some of the smaller Ottoman fleets around Greece, then position the bulk of the fleet to block access to Greece. The Ottomans have fought Candar just prior to our war, which was very helpful as they had moved their entire army onto Anatolia. Athens was actually being very helpful with their 3.000 men and we soon managed to capture all of Greece, Albania and Bulgaria with Ottoman soldiers looking sadly across the strait. During all this time, Tlemcen continuously sent tiny transport fleets to land 1k armies one at a time onto Achea - annoying, but not dangerous.
Occupying all of Greece gave us 39% warscore in total and it was not going to get much better than that, so I took what I could grab and had the Ottomans return four Grecian provinces to me. It was either that OR Edirne (the wargoal). I was a little careless when declaring war, as only when negotiating for peace I realised that Edirne is in fact the Ottoman capital, and I was unable to claim it in combination with any other provinces. I chose the four other provinces instead, wanting as much of an economy boost (and manpower/force limit) as I could get in preparation for the inevitable next war. All in all, it felt like a success and a definite path to taking back all of Greece.
But what followed would spell my demise. I returned all troops home, prepared for the annexation of Athens and cut back all maintenance to finally return to a positive balance (automatic loans skyrocketed during the war). Byzantium was 1.300 gold in debt and had 40% inflation. Over the following decades I spent my time trying to get the money back, as I was getting close to the maximum amount of loans. Every time I hit 10 gold I would pay back one of the 9 gold loans plus interest which were more than 100 in numbers. For a very long time, nothing happened. I could not recruit any more troops, as that would have meant taking even more loans and the fleet had shrunk down to 29 galleys, 2 barques and 4 cogs following the skirmishes in the mediterranian sea during the war. I was feeling confident that this fleet would suffice for the next war - which would be fought to take Edirne, completely cutting the Ottomans off from land access to Greece. I also managed to sneak in an alliance with Hungary through flattery and the right rivals (Venice). But for many years to come, Byzantium would sit idly by, trying to pay back its debts.
Fast forward to almost 20 years later, the loan was down to 700 gold, but the inflation was up to 58% due to some loans having to be extended. Luckily, the interest was down enough for me to be earning 2.5 gold every month. Still not a lot, but a start.
Not wanting to continue this for another 40 years, I prepared the next war, which I wanted to get into before 1500. Maintenance back up, waiting for the Ottomans to get into a fight with someone and go for it, that was the plan. Naturally, it did not take them very long to get into a somewhat big war with the Mamluks (finally!) and Hungary was even willing to join in on my side, so I declared war for Edirne. Sadly for me, the Ottomans have used all this time to build their fleet back up to more than full strength. My 30-odd galleys guarding the strait were surprised by a fleet of almost 50 galleys plus a combination of barques and cogs. Needless to say, my fleet was annihilated despite their fantastic admiral. You can guess what happened next, the Ottomans finished their skirmishes with the Mamluks, came back with Timurid support and 50-doomstacked mine and the Hungarian armies in one go. Game over.
What do you do in this situation? Should I have declared war for something else right at the start? Should I not have waited so long to pay back loans?
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