1.8 Byzantium

[Ranjid]

You don't need to rival Serbia. Just vassalize Wallachia and feed them some Turks and Serbs afterwards. They have decent NIs and will help you with further conquests. Annex-Vassalize Karaman or Dulkadir as well and feed them the other one. Since they won't have a Non-Accepted-Culture malus, they'll be converting those lands for you long before you get an actual foothold in Anatolia.

Also: Show those pesky venetians the boot.

 

[Malefidus]

You don't need to rival Serbia. Just vassalize Wallachia and feed them some Turks and Serbs afterwards. They have decent NIs and will help you with further conquests. Annex-Vassalize Karaman or Dulkadir as well and feed them the other one. Since they won't have a Non-Accepted-Culture malus, they'll be converting those lands for you long before you get an actual foothold in Anatolia.

Also: Show those pesky venetians the boot.

Just to add, I've expanded nicely but feeding Wallachia is now horrible due to their Increased Coring Cost. That now affects Diplo points when vassal-annexing so in all before I realized I gave them two provinces I've wasted a fair few MPs. Now Serbia with twice the base tax is going to take as long as Wallachia to annex!

 

[Ranjid]

Just to add, I've expanded nicely but feeding Wallachia is now horrible due to their Increased Coring Cost. That now affects Diplo points when vassal-annexing so in all before I realized I gave them two provinces I've wasted a fair few MPs. Now Serbia with twice the base tax is going to take as long as Wallachia to annex!

Diplo tech doesn't matter...at all. You could do well in the 19th century with Diplo Tech 10.

 

[orthezuma]

The galley strat is the best i believe, and is also what i used. Lowered maintenances, sent diplomats to Poland and Austria and just waited. When i had about 27-28 galleys Ottomans declared on Candar and i declared on them alone.

The trick seems to be not waiting too much. I was allied to Austria, Poland and Aragon(which was also allies of Venice so they kept them at bay) when i declared. None of them joined But if you can catch a small piece of Ottoman fleet on the day you declare war, the rest becomes no problem. If i remember correctly i had about 34-38% war score, took back my cores except Edirne and got 2 Bulgarian places to connect Constantinople.

After the first war the challange is basically over, though for following wars i wish i'd released minor Anatolian nations before fully taking European parts, it'd lower Ottoman force limit for easier land battles.

As a note, i took humanism+religious and it is insane! So much tolerance of own faith:happy:

 

[Raiwons]

The galley strat is the best i believe, and is also what i used. Lowered maintenances, sent diplomats to Poland and Austria and just waited. When i had about 27-28 galleys Ottomans declared on Candar and i declared on them alone.

The trick seems to be not waiting too much. I was allied to Austria, Poland and Aragon(which was also allies of Venice so they kept them at bay) when i declared. None of them joined But if you can catch a small piece of Ottoman fleet on the day you declare war, the rest becomes no problem. If i remember correctly i had about 34-38% war score, took back my cores except Edirne and got 2 Bulgarian places to connect Constantinople.

After the first war the challange is basically over, though for following wars i wish i'd released minor Anatolian nations before fully taking European parts, it'd lower Ottoman force limit for easier land battles.

As a note, i took humanism+religious and it is insane! So much tolerance of own faith:happy:

°that was before 1.8
now ottomans build fleet with 60 ships, and atleast 40 of them are gaalys, so your limit is about 40 galleys (since urr economy just cant sustain more and 41.ship alrdy costs about 27 gold), so this isnt rly a problem, since u can ally Aragon.
Then they declared war, thier fleet was destroyed pretty easy with aragon help, but then again, they beated 3 times bigger army with no problem - i had as ally aragon-naples, poland-lithuania-moldavia and hungary. And i also blocked marmora sea. They still crushed everything in thier path...
i think problem isnt byzantine nerfs, problem is ottoman buffs. Since they are now undestructable (as Russia).
and they nerfed hordes even more, so, basicly, there is no other nations as austria, poland, russia, ottomans, spain, france and great britain.

 

[Derikari]

You don't have to kill their entire fleet. Catch enough off guard when you declare and the Ottoman will be too scared to attack the straight, even if they outnumber you. Keep an eye out for naval landings though. Just don't leave the straight no matter how tempting the targets are, or they may decide they actually want to fight.

 

[Aethis]

I just did the galley strategy, started by making friends with Poland and Hungary then when the Ottomans went to war with the Mamlukes I declared and Poland (with Lithuania) joined me, Poland dealt with the Ottomans allies (Golden Horde and Crimea) whilst I carpet sieged their European provinces and blocked the strait.

I managed to get all of Greece (except Edirne) and a bit of Bulgaria to cut off the Ottomans from Europe and link my provinces. Then time is of the essence, I attacked Serbia and vassalised them, then attacked Bosnia and annexed them, selling provinces to Serbia. Finally I allied Austria and attacked Venice (who allied with Genoa and the Knights) so I got all my cores back plus Rhodes, Dalmatia and Crete.

Ottomans attacked me but I destroyed their navy and forced them to pay me loads of money. My next move will be to take Cyprus from the Mamluks and I have the mission to take Alexandria (which strangely doesn't include Alexandria).. which seems a strange mission to have before I have even taken back Anatolia...

 

[AndroidEmperor]

I cannot rest until Byzantium is revived

 

[hajutze]

Just tried it. To be more or less sure you'll survive you'll need a Dip rep adviser + Austria rivaling Venice.

Guarantee Poland and Austria.
Increase Relations
RM both
Ally Both

You don't need them for the war.

Make around 25 or so galleys, possition them on a small stack of turkish navy and DoW. After you kill some of the navy move to the Bosphorus and make 2 more ships in Achea and Morea (1 each) so the turks will keep their navy in there trying to "block" them.

You should be able to get all the cores (ofc. except Edirne) and 1-2 bulgarian provinces.


After that try to synch your attacks with their mameluks wars.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Just tried it. To be more or less sure you'll survive you'll need a Dip rep adviser + Austria rivaling Venice.

Guarantee Poland and Austria.
Increase Relations
RM both
Ally Both

You don't need them for the war.

Make around 25 or so galleys, possition them on a small stack of turkish navy and DoW. After you kill some of the navy move to the Bosphorus and make 2 more ships in Achea and Morea (1 each) so the turks will keep their navy in there trying to "block" them.

You should be able to get all the cores (ofc. except Edirne) and 1-2 bulgarian provinces.


After that try to synch your attacks with their mameluks wars.

In my experience, Aragon consistently rivals Venice, and even just Aragon + Serbia/Bosnia seems to make the Ottos go for someone like Candar first. You can of course pick up Austria a bit later once you're larger regardless of diprep advisor.

 

[hajutze]

I've had some bad experience with only Poland + Aragon ... the turks DoWed me, wiped Aragon's navy and since Poland wasn't in PU with Lithuania yet ... got wrecked reaaally fast.

 

[loveactually]

You don't have to kill their entire fleet. Catch enough off guard when you declare and the Ottoman will be too scared to attack the straight, even if they outnumber you. Keep an eye out for naval landings though. Just don't leave the straight no matter how tempting the targets are, or they may decide they actually want to fight.

this is correct.
I only had 20 or so galleys when I DOW'ed ottos.
I parked my fleets at Marmara and DOW'ed when their trade fleets came.
wiped their trade fleets, and their galleys were afraid to come.
after that, it was easy.

bulgaria, croatia, naples, transylvania, cyprus are my vassals

 

[hajutze]

TBH I find it more problematic to expand in Anatolya. Even when they are at war they recover super fast so it's quite hard to smash them .. properly. The best solution I've found is to leave 1 province in the balkans to them (Albania for example) and DoW them for it (conquest CB) every time so you can wrack some warscore even when the war goes badly.

 

[zodium]

TBH I find it more problematic to expand in Anatolya. Even when they are at war they recover super fast so it's quite hard to smash them .. properly. The best solution I've found is to leave 1 province in the balkans to them (Albania for example) and DoW them for it (conquest CB) every time so you can wrack some warscore even when the war goes badly.

You should do this anyway if you have Purple Phoenix, since those sweet sweet MPP events won't stop firing till you drive the Ottomans from the Balkans. So long as they have one province there, they'll keep firing!

 

[giant_sloth]

Beaten Turks in the first war without breaking a sweat AND spamming galleys. Allied Poland, Aragon and Serbia. They and their vassals swarmed the European part and now (1452) are sieging Anatolia. Switched off lucky nations though, consider them cheating. But what could Turks have done anyway? The first battle took place when everything in Europe was occupied.

 

[ChildeR]

TBH I find it more problematic to expand in Anatolya. Even when they are at war they recover super fast so it's quite hard to smash them .. properly. The best solution I've found is to leave 1 province in the balkans to them (Albania for example) and DoW them for it (conquest CB) every time so you can wrack some warscore even when the war goes badly.

Unless you are in a hurry (like gunning for WC or in a competitive MP), you can just turn your attention to the European side of the strait once you drive the Ottomans to Anatolia. After you take more land that side and tech up some, you will soon surpass the Ottomans with better troops and afford enough mercs.

BTW, an early game tip for those intending to expand north: take Serbia before you get all the Greek land (like Chios and the other islands), that way the BT will be a high enough percentage for Serbian to become an accepted culture like Bulgarian easily will (since you naturally take it early). Not an issue if you take Humanism as the first group, I suppose, but I did it in the wrong order and was so annoyed to have it just a couple of percent below 20% that I sold a cored province to a vassal.

 

[hajutze]

While helpful at the start after you take the levant you'll most likely lose the slavics anyway.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I've had some bad experience with only Poland + Aragon ... the turks DoWed me, wiped Aragon's navy and since Poland wasn't in PU with Lithuania yet ... got wrecked reaaally fast.

If you're their first war after Albania you're pretty well screwed regardless. Most of the time they don't do that though.

TBH I find it more problematic to expand in Anatolya. Even when they are at war they recover super fast so it's quite hard to smash them .. properly. The best solution I've found is to leave 1 province in the balkans to them (Albania for example) and DoW them for it (conquest CB) every time so you can wrack some warscore even when the war goes badly.

Strait bait. If Genoa will give them access you can bait them into attacking you there anyway and trap them. Alternatively you can just allow partial forces over the strait and then wipe them, best of course being to have them start shattering after a fight in Constantinople or Edirne THEN re-block it so they stop retreating and get wiped instantly.

If you're really struggling, just sit on Edirne spamming them WE while doing something else until they get a massive empire-wide super rebellion. That seems overkill to me though.

 

[hajutze]

I've never seen them having massive rebelions ... Not that I need to ... I prefer to take 4 provinces at most to reduce the chance of a huge turkish rebelion of my own. Occupying Albania for 1-2 years and then quickly occupying what I need works just fine .

 

[Malefidus]

Someone posted up a screenshot earlier in the thread but to reiterate. Once you've won the first war with the Ottomans and taken back your cores with parts of Bulgaria, try and catch Genoa in a war against Austria (happened plenty of times for me as a result of alliances) and take Chios back asap. This allows you to bait the entire Ottoman army onto Chios and then blockade the straight, stranding them there while you run wild in Anatolia.

Works like a charm.

I've now vassalized the Ottomans after releasing Karaman and Etirne then feeding them all back.

Next step will probably be completing Basileus, then ravaging the Mamlukes, restoring the Pentarchy and then onto Italy!