1.8 Byzantium

[perspixx]

I was exceedingly lucky in my 1.8 Byzantium game. My first attempt ended in a restart after Tunis showed up landing troops in Greece.

On my 2nd attempt, Tunis and Crimea refuse to join the Ottomans in the first war (Crimea was at war with GH and Tunis with Tlemcen).
Between wars: Vassaled Serbia (Hungary/Venice had already wiped out Bosnia)
Second war: Navy was able to take out Tunis's attempted landings, and Crimea couldn't get access from Lithuania. Got the rest of Bulgaria and land to release Mentese.
After 2nd war: Poland loses a war to Teutonic Order and has to cancel vassalization of Moldavia. Grabbed that right up.
~1560: lucked into a Personal Union with Austria.

After that it was just a matter of how much I felt like doing, which was just trying to control the Med. I did have to support Burgundy's independence from a P.U. with Spain five years before Spain annexed them... Burgundy did nothing against Spain in that war (could not get access from France) but when Qara Qoyunlu attacked me in the middle of that war, Burgundy marched their troops all the way to the Caspian Sea to kick QQ's butt for me.

Weird round for AI nations, though... Muscovy got converted into a Sultanate and was chased out of Europe entirely, surviving only in their Siberian frontier. Perm, Tver, Riga and Lithuania took control of that region.
http://i.imgur.com/zMm2Pqb.jpg

Glad to get the Byzantium thing out of my system, though.

 

[Pilot00]

What about idea sets guys?

I picked up religion as first.

I am thinking a military as second and something admin as third. I fear that gold mine in the Balkans might kill me with the inflation and whatnot. Fortunantly I avoided loans and mercs for now.

 

[FreeSoc]

What about idea sets guys?

I picked up religion as first.

I am thinking a military as second and something admin as third. I fear that gold mine in the Balkans might kill me with the inflation and whatnot. Fortunantly I avoided loans and mercs for now.

IIRC, I took Diplomatic (though if I did it again I'd probably take Trade or Influence), then Religious, then Offensive, then Defensive (I wasn't spending many MIL points, and it was fairly easy to keep military tradition at about 85, thus ensuring god-generals and god-troops), then Exploration (muh Byzantine East Indies). I considered Quantity, but with the absurdly high manpower you get from the entire Balkans and Anatolia, there's really no need. If you fancy a third MIL group, I'd probably recommend Quality, because it works well with the morale boost from Defensive and the Discipline boost from Offensive and your NIs.

And Kosovo really isn't a problem. You might occasionally have to spend ADM points to reduce inflation, but that's only if you don't have a Yearly Inflation Reduction advisor.

 

[Viperswhip]

I normally take Religious first to get to the +2 at least, you are going to need it, then Diplo, then Influence...if you aren't overrunning on Mil, if you are then you need to take Offensive. As Castile I don't take a Mil until 4th, but with Byz it's more touch and go. And yes, it's okay to be 16 years ahead on Mil, as long as you are reaching breakpoints first it's way more important than an Mil idea in my opinion.

 

[Pilot00]

I think my diplo is going to lag a lot. I am having three vassals and feeding them. Did you knew that you can sell Ottoman provinces to Bulgaria if you have claims? Fun.

Now to wait around a decade for the AE and the coalitions to settle down.

Did anybody noticed that the AI is bunkrupting itself too much in this patch? Both Poland and Muscovy are in the - right now.

 

[hitchens]

I think my diplo is going to lag a lot. I am having three vassals and feeding them. Did you knew that you can sell Ottoman provinces to Bulgaria if you have claims? Fun.

Now to wait around a decade for the AE and the coalitions to settle down.

Did anybody noticed that the AI is bunkrupting itself too much in this patch? Both Poland and Muscovy are in the - right now.

In my Korea game, ming is more than 4000 in debt.

 

[Viperswhip]

I think my diplo is going to lag a lot. I am having three vassals and feeding them. Did you knew that you can sell Ottoman provinces to Bulgaria if you have claims? Fun.

Now to wait around a decade for the AE and the coalitions to settle down.

Did anybody noticed that the AI is bunkrupting itself too much in this patch? Both Poland and Muscovy are in the - right now.

You don't have to sell the provinces I think, you can transfer occupation during a war (if they are your vassal or ally) and give them provinces in peace deals, saves a diplo trip, I am unsure who the AE goes to.

I tried to bankrupt France by sitting on that war for a very long time, but alas, I haven't managed to actually bankrupt anyone yet. It used to happen to the Ottos a lot because you would reduce their income while their whole army still existed, it happens now if you trap them on Chios.

 

[Pilot00]

You don't have to sell the provinces I think, you can transfer occupation during a war (if they are your vassal or ally) and give them provinces in peace deals, saves a diplo trip, I am unsure who the AE goes to.

I tried to bankrupt France by sitting on that war for a very long time, but alas, I haven't managed to actually bankrupt anyone yet. It used to happen to the Ottos a lot because you would reduce their income while their whole army still existed, it happens now if you trap them on Chios.

Yes I figured as much but I had sold some like this. Anyways vassals fabricate claims on everything now which makes me a happy overlord. Too bad income is bugged. The AE goes to the one who took the territory. I was able to vassal feed a couple of times with coalitions forming against me but I was just taking bites out of claims/cores for my vassals so no AE for me, or diplo cost.

On the bankruptcy matter: I dont know how they did it but at a time half of Europe had negative income. They seem to have pulled it through now, everybody except the Poles who are disintegrating it seems.

In my Korea game, ming is more than 4000 in debt.

In this game I am running right now, they are first in score.

Also seems the reformation hits a bit more....accurately now, either that or it happened like that in my game.

 

[Viperswhip]

Well, to transfer the occupation and give a province to a vassal, nobody has to have a claim, I have done that with all the Irish provinces to Connacht, they sadly didn't make any claims, but I could them all over time in wars with England.

 

[JohnnyAlpha]

It's been fun keeping to modest historical borders (just the Greek provinces) and using Influence ideas to recreate the Byzantine Commonwealth (the network of vassals, buffer states, client states, marches etc). Great roleplaying.
But then I had this itch to see purple in North America. It went downhill from there...

BTW... It seems that Ottomans will no longer move their capital from Edirne if it is their last province on the European side. Makes consolidating the Balkans really hard/annoying! Any thoughts?

 

[FreeSoc]

It's been fun keeping to modest historical borders (just the Greek provinces) and using Influence ideas to recreate the Byzantine Commonwealth (the network of vassals, buffer states, client states, marches etc). Great roleplaying.
But then I had this itch to see purple in North America. It went downhill from there...

BTW... It seems that Ottomans will no longer move their capital from Edirne if it is their last province on the European side. Makes consolidating the Balkans really hard/annoying! Any thoughts?

If you take the three provinces on the other side of the Marmara (wait for the Ottomans to get into a war with the Mamluks, then attack), then they'll move their capital.

 

[Viperswhip]

If you take the three provinces on the other side of the Marmara (wait for the Ottomans to get into a war with the Mamluks, then attack), then they'll move their capital.

You only need to take one, I forget what it's called now, but only the one with the red line connecting to it and of course the other provinces around it on your side.

 

[Zenith Darksea]

I decided to try a new Byzantium game in 1.8 for the first time. The loss of cores does make things a little more complicated (and I'm probably going to mod it a bit, since it doesn't make any sense when you consider EU4's own game mechanics), but other than that I was able to do very well with the ordinary galley-spam strategy, no restarts. I got kind of lucky with the Ottomans' priorities, but honestly that didn't change much anyway.

It was quite straightforward - spend the first few years spamming galleys until you have at least 25. The Ottomans have a lot of ships, but they don't tend to keep them in one fleet, meaning that you can take them out piecemeal. Once you've got your ships, wait for the Ottoman armies to cross into Anatolia, and wait for an Ottoman fleet to enter the Sea of Marmara. Then declare a reconquest war and engage that fleet. You'll have all your ships against only about half of theirs, meaning that you should obliterate them rapidly. Then, being sure to always leave at least one ship in the Sea of Marmara (and keep an eye on it so that it doesn't get jumped), send your main fleet out to wipe out the rest of the enemy fleets.

Crimea and Tunis will certainly get involved, but that's no problem. You'll have more than enough naval superiority to destroy their fleets, as long as you manage things properly, and their armies aren't a threat. Neither the Ottomans nor the Crimeans can get troops to you around the Black Sea anymore as Lithuania and Poland/Moldavia won't give them access. The Tunisians will mostly likely land stacks of 6 or 7 regiments at a time; you can either sink them as they land or stack-wipe them with superior forces after they land.

All in all it takes a few loans to get it done, but I actually found it easier in 1.8 than before.

 

[darthfanta]

I decided to try a new Byzantium game in 1.8 for the first time. The loss of cores does make things a little more complicated (and I'm probably going to mod it a bit, since it doesn't make any sense when you consider EU4's own game mechanics), but other than that I was able to do very well with the ordinary galley-spam strategy, no restarts. I got kind of lucky with the Ottomans' priorities, but honestly that didn't change much anyway.

It was quite straightforward - spend the first few years spamming galleys until you have at least 25. The Ottomans have a lot of ships, but they don't tend to keep them in one fleet, meaning that you can take them out piecemeal. Once you've got your ships, wait for the Ottoman armies to cross into Anatolia, and wait for an Ottoman fleet to enter the Sea of Marmara. Then declare a reconquest war and engage that fleet. You'll have all your ships against only about half of theirs, meaning that you should obliterate them rapidly. Then, being sure to always leave at least one ship in the Sea of Marmara (and keep an eye on it so that it doesn't get jumped), send your main fleet out to wipe out the rest of the enemy fleets.

Crimea and Tunis will certainly get involved, but that's no problem. You'll have more than enough naval superiority to destroy their fleets, as long as you manage things properly, and their armies aren't a threat. Neither the Ottomans nor the Crimeans can get troops to you around the Black Sea anymore as Lithuania and Poland/Moldavia won't give them access. The Tunisians will mostly likely land stacks of 6 or 7 regiments at a time; you can either sink them as they land or stack-wipe them with superior forces after they land.

All in all it takes a few loans to get it done, but I actually found it easier in 1.8 than before.

In my game, the damned Ottomans and the Golden horde still managed to get military access into Moldavia but luckily,they were fighting other wars as well,so they were only able to send small forces into Europe.

 

[Artyom87]

i think a strategy which relies on initial luck and replay is retarded

hence I just did a venice-byzzie on ironman/ai hard/ai bonus

on the second try it really did work as by 1650 I was in a very good shape, controlling all what the ottomans controlled+italy, still I have to retake crime though which the russians took from me in a war

the venice then byzantines is very fun and FAIR. Starting as the byzantines themselves is all about save scumming and having low difficulty and doing constant re-runs. The hell kind of game is that

No, you want to grow big, have your enemies big, and have a challenge. Just do veice-byzantines

(you vassalize byzzies asap, return their cores from ottomans asap, then wait and annex all the greek vassals then choose capitol in greek land and you get decision to culture shift and then you get a religious rebel to get at least to 0% and you switch to orthodoxy if your religion is at least 50% ortho and then you should get decision to switch to byzzies. If you dont get byzzies decision you switch capitol to byzantium)

 

[JohnnyAlpha]

Starting as the byzantines themselves is all about save scumming and having low difficulty and doing constant re-runs. The hell kind of game is that

I'd say 99% of ppl here are playing ironman, which, if true, would make everything you said wrong.

 

[zodium]

i think a strategy which relies on initial luck and replay is retarded

hence I just did a venice-byzzie on ironman/ai hard/ai bonus

on the second try it really did work as by 1650 I was in a very good shape, controlling all what the ottomans controlled+italy, still I have to retake crime though which the russians took from me in a war

the venice then byzantines is very fun and FAIR. Starting as the byzantines themselves is all about save scumming and having low difficulty and doing constant re-runs. The hell kind of game is that

No, you want to grow big, have your enemies big, and have a challenge. Just do veice-byzantines

(you vassalize byzzies asap, return their cores from ottomans asap, then wait and annex all the greek vassals then choose capitol in greek land and you get decision to culture shift and then you get a religious rebel to get at least to 0% and you switch to orthodoxy if your religion is at least 50% ortho and then you should get decision to switch to byzzies. If you dont get byzzies decision you switch capitol to byzantium)

People say this every patch, and somehow I still manage to pull it off every patch. Maybe I should play the lottery ...

 

[Pilot00]

BTW... It seems that Ottomans will no longer move their capital from Edirne if it is their last province on the European side. Makes consolidating the Balkans really hard/annoying! Any thoughts?

They did move it after completely surrounded but not before a couple years passed.

All in all it takes a few loans to get it done, but I actually found it easier in 1.8 than before.

Well I managed so far without loans and I have significant gains and several upgrade. The thing that slows me down is manpower. I believe insted of offense I might have gone quantity, but then again I dont like that for the late game.

i think a strategy which relies on initial luck and replay is retarded

hence I just did a venice-byzzie on ironman/ai hard/ai bonus

on the second try it really did work as by 1650 I was in a very good shape, controlling all what the ottomans controlled+italy, still I have to retake crime though which the russians took from me in a war

the venice then byzantines is very fun and FAIR. Starting as the byzantines themselves is all about save scumming and having low difficulty and doing constant re-runs. The hell kind of game is that

No, you want to grow big, have your enemies big, and have a challenge. Just do veice-byzantines

(you vassalize byzzies asap, return their cores from ottomans asap, then wait and annex all the greek vassals then choose capitol in greek land and you get decision to culture shift and then you get a religious rebel to get at least to 0% and you switch to orthodoxy if your religion is at least 50% ortho and then you should get decision to switch to byzzies. If you dont get byzzies decision you switch capitol to byzantium)

I certainly don't play Iron man for a simple reason: I am absent minded and tend to ruin my games that way. And I play on normal difficulty without bonuses of any kind (both me and AI) but I have seen monstrous byz empires in hard and ironman that would put my best run to shame.

 

[hajutze]

i think a strategy which relies on initial luck and replay is retarded

hence I just did a venice-byzzie on ironman/ai hard/ai bonus

No, you want to grow big, have your enemies big, and have a challenge. Just do veice-byzantines

Everything you've said is ... bullshit. All you need is a statesman and even without him you can survive, with no restarting nor luck.

There is ONLY 1 variable - not to get attacked right after Albania. After that it's a peace of cake.

 

[ChildeR]

i think a strategy which relies on initial luck and replay is retarded
[...]
Starting as the byzantines themselves is all about save scumming and having low difficulty and doing constant re-runs. The hell kind of game is that

I don't think it relies on much luck at all. The luckier you get the faster you can expand, but unless you make a mistake you need to get seriously unlucky to lose, and that's possible with most starts.

I've tried it thrice in 1.8 and all were successful. Only played one beyond the initial war with the Ottomans, but after that there isn't much risk.