Byzantine Empire

[Azsouth]

So I guess my question is, is it even possible to play as them as a casual player? I played them in an earlier patch w/ the Skanderberg (?) strategy and that was a lot of fun but lately, (still only playing 1.22) I feel like I'm just smashing my head against a wall. I watched recent youtube video's and tried to emulate them by conquering Venice, getting an ally in Hungry (no matter what I do I can't get any other major nation like Austria or Poland) then vassalizing Bosnia and completely annexing Serbia but even then I was a bunch of loans in debt and still couldn't take on the Ottomans. Idk what to do next and it's pretty frustrating after spending tons of hours just trying to get out of the opening moves (the above scenario was the best result I'v had so far).

 

[Balkri]

Poland and the Mamluks are the key. If you can get Albania and Wallachia to buff your numbers and create a more solid block It will also help.

If you don't get the alliance with poland and the mamluks you don't have much to do (Ottoman AI can barelly deal with war in two fronts, the mamluks get them in Anatolia, Polan attack the Balkans and Lithuania usually deal with Crimea in this allaince).
Aragon could help, same with Hungary, but they can become junior parners of Castille and austria and eliminate your alliance.
Austria will either be to busy with the HRE or will not consider you a good ally and will ignore your plead for help.

The rest... well loans, keep your force limits up and full to look like a more dificult target.

Wait for cannons discovery/invention to make the initial strike. With some military points saved you can siege Edirme really fast using the barrage skill, same goes for the fort in the other side of the Hellespont.

Waiting for cannons will also help you to build the 10 favors required to call both Poland-lithuania and the Mamluks.

What else... the Purple Phoenix dlc helps a lot (mostly for the free points that the byzantine court events can give you)
And rise and repeat until you get Poland and the Mamluks alliance, in the current version of the game they are the best option to take down the ottomans as Byzantium

 

[Nunn45]

Been trying it myself, i find in the recent version that the Ottomans are a lot more aggressive against you which makes surviving to key points rather hard.

 

[Sopenas]

I have also tried Byzantine Empire a lot this patch, maybe 20 or more starts. I wanted to deal with ottomans as soon as possible, not wait 50 or more years for a first war It is actually very hard to do this patch.
My general strategy was ally what you can (few minors), attack Venice (no casus belli or tried to fabricate on them, but it takes one year and Venice gets buch of allies and trade league. No CB worked better for me). In those few cases where I got upper hand in a war, ottomans attacked me and kicked my butt It seems very hard to do this strategy, because ottomans generally like Venice and grants them access, so Venetian army can just come and siege my lands. In those rare cases where Venice does not get access from Ottomans, I generally do well until Ottomans attack
I have started to think that since in every game ottomans attack me first (not any other minor, bus always me - Byzantium ) maybe it is worth to just ally bunch of minors (no great powers want to ally me) and wait for ottomans attack. Have not tried it yet..

 

[--M--]

I can confirm this: I required also like 20 restarts until I pulled off a victory against the Ottomans. I initially tried the block-Ottomans-on-some-island-strategy, but in the end succeded with the Skanderbeg-and-the-Hungarian-army-strategy.
For a casual player it got really hard -- at least until you won the 1st war against the Ottomans.

 

[lststc315]

For Byzantium open against Otto:
There is a YouTuber BudgetMonk 119 has videos about Byzantium tactics against Otto 1.23. I used his tactics in my Byzantium compaign.
In short, AI will monthball forts (except capital) when you have no troops and fleet next to it in peace. So trick is: place all your troop in athen , transport one or two infra try to Constantinople at the end of month so they will arrive in the start of next month. Ally Albania to use Their GOD general and declare war. Move your troop to Macedonia and Izmit in first month. Since their garrison are 0 in first month. They will fall very soon. Then attach army to Albania and siege some other province to get war score. When you can make peace, take Edirne first( you have 2 forts and high score, so even you didn't siege Edirne you can take it in deal). Take whatever else as you can and the strait will be blocked. Then defeat them in the 2nd war.

just copy my post from other thread：
it still need luck. Make sure not engage ottoman by your own and go siege province. If you want fight, stay in mountain and attach to Albania. In my run I am lucky to even siege Edirne after I push all Otto army (two stacks separately) back to Anatolia. Skanderberg is indeed savior......

 

[holyvigil]

It's a lot tougher this patch due to the ottomans having no one else to declare on (haven't had a start yet where I'm not the first target), you not being able to rival the ottomans but they can rival you, and the Hungarians rivaling you 80% of the time.

 

[Brynjar]

Not sure what being a casual player has to do with it, or how you define casual, but it's usually possible to secure the alliances you need within an hour. It usually takes less than 5 minutes to figure out if it's worth continuing to try to secure alliance, or if it's better to restart. If you start with the babbling buffoon personality it's probably better to restart without even unpausing. If you can't be bothered to restart a few times to get some good allies, then no it's not possible unless you get lucky with the first few tries.

Edit: If you don't feel confident you'll be able to win the first war after securing the required alliances you can always save a backup you can roll back to if you don't want to go through the rng restart process again.

 

[Adamgerd]

Yeah, the purple phoenix DLC is helpful, haven't yet played Byzantium own the latest patch, but especially with the changes Poland and Mamluks are the keystones, though Wallachia and Hungary are helpful. Also, a dip rep advisor is very beneficial if you can get enough money for one and in many cases can be the difference between getting an alliance or not

 

[holyvigil]

Yeah, the purple phoenix DLC is helpful, haven't yet played Byzantium own the latest patch, but especially with the changes Poland and Mamluks are the keystones, though Wallachia and Hungary are helpful. Also, a dip rep advisor is very beneficial if you can get enough money for one and in many cases can be the difference between getting an alliance or not

Have you been able to ally Poland for the first war this patch? They always had too many diplomatic relations in previous patches as they only have one slot free so I haven't tried this patch.

 

[schondetta]

Luck based. A lot of roles you cant secure any big alliances .some you can .that's your first ticket. Actually had one game where Otto Dow Albania who called in not only venice but Aragon and France .Otto go rofl stomped and Albania was nice enough to return some of my cores.good times

 

[Adamgerd]

Luck based. A lot of roles you cant secure any big alliances .some you can .that's your first ticket. Actually had one game where Otto Dow Albania who called in not only venice but Aragon and France .Otto go rofl stomped and Albania was nice enough to return some of my cores.good times

Wow, that was very lucky. And indeed, Byzantium is very luck-based on which countries rival which and if you can secure at least one big alliance or not.

 

[Adamgerd]

Have you been able to ally Poland for the first war this patch? They always had too many diplomatic relations in previous patches as they only have one slot free so I haven't tried this patch.

I've managed it on previous patches, haven't yet played Byzantium on this pactch, but it's very luck based whether you can ally them from previous patches at least and probably even more so. Depends on whether it allies another country in the meantime. Though yeah, the recent removal of ottoman cores definitely made it harder

 

[Brynjar]

Have you been able to ally Poland for the first war this patch? They always had too many diplomatic relations in previous patches as they only have one slot free so I haven't tried this patch.

I have, but as most other stuff related to Byzantium starts it's very rng dependant.

 

[Adamgerd]

I have, but as most other stuff related to Byzantium starts it's very rng dependant.
View attachment 319270

Yeah. And you managed to get Walachia and Hungary too. Nice. I just tried my first 1.2.3 Byzantium run and indeed it's very rng. The ottomans invaded me in 1446, which basically stopped that run as you need some years to at least secure alliances

 

[ShahanShah]

Build your navy up over limit, ally hungary and wait until Ottomans declare war on rhodes, he will stick his entire army on rhodes, then dw and wreck his navy and laugh as his army sits stupidly on a island while you full siege him. If you're lucky the mamluks will declare war on him and wreck him too, and further destroy his navy.

 

[Lmora]

Started this game on vh tonight and i would definitely consider myself a casual player. This is the peace deal i'm considering atm. Kind of a humblebrag i guess?

"Strategy" involved Ottos taking the 'Conquer the last crusader bastion' mission where they fought a funny war against The Knights where they didn't even set a foot on Rhodes and only white peaced them and cyprus after taking some land from Venice who had guaranteed The Knights. I tried to snipe a good island/strait block during this war but didn't see a good enough chance. At one point The Turks got into some weird loop where they kept splitting their troops in Sugla in order to (i guess) go to Rhodes using their transports that sat in the Aegean Sea but the troops never moved. Just kept splitting and merging until the white peace.

Anyhow a bit after or during (can't remember) that war i secured Hungary as an ally and declared a reconquest on Selanik which had a mothballed fort. Few months after i declared The Mamluks did as well and we've been pounding the Ottos ever since.

My other ally was Trebizond who distracted Ottos on their side a bit and Wallachia who joined once i got 10 favors on them. Didnt probably even need them at this point anymore, but felt bad and invited them in on the fun.

On vh they have quite the navy superiority in the beginning so i didnt see a chance for an earlier wardec, though it might be entirely possible to someone more experienced. When i declared (1454) they had already fought a few naval battles with Venice and my 2 queued heavies were almost ready so i felt confident enough at least navally.

Of course i'm not entirely out of the bag yet but i'm hoping i can secure some more/better allies during the long truce we are gonna have and i bet The Mamluks are gonna gimp the Turks some in their war too.

So to conclude: a bit of luck so the Ottos don't attack you first, 2 savescums (damn you Hungary ai) and a few careful (lucky?) battles got me thus far at least.

 

[Orkonkel]

I started up a casual Brozantium game a few days ago. Allied Wallachia, Skanderbegia, Hungary, Karaman, and Trebizoid. Just called all to war at 1450 by promise of land and stomped the Ottomen by sheer numbers.

 

[tip001]

Out-tech Otto military and build like 4-6 galleys. Take Edrine asap and blockade. Wait for any distraction (other war far east) before for starting war.
You dont need allies but any on Anatolian side help with distraction. This used to work in 1.22 75% of time, assume it still holds.
Also dont watch BudgetMonk, he is distraction on its own and wont help your effort,

Good luck.

 

[schondetta]

Build your navy up over limit, ally hungary and wait until Ottomans declare war on rhodes, he will stick his entire army on rhodes, then dw and wreck his navy and laugh as his army sits stupidly on a island while you full siege him. If you're lucky the mamluks will declare war on him and wreck him too, and further destroy his navy.

you dont even need to go crazy with the boat FL. just build 2 heavies and and admiral and your set for the next 50 years.