Byzantine Start Guide [1.14] Cossacks [Ironman]

[Extraordinarii]

BYZANTINE START GUIDE. EUIV COSSACKS.

Hi folks, this is my latest Europa Universalis IV guide - defeating the Ottoman Empire and restoring all your Byzantine cores. This is my second Byzantine guide as with the passage of time my previous tutorial became redundant. I will hang about in the thread if you have any questions. Be sure to check out my other recently released guide; Albania Start Guide (only a week old).

ALBANIA START GUIDE. EUIV COSSACKS.

 

[Politic Revolutionnaire]

Text version please

 

[lymond]

nice guide video, thank you

 

[Liquid Ghost]

I'm already in the middle of a successful Byzantine start which required a lot of luck, I wish I had seen your video before starting it though, your strategy looks reliable.

 

[lymond]

Having watched the video fully, plus rewatched parts to grasp points, I can say it is a nicely detailed guide...no text needed here really. Although, as with any attempt, there is still a good deal of luck involved. I had a run going where the war got started off in somewhat similar fashion, and maybe even in better shape than in Oscar's guide, but Venice used trade war CB on me almost right after winning the first major battle against Ottos. Hungary joined that war and split forces which made it impossible. Too bad as I could of handled the junk Venice sent over.

That Venice DOW really iced for me how screwed up the fort system is, by the way. Forces were stuck in Yanya after that which appears to be due to the Corfu fort which is just ridiculous. I could no longer move to occupied territory in surrounding land.

 

[Keioel]

That is an excellent easy to follow guide to secure your cores and put yourself on a path to victory. BTW you can make peace deals now that will take you into negative diplomatic points.

 

[Oldpara]

Excellent video. Thanks for the effort.

 

[lymond]

Well, tried several times now and just can't seem to make things line up correctly. Here is kinda a brief run down of what I encountered in various game somewhat in order of how I played them:

1) sold ships to soon and forgot impact on making alliances...never could ally Hungary ..no go

2) one I describe above. Otto'd Dow'd me (i think their 3rd war) and Wall and Hungary joined. Pretty good start with big battle in Selenik that we won, but then Venice Dow'd. (Note to self - do not embargo Venice) I felt fairly confidant I would have won that war if not for Venice though

3) Probably one of the most bizarre things i've see and really a bug IMO. Ottos DOW QQ first months into the game. Well those two don't have borders or access at that point. War went on for years with Otto stacks sitting in Greece and QQ not getting through AQ/Treb, ofc. So that was 5 years there of nothing, so timings were all off.

4) Got my alliances setup..some decent events.. Ottos got in an odd war with Dulkadir while they were at war with Mams, who then vassaled them and dragged them into the Otto war. AQ in separate war with Mams. Actually would have been a great time to try an offensive war, as Otto manpower dried out, but this crazy favors system prevents that early. Then Otto's monarch dies leaving at least 10 year regency. Decided to keep going and try to take advantage of a war Venice was dragged into due to French alliance. I would take Naxos and Athens claim on Negropointe, while France would dishonor. War started great. Sieged they stuff. Ticking war stuff. After couple of years, French war ends and Venice is somehow immediately able to make new allies AND drag them into the war..complete BS. And Hungary drags me into a war with Poland, who just so happens to time moving a stack down just as I'm to wipe a stack of Knights. *poof* and Poland sits on Morea fort with tiny Knights stack and helps the Knights take Morea. It would have been so easy to win that war but that Venice ally BS was crap...the war was already going on 3 years.
(oh..and Ottos allied Aragon of all things in that game..ha..but I could see IW coming in near future..still. Aragon/Ottos!? you gotta be kidding me)

a few other no goes as well

Point being, and absolutely not intended as a slight to the guide from oscar, but there is still a great deal of luck involved, so expect to play this one over and over until things line up. I will keep trying.

I'm curious how many runs oscar had at the guide before things worked out

 

[bzflater]

BYZANTINE START GUIDE. EUIV COSSACKS.

Hi folks, this is my latest Europa Universalis IV guide - defeating the Ottoman Empire and restoring all your Byzantine cores. This is my second Byzantine guide as with the passage of time my previous tutorial became redundant. I will hang about in the thread if you have any questions. Be sure to check out my other recently released guide; Albania Start Guide (only a week old).

ALBANIA START GUIDE. EUIV COSSACKS.

You can go into negative dip points when signing peace deals now. You didn't have to wait all that time before signing peace.

 

[Grand Historian]

Very good video from what I could watch, but unfortunately I don't really have the time to watch for 45 minutes and then rewind to catch certain points. Since most people can read faster, would a written version be possible?

 

[Moscovian]

For some reason I can't make it work... the Ottomans simply delay their attack and focus on the Turkish minors, building alliances left and right (I've seen them allying Bohemia, which is the perfect trainwreck for both Poland and Hungary. and naval powers such as Tunis and Tlemcen). Of course this adds up with them getting to tech 4 and 5 way faster than anyone else, trouncing the enemy.

 

[Extraordinarii]

Well, tried several times now and just can't seem to make things line up correctly. Here is kinda a brief run down of what I encountered in various game somewhat in order of how I played them:

1) sold ships to soon and forgot impact on making alliances...never could ally Hungary ..no go

2) one I describe above. Otto'd Dow'd me (i think their 3rd war) and Wall and Hungary joined. Pretty good start with big battle in Selenik that we won, but then Venice Dow'd. (Note to self - do not embargo Venice) I felt fairly confidant I would have won that war if not for Venice though

3) Probably one of the most bizarre things i've see and really a bug IMO. Ottos DOW QQ first months into the game. Well those two don't have borders or access at that point. War went on for years with Otto stacks sitting in Greece and QQ not getting through AQ/Treb, ofc. So that was 5 years there of nothing, so timings were all off.

4) Got my alliances setup..some decent events.. Ottos got in an odd war with Dulkadir while they were at war with Mams, who then vassaled them and dragged them into the Otto war. AQ in separate war with Mams. Actually would have been a great time to try an offensive war, as Otto manpower dried out, but this crazy favors system prevents that early. Then Otto's monarch dies leaving at least 10 year regency. Decided to keep going and try to take advantage of a war Venice was dragged into due to French alliance. I would take Naxos and Athens claim on Negropointe, while France would dishonor. War started great. Sieged they stuff. Ticking war stuff. After couple of years, French war ends and Venice is somehow immediately able to make new allies AND drag them into the war..complete BS. And Hungary drags me into a war with Poland, who just so happens to time moving a stack down just as I'm to wipe a stack of Knights. *poof* and Poland sits on Morea fort with tiny Knights stack and helps the Knights take Morea. It would have been so easy to win that war but that Venice ally BS was crap...the war was already going on 3 years.
(oh..and Ottos allied Aragon of all things in that game..ha..but I could see IW coming in near future..still. Aragon/Ottos!? you gotta be kidding me)

a few other no goes as well

Point being, and absolutely not intended as a slight to the guide from oscar, but there is still a great deal of luck involved, so expect to play this one over and over until things line up. I will keep trying.

I'm curious how many runs oscar had at the guide before things worked out

*Yup, I do everything in the guide for a reason, including selling of my fleet only after allying with Hungary. Should have explained that at the time but forgot.
*I mention in the video not to embargo your rivals, because they will use that CB against you. Sadly i failed to explain why, but there is just to much to talk about and a 40minute video is already pretty long.
*Sometimes the Ottomans will declare war on you within the first year, you can help prevent that by going over your foreclimits early and keeping maintenance high. Sometimes there is nothing you can do and you will have to restart.
*And as your final point, luck is involved and you are right. I should mention that I have produced alot of guides, and it often takes many restarts to perfecat a strategy. But using this guide to the letter you should be able to win often. I have repeated this guide at least once as i do with all my videos. Also the more you praticse the better you get at it. I got so good at winning the 100 years war back in the day that I could win about 75% of the time even as the war became harder, Practice makes perfect!

 

[Extraordinarii]

Very good video from what I could watch, but unfortunately I don't really have the time to watch for 45 minutes and then rewind to catch certain points. Since most people can read faster, would a written version be possible?

Sadly I'm operating under time constraints and am already working on future guides. I would rather focus on those that revist these videos in text form. However, if you check some of the reddit posts accompanying these videos I believe there have been numerous attempts to summarise in text form as well as plenty of discussion, some of which I responded to myself.

 

[sterjs]

Nice guides. One trick you might not be aware of(not mentioned in teutonic order guide when you were going for austrian alliance): building mercs and cogs up to and over force limit is often a cheaper way of getting reasons(army/navy strength) toward an alliance than a gift. Critically, both can be done with loans, whereas gifts can't.

 

[Dzeero]

Made all the pre-war steps and made an alliance with Hungary. Ottos just don't want to declare a war after even 20 years. What did I wrong?

 

[Extraordinarii]

Made all the pre-war steps and made an alliance with Hungary. Ottos just don't want to declare a war after even 20 years. What did I wrong?

Did you try lowering maintenance and disbanding units? Whilst creating this guide I realised that the Ottomans would occasionly not attack if I had too strong allies or too many units. If you notice in the tutorial, I only really go over my forcelimits when the Ottomans have already declared war.

 

[Isaios]

I just tested your Byzantium strat, and it worked on the third try, got all the cores in the first war, with few losses. Doubt I'll continue the campaign, but it's good to see chicken survive even the estates

 

[Knut Skallagrim]

I've tried it too because i thought it was funny to beat otto militarly on the ground on the first war, also being an important actor of it (compared to the pol+austria+hun+everyone old strategies), very fun, worked on the first try. Very good video guide

 

[lymond]

I finally got it it work but was able to ally both Hungary and Poland, which likely made the Ottos declare on me a bit later on when we were at Mil Tech 4. (Poland and Hungary stayed at Mil 3 for the longest time). It was still quite tough though. Lost a big major battle in Selenik early. Ottos don't seem to be put-off by big stacks when the hit Mil 4. Then had most of Greece/Bulgaria siege and Ottos still came back and won some battles. Finally we won a big battle in Selenik or Edirne and it was okay at that point. By this time both Mamluks and Venice DOW'd Ottos. Venice was not a factor - this was toward the end - but Mamluks helped to divert Ottos. And still the now rather depleted Ottos were able beat back the Mamluks somehow.

Anyway, I took back the cores and took Burgas to release Bulgaria - got back there cores in 2nd war. Once you get back your cores, Ottos are really not a problem anymore. I'm playing on to finally get the achievement and at around 1500 or so Ottos only have 1 province way to East. I'm annexing Bulgaria, have Bosnia, Treb, Candar as vassals. Feeding Candar, ofc. Have Corfu, Naxos, Crete, Albania and some of Serbia, who I will feed the rest to Bosnia. Chios flipped to me. I have Caffa too. Somehow rebels would never spawn in Cyprus despite extremely high revolt risk and decades long support by me. Mamluks own it now.

I took quite a few loans during the first war, but it did not take long to pay them back.

My allies now are Austria and Poland. I got Austria as ally not too long after 1st Otto war. Hungary was allied until Poland and Hungary finally did rival each other. Hungary is my rival and I've already fought them to get back some Bosnia cores and claims. I'll fight them next to save Wallachia, who they ate.

 

[Politic Revolutionnaire]

I finally got it it work but was able to ally both Hungary and Poland, which likely made the Ottos declare on me a bit later on when we were at Mil Tech 4. (Poland and Hungary stayed at Mil 3 for the longest time). It was still quite tough though. Lost a big major battle in Selenik early. Ottos don't seem to be put-off by big stacks when the hit Mil 4. Then had most of Greece/Bulgaria siege and Ottos still came back and won some battles. Finally we won a big battle in Selenik or Edirne and it was okay at that point. By this time both Mamluks and Venice DOW'd Ottos. Venice was not a factor - this was toward the end - but Mamluks helped to divert Ottos. And still the now rather depleted Ottos were able beat back the Mamluks somehow.

Anyway, I took back the cores and took Burgas to release Bulgaria - got back there cores in 2nd war. Once you get back your cores, Ottos are really not a problem anymore. I'm playing on to finally get the achievement and at around 1500 or so Ottos only have 1 province way to East. I'm annexing Bulgaria, have Bosnia, Treb, Candar as vassals. Feeding Candar, ofc. Have Corfu, Naxos, Crete, Albania and some of Serbia, who I will feed the rest to Bosnia. Chios flipped to me. I have Caffa too. Somehow rebels would never spawn in Cyprus despite extremely high revolt risk and decades long support by me. Mamluks own it now.

I took quite a few loans during the first war, but it did not take long to pay them back.

My allies now are Austria and Poland. I got Austria as ally not too long after 1st Otto war. Hungary was allied until Poland and Hungary finally did rival each other. Hungary is my rival and I've already fought them to get back some Bosnia cores and claims. I'll fight them next to save Wallachia, who they ate.

HOW do you ally Hungary and Poland? ???