Byzantium 1.5 Strategy

[unmerged(65679)]

Ok the EU4 wiki has a fairly well written strategy in place for Byz. However it seemed to never mention one element that I've consistently noticed in my 2 attempts so far with Byz.

The Ottomans have an enormous and powerful navy with naval ideas *very* quickly and thats the ball game. If you can't dominate the seas you will lose end of story. Problem is even when dedicating the country to full naval, over force limit and even deciding to go for Heavies rather than only galleys (7 heads, 15 galleys) takes longer but more potent the AI ottomans have got 15 heavies, 20 galleys, 11 barque's to compete by that stage.

The Mamelukes in my 2 run throughs never have a navy strong enough to challenge and getting Venice a naval power which combined with Byz could do that job is rather tough to gain as an ally because you're stuck on the -10 opinion Venice has of you because they pretty much don't give a stuff about improving relations with you.

Hungary, Poland, Austria are all relatively easy to ally with but Venice is far harder owing to the fact you can't RM the bastards. The game really is all in the Navy but from my 2 play throughs so far its not possible to be a match for the Ottomans in the water at any point.
Unless random luck or you do get venice as an ally which is rather difficult.

So who's got comments?

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Oh that and the Ottomans "warn" you roughly 2 months into the game. Every time.

 

[Bergermeister]

You have to warn them first.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

I did and yes that worked. Oddly I didn't get CTA when they went to war guess was a defensive one. Anyways I got them done on the Greek side so going ok. Anybody got suggestions for best byz ideas

 

[Oddb@ll]

Religious is good to have!

 

[CelticMutt]

I think warning only gives you a CTA if they attack someone bordering you. At least, that's how it works in EUIII. I haven't really messed around with it in EUIV yet.

 

[emilsson]

In my latest Byzantium game (which was 1.4 though) I did not have too much trouble building a (slightly) stronger navy than the Ottomans. Enough to keep them from crossing the strait at least. I only built galleys, since they are much more cost effective that early in the game. It took some loans if I recall correctly, but I didn't have to take Naval ideas. You might also consider scrapping some cogs to save maintenance.

I'm not sure that you really have to beat them either. If you inflict enough damage they will return to port and that will enable you (for a period) to block any troops trying to cross the straits.

Regarding Venice: I did not manage to ally them in my game. The "-10 opinion" I presume is your opinion of them, right? If so you could up it by 10 by requesting military access. At least then you're not in the negatives.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Just popping back in. I've noticed this on many playthroughs with Byzantium across many different EU patches. Its broadly what I describe as "The game hates Byz" problem.

Once you start making a comeback after you've dealt with the Ottomans it seems large nations very far away and near seem to suddenly have "hostile" attitudes towards you despite in many cases not being remotely close to you, having desires on your territory or even infact rivalled and with slim to nil AE.
I've seen it across many patches that Byz seems to attract a large amount of "hostile" and I'm wondering does anybody have answers for why that is?

I mean Russia is even "hostile" towards me and they are a long.....long way away (easily 15-20 province tiles away) and we have +20 positive relations. bizzare

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Also on a semi-related note can paradox PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!! stop units just sitting there on siege duty despite being ordered to "attach to a unit". The siege literally started 10seconds prior to this screenie and already the damn unit refuses to move.

Meanwhile I've got enemy troops roaming around and my allies and vassals are just spread eagled out everywhere like a bunch of witless fools.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

I'm allied to Lithuania, Georgia, Boehmia and Naples. Naples is for my future foray into Italy and Georgia to combat Mamluks and Lithuania too. Bohemia is to hedge against Austria.

But damn I am seriously getting peeved playing Byz. Every single time I get close to making a move to advance my causes one of these damn allies has to declare some idiot war that could be won only if I got involved and if I didn't its really a one sided affair.
Yet whenever I get declared on some of them just aimlessly wander around army units to get stack wiped by the enemies whilst my enemies are suspiciously well organized.

 

[Jaqwon_The_Chef]

you have to go to war with the ottomans early... release athens for peace. That way you can expand and get allies while you have a truce with the ottomans

 

[Philostherogue]

OE always declares war on me in 1446(5 times in a row!). 2 years is no where near enough time to do anything to have a chance. They never send any troops across the dardanelles, and as soon as they finish albania, they come for me, no matter what.

 

[Thund91]

Just popping back in. I've noticed this on many playthroughs with Byzantium across many different EU patches. Its broadly what I describe as "The game hates Byz" problem.

Once you start making a comeback after you've dealt with the Ottomans it seems large nations very far away and near seem to suddenly have "hostile" attitudes towards you despite in many cases not being remotely close to you, having desires on your territory or even infact rivalled and with slim to nil AE.
I've seen it across many patches that Byz seems to attract a large amount of "hostile" and I'm wondering does anybody have answers for why that is?

I mean Russia is even "hostile" towards me and they are a long.....long way away (easily 15-20 province tiles away) and we have +20 positive relations. bizzare

I think it's pretty much scripted for the ai to hate the player no matter what.

In my current England ironman game Castile was friendly towards me the entire time, we had a royal marriage and an alliance for 50 years, then out of nowhere they break it and become rivals.

Since France is in a PU with me I'm tempted to take off their leash and have them pwn Iberia.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Castile rivaling England is basically guaranteed to happen after a while. Scripted or due to competing in same areas ie colonialism. But byz in particular attracts a lot of hate. So many of my rivals really should be my friends. Perhaps especially Austria considering as they need me to keep Poland and Hungary in check.

 

[jonman122]

It sounds like somehow you're having luck blocking the straits. Whenever I try it they just get military access through Georgia, Crimea and Moldavia and destroy any troops I had cobbled together making my boats utterly useless.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Jonman if you have Lithuania allied they tend to stop them. And if not just play hopscotch and move over the straits and ottos will ideally turn around. Then move back etc. tedious but should win a few sieges.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OE always declares war on me in 1446(5 times in a row!). 2 years is no where near enough time to do anything to have a chance. They never send any troops across the dardanelles, and as soon as they finish albania, they come for me, no matter what.

It's enough time to get mil access with Leinster and take Connaught . Especially true if you scorch earth so they won't enter to siege one of the provinces to stall. But who wants to do THAT? Best is to find a way to win the lands back w/o running quite that much ^_^.

 

[unmerged(65679)]

Got an image in my head of all of us would be Emperors standing at Constantinople gates watching the ottoman doom stack coming shouting "I am the emperor! I command you to stop" followed by the ottos laughing trololololol

 

[palomar]

It's easy to build up a navy to outmatch the Ottomans, but the trick is to avoid their allies' navies until you've crushed the turks'.

I've played around a bit with Byzantium in 1.5 this past week and it is very common for the Ottomans to DOW you before you build up enough strength through allies/vassals to have a fighting chance. It seems to depend more on if they are otherwise entangled in other wars and less on their missions. More often than not they end up fighting Golden Horde (assisting Crimea) very soon after annexing Albania. If you're lucky, the Ottomans will be fighting the Mamluks in the Levant. If so, blocking the Bosphorus is sometimes a viable strategy even if Crimea usually gets access through Moldavia. Ottomans on the other side, rarely have access through all the nations around the Black Sea.

Also, greek rebels usually turn a few provinces to you but the big rebel outbreak on Greek mainland rarely occurs.

In my current game I have crushed the Ottomans and reclaimed Balkans, Greece, the islands, Asia Minor and Anatolia... and then had to fight very long, costly wars against the Mamluks+allies twice. Their manpower shortage + Bosphorus were the only things saving me.

 

[jonman122]

It's easy to build up a navy to outmatch the Ottomans, but the trick is to avoid their allies' navies until you've crushed the turks'.

I've played around a bit with Byzantium in 1.5 this past week and it is very common for the Ottomans to DOW you before you build up enough strength through allies/vassals to have a fighting chance. It seems to depend more on if they are otherwise entangled in other wars and less on their missions. More often than not they end up fighting Golden Horde (assisting Crimea) very soon after annexing Albania. If you're lucky, the Ottomans will be fighting the Mamluks in the Levant. If so, blocking the Bosphorus is sometimes a viable strategy even if Crimea usually gets access through Moldavia. Ottomans on the other side, rarely have access through all the nations around the Black Sea.

Also, greek rebels usually turn a few provinces to you but the big rebel outbreak on Greek mainland rarely occurs.

In my current game I have crushed the Ottomans and reclaimed Balkans, Greece, the islands, Asia Minor and Anatolia... and then had to fight very long, costly wars against the Mamluks+allies twice. Their manpower shortage + Bosphorus were the only things saving me.

It's strange, I manage to take back all of my greek provinces and about 4 provinces in Anatolia when the Ottomans and the Mamluks and Qara Qoyunlu coalition me. That's when I get eaten up by the green death again, mind this is in about 100-150 years of wars it's not like i'm DoW every 5 years. It's a bit silly.