Byzantium: A Civil War (1453)

[Mike von Bek]

Im mucking around with Byzantium, trying to make it weaker/stronger - the whole kit and caboodle, ying and yang.

Anyway - Im thinking of starting them off with a great leader - and I mean a GREAT leader. Not Napoleon/Mohammed II level, but close. So, Im thinking if this leader actually does manage to get Byzantium to hang in there that it would be fun to script a few little surprises - like a civil war. Basically, this leader would be the reason Byzantium doesnt get chewed up in this particular campaign.

Basically Im thinking that if Byzantium has eliminated the Turk, or reached a certain number of provinces - 8-10 possibly, then upon the death of Konstantinos XI in 1453 that there could be an event wherein the aristocracy backs this famous general, over Demetrios who, and lets be fair here, sucks. If the general is chosen: pluses to the aristocracy, lower centralisation, possibly innovation too. A civil war breaks out with half the nation forming itself into ... I dont know what to call it (any ideas?) - but basically the Roman Empire with Demetrios at its head. The other half is led by our fancy-pants general.

And if they say no, the general stays a general for a few more years, the plot is revealed, aristocrats executed and you get big negative to aristocracy, and pluses to centralisation. But no civil war, which is good.

Anyway, my query is - can you change the monarch file in play? Or is it a manual hack job? Also, is it possible to say "Randomly choose half the provinces and make them 'New Empire X'"?

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Well, hmm.... could always make a new country in the code, you'd have to put it in the revolt.txt file as well, and have a specific province (Macedonia, I'd think) as its capital; then have Byzantium independence it and secede random provinces to it. Then it could get an event that breaks the vassalage and (possibly) starts a war.

The seceding provinces event, you could make several versions of, based on Byzantine country size; in each version you could have them secede roughly half their provinces (chosen randomly).

Or at least that's my idea of how to do this; not sure it'd work.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

As for the monarch file - once you start a scenario that info is saved in the savegame file. So you could edit the info in the savegame file, monarch file, or both. (but if you edit only the savegame, it only works for this game; if you don't edit the savegame it doesn't work for this game)

Of course, you'd want to make your ahistorical line dormant, and wake them & sleep the historical ones with the B choice in your event. There's a section on Havard's site that explains how to do this....here

 

[Mike von Bek]

Thanks Sheridan - those are some tasty ideas. Especially appreciated the link to Havard's site - the dormant tag looks like its the perfect answer - muchos gracias, senor!

As to the capital of the rebellion: I was thinking that Morea might be a better location for Demetrios' capital, rather than Macedonia - especially seeing as he was the despot of that province before being made emperor. Now I just have to figure out what to call his silly little country.

Its a pity that you cant automagically declare war though - that would have come in particularly handy. And dangerous. Imagine, youre in a war with Venice, and BAM - you lose half your empire! And theres a war going on! Oh, now that my friends - that would be a test worthy of an Emperor.

Hmmm, now I wonder how I will handle the military of the rebellion - I doubt theres a command which would split the armies of Byzantium equally. Thats going to be difficult - I want it to be tough to defeat Demetrios and crew - he is the legitimate emperor after all.

 

[nelly644]

Make them the Comneni with their capital in Trebizond

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Originally posted by Von Bek
Its a pity that you cant automagically declare war though - that would have come in particularly handy. And dangerous. Imagine, youre in a war with Venice, and BAM - you lose half your empire! And theres a war going on! Oh, now that my friends - that would be a test worthy of an Emperor.

You may be able to...after the indpendance command put a war command...for the new nation...if that doesn't work, have it trigger another event which has the new nation declare war on you.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

You could also invoke the event commands to *create* the 'rebel' army (or whichever is the new country)

 

[Mike von Bek]

sheridan: eason Im leery of creating a rebel army is that I cant really know, when Im coding the event - how big my own forces will be. I might create what I think is a fair amount, only to be completely out numbered - hurrah! Its the Turk all over again! Or I'll completely outnumber them - which isnt much fun at all. Still, we could just say in that case that there wasnt that much support for Demetrios.

nelly64: I like that idea, especially since I invariably own Trebizon by that stage - might have to look into that. Thanks for the idea.

jinnai: thanks - I'll look into taht this afternoon, see if its the ticket. Lets keep our fingers crossed, eh?

Thanks to all for the ideas - the Civil War is really starting to take off!

 

[unmerged(1047)]

You could make it the size of the default computer-player country's army - 10k. That seems to be what all those one-province countries in Germany and Italy get at game start.

 

[unmerged(2456)]

Originally posted by Von Bek
jinnai: thanks - I'll look into taht this afternoon, see if its the ticket. Lets keep our fingers crossed, eh?

So how'd it go?

 

[Mike von Bek]

jinnai: sadly, it didnt. My own modding schools need work obviously - kept getting the dang database mismatch thang. Im still working on it. Hopefully be able to get it working over the next day or two.