Byzantium has gone too far

[Idiotboy]

Originally posted by Priam
What was the conversion from nomismata to ducats? If it is still over a million, then I apologize and stand corrected.

Hard to say as "ducats" is used kinda freely. The game term isn´t very acurate I think. Anyway nomisma was a gold coin that weighed 1/72 of a pound. So 7,2 million nomismata was 100,000 pounds (weight) of gold. Don´t really know how to translate that value but it sounds like quite a lot.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Originally posted by Constantine XI
Ok, here's the scoop.

After the fall of Constantinople, Greek scholars fled to Italy, and were responsible for the major outbreak of the Renaissance. That alone is enough to tell me, and other prominent historians, that Byzantium was still an educational lighthouse amid its own destruction.

Still wish to argue?

I hate to chime in a whole page later, but I was talking about the Enlightenment and not the Renaissance. There is clearly a sensible position that the Renaissance was influenced by Byzantium which still existed at the time. I really do not see that there can be a tenable position with regards to the influence of Byzantium on the enlightenment - as I've said Byzantium was dead for more than 150 years by that time. You might as well ask what influence the Venetian republic had on the launch of the euro.

And if anyone doubts me I strongly suggest they do as iwannh (sorry about the spelling) has suggested and do a search on "Greek Scholars Enlightenment". As you might expect all the hits I got show that the Greek enlightenment was inspired by the enlightenment in Western Europe.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Originally posted by iwannhs
I hope you dont need me to tell you that there are thousants of sites on the topic and not just the one off topic you saw. Of course i am not urging you to do so, i dont really care. Speaking of off topic this little discussion is too.

I have yet to see one site suggesting that Byzantium had anything to do with the enlightenment. Read my post - I am willing to discount the islamweb site as it might well be biassed. Do the search you've suggested. I came up with
http://www.bway.net/~halsall/byzantium.html
which seems to be at least as pro-byzantine as islamweb is anti. It says:
"Furthermore, classical secularism, so attractive to Renaissance and Enlightenment scholars, had no place in Byzantine thought worlds. As a result Byzantine culture was subjected to centuries of abuse as a time of barbarism and superstition."
about the enlightenment and byzantium. I'm interested as to what site would be telling us how the byzantine empire had such a profiund influence on an intellectual movement that arose 200 years after its death.

 

[unmerged(4990)]

It had a "profound impact" on the initial explosion of the Renaissance in Italy, not the Enlightenment thereafter. The enlightenment is a direct response of the Renaissance, which was triggered into a frenzy by the fleeing Byzantine scholars.

Of course the Enlightenment had no place in Byzantine society. The Enlightenment occured 300 years after it died!

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Originally posted by Constantine XI
The enlightenment is a direct response of the Renaissance,

Uhm, i don't think so.

 

[unmerged(6509)]

to ryoken:

first, I'd like you to know that i installed the france events you sent me, and enjoyed them thoroughly. Here is what I really don't get from your argument(s) though. You get an option, when installing the EEP, of not installing the byz events. So just don't. Why do you care if people want to work on highly unhistorical (non-)happenstances? Are you also pissed that EU2 shipped with a Fantasia scenario? I don't understand why you care if some of us (not me, mind you, i never could get the EEP to work ) want to make wild and outrageous events? YOU certainly don't have to play with them...

Zoupa

PS:excuse my english please, I'm french

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Originally posted by Isaac Brock
I can't speak for Ryoken, but if you read my earlier post I've given my opinion. The fantasy events ought to stay in the EEP for now. That said I can see several argument for keeping them out of scope.
1) It makes it tougher to balance the EEP and to get historical outcomes in hands off play.
2) If further fragments the project, meaning there are fewer people looking at any part of the EEP because it's bigger. This is especially important because anyone writing events for a given country will inevitably view that country favorably - why else is it so interesting? I'm certainly guilty of this myself and would like people who couldn't care less about countries I'm writing for to add an detahced perspective.

These are (in my opinion) reasonable arguments to keep these events out of the EEP. We can disagree on how important they are, but they are real.

 

[unmerged(7837)]

Originally posted by Isaac Brock


These are (in my opinion) reasonable arguments to keep these events out of the EEP. We can disagree on how important they are, but they are real.

I have to respectfully disagree with your reasoning. First, if you want a more historical hands-off GC, don't install the fantasy events. Second, getting rid of the fantasy events would cause some current EEP coders to abandon the project completely.

Of course, that's just MY opinion, so take it however you want.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

If you check what I said originally I pretty much agreed with you. I think that the downside of removing these events from the project outweigh the advantages. However, that does not mean that these problems don't exist. You're not disagreeing with me, you're just saying that the problems I'm pointing out are not very important.

I think the historical HO game is the BEST way we have to evaluate whether the EEP is doing the right things. It is objective, and shows that the balancing has been done reasonably well. I haven't tried, but I expect that the Byzantine events don't change this - Byzantium gets squashed in HO whether you install fantasy events or not. This meets the requirements. However, I think this is an important check on fantasy events and will need to be applied to events that apply to a country that doesn't usually get wiped out in the first 50 years, where fantasy events could be much more unbalancing.
I don't want to run a historical HO game for the sake of running one, I just want to use it as a tool to confirm that the events are not leading history down a unreasonable path.

 

[Laur]

roman renaissance

the Empire did not have a renaissance; it did not need one.

yes, I am familiar with that greek catholic that might have been elected pope, but from what i heard, among the reasons he failed was that he still had a beard. can't think of his name.

if i can suggest a compromise, it would be better if we said that greek scholars influenced humanism, rather than renaissance as a whole (do not think they had anything to do with art, architecture, science, but more with literature and philosophy).

for more info see:

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/renaiss.htm
http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/hy309/docs/burckhardt/3-3.html

Lar, a.k.a. the Unmoved Mover

 

[unmerged(7837)]

Originally posted by Isaac Brock
If you check what I said originally I pretty much agreed with you. I think that the downside of removing these events from the project outweigh the advantages. However, that does not mean that these problems don't exist. You're not disagreeing with me, you're just saying that the problems I'm pointing out are not very important.

I think the historical HO game is the BEST way we have to evaluate whether the EEP is doing the right things. It is objective, and shows that the balancing has been done reasonably well. I haven't tried, but I expect that the Byzantine events don't change this - Byzantium gets squashed in HO whether you install fantasy events or not. This meets the requirements. However, I think this is an important check on fantasy events and will need to be applied to events that apply to a country that doesn't usually get wiped out in the first 50 years, where fantasy events could be much more unbalancing.
I don't want to run a historical HO game for the sake of running one, I just want to use it as a tool to confirm that the events are not leading history down a unreasonable path.

Ok, yeah, I was saying the problems you were pointing out weren't that important...but I was trying to do so respectfully .

Anyway, about the fantasy events for countries that live past the first 50 years...maybe I'm mistaken, but aren't all the fantasy events specifically written for countries that don't make it when not played by a human? And that, historically, were wiped out pretty early? I would agree that, if fantasy events were making countries surivive and thrive in a HO game, they should be re-thought. But, from what I've seen, that isn't a problem. I've played a few HO games, even with BYZ_GC, with all the good events...and Byzantium still never survives. Even when I don't play 100% hands off, and send them all the money my HO nation makes, they still die pretty quick. Hell, one time, I played Byzantium up through 1453 to get the Renasaince events, and, yeah, it took a bit longer for them to get wiped out, but they still did. In fact, the only time I've ever seen them last very long when the AI plays them is when they once moved their capital to Mistra with that one event, and became vassals of the Turks...they limped along for quite a few years as a one province minor sitting in Morea.

Anyway, that's just my thoughts on it.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

Wow, we're agreeing! My concern is with fantasy events in general, and I do agree that the byzantine events have a lower hurdle to pass than events for counties that last longer. They are much less unbalanancing because the Byzantines will get wiped out so often that the rest isn't important.

 

[unmerged(4273)]

Originally posted by Idiotboy


Well unlike those who writes the byzantine event he obviously don´t know the first thing about byzantine history so what do you expect?? There is an old saying "if you have bad arguments shout real high" which fits here I think.

Oh and at the heighday around 1025 when Basil II died the treasury had a surplus of 14,4 million nomismata and then he had waived 2 years worth of land and hearth taxes worth another 8 million so they had plenty of dough when they were big.

Respectfully -- what does Byzantine history have to do with anything when you are writing an event for 1750 (even if it it highly facetious as was Ryoken's)...

His point is valid, which is that almost anything can seem somehow plausible after the 1453 period.

In fact, there really is no way to say that the Western European powers wouldn't ally themselves against a resurgent Byzantine Empire because the way that history would unfold between the historical end of the empire (1453) and 1750 is quite impossible to realistically predict.

So while I will agree that Ryoken's event was facetious and laced with a certain degree of hostility, the point which is raised is quite legitimate. Why NOT have an event such as this if it is crafted with flowery words and given some sort of 'historical context' -- which would be just as historical as any of the other post-1453 Byzantine events which are based upon 'historical context'.

You (ie. whoever you the reader is) may choose to disagree with me, but I ask you to note that at no point have I been disrespectful of anyone, and to please note my points in the context of logic as opposed to strong pro- or anti- Byzantine sentiment.

Thanks!

 

[St. Leo]

<i>As well, do you really think France would ever have allied with England or Austria?</i>

Do you really think Austria would ally with Spain? After all, Spain in no way helped them combat the Byzantine "Manifest Destiny". I have problems visualising a timeline in which France, Austria, and Poland don't ally in order to ward off the uncoordinated aggression of England, Spain, Lithuania, and Byzantium.

<i>the Empire did not have a renaissance; it did not need one.</i>

Right... What exactly is Byzantium claim to fame? A big temple called Hagia Sophia? Not being able to remember what Greek Fire was? That just screams secularisation and scientific progress to me.

 

[Laur]

blah

Hmm, I do not think that in early XV century the "western" powers had much idea of secularization and scientific progress...

I am the adept of the view that the Roman Empire ended in 1919 when Mustafa Kemal/Ataturk deposed the last Emperor/Sultan. The Ottoman Empire inspired itself so much from the one they conqered that it can be seen as a continuation of Romania, a new lease of life. Thus, making events for the Eastern Roman Empire based loosly on the Ottoman ones is not wrong.

Laur

 

[St. Leo]

Do you consider post-1919 Turkey to be a reborn Roman Republic?

 

[Laur]

hmm, well there are simmilarities: the generals in control, the plebe silenced for much of the period, "punic" wars with Greece; the bad part is, the rest of the world seems better organized and it's worth more being a NATO member rather than attempting to conquer all its members.

Laur

 

[unmerged(7529)]

I dont agree at all that the othoman empire had much connections to the roman (byzantine empire) other than the ussual seltjuk-othoman-turk trick of claiming to be a continuation of the country they conquered (same happened when they conquered persia in the early 11th century, and same thing again with byzantium and bagdad). Furthermore it is rather strange to say that the othomans were a continuation of what they destroyed, you should say that the turkish empire was made by the byzantines, from the polititian Psellos for example who helped to found the first turkik state in asia minor (in anatolia) after the turkish onslought (slightly post battle of Matzikert, 1071). Psellos, a member of the blue party, a scholar, and one of the people who betrayed emperor Romanos leading to the loss in Matzikert (in byzantium there were two political parties, the prasinoi (green) and the venetoi (blue) had written that "we should create a nation for the turks which will serve us as a cushion for new turkik nomads invading". Historian Paparegopoulos vividly comments on this that: "what was set up with byzantine intervention as a cushion-state got to expand up to Vienna".
It is even more absurd to speak of ataturk and romanity in the same sentence, after all he is the biggest mass murdurer of armenians and greeks in the 2oth century, perhaps of all times. One only has to read the letters of foreign diplomats at the time (from 1915 up to 1922) to see this.

 

[unmerged(6618)]

in his defense he seemed to say ataturk was the end of the roman empire (not inclusive - once he began rule the connection ceased to exist). at least that was my reading of it. i still would not agree with the connection, but that is another matter

 

[unmerged(7160)]

Just wanted to say that I just started playing my first game of EEP BYZ and man this is great. IT's been nonstop strugglre the whole way. I've never had my butt kicked so much in an EU game before.
I managed to wrangle my way against the ottomans without going bankrupt barely and thought I had pulled off the coup of the century and was on easy street but it hasn't stopped there. I was so weak from the initial struggle that I or my allies were DOWed almost constantly for the next 30 years, but I managed to take a couple more provences in the wars from that. Was starting to get big but my tech was lagging severly due to negative events and an inflation problem. Had a few years breather but then the fantasy events started. In one I chose to treat the Turks as regular citizens in hope that it would eventually give my turkish culture. Then I had a a series of negitive events including some of those new deadly random ones including the dasterdly "peasant war?" event. this weakened me severly and my government fell due to my difficulty fighting rebels because of low tech. Anyway the Ottomans and Bulgaria formed but I easily took them out exept for thrace which I needed another war to take back. The final blow and my ultamate defeat was when Super Venice {15 provs} and her three sisters {Portugal, Spain, and France} DOWed me with there super techs of 12-14 land to my 3. It was over for me since I initially thought I could handle them and didn't get out of it early enough.
Anyway what I'm trying to say is that this BYZ EEP is a shitload of fun and very well done. Actually I wish the whole game played like this scenario because it's been the best challange for me yet. Ok welp I'm off to restart the game a few years back and see if I can do a little better this time. Keep up the good work