Byzantium

[talilu]

Constantinople should have %75 autonomy, Morea should be a vassal and Anotolian(also Chinese) should start with tech level 4, if we are all in for realism.

Also, Byzantium should have Catholic as the state religion.

And to contradict with myself;
Adding +%10 galley combat ability or +%15 or so fort defense to Byzzie traditions wouldn't break the whole game and destroy the Ottoman advance by covering whole Europe by double eagle heads of love or anything, they will still die by 1450-1460. Western tech and eastern unit Byzantium would only be accurate, again not game breaking since the whatever tech he can get in 10 years won't save them.

About the Theodosian walls, making Constantinople some mega level fort won't do any good to Byzantium. They just won't be able to afford it (well this sounds kinda realistic aswell, huge wall but broke Emperor). Rather some %20 fort defense would be OK, if it's promised that Ottoturks will have Orban as some siege master advisor or free cannon maker, so nobody but the Turks can conquer it in 1400s (bye bye Maltese/Genoese Constantinople)

Although not a big topic, this can be "fixed" (if we can come to an agreement that it's broken) in some half an hour at most, so threads alike about Byzantium might end and we can move on to the super ignored tech monsters of Granada and China, which might need a better fleshout than some 30 mins.

 

[Xinkc]

To be honest the Purple Phoenix DLC sucks, when it first came out it was alright because it gave Byzantium a fighting chance, but recent patches pretty much negated the effects of the DLC as most small nations are harder to play as compared to previous patches.

I'm finishing up my first Byzantium campaign at the moment and I loved the decisions, events, and missions added by the DLC.

 

[Oddb@ll]

Yes, when?

/nevermind, found the source.

Do tell! It says there were about 50k in 1453 at least.

 

[victimizer]

Do tell! It says there were about 50k in 1453 at least.

Still, that's pretty small, especially considering that it was pretty much the whole Byzantine Empire at this point.

The city would have looked like a bunch of villages clustered inside much larger walls.

 

[Scottx105]

Still, that's pretty small, especially considering that it was pretty much the whole Byzantine Empire at this point.

The city would have looked like a bunch of villages clustered inside much larger walls.

It had the population of other major capitals such as London, around 40k-80k pop 1450. Back then 40-80k Population was huge. Populations within cities only started to increase into the millions towards the end of the Renaissance and the start of the industrial revolution.

 

[metallicania]

Also, Byzantium should have Catholic as the state religion.

And to contradict with myself;
Adding +%10 galley combat ability or +%15 or so fort defense to Byzzie traditions wouldn't break the whole game and destroy the Ottoman advance by covering whole Europe by double eagle heads of love or anything, they will still die by 1450-1460. Western tech and eastern unit Byzantium would only be accurate, again not game breaking since the whatever tech he can get in 10 years won't save them.

About the Theodosian walls, making Constantinople some mega level fort won't do any good to Byzantium. They just won't be able to afford it (well this sounds kinda realistic aswell, huge wall but broke Emperor). Rather some %20 fort defense would be OK, if it's promised that Ottoturks will have Orban as some siege master advisor or free cannon maker, so nobody but the Turks can conquer it in 1400s (bye bye Maltese/Genoese Constantinople)

Although not a big topic, this can be "fixed" (if we can come to an agreement that it's broken) in some half an hour at most, so threads alike about Byzantium might end and we can move on to the super ignored tech monsters of Granada and China, which might need a better fleshout than some 30 mins.

I'd support that. Byzantines can have extra fort level (or fort defense) and Ottoman's can have Orban as a series of event which gives some event spawned cannons and extra siege ability for 5 years. That way, it would be a more realistic Byzantine defeat and a higher chance of strong Ottomans.

 

[Scottx105]

I'd support that. Byzantines can have extra fort level (or fort defense) and Ottoman's can have Orban as a series of event which gives some event spawned cannons and extra siege ability for 5 years. That way, it would be a more realistic Byzantine defeat and a higher chance of strong Ottomans.

20% defense bonus for the best fortifications in Europe at the time is a bit low, try more like 60% bonus as the Byzantines could repair the damage done by the Ottoman artillery between volleys. And accounts of the siege show that whilst the Ottomans did have more advanced cannons, the Byzantines also had cannons and guns of their own. Most of which were largely ineffective against the Ottomans but the same was true for the Ottoman artillery against Constantinople.

 

[yerm]

20% defense bonus for the best fortifications in Europe at the time is a bit low, try more like 60% bonus as the Byzantines could repair the damage done by the Ottoman Artillery between volleys. And accounts of the siege show that whilst the Ottomans did have more advanced cannons, the Byzantines also had cannons and guns of their own. Most of which were largely ineffective against the Ottomans but the same was true for the Ottoman artillery against Constantinople.

What the hell does 60% defensiveness accomplish? It forces the siege to take years? It merely annoys the Ottomans vs AI and is cripplingly OP for a human Byzantine? This suggestion belongs in that list with the 11 new ideas, honestly, it's that bad... except I actually think you're trying to be serious.

 

[Aries666]

I'd support that. Byzantines can have extra fort level (or fort defense) and Ottoman's can have Orban as a series of event which gives some event spawned cannons and extra siege ability for 5 years. That way, it would be a more realistic Byzantine defeat and a higher chance of strong Ottomans.

If you give Byz stronger walls and Ottos cannons the result is exactly the same as now so what is the point in making any change whatsoever. I would far prefer the devs to do something actually useful with their time.

 

[rr99]

Then for the sake of simplicity, lets have the game start with an alternative history where the pathetic remnants of Byzantium were annexed in 1443 instead of a decade later

Oh? We already have that in all but name, certainly if I start as Ottomans in 1444 Constantinople's purple rarely survives much over a year, let alone all the way to 1453... Much more satisfying for the Ottos than it would be starting with pre-1444 annexation.

Even when the AI runs the area, the only thing that saves Byzantium is if the Ottoderps screw up or get unlucky and get dogpiled. Imagine how funny it is when the Ottos get involved in three overlapping waves of wars with Qara, Mamelukes, Venice, and just about everyone else except the Byzzies, each of the beyliks ending up as large as the Ottomans, and the Byzzies seizing their opportunity in a fourth overlapping war to take back the European Ottoman holdings. Happened in 1.13 without my even noticing until it was almost all over (I was playing at other end of Europe and wondered why my OPM's fleet was larger than the Ottos, then I looked at the Otto truces to figure out how it had happened). Nothing particularly implausible about the Byzzies surviving another half-century or so - remember Bayazid and Timur?

 

[rr99]

Where are you getting this data from? Most of the numbers I see out there estimate a population at or over 30 k people.

Victimizer was right, there were villages in between the city and the walls. Whether the population was 30k or 70k makes no difference, the walls were built to enclose a population of ten times that. The city had withered away in the face of Genoese, Venetian, and Ottoman turning of the screws. As a corollary, the city's population couldn't even man the walls without reliance on Italian mercenaries.

 

[Sholmegaard]

I LOVE to read in these Byzantine threads, they just make me laugh!
Anyway as a Byzantine fan boy i would love more Byzantine mechanic to give it more flavour!

But lets be honest.
Constantinople was a City surrounded of a siege in decades before 1453, and the wall was the only thing that stod between the Ottomans and the queen of cities.
the strait was completely closed to the north, and only italian traders helped provide food to the city from the south.
Byzantine should be a Doomed nation, and everybody who say "it might have" are wrong, in the games timeline, there was no peace between the Ottomans and Constantinople, there was just a standstill, as the ottomans waited for the right moment to storm the city and the Emperor did not dare to step a foot outside the Walls.

I think the best way to represent this in game would be make an "the Final siege" event for byzantine and ottomans starting at game start.
during the event Constantinople should have the "Theodasian walls" modifier giving them a +10 fortlevel modifier, and a +50% defence modifer. Making it practically impossible to storm the city (WICH IT WAS) how ever the ottomans should have the "final siege mechanic"
-giving them automatic military acces(as they historically controlled everything west of the wall)
- a 3650day countdown(10 years) everyday constantinople is under full blockade it will cont down, a full blockade include Naval and land blocade
-Naval blockade is when Ottomans have more ships in the strait then Byzantine
-Land Blocade is when Ottomans have more army regiments then Byzantine in constantinople county.
when the countdown is ended, the event stops and automatically, a storm of Constantinople is happening with Ottomans as guaranteed winner,
Byzantine ceases to exist and otto gets 100 of admin, Diplo and military points + 1 stability and 50prestige and 100gold

However the event should be limited in time, so after 1460 the fortlevel of constantinople should decline with 1 every 4years so in 1500where cannons really are in effect, the event is stopped, it will only be the defence modifier helping the Byzantine

As it is not a war, but an event, Player Byzantine, might, again might, be able to make allies and DOW Ottomans, if Byzantine wins the war the "The Final siege" event is canceled.
Ottomans are not able to DOW Byzantine while the event is in effect.

 

[Oddb@ll]

Oh? We already have that in all but name, certainly if I start as Ottomans in 1444 Constantinople's purple rarely survives much over a year, let alone all the way to 1453... Much more satisfying for the Ottos than it would be starting with pre-1444 annexation.

Even when the AI runs the area, the only thing that saves Byzantium is if the Ottoderps screw up or get unlucky and get dogpiled. Imagine how funny it is when the Ottos get involved in three overlapping waves of wars with Qara, Mamelukes, Venice, and just about everyone else except the Byzzies, each of the beyliks ending up as large as the Ottomans, and the Byzzies seizing their opportunity in a fourth overlapping war to take back the European Ottoman holdings. Happened in 1.13 without my even noticing until it was almost all over (I was playing at other end of Europe and wondered why my OPM's fleet was larger than the Ottos, then I looked at the Otto truces to figure out how it had happened). Nothing particularly implausible about the Byzzies surviving another half-century or so - remember Bayazid and Timur?

Sounds like a cool version of alternate history right there! Not too far fetched and yet totally different from real life!

After all that's what this game is about, creating your own version of history.

 

[metallicania]

If you give Byz stronger walls and Ottos cannons the result is exactly the same as now so what is the point in making any change whatsoever. I would far prefer the devs to do something actually useful with their time.

I know, I was half sarcastic. It would make any other nation to siege Constantinople harder though. But I don't really understand the point of the thread, Ottoman siege of Constantinople took just a little more than 1 month. In game it takes more than 1 year.

 

[NetherViking]

I LOVE to read in these Byzantine threads, they just make me laugh!
Anyway as a Byzantine fan boy i would love more Byzantine mechanic to give it more flavour!

But lets be honest.
Constantinople was a City surrounded of a siege in decades before 1453, and the wall was the only thing that stod between the Ottomans and the queen of cities.
the strait was completely closed to the north, and only italian traders helped provide food to the city from the south.
Byzantine should be a Doomed nation, and everybody who say "it might have" are wrong, in the games timeline, there was no peace between the Ottomans and Constantinople, there was just a standstill, as the ottomans waited for the right moment to storm the city and the Emperor did not dare to step a foot outside the Walls.

I think the best way to represent this in game would be make an "the Final siege" event for byzantine and ottomans starting at game start.
during the event Constantinople should have the "Theodasian walls" modifier giving them a +10 fortlevel modifier, and a +50% defence modifer. Making it practically impossible to storm the city (WICH IT WAS) how ever the ottomans should have the "final siege mechanic"
-giving them automatic military acces(as they historically controlled everything west of the wall)
- a 3650day countdown(10 years) everyday constantinople is under full blockade it will cont down, a full blockade include Naval and land blocade
-Naval blockade is when Ottomans have more ships in the strait then Byzantine
-Land Blocade is when Ottomans have more army regiments then Byzantine in constantinople county.
when the countdown is ended, the event stops and automatically, a storm of Constantinople is happening with Ottomans as guaranteed winner,
Byzantine ceases to exist and otto gets 100 of admin, Diplo and military points + 1 stability and 50prestige and 100gold

However the event should be limited in time, so after 1460 the fortlevel of constantinople should decline with 1 every 4years so in 1500where cannons really are in effect, the event is stopped, it will only be the defence modifier helping the Byzantine

As it is not a war, but an event, Player Byzantine, might, again might, be able to make allies and DOW Ottomans, if Byzantine wins the war the "The Final siege" event is canceled.
Ottomans are not able to DOW Byzantine while the event is in effect.

That seems horrendously complicated. I would rather things just stay the way they are except maybe give a minor buff to the fort defense in that province but not because I think it would save the Byzantine nation.

Victimizer was right, there were villages in between the city and the walls. Whether the population was 30k or 70k makes no difference, the walls were built to enclose a population of ten times that. The city had withered away in the face of Genoese, Venetian, and Ottoman turning of the screws. As a corollary, the city's population couldn't even man the walls without reliance on Italian mercenaries.

The point was that the city had a large population. Even now you can hardly consider 30 to 70k people inconsequential. You cant sum up such a city as scattered villages. The old city was like 3 kilometres in its longest dimension. No one (as far as I am aware) is arguing that Constantinople likely to survive the Turks barring catastrophic bad luck for the Ottomans.

 

[Aries666]

I LOVE to read in these Byzantine threads, they just make me laugh!
Anyway as a Byzantine fan boy i would love more Byzantine mechanic to give it more flavour!

But lets be honest.
Constantinople was a City surrounded of a siege in decades before 1453, and the wall was the only thing that stod between the Ottomans and the queen of cities.
the strait was completely closed to the north, and only italian traders helped provide food to the city from the south.
Byzantine should be a Doomed nation, and everybody who say "it might have" are wrong, in the games timeline, there was no peace between the Ottomans and Constantinople, there was just a standstill, as the ottomans waited for the right moment to storm the city and the Emperor did not dare to step a foot outside the Walls.

I think the best way to represent this in game would be make an "the Final siege" event for byzantine and ottomans starting at game start.
during the event Constantinople should have the "Theodasian walls" modifier giving them a +10 fortlevel modifier, and a +50% defence modifer. Making it practically impossible to storm the city (WICH IT WAS) how ever the ottomans should have the "final siege mechanic"
-giving them automatic military acces(as they historically controlled everything west of the wall)
- a 3650day countdown(10 years) everyday constantinople is under full blockade it will cont down, a full blockade include Naval and land blocade
-Naval blockade is when Ottomans have more ships in the strait then Byzantine
-Land Blocade is when Ottomans have more army regiments then Byzantine in constantinople county.
when the countdown is ended, the event stops and automatically, a storm of Constantinople is happening with Ottomans as guaranteed winner,
Byzantine ceases to exist and otto gets 100 of admin, Diplo and military points + 1 stability and 50prestige and 100gold

However the event should be limited in time, so after 1460 the fortlevel of constantinople should decline with 1 every 4years so in 1500where cannons really are in effect, the event is stopped, it will only be the defence modifier helping the Byzantine

As it is not a war, but an event, Player Byzantine, might, again might, be able to make allies and DOW Ottomans, if Byzantine wins the war the "The Final siege" event is canceled.
Ottomans are not able to DOW Byzantine while the event is in effect.

That is an aweful lot of additional fluff to add considering that anything beyond Byz surviving more than 20 years would be absurd. Seeing as currently Byz very rarely survive over 20 years (without player interference) there is no basis to change anything.

 

[Sholmegaard]

well it would that much to add, as it would just work in the National disaster mechanics, But as you say AI Otto always takes AI Byzantine, but since we are discussing the byzantine problem. Let us fanboys have a special event and let us forever be doomed trying to turn it around. i have tried a few runs as Byzantine to see if you can get out of the trouble and it is fairly easy to grain half of Greece in one peace treaty with out allies, and that should be impossible!!!!!

 

[yerm]

well it would that much to add, as it would just work in the National disaster mechanics, But as you say AI Otto always takes AI Byzantine, but since we are discussing the byzantine problem. Let us fanboys have a special event and let us forever be doomed trying to turn it around. i have tried a few runs as Byzantine to see if you can get out of the trouble and it is fairly easy to grain half of Greece in one peace treaty with out allies, and that should be impossible!!!!!

Are you kidding me? You have a DLC dedicated to a nation that lasted less than a single decade historically, and want MORE dedicated content? At least you want it to also be significantly harder, thank god you're rational on that, but still... come on...

 

[Sholmegaard]

I want it for sure, but instead of just having a dlc glorifying a broken empire, seriously if you are tired of Byzantine treads go to the CKII forum and they swim in them, i want a dlc with this unique ottoman/byzantine event, and other historical spacial cases where we need some extra, the league wars should be redone fx.

 

[victimizer]

It had the population of other major capitals such as London, around 40k-80k pop 1450. Back then 40-80k Population was huge. Populations within cities only started to increase into the millions towards the end of the Renaissance and the start of the industrial revolution.

That's because the English and the French had a whole country to inhabit, and this was a time when urban living wasn't profitable for most people. In contrast, the Byzantines at this point were faced with the lack of territory. Doubtless a large part of Constantinople's population would have preferred to thrive on the countryside, rather than languish in their city, where they had been driven by Turkish occupation. That's what I meant by refugees essentially.