Getting the Byzantines more right: some suggestions.

[unmerged(494734)]

So first, I have really loved playing this game the last few months, so thanks to paradox for giving me far too much of a distraction. Still, even something this awesome can get better, and I happen to be a grad student specializing in Byzantine history so have a bit of a specialized perspective on one part of the world covered by the game.

Anyhow, I have noticed that the Byzantines have been something of a problem to get right these last few patches,and still think they are missing something, so i thought i should probably put my two cents in: The following are my suggestions for the 1066 campaign, in which the Byzantines have a problem of fairly consistently doing "too well."

Issue: The Byzantine Empire as of 1066 campaign when compared to history is too stable in regards to the political cohesion, but actually too weak as of the current patch militarily.

Some historical notes: new research says that the dramatic collapse of the Byzantine east following Manzikert as seen in Anna Komnena is in fact hyperbole, and as late as the 1080s Edessa and Antioch remained under the control of Byzantine governors. (See chapter 3 of Peter Frankopan, The First Crusade, 2012.) The loss of Nicea and Antioch was the result of a Turkish noble being brought into the Byzantine system, not a foreign invasion.

The primary problem historically with the Byzantines as presented in CK 2 is the longevity of the Doukas family on the throne. I have yet to see them lose it except through dynastic means.

The 1000s were historically dominated by coups justified by extremely tenuous imperial claims.

Historically the title of Byzantine Emperor is directly tied to ownership of Constantinople.

Practical ramifications of above notes:
1 The Byzantine nobility in CK2's ability to survive the 1070s in the east intact should be considered a feature, not a bug. A direct war between Byzantine and Turk should be the Byzantines to lose, and require either brilliance on the Turkish side or gross stupidity on the Byzantine.

2 Turkish and Norman mercenary factions should be considered as a supplement to the Varangian guard. Perhaps with events where they ask for land instead of for money. This would allow for something like Sulayman's rise within the system to take Nicea or the phenomenon of the Normans who naturalized into Romans.

3 A coup system is desperately needed, the plot mechanics should work for this.

4 Constantinople needs to be more important.

Point 3 deserves some elaboration:
A become emperor plot is needed that should be available to all dukes and kings that either have a claim or are in de jure Byzantine lands.

I think the best way to do this would be to have a two plot chain:
Plot one: Palace coup to seize constantinople. Avaliable to all Byzantine dukes and kings.
If fully successful, the emperor is imprisoned and Constantinople is occupied.
Emperor's family should receive a letter to either cede constantinople or fight a civil war.

If partially successful, constantinople is occupied but emperor remains uncaptured. Emperor would then receive a letter about whether to cede Constantinople officially or fight a civil war.

If unsuccessful, plot is revealed.

Note: suborning one of the various mayors bishops or barons in the Constantinople province should be almost obligatory for this plot to work. Someone needs to open the gate.

Plot 2: Be crowned Emperor: plot available to someone owning the city of Constantinople who is not emperor.

Success: current emperor receives a letter asking for abdication of emperor title and threatening civil war.
Failure: plot is revealed

Note, if the ruling emperor has been captured, by anyone, that should dramatically lower the amount of support needed to get a success on both of these plots. This should allow a Manzikert scenario to have the correct level of impact on internal strife.

Note 2: the trait usurper should be given to any emperor who claims the throne this way, increasing the chances of a vicious cycle of civil wars following an usurpation. Possibly a drop in crown authority should also happen.

The point of this post is to suggest how to weaken the Byzantines internally, while keeping them as powerful as they need to be when unified. It also seeks to make possible Alexios' rise and to weaken the Doukai hold on the Byzantine throne, and to increase the centrality of owning and maintaining a hold on constantinople for a successful Byzantine Emperor. I am not sure at all that these are usable suggestions, but I hope they are at least useful.

 

[grisamentum]

You didn't even bring up the problem of the Rum Sultanate. Talking about the Byzantine Empire in relation to the 1066 scenario is a complete waste of time. In game terms, nearly half the ERE's land disappears if you start in 1077 or later.

Internal stability of the ERE is not that great, it's actually totally random. Sometimes the entire thing will collapse for decades, with dukes fighting back and forth to control various parts. Sometimes you even see ping-ponging claims where 2 claimants fight OVER AND OVER until one dies without an heir. But whether or not this happens is completely random.

However, without a Rum Sultanate, there's nobody to take advantage of this opening. The Caliphs rarely call jihads (fine) and the Seljuks are too spread out and fight their own independence wars. As a result, if you start in 1066, you never see the ERE lose and a good amount of the time it expands endlessly.

With a Rum Sultanate, it's more of an even bet if the ERE gets very strong. I have seen the Shia Caliphate destroy the ERE in a single swoop, though, with a jihad for Byzantium.

I do agree Constantinople should be more important, but so should Mecca, Cordoba, and Rome. As it is, any of the 6/7 holding cities are barely more important than any other. Constantinople is only slightly more valuable than... Barcelona?? Really?

 

[unmerged(7537)]

I do agree Constantinople should be more important, but so should Mecca, Cordoba, and Rome. As it is, any of the 6/7 holding cities are barely more important than any other. Constantinople is only slightly more valuable than... Barcelona?? Really?

To be fair Constantinople was nerfed considerably in 1.05 in order to weaken the Byzantine Empire somewhat, pre-1.05 it was the wealthiest city of the world for most of the game due to good tech and seven fully-upgraded settlements.

 

[unmerged(494734)]

So, I am basically only interested in the 1066 scenario, and the rum sultanate isnt a problem in the 1066 scenario except in its need to potentially come into existence if the Byzantines screw up enough. One way to do that would be to have Mercs demand territory if their employer is running out of money and to give the Byzantines access to specifically Turkish mercenaries, as this is the mechanism by which the Byzantines historically lost Nicea.

The point isn't that the ERE doesn't fight civil wars, but that it fights the wrong civil wars and rarely goes into the sort of utter chaos that characterizes the 70s, in which every one and their brother attempts to claim the throne. The instability in the 1066 scenario tends to be primarily internal to the Doukai, some Doukas ends up on the throne after Michael , rather than a Bryrennos, a Botteniates, a Komnenos, ect. And well, It would be awesome if it was possible (though not likely) for the Komnenoi brother's coup to happen in game.

With the changes they have made to how multiple wars work, protracted civil war more reliably leads to territorial loss, so I think if the civil wars could be gotten right, there would be a very real chance that you would see massive territorial losses by the Byzantines if they got into nasty enough civil war cycles.

 

[unmerged(494734)]

To be fair Constantinople was nerfed considerably in 1.05 in order to weaken the Byzantine Empire somewhat, pre-1.05 it was the wealthiest city of the world for most of the game due to good tech and seven fully-upgraded settlements.

That nerf is why I got around to posting this thread at all, cause I think it was the wrong reaction to the right problem. Even when it was economically powerful and important in the earlier patches, it wasn't politically as important as it was historically to the Byzantines. My solution would be to make it even more of a prize, and then make absolutely sure that everyone and their brother was out to make that prize their own.

 

[Federalist girl]

The problem with Rum is that it can't really be created through the course of the ordinary game. The creator of CK2+ has found a way around this for his next version (apparently) by having a de jure Sultanate of Rum form whenever the Empire loses half the de jure kingdom in Asia Minor (i.e., in vanilla terms, the Anatolian part of the kingdom of Byzantium excluding Armenia): this de jure Sultanate of Rome also takes Asia Minor completely out of the de jure Byzantine Empire as well. I think that significantly changes the nature of the game, without being so drastic and ahistorical as some silly nerf of Constantinople (which SHOULD be the wealthiest city on earth).

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Taking Asia Minor out of the de jure empire seems a little extreme. Is it really necessary? I could see them losing it on Armenia and eastern Anatolia, but they should be allowed to use what amounts to a reconquest CB on what had been core lands for over a thousand years.

On the broader subject, thanks for making this thread Theodoros, it's great to see someone with your knowledge take an interest in the Byzantines' problems. How would you model the internal political structure of the empire using the current game mechanics? Copying the Western European feudal system is clearly ahistorical, but I don't know how it could be made any better.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Taking Asia Minor out of the de jure empire seems a little extreme. Is it really necessary? I could see them losing it on Armenia and eastern Anatolia, but they should be allowed to use what amounts to a reconquest CB on what had been core lands for over a thousand years.

An option would be to make Rum/Anatolia a de jure part of the Byzantine Empire, but only creatable by Muslims. Though the problem doesn't seem to be that there are too few kingdoms up for grabs, but that it is very unlikely for any of the Muslim powers in the region to invade Anatolia in the first place.

Frankly I have no idea how to fix that without strenghtening the Muslim empires to the point where Crusades, in turn, would become too difficult to achieve.

 

[unmerged(494734)]

Though the problem doesn't seem to be that there are too few kingdoms up for grabs, but that it is very unlikely for any of the Muslim powers in the region to invade Anatolia in the first place.

Frankly I have no idea how to fix that without strenghtening the Muslim empires to the point where Crusades, in turn, would become too difficult to achieve.

Answering this problem was the point of my initial post for this thread. The way to have a reasonably realistic chance from 1066 of a Byzantine loss of Asia minor without making them incredibly overpowered is for that loss to come because of Byzantium self destructing. This was historically exactly what happened in all post-1000 examples of Byzantine territorial decline that I can come up with. 1070s: major civil wars. 1204: Major civil wars, one faction invites in the crusade. 14th century: again major civil wars undoing the recovery of the late 13th century.

The key is for the nobles of the Byzantine empire to be more interested in who controls Constantinople than what is happening to the empire as a whole.

To do this: 1. Constantinople needs to be the key for the imperial office. 2. there needs to be non-dynastic ways of usurping the Byzantine throne. 3. The Ducal AIs should be constantly trying to get enough support for a coup if they are at all unsatisfied with the current ruler. Once you have the decade long civil wars that should result when usurpation gets out of hand, the Muslim AIs should manage picking off the individual duchies without much trouble.

The goal should be for the Byzantines when unified to be a very hard nut to crack and to actively be in a position to be expansionist, but when disunified to be easy prey and even outright self destructive, and a captured emperor (as happened at Manzikert) should be one of the fastest ways to having a dis-unified Byzantine empire.

 

[IGGEL]

My 2 cents:
The Byzantines had a smaller sized but disciplined standing army. This could be easily implemented with mercenaries.
I agree that the Byzzies are suppressing independence wars when they should be fighting to stay on the throne.

 

[Sleight of Hand]

Just make Rum (and some of the other Turkish states if you like) a titular kingdom formable by Turkish Muslims. I've done that in my game -- it's an easy fix and you can guarantee that once the Muslims start conquering Anatolia they will form some of these titular states, which can over time become de jure.

I agree the entire system could (and likely will) be improved with DLC or a patch though.

 

[Garak]

Just make Rum (and some of the other Turkish states if you like) a titular kingdom formable by Turkish Muslims. I've done that in my game -- it's an easy fix and you can guarantee that once the Muslims start conquering Anatolia they will form some of these titular states, which can over time become de jure.

I agree the entire system could (and likely will) be improved with DLC or a patch though.

This seems like the simplest solution to me, at least for the problem of Rum. As for how to get the Byzantines to behave more historically, without scripting straight up historical events forcing the empire along a certain path, I don't know. That would clearly be contrary to the game's design philosophy, and pretty darn frustrating if you're playing as the Byzantines themselves. They could use some unique mechanics, though, to simulate what the imperial structure was like.

 

[Shaytana]

One quick thing that can be done (and there are a lot of things) is to have a setup for internal trouble by modifying the initial history files. Give the right people the right traits (ambitious, etc) and you could have a scenario where 1066 Byzantium becomes a struggle.

 

[unmerged(494734)]

This seems like the simplest solution to me, at least for the problem of Rum. As for how to get the Byzantines to behave more historically, without scripting straight up historical events forcing the empire along a certain path, I don't know. That would clearly be contrary to the game's design philosophy, and pretty darn frustrating if you're playing as the Byzantines themselves. They could use some unique mechanics, though, to simulate what the imperial structure was like.

I definitely agree that historical forced events would be a mistake, I want to play a game where Alexios's coup can happen, not one where it must. The thing Paradox has been getting right since the first crusader kings is the avoidance of railroading events.

Given the interest in the Rum problem: A point I think that is worth reiterating from my initial post is that Peter Frankopan's "The First Crusade: The call from the east" is a game changer.

Basically, the argument of note is that collapse of the east happened during Alexios's reign and not during the interregnum after manzikert, 1090s rather than 1070s, and that it was in part the result of Alexios's having employed Turkish forces as part of a foreign policy. What was happening wasn't an Islamic invasion at first but rather a Turkish general in Byzantine employ going rogue.

If Frankopan is right, and his argument is compelling at least, then the problem of Byzantium not falling in the face of the Turks is actually CK2 accidentally getting it right when it comes to force balance, but not having the mechanisms in place by which a Turk could easily become what would in game terms be a Byzantine Doux and then declare independence.

Of course, another aspect of the problem of Rum is that the Pechenegs aren't scary enough. The historical reason for Alexios relying on Sulayman in the east had a lot to do with how threatening the Pechenegs were. I sometimes think that both the Pechenegs and Cumans need to have something like a weaker version of the Mongol mechanics to turn them into enough of a threat to justify the Byzantines neglecting the east.

I think that should be lower priority, however, than getting a usurpation mechanism running in some future patch or another.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

I asked this earlier, and I guess it either got overlooked or deemed off topic. Sorry if it's the latter, but even if it isn't directly related to the collapse the the Byzantines, it's still about getting them more right.

How accurate a model of internal politics and governance is the current system? Is it too closely modeled on western European feudalism? If so, how would you recommend improving it using current game mechanics?

 

[Joel M Bridge]

I only have very limit knowelage when comes byzantine history, legitmancy of emperor was shacky at best even when do have offical crazy well recorded coronation. Was pratices still going of solider raising there general on there shields and proclaiming them emperor?

The empire bit werid in sense ever one that was anyone all ways had two titles, on was honorary other was the offical offices. Honoray title was one use court give to you by emperor to show close you where to god rep, and thing some title honorary title where so high came powerful offices. Now sencond title offices they emperor appoint then to. now stragios of theme had quite bit power where virtual fedual lord of theme, could still be dismiss from post at will of emperor. they never hold one post generations. All the focus of power was in the Queen of Cities, that how it is possible for complete poltical nobodies to rise emperor in flash. Other thing two is least from my read legitmacy for emperor came over time for how long he rule as his family.

I know RedRooster, found away to make coutier playable but pretty damn funk int method making the playble but it is possibl.

 

[mudcrabmerchant]

Joel... Going off of your name I'm going to assume that English is your first language, so I won't refrain from telling you that your English skills are affecting my ability to understand you.

I wonder how we could model strategos (strategoi?) in game. If they were given elective succession, would it be possible to give the emperor enough votes to decide it on his own? Can lieges even take part in such elections? If possible, it would be good to reduce the emperor's penalty for revoking their titles, as he had full right by law to do so.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Joel... Going off of your name I'm going to assume that English is your first language, so I won't refrain from telling you that your English skills are affecting my ability to understand you.

I think he is Spanish (or Spanish is his first language).

 

[knppel]

In one of my last games Konstantinos Doukas died naturally in december 1066. It was amazing. It was not Romanos Diogenes who then took the throne, but the House Palaiologos first, and Alexios Komnenos did not become emperor, his grandson did, but Michael Doukas ended up stripped of his titles as Bishop in Walachia somewhere :happy:

I agree though usually I see Doukas emperors ruling over the ERE most of the time unless someone gets extremely unlucky and doesn't get kids or whatever

 

[Fawr]

Personally I've tried modding the laws so that byzantine vassals provide more tax and less troops to their overlords.

Hopefully that would give the byzantines more internal dissention and more tax to use on mercenaries.