How do you deal with crappy Byzantine commanders?

[Castios]

I am struggling with getting good Byz commanders. 90% of my vassals usually SUCK at martial and lacks military education. I also gave most of duchies away as duchies and not viceroyalties because I hate dealing with that every time my vassal dies, so I guess this was a mistake.

But I could still revoke them. The question is, does it really help? If my vassal owns all dejure lands, isn't that stupid to give duchy that rightfully belongs to him to someone else just because his martial skill sucks? Feels so gamey.

I just perhaps educate future vassals myself but GOD DAMN it would be insane amount of micromanagement and does not guarantee producing decent commanders.

How do you people manage that? I really feel like this change is the main nerf to Byzantium. I can manage elections no problem, never had any issues with that, but constantly having to use idiots as commanders is horrible.

 

[Serenity84]

I found that I can usually get decent commanders. Just not great ones. And in peace time you don't need a lot of commanders anyways. So when you're waiting for stuff to happen like marriages and claims it's generally fine.

Waging holy wars against the Muslims gives you enough new land to hand out new titles now and then.

 

[SigurdStormhand]

First off, you have sort of shot yourself in the foot by handing out Feudal Duchies. With Viceroyalties you can usually get decent commanders. If you manage your Viceroyalties well you can revoke the Duchy freely from a bad commander, and then his county for minimal opinion penalty, and hand it to someone else.

Remember, although Title revocation DOES incur an opinion penalty it DOES NOT count as "Tyranny" anymore.

 

[knppel]

Micromanaging the education over long term will guarantee success. 100%.
As long as the majority of potential heirs in the realm are educated with martial traits, you have good chances of having the required (That being, Organizer and Siege leader) skills present in your command staff, and usually have a whole list of Strategoi around the 20 skill (or, with Hellenic and a Warrior Lodge: Around the 30) at hand.
A golden generation of generals can even force you to pick between people at 35 martial.

Downside: An Exarch of Italy with 38 martial flipping to Catholic due to not having been in the warrior lodge, but in the secret christians, and still more beast than anyone else in the realm, might happen too

 

[Thrake]

I am struggling with getting good Byz commanders. 90% of my vassals usually SUCK at martial and lacks military education. I also gave most of duchies away as duchies and not viceroyalties because I hate dealing with that every time my vassal dies, so I guess this was a mistake.

But I could still revoke them. The question is, does it really help? If my vassal owns all dejure lands, isn't that stupid to give duchy that rightfully belongs to him to someone else just because his martial skill sucks? Feels so gamey.

I just perhaps educate future vassals myself but GOD DAMN it would be insane amount of micromanagement and does not guarantee producing decent commanders.

How do you people manage that? I really feel like this change is the main nerf to Byzantium. I can manage elections no problem, never had any issues with that, but constantly having to use idiots as commanders is horrible.

My non-gamey trick is to not give whole duchy to the dejure duke (he should have vassals). Then when duke revolts, I revoke the duchy and hand it over to one of his count vassal.

If you really want good commanders the cheap way, sort character finder by highest martial and invite people. Remember that you can directly land vassal courtiers without inviting (good after a revoking spree).

 

[treb]

One thing that is missing from Byzantine and by extension Chinese imperials is the representation of there centralized education systems both for administration and the military, a neat bit of flavor could be a society or something similar that functions solely to educate the realms young aristocrats grooming and preparing them for a life in the administration or military.


imagine the fun of working your way up the totem pole during then exploiting your position to get what you want or using your influence to pull stings in the background instead of just playing as the Emperor.

 

[knppel]

One thing that is missing from Byzantine and by extension Chinese imperials is the representation of there centralized education systems both for administration and the military, a neat bit of flavor could be a society or something similar that functions solely to educate the realms young aristocrats grooming and preparing them for a life in the administration or military.


imagine the fun of working your way up the totem pole during then exploiting your position to get what you want or using your influence to pull stings in the background instead of just playing as the Emperor.

Buildt this team up from starting as count in about 150 years. It's the companions, and they made him Augustus and Alexander. A total of seven siege leaders during his 42 year reign.
The Olympic champions served nicely to boost the education of the realms' elite (Cousin Kaisarios down there is the representative of the Cult of Bacchus, yes, but hey, if you burn martial-26-guys as Roman Emperor, then it's your own fault!)

Please excuse the 17 year old greenhorn in there messing up the nice sheet of the realm's military command staff.
Micromanaging martial education is maybe not everything as Rome, but certainly a lot.
Admittely, that above is a pretty golden generation and the one coming after was not as over-the-top in average, but still more than capable, as I did not step back from managing all of these beasts educating further kids personally.

Eventually I might have ended up educating as many kids as jwalche imprisoned in his abbasid worldrun, but, I did always have good commanders!

For strong commanders, Kinder Milchschnitte- for the extra share of Milk

 

[Narvait]

I did it with China commanders. Put one of them as Marshal. You can use him right away when in war or keep him teaching/upgrading others when in peace.
Worked well. Not 30+ martial well, but had 15-16+ commanders always.

 

[Narvait]

Another gamey exploit is “Constantinople Grant”. As an Emperor you can any time at no cost at all revoke Constantinople via “Intrigue” menu. Which means you can temporarily grant it to claimants or commanders if you need so. And revoke later.

So, my advice for Byz is non-Thrace power base with temporary Constantinople

 

[Castios]

Buildt this team up from starting as count in about 150 years. It's the companions, and they made him Augustus and Alexander. A total of seven siege leaders during his 42 year reign.
The Olympic champions served nicely to boost the education of the realms' elite (Cousin Kaisarios down there is the representative of the Cult of Bacchus, yes, but hey, if you burn martial-26-guys as Roman Emperor, then it's your own fault!)


Please excuse the 17 year old greenhorn in there messing up the nice sheet of the realm's military command staff.
Micromanaging martial education is maybe not everything as Rome, but certainly a lot.
Admittely, that above is a pretty golden generation and the one coming after was not as over-the-top in average, but still more than capable, as I did not step back from managing all of these beasts educating further kids personally.

Eventually I might have ended up educating as many kids as jwalche imprisoned in his abbasid worldrun, but, I did always have good commanders!

For strong commanders, Kinder Milchschnitte- for the extra share of Milk

Few questions. How long did it take you to form Roman Empire and reform religion? It took me so much time, over 300 years but I had huge muslim empire to deal with and threat feature enabled unfortunately. Did you have coalitions enabled in your game?

Also how exactly did you educate them? You simply constantly had two wards, the future vassals, under your care?

In the end I got some more viceroyalty titles to hand over, which helped me to get better commanders, still not great tho.

 

[Serenity84]

Having a good court tutor and manually assigning guardians to promising children can help too

still not great tho.

It doesn't have to be. Yes, commanders can make a large difference in battles, but as the Byzantines you have plenty of other advantages like a large realm with lots of levies and plenty of gold. And a large navy which makes you very mobile

 

[Byzantium2000]

I am struggling with getting good Byz commanders. 90% of my vassals usually SUCK at martial and lacks military education. I also gave most of duchies away as duchies and not viceroyalties because I hate dealing with that every time my vassal dies, so I guess this was a mistake.

But I could still revoke them. The question is, does it really help? If my vassal owns all dejure lands, isn't that stupid to give duchy that rightfully belongs to him to someone else just because his martial skill sucks? Feels so gamey.

I just perhaps educate future vassals myself but GOD DAMN it would be insane amount of micromanagement and does not guarantee producing decent commanders.

How do you people manage that? I really feel like this change is the main nerf to Byzantium. I can manage elections no problem, never had any issues with that, but constantly having to use idiots as commanders is horrible.

You dont the restriction on commanders for the Byzantines is the one change I cant stand and completely destroys the Ai. It's not historical in the slightest.

 

[treb]

Having a good court tutor and manually assigning guardians to promising children can help too


It doesn't have to be. Yes, commanders can make a large difference in battles, but as the Byzantines you have plenty of other advantages like a large realm with lots of levies and plenty of gold. And a large navy which makes you very mobile

Pikes and bows, boys. pikes and bows.

 

[Rags17]

Buildt this team up from starting as count in about 150 years. It's the companions, and they made him Augustus and Alexander. A total of seven siege leaders during his 42 year reign.
The Olympic champions served nicely to boost the education of the realms' elite (Cousin Kaisarios down there is the representative of the Cult of Bacchus, yes, but hey, if you burn martial-26-guys as Roman Emperor, then it's your own fault!)

:

I do like the fact that two of them are Depressed, one is Stressed and one is Possessed - I think that you are expecting a little too much from your employees !

Workplace bullying - it's everybody's concern !

 

[knppel]

Game rules:
Ironman, Started as Count of Thebes, 867. Defensive pacts on, achievements enabled- I actually made several blood-related ones as well as "Bless ma reign down in Africa" already, and of course, By Jupiter.

It took roughly 120 years, I had a super-sneaky vassal plan, acted mostly on opportunity, and did not actually resort to murder plans.
In fact, I started with warfare focus, as my starting character stood in line to inherit a county and likely be granted a Theme his father owns, to give the AI what it lacks without doubt- capable commanders.
Later on , once elected emperor, I used a secret religious cult to secretly convert my suspects. I did not ask people to convert actively to prevent religious cults forming in return in masses.

I didn't get beyond a skill of 9 on my first char, but I did learn Siege Leader, and once promoted to Strategos, Basil did offer me a commander slot. I have around 8 or 9 pages in the chronicle full of how Strategos and later Despot Theodotos successfully led the armies of Basileus Basileios in the Siege of here and there.
It's not glamurous, but... you know, guys (and ladies)
Granted, I had a long lucky first life- Theodotos died aged 72 of suspicious circumstances, I got the blubbering bubbling sound while on ship sailing to Venice to fend off raiders- and managed to fully reconquer Sicily, but that front was all I did to support the AI.

P.S. in regards of the accusations of work place bullying, you know, we always need volunteers for bloodgames, sacrifices, the macabre banquet.
And my own kin does in fact give the most outstanding boni for big war sacrifices

 

[TheAzureLiger]

I am struggling with getting good Byz commanders. 90% of my vassals usually SUCK at martial and lacks military education. I also gave most of duchies away as duchies and not viceroyalties because I hate dealing with that every time my vassal dies, so I guess this was a mistake.

But I could still revoke them. The question is, does it really help? If my vassal owns all dejure lands, isn't that stupid to give duchy that rightfully belongs to him to someone else just because his martial skill sucks? Feels so gamey.

I just perhaps educate future vassals myself but GOD DAMN it would be insane amount of micromanagement and does not guarantee producing decent commanders.

How do you people manage that? I really feel like this change is the main nerf to Byzantium. I can manage elections no problem, never had any issues with that, but constantly having to use idiots as commanders is horrible.

Viceroy titles are how you get good commanders of course. Use vassal view and see which landed nobles have the highest martial. I usually end up with around 12 vassals all of whom have 2-4 viceroy titles scattered across the world. IE someone being viceroy of alexandria, antioch, adrianople, and samos. I also prioritize people with only 1 landed title so that they can't do much even if they revolt with their 2-4 viceroystitles.

I mean, William the Conqueror made sure when assigning titles to give them far away so that the vassals couldn't get people from their various lands together fast enough to revolt.

 

[Castios]

Viceroy titles are how you get good commanders of course. Use vassal view and see which landed nobles have the highest martial. I usually end up with around 12 vassals all of whom have 2-4 viceroy titles scattered across the world. IE someone being viceroy of alexandria, antioch, adrianople, and samos. I also prioritize people with only 1 landed title so that they can't do much even if they revolt with their 2-4 viceroystitles.

I mean, William the Conqueror made sure when assigning titles to give them far away so that the vassals couldn't get people from their various lands together fast enough to revolt.

Honestly I would never do that since it's so incredibly gamey I would almost consider it exploiting game mechanics (in a bad way).

My number 1 rule for handing out viceroyalties (and regular titles as well) is that my vassal has to own dejure land of this title and he has to be at least semi-competent and not the weakest one in the area. I still managed to get good commanders in the end doing this but I learned that my main mistake was not to educate future vassals myself, which I should have done.

I never had a single vassals revolt in my entire Byz playthrough on ironman (and I managed to restore Roman Empire and mend the schism) so I had to be doing something right.

There is plenty different ways to deal with troublesome vassals, intrigue being of my favourites.

 

[knppel]

I eventually faced a revolt when a catholic secret society unfolded. Independence war after 150 years ingame, it was amazing. They had 100k men and where led by my brother, Exarch of Italy and the best general of the realm (38 without warrior lodge since secretly christian!).

I smashed their forces bit by bit, my army was in India but I had left my retinue of 25k Preatorians in Rome for the cause, and it turned out they can take on double their numbers in levy!

Granted, I could have prevented it by arresting him or something, but honestly I wanted it to trigger- the rebels had all openly adopted catholicism prior to forming their faction, so I was not only able to arrest them, but effectively revoke ALL OF THEIR STUFF and re-grant it to good hellenic kinsmen.

Elsewise, once you're established it's really smooth for a variety of reasons- not like you could get stuck with a terrible heir unlike the primogeniture realms, to mention the main source of comfort in my current East Rome games.

 

[Windwill]

Cap of the Varangians is usually at least decent, and he’s a vassal.

 

[Slaists]

There are several things you can do:

- Set a good Marshal to educate commanders; he will invite high command non-landed Greek commanders now and then. He wil also boost the stats of the existing commanders.
- Get the forged bloodline that attracts heroes. They will also tend to have a high command skill + be of your own culture/religion.
- Use the court tutor to educate promising martial youths.
- Invite a strategist from China and set him as a Marshal; He will boost the stats of your existing commanders.
- Do a character search on high martial skill; usually, if the ruler has high enough prestige there will be several willing to join your court (sometimes for a fee). You do not even have to land them. Just assign as commanders.