Please Paradox make Byzantium playable and fun, like it was in 1.3 and 1.4.

[Rabid]

Update on my game, previously I had tripled in size by attacking Trebizond, Cyprus, and Venice and Rhodes defecting.

I beat the Ottomans single handedly and took back all my cores. No allies joined and my only vassal was Athens. Ottomans were joined by Crimea and Algiers. I didn't have to take any loans, although my treasury dropped from 250 to 50 and I had to fire two of my advisors.

It was hard (I nearly lost my fleet) and it took some luck (Mamlukes DoW'd Ottomans just as I finished occupying their European provinces), but I certainly don't think Byzantium needs any kind of buff.

Honestly I would be happy if rebels would stop defecting to Byzantium so easily, it takes a lot of the challenge out of it when you suddenly get super-rich Cyprus defecting to you with a free 12k army -.-

 

[Konair0s]

Their warning only applies to nations with a land border with the Ottomans. So Bosnia does not apply. Not sure how you managed Serbia though, unless you didn't declare war directly on them.

Simple exploit to avoid the warning is just to warn the Ottomans first. You can't both warn each other, which seems a bit silly to me as I mentioned here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?758179-Paradox-please-consider-2-small-tweaks

I know.
It was Serbia, so the borders are here. It was not just one time, I tried it several times and Ottomans did not respond to attacks.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ok I totally give up its basically pointless. Wasted like 8 hrs trying over and over and over! I've probably tried it like 100 times today. can't get past 1470s.

1) unless Timurids attack early, you lose in 1446.

2) Even if you manage to take whole upper balkans, And ally with Naples, Poland, Austria, and Bohemia, OE completely destroys everything no matter what. I had full funding and got attacked by a 7k stack(without leader), my 12k stack which was ful morale, leader(though not a particularly good one), and I lost 12k! WTF! OE was outnumbered more than 2-1 at start of war, never lost a battle.

At start of war myself I had about 2/3rds of the army of OE, was way over my force limit in naval and troops (like 28k troops, and 25 galleys) might as well have had nothing. I had same military tech and everything.

Given all the lucky advantages OE gets, Byzantines need some sort of buff, or OE needs a bit of a nerf. AI OE shouldn't be able to just annihilate everything in europe by itself in the 1470s, let alone attacking with 1-2 odds.

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_units

Ottoman units are 2 pips stronger than you at both starting tech and at tech 5. You don't really get close until tech 12. Although it falls off later, pip for pip Ottomans are the strongest faction pre-12, and the 8 pips at tech 5 are ridiculous.

To beat them, then, does require a combination of superior #'s and terrain, and diving their forces. Many posters have shown successful Byzantine empires on this forum, but it's not exactly an easy opening.