China? Really, they civilized? Amazing o.o
Yup, all on their own, no meddling from me. Pretty cool if you ask me, except that they almost pushed me out of GP status, that's what pushed me to go over the infamy limit, beating up Spain pretty roughly to get them out of GP position in turn, in order to stay #8.
Veovis said:
Union of Red Themes? What is this I don't even...
Was that modded in?
ETA: Oh I get it. A "theme" is a Byzantine administrative district. I must learn to use Wikipedia before I run my mouth.
Yup, i was surprised too when the name changed, didn't know anything about Themes before that. Wikipedia helped me too
TAoD said:
I still cant figure out how he even got the empire to form. Its extremely hard.
Sure is, I didn't make it in my first attempt either, this was my second run after going to around 1900 as Greece in a previous game. I'd say that early on, you'll want to a) get prestige for GP status and b) get a bigger population base, mainly for soldiers.
First, research Freedom of Trade. Then, research nothing until 1840 and then immediately research Idealism for the research boost and the prestige techs. Pray to all the gods that you get several 20 prestige inventions, that'll probably propell you to GP status. In the meantime, beat on uncivs. Starting with Egypt is the obvious one, grabbing Crete and then a few more states, preferrably Palestine, Lebanon and Dumyat. Also, annex Tunisia and Algeria before the French snatch them up. This'll give you a slightly bigger population base, with Freedom of Trade this will help your economy support your military expansions. Hopefully, you'll get a couple more soldier POPs. Also, thanks to your bigger economy, you should be able to build up a navy stronger than the Ottos. Use it to beat their navy and then block the bosphorus while their army is on the other side, occupying your Middle Eastern lands. Then, occupy the entire western part of the OE. You should get at least Thessalia and Western Macedonia. Repeat five years later for the rest of your cores.
Use the reactionary party to get State Capitalism and build a few basic factories, one per state or so. It won't give you much early on but every little bit of score is important to stay a GP. You should use your NF for clergy in whatever state has the biggest population, in order to boost your research. Focus on cultural techs to get prestige and faster research. Also, you'll need Nationalism & Imperialism for the Megali Idea decision that gives you more cores on the OE. When you've got that far, military techs might be a good idea, in order to get more out of your small army, especially later on when you'll have to go past the infamy limit to get the rest of the OE. For as long as you can, avoid to go above it, since your low military score will invite every GP to beat you up. Try to pick the OE apart by freeing states to avoid the high infamy cost of grabbing them. You'll probably get at least one border incident for a free state from them, too. After all, you need land in order to get more soldiers in order to get all of the OE.
When you finally annex the OE and declare BYZ, well, it's all up to you! Remember that you need to be a GP to enact the decision, so if you're slipping behind, try to beat up whoever is ahead of you, humiliation works best since it's infamy-cheap.
Also, if you plan on expanding to grab the rest of the Byzantine lands, I'd recommend hitting the Italian states early, before Italy has formed. I made the mistake of waiting, and that made the process of retaking Italy longer. Also, if you have the opportunity to let a communist revolt win, do it, since it'll let you get good healthcare which will be really imporant to boost your pitiful national population size.
