How to improve your economy:
1. Get a CoT on Thrace. It requires 500 ducats, being influenced by National Focus, and the CoT controlling Thrace needs to have 800 or more values, which should still be Venezia. If it's not Venezia, start rotating the CoT by embargoing the country that control the CoT on Thrace until you can form a new CoT and remember to fill it up with your merchants. Reason for this is that you have become a regional power, and Byzantine starts out with heavy Mercantilism, making it more economic for you to get a CoT of your own instead of going around competing in foreign CoT.
2. Go to your Culture window and enact Commission Tapestry and National Epic cultural decisions, and dump the rest of your magistrate onto Commission Paining (don't do Endorse Culture, they're better used on sphere of influence). On the same window, recruit a Master of Mint (right most icon, second row). After that, go to the Court window, and appoint him as your adviser. As for the other two slots, I'm going to also recommend High Judge and Artist. All future magistrates will go into cultural tradition here until you reach 100%. Hire another master of mint once it does reach 100%. Switch out the artist for theologian if you're at 3 stability, and the high judge for statesman when your WE is below 5.
3. Go to Economy window. Throw all your investments on stability, we need to get that up to reduce your revolt risk. When you get to 3 stability, go to the Government page and change your first national idea to National Bank. When you get back to 3 stability again, probably through the mission mentioned below, focus on techs that are about to hit level 8, when they reach level 8, split the investment evenly in between government and land, and don't change it until you start seeing "This technology is x years ahead of its time" when you mouse over the government and land sliders.
4. Cancel your mission, hopefully the Defeat Rebel mission will pop. Then start stomping those revolts. Prioritize provinces that are already controlled by nationalists, patriots, and zealots rebels, (they'll defect when lost for 3 years. That's how you lost those provinces in Asia Minor) then the rebels that are about to finish their siege, and finally the rests. As your army recovers to full strength, start splitting them up in stacks of 6 regiments with 4 infantry + 2 cavalry. Merge them to 12 reg when you need a larger stack for the rebels, and split them in half for siege/smaller stacks. Revolts will keep popping up for the next 10 years due to your high war exhaustion.
P.S. If you do get the Defeat Rebel mission, have 1 or higher stability, down to the last rebel, and haven't changed your national idea to National Bank; go to your national idea page, and change your first idea to National Bank when you're about to rout the last stack. (make sure it happens before, not after)
5. Until you establish a land connection between your capital and the rest of Asia to the east through the Russia and Middle-East region to your north or move your capital to the other side of the strait, all provinces in Asia are considered oversea, and will produce less than ideal income until you have one big ship per oversea province. Go to the Economy window, and mouse of the percentage behind Tariff. Start building those big ship carracks until you reach that number, even if it means going a little over your naval force limit. (if it goes over too much, disband some galleys)
6. Go to Military window, and change your naval maintenance to 0, because we're not going to wage war for the next decade, might as well cut back a little. Slide this back to max if you ever get into a war that needs ships though.
7. Throw those missionaries on to Muslim provinces and convert them to Orthodox. (prioritize core provinces)
8. Once you've gotten a level 5/6 master of mint through 100% cultural tradition, start building buildings. Refer to that post in your "I am stuck" thread from before, for building prioritization.
When your rebel situation is under control, your infamy is close to 0, and those 2 minor nations in the Asia Minor aren't going alliance cascade onto the big boys, kill them. Even if it means using Holy War CB instead of Reconquest.
After you've done everything mentioned, I highly recommend the bankrupt method to instantly lower your inflation by half, instead of waiting for the -0.22 inflation per year for 70 years. Bankruptcy also incurs -2 army morale, +1 revolt risk, and 20% more army maintenance for 10 years, so do it after your WE is way low.
To do so:
1. Make sure it's January and you've collected your annual income.
2. Go to economy window, click that Take Loan button 5 times, and invest all your ducat into stability, if it's not at level 3 yet, or whichever tech you prefer to, by clicking that arrow next to the slider bar. You should have less than 200 ducats at this point.
3. You wait till the bankrupt event, which should only take a month or 2.
3. After you're bankrupt, go to cultural tab, throw your magistrates into cultural tradition and re-hire your master of mint, theologian, and that other adviser of your choice.
4. Go to military window and adjust your army/naval maintenance to 0
5. Go to economy window, reduce missionary maintenance to 0, and readjust the minting slider so you have a positive MONTHLY income, even if it means slightly increasing your inflation.
6. When it's January again, readjust your minting slider so that your YEARLY net gain (by mouse overing your treasury) is in between 5 and 10. If it's larger than 10 even with 0 minting, bring your missionary/land/naval maintenance back to full one at a time, until the net gain is back to single digit.
7. Wait for 10 years, then go back to your usual conquering business.
Note that, if anyone decides to declare war on you, immediately change your land and naval maintenance back to full, and adjust minting slider accordingly. Enact war tax if you have to. This time, make sure your army isn't taking unnecessary attrition.
