Should Byzantium have a few cores on western Anatolia?

[dervishefendy]

Well that's interesting, I guess they will change it when they want to. Ottomans really should sometimes fail to blob, as it keeps the game fresh.

Well, after new patches ottomans cant blob half of the games. Since name of 1444 starting date "Rise of Ottomans" and with historical reality ottomans should be blob more likely.

 

[Froonk]

I still think that at least Smyrna should be greek/orthodox, otherwise where did all those greeks from 1914 come from? Emigrated there in later periods?

I could agree on greek/sunii, but this is problematic because today there are very few muslims in Greece (excluding the post 2016 ones): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Greece

It really confuses me: if many greeks converted to islam, what happened to them later? Converted back again? Aculturated as turks? If they aculturated as turks, then we have yet more reason to believe it should be greek/orthodox since in 1914 there were so many christians in the region.

Besides I'm not sure how they were doing in 1550, probably the data is honest, but 1900s Ottoman data has been proven to be tainted to hide minorities. It also matters the size of the regions measured, they comprise multiple eu4 provinces.

There was an internal migration of Greeks to Smyrna during 18th century onward, there was no Christian Greek majority anywhere in Western Anatolia in 1444. There were however Greek majority cities in southwestern Anatolia but I am not sure how to represent this, as the game doesn't account for cultural and religious pluralities. Southwest Anatolia and Northern Anatolian coast could definitely have more Greek culture provinces and Northern coast more Orthodox provinces however, just not in Smyrna.

This is not uni-directional either. For some reason areas around Ottoman capital in 1444 starts as Greek Orthodox, those areas were Turkified in 14th century.

 

[CPU Taro]

Byzantium should at least have cores around Chalcedon/Nikomedia/Nicaea and Smyrna/Ephesos/Philadelphia.

I don't know enough about the exact numbers to know how the Christians of Anatolia should be represented, but if actual majority status in some provinces is inappropriate, perhaps something could be represented through events instead? As @sekelsenmat suggested, it would be great to see Maronites and Copts properly represented too. The middle east is meant to be a meltingpot, right?

 

[cetvrtak]

I think I can remember reading one of the devs comments saying that they removed the cores and changed the culture groups not because they were ahistorical but to stop provinces flipping to Byzantium to keep it consistent with the Ottoblobbing? I can remember in earlier patches (maybe ~2 years ago) Smyrna was Greek culture before they changed it.

EDIT: Actually it looks like this has been discussed in similar fashion from a thread in 2015

Shouldn't Byzantium have more cores?

Hello, I've recently taken up EU4 again, lots of New patches plus the Common Sense and Art of War DLC. Exciting, as always I fire up a New game With Byzantium, my favorite. So far so good, managed to ally Poland-Lithuania, Wallachia and Aragon...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

This.

And always keep in mind that culture here serves gameplay purposes, not other way around.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

This.

And always keep in mind that culture here serves gameplay purposes, not other way around.

Yup, otherwise you can argue that the Timurids should have cores on a lot of QQ and AQ, as those split away from the Timurids relatively recently in 1444. That's really not so good for game balance.

 

[RobbieAB]

There is a game mechanical issue with giving Byzantium lots of cores that they possibly should have had which is it makes them a major vassalisation target for any ambitious player i n the region as it would allow them to be used as a reconsider vehicle.

Whether the abuse of mechanics in a single player game merits this change is questionable, but it is a still a factor.

 

[Quickmelty]

There is a game mechanical issue with giving Byzantium lots of cores that they possibly should have had which is it makes them a major vassalisation target for any ambitious player i n the region as it would allow them to be used as a reconsider vehicle.

Whether the abuse of mechanics in a single player game merits this change is questionable, but it is a still a factor.

The fact that the only cores they have is the coastline of greece and not even the tiny islands surrounding it , nor cores on naxos, coupled with the cost of coring these provinces (150, at base, without the claims from mission trees) is a huge penalty to admin monarch power. Coupled with overextension as a game mechanic it doesn't leave byzantium in a position that's at the very least a bit better to the experienced player.

While we can all see budgetmonk blaze through and destroy the ottomans (fairly easy in the latest patch, they seem to collapse early or dominate now) they should have a more favorable position in the next patch along with historical areas being of greek culture. The lack of cores is a major annoyance on the tiny islands that cost so much for such little deved provinces , considering they should already start with claims on the islands (and the fact that rebels aren't an issue for lucky nations any more with the recent patch) I would put forth something radical. Change the mission tree to align with the type of power that many other nations get with recent patches. From what I can tell, the byzantines haven't gotten a major change to mission tree, decisions, or events for a long time, while other major powers and even some minor nations I've an interest in (majapahit, for example) have gotten radical changes that drastically change how they play and bring them in line with , I'd argue, at their "power level" of european bonuses for completing missions. Austria was massively buffed then nerfed. Burgundy has the chance to form lotharingia.The french missions were completely changed and the nation decentralized as it was historically with vassal swarms again. . A "Rome" update should be put forth, benefiting a rising phoenix, rather than the boring path that's layed before you now. The island hopping makes no sense. The bonuses aren't even in line with major power 20 year bonuses, only existing for 15 years. A re-organization and restructuring of the current tree also needs to account for the fact that sunni is EXTREMELY hard to convert without religious ideas and the benefits that catholicism gets to missionary strength. Cultural conversion costs also, do, need to be reduced as a part of a byzantine mission tree. As it stands, we're getting claims and only claims the farther we push and a meager reward for pushing so far into anatolia. Anatolia was the breadbasket of soldiers for the byzantines, and increased populations folded into the empire should benefit a resurgent ERE in bonuses to manpower.

 

[SandroHOMM]

I think I can remember reading one of the devs comments saying that they removed the cores and changed the culture groups not because they were ahistorical but to stop provinces flipping to Byzantium to keep it consistent with the Ottoblobbing? I can remember in earlier patches (maybe ~2 years ago) Smyrna was Greek culture before they changed it.

EDIT: Actually it looks like this has been discussed in similar fashion from a thread in 2015

Shouldn't Byzantium have more cores?

Hello, I've recently taken up EU4 again, lots of New patches plus the Common Sense and Art of War DLC. Exciting, as always I fire up a New game With Byzantium, my favorite. So far so good, managed to ally Poland-Lithuania, Wallachia and Aragon...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Well we are always asking for the Byzantium and Ottoman mission trees to be reworked since they were very early an not really up to scratch with the newer ones.
If they don't want the cores there to stop ottomans exploding, why not make a few of the rewards for the reworked missions give cores? You'd need to actually be a resurgent Byzantium to gain them anyway, so Ottomans blobbing like intended is probably not going to happen anymore.

Alternatively, an event or a few where you can choose between a 'tolerant' stance on the turkish and muslim populations in the land you are taking back, which gives free cores. Or an aggressive/repressive stance on them, which gives all those provinces modifiers that majorly increase missionary strength and reduce culture conversion cost in those provinces, maybe throw in decreased Seperatism in those specific provinces as well to make it a choice where the two options are approximately on par.

Edit: This also prevents the vassal core feeding problem, if it is a problem, because most mission trees start with a requirement that the nation is independant.

 

[Elminster12]

Well we are always asking for the Byzantium and Ottoman mission trees to be reworked since they were very early an not really up to scratch with the newer ones.
If they don't want the cores there to stop ottomans exploding, why not make a few of the rewards for the reworked missions give cores? You'd need to actually be a resurgent Byzantium to gain them anyway, so Ottomans blobbing like intended is probably not going to happen anymore.

Alternatively, an event or a few where you can choose between a 'tolerant' stance on the turkish and muslim populations in the land you are taking back, which gives free cores. Or an aggressive/repressive stance on them, which gives all those provinces modifiers that majorly increase missionary strength and reduce culture conversion cost in those provinces, maybe throw in decreased Seperatism in those specific provinces as well to make it a choice where the two options are approximately on par.

Edit: This also prevents the vassal core feeding problem, if it is a problem, because most mission trees start with a requirement that the nation is independant.

Yeah, making full use of the reworked Mission system would enable you to do that(it can even fire events). Certainly you could easily make it so that reclaimed areas that historically still had significant Greek and Orthodox minorities would be easier to core and convert, if nothing else. Certainly, in 1444, the Byzantines are literally on their last legs and it's quite credible they would need to prove they could fight back against the Turks, Venetians, and Genoese before people took them seriously.
Historically, IIRC, one of the empire's biggest weaknesses was that Venice and Genoa had taken control of all its mercantile shipping, so some sort of mission to build up a fleet and have a certain amount of trade power in the Constantinople node could be a logical prelude to reclaiming the islands the treacherous Venetians and Genoese stole.
And then, perhaps, beyond...