Which the Byzantines would not dare do if they beat back the Turks, right?
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Shouldn't Byzantium have more cores?
- Thread starter tkorsvold
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Which the Byzantines would not dare do if they beat back the Turks, right?
Even a resurging empire would not be in the same situation. The Ottomans had a firm hold on their lands and were thriving. Byzantium would go through a war torn country and get much of their population (including the ones they were reintegrating) killed. It would only really be by the time you reinstitute the Theme system that you would have the kind of money and power the Ottomans could draw upon after the taking of Constantinople and afaik, re-establishing it does boost the capital.
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Part of that rebuilding involved moving Turkish families to Constantinople, which wouldn't be an option for the Byzantines. When you reform the Theme System you get a boost that sets the flag "constantinople_restored" +6 Base tax and +5 Manpower.
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Byzantium#Decisions
The one you're looking for is called "Reestablish the Theme System" and is activated when you, roughly, reconstitute an empire about the size of starting Ottoman core territory.
Consider me corrected. My game lost ironman before I got to do that one.
Usually they're force released in war, AI rarely collapses to rebels. Don't let facts stand in the way of your complaining though!
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What do you think I've been trying? Plus you can't rival the Ottomans 90% of the time because you are too weak. Which means mostly you have to rely on Dip adv and money, and even if you survive long enough to get a RM, 9/10 times Poland won't accept an Alliance because you are -5 negative relation left before an alliance is possible. Without Poland and Poland forming into PLU, Byzantium has pretty much NO chance, unless you want to get yourself into immeasurable debt supplying 30-40 galleys, but the debt will kill you as surely as the Ottomans will in the next war if you do win.
Claiming BYZ is unplayable/hard is not credible. It's like those making such claims haven't tried out some of the more daunting ROTW positions, ever.
Not a claim if it's true, if you are really that complaining about "Evidence" then why don't you play BYZ on Ironman, or if your too lazy I'll put up a recording (after the 2000 restarts I will have to do in order to get Poland rival Ottomans, Dip Adv +1) and show you how hard BYZ really is.
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@Scottx105 I would also recommend building up some sort of military presence, treat force limit as a polite suggestion if you need to, basically just make yourself a less tempting target than them consolidating their hold on Anatolia to give a little bit more time. When I played recently Byzantium didn't have a problem with money so much as a problem with manpower, it can afford to get into a little debt to delay the inevitable invasion
Honestly I have no idea whether having 10 troops or 15 troops makes a difference in that situation, but you want to at least pretend to be strong like a true Byzantine
Honestly I have no idea whether having 10 troops or 15 troops makes a difference in that situation, but you want to at least pretend to be strong like a true Byzantine
Oh, unfortunately the very first screenshot I ever took was for the AAR I started late last week, but you can think what you want. It's probably a mix of the two to be honest. I have seen rebels on every single island take that island, even if it was only 9 rebels and the AI nation had 15+ cogs. It's not just Byzantium here, it's Corsica, or places like Sardinia (if it is ever freed). So, yep, if you want me to bombard you with screenshots, when I notice it happening, I will be happy to.
You know, that's interesting. I wonder if Byzantinum should have an event about rediscovery of Greek fire... if it is still around by, say, 1500 or 1600 or some other condition? What effects would it give? MIL tech reduction? Firepower boost? As a short-duration modifier? Permanent modifier? Dunno, but that probably don't belong in the base game, maybe as user mod. *shrugs* Just something I thought as soon as I saw "Greek fire".
I always do that, I get rid of the fort in southern Greece (because if Ottomans make it there its pretty much GG) and can raise army to 11 troops whilst maintaining a large navy of around 20 ships. Problem is you can't ally Poland now as you start with a -58 relation (for alliance) and only +10, and after you have dip adviser, gifts and max relations even with RM you only get to around 54 positive, they have to generally get their ass kicked in a war or lose a lot of troops for you to ally them, by which point if you do ally them and they get PLU, a lot of the time Ottomans can beat PLU with their ridiculously OP army at the start of the game.
Doesn't the last decision/event when you have everything back, give you like the same bonus that Ottomans get? (at least it used to, back when you had no development and it was just basetax it would give +6 base tax)
Or Portugal successfully conquering land from Morocco, only to lose it to separatists in a chunk of games...repeatedly. Or Muscovy/Russia grabbing horde lands before divine supremacy and getting chunked by rebels while losing another war.
How has this been "fixed" otherwise? A sneak change allowing no separatists in accepted cultures once initial separatism is gone, new world "primitives" randomly not giving separatism to non-primitives as of 1.10 or so (obviously needed buff otherwise amirite
), and the AI building more transports. Well, at least one of those things is an AI improvement that has actually manifested.- 1
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Because its tedious to play an uninteresting start in every single patch when someone doing "baby's first byz" posts the inevitable "byz is impossible" thread.
Poland rivaling Ottos and a dip advisor is one route, but not the only route. All you really need is for the Ottos not to declare on your as their first war, which doesn't require many restarts.
I don't understand people who complain Byzantium is underpowered. If anything, it's OP.
People say it's impossible to ally Poland; I've been doing it all the time in 1.13 provided I have a spare diplomatic advisor from the start (them rivaling the Ottomans, which they typically do, helps but is not necessary, nor are gifts).
But the thing is, you don't even need to ally Poland - sometimes Hungary is enough, sometimes Aragon is enough, as long as the Ottomans are not allied with both Crimea and Tunis (in which case the only way to win is to ally both Hungary and Aragon, which respectively neutralize Crimea and Tunis). If for some reason the Ottomans bring no allies to war, you may fight them alone with the old ships wall trick.
Sure, it's luck-based - sometimes the Ottomans crush you no matter what, sometimes they get embroiled in wars against a lot of western or eastern powers and they lose land without player intervention (once Macedonia and Epirus were released to me as the result of a war lost by the Ottomans against the Mamluks and other muslims) but such should be the life of any minor. The thing is, winning as Byzantium is definitely doable.
If there is any nation that is underpowered, these are Castile/Spain and Muscovy/Russia, while Poland and Byzantium are OP.
And no, do not come to me with Greek Fire, Theodosian Walls and other nonsense. Sure, I would like to see the country being called "Romania" or "Roman Empire", I do that in my personal mod, but it cannot come like that in Vanilla. The Purple Phoenix DLC, which I enjoy and play all the time, is already ahistorical enough. No more than that.
People say it's impossible to ally Poland; I've been doing it all the time in 1.13 provided I have a spare diplomatic advisor from the start (them rivaling the Ottomans, which they typically do, helps but is not necessary, nor are gifts).
But the thing is, you don't even need to ally Poland - sometimes Hungary is enough, sometimes Aragon is enough, as long as the Ottomans are not allied with both Crimea and Tunis (in which case the only way to win is to ally both Hungary and Aragon, which respectively neutralize Crimea and Tunis). If for some reason the Ottomans bring no allies to war, you may fight them alone with the old ships wall trick.
Sure, it's luck-based - sometimes the Ottomans crush you no matter what, sometimes they get embroiled in wars against a lot of western or eastern powers and they lose land without player intervention (once Macedonia and Epirus were released to me as the result of a war lost by the Ottomans against the Mamluks and other muslims) but such should be the life of any minor. The thing is, winning as Byzantium is definitely doable.
If there is any nation that is underpowered, these are Castile/Spain and Muscovy/Russia, while Poland and Byzantium are OP.
And no, do not come to me with Greek Fire, Theodosian Walls and other nonsense. Sure, I would like to see the country being called "Romania" or "Roman Empire", I do that in my personal mod, but it cannot come like that in Vanilla. The Purple Phoenix DLC, which I enjoy and play all the time, is already ahistorical enough. No more than that.
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No, Ottoman event is slightly better, gives 4 base tax, 4 production and 3 manpower plus 1 stability AND instantly changes culture and religion of Constantinople (they also get instant free Empire rank). Byzantium's Theme event gives +6 base tax and +5 manpower (roughly same though a more equal spread would be better) and Byzantium gets +25% global manpower. So whilst Ottomans lose out on +25% manpower, which they easily make up for in their ideas (dat 5% mil discipline at the start omfw), they get the addition of whatever the cost is to convert Constantinople in terms of culture and religion (in gold) plus adm cost of 1 stability and free Empire rank (which is good as it gives an extra diplomat and a few other perks).
Austria is difficult to get as an Ally, Aragon is now pretty much impossible and you can't get Hungary if you want Poland (Poland is stronger). Plus even if you do get PLU alliance (arguably the strongest alliance you can get) sometimes the Ottomans will still beat you because of their starting military which is very strong. And the "Theodosin walls crap" is not nonsense, the walls were actively maintained during this period despite the economic troubles of Byzantium and the Greek fire is debatable, some sources claim that the Byzantine defenders used Greek fire to seal tunnels dug by the Ottomans, some claim that they used a substance that somewhat resembled Greek fire and some do not mention it at all.
Are you kidding? +25% manpower is so much better than instant conversion, which for the human player just requires a missionary's work and some diplomatic points - while that huge boost in manpower is a boost for life!
And you neglect to mention the OP Ottoman ideas (more than make up for the 25% manpower boost) plus the instant Empire rank and free culture conversion and adm costs.
So beat the Ottomans w/o Poland with galleys like the last 7 patches in a row and you don't have to worry about diprep advisors or AI unit micro.
This isn't true either. Both Tunis and Crimea joined on this:
It didn't end well for Ottomans:
Byz is always amusing to me because it's a position that is 1) not even in the top 30 most difficult nations to play and yet 2) has many posters claiming it's impossible or that you HAVE to rely on alliances to beat the Ottomans.
Muscovy is too strong in EU relative to its real position in 1444; it's already railroaded for success, same with Castile. Let's not use hindsight bias to say these nations need to be stronger to achieve historic results. Sometimes France or Castile PU each other and integrate to hold both CN sets, more power than anything over there had historically.
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Dude, Byzantium doesn't need to be any stronger, even with all of its nerfs, it powerful. And if you manage to survive the initial years, you steamroll.
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