Something must be done about Byzantium!

[Руслан Мансурский]

Byzantium is worse than the plague.
I start playing since 867, for 200-300 years it grows to Novgorod and Siberia with an army of 50-60K. There is not a single state that can resist it. Byzantium just didn't reach China. Tartary with Borjigins does not create any problems at all. They disappear as imperceptibly as they appear.
Maybe it would be good to Byzantium set some time limit, after which it would begin to bend or a fine for expansion. Or make defensive alliances against it, so that half of the world was against it. Otherwise, it is absolutely impossible to play.
It hurt.

 

[Viridianus]

All those people that claim Byzantium is overbuffed - could you share your settings please? In my games they are usually too busy with fending off their Muslim neighbors (as they historically were).

 

[VeronicaTS]

It sometimes grows substantially - it sometimes gets crushed by the Abbassids, Bulgaria, and Khazaria. It sometimes is stable. Anything can start growing wildly - I've seen the same happen with the Abbasids, Khazaria, and West Francia turning into the HRE. It all depends on chance.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Tbh in my games Byzantium is usually painting its color all over the map... then again it often feels like I'm the only one with successful crusades all over the place everytime.
I just use default settings except for enclaves (set on max) and diplomacy range (set on min).

 

[pcuser1584789]

They need to balance popular opinion with declaring wars. Maybe have popular opinion start taking big hits if you don't allow for a cooldown period after having been in a war. A player will just be declaring war one after another with no limit other than if enemies can stop you or not. The player should not be able to declare war anytime they want and you should be required to manage the domestic situation more before being able to launch a war. Basically you should get penalties to your levy count in OFFENSIVE wars if you keep declaring war. It should hurt your popular opinion and therefor your levy numbers. They do need to balance the game more so it requires you to become super popular first before declaring war on the world like we can do so easily now. I mean once you have a large empire, I guess rebellions can stop you but no way enemy realms will be. Also I played many games as feudal and norse so far and it seems norse have very little issue with vassal rebellions. At least I have never worried about succession with vikings (i use elective mostly and there are never any liberty/claimant wars so as norse there isn't much threat to your kingdoms once you get strong enough.)

 

[VeronicaTS]

They need to balance popular opinion with declaring wars. Maybe have popular opinion start taking big hits if you don't allow for a cooldown period after having been in a war. A player will just be declaring war one after another with no limit other than if enemies can stop you or not. The player should not be able to declare war anytime they want and you should be required to manage the domestic situation more before being able to launch a war. Basically you should get penalties to your levy count in OFFENSIVE wars if you keep declaring war. It should hurt your popular opinion and therefor your levy numbers. They do need to balance the game more so it requires you to become super popular first before declaring war on the world like we can do so easily now. I mean once you have a large empire, I guess rebellions can stop you but no way enemy realms will be. Also I played many games as feudal and norse so far and it seems norse have very little issue with vassal rebellions. At least I have never worried about succession with vikings (i use elective mostly and there are never any liberty/claimant wars so as norse there isn't much threat to your kingdoms once you get strong enough.)

Who do you think is going to stop the war? You think the peasantry is going to get upset over a war that very well may not affect them at all? They lived under monarchy, not a democracy or republic where their opinions mattered even in theory.

 

[pcuser1584789]

Who do you think is going to stop the war? You think the peasantry is going to get upset over a war that very well may not affect them at all? They lived under monarchy, not a democracy or republic where their opinions mattered even in theory.

they would rebel and/or levies penalized... yeah if every few months you are taking people away from their farms or families to march around and die then yeah it might make it harder for the king to rule. If you knew some english history those plantaganet kings were always broke trying to raise money for their foreign wars on mainland europe etc. They always had problems. Peasants can just choose to follow a rebel baron/count/leader etc. And therefore you have less levies and more domestic problems. Just look to history for example. Raising armies was not done willy nilly lol. There was always complaints from subjects about foreign wars. Stuff like that always caused issues that needed to be managed.

 

[VeronicaTS]

they would rebel and/or levies penalized... yeah if every few months you are taking people away from their farms or families to march around and die then yeah it might make it harder for the king to rule. If you knew some english history those plantaganet kings were always broke trying to raise money for their foreign wars on mainland europe etc. They always had problems. Peasants can just choose to follow a rebel baron/count/leader etc. And therefore you have less levies and more domestic problems. Just look to history for example. Raising armies was not done willy nilly lol. There was always complaints from subjects about foreign wars. Stuff like that always caused issues that needed to be managed.

Peasants normally weren't in armies unless they were rebel armies. You're looking at low nobility, not peasants.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3gvi41

 

[pcuser1584789]

Peasants normally weren't in armies unless they were rebel armies. You're looking at low nobility, not peasants.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3gvi41

well i mean that the low nobility are the one's organizing the army so have to go to each village, talk to the leader there and tell him to round up fighting men but i guess if they spend all night in the taverns getting drunk talking crap on the king and his foreign wars maybe they would run off into the forest and turn inot bandits or something lol... i mean it could go down a million ways but i just would like to see some way of restraining the player and need to gather support for a war first... or you can just declare war with your men at arms and tell all your vassals to piss off, i dont know, just another mechanic for strategy I would want. Like if you are super rich and not getting support you might just rely on men at arms and mercenaries and this was the case historically. They would hire foreign professional soldiers to do their fighting and why kings were always after money, money meant an army. Or if you are super popular then you have a large levy force. Crappy soldiers but you would gain numbers to fluff your men at arms.

Imo wars that last longer than a year should start giving you popular opinion penalties and so you always have to work on keeping this high to declare wars. Losing battles should hit your popular opinion too. This way rebellions and all sorts of hardships can occur to make the player more restrained because right now we can all conquer the entire world once we get going. At least in ck2 that's how it was, still havent got to end game in ck3 yet.

 

[VeronicaTS]

please provide an example of this ever actually happening in the medieval era.

 

[Axis89]

All those people that claim Byzantium is overbuffed - could you share your settings please? In my games they are usually too busy with fending off their Muslim neighbors (as they historically were).

Huh I really wish that was the case for me... Byz are OP, AI expands into russia all the time. Playing as them, even worse, never get attacked, levies bloat easily to insane numbers and money is no problem.

 

[Rubidium]

Worth noting that a lot of times, it's not the Byzantine emperor expanding, it's the various vassals. So start up a game on default settings in 1066. The Emperor is facing a Seljuk invasion of Armenia (which he may or may not lose, but even if he does, it's the main loss he will take, and most of the heartland will stay intact), but folks like the Duke of Cyprus will launch attacks on Egypt and the Levant at the same time, and start carving off pieces of them, while the various Black Sea rulers may launch attacks on pagans in Ukraine/the Balkans. They don't need the emperor to intervene (and conversely, are not bound by the same truces).

 

[Aquamancer]

Worth noting that a lot of times, it's not the Byzantine emperor expanding, it's the various vassals. So start up a game on default settings in 1066. The Emperor is facing a Seljuk invasion of Armenia (which he may or may not lose, but even if he does, it's the main loss he will take, and most of the heartland will stay intact), but folks like the Duke of Cyprus will launch attacks on Egypt and the Levant at the same time, and start carving off pieces of them, while the various Black Sea rulers may launch attacks on pagans in Ukraine/the Balkans. They don't need the emperor to intervene (and conversely, are not bound by the same truces).

So, what would be needed is a representation of the internal Byzantine adminstration where provincial leaders can't wage wars of their own?

 

[Rubidium]

So, what would be needed is a representation of the internal Byzantine adminstration where provincial leaders can't wage wars of their own?

I'd honestly prefer them to be incentivized to target each other and especially the emperor instead. I don't want a system where you don't have any way of fighting/expanding as a vassal (because that would make vassal play utterly boring, and there are plenty of interesting vassal characters in Byzantium in both start dates).

I'd also like the Byzantines to be weaker militarily in general (historically by 1066 they were in the middle of losing Sicily to the Normans and coming very close to losing Greece as well; in-game they are much more likely to devour the Normans than vice versa), but some of that comes down to broader issues with blobs.

 

[Руслан Мансурский]

All those people that claim Byzantium is overbuffed - could you share your settings please? In my games they are usually too busy with fending off their Muslim neighbors (as they historically were).

I do not change the settings, except for the year of the end of the game. Otherwise, there are no settings that I would be interested in changing.
The problem is not so much in the game settings. In my opinion, the problem is in the vassals of Byzantium. They're on their own. Even when I played for the Clan and converted to Christianity so that Byzantium would not attack, I often forgot that I was a vassal of the Byzantine Emperor. Life went on as usual, sometimes dull and boring. In other words, I didn't feel like I was someone's vassal. And I lost because my sister separated from me, created her own dynastic house, and in a few years seized all my lands.
Maybe it makes sense to make sure that the vassals of any empire can start wars only with the approval of the emperor. And if the emperor is on good terms with me, then he would not give permission to wage war against me. This is implemented in the case of the patriarch, when I ask him for permission to claim someone's title.