The Byzantine Empire, and how Holy Fury ruined them.

[Husein]

From the start of the game to year 1000 5 dynasties changed on the imperial throne. By the time of Crusades 9 or 10 dynasties sat on the throne. 12 dynasties sat in total from the start of the game to the end of the game. I really don't understand what the problem is? Holding onto the empire was a huge problem. Bulgarians were a huge threat. They remained that threat even until and after the 4th Crusade. And Abassids couldn't be faced on your own without some serious luck. I really am failing to understand what exactly is wrong with the game? Byzantines are far more realistic and challenging in a fun way now. They are represented more or less as they were in real life.

 

[aono]

The way it actually works: imperial elective succession is tied to Byzantine and Roman empire titles, imperial government type is tied to having imperial elective succession.

The way it should have worked: imperial government type is tied to imperial administration, imperial elective succession is tied to having imperial government type.

Well, I modded this succession into custom empire, and it worked well, especially when I created special voting weights to culture I wanted.

 

[Alastor]

-Bribe the electors, get favours from them, call in succession support for your candidate.
-Assign the Despot title to your kid if not born in purple, Greek electors absolutely love this.
-If you have no male adult kids, put your support behind a brother, cousin, nephew, uncle whatever. Your kid can wait.
-Excommunicate the leading candidate. His supporters will largely abandon him.
-If that doesn't work get him seriously injured or killed somehow. Worse comes to worst, fire him, you can take the hit.

There are seriously lots of ways you can play this. And barring the very early game, when your dynasty is small and you might simply not have a proper candidate, it's unlikely you will lose an election, you might have to compromise your candidate but you won't lose.

 

[RedBaronFlyer]

I love the succession law, to be honest. I'm open for it being able to be changed to another succession type like the HRE, but honestly, it's pretty much just heir selection with a bias against kids (and even then a good emperor can push that through with some work)

I still don't get why commanders need to be landed though. That system feels somewhat arbitrary to me.

 

[Alastor]

I still don't get why commanders need to be landed though. That system feels somewhat arbitrary to me.

It does make a degree of sense that commanders should be landed. The problem is you just don't have the land to do that. Unlike what happened historically you can't just conjure up titles out of thin air. Perhaps if the baronies under your demesne returned to you for reassignment on the baron's death, so that you can give them to prospective commanders, that would help things along.

 

[Lysistrata]

There are some bugs with the Imperial succession law, but I don't think the answer is to let the Byzantines change succession laws as easily as any other title. The Empire just worked like that: succession was messy, even for those with heirs. If you were unpopular, there was no guarantee your son would inherit, if you were hated badly enough he'd be killed immediately after you (see Andronikos I and his son Manuel). No emperor was ever truly capable of dictating what happened to the Empire or his dynasty after he died (even the popular and well-established Macedonian emperors often had their dynasty temporarily overthrown after they died because their widow married some general), and that's precisely why it makes no sense for them to have any control over the succession law while under imperial administration.

I do think there is a historical case to be made for the Byzantines being able to change succession law at the cost of losing imperial administration and all the perks that come with it, though. The empire became much more feudal in it's twilight years and the Palaiologos dynasty wasn't under such constant threat of being replaced as previous dynasties (especially after John VI died), but they weren't exactly better off for it.

 

[Sunspawn]

As has been previously said - Between assigning titles and one or two favors every 10 years, you're pretty much guaranteed the heir of your choice. Hand off a county or two in your demense if needs be.

I've found the Imperial election system to be incredibly powerful. Since I can effectively designate any heir I want, I just maximize the number of eligible heirs. Eventually one of those Nieces/Nephews/Grandsons will Quick, Strong or a Genius. Move heaven and earth to make that character the next Heir and you have an incredibly powerful line of succession.

Really, the only falling off point for this style is it makes it *very* challenging to keep bloodlines in the family where you want them.

On the other hand, it allows you to create multiple bloodlines, potentially leading to a very strong RP campaign.

Also, re: commanders being landed - iirc the whole viceroyalty/theme system was basically for generals to command over a region and build their armies up from that region. It's not that commanders must be landed, but that you need to place viceroys as commanders.

Kinda wish you could ask parents to change their children's education focus like with faith/heritage. Or make viceroys more likely to select martial or stewardship educations.

 

[Woifee]

If the heir really gets all your titles even if he is of another dynasty it’s most likely an oversight.

 

[Serenity84]

The HRE was elective, that's how it was run, yet you're allowed to change it's succession laws in game. Why shouldn't it be the same for the ERE/RE.

The ERE isn't truly elective. Don't take the name too literally. It's an abstraction of heir designation and court intrigue. Your court doesn't get together and literally take a vote. They form factions to put a preferred candidate on the throne if they don't like you enough. It's not a codified system of succession but just how things work there. You don't pass a law to decide "Hey, let's just abolish other people from scheming and desiring power"


As for commanders having to be landed. It does make sense from the theme perspective. A strategos was a military governor who commanded both a local army but also administered the local civil government.
But it does feel a bit limiting. And the theme system only existed for a certain period of time in the empire. Later on it collapsed and the strategoi went back to being purely generals. I guess the idea is that this only happened under external pressure (mostly because of the loss of Anatolia) and if that hadn't happened things would have continued as they were

 

[Rockphed]

Pun intended?

And yeah it is really hard to lose Elections so far as I've seen as long as you are properly appeasing your Council using the Viceroy System to ensure they have ~100 Opinion of you constantly. You get the Themes back constantly and you can just decide to always have the 4 Most Compotent Feudal rulers, a Priest and any other two people you like, then give Themes to the best Martial skilled people in your realm so you can always have access to them. If everyone loves you it's rarely an issue. Literally the only time I have ever had any manner of Succession Threat (besides losing Bloodlines to being forced to switch to a Dynastic branch you dislike) I have ever faced was when I changed from Orthodox to Catholic with know Heirs who had come of Age.

I solved that by getting rid of one Obstinate Ass of a Commander and bribing two more. THAT is what I have problems with. I want more crises. I want some Generals who end up with claims even after I have passed the Crown to myself, so they can gather a support base and rise up like they should.

I started a game as Michael Doukas. He died in battle (because he was a 1/0/1/2/7 moron), and I played his father. Over the course of 4 emperors and 1 empress in about 80 years, I managed to have at least half a dozen civil wars (with at least 1 case of 2 firing simultaneously), retook the land Konstantinos the lame lost to the Seljuks, and manages to restore the patriarchy. I think I even mended the schism and was starting to work my way back to restoring the Roman Empire when I overextended and decided to call the game quits until I could get the funds for Holy Fury and a few other DLC. I might skip the Doukases and go with the Alexiad start since an Alexiad start was my first play-to-the-end game. On the other hand, I don't think I have ever gotten a 1066 game to the end date. I might even start as Michael the Useless again. If he weren't so useless, starting as him would be a different kind of fun.

 

[DukeDayve]

I agree with the OP. I don't want to see the Byzantines go back to the way they were, where the same dynasty would rule the empire without interruption for the entire game, but this is way too harsh - especially on the AI.

The Byzantine Empire is now absolutely crippled in the hands of the AI. Emperors will be deposed/killed in battle every 1-3 years (because kings leading armies now die pretty much the instant they go into battle), so they'll spend the whole game changing emperors every 1-3 years (with the constant rebellions that result in this) until they disappear to either:

1. Muslim holy wars and invasion CB's, or

2. The fourth crusade (if you have it turned on) which, due to how crusades work now, is basically just an instant button the Pope can press which says "make Byzantine Empire disappear no matter how big and powerful it happens to be LUL".

 

[Gunthah]

I find it surprising some people are having so much trouble keeping the succession in the family.

I think this might be caused by people increasing the possible candidate pool unnecessarily, as the candidates to the throne are every commander as well as the marshall, so handing out commander titles only when necessary keeps the competition pretty low. Title claimants also can be elected, but you can’t do much about them.

Apart from that, give your brother the despot title while your children are small and give it to them as soon as they’re adults. If you don’t have a brother appoint some relative marshall or commander, and if not, start bribing the council, which I haven’t had to do, but would make sense in a difficult situation.

 

[Chunakun]

Would editing the save file, changing the succession type to primogeniture break the game? (I know it is cheating but just asking)

 

[Gunthah]

Would editing the save file, changing the succession type to primogeniture break the game? (I know it is cheating but just asking)

My succession changed to open when I reformed religion with Agnatic Clans, so although I changed it back to imperial elective, my guess would be that editing the save file could work all right.

 

[ernst_earnest]

Greetings friends, I have come to post about my displeasure on how the Byzantine Empires succession laws made them into a really annoying nation to run and hopefully have Paradox consider changes to improve them.

I have run several 769 Starts and found the Byzantines to be rather weak, a bit of a laughing stock to what they were before, they have 2 tributary states ripped up form their original borders to, what I would assume nerf or balance them. This, however, coupled with the AI's tendency to revolt every few years sees the Byzantine Empire collapse before it can even begin. The will Tributaries break off and Bulgaria eats up Constantinople and from there on they snowball into the abyss.

But as a player you may think the situation could be handled better, we will go on and talk about that.

The new Byzantine Succession is a bit atrocious, it may have seemed good on paper but what we are left with is forcing the player to play a way that they may not want to.

Players no longer have a choice on succession, they are forced with the new Imperial Elective system. With this system, your council and commands all have voting right, with voting weight depending on their lands, martial prowess, diplomacy.

Players who are aware of how Elective originally was, remember it being a bit of a gamble, they could lose their main title if they lost the election, that can still happen, and if you do not happen to hold Constantinople you will lose everything, your main duchies, capital and empire if the heir is not of your family, meaning GAME OVER if you decide to put competent commanders in your armies, as they could essentially vote for someone you do not want even if they like you; just because the person they chose is older and has higher marshal than your stewardship focused heir. Foreign commanders invited to join your ranks can no longer be appointed as commanders either, and I suppose it would not be a smart idea.

Now, having competent council members can also play against you, as they too can choose people that are outside your inheritance and doom your game. This, along with trying to keep power vassals happy, and placing competent members keeps your juggling and feeling like you have no control over your empire.

To really maximize your chances of not losing the throne, and choosing the person you want, you have to fill the commander and council positions with family members, even if they are complete and utter imbeciles. This way, if they do not vote for who you want they will choose someone within your bloodline so you won't lose the game.

I am frustrated, I was previously playing as the Empire of Hispania with my goal to form the Roman Empire, I need the Byzantine title to form it, so I have to take it and deal with this nonsense, I previously ran my empire efficiently with commanders I would invite from faraway lands to lead my troops, I had primogeniture so succession was always stable. I no longer feel like I have control over how I run this empire, but I need it.

Paradox, please consider reverting the Byzantine Succession, or at least allow us to change the succession;
without going through hoops like the Full Council Power tactic.
View attachment 422334
You lose everything if you don't win elections, every succession becomes stressful.
View attachment 422336
Just because he's a good marshal, I can't dictate an heir who has high stewardship to be my next in line. Women are apparently against tradition, causing more upheaval.
View attachment 422338
My candidate is just not good enough apparently, even though I am the Emperor and my vassals like me.
View attachment 422339
I technically have no heir, all my work would be thrown down the drain.

TLDR; Byzantine Succession takes control from the player, encouraging placing unqualified family members into high positions and commander titles to avoid having someone you do not want voted for by your qualified yet misguided vassals.

Sounds like a lot of complaining because it's too difficult for you. Maybe you would prefer to play in Ireland?

 

[Coalsack]

Since I couldn't figure how add primogeniture into the byzantine sucession, I think that I've found other soultion giving all the other possible electors a voting value of 0, and setting at 0 every possible variable that could increase their voting power. Giving the Emperor a gigantic extra voting power is also an option.

 

[Agnitio Ex Mach]

OP might be able to game this if he gives the non-dynastic heir a single province, ideally a trash one. They shouldn't inherit anything else except the main title.

 

[TheRealRemus]

usualy I just give away all my duke and king tier titles to my wished heir thus he has enough Power to vote for him self, with my votingpower he is almost always elected. Maybe if your Commanders hate you, you could try deactivating Auto assingment and let them die off, so there are less electors with fewer commanders.
a huge boon IMO is the ability to jump inbetween dynasty branches, that way you can forge a new bloodline with every new emperor and in the end merge with your old characters.

 

[raistlin_wizard]

Two things

Firstly your problem with the succession giving away counties sounds like a bug. In my game whenever i lose the title my son keeps all of my demense. EDIT: Thinking on this if those demense titles are primo you might want to look through your family history. Its possible you did a matrilinial marriage at some point to pass down a title. That always stuffs up primo succession if the decendants dont have many kids. Seriously you need to look into this further than just looking at the succession que

Secondly the way the byzantine succession system works is hand in hand with the favours system. By purchasing favours from the 1-3 most powerful electors you can then have even a underage, female, legitimate bastard leper who called the patriarch a dingus named as empress. Costs maybe 500 gold every ten years. This system isnt gamey or hard unless you are trying to do it with a demense of 1 and vassal tax set to all levies.

Its very historical, solid mechanically and very in theme with our perspective of byzantine culture and politics.

Tldr; Use favours dummy

To all of you who say it's very historical no it's not.

1. The closest way to represent it would be heir designation (co-emperorship) with a law like primogeniture or ultimogeniture so you can choose, plus a better way to model court intrigue.

2. Most succession in the Byzantine Empire were father to son. And when not the new Emperor usually tried to marry himself into the former Emperor's family, to have more legitimacy. Dynasties mattered.

I will use these tips, thanks, my empire is stable for now. I still hold to my opinion on adding back succession laws, but considering no one is agreeing, that's never going to happen.
Thanks all for your clear and respectful replies.

Some of us agree, but we seem to be a minority among those who like it just because it's different.

 

[Alliegorical]

Here's what annoys me most. Why don't we have the ability to repeal this succession type for something we prefer? Why are we locked into such a nasty succession type? I should be able with enough support to repeal the law and make it inherited.

Because it's not a law. Legally, on paper, the Byzantine Empire was primogeniture. The succession law is simply the game's way of modelling the fact that sometimes after the death of an emperor the Byzantines would just... break the law.

Here's a thought: if the emperor's chosen successor loses election, and later comes into the imperial throne by other means, he should have a lawful imprisonment against every elector who didn't vote for him. I'm pretty sure it could be done with character flags and on_actions. It might not be so simple however. I'll see if I can whip up a mod.

Edit: I can't find an easy way to write a script that checks who an elector is supporting other than the title holder. Maybe it can't be done, or maybe it's a task for someone better at this than me. Does anyone know of a way to scope to an elector's preferred candidate?