Why can't i chose my heir as Byzantium?

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't care.

Byzantine Empire shouldn't even be playable. It should be like a Fallen Empire in Stellaris and hte only way to "reform" it is to attack it from outside and take the title for yourself. If left to it's own devices it should degenerate and collapse by late game. There should be a random 10% chance event where they "awaken".

This Byzantine obsession with this community is annoying and it should be ended once and for all. This game was never made to by a Byzantine simulator, it was always feudalism simulator. Every time they tried to patch something else on like Republics it turns out to be kind of shitty because it's not what the game is about.

The ONLY reason it's not like this, how it should be, is because people here who was to do absurd shit that shouldn't be in the game like Hellenism restoration would go nuts. They need to design an entire layer of special gameplay for one nation. Simply not worth it for a meme. This is an annoyance in every historical gaming community too not just Paradox games.

You can always play CK2 or Imperator.

I disagree entirely.

Byzantium *should* be playable. It's a major player in the politics of Europe and the Near East during the period, rather than sitting aloof from everything that happens.
The collapse was by no means inevitable, as it could potentially have reformed somewhat and held onto core territory - or even expanded, especially in Italy, and especially if the Catholic West becomes weak and the nobles of eastern Europe seek the protection of the Emperor or his border governors.


And then there's that the mechanics necessary for *proper* Byzantine play could be useful to any large, developed empire that needs to decentralise somewhat, or that wishes to install non-hereditary marcher lords out in the provinces. Certainly it would be helpful in my current Islamic Spain game, where I don't necessarily want my border lands under a Craven poet just because of who his great-grandfather was, but rather I want a brave Zealot who will conquer the surrounding small non-islamic duchies and bring them to the light of the Prophet.
Being able to nominate an heir from amongst the worthy relatives (regardless of whether they're my son, cousin, uncle, or further out) and have someone worthy take up the Caliphate would be good to have.


A "10% chance" to awaken isn't helpful either. That's 10% how often? If it's just 10% over the campaign, when does it test? What does "awakening" even look like here? If it's not awakened, does it simply not even try to spread its influence (as it did under the Macedon dynasty, right in the middle of the games time frame)?

 

[sauron_33]

My biggest complaint about the Byzantine Empire in CK3 is that it's a step backwards from what it finally landed as in CK2. Maybe I am misremembering some mechanics because I exclusively play with HIP, but I'm pretty sure it was vanilla CK2 towards the end that introduced the somewhat hackneyed but still remarkably effective tool of succession where it was between your children, your commanders, and I think a couple other court officials with said people getting a vote on who gets it. The stronger you were as a Basileus, the more your personal vote counted as, and things like "born in the purple" gave bonus points to the score for the candidates.

What a great system, and now *poof* gone. The Empire is back to being just another feudal monarchy in Europe.

Yes, I know there will eventually be a DLC to flesh this out, but a successive iteration of the game should never be inferior to the final version of its predecessor, regardless of DLC's.