Byzantium

Byzantium needs to be unlocked before you can play as them. To do this you can either complete a campaign (on any difficutly, long or short setting) with one of the five starting factions, or you can edit the preferences file. To do this open your Sega/M2TW folder/data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign, find the file called "descr_strat" and open it with wordpad. Now find the section which says

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campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
  england
  france
  hre
  spain
  venice
end
unlockable
  sicily
  milan
  scotland
  byzantium
  russia
  moors
  turks
  egypt
  denmark
  portugal
  poland
  hungary
end
nonplayable
  papal_states
  aztecs
  mongols
  timurids
  slave
end

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Change it so it reads

Code:

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campaign      imperial_campaign
playable
  england
  france
  hre
  spain
  venice
  sicily
  milan
  scotland
  byzantium
  russia
  moors
  turks
  egypt
  denmark
  portugal
  poland
  hungary
end
nonplayable
  papal_states
  aztecs
  mongols
  timurids
  slave
end

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Faction Information
Byzantium begins play with 5 provinces. Constantinople is a large city, and the capitol. Thessalonica and Nicaea are towns. Corinth is a castle and Nicosia on Cyprus is a wooden castle.

Potential Problems
While mostly surrounded by rebel provinces, Hungary lies north of you, the Venetians lie to the west, and the Turks are to the east. Byzantium is of the Orthodox Christian faith, which means 1) you aren't subject to the Pope and 2) it's quite possible for both crusades and jihads to be called against you. Unless you remain at peace with all catholic factions, your relations with the Papal States will likely nose dive.

I think that if you want to play as byzantines you must be ready to take chanses.What i mean is that you must be ready for war on 2 fronts and if necessary to retreat and concede 1-2 provinces without sacrificing many of your valuable troops.You must advance to all directions and take out the rebel provinces.Go for Smirna,trebizond,rhodes AND i think most importantly go and invade akra from cyprus.Even jerusalem and adana might be easy targets before the egyptians come to the north.

I have been a ByzFan since first running across that Time-Life book on them around two decades ago. Ever since they have been my favorite faction to play in any game that includes them.

Played them for three hours last night on Medium/Medium, my learning curve settings.:embarassed:

With the Turks on your eastern frontier and the Hungarians and Venetians not far from your western frontier you have to keep a strong defense in two directions against enemies that do not have any particular reason or even inclination to not attack you.

You should focus on having two mobile field armies to respond to any incursions and secure any rebel towns/castles nearby.

The easiest for you to reach quickly are Sofia (nw of Constantinople) and Smyrna (s of Nicaea).

Sofia
Sofia is a Wooden Castle with a large missile-type garrison so an assault would be costly. Maintaining a siege is the better option. With so many troops inside they will sally forth on the last turn and at least then your mostly spear troops will have a better chance to force hand to hand.

Also Hungary is next door so you need to move quickly against Sofia. Even then you may just barely beat the Hungarians to Sofia. If you manage to get an alliance with them don't expect their stack nearby to go anywhere. They seem to like to hang around, rather blatantly waiting for an opportunity to take Sofia away from you.

Smyrna
Smyrna is also a Wooden Castle but it has a much weaker garrison than Sofia. You begin with Prince John (Faction Heir) and a small stack south of Nicaea and usually get a mission to take Smyrna from the Council of Nobles pretty quickly.

While an assault is feasible waiting out a siege with a slightly reinforced army for Prince John will usually give you a casualty-free victory. The Turks don't seem particularly inclined to go after Smyrna right away even though Iconium, their capitol, is next door to the east.

I usually sack both cities but an extermination might be a better option to clear out those of other faiths in these cities.

Pirates!
You start with four dromons, two by Thessalonica and two by Nicosia. Pirates start popping up pretty quickly but are one ship each affairs. I suggest combining your two fleets as quickly as possible to guarantee victories and remember to patrol your waters frequently to take care of those piratical scum.

Landbridges
There are three land bridges in your territories so don't count on water and your ships to protect Constantinople from the Turks. There are two linking Niceae and Constantinople. One to your capitol's east and one to its southwest. There is also a landbridge linking the Corinth and Durazzo territories so don't count on Thessalonica to protect Corinth.

Mo' Florins
You begin with only one merchant and must build more economic buildings to be able to build more. There are four silk resources around Constantinople itself. This is an excellent place to begin your economic empire and as soon as possible you should have at least one merchant on each. While merchants cost 550 to produce they have 0 upkeep and the longer they are on a trade resource the more their skill, and the money you get, improves.

Dude, where's my emmisary?
You do not begin the game with a diplomat. However you can build one right away and you should in order to start contacting other factions. The Turks, Hungarians, even the Polish were very willing to share map information, trade rights and sign alliances. However the Venetians stubbornly refused to sign an alliance and generally seemed the most hostile of my neighbors.

Hot Babes and Pointy Hats
You begin with one Princess and soon start getting proposal offers especially if you use her to negotiate some. Her charm starts climbing quickly making her a more attractive potential bride. However all the proposal offers seem to be from local nobles and so I sent her further a field to see about an alliance with the Polish.

Oops

Found a Polish family member far to the north in one of their cities. Thinking that this would strengthen our alliance I sent her in and got a new general instead!?! Relations quickly began plummeting as the understandably upset Poles did not like me having an army, one general, wandering around their territories.

So I am now beginning to think Princesses may be best used to get more generals from local nobles or being used as diplomats.

Preacher
You begin with one priest and without having to worry about the inquisition he is probably best used helping to convert the Catholics in Sofia. While they will probably be a lot more helpful mid-game, early-game they don't seem to be that important.

Rhodes
Rhodes begins as a rebel territory and there is no land bridge to it. So depending on how successful you are an invasion of Rhodes is another opportunity to use your initial ships and troops D-Day style.

Nicosia
Nicosia, Cyprus, gives you an excellent launch pad for invasions of the Holy Land or backdoor campaigns into Turkish err... Turkey. However it is pretty isolated from your home turf so it doesn't seem to give much benefits in the early game. I converted the Castle to a Town and focused on maximizing profits from it instead.

Durazzo
Durazzo is a rebel territory west of Thessalonica. While it may be hard to manage, I had to pull Prince John's stack over since the Hungarians were waiting to strike Sofia and Venice had already attacked Sofia, it is an easy capture. With a small garrison and no walls the Venetians may have already taken it by the time you get there but by then you may be at war with them anyway.

Taking Durazzo helps protect Corinth but don't get too comfy. I've heard that naval invasions are more common in M2TW.

Venice
For some reason, even on Medium, the Venetians seem quite hostile and will probably quickly be attacking your territories. The Passive AI bug gives you an edge if you have significant missile units but they keep coming and you should soon expect to have large battles with them.

Iraklion, Crete, belongs to Venice from the start so ambitious Emperors could use the four Dromon fleet to launch an invasion pretty early.

Relations
Do not expect to become real pals with anyone except possibly the Rus. While I can manage to keep Hungary so-so the Turks stay terrible but seem to be preoccupied in the early-game so you should get some breathing room before they start rolling across your borders.

Will add more as it occurs to me. All in all though I am having a lot of fun.:2thumbsup:

Additional:

Troops
One surprising thing is the lack of melee cavalry, at least in the early game. You basically get three types of cavalry produceable in the early game and they are all horse archers. so any sort of light melee cavalry, like Alan, have to be picked up as mercenaries. While this will be useful against Turkish forces it can be an early disadvantage against the more attack cavalry based western factions.

Also, unlike MTW, you do not have a solid foundation of Byzantine Infantry to build on. Instead your best early melee infantry are the Byzantine Spearmen. While I didn't look to closely they seemed to have the same stats as militia spearmen only higher unit numbers.

Trebizond
I had originally planned to take Trebizond almost immdediately. However, I ran into a problem. The town/castle is on the far eastern side of the territory. This would make it difficult to support or reinforce it if the Turks invaded. Because of this and Venetian/Hungarian hostility you may want to wait until your western frontier is secure before attampting to tackle it and the Turks.

By then the Crusades should begin coming through and provide and adequate distraction for the Turks.

Byzantium is a nation of horsemen, and the strength of its military lies in its cavalry. The infantry is mostly cheap trash. Note, I said mostly. Basically, you have three types of infantry:

Spears
In ascending order of competence, you have town militia, spear militia, and Byzantine spearmen. All are unarmored. The difference between the first two is basically the size of the carried shield. Byzantine spearmen can form schiltron. They are all trash troops, and take lots of casualties, but they're cheap. The first two are trained in cities, but the last one must be trained at a castle with a barracks.

Swordsmen
Your basic swordsman is the Byzantine infantry, followed by dismounted Byzantine lancers and dismounted latinkon. Byzantine infantry wear light lamellar armor and fight with sword and shield. They're decent heavy infantry. Dismounted Byzantine lancers are the same thing, but more so. Stats and cost are a bit higher. Latinkon are basically feudal european knights in the Byzantine military, so those are basically like dismounted mailed knights. They fight with sword and shield instead of spears. Byzantine infantry are recruited in cities, but the other two are from castles.

Archers
Byzantium has good archers. There are 4 types: peasant archers, militia archers, Trebizond archers, and Byzantine guard archers. The latter two have long range missles, and the guard archers wear armor and have good melee stats. All of these must be recruited at castles with archery ranges, save the militia archers, which come from cities with higher level barracks.

There is one other infantry, the Varangian Guard. These are heavy infantry with decent armor, shield, and an AP axe. They are recruited only in a huge city with the highest level barracks.

With the cavalry, you have two broad categories, melee and missile cav. As Sir Robin mentioned, at the beginning, all you have access to is the missile cav, but that's ok. These are all good.

Missile Cav
You have Skythikons, Byzantine cavalry, and Vardariatoi. Skythikons are your basic steppe horse archers: no armor, little melee attack rating, fast moving, decent missle. Byzantine cavalry are the toxic hippos from BI: medium cavalry wearing armor, good melee and missile, but slower than the others. Vardariatoi are the elite steppe archers: high missile and melee stats, armor, fast moving and good stamina, but they cost a lot more. All three of these are recruit at a castle, but no other buildings are necessary. They are all enabled by the castle itself.

Melee Cav
In the melee cavalry category, you have Byzantine lancers, Latinkon, and Kataphractoi. Byzantine lancers are medium cavalry with lances. Latinkon are mailed knights, and kataphractoi are heavily armored cavalry with lances and maces. They don't hit quite as hard in the charge but the maces are armor piercing. All require stables in a castle to recruit, and not the low level buildings either.

There is one other possibility for melee cavalry. If you can establish a merchants guild in a city, it will let you recruit militia cavalry there. They are spear armed light cavalry. Not the greatest as far as stats go, but they will probably be available first if you go that route.

My MP clan has decided to do a PBeM, no write ups just playing :yes: 10 turns each, hard battles and normal campaign. We chose Byzantium because nobody really faniced going as Muslims, except Egypt but their too far from the action and most of us played England first, so didn't really want another catholic faction.

First player has already been and I'm going second, half way through my reign.

We've decided to try and focus on Turkey, well garrisoning but not expanding on the western front. We've got Durazzo and Rhodes and I've got an army on its way to attack Venice's Island, to try and remove its naval presence from the area.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

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Originally Posted by Slaists

To Quillan, didn't see Varangian guards in your Byzantine infantry list. Are those not available for Byzantines in the game?

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The Varangian Guard is indeed available to the ERE. They arent cheap trash infantry though, probably why he didn't put them in there. They are a strange bunch, only available in the final barracks in a city, not a castle. There some nasty lil guys to stumble across with 20 attack 15 defense and a 2 handed armor piercing axe, they have I believe a 5-6 charge rating. Also they do carry a shield so they are not easily put down by archers.

My campaign with the ERE was going good till the a nasty little bug accord. After defeating a jihad that was driectly across a land bridge they defeated and ransomed army got stuck in the middle of the ocean. Prevented ship's from passing through, and put a zone of control over the, land bridge. That was fine and dandy, except my army couldn't attack them and my great fleet was stranded in the black sea.

I would say the ERE is just under the HRE in difficulty, maybe even a little harder later on. Whatever you do put the turks down first, I learned this the hard way. Capture the rebel town in greece and build up to at least a fortress. Once its a fortress it only takes 3-5 archers and spearment to hold it against fullstacks. Leave venice to waste itself on that, then go after the Turks all out. Vardariatio and byantine cav are your friends early on, the turks are very lightly armored and make beautiful pin cushions. Make sure to build your castles up to a level to be able to recruit dismounted lantikon, they are the same as dismounted fuedal knights and can form the core of your line.

Naval

Your navy is important as Byzantium. You start with two fleets, each of which contains two dromons, and can build more. The dromon, statistically speaking, is a mediocre warship (attack of 8), but it has one very important advantage: it has a crew of 56 (on large unit size). All the neighbors can only build galleys or dhows as their initial ships, which have a crew of 37. This gives you an advantage over the pirates and hostile neighbors. The upgraded warship is the Fire Ship, which has the same crew level (it's a dromon, after all) but has an attack of 16 due to the greek fire projectors mounted on it. The war gallies built by your neighbors have the same 56 man crew, but an attack rating of 13. Establish naval superiority early, earn command stars for your admirals, and you should be able to maintain naval superiority well on into the campaign.

Among other things you can do with it, you can use your fleets to block both the land bridges across the Hellespont. Sea trade will be your primary money maker as Byzantium, and a strong navy will help protect that. Also, your starting settlement of Nicosia, the rebel settlement of Rhodes, and the Venetian settlement of Iraklion are all on islands. You'll need fleets to get troops to and from these islands.

Rather than writing an in depth study of the byzantines, i figured i'd just share a few pointers from my game.

1) Don't trust the Catholics. I had an alliance with Hungary from about turn 3, which they broke 2 turns later, starting a long war in the west.
2) Try not to get into a multi-faction war on one front. I've only just overcome the hungarians (they refused peace so i fought an hour long battle for their capital and thus their destruction) and they managed to decimate an early army with the help of the venetians, who attacked me from behind and prompted a sally from budapest
3) You can ignore the turks for a while, but don't trust them. They came from behind as my war with hungary concluded, almost taking nicea :(
4) Having a navy isn't that important, imo. I've survived so far without anything approaching naval superiority, but this is more a result of having to churn out troops to face the catholic factions than conscious choice.
5) You dont' have to win every battle. The main strength of byzantium is their economic superiority. You can run close to borderline every turn in the knowledge that when you do take that city you'll be reimbursed and then some

That's all for now...

EDIT: Oh, and the cavalry aren't really that bad. For fun, i formed a horde led by the faction heir (around 10 units on huge sizes + his bodyguard) and went around clearing up stacks of enemy units lacking cavalry themselves. I usually got a 5:1 kills:death ratio, although this plummeted every time i had to face a general's bodyguard :P

The cavalry are most definitely not that bad. In fact, they are the opposite, exceedingly good. Now, admittedly this is a unit that's been around since the beginning of my campaign, seeing constant combat, but this guy can whip anything the mongols throw at him.
http://216.77.188.54/coDataImages/p/...43/Vardars.jpg

Post Gunpowder

After the development of gunpowder, Byzantium has a few new options, though not many. The campaign selection screen says they are lacking in late gunpowder units, and it's not lying. The only land gunpowder units the Byzantines can build, as far as I can tell, are bombards. They get no better cannons that these, and those aren't that great. They are very slow firing. As far as I can tell, Byzantium gets no handgunners/arquebusiers/musketmen at all, nor any firearm equipped cavalry.

On the naval standpoint, the development of gunpowder enables the building of the dockyards, which in turn enables the building of the Laternas, a cannon-equipped war galley. It has a crew of 75 (on large unit sizes) and an attack of 18. However, this ship type is buildable by other factions as well. I've seen Laternas in the hands of the European Mediterranean factions like the Papal States and the Milanese, so now naval parity has been achieved. Byzantium no longer has a naval advantage in either crew size or shipboard weaponry.

Religion
The Byzantine Empire is of the Orthodox Christian faith. The head of the church is the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the equivalent of the Pope, but he is not modeled in the game. There are some fundamental differences in game as to how the Orthodox and Catholic churches function, and those are crucial. As Byzantium, you are not subject to the Pope. This means that you will not have the Pope giving you missions, you will not have the Pope interfering by telling you to stop conquering your catholic neighbors, you cannot be excommunicated (and thus don't have to worry about that penalty to public order), and you cannot go on crusade. Crusades CAN be called against you, though, so it's best to stay on the good side of the Papal States, at least in the early going.

You have the same line of church buildings as the catholic faith does: small church, church, abbey, cathedral and huge cathedral. However, probably in compensation for the things you lose, the conversion effect of those churches is double that of catholic churches: 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% for the huge cathedral. Also, the Byzantine unique building is the Ikonic Art line of buildings: the Ikoner's Studio, and the Master Ikoner's Studio. These buildings have the game effect of increasing the conversion value of the orthodox church in the region by 50% and 100% respectively. In a huge city, with a huge orthodox cathedral and a master ikoner's studio (the Hagia Sophia basically), it will convert 20% of the population without any help from priests.

At the beginning of the game you have one bishop, but no priests I have created since come out with that title, even in Constantinople where I have built the Hagia Sophia in effect.

While you have no Pope-o-meter like a catholic faction does, and thus no standing directly with the Pope to worry about, fighting with catholic factions does hurt your relations with the Papal States alongside hurting relations with your target faction. This can be a small problem, as Hungary and Venice, your two western neighbors, are both catholic and both seem prone to attacking you. Depending upon circumstances, you can either blow off the Papal States if you are militarily strong enough, or appease them through gifts. I recommend cash, if you can spare it, as territory is too precious to give away.

Byzantium Melee Infantry
*Byzantine Spearmen begin with 1 XP for each level of barracks above 2, so at barracks 5 (armoury) they'll come out with 3 xp.

Byzantium Ranged Infantry

Byzantium Horse Archers

Byzantium Shock Cavalry
All of these shock cavalry are treated as "knights" by the game for purposes of the Swordsmith's Guild, so having a Master or HQ building will add 1 and 2 XP respectively to these units when created.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sapi

^^ QFT - i was shocked when i saw how effective they were - i charged down crossbowmen and catapults with no problems at all :D

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I just finished some tests with Byzantine cavalry units on medium. I pitted Kataphracts, Vardariotai, Byzantine Lancers and Byzantine Cavalry against Dismounted Gothic Knights. The Kats and Vard took down about 2/3 of the DGK at first charge and finished the rest with maces and swords. By the time the DGK routs or dies Vardariotai are down by 30% and Kats by 20%. I used normal sizes so on average Vardariotai were down to 28-29 and Kats to 31-32. Lancers had to charge, withdraw and charge again and they were down to 23- 24. Byzantine Cavalry lost everytime but they did kill 1/3 of the DGK on first charge.

Talk about powerful charges. I had no idea that charges could be so powerful until i read Hashashiyyin's post on how to make a good charge.

I'll have to edit this later on when I have all the details, but one possible difference between the Byzantine Infantry and the Dismounted Lancers is the number of armor upgrades they can have. There are some differences between units. For example, Byzantine Cavalry can have 2 upgrades while Vardariotai only take one. Dismounted Lancers get 3, while Dismounted Latinkon only get 1.

Edit - The list isn't complete, but the Byzantine Infantry and Dismounted Lancers do not have the same number of armor upgrades. Here's what I have so far:

the varangian guard are too difficult to get. it semd to me that i was going to win my h/h campaign without ever getting to use them. As they are one of the byzantines most famous units- and were available at the start date of the game irl- it is annoying that they are so difficult to get.

i ended up giving up before i finished as i got bored as it was getting failry easy. i think catholic factions are more fun because of the dynamic with the pope + crusades.

i allied with the turks earlly on which game me some breathing space to sort out other areas of expansion.i took durazzo, sofia, rhodes early on. One army then continued up and annexed the slavic steppes territories. russia seems to a little slow off the boat as i had no opposition here.
ignoring the turks initially i sent another army to the holy land. this started off taking the rebel territories like Adana and antioch. i clashed with the egyptians a few times near damascus, and following that they were too weak to prevent me continueing into egypt and crushing them.
by this time turkey declared war on my, but did so only by blockading one of my ports. i had accumulated a reasonably big army in constanople by that point mostly from mission rewards and i moved this eastwards to take on the turks. i fought few pitched battles with the turks and instead just went for their cities. the a.i is a bit dissapointingly slow to react as i was able to eliminate the turk civilization by taking all their cities when they had a full stack army in range to do something about it on several occasions.

in europe i was besieged in sofia several times by both the huns and the venecians. i just made sure the town had a lage garrison and the invaders either gave up or wer shot to pieces when they invaded.

i ended up sending my faction leader with an army over to florence which was still a rebel city. i bided my time there for a very long time waiting until until venice was left un garrisoned.

tip- try and expand fairly swiftly i think it is usefu lto be able to take on the muslims before they have managed to get their act together.
try and do the council of noble missions as much as possible, this is particularly important on harder ai settings. the council will often give you the mission to take a rebel city- often one you have just discoverd. however the council wont tell you to take a city if you already have it under seige. therfore it is woth lhaning around near rebel cities until you are actually asked to take it.

I have started using all cav armies with Byzantium and boy, they are amazing! I use 1 general, 3-4 HC, 1-2 LC and the rest are Vardariotai or Byzantine cavalry. For HC I use Frankish mercenary cav in the West and Armenian cav on the east. In RTW I never used all cav armies, but now that I 've seen how effective they are it is hard to do without them. I just finished a battle against 2 Egyptian 1000 strong armies (normal size, mine was about 750) and they had about 7-8 archer units each. The result was a heroic victory though I lost 2 ByzLancers and 2 Vardariotai units. Now I am going to try my new field army: 3 Kats, 3 Latinikon and 14 Vardariotai. I am invincible! :laugh4:

Edit: The Kats do not seem worth building. They have 2 less armor than Vardariotai (I think the Vardariotai defence skill is typo) and 2 more charge, but the Vardariotai have a 9 missile attack.

In the earlier going, a typical army for me was 1 general, 4 Vardariotai, 8 Byzantine Cavalry and 2 Skythikons. No mercs at all, no infantry, no shock cavalry other than the general's bodyguard. I only used infantry armies at the very beginning, when it was all I had, and lately, when I started assaulting the Italian cities.

This Vardariotai seems to be a MTW Boyar on speeddrugs :dizzy2:

You basically almost get the perfect cavalry. Fast and deadly with both bow and sword, good armor and hiiiigh defense. Plus a relative low upkeep to maintain a lot of these demigods....

Fast and light to medium HA taking down Dismounted GK in a melee, no something doesn't sound right there :no:

Cheers
OA

I have had a nasty surprise in my current Byz campaign. I have got almost all Asia Minor from the Turks and the Mongols came up. While they kept losing stack after stack trying to get my uber-fortified Adana, I pitched a full stack (vardariots mostly, few guard archers, one kata and the general) of mine against a typical stack of theirs.

They bloody decimated me! How all-powerful are the bloody mongols? The highlight piece: 4 (FOUR) units of Vardariots encircle their general - in order to shoot the MF to oblivion. Well, guess what: I turned the other way around to deal with the rest of their army and next thing I saw, two of the vardars at 1/2 strength and one routing... The Mongol still standing. What is this, Jedi Mongol general or something?

By the way, the strategy guide says Vardariots should be available in the high and late periods only, whereas in the game, they are available right away and from the most basic castle level. Could it be a bug? Their availability makes Byzantine cavalry obsolete, IMHO.

It's not the most basic level, it's the 3rd. You have to go from a Motte & Bailey to a Wooden Castle to a Castle. Corinth starts as a Castle, while Nicosia is a Wooden Castle.

I should preface this by stating that I have played another Byzantine game previously which like most others here focussed on a Venetian war early on when my initial plan was to hit the turks.

I play VH battle /H campaign and really wanted to fight to regain control of Asia Minor from the start but found that you simply cannot ignore the catholic west at the beginning of the game when the Turks are ready to fall. What I have found though is that although you cannot ignore the west you can in fact avoid fighting there by adoption of an early warning system plus diplomacy. I started out by creating an army in the west out of the garrisons available at the beginning in Constantinople, Thessalonika and Corinth. I moved the princess to establish early contact with Hungary, who i left to take Sofia but sold trade rights and maps to and made a diplomat to send to Venice. The western army moved initially against any rebels and began constructing a perimiter of watch towers, my diplomat reached Venitian territory and was actually able to establish an alliance that has so far held ( about 30 turns now ), even with me taking Durazzo on a council mission. To keep the peace I simply maneuver my western army to shadow any likely Venetian or Hungarian incursions. In the meantime I have teched up like mad in the west and can now field both Byzantine Infantry and Byzantine Guard along with the Vardariots who served as the initial backbone of my forces in the west. Any Venetian or Hungarian attack can now be dealt with using the western half of my forces. Meanwhile in the East i have taken Smyrna, Rhodes and Adana, Smyrna and Adana remain castles with everything else converted to cities.

In short i am now in the position of having a strong economy with access to decent units and am preparing a strike at a weakly defended Iconium as my first step in restoration of Byzantine authority in Asia minor whilst enjoying military strength and peace in the west.

Good luck and act fast - when the horde comes, once they got Antioch they'll come after Asia Minor, wave after wave after wave... and when you think you're done with the Mongols, the Timurids and their uber-elefants will give you a run for your money... damn crappy byzantine units, they can't stand against anything...

While playing my second game as the byzantines i thought i`d share my opinion about how to get started.
Your initial position gives a great start financialy and military
Your initial targets must be 2
1.take smyrna (this way u get a reward from your nobles)
2.take sofia(it is a race against the hungarians which u must win so that u can then expand to the north in bucarest and possibly iasi).
After u take smyrna take your general and his army,board him on a ship and head to the middle east.U can then take acra or antiochia before the egyptians.
From there on it is on to damascus(race against the egyptians-it also has a large guard) or to adana
U can make corinth into a city-more cash and also take rhodes and turn it in to a city.
Dont go for durazzo in the west early on(it takes a lot of time to develop and u get into a confrontation with venice early on which u dont want)
I think from then on your goal is to take as many of the rich cities in the east as possible(edessa,aleppo,adana,damascus).
Key military units 1.vardariotai of course
2.byzantine infantry(good,reliable,not expensive)
3.trebizont and byzantine guard archers
Mercenaries:Bulgarian brigands(good meele and archers).
Hope I helped u somewhat:beam:

If you are playing Byzantines, does it make sense to put your merchants on resources right next to your capital? I have not played the faction yet, but, from the description of merchants, their yields are at minimum if placed near their faction's capital (Constantinopole). For Byzantines, it would make more sense to send their merchants to take over amber in the north or gold in Timbuktu.

Merchants are a bit of an issue with Byzantium. The 4 silk resources near Constantinople are a wonderful training ground for new merchants, but they don't generate a lot of money per turn from trading. The most I ever got was perhaps 70 florins a turn, and that was with a merchant with a very high finance skill.

One key point with merchants is that you want them to pick up the Monopolist trait, which is good for +3 finance at the highest level. It only seems to come when the merchant is trading a resource which occurs twice in that province. I left one merchant standing on the wine in Rhodes for his entire life span and he never got the first point, but 5-10 turns on the silk near the capitol would at least get the first rank and perhaps the second of the trait. Once that's done, however, there aren't a whole lot of good resources to use for trading. Silk is largely worthless since it's right there, wine and grain aren't worth a lot. There is a gold down just by Ragusa which is probably the best bet to sit on, also the amber near Krakow is quite valuable. The problem is, if they go too far away from the capitol, then the Loyal to Coin line of traits pops up, each one worth -1 finance.

Use the silk near Constantinople to train new merchants until they hit Monopolist, then move them elsewhere. Trade what you can, but you'll probably do better taking over other merchants than strictly trading.

I think you get the Monopolist trait by being the only faction trading a paticular recource in a given province, I also think you need more than 1 of that recource in the province for it to apply.

Ok, Byzantium.

Where to start?

I always start at Smyrna, since later it will be a council mission. Then I attack Durrazo (I think that's the name), then build defences and train troops to defend against future war with Venice (trust me, they will attack sooner or later). Run to Sophia before Hungary gets it. If they do, it's a base of possible invasion of Greece and Constantinople. Attack Trebizond, as it will give you a second front against Turkey (along with Smyrna).

Enemies

Don't just focus on Turkey. When I did that, Greece fell to Hungary and Venice. So, stock up troops on the Western Coast of Greece. This should be good for defense against Venice. If you capture Sophia, you have a base to launch attacks on Hungary, if you didn't capture it. Capture it. When you secure your Northern and Western parts of your Roman Empire, attack Turkey. By this time, you should have Trebizond, Ibisil and Smyrna. Launch a 3 way attack on Turkey to knock it out quickly. Once that is done, mop up Hungary and Venice.

From what little experience I have with Byzantium, I found that your best bet is to take those elite horse archers and storm Europe. The AI's handling of infantry-heavy armies is poor at best, so you can really rip them apart with relatively few losses. Why fight cavalry with cavalry in the east when your cavalry can pretty much run about unopposed in the west? Control the black sea and the eastern mediterranean and you can effectively seal yourself off from the east.

The cities on the eastern mediterranean coast are very lucrative, but you run into a lot of trouble with egypt, turkey, the mongols and timurids. In the west, your toughest fights might be polish nobles and, to a lesser extent, some european horse archers. Other than that, it's pretty much down to wiping out their archers and playing around with their infantry. Crossbowmen are particularly vulnerable when you charge them just as they start their long reload animation (the only downside being you sometimes eat a volley at point blank range just before reaching them in melee).

As "The Empire of the Greeks" as Byzantium was referred to by the contemporary westerners, you face some serious challenges. To the east, the Turks expand rapidly and have a very good unit roster that truely becomes scarey as the game progresses. To the west, Hungary and Venice are hellbent on controlling eastern Europe, to include your Greek provinces. Venice, as usual, will declare war on anything within 100 provinces of it's frontier. Those itallian x-bow/spear militia armies can be costly to destroy, and the availability of the units makes it easy for the AI to put together stacks.

On top of all this, you will have full stacks of Crusaders streaming through your provinces. Apparently someone told them to "Go east to where the men speak Italian, and continue until they speak something else." Even worse, after the Crusade, all the late comers will revert to their despicable barbarian roots and may decide that, having missed their chance at absolution, they might as well sack one of your cities and get drunk off the Imperial wine.:furious3:

However, Byzantium has some nice units to protect that wine:beam: ! To use them effectively, you must get out of the western tactical state of mind. Your strength is in your missle troops and your flexibility. You can dance around heavy western units and pepper them to death, but you are still heavy enough to stomp on the heads of light eastern troops.

Killing them sofly with your (bow) song... - Drowning the Latins in Arrows
Against western armies, I use horse archers and Alan mercs (I can't say enough about these turbo charged lancers) to ravage the enemies missle troops. I manuever my infantry and foot archers up and shoot the enemy to pieces. With 4 units of Archer Guards shooting from behind spearmen and 4 Vards peppering the foe from behind or the side, the enemy will be torn to shreds. Any attempt to attack the Vards results in kiting the enemy away from the main force where they can be surrounded and killed. An assualt on my foot archers will get caught up on the spears and counter charged by the next line of swordsmen, and possibly flanked by melee cavalry.

Swatting Flies - The annoying Turkish Horse archers
Against the Turks, you want to get on top of them quickly. Chase them all over with your Vards and Alans. Keep your infantry walking toward them along with your heavy cavalry. As soon as a enemy horse archer gets caught up in melee, charge them with more units. They will soon route. Make sure you keep someone chasing them until they are gone. Another option is to capture the high ground, which the skirmish mode enemies will happily abandon, and then rain your long range missles down on the turks from above. Once the enemy horse archers get in range, they will usually do the shooting circle. This just makes them easier to catch with Alans or Vards.

Insert Homophobic joke here - A Greek Navy
Build up your navy. Crush your enemies navy. Done? You now have the best way to travel. Anatolia is horrible to travel over. It is full of mountains and rivers and twists and turns and Turks. Why deal with all that when you can take a ship and be where you want in half the time? You can also ferry troops around to Greece, Anatolia, your islands and the Holy Land with little fear of loosing them. Navys are also handy in keeping the Hellespont and Black Sea closed, your ports open and pockets full of port generated coin.

"I claim these lands in the name of Emperor Theodociousodopoloulisadopis Basilicianousisou!!!" - Conquering yourself some space
I decided to first concentrate on the Aegean Sea area. I conquered Smyrna and Rhodes quickly. I turned Rhodes into a town for the economic benefit. Having sent an all cavalry army west, I overtook the unwalled settlement of Durazzo. The next obvious target was Iraklion. I used the small army that had taken Smyrna and Rhodes to stage an amphibious assualt on the Venicians of Iraklion.

I allied with the Hungarians and even guarenteed that they succeeded with a crusade on Antioch. I let them pass, and then blocked the Hellespont and some of the river crossings in Antolia to delay the other Catholic factions.

Next I planned to conquer the Turks. However, my beloved allies, the Hungarians, decided that I was a puppy eating devil. They attacked Constantinople and were driven back. I turned my Army of Turkish Conquest into an Army of Hungarian Conquest. I already had a Western Army, and togethr the two stacks turned the Hungarians into gooey red goloush. I am just mopping them up now.

I sent a small force to the Crimean to take Caffa. It is easy to take and has two slave resources just outside. Once you get a port, it turns into a budding money farm.

I need to get on with dismembering the Turks ASAP. Their unit roster gets better and better and I don't want to have Jannisarries breathing down my neck when the Mongols arrive. I am hoping to smash the Turks western provinces and then letting them recover in the east so they can damage the Khans cowboys.

Georgodopolous likes his chicken spicy... - Trading
Trading silks is ok. It makes decent money, but being just outside Constantinople, you dont get that great a return. The far bettter choice is to trade sugar and spices from the provinces around Antioch. New merchants will start in the high 60s and mid-levels will make around 200:beam: . The gold mines near Trerbizond and in the Balkans are good choices too. If you conquer the Crimean, you can trade in slaves for a good return and with little competition.

Can't we all just get along? - Diplomacy
No we can't. Don't bother allying with anyone, they will just backstab you, crusade against you or call a jihad on you. Consider everyone your enemy and be ready for an attack from every direction.

All and all, the Byzantines have a tough starting area, but with the flexibilities of their armies and their ability to make a lot of coin, it is nothing that can't be managed.

I love Byzantine history. I love the byzantines, but I have been trying to deal with the Byzantine campaign problems. The Byzantine Empire gets awesome horse archers, infantry, and heavy cavalry, but lacks gunpowder and seems to have extraordinary porous borders. I mean, one campaign I was laying waste to the Turks in Anatolia, then out of the blue 2 hungarian and 1 polish army attack me! But through some careful reading, problems solving, and much swearing I have figured out a solution. It is based off the concepts of the Comnenion Army and the Themata system. What you do is create 2 field armies, which are meant for attacking, slaughtering and having a good, old time. Doesnt really matter what you have in them, but my usual setup is 1 general, 4 byzantine infantry, 4 vardotai, 4 cataphracts, 4 trebizond/guard archers and a couple of catapults and assorted mercenaries, depending on your preferences. that is the Comnenion Army part. The themata part is a tad different and acts as more of a strategic reserve. to prevent sneaky armies from sneaking into your empire with sneaky intentions, build a fort at each river crossing and in mountain chokepoints. I usually put 1 infantry, 1 archer, and 1 cavalry unit in each. These garrisons dont have to be anything special, just there. then, over the course of the game, build fill up the garrisons of all your cities with the units that get the free upkeep bonus, SO YOU ONLY HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM ONCE, MWUAHAHAHAHAHA...Ahem. the point is, when you get attacked by sneaky minions of the Head Pontiff, you have little, waste garrisons to block the enemy, a field army to deal out the pain, and huge reserves of soldiers to lay waste to the invader if your field army gets WI-FI INTERNET ACCESS or is under repairs. plus its fun to see the massive reserves you are capable of bringing out ot teach your enemies a lesson.

This faction has been my "Appreciation of Forts" faction. The Porous borders have numerous very nice choke points, take adavantage. Dont leave those Gens in your cities, have em work the borders! (very fun Faction!)

I still can't figure out a good way to defend cities and castles since your infantry even at the higher levels are not that solid.

Yesterday my precious Constantinople fell to a Mongols Jihad group; despite the fact that I had 8 varangian guards on the gate when their ram finally knocked it down. And BTW despite having six T-archers on the walls they couldnt burn the ram down. After the gate went down, the mongols stormed my lines with their cavalary and the rest was a massacre. My V guards all fought till they died, the mongols went on to kill my general and 2 other family members, and the city fell. I dont know why CA decided to give my favourite faction such utterly weak units.

Any advice on how to defend cities as the byzantines?

Unless your running one of the bug fixes for it. Vargarian guard will not fight in melee no matter what. Use somthing else to defend the walls. Other than that, use spears vs. cav, just make sure you get the spears to charge the cav and not the other way round, (unless your running a sheild fix too).

p.s. when fixed, vargarian Guard are truely scary.

For infantry, use Byzantine Infantry (from cities) or dismounted Byzantine Lancers or Latinkon (from castles). You can also sprinkle in a nice mix of Byzantine Guard Archers as well, since those guys are just about as strong in melee as they are in missile fire. It's near impossible to burn a ram; it happens, but rarely. If you're defending a huge city, make sure you have ballista towers. For the Byzantines, they fire cannonballs instead of ballista bolts. The ram might still survive, but they do a better job than archers do.

I find the best thing to as Byzantium, is to do what Alexis did historically.
Small Grab. Hold, small grab, hold. let the crusades through your lands and follow in behind em, Grab, hold.

The Byzantines postion aint pretty.
In my campiang i had stacks comming in from hungary, the turks and veince all at once.

So be warned.

Make certain you build up your economy. If you do it right, soon enough you will have 'restored the byzantine postion of wealth'.

Cavalry and navy are key for any byzantine strategty.
When you start getting your medium level units, Infantry, lancers, and dismounted lancers, then you can start going to kick some ass.

The Guard Archers are very useful - they can be used along side something like the Latinkon in an arquebus/pikeman role.

Carl, which is the Varangian fix? (I may have asked you this in another thread as well, apologies :laugh4: )

Link to a fix here

sorry for offtopic but these fixes are they planned on CAs part in the next patch? I love this game and I don't want to buff units unless its absolutely neccessary.

yep, perhaps not exactly as i've done it, but thats because they'll be creating new unbugged animations for the bugged animation units and fixing whatever it is that messs up sheilds. Pikes will also likliy get some engine work. 2-Handed swords will then need work to be balance. Their are the odd bugs with this fix, namely that sheild units are more resistant to enfidile fire than they should be and that they are less resistant to AP attacks than they should be. But overall it fixes a lot of major bugs and only creates a few minor ones.

Talk about porous boarders in my Byzantine campaing i had a Papal army having a camping expedition in the mountains between Durazzo and Corinth. It was a good army as well and all it got me was the contempt of every Catholic country the scoundrals!

At the suggestion of later posters This walk through should be read as how to play and Eastern strategy with the Byzantines. It is possible to do well playing differently but this is still my favored way to approach this faction against the computer.

Thoughts and Perspectives
This was originally for my own consumption from notes I made as I tried to figure out how to use the Byzantine forces in MTW2. While it is possible to unlock the factions by editing the “Medieval2.preferences” file without winning a game using the Western European factions first I would recommend against it. Playing the English or French is much easier and is useful in learning how the game mechanics work and will save you lots of frustration.

If you unlock the game and jump into the Byzantines you will lose repeatedly (I know this from experience). So, be patient and play the bloody English or the snobby French, the vicious Spanish or decadent HRE once on the easiest setting and unlock the game. Then you can move on to the last truly worthy Empire the world has seen and see if you can overcome the rapacious Turks and greedy Venetians and revive the glory of Rome. You'll learn a lot about how the game works and gain some tolerance for the uncivilized barbarians as well.

I will approach this walk through in a topical and descriptive manner. I am also dealing with strategy not tactics. If you are looking for tips on fighting battles look somewhere else. I am not the best of generals. Most of the time and always on huge battles I let the computer command my forces. But, it is true wars are often won before they are fought. I am going to describe the best way I have found to win before you fight. It is my job to get my empire in the financial, military and political condition to win. If I do this then my generals can handle the the battles and the empire can with stand the strains of war. If these are not done then almost no amount of generalship will prevail.

I will also assume that you are using the default “medium” settings for the game. However, I'd recommend using the “Easy” settings the first time you play the Byzantines.

How I Approach Playing the Byzantines

There are several keys to surviving more than 25 turns as the Byzantines.
1.You have to be aggressive. You must start acquiring territory and subduing the Turks from the FIRST turn

2.You have to be cunning and know how to use your spies, diplomats and Merchants without causing a war. This means being aggressive and cautious at the same time

3.You have to be able to live on the edge of your finances for the first 20 to 30 game turns. You will need to take chances and if anything goes wrong before you get the East under control you will probably lose because you will not have the extra cash to build another army quickly enough.

4.You have to be ruthless. When you take a city or castle from the Turks or a rebel settlement you should exterminate the inhabitants unless they are at least 75 percent orthodox. You don't have time to convert populations. Kill them gain control and move on. You will also sometimes find it useful to attack a settlement sack it, destroy all the buildings you can for the cash and move just out side the city. Let it revolt, unlike MTW it does not revert to the previous owner but becomes a rebel controlled province. You're are then able to move on rapidly to the next enemy town. Alternately, try giving the town to a more peaceful Catholic faction not contiguous with you. Giving Venice to the Portuguese can cause your opponents all sorts of problems and create a buffer between you and those wish to invade you.

5.You have to win all of your first six or seven battles against the Turks, and you first two against Venetians. You should NEVER lose to Rebels

If the plan works, you have a good chance to not only survive but win the game long before gunpowder units threaten you. If it fails you are dead meat by 1125 AD. It has been my experience that this strategy works about ½ the time if you implement it right. It can work more often if you are a good general yourself

Weaknesses

The Byzantines are, I think the toughest faction to play in MTW2.
1.This is because they are one of only two factions (The Russians are the other) that can be attacked indiscriminately by any other Christian faction without being excommunicated by the Pope and still may have Jihads called against them.

2.Unlike the Russians the Byzantines do not start with the edge of the map at their back they are trapped between four or five hostile powers; the Venetians, the Hungarians, the Turks and later by the Egyptians and Milianese.

3.In the early stages of the game they have very poor offensive troops. This is not a shortcoming that can be made up for with mercenaries because mercenaries are primarily missile and spear troops which are defensive troops. Spear and missile troops must be used with great caution when attacking or they lose even when the Byzantines out number their opponents by large margins.

4.While the Byzantine missile cavalry is very good they lack any form of heavy cavalry with a lance that can be reached quickly. That means the Byzantines must defend against Knights with unarmored spearmen. Your best option is to hire mercenary Frankish knights or possibly Alan cavalry or Armenian Cavalry. But these are hit and miss as to availability and retraining is problematic. They are also expensive. Armenian Cavalry, for example, are somewhat better than Byzantine Lancers but cost 1080 gold to recruit and over 300 per turn in maintenance.

If you are playing against the computer it is possible to overcome these shortcomings but to do that you must do several things and use the few advantages that you have.

Strengths & Advantages

The Byzantines have several temporary advantages that you must you to their full if you are to have any hope. If you don't use these advantages while you can you'd better be willing to use a cheat code because otherwise you are lost.

1.Emperor Alexis has six command stars; he is a tremendous tactician one of the best that any faction has in the Early game. You must take him out of Constantinople and use him to win a blitzkrieg war against the Turks. But, you have to move fast he isn't young. Use him while he lives and pray that he lives to be 100!

2.Crown Prince John has five command stars and is also a very good commander. You must use him wisely as well. If you can keep him alive long enough to train another couple of generals up you may not just survive but win.

3.The Dromon is a better ship in the early game than almost any one else has. Control of the seas is extremely important and the Byzantines can easily control the Eastern Mediterranean, if they can build enough ships.

4.The Byzantines start with a large population which lets you build lots of troops. While you still need a good general to win battles you must make up for lake of troop quality with sheer numbers; and you can

Using these to their fullest will allow you get into a position where you can survive. But you have to do several other things

Things You Must Do

1.As stated above, you have to go after and beat the Turks starting from the first move of the game. If you play it right you'll take three Turkish cities at once. However, if you take even two of the Turkish cities in the same move you'll have the Turks on their knees.

2.You must get to the point where you can build an offensive infantry unit. There are two of these that are reachable by the time the inevitable 1st Venetian war starts, Byzantine Swordsmen and Dismounted Lancers. They have the same stats. One is built from a castle and the other from a town. The Dismounted Lancers are a little more expensive because they can be improved farther but the easiest one to get to is the swordsmen and you can build them in Constantinople by upgrading two times to a drill square.

3.You must marry Anna Comenus to the Hungarian Faction heir. This buys you a bit of time when the inevitable 1st Venetian war starts. Indeed, the longer you can keep the Hungarians at peace with you the better. Marrying Anna to the Hungarians may keep the Hungarians from going to war with you for 100 years if you are lucky

4.There are are a total of 10 rebel provinces within easy striking distance of Byzantine armies at the beginning of the game. These are Smyrna, Trebizond, Tbilisi, Adana, Antioch, Aleppo, Edessa, Sophia, Bucharest and Durazzo not to mention Sarkel and the Crimea. You need to take at least seven of them with the possible exception of Durazzo, Bucharest and Sophia before you go to war with the Venetians

5.You must develop your economy so that you can have the money to build the buildings that get you better troops. That means building not only training facilities but farms and ports, markets and fairs to give you the income needed for a long war.

The War to Destroy the Turks

There are several good reasons to go after the Turks rather than the Venetians at the beginning of the game:

1.Because when you attack the Turks the Egyptians don't declare war on you. If you immediately go after the Venetians or Hungarians the other will attack and the Turks won't be far behind. Then you'll probably end up in a two front war against three nations at once and that is a good way to say “You lose” early in the game.

2.Byzantine troops do not seem to match up well against the Venetians. At least in the early game the Turks seem to be easier for the Byzantines to take on.

3.The Turks really have nobody else to fight. It is possible that the Venetians will be in a war with the Milanese or HRE and the Hungarians with the Polish. If they get into a war with someone else you'll gain time to develop your economy and troop types.

4.There are a large number of rebel provinces in the East which you can bring under your control. These, when combined with the Turkish provinces make a unified and easy to control empire.

5. Because the Turks are in four provinces that are difficult to travel between. This means it is is very hard for the Turks to send aid from one city to another. If you attack the Turks from three directions at once you prevent them from being able to reinforce one front with troops from another.

6. The Turks start with four provinces. The Venetians and Hungarians combined have (I think) five between them. You are taking out your biggest enemy first.

How to Start
(Note: This walk through gets fuzzier as the moves pass because there are too many variables to account for.)

Turn 1
Constantinople
Building: City Watch
Troops: 1X Urban Militia and 1X Spear Militia 1X ship
(You need the extra Droman to ensure that you can deliver your troops to Trebizond.)
Nicaea
Building: Land Clearance
Troops: 2X Urban Militia
Thessaloníki
Building; Port
Troops: None
Corinth
Building: Land Clearance
Troops : None
Nicosia
Building: None
Troops: None

Movement
Prince John: South towards Smyrna
Orthodox Bishop: East into Turkish territory
Spy East toward the Greek coast
Move two ships in the Aegean to the harbor in Constantinople
Move two ships in the Eastern Mediterranean to point on coast just North of Nicosia

Other
Adjust tax rates to the highest level each city can maintain

Move #2
Constantinople
Build:
Troops: 1X Spear Militia

Nicaea
Build
Troops

Thessaloníki
Build
Troops 2X Urban Militia

Nicosia
Build: Garrison Quarter
Troops

Prince John:
Build
Troops 1x Armenian Archer Mercenary
Corinth
Nothing

Move
Alexis + 1X Trebizond Archer + 1X Urban Militia + 3XSpear Militia into ships in harbor - Then Move ALL THREE ships from Constantinople to the East side of the Bosporus in the Black sea just beyond the river (Where Troops from Nicaea can board them next turn) - Then move Evangelos Exotrochas and 3X Byzantine Spear men +2XTrebizond Archers+1X Town Militia from Nicaea towards the coast to board ship in turn three

Other
Prince John lays Smyrna under siege

Turn #3
JOHN TAKES SMYRNA

Constantinople
Thessaloníki =Dirt roads
Corinth = Dirt Roads
Nicosia = nothing
Nicaea = Port
Smyrna = Repair or build castle

Troops
Constantinople: Diplomat + 1X Spear Militia
Nicosia = Byzantine Cavalry if you have any left
Smyrna = delete Armenian Archers

Move
Load Evagelos on ships with Alexis and ships and sail East up the coast towards Trebizond (Trebizond is about 2 1/2 moves away)

John towards Thessaloníki - at the end of his move build a watch tower
Diplomat towards Raggusa
Move spy so that he can see Ragussa, Durazzo and Zagreb but do not attempt to enter any of the cities. You need to see where moving armies are not what is in the cities. Also If the spy is caught in the city it makes the Venetians more likely to attack you so keep him in the country side and observe.

Note: Another family member should have appeared somewhere. Move Him towards Smyrna

Other
Establish diplomatic relations with Hungarians near the city of Sophia. Marry princess to faction heir

You will receive a reward for taking Smyrna. If it is 4X Vartaroi move them towards Thessaloníki or Smyrna If it is two Dromons move them towards Smyrna

If it is 2500 gold then purchase 1X Dromon at Constantinople and other troops in Nicosia or better yet a Dromon and an economic improvement somewhere

Move #4
Constantinople
Thessaloníki
Corinth
Nicosia
Smyrna = Dirt Roads
Turks offer trade rights and map information-accept but do not ally


Turn #5
Alexis lands and places Trebizond under siege
Ships begin returning to Constantinople
John builds watchtower at the end of his turn
If you have a ship at Smyrna - load family member 1X Cavalry + 2Xspear +1X archer in ships near Smyrna and head to Rhodes
Another Family Member should appear in Constantinople or Nicaea move towards Smyrna with any Urban militia or Spear militia you can spare.

Troop builds
Nicosia Start building Byzantine Spearmen


Move #6
Alexis takes Trebizond OCCUPIES IT leaves one Urban Militia and marches East (to the right) up the coast towards Tiblisi
John Continues towards Thessaloníki
Family Member places Rhodes under siege

Move # 7
Alexis continues towards Tiblisi and should be able to see it at the end of his move.
Rhodes falls. Family Member boards ship and heads towards Cyprus
Continue building army in Cyprus

Move 8
Alexis places Tiblisi under siege (If the Turks have already taken it you may wish to wait until you land an army at Adana)
John Reaches Thessaloníki
Continue building army in Nicosia
Begin building some cavalry and 1 peasant in Smyrna

Move #9
Alexis takes Tiblisi - Repair and strengthen his army as you can
Continue building army in Nicosia (Build only one peasant)

Move #10
Ship reaches Cyprus and combines with other two ships.
Load everything except for on peasant into the ships at Nicosia if you've been diligent this should be about 15 units plus anything you've taken with you from Rhodes . Move towards coast of Adana

Start moving the family member in Smyrna with any cavalry you've managed to build there towards Iconium but do not set a route TO it have your route stop just out side the city. You don't want to declare war yet. Purchase any Mercenary you can. You will need a big army.

Diplomat arrives at Ragussa. Offer trade rights to Venetians offer to pay 100 gold per turn for 20 turns as tribute. If the Venetians have not taken Durazzo offer a prayer of thanks it probably means they are fighting someone up North

Move #11
Move the Ships with the army from Nicosia to South Coast of Lesser Armenia land troops and look around If the Turks have not taken Adana place it under siege. If they've taken it just stand there and move Alexis down from Tbilisi towards Zeveran
Continue moving towards Iconium buy another mercenary

By this time you should be starting to build Spear Militia in Thessaloníki

Move 12
Take Adana - Exterminate the population leave one peasant or urban militia (You could bring in another one from Nicosia if you need and have the cash) and move the entire army towards Caesarea

Alexis moves towards Zeveran leaving only an urban militia in Tblisi

Army moves next to Iconium hire another Mercenary

Move 13
Besiege Caesarea, Iconium and Zeveran
Build peasants or cheap cavalry in Tblisi

Move 14
Exterminate the populations in Zeveran, Caesarea and Iconium.
(If you wish to guarantee winning at Iconium use Prince John rather than the other Family Member and send John back West)

You may need to send some help from Caesarea towards Iconium if the siege there was unsuccessful. Otherwise move that army, less a garrison back towards Adana.

Move 17
Alexis takes Mosul
FM that took Caesarea may take Antioch if the Egyptians haven't

Move 20
Alexis takes Eddessa
FM takes Aleppo

Move 21
Army built in Mosul without a FM puts Baghdad under siege

At the end of this process you will have all or most of the following provinces under your control.
1.Corinth
2.Durazzo (possibly)
3.Thessaloníki
4.Constantinople
5.Nicaea
6.Smyrna
7.Trebizond
8.Rhodes
9.Iconium
10.Caesarea
11.Adana
12.Tbilisi
13.Zeveran
14. Nicosia
15. Mosul
16. Eddessa
17. Aleppo
18. Antioch (possibly)
19. Baghdad
20. Sarkell (If you are bold)

These 19 or 20 provinces are defended by 5 because you can only be attacked over land through Durazzo, Thessaloníki, Tbilisi, Aleppo and Antioch. That means that if you can weasel even a few more turns of peace you will have considerable economic muscle. Since you need 45 provinces to win including Jerusalem (Which you are in marching distance of) and Rome you are well on you way

A Few Tricks
At the beginning of the game build a diplomat and send him to the Venetians. Provided that they are not already moving armies into your territory to attack you. Obtain trade rights, then exchange maps. Then offer to pay them 100 gold per turn for 50 turns. Sometimes they will take this. If they do you gain time because believe it or not the computers wants the tribute. Losing a 100 gold a turn will hurt you a lot less than than being able to build your economy and reach those hard to get troops

Don't garrison with mercenaries if you can avoid it. Hire mercenaries fight the battle, take the town and dismiss them. Garrison your towns that are not on your borders with militia that you don't have to pay upkeep on. While they are poor attack troops they are useful in defending and keeping down civil unrest. Once you build them there is no upkeep cost. 8 x militia Spearmen + 8 x Militia archers + 4 x Merchant cavalry will make a walled city very difficult to take. They also give you huge hordes if you have to go to war.

Don't take the Venetians out at one whack. When they attack the first time take Iraklion. Make peace and build. When they attack you the next time take Ragussa and Zagreb. This helps to keep your reputation better with the other schismatics. Leaving the Venetians with just Venice can be kind of fun to watch. You can do this because when the Venetians attack they'll probably need most of what they've got. That means Somebody else may, after a turn or two attack them. If you've taken Iraklion and they suddenly begin moving armies North then sue for peace. Then wait for them to break the peace and attack you again. The reason this is a good idea is that you don't want to limp into Zagreb only to have another faction take it from you. It also helps to have the Venetians in Venice. The Milanese have to march through them to get to you.

If you are not at war, after subduing the Turks and the rest of Asia-Minor save some cash for hard times If you start a move with 5000 gold only spend 4000. If the next move the start is 6000 only spend 4000 and so on. Add a 1000 gold to your reserve every year you are not at war. If your finances improve add more. For example, if you sack a city and get 20,000 only spend 10,000 It takes discipline but over the course of 10 or 20 years you can build up a huge pile of reserves. This seems to help your merchants resist being taken over and gives you the ability to make that very special bribe to the garrison in a hard to take city such as Venice. Paying a 30,000 in gold bribe to take a huge city can be a bargain. It also gives you the ability to wage a large scale war that requires you to keep armies in the field and pay for their support.

I talked about the Power position of having 20 provinces defended by 5 above. But, it gets better. If you take out the Egyptians you can add

21. Alexandria
22. Cairo
23. Donga
24. Jedda
25. Gaza
26. Jerusalem
27. Acre
28. Damascus
29. Ragussa (probably)
30. Iraklion (probably)
31. Sophia
32. Zagreb (Probably)
33. Bucharest
34. Tripoli
35. Tunis
36 Venice (Maybe)
You can then defend 36 provinces from Sarkell, Venice, Zagreb, Sophia, Bucharest Tuniis.

Indeed, you can push all the way down the coast of North Africa without increasing the number provinces that you need to defend. What this means in a perverse way is that while I have found that the Venetians are a greater threat to you the Egyptians are a more economically viable target. Venice is hard to control. There are too many cities within a days march of one another. If you can stabilize your Western border or see the Venetians and Hungarians in a desperate war with other powers build up and march on Egypt.

Egypt is harder to down than the Turks and I'll post another "How To" on them later.

This post has been edited for grammar and minor sequencing issues

I haven't had the Turks attack me over the course of two games (now three so far). Maybe I am just lucky. I will say that once you start with Venice it usually turns into the HRE, Milan and/or Hungary coming after you as well. It's a mess. Fortunately the turks just forget about me.

I have found that Vardariotai positioned behind the enemy's lines will decimate a Western Army. I then use Byzantine Archers (or is it guard?) to pepper them from the front. The only problem I have with the Byzantines is that they lack a good spear unit to counter cavalry. But I usually just use the Vardariotai for that too once the cavalry is engaged with my dismounted lancers/byzantine swordsmen.

Aetius22, after reading Gray Beard's excellent post, I'm curious about what territories you conquered for your victories. Did you ally with the Turks? Did they provide a buffer against the Mongols?

I disagree with Grey Beard about Byzantines being difficult to play. They aren't. In fact, early on they are the simplest and easiest faction to use. Just gotta rely on Byzantine strong points, of which they have three early on:

1) Great generals. Both Alexius and John are excellent tacticians, yes, they will eventually die, but not before they are able to carve out a large empire for the Romanoi.

2) Vardariotai. These guys are so overpowered, it makes beating your neighbors in the field akin to taking candy from a baby. The only meaningful counter to these guys are the pavise xbow units which take some time for the Catholics to build the pre-req structures. Now, Vards can't storm cities, but they can still starve them out, so it's not a big deal).

3) Navy. Dromons and Fire Ships kill everything else with ease.


Also, Turks aren't much of a threat. Nikaea and Smyrna are the only settlements in Asia Minor worth taking and holding onto, and they are easily re-enforceable. Plus, it takes a while before Turks get any kind of meaningful Navy going.
Venice, on the other hand, is a menace. I wait for them to sneak attack me, then take all their holdings except for Venice itself. From that point they aren't a threat.
Anyhow, my usual order of expansion is as follows:
Smyrna/Durazzo/Sofia (attacking armies sent to all three on the first turn), Rhodes, Kaffa, Iraklion, Ragusa.

I also convert I convert Thessalonica into a castle (because of its central location) and also keep Smyrna and Ragusa as castles. Everything else gets converted into cities. That's it, the initial expansion is finished, the Empire is secure, now it's time to settle in for a bit, build up, and get ready for the mid game.

Well Jammer I won't disagree with you it was a good post. I have just happened to been lucky - or maybe played on too low difficulty. Perhaps on H and VH campaigns the Turks are more aggressive.

My first play through I played a short campaign and decided to get Venice off my back first since they decided to attack me rather early into it. The Turks first offered trade, and then became allied to me. This first game was my first and I decided to take it easy, so I played on easy/medium. My next two games have been on Medium/Medium. During those games the Turks seemed stagnant barely conquering the rebels around them, they offer a trade agreement and then leave me alone.

I usually go for Sofia, Durazzo and Smyrna ASAP. I turn Corinth into a city, and then Durazzo into a castle. I use Durazzo for Vardariotai and march my way to Raguzza and then Venice. This is the point where I hope that I can get a breather and not have Milan and/or the HRE attack me. I haven't been lucky with that. Meanwhile I am being attacked by Sicily and now I just use my navy to offload from Raguzza to Naples, then take that army to Palermo and Sicily leaves me alone. The Turks leave me alone and I had to subdue Hungary once by taking Bucharest and Bran. Once my holdings in Italy begin to mount, I move my capital to Thessalonica. I am still playing my latest game, but I think you can successfully shift from the east to the West by concentrating on unifying Italy for the most part - I am still afraid of taking Rome. You can fortify the Alps and use Raguzza and Palermo for reinforcements.

Yes, I have tried to to use the Turks as a shield against the Mongols. I can't say I have been entirely successful on my second game as the Mongols appeared just as I was starting my campaign against the Turks, allied with them and decided that I had to go. It took me all I had to beat the Mongols back. That's also around the time I decided that free units for the Mongols was just too much of an advantage for them. They already have a very powerful army as is. So I gave them 50 florins for most basic units and 100 and 250 for the more advanced units. Quite frankly I don't think it had an effect. I thought that the horde would work just as in the expansion for RTW. But even when they settle they still don't pay any upkeep for that huge army it seemed.

I think the Byzantines can be very hard or very easy depending on your luck. If the Turks, Venetians and Hungarians decide to go to war with you early on, it will be a feat to get out of it. Then again if you can at least keep the Turks out of your hair it's not so bad.

I just think that they have an advantage over Western Armies myself with the Vardariotai. The Turks and Mongols match them rather well with their own HAs.

Playing with Regnum Dei Iron mod taking "homeland-provinces" from factions are much harder. As a consequence my playstyle has drastically changed. Now I ususally blitz all surrounding rebels then turtle and build up siege weapons (cats) then carefully choose my targets. All wars are well planned and equipped. Until I can meet theese requirements I just stay in my own lands depleting any invaders.

My first priorities are:
Army 1 (Alexis); takes Sofia, and Durazzo. Then moves towards Ragusa.
Army 2 (John); Smyrna and Rhodes. Then moves towards Iraklion.

*Send all priests to Crete for a total conversion, a couple of spies there will make this settlement revolt against the Venetians. Next preachertarget is Ragusa. I rather do this conquest the sneaky way since Venice is a really good tradepartner and my reputation won´t take a dive since I´m not an agressor. In RD Iron-mod the Hugarians has a stack outside Zagreb which means that the Venetians rarely takes this settlement. This in turn means that after I´ve instigated revolts in Iraklion and Ragusa they are left with Venice.
After, or simoultanesly, I sail John from Iraklion towards Trebizond and Caffa. This is my initial turtle-area. I only keep one castle: Ragusa, at this stage.

Next target: Turks. But that´s a completley different story.

I should probably modify my post a bit.

I have gone back and been able to play where I take on the near by Catholics and win. As such, I think that maybe I'll modify it to show how to run your empire if you decide to conquer the East first. I feel that this the best strategy for the Byzantines because it gives the Venetians, Milanese, Sicilians HRE and Polish time to get to hate each other which seems to make them less likely to help each other.

There is something that rvg missed when he talks about how good the Vardariotai are; he is fighting his own battles and I am not. I let the computer fight the battles. I have a hard time doing that because of (Believe it or not) getting hit by a car in 1979 when I was 20. I have nerve damage down my arms which makes my fingers clumsy and slows down my reaction and thinking time. I have a Ph.D. but I am not a fast thinker and my numb hands make typing problematic and this games require fast thinking and a better command of the keyboard than I have. As a result, I have to spend too much time looking at the keyboard when I fight the battles. Real time battles move faster than I can comfortably give commands. I can do it but I don't enjoy it. Thus, I am letting the computer run my battles. My walk through is about how to win if you can't or don't want to fight your own battles. It makes a huge difference in how competent the Byzantine troops are if you let the computer control them. Also, I do not besiege cities, I take the walls. Vardariotai in particular and cavalry in general do not do that well.

My goal in playing the Byzantines is to stay out of a two or three front war and to be able to build up my economic level to afford the troops I need.. I find that if I take out the Venetians and Hungarians before going after the Turks then I end up simply replacing the Venetians and Hungarians with the Milanese and HRE not to mention the Polish and Sicilians. Then I have to deal with them as well as the Turks and the Egyptians. If I take out the Turks, before they can reach their good troops, and conquer everything down to Antioch, Aleppo, Edessa, Mosul, and Baghdad I can defend all of Asia Minor through Antioch and Aleppo. Because Adana and Caesarea are immediately behind these two it is very difficult for the Egyptians to break through and cause lots of problems. The Northern border can be defended against the Russians by Tbilisi and Zeveran.

Once the Egyptians attack I can normally force my way down to Alexandria and Cairo which effectively knocks them out of the game.


BTW- another advantages the the Byzantines have

Maintenance cost - The Dismounted Lancers and Byzantine Swordsmen are not quite as good as their Western counterparts. However they cost 100 gold per turn less to maintain. You can effectively have three of them for the cost of two Venetian heavy infantry units. This is a huge help because it allows you to have bulkier armies. Much as in MTW1 where the Byzantine swordsmen where a 100 strong unit rather than a 60 strong unit.

More militia units with free upkeep - The Byzantines also have more types of units that can garrison cities without a maintenance cost than other factions. The militia archers, for example can be quite useful and if you keep them in a city until you need them are free. This allows you to have better static defenses in cities


Here is what I consider to be a good, well rounded Byzantine army
1 x Family Member
4 x Spear Militia or Byzantine Spearmen
3 x Archer Militia or Trebizond Archers
3 x Shock Cavalry (Lancers, Latinkon or Kataphraxtoi, Frankish Knights, Armenian Cavalry)
5 x Heavy Infantry (Byzantine Swordmen, Dismounted Lancers or Dismounted Latinkons)
4 x Missie Cavalry or Light Cavalry (Vardariotai, Byzantine Cavalry, Skythewhatever, Turcomen Mercenaries, Merchant Cavalry)

Sometimes, I will replace the last group of cavalry with either Guard Archers or Infantry, or seige equipment.

Gray is absolutely correct about that. ALL cavalry sucks badly when it comes to using the auto-calculator. I think it has to do more with numbers, or perhaps yet another case where stats don't equate to battlefield performance. Any faction that fields armies heavy on cavalry will suffer when using the auto-calculator, unless those troops have massive amounts of experience. The experience is the reason the Mongols and Timurids seem to do so well when they arrive. All their battles are auto-calc'd.

I suspect the problem is that the auto-calc engine is probably just a copy of the RTW one and doesn't have code in it to deal with formed charges or the changed tower operation, (hence why towers have no effect in auto-calced sieges, they never count as activated), I also believe that Auto-calc is unaffected by the shield bug, and i know that both pikes and 2-Handers work without issue in it. The shield bug and Pike problems really overpower Cav in manual battles ATM.

2 Units of Italian Spear Militia vs. 3 units of Mailed Knights is a granted win with 50% losses (approx) for the Italian Spear Militia with working Shields. this is reflected in the auto-calc results nicely, this means that Cav actually perform in auto-calc as they should and your getting a lot of power boosts from bugs in ordinary battles which make Cav seem underpowered in auto-calc.

Wow I seem to play really different from everyone else. Ignore the turks, yes they'll declare war on you but their Horse Archers are useless at attacking settlements and I've always found it easy to defeat their armies and get a generous ceasefire. Main purpose is to keep them as a buffer against Mongols and Timurids. Immediately go for Venice, if you let them develop they'll become a power house and be able to field a strong navy (also their early game armies are pretty much infantry Can anyone say Varidotai:smash:) . After Venice Hungary is next. Attack from Venice, wait till he brings his army over and start attacking from constantinople. Once theyre gone your pretty much set. You have alot of rich cities and the perfect place to expand pretty much anywhere.

This might not be the place for it, but I found Byzantium extremely boring in the normal MTW2 format. I have generated a mod using the BigMap and several fixes from the Lands2Conquer mod including two handed fix and SuperAI.

The AI makes the Turks, Vencians, Hungarians and Russians much more difficult to manage. Also, most of BigMap province additions are in Eastern Europe & Asia Minor. There are several extra Greek cities, 3 extra on the Southern Italian Peninsula, 3 more in Annatolia and 5-6 in the far east of Russia/Georgia.

This drastically increases your choices for expansion into previous Byzantine strongholds and gives your neighbors extra opportunities for expansion & cash.

The basic BigMap mod is easy to DL and works pretty well on its own.

Currently, I have wiped out Venice, control all of Greece, Crimea, most of Asia Minor, every island in the eastern med & just established a foot hold in Italy in Bari and Brindisi. My position is relatively stable and I am considering whether to wipe out Hungary, or form a colony in Central Africa Tunis/Tripoli (6-7 new provinces) or the Holy Land.

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Originally Posted by IRPhydeaux

This might not be the place for it, but I found Byzantium extremely boring in the normal MTW2 format. I have generated a mod using the BigMap and several fixes from the Lands2Conquer mod including two handed fix and SuperAI.

The AI makes the Turks, Vencians, Hungarians and Russians much more difficult to manage. Also, most of BigMap province additions are in Eastern Europe & Asia Minor. There are several extra Greek cities, 3 extra on the Southern Italian Peninsula, 3 more in Annatolia and 5-6 in the far east of Russia/Georgia.

This drastically increases your choices for expansion into previous Byzantine strongholds and gives your neighbors extra opportunities for expansion & cash.

The basic BigMap mod is easy to DL and works pretty well on its own.

Currently, I have wiped out Venice, control all of Greece, Crimea, most of Asia Minor, every island in the eastern med & just established a foot hold in Italy in Bari and Brindisi. My position is relatively stable and I am considering whether to wipe out Hungary, or form a colony in Central Africa Tunis/Tripoli (6-7 new provinces) or the Holy Land.

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So the BM-mod actually has more provinces? Didn´t know that. Did a search to find map/ pics of it but didn´t find any. How many provinces does it contain aprox?

One of the bugs with all the total war maps was that you effectively have an edge of the board. Other than the Mongols nothing comes from off the board.

This means that the Byzantines can capture the South-Eastern corner of the map and be in a very strong tactical position because they have no enemies from the East.

I wish the map went all the way to the Pacific. I don't see why this would be so hard to do. I mean if they can get the Aztecs into the game why not the Persians (Iranians) and Chinese and Indians? Then it would Be Medieval Total WORLD war

Gray Beard, I imagine that would be a daunting programming task. But I like the way you think. I'd buy that game.

I'm not sure that this is the best advice for dealing with the Mogols. The Timirids are a different story but I've either won or lost by the time they come so they are not that big an issue

Unlike MTW i cannot get a huge army in Asia Minor that can simply wait for the Mongols to appear and then wipe them out.

In M2TW you are unable to do that.

Trick #1 Let them take a worthless city. What is a worthless city? One that only has walls. When you see where the Mongols are going destroy everything in the city that can be destroyed This will force the Mongols to garrison the city after the siege it with troops that they have to pay for. If possible don't build up the agriculture on Eastern cities. However, make them place the city under siege. Have a 20 unit stack of Spear Militia and Archer Militia on the walls If possible put a family member in the city that has 2 or 3 command stars. Let the Mongols sit outside your walls for 10 years. This gives them a base but it also gives you time. You can have a fast army that goes and sieges the city every time they leave. When they move back to break the siege you retreat.

Trick #2 Lead them on a merry chase. This works better if the Mongols show up near Tbilisi. Have an army of cheap fast cavalry. They don't have to be good but they have to be fast. If you have a family member with the forced march attribute that makes them faster put him in the army as well. Then move this army where the Mongols can see it and let them come after it. However, you need to place your army so that the Mongols have to expend most of their movement to reach you. When they attack refuse combat and retreat. Then move to the limit of their range again. By doing this You can sometimes get them chase you all the way to Sarkell At that point they are the Russians, and Polish factions' problem. This is hard to do but it can be done and is quite fun if you are also at war with the Polish or Hungarians.

Trick #3 Assassinate their leader. If you build a force of about 20 assassins and have them practice on easy targets like Catholic priest and Venetian merchants they are then able to kill the Mongol leader. When the Mongols appear they don't have much in the way of faction leaders. Kill the leaders and the Mongols become bandits albeit very powerful bandits. However, their behavior changes

I really like trick number 2. I usually just wait for them to spend themselves on the Turks and Egyptians as I conquer the catholics. If I play as the Byzantines again I will have to try conquering the Turks first and this trick. Sounds very interesting if you are able to pull it off.

Sometimes you actually have to attack the Mogols with you cavalry to make trick #2 work. Attack then cancel the attack and back away. get them to follow you. Where it gets really tricky is getting two or three stacks of Mongols following you. You'll generally lose Tbilisi in this process but once they get farther North you can get it back. Especially of the Russians attack the Mongol stack

Forgive me but how do you make money with the Byzzies? Curently I'm in control of Trebizond Nicosia Smyrna,Corinth and Rhodes which are my main castles, I've also taken the fortress Bran from the Hungarians as they would use it as a base from invading me I also control Caesarea,Constanipole,
Thessaloníki,Smyrna,Iconium,Bucharest,Iasi,and currently have Caesarea under siege,but due to being at war with the Turks,Italians,and Hungarians at once I can't seem to make any decent money.I've tried to get a cease-fire with them but they refuse to listen to my diplomat,what are my best options?

Sounds like you have too many castles...

Definitely too many castles. In that circumstance, I'd keep Bran as a castle, Caesarea as a castle, and Trebizond as a castle. Convert the rest into cities. You might keep Corinth as a castle, that's up to you. Because of map changes, Corinth as a city doesn't make nearly as much money as Sparta did in RTW (the ports are located in the same place).

I would only keep two castles. If you build those areas as cities you have tons of dough

Ok I'll do that.What's the best method of battling the mongols when they come? Fill up the cities they are going to hit with as many archers units as possible and hope I can stop their calvary before they batter down my gate??

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Originally Posted by oz_wwjd

Ok I'll do that.What's the best method of battling the mongols when they come? Fill up the cities they are going to hit with as many archers units as possible and hope I can stop their calvary before they batter down my gate??

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Use chokepoints like passes, fords and ofcourse cities to wear them down. Its argous but the only part of M2 that provides a challenge. Regarding unit combo it depends what kind of player you are. I prefer mobility and choose HA´s. A mass assault with assassins is very useful to kill off their generals, without generals your chances of defeating their armies increases significantly.

After playing 120 years with .5 timescale as the Byzantines, I realised how wonderful they really are! I think everyone should at some point try this faction! Like mentioned before, they got excellent troops and a fantastic central starting position, the Byz have a long history if you are interested too.. It's also easy to make big money (Middle-East area) so you can live with a high army-upkeep.

I have done well with only a few castles, one in Turkey, Greece and Hungary, two in the Middle-East so don't get too many!

The way I have done it is that I expanded east first, force Turkey to become your Vassal and Egypt after that.. If they want to;( In this campaign, there was no garrison in their last city Alexandria, I offered them Jerusalem and Gaza, map information, regular tribute on 1k for 20 turns!!:wall: All I wanted back was to protect and help them:furious3: (vassel) So after like 10 years of good will from the Emperor himself in Constantinople, I clicked on the city and executed the population. Poor guys. :sweatdrop:

Oh and by the way, when I’m playing the Byz with a touch of role-play, I really hate the HRE – which is neither Holy nor Roman.. Just a bunch of guys who.. Ok, I’ll stop=)

Ops sorry, it's Vassal and timescale 1:dizzy2:

One of the things that made my Byzantine campaign run so smooth was the economy. The Holy Lands are great for that, especially since it seems the pope can't call a crusade on the Orthodox. Another benefit to the economy was that I didn't use many castles. The Byz fit into my playstyle perfectly as I pretty much use infantry as cannon fodder and I could get good units (well good for the Byz anyway) out of city militia barracks. Typical battles/sieges saw me losing 50% of my infantry but only 5-10% of my Cavalry and Archers. Therefore I could easily just replenish the infantry at the cities I just took and didn't have to drag piles of other forces back to retrain, or build castles everywhere.

Gingi,

Do you still get those nice relics as Bizzy? From looking at the files I'm not clear if they are all generic, or if they are tied to religion.

Sadly after talking over all of the Holy Lands the only relic I got was from Jerusalem and eventually I forgot to transfer the thing before the general that got it died.

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Originally Posted by Gingivitis

Sadly after talking over all of the Holy Lands the only relic I got was from Jerusalem and eventually I forgot to transfer the thing before the general that got it died.

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Ah, but it is possible for Orthodox to get them then. Good. I've only seen one to date too, but I tend to start on the Atlantic and usually restart before more than one crusade.

The relics appear to be really hard to get. You should remember that it was the Byzantines who were manufacturing a lot of those relics and then selling them to crusaders.

Grey Beard,

Since it's later in the game, I find that I usually have a large number of veterans of all classes, especially in the east, so I try to concentrate as many of them as I can in the Tbilisi-Trezibond regions. I build forts at the mountain passes and rivers in areas where I can limit the Mongol number of reinforcements while maximizing mine. There are a few good locations of that sort in that area. If they are spaced close enough together, units from one fortress can reinforce the other within one-two turns. I try to have one mobile force that is an entire full stack of cavalry which I usually base just north of Tbilisi.

Using this tactic, I have watched the Mongols approach from the Sarkel region in two different games, only to see them turn around when they saw the defenses, and move towards Kiev instead. Because of that I also make it a point to make sure I possess at least one seaport in the Dacia area and a fleet at Trezibond so that I can transfer troops back and forth efficiently between both areas. In the games I've played, the Mongols have taken both routes, so having a fleet nearby somewhat eases the worry of where to distribute the heaviest lines of defense.

Maintaining a large force in the region can be relatively expensive, but one can develop the Byzantine Empire into an economic powerhouse quickly enough with the proper building investments and profit-minded territorial expansion. The merchants are very useful too, so money hasn't been the biggest issue in the games I've played.

It was handy advice you provided. Thanks and cheers.

My greatest problem is unloyal allies.I negoiated a alliance with Venice and Hungary eary in the game after taking Durazzo from the Italians,in return for 100 tribute over 15 turns and the same for the Hungarians,while I dealt with the turks.Just as I was finishing them off the mongols arrived,so I turned my attention to dealing with them,then Italy lands a 180 men army on rhodes against my 500 man garrison,and hungary attempts to take both Constantinople,and Thessalonika with fair-size armies,even though I have reinforcements that can reinforce both cities easily.I defeated the attempted invasions but now both of them are naval blockading everything in sight and seem to regard ceasefires as demanding for some reason...

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Originally Posted by oz_wwjd

My greatest problem is unloyal allies.I negoiated a alliance with Venice and Hungary eary in the game after taking Durazzo from the Italians,in return for 100 tribute over 15 turns and the same for the Hungarians,while I dealt with the turks.Just as I was finishing them off the mongols arrived,so I turned my attention to dealing with them,then Italy lands a 180 men army on rhodes against my 500 man garrison,and hungary attempts to take both Constantinople,and Thessalonika with fair-size armies,even though I have reinforcements that can reinforce both cities easily.I defeated the attempted invasions but now both of them are naval blockading everything in sight and seem to regard ceasefires as demanding for some reason...

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It's something every faction has to deal with, Byzantium has 3 things which increase the liklihood of such invasions. 1, it's Orthodox Christian, therefore fair game for every other faction 2, geography, it sits between the eastern frontiers of Latin christendom and the western frontiers of the Islamic territories in the east 3, it's cities are wealthy and many dominate important strategic locations.

Your also on the road to the holyland so crusades are going to march through your territories, Byzantium location is both an advantage and disadvantage.

yeah it'd be nice but if the AI repected being allied and didn't drop it at the drop of a hat but.It's annoying,sometimes..

Byzantium is one of my favorite factions in the entire game (behind, of course, HRE). I just wish the Orthodox factions had a Pope-like figure in the person of the Patriarch, but oh well.
One thing I have noticed in my numerous campaigns as Byzantium is that capturing Durazzo almost ALWAYS leads to war with Venice. I find it to be an excellent strategy to avoid taking Durazzo and avoid conflict with most of the European powers. I tend to concentrate on mopping up Rebels (I love sending expeditions north across the Black Sea and capturing the Crimea) and, when war for expansion becomes inevitable, attacking the Muslims.

Durazzo is such a dump anyway it's easy to avoid taking it. I never take it unless I already have Ragusa. If you don't have Zagreb pretty much all of Venice's attacks come for Ragusa so you can keep an under-teched Durazzo safe by fighting at a developed castle instead of a cheezy wooden wall. Once I got Ragusa taking Italy was a snap. As I posted somewhere else, when advancing I lose a ton of infantry but keep my cavalry and archers pretty safe. Italy has developed barracks everywhere so I can replace infantry losses quickly and not rely on shipping units back and forth from Ragusa. Once in Italy the higher base conversion% of Orthodox churches coupled with the Ikoner's Studio means I can move priests ahead to the next target while the one I just took gets a steady conversion. Throw in a few spies and blow up some buildings and you can cause any city in Italy to rebel eventually since only one or 2 seem to have spies in their own cities. Works great if you're just at war with Venice and don't want to get into it with Milan, HRE, or the Papacy but still want to expand. If you're in Italy you may be close to the 45 province limit, but if not make sure it's a priority to take a city on the west coast you have a port there so you don't have to sail around Naples.

Seems challenging and interesting- ill try them.

BTW Gray Beard- Great post (the really long one)

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Originally Posted by Gray Beard

I would only keep two castles. If you build those areas as cities you have tons of dough

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Ive done that- ive kept Sofia as a castle while fighting Venice, Hungary and Poland AT THE SAME TIME! Ive also kept Adana (i think thats the name the one above antioch) as a castle whilst fighting the Turks. I must admit in RTW the Brutii were swimming in gold in Greece but now its not so rich. I have Asia Minor up to Trezibod (sp?) and Adana and as North as Bran and as West as Durazzo but none of the islands to the south on turn 25. I get just 5000 surplus a turn for recruitment and contruction (Constantinople has been waiting to upgrade for ages). Its not enough. I have enough troops though; there are a stunning 3 full stacks seiging various cities and 3 half ones and about 7 little ones mainly coming from my inner cities to the battle zones on the outside. I now have 14 provinces. Its incredibly hard actually, the finances are a lot worse than in Russia as Hungary (and thats said to be bad) and im just fighting on sheer military power. I think i need to half upkeep rates for every unit.