Are the Byzantines not weak enough?

[Kenshin the vega bound]

I want to feel like I am struggling for survival in the late period. (I can get that feeling in high if I handicap myself by not taking Constantinople.) For example I find playing the Turks in late to be a lot harder than the Byzantines.

I am not a expert on Byzantine history, and know only a little bit, but didnt the Byzantines struggle due to these reasons.

1 Trade declining. Constantinople didnt control the tade routes to the east anymore. (Constantinople is like the best city in the whole game for trade in the late period.)

2 Losing Armenia meant that the quality of there cavary declined. (I might be wrong, but I find with a Master Spearmakers guild in Nicaea they have the best quality cacary in the game.)

3 Civil wars. In the later Byzantine days, there seemed to be a lot of civil strife. (The Byzantines in the game, seem to be the most stable faction. They can take hits in the game, that will make catholic factions split into civil war.)

I am thinking of moding the game to make the Byzantines weaker.

Have Byzantine infrantry as early only. (Or perhaps replace them with pikemen types.)

Have the Byzantine replacements be spearman only slightly better than standard spearmen.

Have the Trebizonds as a rival Byzantine faction in high.

Make the late Byzantines have a loyalty penalty in late.

Get rid of poni Algoni in late, and replace it with Byzantine lancers. (Did I spell that correctly?)

Anyone else got any ideas. I want the late and high Byzantines to be the hardest faction to play in the game.

[Jxrc]

The Byzantines in the game, seem to be the most stable faction. They can take hits in the game, that will make catholic factions split into civil war.

IIRC, the Byz get a +2 bonus for their influence that enables them to produce better heirs than other factions and makes them indeed more stable than any other faction (muslim or catholic). You'll often see a Byz emperor with an influence of 7 or more despite the fact that his empire now only includes Cyprus ...

I think that the influence bonus is hard-coded but I am no modder at all.

In the Early period, the Byz are not IMHO very accurately "implemented" from an historical point of view cause they are way to powerful while they are supposed to have suffered a crippling blow after their defeat at Manzikert some 15 years earlier (IIRC). Moreover some of the territories they hold in the game in 1087 (Georgia or Anatolia for instance) should have been made as unruly as Naples to reflect the fact that those territories were not secured at all and were an usual target for raids.

If the influence bonus cannot be modified, a more realistic approach would maybe to make the maintenance costs for regular Byz units higher.

[macsen rufus]

You'll often see a Byz emperor with an influence of 7 or more despite the fact that his empire now only includes Cyprus ...

but he IS the Byzantine Emperor, after all

Kenshin, you might like to take a look at the "Pocket Mod" - I've not tried it myself but I do know the guys were putting a lot of effort into sorting out the Byzantines, both in terms of gameplay and historicity

[Jxrc]

but he IS the Byzantine Emperor, after all

Yep but there is another (and apparently holier) roman Emperor who must feel very unfairly treated in terms of influence and loyalty ... always ending up with a civil war each time he loses a battle ....

[Kenshin the vega bound]

Also in late the Byzantines are still very good unit wise, when you consider the valour bonuses they got acess too. I think only the supporting costs of the cavary is a weakness, and when the Byzantines are so rich, its not much of a problem.

[Ironsword]

The only way I can see to alleviate the 'Strong Byzantium in late.' Would be to have a rebellion triggered at a certain time point.

TBH when I've played as a western European country, I've never seen the AI Byz last that long in high though. - The Spanish however, that's a different matter!

[Brave]

Byzantium are RTW's Romans, overpowered. But this is not a bad thing.

[Martok]

Kenshin, you might like to take a look at the "Pocket Mod" - I've not tried it myself but I do know the guys were putting a lot of effort into sorting out the Byzantines, both in terms of gameplay and historicity

One thing at a time. We're working on getting the Early period nailed down first before moving onto the other eras -- we want to do this right.

That said, I have to say I personally never found the Byz too easy in the Late period. They're in a vulnerable position, their troops are rather out-dated, and they don't have access to gunpowder units (which ironically, is part of the reason they're one of the only factions I've played as in Late ). Their only real advantage is the wealth of Constantinople itself, and the possibility that they can re-establish their trade empire and rake in the cash once more, thereby allowing them to train a large army and win with quantity (over quality). Perhaps I'm only an average player, but I definitely found them to be challenge enough when playing them in Late.

[caravel]

If you really want to balance the Byzantine, mod them out.

No seriously, create a new orthodox faction that is an exact copy of the Byzantine, disable the old Byzantine and place the new one in their provinces. That way you'll get a normal faction that doesn't have 2 point influence bonuses and 1 point command star bonuses for every faction leader.

The Pocket Mod is far from finished but the Byzantine faction start with fewer provinces in the early era and in the high era they will start with Nicaea and nothing more.

[Kenshin the vega bound]

One thing at a time. We're working on getting the Early period nailed down first before moving onto the other eras -- we want to do this right.

That said, I have to say I personally never found the Byz too easy in the Late period. They're in a vulnerable position, their troops are rather out-dated, and they don't have access to gunpowder units (which ironically, is part of the reason they're one of the only factions I've played as in Late ). Their only real advantage is the wealth of Constantinople itself, and the possibility that they can re-establish their trade empire and rake in the cash once more, thereby allowing them to train a large army and win with quantity (over quality). Perhaps I'm only an average player, but I definitely found them to be challenge enough when playing them in Late.

I find building The Master Horse Breeder helps a lot. That means there best cavary unit gets a plus 2 valor when produced in Nicaea. I find thats good enough to beat even knights in a straight slug out fight. (When you consider that fact your going to have a least a 4 star general leading them due to the qaulity of your heirs.)

Once Hungery is finished the game gets easy in late.

[oz_wwjd]

My chief regret is the loss of the Varangian Guard unit in late.I use these guys as my number 1 infantry unit,nothing else even comes close to them.Byz inf just isn't dependable not to rout in a pinch, I can depends on thses guys to hold on,for a bit even if they are outnumbered and flanked,until I can rush reinforcements to assist them.I recently had to fight a major battle against the Italians that were fielding mass armies of cmaa/Chiv sargeants/italian inf, I doubt that byz inf would have lasted very long agains them

[Caliburn]

The Byzantines are pretty balanced when the computer controls them - after all, they face another strong economical might (the Egyptians) and later on are a speed bump against the Mongols. It's not that often that you see a permanently purple East, at least it will be torn apart at some point.

When a human gets his hands on those resources... Well, it's one of the easiest campaigns.

[Jxrc]

It's not that often that you see a permanently purple East, at least it will be torn apart at some point.

I sure hope that you're right.

In my current Spanish campaign (hard/early), I finished the Elmo quickly but need to slow down to build fleets in order to avoid an annoying Italian invasion ... When one of my fleet eventually reached the middle east (about 1155), Tripoli was owned by the Byz ... Since they were at war with the Turks, egyptians, Polish, Sicilians, Hungarians and Polish I thought that it was not too bad and that they would collapse at some points ... Few years went by ... Received message that the Turks and Hungarian were history ... Byz added Sicily, Lesser Poland and Venice to their holdings and will probably finish the Poles and Egyptian within a few turns ... Don't know how they are doing in the Northern part of the Steppes (Kiev, Crimea and Khazar are alreayd theirs) ........ My best general has five stars (got pretty unlucky with my heirs ...all the others haev three at best) and they have a pretty fine bunch of 8-9 stars natural leader/charistmatic/killer instinct general ... Even if the GH shows up "en masse" I am in for a tough ride ...

[Martok]

@Jxrc: While that's admittedly bigger than I usually see the Byzantines become, it's definitely not unheard of, either. In any case, though, Caliburn is right -- it's usually only a matter of time before the Byz begin to shrink and collapse.

Your safest bet may be to simply wait them out. Sooner or later they'll begin to contract (the Horde should help that along), although it may not happen until you're into the High period.

[Knight of the Rose]

As I rarely play until a two-empire standdown, I wonder: Is the tendency to implode a destinct byzzie phenomenon or does it relate to any empire once it get to the size where the penalties begin to stack? And if its only the purple guys; why? It's not like they lack good leaders. I wonder...

KotR

[Jxrc]

@Jxrc: While that's admittedly bigger than I usually see the Byzantines become, it's definitely not unheard of, either. In any case, though, Caliburn is right -- it's usually only a matter of time before the Byz begin to shrink and collapse.

Your safest bet may be to simply wait them out. Sooner or later they'll begin to contract (the Horde should help that along), although it may not happen until you're into the High period.

In my experience once they get that big, a spontaneous rebellion would be lucky unless I try to help out with a few assassins (8 stars heirs are really hard to kill so it will take quite some time ....). The GH on its own will probably not manage to upset them for too long if the Byz are able to freely ship troops across the seas so that my best chance is probably to builds loads of ships until 1230 and to start a full-out naval war then ...Combination of lost ships, lost lands could trigger an "nice" chain reaction ... If it does not work, I am in trouble ....