Quote Originally Posted by Martok
The Byzantines, as VH pointed out, get some good income and *great* units, especially in Early (gotta love the Katanks and VH!). As I've said in a previous post, however, I really don't recommend them if it's your first time playing Medieval. The Byz sit at the crossroads of the world, and you become overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you need to keep track of as a result......
Well, in spite of having started maybe half a dozen campaigns, I've still yet to complete one so, in many ways this is still my 'first time playing medieval'!

Byz, Early, Conquest, Normal difficulty, default unit size.

Basically, I've just about got to the 'overwhelmed' stage. I've grabbed Serbia, rolled up the Turks and the Egyptians and only recently broken into rebel-held Crimea and Khazar. I have ships trading as far west as Corsica and a more than comfortable income (5000-6000 pa profits). Almost so much coming in that it's a struggle to spend it all. Actually spending isn't the problem, it's sensible, well-planned expenditure. All too easy to build things just for the heck of it, with no proper plan in mind, perhaps leading to unnecessary duplication, where specialisations would be more efficient use of funds.

There are loads of provinces to look after, right from the start (I think they begin with about 11 or 12, certainly more than you can initially afford to build up simultaneously and a few of mine still lack even a fort) and there's an almost bewildering range of development choices to make. The trouble is that, following conquest, most provinces are reduced to bare bones and need rebuilding from the ground up just to get to the basic level required to produce the most fundamental unit, the Byz infantry. Money is no object at the moment but the years of waiting are the frustrating thing.

I want VG's in the roster, 2yrs for each unit, which keeps the capital training facilities tied up, so I make do by bulking up on spears units. I so nearly had a second swordsmith in Greece when the Sicilians invaded in its completion year. I eliminated them on the following turn (got Sicily as an unoccupied freebie too) but the five stacks they re-emerged with, on Malta, smashing its port in the process, will be there for the rest of the campaign - as will be my trapped priest, assuming they can't even afford to build a port with all that maintainance to pay and an inability to demobilise.

This is probably the first campaign where I've been in the financial 'comfort zone' but it actually seems to make things more difficult. When the question is 'what can I afford to build this year', the answer is simple and logical because the choices are so few or the needs so pressing. Now that I can, theoretically, build whatever I like, I have to be that much more disciplined about sticking to plans made years beforehand and not deviating from the chosen development path.

Of course, just as I was sitting pretty, I now find I have two Crusades against me and a set of six or more allies dwindles down to nil faster than I can say 'cheers, mate'. Just got the king's younger brother married off to the Italians in time (complete with flashing warning showing that their alliance with me conflicted with their own alliance with Spain, who'd launched their crusade but no hostilities had started yet). Just one year later, they objected to the opening of my war with Spain and sided with them.
I've recently repelled the French's crusade but cannot attack it's remnants as it's sat on Hungary's lands and I could do without an additional war with them just now.

In spite of hasty scouting with priests, I can't actually locate the Spanish crusade at the moment. That's the least of my problems at the moment as they polished off the re-emerged Almos and took Cyrenacia before I considered myself ready to do so. I've just taken that off them but the follow up attack on Tunisia got called off when their turnout was 500 more than mine and their 4 pages of reinforcements (lots of single-man units in there) spelled both a tedious slog and heavy casualties, win or no win.

So I now have large defensive forces tied down on the Hungarian border, a stack-building race in Africa, a time delay before I'm finally ready to churn VG's, BI's and TA's all at the same time and the Steppes excursion now seems like a badly mis-timed third front, stretching me even thinner. The former Egyptian and Turk provinces have been drained of all but the weaker unit types and I feel that my high annual profits are indicative of having an army which is basically too small.

In short, it's an 'eggshell' empire at the moment and will take maybe 20 years to beef up into something more resilient.

By way of an aside, this brings me back to the discussion about whether to role-play and be 'surprised' by the Golden Horde and under-defended against it or to make preparations now and call it 'proper garrisoning'. It's 1176, so I still have time to spare.

In the meantime, I'm having to adjust to getting several battles per turn, some of which are not ones of my choosing. Did you ever get that thing where it's late at night but you say to yourself 'I'll just do one more End-Year before I go to bed' and then find you have another hour or two's work to do?