Quote Originally Posted by EatYerGreens
If you mean the boot-shape of Italy, then it's Naples you are thinking of.
No, he's talking about the Byzantines and their main province of Constantinople.

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The main thing to realize about the Byzantines is that they are the easist faction to play for a reason. They are even easy for the AI.

The Byz with Constantinople, particularly in the early- to mid- game are easily the richest and most powerful faction, directly from the outset.

Constantinople is literally the richest province of them all. It has three very good tradebales and is perfectly positioned as a Port province. It has GREAT trading partners IMMEDIATELY available--right next door--in the Black Sea. It takes what? just a single ship to access all the Black Sea provinces!! Very cost effective!!!

The Med is just a hop away. South into the Med, to the left is Egpyt and the VERY rich trading of MULTIPLE (3/2 tradeable) provinces; and/or right toward Sciliy and Venice, both with 3 tradeables. The Byzantines are positioned EXTREMELY well!

In addition, they are hard-coded to produce UBER generals!!! I do mean UBER! The Byz normally have the highest *starred* generals in the game, particularly early on.

It's virtually impossible for the Byz not to succeed in the early- to mid- game, unless the human player takes some Pre-emptive action (with an eye toward the mid- and late- game).

One way is to get a strong fleet into the Med ASAP! Then, control the Bospherous by simply taking out any Byzantine ships as soon as they hit the water. Never allow the Byz to establish a *Sea Trading* network of ships.

Another way is to use your Alliances wisely, use your Princesses, Spies and religious Agents. Use the Princesses to spy; Spies to incite rebellions; and Priets, etc. to increase the percentage of Catholics, again inciting rebellion. Oh, I forget, use these in Constantinople!!!

[BTW, Alliances *do* work. They just take a bit of finesse.]

Try very hard to avoid *direct* war with the Byz; but, do use your alliances and all efforts to promote the Byz' neighboring factions to war with them. What you want is for Constantinople to be attacked!! and to keep the Byz busy, and on the defense; too busy to manage their economy and expand their empire.

The key, again, is Constantinople. If by use of all the above tactics, you can manage to, generally, keep it under-developed, this will significantly dis-advantage the Byz.

The aim is to have the Turks, Egytians, Greeks either singly in turn or in concert, to be constantly fighting over Constantinople.

Each turn, one or the other takes Constantinople, and the next turn, the Byz take it back; and so on, and so on, and so on....

Under the above circumstance, Constantinople will NEVER develop into an economic powerhouse.

This is a good Strategic aim, which manages to keep BOTH the Byz and the Turks from growing too powerful by the time a Northern or Western faction gets down south.

Remember, its a *Strategy* game! ;)

Also, w/o checking the stats, I'd say the Byz are set to be *Expanionist*. This fact, in addition, to whatever *hard-coding* CA put upon the Byz, creates hard balancing act for the AI, when the Byz are under an *Agent* Attack, as outlined above; and, neighboring factions begin a buildup in the border lands. The AI, has a hard time dealing these priorities, while simultaneously attempting to expand. As a consequence you'll see a LOT of Stack dancing.

[BTW, while I'm advocating an Agent attack, I'm not advocating exploiting the game. Flooding the province with 10 spies is ridiculous! No more than 4, along with 2 or 3 priests s/b more than enough. It's ok, to have a reserve ready and waiting for replenishment as the Agents are killed off and/or die of old age.]

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@DensterNY,

They have gained almost all of the lands from the middle of the map to the eastern edge and have not had to make war with anyone really... in fact they have the most alliances in the game. Somehow there are all manners of rebellions in the lands bordering them which they quickly capitalize on... and they've been doing this from the start.
This is typically how the Byz faction develops. They are so rich and powerful and have such high *Influence* from the very outset of the the game that ALL the factions in the vacinity want to ally. I think the Turks are the exception, being the main adversary for the Byz. This is all quite historical!

Allying with the Turks, and discovering ways to help make them strong(er) is one aim in *pre-emptively* countering the Byz.

~ToranagaSama