I'm almost afraid to face the Turks now...

**Quillan** · 11-12-2006, 17:15

I installed the game last night. The first thing I did was set the options, then went to start a campaign as the Byzantine Empire. Oops, it's not there. So, I modded the game file to unlock the Byzantines. My original intention was to try to expand on both sides of the Agean sea at the same time, but the starting military force doesn't really allow for that. I grabbed Sofia quickly before the Hungarians could get there, then moved the bulk of the army east and grabbed Smyrna. In the meantime, I'd been building some troops back in the west, mostly militia units (for the free upkeep in the cities) but some Byzantine Cavalry too.

After taking Rhodes, the council of nobles awarded me 4 units of Vadaraitoi horse archers, and that's when the Venetians declared war on me. My big army was still in the east, so I met them in the field with Prince John Komnenos and 8 units of horse archers (4 Byzantine, 4 Vadars). He had two units of mailed knights, 2 mounted sergeants, 2 peasant archers, and about 6 units of italian spear militia. I absolutely slaughtered them. I was outnumbered nearly 2:1, killed 656, lost 25, took about 40 prisoners, and of the 25 men I lost, probably 15-20 of them were friendly fire. I killed one of his family members and slaughtered 240 militia in another army the following turn.

I suppose it's due to most of the early units not wearing heavy armor, but those horse archers cause tremendous casualties. What's it going to be like facing the Turks in the east? I'm almost afraid to find out...

**Furious Mental** · 11-12-2006, 18:13

The Byzantines can train pretty good foot archers can't they? I always found them to be the best defense against horse archers in RTW.

**CaesarAugustus** · 11-12-2006, 19:32

Originally Posted by Quillan

I suppose it's due to most of the early units not wearing heavy armor, but those horse archers cause tremendous casualties. What's it going to be like facing the Turks in the east? I'm almost afraid to find out...

Forget the Turks............ what's it going to be like against the Mongols?!!

**jimmyM** · 11-12-2006, 19:42

That's interesting...Playing Venetians at the mo (looking forward to unlocking the byz) mostly battles with byz armies have so far gone something like:

byz: "deploy our vaunted horse archers! haha, those sons of dogs won't know what hit them!"

venetian1: "was that some light rain, sire?"
venetian2:"nay, the byzantines fire upon us with tricksy mounted archers, show them what for, men - send in the knights!"

*SPLAT*
...

*whimper*

"methinks the byzantines will trouble us no more,sire, though that militiaman did bleed awfully on your nice heraldic tunic..."

Can see there being problems with larger than the rather pitiable numbers the AI has so far fielded, though...

**Quillan** · 11-12-2006, 19:42

Yes, the Byzantines can train Trebizond archers, but while you have 3 units of them at the start, you don't have anyplace you can train more just yet. At the beginning of the campaign, Byzantium begins with 5 settlements. Constantinople is a huge city and your capitol. Nicaea and Thessalonica are large towns, Corinth is a castle, and Nicosia (the city on Crete) is a wooden castle. Trebizond archers can only be trained in a stone castle or larger with at least a practice range (the second range building). Corinth begins with no ranges, so you have to build two there before you can make more or retrain the old ones.

**Furious Mental** · 11-12-2006, 19:45

I'm curious to know whether or not Mounted Crossbowmen are any match for proper horse archers. I wouldn't think they would be.

**jimmyM** · 11-12-2006, 19:46

I still think Constantinople should be a great deal meatier-more buildings, much more imposing walls, but there we go, game balancing or such...one for the modders, methinks (as well as making their units look a bit less like some american football side-they've done a great job on most of the other factions previews, why make the byz lumi?

**The_Doctor** · 11-12-2006, 20:32

what's it going to be like against the Mongols?!!

I read one of the .txt files and found out what the Mongols and later the Tirmid invade with.

I would recommend archers, spearmen and light cavalry (eg alan mercs) to counter the Turks.

Against the Mongols, defence in depth and luck.

**eefums** · 11-12-2006, 23:32

Early Turkey has a LOT of horse archers and their Jihads are quite frequent and will probably be coming your way pretty soon :)

**Quillan** · 11-12-2006, 23:47

They've been distracted. I am technically at war with the Turks now (they did a drive-by blockade on the Cretan port) but they're busy with Egypt. In the meantime, the bastard Venetians - after two failed wars against me - allied with my ally, the Hungarians, and somehow convinced them to attack me. When I completely wiped the entire field army that Venice had, I couldn't get Hungary to join in against them, but they could convince Hungary to attack the mightiest army in the world. At least, that's where I was ranked when this crap started.

**NightStar** · 11-13-2006, 06:41

Show them the error of their ways and let their widows moan, weap and curse your name. Blacken the skyes with arrow fire and let the ground thunder with the hooves of the mighty Kataphraktoi.

Why do I find it so fullfilling punishing the A.I for making the mistake of angering ME!!!!