It was clear early on that the neighboring catholic factions, Hungary, Venice, Sicily were looking toward the weakening Byzantine Empire as a place to expand into. The Venetians and Sicilians posed the greatest threat as they had good early infantry units which were superior to my own.
My own economy was poor and not fit to fund a war on potentially 3 fronts, i.e. Greece against Italians, Macedonia against Hungarians and The Turks in Asia Minor. I secured an alliance with the Turks and set up Watchtowers on the borders so I could prepare for an invasion if they looked likely to betray me.
Diplomats were also sent to the Hungarians in order to secure an alliance with them. The funds generated from trade with these people would also prove crucial in a lengthy war with the Italians.
The decision was taken to reform the Byzantine military into 3 horse archer based armies led by Byzantines finest generals. The horse archer armies would be made mainly of Byzantine cavaly with around 20% being the elite Vardar horse archers. This would allow the entire destruction of catholic infantry based armies as they marched through the mountains of Greece.
With the recruitment of these armies near completion the decision was taken to launch a quick war with the ill-prepared Egyptians. Emperor Alexius and Prince John were sent with around half the professional military force to capture Alexandria and Cairo. The bulk of the Egyptian army was caught unaware by the amphibious assault and they were dealt a decisive and crushing victory near Alexandria. In the following turns both Cities were captured and sacked. The Egyptians were so badly hurt they would never be able to launch a land attack on Cairo and Alexandria and peace was agreed a few turns later.
My major mistake here was deciding not to finish off the Egyptians who had almost no military left and held only Gaza and possibly Jerusalem. I needed the army sent to Egypt to fight back the Sicilians, who had Corinth under siege, and the Venetians who were advancing on Thessalonica.
A decisive victory pushed the Sicilians out of Greece but the Venetians proved much more resolute. Despite them taking heavy losses to my horse archer forces they continuously poured more and more troops at me. Eventually I managed to annihilate their invading forces but as I planned an advance on Ragusa the Sicilians sent their Norman Knights at Corinth and destroyed the defenders there.
All this time I had been carefully managing my economy, building farm upgrades and ports in all my major cities. I had captures Rhodes and Iraklion, converted Rhodes to a city along with Cyprus to increase my income. As I upgraded my economy upgrades became more expensive. This became a strain on my dwindling income and it was preventing me constructing suffient military forces to inflicet fatal blows on the italians.
I managed however to drive the Sicilians back out of Greece and launched a successful invasion of Southern Italy capturing Naples after a lengthy siege. (My army was the veterans of the Egyptian campaign led by now Emperor John, an entire horse archer army). With the Sicilians on the backfoot I pressed on and drove them out of Sicily. At this point they were effectively destroyed however they still held territories in a small colony elsewhere, perhaps Africa, I never found out. Later it was reported they has been conquered by another Kingdom.
After the destruction of Sicily the plunder gained was used to upgrade Cairo and Constantinople and purchase various other upgrades to the Empire. Some was also reinvested in the strained military.
This brief period of fortune for the Byzantine Empire was exactly that, brief. The Pope was reeling after the invasion of Southern Italy and Sicily and seen it as a direct attack on himself. Add to that the conversion of half of Italy to Orthodox Christianity and his declaration of war by an attack on Naples is almost justified!
The Pope also managed to unite the nearby Catholic factions into a coalition against the Byzantine Empire. These include the Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Milan, Spain (not so close) and Hungary. Despite being good allies to the Hungarians they chose to side with the their fellow Catholics.
So began The Italian Wars.
Although I had built a significant Naval Force in the Aegean and around Italy, I was still only a strong nation and not a superpower and could not match the naval power of the United Catholics. Hungarys massive fleets sailed from the Black sea and blockaded all my ports while the HRE, Milan and Venice dealt with my fleet in Italy.
The blocking of my ports caused an economic crash. I can't quite remember what year we are at now, but I think it is 1130's - 1140's.
Initial invasions of Southern Italy and Sicily were successfully repulsed. As the economy began to start up again I retrained my army in Sicily and recruited my own version of Dismounted Knights from the population of Palermo. This force successfully invaded and capture Rome after around 50 years of fighting. I had been fighting a largely defensive battle in Greece against the Hungarians, and Constantinople itself also had to be defended.
Around the time of Romes capture the Egyptians, still not a significant land force, had a vast navy, perhaps the 3rd largest in the eastern med after the Venetians and Milanese. They blockaded Cyprus and Alexandria. This is why I said my mistake earlier was not to destroy them when I had the chance. I now had to create an army in Egypt, by this time totally assimilated into the empire, and launch an assault on Jerusalem, the new Egyptian capital. This invasion was an incomprehendable success and the funds gained from the victory allowed me to push back the Venetians all the way to Zagreb and finally inflict a fatal blow on the Papal States force in Italy by capturing Florence.
It was not all a succesful war however as the Milanese, who had established a vast empire in France, routed my armies in Sicily and only sued for peace when I blunted their invasion of southern Italy.
With the economy now booming because of all the money I had been putiing into it all this time the Byzantine Empire became a true Superpower. Later campaigns have seen the capture of Venice, which was largely underdeveloped, the destruction of Hungary and the capture of all of Asia minor from the Turks who had betrayed our 150 year alliance to join a Jihad against Constantinople.
The Turks still hold some territory in the Middle East after being ravaged by the Mongol Invasion. The Mongols now hold Antioch and share a border with me at Acre and Damascus. They are yet to make a move against me. I have strengthed my forces significantly in Gaza, Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem to destroy any invasion before it can reach Cairo, my largest city. Likewise military force as Caesarea are being upgraded to repel any attack towards Constantinople.
A second War with the powerful Milanese/HRE alliance has broken out as they attempt to drive me out of Italy. My power now is unmatched and the empire can defeat all the nations in the known world at once. I have sent armies with my powerful new Knights, the Latikon to invade the HRE heartlands wjile forces have been dispatched to recapture Sicily form the Milanese as well as invade Sardinia and corsica and close a noose around the great city of Milan.
The date is around 1280's
Also another note I should add. I have used espionage to great success through this campaign. In Egypt my missionaries converted around 70% of the Jerusalem population to Orthodox during the second war with Egypt. I also have at least 5 super merchants at Egypt at any 1 time generating a massive 2000 florins per turn. They sit on the 3 sugar resources around Cairo and the 2 ivory depositis at the very southern point of the nile. Assassins have also played a major role. I have vet assassins in Hungary, Italy and Egypt constantly killing Imams, priests and enemy generals to keep my Wars running smoothly.
I'll post some Screenshots if anyone wants to see!
Byzantium
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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.
Originally Posted by Slaists
! 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.
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