Byzantium

[IvarrWolfsong]

As "The Empire of the Greeks" as Byzantium was referred to by the contemporary westerners, you face some serious challenges. To the east, the Turks expand rapidly and have a very good unit roster that truely becomes scarey as the game progresses. To the west, Hungary and Venice are hellbent on controlling eastern Europe, to include your Greek provinces. Venice, as usual, will declare war on anything within 100 provinces of it's frontier. Those itallian x-bow/spear militia armies can be costly to destroy, and the availability of the units makes it easy for the AI to put together stacks.

On top of all this, you will have full stacks of Crusaders streaming through your provinces. Apparently someone told them to "Go east to where the men speak Italian, and continue until they speak something else." Even worse, after the Crusade, all the late comers will revert to their despicable barbarian roots and may decide that, having missed their chance at absolution, they might as well sack one of your cities and get drunk off the Imperial wine.

However, Byzantium has some nice units to protect that wine ! 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.

Killing them sofly with your (bow) song... - Drowning the Latins in Arrows
Against western armies, I use horse archers and Alan mercs (I can't say enough about these turbo charged lancers) to ravage the enemies missle troops. I manuever my infantry and foot archers up and shoot the enemy to pieces. With 4 units of Archer Guards shooting from behind spearmen and 4 Vards peppering the foe from behind or the side, the enemy will be torn to shreds. Any attempt to attack the Vards results in kiting the enemy away from the main force where they can be surrounded and killed. An assualt on my foot archers will get caught up on the spears and counter charged by the next line of swordsmen, and possibly flanked by melee cavalry.

Swatting Flies - The annoying Turkish Horse archers
Against the Turks, you want to get on top of them quickly. Chase them all over with your Vards and Alans. Keep your infantry walking toward them along with your heavy cavalry. As soon as a enemy horse archer gets caught up in melee, charge them with more units. They will soon route. Make sure you keep someone chasing them until they are gone. Another option is to capture the high ground, which the skirmish mode enemies will happily abandon, and then rain your long range missles down on the turks from above. Once the enemy horse archers get in range, they will usually do the shooting circle. This just makes them easier to catch with Alans or Vards.

Insert Homophobic joke here - A Greek Navy
Build up your navy. Crush your enemies navy. Done? You now have the best way to travel. Anatolia is horrible to travel over. It is full of mountains and rivers and twists and turns and Turks. Why deal with all that when you can take a ship and be where you want in half the time? You can also ferry troops around to Greece, Anatolia, your islands and the Holy Land with little fear of loosing them. Navys are also handy in keeping the Hellespont and Black Sea closed, your ports open and pockets full of port generated coin.

"I claim these lands in the name of Emperor Theodociousodopoloulisadopis Basilicianousisou!!!" - Conquering yourself some space
I decided to first concentrate on the Aegean Sea area. I conquered Smyrna and Rhodes quickly. I turned Rhodes into a town for the economic benefit. Having sent an all cavalry army west, I overtook the unwalled settlement of Durazzo. The next obvious target was Iraklion. I used the small army that had taken Smyrna and Rhodes to stage an amphibious assualt on the Venicians of Iraklion.

I allied with the Hungarians and even guarenteed that they succeeded with a crusade on Antioch. I let them pass, and then blocked the Hellespont and some of the river crossings in Antolia to delay the other Catholic factions.

Next I planned to conquer the Turks. However, my beloved allies, the Hungarians, decided that I was a puppy eating devil. They attacked Constantinople and were driven back. I turned my Army of Turkish Conquest into an Army of Hungarian Conquest. I already had a Western Army, and togethr the two stacks turned the Hungarians into gooey red goloush. I am just mopping them up now.

I sent a small force to the Crimean to take Caffa. It is easy to take and has two slave resources just outside. Once you get a port, it turns into a budding money farm.

I need to get on with dismembering the Turks ASAP. Their unit roster gets better and better and I don't want to have Jannisarries breathing down my neck when the Mongols arrive. I am hoping to smash the Turks western provinces and then letting them recover in the east so they can damage the Khans cowboys.

Georgodopolous likes his chicken spicy... - Trading
Trading silks is ok. It makes decent money, but being just outside Constantinople, you dont get that great a return. The far bettter choice is to trade sugar and spices from the provinces around Antioch. New merchants will start in the high 60s and mid-levels will make around 200 . The gold mines near Trerbizond and in the Balkans are good choices too. If you conquer the Crimean, you can trade in slaves for a good return and with little competition.

Can't we all just get along? - Diplomacy
No we can't. Don't bother allying with anyone, they will just backstab you, crusade against you or call a jihad on you. Consider everyone your enemy and be ready for an attack from every direction.

All and all, the Byzantines have a tough starting area, but with the flexibilities of their armies and their ability to make a lot of coin, it is nothing that can't be managed.

[BasilBulgaroktonus]

I love Byzantine history. I love the byzantines, but I have been trying to deal with the Byzantine campaign problems. The Byzantine Empire gets awesome horse archers, infantry, and heavy cavalry, but lacks gunpowder and seems to have extraordinary porous borders. I mean, one campaign I was laying waste to the Turks in Anatolia, then out of the blue 2 hungarian and 1 polish army attack me! But through some careful reading, problems solving, and much swearing I have figured out a solution. It is based off the concepts of the Comnenion Army and the Themata system. What you do is create 2 field armies, which are meant for attacking, slaughtering and having a good, old time. Doesnt really matter what you have in them, but my usual setup is 1 general, 4 byzantine infantry, 4 vardotai, 4 cataphracts, 4 trebizond/guard archers and a couple of catapults and assorted mercenaries, depending on your preferences. that is the Comnenion Army part. The themata part is a tad different and acts as more of a strategic reserve. to prevent sneaky armies from sneaking into your empire with sneaky intentions, build a fort at each river crossing and in mountain chokepoints. I usually put 1 infantry, 1 archer, and 1 cavalry unit in each. These garrisons dont have to be anything special, just there. then, over the course of the game, build fill up the garrisons of all your cities with the units that get the free upkeep bonus, SO YOU ONLY HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM ONCE, MWUAHAHAHAHAHA...Ahem. the point is, when you get attacked by sneaky minions of the Head Pontiff, you have little, waste garrisons to block the enemy, a field army to deal out the pain, and huge reserves of soldiers to lay waste to the invader if your field army gets WI-FI INTERNET ACCESS or is under repairs. plus its fun to see the massive reserves you are capable of bringing out ot teach your enemies a lesson.

[Snoil The Mighty]

This faction has been my "Appreciation of Forts" faction. The Porous borders have numerous very nice choke points, take adavantage. Dont leave those Gens in your cities, have em work the borders! (very fun Faction!)

[Romeus Petrus]

I still can't figure out a good way to defend cities and castles since your infantry even at the higher levels are not that solid.

Yesterday my precious Constantinople fell to a Mongols Jihad group; despite the fact that I had 8 varangian guards on the gate when their ram finally knocked it down. And BTW despite having six T-archers on the walls they couldnt burn the ram down. After the gate went down, the mongols stormed my lines with their cavalary and the rest was a massacre. My V guards all fought till they died, the mongols went on to kill my general and 2 other family members, and the city fell. I dont know why CA decided to give my favourite faction such utterly weak units.

Any advice on how to defend cities as the byzantines?

[Carl]

Unless your running one of the bug fixes for it. Vargarian guard will not fight in melee no matter what. Use somthing else to defend the walls. Other than that, use spears vs. cav, just make sure you get the spears to charge the cav and not the other way round, (unless your running a sheild fix too).

p.s. when fixed, vargarian Guard are truely scary.

[Quillan]

For infantry, use Byzantine Infantry (from cities) or dismounted Byzantine Lancers or Latinkon (from castles). You can also sprinkle in a nice mix of Byzantine Guard Archers as well, since those guys are just about as strong in melee as they are in missile fire. It's near impossible to burn a ram; it happens, but rarely. If you're defending a huge city, make sure you have ballista towers. For the Byzantines, they fire cannonballs instead of ballista bolts. The ram might still survive, but they do a better job than archers do.

[Bigfooted]

I find the best thing to as Byzantium, is to do what Alexis did historically.
Small Grab. Hold, small grab, hold. let the crusades through your lands and follow in behind em, Grab, hold.

The Byzantines postion aint pretty.
In my campiang i had stacks comming in from hungary, the turks and veince all at once.

So be warned.

Make certain you build up your economy. If you do it right, soon enough you will have 'restored the byzantine postion of wealth'.

Cavalry and navy are key for any byzantine strategty.
When you start getting your medium level units, Infantry, lancers, and dismounted lancers, then you can start going to kick some ass.

[Marchicus]

The Guard Archers are very useful - they can be used along side something like the Latinkon in an arquebus/pikeman role.

Carl, which is the Varangian fix? (I may have asked you this in another thread as well, apologies )

[Carl]

Link to a fix here

[Nepereta]

sorry for offtopic but these fixes are they planned on CAs part in the next patch? I love this game and I don't want to buff units unless its absolutely neccessary.

[Carl]

yep, perhaps not exactly as i've done it, but thats because they'll be creating new unbugged animations for the bugged animation units and fixing whatever it is that messs up sheilds. Pikes will also likliy get some engine work. 2-Handed swords will then need work to be balance. Their are the odd bugs with this fix, namely that sheild units are more resistant to enfidile fire than they should be and that they are less resistant to AP attacks than they should be. But overall it fixes a lot of major bugs and only creates a few minor ones.

[Mithradates]

Talk about porous boarders in my Byzantine campaing i had a Papal army having a camping expedition in the mountains between Durazzo and Corinth. It was a good army as well and all it got me was the contempt of every Catholic country the scoundrals!

[Gray Beard]

At the suggestion of later posters This walk through should be read as how to play and Eastern strategy with the Byzantines. It is possible to do well playing differently but this is still my favored way to approach this faction against the computer.

Thoughts and Perspectives
This was originally for my own consumption from notes I made as I tried to figure out how to use the Byzantine forces in MTW2. While it is possible to unlock the factions by editing the “Medieval2.preferences” file without winning a game using the Western European factions first I would recommend against it. Playing the English or French is much easier and is useful in learning how the game mechanics work and will save you lots of frustration.

If you unlock the game and jump into the Byzantines you will lose repeatedly (I know this from experience). So, be patient and play the bloody English or the snobby French, the vicious Spanish or decadent HRE once on the easiest setting and unlock the game. Then you can move on to the last truly worthy Empire the world has seen and see if you can overcome the rapacious Turks and greedy Venetians and revive the glory of Rome. You'll learn a lot about how the game works and gain some tolerance for the uncivilized barbarians as well.

I will approach this walk through in a topical and descriptive manner. I am also dealing with strategy not tactics. If you are looking for tips on fighting battles look somewhere else. I am not the best of generals. Most of the time and always on huge battles I let the computer command my forces. But, it is true wars are often won before they are fought. I am going to describe the best way I have found to win before you fight. It is my job to get my empire in the financial, military and political condition to win. If I do this then my generals can handle the the battles and the empire can with stand the strains of war. If these are not done then almost no amount of generalship will prevail.

I will also assume that you are using the default “medium” settings for the game. However, I'd recommend using the “Easy” settings the first time you play the Byzantines.

How I Approach Playing the Byzantines

There are several keys to surviving more than 25 turns as the Byzantines.
1.You have to be aggressive. You must start acquiring territory and subduing the Turks from the FIRST turn

2.You have to be cunning and know how to use your spies, diplomats and Merchants without causing a war. This means being aggressive and cautious at the same time

3.You have to be able to live on the edge of your finances for the first 20 to 30 game turns. You will need to take chances and if anything goes wrong before you get the East under control you will probably lose because you will not have the extra cash to build another army quickly enough.

4.You have to be ruthless. When you take a city or castle from the Turks or a rebel settlement you should exterminate the inhabitants unless they are at least 75 percent orthodox. You don't have time to convert populations. Kill them gain control and move on. You will also sometimes find it useful to attack a settlement sack it, destroy all the buildings you can for the cash and move just out side the city. Let it revolt, unlike MTW it does not revert to the previous owner but becomes a rebel controlled province. You're are then able to move on rapidly to the next enemy town. Alternately, try giving the town to a more peaceful Catholic faction not contiguous with you. Giving Venice to the Portuguese can cause your opponents all sorts of problems and create a buffer between you and those wish to invade you.

5.You have to win all of your first six or seven battles against the Turks, and you first two against Venetians. You should NEVER lose to Rebels

If the plan works, you have a good chance to not only survive but win the game long before gunpowder units threaten you. If it fails you are dead meat by 1125 AD. It has been my experience that this strategy works about ½ the time if you implement it right. It can work more often if you are a good general yourself

Weaknesses

The Byzantines are, I think the toughest faction to play in MTW2.
1.This is because they are one of only two factions (The Russians are the other) that can be attacked indiscriminately by any other Christian faction without being excommunicated by the Pope and still may have Jihads called against them.

2.Unlike the Russians the Byzantines do not start with the edge of the map at their back they are trapped between four or five hostile powers; the Venetians, the Hungarians, the Turks and later by the Egyptians and Milianese.

3.In the early stages of the game they have very poor offensive troops. This is not a shortcoming that can be made up for with mercenaries because mercenaries are primarily missile and spear troops which are defensive troops. Spear and missile troops must be used with great caution when attacking or they lose even when the Byzantines out number their opponents by large margins.

4.While the Byzantine missile cavalry is very good they lack any form of heavy cavalry with a lance that can be reached quickly. That means the Byzantines must defend against Knights with unarmored spearmen. Your best option is to hire mercenary Frankish knights or possibly Alan cavalry or Armenian Cavalry. But these are hit and miss as to availability and retraining is problematic. They are also expensive. Armenian Cavalry, for example, are somewhat better than Byzantine Lancers but cost 1080 gold to recruit and over 300 per turn in maintenance.

If you are playing against the computer it is possible to overcome these shortcomings but to do that you must do several things and use the few advantages that you have.

Strengths & Advantages

The Byzantines have several temporary advantages that you must you to their full if you are to have any hope. If you don't use these advantages while you can you'd better be willing to use a cheat code because otherwise you are lost.

1.Emperor Alexis has six command stars; he is a tremendous tactician one of the best that any faction has in the Early game. You must take him out of Constantinople and use him to win a blitzkrieg war against the Turks. But, you have to move fast he isn't young. Use him while he lives and pray that he lives to be 100!

2.Crown Prince John has five command stars and is also a very good commander. You must use him wisely as well. If you can keep him alive long enough to train another couple of generals up you may not just survive but win.

3.The Dromon is a better ship in the early game than almost any one else has. Control of the seas is extremely important and the Byzantines can easily control the Eastern Mediterranean, if they can build enough ships.

4.The Byzantines start with a large population which lets you build lots of troops. While you still need a good general to win battles you must make up for lake of troop quality with sheer numbers; and you can

Using these to their fullest will allow you get into a position where you can survive. But you have to do several other things

Things You Must Do

1.As stated above, you have to go after and beat the Turks starting from the first move of the game. If you play it right you'll take three Turkish cities at once. However, if you take even two of the Turkish cities in the same move you'll have the Turks on their knees.

2.You must get to the point where you can build an offensive infantry unit. There are two of these that are reachable by the time the inevitable 1st Venetian war starts, Byzantine Swordsmen and Dismounted Lancers. They have the same stats. One is built from a castle and the other from a town. The Dismounted Lancers are a little more expensive because they can be improved farther but the easiest one to get to is the swordsmen and you can build them in Constantinople by upgrading two times to a drill square.

3.You must marry Anna Comenus to the Hungarian Faction heir. This buys you a bit of time when the inevitable 1st Venetian war starts. Indeed, the longer you can keep the Hungarians at peace with you the better. Marrying Anna to the Hungarians may keep the Hungarians from going to war with you for 100 years if you are lucky

4.There are are a total of 10 rebel provinces within easy striking distance of Byzantine armies at the beginning of the game. These are Smyrna, Trebizond, Tbilisi, Adana, Antioch, Aleppo, Edessa, Sophia, Bucharest and Durazzo not to mention Sarkel and the Crimea. You need to take at least seven of them with the possible exception of Durazzo, Bucharest and Sophia before you go to war with the Venetians

5.You must develop your economy so that you can have the money to build the buildings that get you better troops. That means building not only training facilities but farms and ports, markets and fairs to give you the income needed for a long war.

The War to Destroy the Turks

There are several good reasons to go after the Turks rather than the Venetians at the beginning of the game:

1.Because when you attack the Turks the Egyptians don't declare war on you. If you immediately go after the Venetians or Hungarians the other will attack and the Turks won't be far behind. Then you'll probably end up in a two front war against three nations at once and that is a good way to say “You lose” early in the game.

2.Byzantine troops do not seem to match up well against the Venetians. At least in the early game the Turks seem to be easier for the Byzantines to take on.

3.The Turks really have nobody else to fight. It is possible that the Venetians will be in a war with the Milanese or HRE and the Hungarians with the Polish. If they get into a war with someone else you'll gain time to develop your economy and troop types.

4.There are a large number of rebel provinces in the East which you can bring under your control. These, when combined with the Turkish provinces make a unified and easy to control empire.

5. Because the Turks are in four provinces that are difficult to travel between. This means it is is very hard for the Turks to send aid from one city to another. If you attack the Turks from three directions at once you prevent them from being able to reinforce one front with troops from another.

6. The Turks start with four provinces. The Venetians and Hungarians combined have (I think) five between them. You are taking out your biggest enemy first.

How to Start
(Note: This walk through gets fuzzier as the moves pass because there are too many variables to account for.)

Turn 1
Constantinople
Building: City Watch
Troops: 1X Urban Militia and 1X Spear Militia 1X ship
(You need the extra Droman to ensure that you can deliver your troops to Trebizond.)
Nicaea
Building: Land Clearance
Troops: 2X Urban Militia
Thessaloníki
Building; Port
Troops: None
Corinth
Building: Land Clearance
Troops : None
Nicosia
Building: None
Troops: None

Movement
Prince John: South towards Smyrna
Orthodox Bishop: East into Turkish territory
Spy East toward the Greek coast
Move two ships in the Aegean to the harbor in Constantinople
Move two ships in the Eastern Mediterranean to point on coast just North of Nicosia

Other
Adjust tax rates to the highest level each city can maintain

Move #2
Constantinople
Build:
Troops: 1X Spear Militia

Nicaea
Build
Troops

Thessaloníki
Build
Troops 2X Urban Militia

Nicosia
Build: Garrison Quarter
Troops

Prince John:
Build
Troops 1x Armenian Archer Mercenary
Corinth
Nothing

Move
Alexis + 1X Trebizond Archer + 1X Urban Militia + 3XSpear Militia into ships in harbor - Then Move ALL THREE ships from Constantinople to the East side of the Bosporus in the Black sea just beyond the river (Where Troops from Nicaea can board them next turn) - Then move Evangelos Exotrochas and 3X Byzantine Spear men +2XTrebizond Archers+1X Town Militia from Nicaea towards the coast to board ship in turn three

Other
Prince John lays Smyrna under siege

Turn #3
JOHN TAKES SMYRNA

Constantinople
Thessaloníki =Dirt roads
Corinth = Dirt Roads
Nicosia = nothing
Nicaea = Port
Smyrna = Repair or build castle

Troops
Constantinople: Diplomat + 1X Spear Militia
Nicosia = Byzantine Cavalry if you have any left
Smyrna = delete Armenian Archers

Move
Load Evagelos on ships with Alexis and ships and sail East up the coast towards Trebizond (Trebizond is about 2 1/2 moves away)

John towards Thessaloníki - at the end of his move build a watch tower
Diplomat towards Raggusa
Move spy so that he can see Ragussa, Durazzo and Zagreb but do not attempt to enter any of the cities. You need to see where moving armies are not what is in the cities. Also If the spy is caught in the city it makes the Venetians more likely to attack you so keep him in the country side and observe.

Note: Another family member should have appeared somewhere. Move Him towards Smyrna

Other
Establish diplomatic relations with Hungarians near the city of Sophia. Marry princess to faction heir

You will receive a reward for taking Smyrna. If it is 4X Vartaroi move them towards Thessaloníki or Smyrna If it is two Dromons move them towards Smyrna

If it is 2500 gold then purchase 1X Dromon at Constantinople and other troops in Nicosia or better yet a Dromon and an economic improvement somewhere

Move #4
Constantinople
Thessaloníki
Corinth
Nicosia
Smyrna = Dirt Roads
Turks offer trade rights and map information-accept but do not ally


Turn #5
Alexis lands and places Trebizond under siege
Ships begin returning to Constantinople
John builds watchtower at the end of his turn
If you have a ship at Smyrna - load family member 1X Cavalry + 2Xspear +1X archer in ships near Smyrna and head to Rhodes
Another Family Member should appear in Constantinople or Nicaea move towards Smyrna with any Urban militia or Spear militia you can spare.

Troop builds
Nicosia Start building Byzantine Spearmen


Move #6
Alexis takes Trebizond OCCUPIES IT leaves one Urban Militia and marches East (to the right) up the coast towards Tiblisi
John Continues towards Thessaloníki
Family Member places Rhodes under siege

Move # 7
Alexis continues towards Tiblisi and should be able to see it at the end of his move.
Rhodes falls. Family Member boards ship and heads towards Cyprus
Continue building army in Cyprus

Move 8
Alexis places Tiblisi under siege (If the Turks have already taken it you may wish to wait until you land an army at Adana)
John Reaches Thessaloníki
Continue building army in Nicosia
Begin building some cavalry and 1 peasant in Smyrna

Move #9
Alexis takes Tiblisi - Repair and strengthen his army as you can
Continue building army in Nicosia (Build only one peasant)

Move #10
Ship reaches Cyprus and combines with other two ships.
Load everything except for on peasant into the ships at Nicosia if you've been diligent this should be about 15 units plus anything you've taken with you from Rhodes . Move towards coast of Adana

Start moving the family member in Smyrna with any cavalry you've managed to build there towards Iconium but do not set a route TO it have your route stop just out side the city. You don't want to declare war yet. Purchase any Mercenary you can. You will need a big army.

Diplomat arrives at Ragussa. Offer trade rights to Venetians offer to pay 100 gold per turn for 20 turns as tribute. If the Venetians have not taken Durazzo offer a prayer of thanks it probably means they are fighting someone up North

Move #11
Move the Ships with the army from Nicosia to South Coast of Lesser Armenia land troops and look around If the Turks have not taken Adana place it under siege. If they've taken it just stand there and move Alexis down from Tbilisi towards Zeveran
Continue moving towards Iconium buy another mercenary

By this time you should be starting to build Spear Militia in Thessaloníki

Move 12
Take Adana - Exterminate the population leave one peasant or urban militia (You could bring in another one from Nicosia if you need and have the cash) and move the entire army towards Caesarea

Alexis moves towards Zeveran leaving only an urban militia in Tblisi

Army moves next to Iconium hire another Mercenary

Move 13
Besiege Caesarea, Iconium and Zeveran
Build peasants or cheap cavalry in Tblisi

Move 14
Exterminate the populations in Zeveran, Caesarea and Iconium.
(If you wish to guarantee winning at Iconium use Prince John rather than the other Family Member and send John back West)

You may need to send some help from Caesarea towards Iconium if the siege there was unsuccessful. Otherwise move that army, less a garrison back towards Adana.

Move 17
Alexis takes Mosul
FM that took Caesarea may take Antioch if the Egyptians haven't

Move 20
Alexis takes Eddessa
FM takes Aleppo

Move 21
Army built in Mosul without a FM puts Baghdad under siege

At the end of this process you will have all or most of the following provinces under your control.
1.Corinth
2.Durazzo (possibly)
3.Thessaloníki
4.Constantinople
5.Nicaea
6.Smyrna
7.Trebizond
8.Rhodes
9.Iconium
10.Caesarea
11.Adana
12.Tbilisi
13.Zeveran
14. Nicosia
15. Mosul
16. Eddessa
17. Aleppo
18. Antioch (possibly)
19. Baghdad
20. Sarkell (If you are bold)

These 19 or 20 provinces are defended by 5 because you can only be attacked over land through Durazzo, Thessaloníki, Tbilisi, Aleppo and Antioch. That means that if you can weasel even a few more turns of peace you will have considerable economic muscle. Since you need 45 provinces to win including Jerusalem (Which you are in marching distance of) and Rome you are well on you way

A Few Tricks
At the beginning of the game build a diplomat and send him to the Venetians. Provided that they are not already moving armies into your territory to attack you. Obtain trade rights, then exchange maps. Then offer to pay them 100 gold per turn for 50 turns. Sometimes they will take this. If they do you gain time because believe it or not the computers wants the tribute. Losing a 100 gold a turn will hurt you a lot less than than being able to build your economy and reach those hard to get troops

Don't garrison with mercenaries if you can avoid it. Hire mercenaries fight the battle, take the town and dismiss them. Garrison your towns that are not on your borders with militia that you don't have to pay upkeep on. While they are poor attack troops they are useful in defending and keeping down civil unrest. Once you build them there is no upkeep cost. 8 x militia Spearmen + 8 x Militia archers + 4 x Merchant cavalry will make a walled city very difficult to take. They also give you huge hordes if you have to go to war.

Don't take the Venetians out at one whack. When they attack the first time take Iraklion. Make peace and build. When they attack you the next time take Ragussa and Zagreb. This helps to keep your reputation better with the other schismatics. Leaving the Venetians with just Venice can be kind of fun to watch. You can do this because when the Venetians attack they'll probably need most of what they've got. That means Somebody else may, after a turn or two attack them. If you've taken Iraklion and they suddenly begin moving armies North then sue for peace. Then wait for them to break the peace and attack you again. The reason this is a good idea is that you don't want to limp into Zagreb only to have another faction take it from you. It also helps to have the Venetians in Venice. The Milanese have to march through them to get to you.

If you are not at war, after subduing the Turks and the rest of Asia-Minor save some cash for hard times If you start a move with 5000 gold only spend 4000. If the next move the start is 6000 only spend 4000 and so on. Add a 1000 gold to your reserve every year you are not at war. If your finances improve add more. For example, if you sack a city and get 20,000 only spend 10,000 It takes discipline but over the course of 10 or 20 years you can build up a huge pile of reserves. This seems to help your merchants resist being taken over and gives you the ability to make that very special bribe to the garrison in a hard to take city such as Venice. Paying a 30,000 in gold bribe to take a huge city can be a bargain. It also gives you the ability to wage a large scale war that requires you to keep armies in the field and pay for their support.

I talked about the Power position of having 20 provinces defended by 5 above. But, it gets better. If you take out the Egyptians you can add

21. Alexandria
22. Cairo
23. Donga
24. Jedda
25. Gaza
26. Jerusalem
27. Acre
28. Damascus
29. Ragussa (probably)
30. Iraklion (probably)
31. Sophia
32. Zagreb (Probably)
33. Bucharest
34. Tripoli
35. Tunis
36 Venice (Maybe)
You can then defend 36 provinces from Sarkell, Venice, Zagreb, Sophia, Bucharest Tuniis.

Indeed, you can push all the way down the coast of North Africa without increasing the number provinces that you need to defend. What this means in a perverse way is that while I have found that the Venetians are a greater threat to you the Egyptians are a more economically viable target. Venice is hard to control. There are too many cities within a days march of one another. If you can stabilize your Western border or see the Venetians and Hungarians in a desperate war with other powers build up and march on Egypt.

Egypt is harder to down than the Turks and I'll post another "How To" on them later.

This post has been edited for grammar and minor sequencing issues

[Aetius22]

I haven't had the Turks attack me over the course of two games (now three so far). Maybe I am just lucky. I will say that once you start with Venice it usually turns into the HRE, Milan and/or Hungary coming after you as well. It's a mess. Fortunately the turks just forget about me.

I have found that Vardariotai positioned behind the enemy's lines will decimate a Western Army. I then use Byzantine Archers (or is it guard?) to pepper them from the front. The only problem I have with the Byzantines is that they lack a good spear unit to counter cavalry. But I usually just use the Vardariotai for that too once the cavalry is engaged with my dismounted lancers/byzantine swordsmen.

[Jammer]

Aetius22, after reading Gray Beard's excellent post, I'm curious about what territories you conquered for your victories. Did you ally with the Turks? Did they provide a buffer against the Mongols?

[rvg]

I disagree with Grey Beard about Byzantines being difficult to play. They aren't. In fact, early on they are the simplest and easiest faction to use. Just gotta rely on Byzantine strong points, of which they have three early on:

1) Great generals. Both Alexius and John are excellent tacticians, yes, they will eventually die, but not before they are able to carve out a large empire for the Romanoi.

2) Vardariotai. These guys are so overpowered, it makes beating your neighbors in the field akin to taking candy from a baby. The only meaningful counter to these guys are the pavise xbow units which take some time for the Catholics to build the pre-req structures. Now, Vards can't storm cities, but they can still starve them out, so it's not a big deal).

3) Navy. Dromons and Fire Ships kill everything else with ease.


Also, Turks aren't much of a threat. Nikaea and Smyrna are the only settlements in Asia Minor worth taking and holding onto, and they are easily re-enforceable. Plus, it takes a while before Turks get any kind of meaningful Navy going.
Venice, on the other hand, is a menace. I wait for them to sneak attack me, then take all their holdings except for Venice itself. From that point they aren't a threat.
Anyhow, my usual order of expansion is as follows:
Smyrna/Durazzo/Sofia (attacking armies sent to all three on the first turn), Rhodes, Kaffa, Iraklion, Ragusa.

I also convert I convert Thessalonica into a castle (because of its central location) and also keep Smyrna and Ragusa as castles. Everything else gets converted into cities. That's it, the initial expansion is finished, the Empire is secure, now it's time to settle in for a bit, build up, and get ready for the mid game.

[Aetius22]

Well Jammer I won't disagree with you it was a good post. I have just happened to been lucky - or maybe played on too low difficulty. Perhaps on H and VH campaigns the Turks are more aggressive.

My first play through I played a short campaign and decided to get Venice off my back first since they decided to attack me rather early into it. The Turks first offered trade, and then became allied to me. This first game was my first and I decided to take it easy, so I played on easy/medium. My next two games have been on Medium/Medium. During those games the Turks seemed stagnant barely conquering the rebels around them, they offer a trade agreement and then leave me alone.

I usually go for Sofia, Durazzo and Smyrna ASAP. I turn Corinth into a city, and then Durazzo into a castle. I use Durazzo for Vardariotai and march my way to Raguzza and then Venice. This is the point where I hope that I can get a breather and not have Milan and/or the HRE attack me. I haven't been lucky with that. Meanwhile I am being attacked by Sicily and now I just use my navy to offload from Raguzza to Naples, then take that army to Palermo and Sicily leaves me alone. The Turks leave me alone and I had to subdue Hungary once by taking Bucharest and Bran. Once my holdings in Italy begin to mount, I move my capital to Thessalonica. I am still playing my latest game, but I think you can successfully shift from the east to the West by concentrating on unifying Italy for the most part - I am still afraid of taking Rome. You can fortify the Alps and use Raguzza and Palermo for reinforcements.

Yes, I have tried to to use the Turks as a shield against the Mongols. I can't say I have been entirely successful on my second game as the Mongols appeared just as I was starting my campaign against the Turks, allied with them and decided that I had to go. It took me all I had to beat the Mongols back. That's also around the time I decided that free units for the Mongols was just too much of an advantage for them. They already have a very powerful army as is. So I gave them 50 florins for most basic units and 100 and 250 for the more advanced units. Quite frankly I don't think it had an effect. I thought that the horde would work just as in the expansion for RTW. But even when they settle they still don't pay any upkeep for that huge army it seemed.

I think the Byzantines can be very hard or very easy depending on your luck. If the Turks, Venetians and Hungarians decide to go to war with you early on, it will be a feat to get out of it. Then again if you can at least keep the Turks out of your hair it's not so bad.

I just think that they have an advantage over Western Armies myself with the Vardariotai. The Turks and Mongols match them rather well with their own HAs.

[PseRamesses]

Playing with Regnum Dei Iron mod taking "homeland-provinces" from factions are much harder. As a consequence my playstyle has drastically changed. Now I ususally blitz all surrounding rebels then turtle and build up siege weapons (cats) then carefully choose my targets. All wars are well planned and equipped. Until I can meet theese requirements I just stay in my own lands depleting any invaders.

My first priorities are:
Army 1 (Alexis); takes Sofia, and Durazzo. Then moves towards Ragusa.
Army 2 (John); Smyrna and Rhodes. Then moves towards Iraklion.

*Send all priests to Crete for a total conversion, a couple of spies there will make this settlement revolt against the Venetians. Next preachertarget is Ragusa. I rather do this conquest the sneaky way since Venice is a really good tradepartner and my reputation won´t take a dive since I´m not an agressor. In RD Iron-mod the Hugarians has a stack outside Zagreb which means that the Venetians rarely takes this settlement. This in turn means that after I´ve instigated revolts in Iraklion and Ragusa they are left with Venice.
After, or simoultanesly, I sail John from Iraklion towards Trebizond and Caffa. This is my initial turtle-area. I only keep one castle: Ragusa, at this stage.

Next target: Turks. But that´s a completley different story.

[Gray Beard]

I should probably modify my post a bit.

I have gone back and been able to play where I take on the near by Catholics and win. As such, I think that maybe I'll modify it to show how to run your empire if you decide to conquer the East first. I feel that this the best strategy for the Byzantines because it gives the Venetians, Milanese, Sicilians HRE and Polish time to get to hate each other which seems to make them less likely to help each other.

There is something that rvg missed when he talks about how good the Vardariotai are; he is fighting his own battles and I am not. I let the computer fight the battles. I have a hard time doing that because of (Believe it or not) getting hit by a car in 1979 when I was 20. I have nerve damage down my arms which makes my fingers clumsy and slows down my reaction and thinking time. I have a Ph.D. but I am not a fast thinker and my numb hands make typing problematic and this games require fast thinking and a better command of the keyboard than I have. As a result, I have to spend too much time looking at the keyboard when I fight the battles. Real time battles move faster than I can comfortably give commands. I can do it but I don't enjoy it. Thus, I am letting the computer run my battles. My walk through is about how to win if you can't or don't want to fight your own battles. It makes a huge difference in how competent the Byzantine troops are if you let the computer control them. Also, I do not besiege cities, I take the walls. Vardariotai in particular and cavalry in general do not do that well.

My goal in playing the Byzantines is to stay out of a two or three front war and to be able to build up my economic level to afford the troops I need.. I find that if I take out the Venetians and Hungarians before going after the Turks then I end up simply replacing the Venetians and Hungarians with the Milanese and HRE not to mention the Polish and Sicilians. Then I have to deal with them as well as the Turks and the Egyptians. If I take out the Turks, before they can reach their good troops, and conquer everything down to Antioch, Aleppo, Edessa, Mosul, and Baghdad I can defend all of Asia Minor through Antioch and Aleppo. Because Adana and Caesarea are immediately behind these two it is very difficult for the Egyptians to break through and cause lots of problems. The Northern border can be defended against the Russians by Tbilisi and Zeveran.

Once the Egyptians attack I can normally force my way down to Alexandria and Cairo which effectively knocks them out of the game.


BTW- another advantages the the Byzantines have

Maintenance cost - The Dismounted Lancers and Byzantine Swordsmen are not quite as good as their Western counterparts. However they cost 100 gold per turn less to maintain. You can effectively have three of them for the cost of two Venetian heavy infantry units. This is a huge help because it allows you to have bulkier armies. Much as in MTW1 where the Byzantine swordsmen where a 100 strong unit rather than a 60 strong unit.

More militia units with free upkeep - The Byzantines also have more types of units that can garrison cities without a maintenance cost than other factions. The militia archers, for example can be quite useful and if you keep them in a city until you need them are free. This allows you to have better static defenses in cities


Here is what I consider to be a good, well rounded Byzantine army
1 x Family Member
4 x Spear Militia or Byzantine Spearmen
3 x Archer Militia or Trebizond Archers
3 x Shock Cavalry (Lancers, Latinkon or Kataphraxtoi, Frankish Knights, Armenian Cavalry)
5 x Heavy Infantry (Byzantine Swordmen, Dismounted Lancers or Dismounted Latinkons)
4 x Missie Cavalry or Light Cavalry (Vardariotai, Byzantine Cavalry, Skythewhatever, Turcomen Mercenaries, Merchant Cavalry)

Sometimes, I will replace the last group of cavalry with either Guard Archers or Infantry, or seige equipment.

[Quillan]

Gray is absolutely correct about that. ALL cavalry sucks badly when it comes to using the auto-calculator. I think it has to do more with numbers, or perhaps yet another case where stats don't equate to battlefield performance. Any faction that fields armies heavy on cavalry will suffer when using the auto-calculator, unless those troops have massive amounts of experience. The experience is the reason the Mongols and Timurids seem to do so well when they arrive. All their battles are auto-calc'd.

[Carl]

I suspect the problem is that the auto-calc engine is probably just a copy of the RTW one and doesn't have code in it to deal with formed charges or the changed tower operation, (hence why towers have no effect in auto-calced sieges, they never count as activated), I also believe that Auto-calc is unaffected by the shield bug, and i know that both pikes and 2-Handers work without issue in it. The shield bug and Pike problems really overpower Cav in manual battles ATM.

2 Units of Italian Spear Militia vs. 3 units of Mailed Knights is a granted win with 50% losses (approx) for the Italian Spear Militia with working Shields. this is reflected in the auto-calc results nicely, this means that Cav actually perform in auto-calc as they should and your getting a lot of power boosts from bugs in ordinary battles which make Cav seem underpowered in auto-calc.

[Jonathan_Thompson]

Wow I seem to play really different from everyone else. Ignore the turks, yes they'll declare war on you but their Horse Archers are useless at attacking settlements and I've always found it easy to defeat their armies and get a generous ceasefire. Main purpose is to keep them as a buffer against Mongols and Timurids. Immediately go for Venice, if you let them develop they'll become a power house and be able to field a strong navy (also their early game armies are pretty much infantry Can anyone say Varidotai) . After Venice Hungary is next. Attack from Venice, wait till he brings his army over and start attacking from constantinople. Once theyre gone your pretty much set. You have alot of rich cities and the perfect place to expand pretty much anywhere.

[IRPhydeaux]

This might not be the place for it, but I found Byzantium extremely boring in the normal MTW2 format. I have generated a mod using the BigMap and several fixes from the Lands2Conquer mod including two handed fix and SuperAI.

The AI makes the Turks, Vencians, Hungarians and Russians much more difficult to manage. Also, most of BigMap province additions are in Eastern Europe & Asia Minor. There are several extra Greek cities, 3 extra on the Southern Italian Peninsula, 3 more in Annatolia and 5-6 in the far east of Russia/Georgia.

This drastically increases your choices for expansion into previous Byzantine strongholds and gives your neighbors extra opportunities for expansion & cash.

The basic BigMap mod is easy to DL and works pretty well on its own.

Currently, I have wiped out Venice, control all of Greece, Crimea, most of Asia Minor, every island in the eastern med & just established a foot hold in Italy in Bari and Brindisi. My position is relatively stable and I am considering whether to wipe out Hungary, or form a colony in Central Africa Tunis/Tripoli (6-7 new provinces) or the Holy Land.

[PseRamesses]

This might not be the place for it, but I found Byzantium extremely boring in the normal MTW2 format. I have generated a mod using the BigMap and several fixes from the Lands2Conquer mod including two handed fix and SuperAI.

The AI makes the Turks, Vencians, Hungarians and Russians much more difficult to manage. Also, most of BigMap province additions are in Eastern Europe & Asia Minor. There are several extra Greek cities, 3 extra on the Southern Italian Peninsula, 3 more in Annatolia and 5-6 in the far east of Russia/Georgia.

This drastically increases your choices for expansion into previous Byzantine strongholds and gives your neighbors extra opportunities for expansion & cash.

The basic BigMap mod is easy to DL and works pretty well on its own.

Currently, I have wiped out Venice, control all of Greece, Crimea, most of Asia Minor, every island in the eastern med & just established a foot hold in Italy in Bari and Brindisi. My position is relatively stable and I am considering whether to wipe out Hungary, or form a colony in Central Africa Tunis/Tripoli (6-7 new provinces) or the Holy Land.

So the BM-mod actually has more provinces? Didn´t know that. Did a search to find map/ pics of it but didn´t find any. How many provinces does it contain aprox?

[Gray Beard]

One of the bugs with all the total war maps was that you effectively have an edge of the board. Other than the Mongols nothing comes from off the board.

This means that the Byzantines can capture the South-Eastern corner of the map and be in a very strong tactical position because they have no enemies from the East.

I wish the map went all the way to the Pacific. I don't see why this would be so hard to do. I mean if they can get the Aztecs into the game why not the Persians (Iranians) and Chinese and Indians? Then it would Be Medieval Total WORLD war

[Jammer]

Gray Beard, I imagine that would be a daunting programming task. But I like the way you think. I'd buy that game.

[Gray Beard]

I'm not sure that this is the best advice for dealing with the Mogols. The Timirids are a different story but I've either won or lost by the time they come so they are not that big an issue

Unlike MTW i cannot get a huge army in Asia Minor that can simply wait for the Mongols to appear and then wipe them out.

In M2TW you are unable to do that.

Trick #1 Let them take a worthless city. What is a worthless city? One that only has walls. When you see where the Mongols are going destroy everything in the city that can be destroyed This will force the Mongols to garrison the city after the siege it with troops that they have to pay for. If possible don't build up the agriculture on Eastern cities. However, make them place the city under siege. Have a 20 unit stack of Spear Militia and Archer Militia on the walls If possible put a family member in the city that has 2 or 3 command stars. Let the Mongols sit outside your walls for 10 years. This gives them a base but it also gives you time. You can have a fast army that goes and sieges the city every time they leave. When they move back to break the siege you retreat.

Trick #2 Lead them on a merry chase. This works better if the Mongols show up near Tbilisi. Have an army of cheap fast cavalry. They don't have to be good but they have to be fast. If you have a family member with the forced march attribute that makes them faster put him in the army as well. Then move this army where the Mongols can see it and let them come after it. However, you need to place your army so that the Mongols have to expend most of their movement to reach you. When they attack refuse combat and retreat. Then move to the limit of their range again. By doing this You can sometimes get them chase you all the way to Sarkell At that point they are the Russians, and Polish factions' problem. This is hard to do but it can be done and is quite fun if you are also at war with the Polish or Hungarians.

Trick #3 Assassinate their leader. If you build a force of about 20 assassins and have them practice on easy targets like Catholic priest and Venetian merchants they are then able to kill the Mongol leader. When the Mongols appear they don't have much in the way of faction leaders. Kill the leaders and the Mongols become bandits albeit very powerful bandits. However, their behavior changes

[Aetius22]

I really like trick number 2. I usually just wait for them to spend themselves on the Turks and Egyptians as I conquer the catholics. If I play as the Byzantines again I will have to try conquering the Turks first and this trick. Sounds very interesting if you are able to pull it off.

[Gray Beard]

Sometimes you actually have to attack the Mogols with you cavalry to make trick #2 work. Attack then cancel the attack and back away. get them to follow you. Where it gets really tricky is getting two or three stacks of Mongols following you. You'll generally lose Tbilisi in this process but once they get farther North you can get it back. Especially of the Russians attack the Mongol stack

[oz_wwjd]

Forgive me but how do you make money with the Byzzies? Curently I'm in control of Trebizond Nicosia Smyrna,Corinth and Rhodes which are my main castles, I've also taken the fortress Bran from the Hungarians as they would use it as a base from invading me I also control Caesarea,Constanipole,
Thessaloníki,Smyrna,Iconium,Bucharest,Iasi,and currently have Caesarea under siege,but due to being at war with the Turks,Italians,and Hungarians at once I can't seem to make any decent money.I've tried to get a cease-fire with them but they refuse to listen to my diplomat,what are my best options?