Byzantium

[rvg]

Personally, I never use Byzantine Cavalry opting instead for the almighty Vardariotai(when available) or Scythikons. The reason is because Byz Cav lacks the "Fast Moving" attribute, which imho is the most important one for cavalry archers. Vardariotai of course are worth their weight in gold twice over.

[_Maximus_]

Yes, their worst, the lack of speed. It broke my nerves when opposite horse archers kill a half of my army.

[Skott]

The Varangian Guard units were pretty beastly with the sword mod fix in 1.1. How has the 1.2 treated them? They just as good, better, or worse?

[Gray Beard]

I think the Varangian guard are now the best unit in the game when you take their low upkeep cost into consideration. Also you don't lose them late.

As an interesting note. Warren Treadgold in his book "Byzantium and its Army: 284 - 1081" ISBN 08047831632 seems to indicate that at least some of the Varangian Guard were heavy Cavalry.

As he is one of the best know Byzantine scholars around it makes me wonder if there shouldn't be a Varangian cavalry unit.

He also list an actual manifest or summary of the troops in a normal Byzantine army. You couldn't build that army using this game.

[rvg]

The Varangian Guard units were pretty beastly with the sword mod fix in 1.1. How has the 1.2 treated them? They just as good, better, or worse?

I love these guys now... They are usually charged with the task of chopping enemy heavy horse into steaks, and they do a damn fine job.

[Andaius]

I started a byzintine campaign after I finished my HRE campaign to unlock the factions. I'm playing 1.2 official patch. My experiance is that archery is your best friend with them. I've had groups of 4-6 byz. cav. with maybe 1-2 vards mixed in kill enemy infantry like it was going out of style. I've had battles where I've killed 2000 and lost 150 or so, with pure HA armies.

Also I've tested in custom battle a guard archer can beat DFK 1vs1. They can thin them out good enough where they can kill them with swords afterwards. Treb. archers murder enemy infantry and HA's. The thing that you have to get your head around after playing western factions is your starting infantry thats basicly is ONLY spear militia from cities and byz. spearmen from castles can't stand up to western troops such as the armoured spearmen of all types and dismounted knights. While byz. infantry are fairly good they don't come until later.

Killing archers and xbows are fairly easy with all HA armies especially if you use the higher grade ones like byz. cav. or vards. All you have to do is lure out the infantry with a few then charge the archers with flanking units. All the while your HA will be raining death even while on the move! Early on Hungry is your worst foe because they have good HA aswell. What I end up doing is either send some byz. cav or vards to attack in melee and chase them down while exchanging missile fire. That way I can kill the infantry with the rest of my army with out that annoyance.


Just to give you an Idea I have 4 vards I got from my first mission reward with 2 gold cheverons just after prince John then king died. You should see the carnage that 8 units of trez archers and HA can lay down to infantry armies. In one instance I widdled down a 800 or so man army down to ~100 men before they hit my byz. spear/sword line. That was with 8 trebs and 4 vards with a general.

In my battles you really get the whole "fight in the shade" experinance!

[oz_wwjd]

Whoever said that peace with hungary and Russia is possible in our lifetime,don't you believe it.In my game which I continued when the 1.2 patch game out we are enaged in a war of attrition in which large Ha armies of mine intercept their armies en-route to sieging my cities and destroy them,but I did take sofia,which is a citadel from them,so how maybe I'll get some respite.They where allied with the egyptians when they finally wore out my patience with port blockade 1.01 and I destroyed them but I thought they'd have made peace after the egyptians died,and since I've offered them peace for 5,000+ with no luck,so I may have to kill them off..

[Rebellious Waffle]

I have a Crazy Idea. (Haven't tried it yet, but it popped into my head when I got a load of Timurid elephants.)

Rampaging barbarians are not my idea of a good time. That and the porous borders are the only reasons why I don't find the Byzantines ideal for campaign purposes. Let someone else deal with smelly nomads from off the steppe, I want to shoot fish in a barrel!

Supposing you invaded Spain.

Take the whole Byzantine Empire, put it on a tractor-trailer and go island hopping. Sweep up Rhodes, Crete, Corsica, Sardinia and possibly Sicily on the way if you have a strange sense of humor. The Turks, Venetians and Hungarians will probably carve up your old provinces while you're away; wish them well. Your eye is on the prize, and the prize is Grenada.

Think about it this way -- the blokes who are best suited to stop Byzantine horse archers are your neighbors at the start of the game: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt. The blokes in Western Europe mostly won't get missile cavalry until the Late period, which means you've got the only horse archers within hundreds of miles. Western armies are terrible at ranged combat. Playing Byzantium in Spain means looking at your neighbors and thinking, "that guy would look great with a piece of wood sticking out of his forehead". The Iberian Peninsula is defended by the Andes, which lets you mop up the Spanish, Portugese and Moors in peace and quiet. Walk your way back East. What're they gonna do, excommunicate you?