Byzantium

[Gizmo04]

Hey all, I just played Byzantium last night and they're quite a difficult but managable faction. I missed the Romans so much that I wanted to see what the Byzantines were all about and yeah I agree there Byzantine cavalry and Zarototai cavalry are damned good. Its good to see that the Romans didn't get rid of everything in the few hundred years that have passed... shame about the western roman empire though...

Well that said, I played them and I sent Prince John's army to take the rebel castle north of Thessalonica, more or less north, and fortified it with a decent sized army incase the Venetian's decided to argue about who gets it. I sent my general... whats his name... anyway the guy who was in Thessalonica to the town just west of it so I gave me a new source of income, and a place where troops can be trained to defend against Sicilian and Venetian incursions. On my Eastern front I had taken Rhodes, Smyra... spelling error, Trebezoid and Irakilion. Now I just advance what I have economically and millitary wise and I'm in the process of taking back what the Eastern Roman's had lost!

Since I played Barbarian Invasion and now Medieval 2 I compared the territory's of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Byzantines and my god!! What a loss of ground!! Iraklion? How did the Venetian's get it? Rebellion probably? And africa... Egypt? For heavens sake they been conquered so many times why don't they just give up!

[frogbeastegg]

Stay on topic, please. All history discussion belongs in the monastery

I'm going to trim away all posts and parts of posts in this topic which are not related to the game, since it appears allowing a little leeway does not aid the goals of this forum. This will apply to all other threads here too, as and when it can be managed.

[Flavius Merobaudes]

Thanks for cleaning up.

I'm about to start a new campaign as Byzantium. I wanted to know: Is it possible to keep the European parts of your empire stable, conquering Sofia and Durazzo, then staying defensive - and meanwhile capturing Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt, to reinstall the former ERE? Or will I be overrun by Latin invaders? I know Venice and Hungary can become really nasty.

[Gizmo04]

Thanks for cleaning up.

I'm about to start a new campaign as Byzantium. I wanted to know: Is it possible to keep the European parts of your empire stable, conquering Sofia and Durazzo, then staying defensive - and meanwhile capturing Anatolia, the Levant and Egypt, to reinstall the former ERE? Or will I be overrun by Latin invaders? I know Venice and Hungary can become really nasty.

Well from my experience of playing as the Byzantines I also conquered Sofia and Durazzo and if you bolster them with mainly byzantinian spearmen and trebizond archers you can hold the Venetians, Milanese and the Sicilians at bay since they, with me, usually sent just mailed knights and italian militia(The Hungarians have never attacked me so I have no experience of fighting their army sorry) In both Sofia and Durazzo I had 6 units of spearmen and I think 3 units of archers.

I've tried to take back the lands that the Eastern Roman Empire lost, it is difficult but possible you just have to stick in there, have patience and plenty of it! I took back the lands the Eastern Empire had up to Alexandria after that the Mongols came and started to rampage through my lands taking one settlement after another . So in effect I really only made a "net gain" of the Asia minor territories that Turkey had not much but acceptable

[Gray Beard]

Having played the Byzantines for quite a while now with the 1.2 patch (Including for hour and hours on a laptop while crossing the Pacific in a plane) I will stand by my initial walk through on page one or two of this thread. Though I have modified it a bit.

The short version
Marry Anna to the Hungarians
Make a treaty with Venetians and wait for them to break it
Go after the rapacious Turks from turn 1

The object is to gain control of the south East corner of the map from Tunis to Zagreb. To do this you simply have to be wily enough to keep from being at war with more than two factions at once. Something that has changed with the patch is that it appears that there are now many more times when the AI will blockade a port or place a city under siege simply to gain favor with merchants or nobles. You can sometimes let them blockade your port or siege your city for two turns and find that they are more than happy forgive and forget. This is especially true if you can keep your reputation higher than despicable which is sometime a problem for take 'em and sack or exterminate 'em me

[Gray Beard]

Administrators-If this belongs somewhere else please feel free to move it just tell me where

Someone asked me to place a set of links to works dealing with Byzantine history and military.

Here are some that I have used or know about. Most of these or similar titles should be available in any university or larger public library. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list and if anyone has something they think should be added send me a private message, I'll add it.

General Reference
The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to the Crusades


Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire (I agree with the reviewer on Amazon.com that this is a somewhat mediocre source)

Empires At War: A Chronological Encyclopedia From Sumer To The Fall Of Byzantium

Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World Edition (Two volume set)

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations of the Near East and Mediterrnaean

Encyclopedia of the Roman World This does not look like the one I have

Historical Atlas of the Crusades

Biography
The Alexiad Of particular interest since the author is the Byzantine princes you have control of at the beginning of M2TW

Byzantine History
A Concise History of Byzantium

Byzantium and Its Army, 284-1081 A very useful book in many ways

History of Byzantium: 306-1453 This is the only one on this list I haven't at least looked at.

History of the Turks
Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600

The Turks in World History

Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300-1774


DVD-Video
Byzantium: The Lost Empire A stunning documentary from the Discovery Channel that explores the culture and art of the Byzantine Empire. My set is a 3 DVD set I don't know why this one is two DVD set?


Dated and I think often wrong but soooooo Influential
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Controversial
The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam : From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century


Stranger than Fiction
This guy claims to be the heir to the Byzantine throne

[Gray Beard]

Atreides, who seems to think I know a lot about the Byzantine Empire asked me to post a list of sources on Byzantium. I sent him a shorter version of this. Most of these I have at least looked at. I'll link what I can through Amazon,com and give you a full title and ISBN number for the others. I have purchased some of these for the library I direct for use in AP World History classes and most of them should be on shelf at any university or larger public library and they may be on the shelf at a school library if your school has a big AP focus

This is not necessary an exhaustive list works by any stretch. Just ones I know about and have at time consulted. Others might want to add something to it. If so drop me a private message.

Reference works
Encyclopedia of the Byzantine Empire
Empires

At War: A Chronological Encyclopedia From Sumer To The Fall Of Byzantium
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Crusades
Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World


http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Roman-World-History/dp/0746061307/ref=sr_1_4/102-0700512-4318521?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185253656&sr=1-4"]Encyclopedia of the Roman Worldhttp://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-R...5253656&sr=1-4


DVD-Video
Byzantium : The Lost Empire

Biography
The Alexiad
This work is particularly good for M2TW because it chronicles the life and time Emperor Alexis I who is the emperor you start the game with. Anna Comeus is the Byzantine princes you have at the beginning of the game

Byzantine History
Any book by Warren Treadgold is a good place to start. He can be rather dry but his books are generally short and filled with facts. I particularly like Byzantium and its Army and A Concise Historyof Byzantium

http://www.amazon.com/Emperor-Justin...5253740&sr=1-5
Byzantine Philosophy and Its Ancient Sources

Related works
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Not a personal favorite of mine)
Turks:

[/B] History of the Turks[/B]
A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600
Armies of the Ottoman Turks, 1300-1774

[/B]More controversial[/B]
The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam : From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century

[Gray Beard]

duplicate deleted

[Rebellious Waffle]

Something I've discovered during my Byzantine campaigns:


Byzantine guard archers are not your everyday archer corps: they're well-armored and good at melee fighting. Not the best infantry fighters, mind, but very serviceable nonetheless. They're not as lethal in ranged combat as English longbowmen, and they lack the punch of gunpowder units -- but with armor upgrades they can serve as Roman legionaries.

One of the Romans' great advantages in battle was the pilum, the javelin. Byzantine guard archers don't have javelins, of course, but they can start shooting from farther away, which compensates for the lower level of armor-piercing punch.

Thinking thus, I began to construct my Byzantine legions in the following manner:

10 Byzantine guard archers
5 Heavy infantry (Varangian guard for preference)
4 Heavy cavalry (Kataphractoi for preference)
Assorted specialists (General, Vardariotai, artillery, etc.)


Deployment is based on the manipular legion:

A = Archers
C = Cavalry
M = Melee infantry

CC AAAAA CC
AAAAA
MMMMM

Archers are ordered not to skirmish. As the enemy closes in, the arrows start to fall; it's not gunpowder, but ten stacks of archers can do a lot of damage, and the damage only increases as the enemy draws near. When melee fighting begins, fire-at-will mode is disabled; the front rank stands its ground and gives battle, while the second rank continues to rain arrows on whatever enemies are hanging around the edge of the fighting. As the front rank is depleted, the second rank steps into the breach. Should gaps appear in the line even after such reinforcement, the fully rested melee infantry (think Triarii) rush in and butcher the exhausted foe. Cavalry can be used to wither the flanks and rear with hammer-and-anvil style charges. When the enemy routs, melee infantry and cavalry withdraw and the archers form ranks, pouring more arrows into the backs of the fleeing foe. The long range and high ammo compliment of Byzantine guard archers lets them shine over their Roman forebears in this regard -- they can slaughter routers without breaking ranks, allowing them to instantly resume a defensive posture at need.

You don't have much to fear from massed cavalry charges into your archer contingent, by the by -- witness the Battle of Crecy. What you lack in English longbows can be made up by the sheer volume of archers at your disposal. The enemy cavalry have no choice but to charge your archers or die ignominiously under a storm of arrows -- thus pinning them to your archers, assuming they even survive the charge. Send in your own heavy cavalry to crush them from behind, and it'll be a slaughter.

Artillery are mainly useful because of their long striking distance. The enemy will have to engage at close quarters in order to avoid being taken apart piecemeal; but then they come within arrow range and the fit really hits the shan. Plant your cavalry to either side, forcing the foe into a long, narrow funnel -- your arrows will be maximally effective under such conditions. By the time they close for melee combat, they'll be in no condition to fight anything.


Summing up: Roman legions went out of style because of the battle of Adrianople, where massed cavalry broke the Romans' ranks and they didn't have anything like enough time to use their pila effectively against such targets -- fast-moving, lots of momentum. Guard archers can shoot from longer range, negating this cavalry advantage and bringing the Legion back into style. Roma vivo!