Crusades Campaign: Byzantium

[frogbeastegg]

This topic is for the Byzantine faction in Kingdoms expansion's Crusades campaign.

[Patricius]

I have found that the Crusader factions tend to be friendly.

There are only two great challenges. The Latin Crusaders, basically three half sized stack of Venetian troops will arrive at Constantinople after not too many turns. Most of their forces are ranged or mounted, or both. Destroying them entirely is an idea as they will hire mercenaries to make good losses. I nearly lost my capital to them, having ignored them after I had almost entirely destroyed their forces. Secondly the Turks have some fairly large forces close to your capital. I attacked almost immediately with what I had in my Anatolian cities, and Constantinople. Those Anatolians possesions of the Turks are not conected to the their middle Eastern possessions, so provided that some forces are kept around Adana (Osman will appear there with a large stack also) and Theodosiopolis few problems will crop up. The province adjoined Theodosiopolis is gold rich (forget the name) and is generally sheltered by some Antiochene possession, so it is well worth taking.

Attacking the Egyptians from the rear while they are occupied with the Kingdom of Jerusalem to take the major objective of Alexandria is usually not that hard. Cairo will probably have Saladin, making it a harder target. I confined myself to taking Alexandria, making peace, and allowing the Egyptians to make life hard for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Given time the Egyptians tend to be the strongest faction in that portion of the map by far.

I never felt threatened by the Mongols. The Turks usually deal with them effectively, and there are no Timurids, which was a disappointment.

[hellraiser]

Just finished it on M/M (didn't bother to fight any battle myself ) in 87 turns.

What I did:

1. attacked the turks ASAP and managed to conquer the provinces of central asia minor and regions near Trebizond pretty fast - the opposition was a joke, they didn't counterattack a single city and against my 3 generals hitting in one place, nothing could survive.
2. Very few buildings produced but mass produced every kind of available units - strategy was quantity over quality (pretty historically unrealistic because at this stage, the byz empire was pretty much broken, no way they could have amassed the huge number of units i did in such a short time)
3. Alliances with the latin kingdoms - they never betrayed me :)
4. After kicking the turks from the above mentioned provinces, I destroyed Egypt. The reasons for this action were to not allow the egyptians to become too powerful, the remaining possesions of the turks were far away, Antioch fell to a Egypt led Jihad so I could take it fast without breaking the alliance woth Jerusalem kingdom. In Egypt I massacred the cities to keep the garrison requirements low so I could kill them very fast.
5. Meanwhile, new stacks were built to reinforce the troops advancing to the remains of the ottoman empire. A force led by 3 badass generals finally managed to destroy the turks and I found myself clicking <end turn> button for 5 turns so the 'hold baghdad for at least 10 turns> condition can be met :)
6. Mongols? Who are they... I used a spy to keep track of their whereabouts for some time, never encountered them on the battlefield...I guess the turks kicked their butts.
7. 10 stars generals were pretty common in my armies :) Use them to fight fight fight, they rank up fast. They even got some artefacts, a little thing that I enjoyed :P

Key strategic observations:

1. Trebizond - very important city . It is your troops supply point for getting the nearby provinces AND protect Constantinople against the Venetians (Smyrna also plays this role). Use the boats to ferry troops.
2. Rhodes/Smyrna/southern turkish conquered castles - your base for the campaign against Egypt. Again use navy to ferry troops where needed.
3. Best time to strike Egypt is after they send troops for a Jihad - this will leave their african cities pretty empty - I used 3 stacks to attack 3 cities simultaneously.
4. Massive use of watchtowers and spies as spotters - Asia minor is a tricky land - enemy troops can sneak thru mountain passes and snatch a town or two.
5. Assassins - I was surprised how many '95%' my assassins had - so use them on a large scale - priests, merchants, heretics fall like flies. 6. Priests - they convert in no time so use plenty of them.
7. Ultra agressive strategy plays well - don't let your enemy get strong. Byzantium is insanely rich and can afford to literally swarm their opponents from the headstart. This includes the use of massacres in distant provinces because speed is of the essence - you cannot waste too many turns converting, building garrisons and building to quell the rebellious citizens. Kill them and move forward. Provinces in central Asia Minor were spared though because I needed a solid cash base. In this provinces I occupied the cities, built everything to make them happy and converted them to orthodoxy asap. Some of them were already converted by the time I reached them :)
8. Keep the good relations with the Latins kingdoms. If needed, offer them gifts - I even offered them provinces that I could not keep due to rebellions ;)
9. As the previous poster adviced, kill off the venetians. Don't just repel the assault on your capital but pursue and erradicate them. Thus you can free a lot of Constantinople's troops for another duties.

[Gray Beard]

I just finished playing the Crusade campaign in Kingdoms.

I agree more or less with the other posters. It is basically the strategy that I advocated in the basic 1.2 game. The difference is that once you remove the Turks and eliminate the Venetians (Actually the 4th Crusade) you don't have to worry about Europe.

This expansion is really well done. I like the way that the Byzantine troop list has been reworked.

[TheLastPrivate]

Solid posts by others above. Consolidate asia minor and move to egypt.

One thing i might add is that the crusader factions will have hard time with gold (especially with mongols, turks, and egypts rushing them), try buying their coastline cities/castles from time to time so that you may expand and acquire those jackpot cities without making war.

Also i noticed that the byzantine roster, as strengthened as it seems, is still very sub-par compared to other units equivalent in other factions.

Also the greek firethrower is not as effective against calvary like you see inthe intro clip as they don't fire when enemies come in range - i find it very strange that they sometimes fire as soon as they can while sometimes they just stand there with "firing missles" status but nothing comes out, only to get massacred in melee. Also they will not fire behind ur troops, but will shoot through wholes in the line and consequently burning your own troops as well. Quite difficult unit to master. this unit would godly if byzantines had pikemen of some sort - which is another thing the byzantines lack badly, again.

In the end I ended up massing vards and archontoupois (2gold chevs from training thx to crusader castles), but i really wanted to utilize the firethrower better.... i wish u could put them in a single rank

[CountMRVHS]

I too had trouble with the firethrower unit in open battle. They don't skirmish, so they'll end up fighting the inevitable AI cav charge. Where they really come into their own is in siege defences.

I had a battle in Constantinople against 2 Venetian stacks (the 4th Crusade), attacking from either end of the city. When they punched a hole through my wall, I had the Greek Firethrowers there off to the side, turned to Fire At Will, so that anything coming through the breach was in range. On the other side of the gap I had some infantry, as well as some infantry just behind the firethrowers. But it never came down to melee: the firethrowers did their thing and when the enemy tried to charge through the breach they'd be incinerated and rout. The combination of being fired upon from archers on the walls and the towers, as well as being surrounded by enemies and burned to a crisp was too much for most units.

These guys are worth their weight in gold in a siege situation -- it's worth it to snap up all the merc firethrowers you can and put one in each city you think might be attacked. In open battle, the situation would have to be just right. Against the cav/archer heavy Turks, the firethrowers won't see much action, but maybe against the Crusaders if you do go to war with them and they don't bring much cav to the battle. I imagine if you could hold a battle-line of Crusader inf with your own inf and then get firethrowers around to a flank, it would be quite rewarding.

[KingKnudthebloodthirsty]

i prepared bit by bit for capital defense from turn 1. after it becomes clear theyre arriving in a few turns, i pumped out units like crazy in Constantinople and i even ship a lot of my cavalry from Smyrna. Both are EXCELLENT troop centers and i easily fielded a powerful army within a few turns, ready to destroy venice. And destroy they did. venice lost every battle i had with it and soon, it turned into a game of cat and mouse, venice withdrawing into the wilderness west of Constantinople, hoping to get away into the woods and get support from local mercs and its the chasing them that got annoying, not fighting. But despite their efforts, they encountered such losses they turn out to be left with only one Genreral, Boniface, and no troops. I was able to catch Boniface and he was forced to make a valiant but completely futile stand. with him dead, venice's campaign is a complete fiasco and my troops are ready to take on the TUrks, and Egypt.

[KingKnudthebloodthirsty]

Oh, a little misunderstanding. I did also take on the Turks on turn1. But the war to defend the capital gave Turkey a breathing space, or i should say a pause, from my relentless attacks. Now im on the Turks more ruthless than ever.

[xooniu]

thanks

[oz_wwjd]

I've been using the flameboys as part of my army from the first. Agreed thay do take a lot of micromanagement to get the best from them,but the loss of morale that comes from being barbecued is worth the effort. So far my nest result is having 2 units of them target Osman when he appreared and kill him instantly, along with most of his army as I had no fewer than 6 flamethrowers, and Jan heavy infantry rushing an army than had an front-line composed of flamethrowers resulted in a mass rout,almost on impact..

[Arnulf Floyd]

I'm play a campaign with Byzantines and I'm defeat the Venetians but in late game Turks defeat me in many battles and sieges, I left unfinised campaign because Romans are incomponent in roster than Islamic sultanates of Crusades which has cool units.