1450 campaign, byzantine empire

[Yeepeep]

First I want to say the mod is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Great work guys!

Now to the topic: How the hell do you do the 1450 byzantine campaign (vh/vh)?

I tried turtling in Constantinople for as long as possible. No good, it got sacked and slaughtered at the 4th or 5th siege.

I tried running around, razing and re-razing all the castles around that the turks stupidly left with a single garrison unit. No good, it didn't ruin their unit production.

I tried packing my things and sail off to Rhodes and Crete. No good, too heavy casualties. Also, got Athens sieged (I expect it'll fall in 2-3 sieges just like Constantinople)

My last hope is to sail off to Africa and completely abandon all European provinces.

Sooo, any advice? Please help, I love the difficulty but it's overwhekming

[kentuckybandit]

lol well historically Constantinople only has 3 years left at the start of this campaign, and actually they give you a few more provinces than you probably should have by 1450. I don't really know if it is possible to survive, considering the strength of the Turks at this time, but I have not tried playing them in this period (just started them to see what all they had).

[zumbum]

Skantarios did it: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=320711

Read it, if it doesn't start a new form of media then I'll eat my keyboard.

[rusnmat]

I did it too on 6.2 RR without BGR. With BGR haven't attempted yet . The key was to win first few battles. I got all my best troops by Constantinople and was able to get the nearest fortress ( Andrianople or so). After that was a defensive game, killing stack of Turks on sieges. I was able to send reinforcement to and from Constantinople. After waiting to opportunities was able to expand my empire to 12+ settlements. I retired after that since the game became easy.
I liked siphonatores, they are amazing at defending gates and bridges.You can get 300-400 Janissary killed with one small siphonateres unit. Romans got some strong units. Personally I had harder time playing Lithuania on Vh/VH in 1450.

[Erunion Telcontar]

I tried on VH/VH, but it was stupid hard....
Backed off to H/H, and it's doable.
Been doing the 1450 Byz campaign on hard, and I will tell you this, between 1450 and 1510 I was on the ropes. At any time I could have (Should have, even) been overwhelmed. Somehow, I survived. My emperor had 8 heroic victories under his plate, all defending constantinople.
Now, I'm in the 1520's and winning. I own the Balkans, Greece and am conquering Asia Minor.

Here is, roughly, how I did it.
Step 1: The Defense of Constantinople. Build Cannon towers. Train Siphonotores, Gasmuli and Contaratoi (Trebs and Mangonels help too). Gasmuli defend your walls, put them in guard mode (Make sure they're in guard mode!) and just let them shoot. When the enemy has seige towers or ladders on your walls, place your Gasmuli in a block as far away from the enemy as possible while still being on the same segment of wall. When the enemy pour out of the towers, order your Gasmuli to shoot at them on the wall. Crossbows at close range, shooting straight, are devestating. IMPORTANT! If the enemy reach your Gasmuli and engage them in Melee, order the Gasmuli to keep firing! (They can only do this in guard mode) This allows your entire battalion to do damage while only 3-4 are taking damage.
That should take care of the walls. Next issue, the gates. Place your Contaratoi behind the gates, as far back as possible leaving a gap for your Siphonotores. Place the Siphon's on the sides (at the start, you'll have one Siphon and one hand gunner, treat the hand gunner as a weaker siphon). The enemy should engage the Contaratoi, while your (guard moded in case some cav reach them) Siphonatores wreck havoc. Conserve ammo where necessary, only using one siphonatore at a time when facing 2 or more armies in a single battle. I've fought battles where the siphon's get 800+ kills.
If you do have trebs, use them to light up seige towers. Gasmuli do good work, but can be overwhelmed if too many towers hit the walls.

Step 2: Money!

Until 1470 or so, you won't really be able to take anything. When you can though, seize AND HOLD Thessolonica and Sinop. While Constantinople is a superb city, it will be constantly under siege and only really earning you 2-3k until the 1500's, as you are unlikely to have more than 10 turns before then where Constantinople is not under attack. Of course, I did have a Jihad called against me, so your situation might be slightly better.

Step 3: The Eastern Roman Empire

Once the ravening hordes have been held off of Constantinople, seize the Balkans and Greece. Whenever possible, take Caffa. Once you have these lands secured, retake Asia Minor for the glory of the Cross! (That's about where I am now)
You don't get gunners and pikes until 1510(?), but once you do, train as many as you can. Pikes are wonderful! Use them!

That's all the advice I can give you. Good luck!

[k/t]

Damn, I never knew that missile troops trick, and all too many times I've had an entire group of archers do nothing while one or two of them were engaged by an enemy.

[hippacrocafish]

I've seen the computer using that guard mode exploit, I never knew about it myself, but I shall use it from now on.

[k/t]

It's not an exploit, it makes perfect sense.

[hippacrocafish]

It's not an exploit, it makes perfect sense.

I didn't mean it like it was cheap, I just couldn't find a word for it. It's more of a strategy I guess.

[Erunion Telcontar]

Yeah, a few weeks back I was playing a hotseat game with my brother, and he was griping about the ai doing this to him and how he could never do it. Then I started experimenting, and this was the result. Just stick 'em in guard mode!
Note! This does require micro-managing. If too many are engaged at once, they'll start to all melee. Just order them to attack again and they'll switch back to bows/crossbows/guns/javelins. It's brutal on the walls, because your enemies are stuck, in a clump and at point blank range.

[rusnmat]

Archers & crossbowmen are deadly on the walls even without guard mode if you have enough distance from ladder or towers.
I would engage in melee on the other side of the tower or ladder with some dispossable unit and have archers firing from another side of the wall segment. Without melee unit engaged, attackers can just escape to another side of tower or go to ground level to wreck your defence

[Gnostiko]

Glad to see the garrisons I put in to the campaign are doing their job for you lot

[Yeepeep]

Awesome tactics, thanks a lot! I was definitely doing the wrong thing piling up as many of the heaviest units available as possible on the walls and right up the gate. Only to have them decimated by the oh-so-hated janisaries...The siphoneer guys are just plain deadly!

So now 12 turns and still breathing. Turtling for my dear life in Constantinople and Trebizond, just lost Athens but got Smyrna. Trying to figure out a good counter for those nasty janisaries

Again, thanks for the tips Erunion, they might just save my poor Byzantine skin

edit: what makes it even more fun is no saves for me - the CTD bug doesn't bug if you don't save :-)

[rusnmat]

Most likely you wouldn't be able to hold on to Trebizond for long. I decided to move all the troops but one unit from Trebizond to Constantinople early on. When you get seiged by a full stack of janisaries , then can raize all the buildings and get some cash. Without troops from Trebizond will be impossible to capture neighboring to Cinstantinople castles & cities ( on VH/VH)

[Yeepeep]

Captain's log, turn 18:

The fight with the Godless Turks turned from desperate to stalemate to a glimmer of hope!

Oh joyful days! Praise the Lord, the walls of the queen of cities held! Our brave troops handling the terrible greek fire proved to be the turning point. Praise them. Praise their courage and their faith and their hearts.

Wives, sisters, loved ones across Asia Minor weep. Do not comfort them! Let them weep. Let them tell their children and their children's children their terrible stories about the the Gate of Blachernae. The place where the wrath of our Lord incinerated those who dared raise a sword against his most humble servants! The place where endless hordes of Ottomans met with their creator.

Many of us have fallen. Many more were left injured, broken. No matter. Our faith is our shield. Our fallen comrades fought bravely for His glory. Do not mourn them. Praise them, for they are now in His kingdom.

Things have not proceed so well across the Empire.

Trebizond, too far for our supporting hand, is on it's own. Rumors of great feats of courage and sacrifice, told by traveling merchants, have reached our ears. Four times the gates were broken, the streets flooded with the terrible heavy infantry of the Turks. Four times the defenders retreated to the inner citadel. Four times our Lord was merciful. Four times the citadel held! The strategos of the castle, the noble Ioanis have fallen. Do not despair, noble reader, his death was not in vain. The troops under his command, inspired by his bright example of courage and faith have taken the battle to the enemy. Sinop was retaken not long after the last siege of Trebizond. The turks, broken and in despair have left the city and ran for their lives. The city was sacked, the faithless judged in front of Him. Now let the barbarians fear our rightful vengeance!

In the heart of Greece, the glorious city of Athens had worse fate. Its fleet scattered by the sinful Venetians and the treacherous Rus, it was left on the mercy of the Turks. And what a mercy that was, oh Lord! The few defenders threw everything in their power against the countless legions of the enemy but to no avail. The brave commander changed his charger thrice. Thrice he lunged into the center of the enemy line, swinging left and right, bringing swift death to those who oppose him. Countless Ottomans met their end there but where one fell, two more joined. Long and hard they fought, from dawn to dusk with no time for even a short prayer. Reinforcements from the nearby castle came a little too late, a little too few. The city was taken.

[Point Blank]

Interesting tactics guys :-)

[AnthoniusII]

I love to see people despaired in their Roman campaigns.
They can "learn" how despaired times that empire was going through.

[Point Blank]

Damn, I never knew that missile troops trick, and all too many times I've had an entire group of archers do nothing while one or two of them were engaged by an enemy.

Yeah that's a great trick, never tried it myself until now!

[Yeepeep]

So I'm officially obsessed with this campaign now

With the amazing advice from Erunion it's now not impossible to hold on to Constantinople (thank you Master!).

My first try progressed quite well. The capital never fell, Trebizond defeated 3 stacks, Mystral 2. Lost and recaptured Athens, got Smyrna and Sinop and the Turks gave up - "very generously" accepted alliance. At this point my hands were freed - once you sign up a trade agreement with the Ottomans the trade income explodes. Soon after that I quickly got Bucharest from the Rus (after dealing with the Janissaries the Rus infantry was a joke), Iraklion and Caffa from Venice, the city to the East of Trebizond, Bari from the Sicilians and had all the Adriatic ports blocked. In the meantime I had 4 priest and a cardinal piled up on Thessaloniki, the city conveniently rebelled and was quickly captured w/o breaking the alliance (actually the allied Ottoman army had the bad luck to be right next to it when I attacked so they basically got it for me for free ). Captured Arta and gave it to the Fatimids, got Durazzo and gave it to the Tuks so both castles can act as a buffer against the west. Also paying tribute to basically everybody to keep the good relations. These spendings are barely noticeable, Constantinople is getting close to 9000 per turn. It was about turn 40, everybody but the Venetians and Sicilians like me, in a few turns all the Adriatic cities but Venice will be Roman again. At this point I called it a win and stopped.

After trying the Crusaders on the same campaign for 2 days and whooped the Fatimids behinds I came back to the Byzantines.

First attempt was a disaster - the Turks kept Constantinople constantly besieged so I couldn't retrain the few brave defenders - the city fell in 4 sieges.

Second attempt is currently in progress and I just signed an alliance with the Turks again. I barely held Constantinople this time (for the last attack had to use the Emperor as the infantry behind the gates while the siphoneers obliterated everything), captured and lost Smyrna twice (so I gave up on it for the moment), lost Athens again but kept the flock of priests on it so it rebelled and came straight back to me. Lucky for me, the Turks got hit really hard by the Fatimids this time and lost Iconium. In the subsequent chaos I managed to snatch Nicea behind their backs and that's where I guess they broke.

What starts to emerge as a trend now is that I think the Rubicon for this campaign is Trebizond. I wouldn't have believed a week ago I would be giving advice on this campaign but here it goes: hold on to Trebizond for dear life! It's very hard to defend but damn worthed.

First thing, make sure you have ballista towers asap and at least one bombard. Only the first two stacks on Trebizond have a significant number of Janissaries (no idea where they recruit them from but I guess it's not Sinop) but the third one is quite weak. I also found that the inner citadel is your best friend - they break through the outer gates quite easily, I haven't been able to stop them there yet, but by the time they get to the citadel they will be badly beaten. There I pile all the available infantry on the gate, put the javelinmen behind them and just bleed them out. Once the last stack is gone, it's only a short sail to Sinop which is ready for taking and obviously far from any Turkish recruitment routs.

So now it's 2 turns after the cease fire with the Turks, 20 or so turns into the campaign. The current problem becomes the Fatimids who are getting actually quite ambitious and just besieged a half-empty Trebizond. I guess it's gone for the moment but it's time to think strategy again.

Apologies for the wall of text but again, it's the new-found obsession

p.s.: all this is on vh/vh, no save game, huge unit size, no BGR (I think)

[Graeme]

I managed to survive with a bit of luck, just circumstances as the game unfolded. After a backs to the wall 15 or 20 turns on my last legs all the time, the turks had gradually got into a war on all sides, with Hungary, Venice etc, basically everyone and I had managed to make a few alliances with the same. They were getting systematically reduced and I was able to carve a small empire in the balkans, greece and link up at Thessalonika and even take Nicaea for breathing room. After that it was the usual 100 turn plod expanding till I got bored, I think Ill make it harder next time by playing with the descr_strat.