I've just started my first campaign as the Eastern Roman Empire… and I am being destroyed! This campaign is really difficult. The problem is, the barbarians have two large armies inside your territory on turn 1 (near Thessalonica). You have two small, weak armies and not much money. My first move was to try to combine my two armies in Europe, hoping they might then have a chance. But as soon as I ended the first turn, the barbarians attacked me. I was outnumbered 1700 against 2800 men, and my troops were completely useless. They were slaughtered. Despite supposedly being heavy infantry, it was less of a battle and more of a massacre. Their performance was EXTREMELY poor. Basically, they all died almost immediately, while they inflicted negligible damage on the enemy.
Horrified, I decided to reload and try the battle again. Despite re-arranging my troops, the result was exactly the same: my entire army destroyed within a matter of moments, with very low casualties to the enemy (Despite that they were attacking with low-quality units and my men are supposed to be heavy infantry). I came to the unavoidable conclusion that ERE units simply suck.
To make matters worse, the Sassanids immediately invaded me from the east, and their army was 3x larger than my starting forces. My frontier garrisons were overwhelmed and destroyed. Defeat swiftly followed defeat. I was then invaded from the southwest by barbarians from the African desert, and I did not have enough money to even begin to think about fielding an army against them.
So to summarise, within the first 3 turns, I had been invaded from 3 different fronts, and had no chance whatsoever of a successful defence on any of them. Worse still, I couldn’t even recruit units quickly as ERE heavy infantry take 2 turns to train, and along the eastern provinces you couldn’t even recruit them as you have to built the necessary barracks first (but you can’t afford to do that, because you have no money).
I just had to allow my settlements in the Balkans and in the East to be sacked and destroyed by the enemy at will, since it was impossible to field an army against them. I did soldier on for about ten turns or so, and gradually I managed to build up a reasonably powerful army in Constantinople, construct a cavalry training building there, and also build up my economy by constructing farms, industry and trade in the Anatolian provinces. After a few turns of this, my income is now going up and I finally have about 5k profits each turn, which is enough to start thinking about raising some armies to defend the east.
But the situation is dire. I am being invaded from both the east and the west in Egypt by two separate armies, and I am also being invaded in Syria by the Sassanids, plus I need to defend Constantinople against the Huns who are sweeping down into Europe from the north, while simultaneously trying to protect and rebuild my Balkan lands. I estimate that to deal with all of these different threats, I would need at least 5 large armies. At present, I have only one large army. It’s going to be a race against time to see if I can turn the situation around.
I am looking forward to getting home from work tonight, so I can continue my campaign. So, does anyone have any tips/stories to share about the Eastern Roman Empire?