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Thread: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

  1. #1

    Icon9 Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Hey guys, I've got a problem. Recently I was using Byzantine, the first 100 years was okay, I've proceed pretty far to the east and defend Venice quite well, but every time Hungary will attack me even we were allies. No matter what I tried(marriage, regular tribute etc.) they just attack me any way and that's a great pain in the butt. I've replayed for 3-4 times because of this faction, an suggestion about what should I do? wipe out them first seem not possible because all western Europe factions hates me for no reason...

  2. #2
    Frunk's Avatar Form Follows Function
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary


  3. #3
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    As a veteran, my normal reaction would be to ignore diplomacy and KILL EVERYONE AND BURN THEIR CITIES TO THE GROUND
    But judging from you difficulties, I suppose that's not the answer you're looking for. And, for the same reason, I will assume you are less experienced, correct me if I'm wrong and you are in need of more specific help.


    I haven't played a serious Byzantine campaign yet, so I can't give you direct advise. So I give a more general one.

    - AI is unpredictable and not worth trusting in general. I've had many cases of ally AI just backstabbing out of the blue. I've grown to have distrust on all AI neighbours, only invasions across the seas can truly surprise me. You will be less surprised if you keep multiple spies and watchtowers watching AIs movements.
    - I don't find diplomacy truly worth it, nor do I really need it. I've never seen anyone utilizing the diplomacy to it's fullest, and that's largely caused by the unpredictable AI that doesn't sometimes understand even it's own good.
    - Just accept you might not be able too keep all your settlements, losing couple of them don't lead to defeat yet. Climb back ever stronger and crush them beneath your foot.
    - Investing on military over economic buildings can be worth it. If you manage to expand quicker because you have a stronger military than you foes, you will grow strong fast. It will take long until the economic buildings create profit, the looting of settlements can create fast cash, potentially leading to the snowball effect.


    So my advise would be to be ever suspicious of everyone, even the ones with 'friendly' relations. Especially Hungary. Keep spies on it's territory, your important cities decently garrisoned and focus your military to quickly wipe out enemies, so you can quickly focus on a new one. And of course, mercy is for the weak.
    Last edited by Samittaja; February 20, 2017 at 04:56 PM.

  4. #4
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    I think you are hated by western nations by the mere fact that you have a different religion as they. There's nothing that can be done to negate that. You can counterbalance it by tributes, but making good relations is always more difficult than with factions of same religion.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Quote Originally Posted by Samittaja View Post
    As a veteran, my normal reaction would be to ignore diplomacy and KILL EVERYONE AND BURN THEIR CITIES TO THE GROUND
    But judging from you difficulties, I suppose that's not the answer you're looking for. And, for the same reason, I will assume you are less experienced, correct me if I'm wrong and you are in need of more specific help.


    I haven't played a serious Byzantine campaign yet, so I can't give you direct advise. So I give a more general one.

    - AI is unpredictable and not worth trusting in general. I've had many cases of ally AI just backstabbing out of the blue. I've grown to have distrust on all AI neighbours, only invasions across the seas can truly surprise me. You will be less surprised if you keep multiple spies and watchtowers watching AIs movements.
    - I don't find diplomacy truly worth it, nor do I really need it. I've never seen anyone utilizing the diplomacy to it's fullest, and that's largely caused by the unpredictable AI that doesn't sometimes understand even it's own good.
    - Just accept you might not be able too keep all your settlements, losing couple of them don't lead to defeat yet. Climb back ever stronger and crush them beneath your foot.
    - Investing on military over economic buildings can be worth it. If you manage to expand quicker because you have a stronger military than you foes, you will grow strong fast. It will take long until the economic buildings create profit, the looting of settlements can create fast cash, potentially leading to the snowball effect.


    So my advise would be to be ever suspicious of everyone, even the ones with 'friendly' relations. Especially Hungary. Keep spies on it's territory, your important cities decently garrisoned and focus your military to quickly wipe out enemies, so you can quickly focus on a new one. And of course, mercy is for the weak.

    Thank you!

    I'm pretty new to this game series (I was a 三國志Sanguochi fan earlier). Actually, I don't even know that I can build watchtowers... guess there's no hope for peace as Byzantine.

  6. #6
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    No problem.

    As for the units you should focus on, the players with some experience with Byzantines can probably tell more accurately and correct my mistakes, but I will give my thinking regardless.

    The Byzantine Empire seems to have relatively balanced unit roster, never being the best in any category but have an above average unit in every one (excluding spearmen, muskets and gunpowder artillery). So you can have pretty good armies in almost any army builds. Just don't recruit spearmen apart from the garrisons, what I've learned is that morale is very important, and the Byzantine ones just have too low stats. They are cheap, but I fear they will rout too easily to be worth it. Instead counter the enemy melee cavalry with your own.

    And couple of hints for the campaign:
    - Because of the Mongol Horde invasion somewhere after year 1200, you might take into consideration not expanding much into East, but focus on expanding into Europe instead. Even experienced players have hard time fighting the Mongols, as they arrive in huge numbers, consisting of highly experienced units lead by high-command high-dread generals. The same applies for Timurids, but they come much later. Just believe me - you can not overestimate them.
    - After I've conquered Rome, it has always been the AI crusade target, if a crusade is called. I've yet to confirm this nor seen a deviation. Perhaps you can ensure you know well in advance where the catholics will crusade you? This is naturally a trick for the later game, I doubt there's need to fear being crusade'd yet. And of course, it might not work.

    And off-topic, what is this Sanguochi?

  7. #7

    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Sanguochi is a strategy game made by Japanese company KOEI, it's a story about China in A.D. 180~225, AKA "Romance of three kingdoms".

    I'm from Taiwan, people here tend to play Sanguochi rather than Total War.

  8. #8
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Oh and one more trick I personally don't utilize, but I do see it's worth in the hands of others.

    By building forts (in the same place where the watchtowers can be found) in strategic positions you can block enemy movement with very small number of soldiers. This forces the AI to stop and besiege your fort, giving you more time to prepare defences on your settlements. The forts can be costly, but if it prevents them from taking your settlements, it can be worth it.

  9. #9
    marcp's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    [QUOTE=s1111233;15255818]Thank you!

    Actually, I don't even know that I can build watchtowers... [/QUOTE

    Quote Originally Posted by s1111233 View Post
    Actually, I don't even know that I can build watchtowers...
    Hello from across the world

    I have never played the Byzantine/east Romans but I can help you out with the watch tower/fort thing. When you have a general in the field, not in a settlement on the campaign map look down to the lower right corner of screen. There are two characters, on is a tower or building picture the other a helmet. If you have enough money/florins to spend one or both of these two pics will be highlighted in gold, clicking the building tab allows you to build watch tower (200 florin) fort(500Florin) clicking the helmet shows which mercenaries are available for you to hire. The mercs are more expensive than trained units but better stats in many cases...they cost an upfront charge to hire and are somewhat expensive to upkeep...bringing up the unit card on mercs will show their upkeep charges. When building tower obviously try to place them right beside the borderlines of your territories and anyone others lands, the watch towers also allow you to spot and keep track of enemy/or rivals-neighbor's spies and other agents and army movements. Since you haven't hand them no wonder you don't see those damned Huns marching armies to you. Hope this will help.

    Another thing about towers is that once built the stand the rest of game, whoever owns the land gets to use them...forts, on the other hand require that you always keep at least one unit or spy, merchant, priest inside of it or it will be gone the next turn, at least I think it is the next turn or shortly thereafter Hope this helps a bit. It isn't unusual for those new to the game to have to restart a few times to get a handle on things...there are many mods for this game available on this site that address and make better use of diplomacy and other game mechanics but the computer is notoriously hard headed in M2TW, no matter what you do it won't always, maybe only half the time make sense!

    If you need some specific help message me on boards, I'm no guru on game but I know the staples of running it.

    Mark.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Hello from across the world

    I have never played the Byzantine/east Romans but I can help you out with the watch tower/fort thing...
    Thank you too!
    Now I'm defend the Mongolians but the situation is getting better

  11. #11
    Socrates1984's Avatar Decanus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Quote Originally Posted by Samittaja View Post
    No problem.

    As for the units you should focus on, the players with some experience with Byzantines can probably tell more accurately and correct my mistakes, but I will give my thinking regardless.

    The Byzantine Empire seems to have relatively balanced unit roster, never being the best in any category but have an above average unit in every one (excluding spearmen, muskets and gunpowder artillery). So you can have pretty good armies in almost any army builds. Just don't recruit spearmen apart from the garrisons, what I've learned is that morale is very important, and the Byzantine ones just have too low stats. They are cheap, but I fear they will rout too easily to be worth it. Instead counter the enemy melee cavalry with your own.

    And couple of hints for the campaign:
    - Because of the Mongol Horde invasion somewhere after year 1200, you might take into consideration not expanding much into East, but focus on expanding into Europe instead. Even experienced players have hard time fighting the Mongols, as they arrive in huge numbers, consisting of highly experienced units lead by high-command high-dread generals. The same applies for Timurids, but they come much later. Just believe me - you can not overestimate them.
    - After I've conquered Rome, it has always been the AI crusade target, if a crusade is called. I've yet to confirm this nor seen a deviation. Perhaps you can ensure you know well in advance where the catholics will crusade you? This is naturally a trick for the later game, I doubt there's need to fear being crusade'd yet. And of course, it might not work.

    And off-topic, what is this Sanguochi?
    This is very good advice indeed. I generally agree with everything, and I would rep but I can't for today.

    The only thing that could be added is the superb Vardariotai unit. They are among the best mounted archers in the game. There was even a discussion once (can't recall where in TWC right now) on whether an army of 20 Vardariotai can be beaten. Why is that you may ask?

    Well, they gather a lot of unique things: Fast moving, high morale, disciplined, highly trained, good missile attack, good melee attack, decent defense stats. I used them a lot. One thing of great interest is how to use horsearcher-only armies. It has been explained before, but never hurts to do again: One can attack, deplete the units' arrows and withdraw. This will make you lose the battle, but it's "losing with style". Because now the enemy has reduced numbers and your army minimal casualties, if any. Rinse and repeat.

    Of course this works best with european armies and generally armies with lesser horsearchers. Imagine what will happen if this skirmishing army of yours consists mainly of Vardariotai.

  12. #12
    Emperor of The Great Unknown's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    To understand more how the AI reacts and when it does invasions it is mostly down to how strong you defend the settlements bordering Hungary. The AI decides to attack most if they have more men on the border than you, and therefore if they can grab a settlement quickly even if they are weaker. So if you want peace garrison the border settlements heavily making usre they are at least stronger than the forces the AI has on the border.
    Give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime.
    cant read?

  13. #13

    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    The Byzantines are actually pretty easy to play as even though they are one of the hardest factions for beginners. If you have Jack Lusted's AI mod diplomacy is much better and alliances can be kept but without it every faction will attack you regardless. You can't really have allies in Vanilla M2TW without a mod because they will always attack or betray you. If you know diplomacy and you know how to keep good relations with other factions you can have temporary alliances. For Hungary you can marry a princess to them and get a temporary alliance.

    Your neighboring factions include Venice, Hungary, The Turks and eventually the Mongols and Timurids. While not at borders with you Sicily and the Papal States will sometimes invade you. The first three listed will always attack you and there is two ways you can go about defeating them and becoming a great empire. You can blitz them or work up your economy while still being aggressive.

    THE BLITZ OPTION:

    The Turks are the easiest one to defeat. You can easily rush Iconium and take their capital within the first 2-3 turns of the game. If you have to purchase mercenaries to boost your army. Usually they will remove some of the units from the city making it easier for you to take. After that you can usually get a peace treaty and get a few more of their cities for free for the cost of peace.

    The Hungarians can serve as a good temporary alliance but they are very weak at the start of the game and as LegendofTotalWar said in a video it's best to attack your enemy at the beginning when they are weak. Hungary only has two settlements and without their castle they are pretty weak. Take Sofia just north of your starting position and from there push north before they can get organised. If you blitz at the beginning and play very aggressive without caring about other factions you should be fine.

    Venice will not be easy to take and with each war you start with a christian faction the pope will start to hate you a lot but who cares what the pope thinks. You can't win being passive. Venice has great units and the city of Venice gives them a good economy but without Ragusa they will not have a castle and that will weaken them unit wise. They will still have Italian spear militia but they will still be weak early in the game without Ragusa. Some people say to go west and other people say to go east. You should do both in my opinion. LegendofTotalWar always blitzes the rebel factions and then takes out his greatest threats first and so on. He usually averages 1-2 cities taken every single turn and usually has a vast empire by turn 20. That is how easy it is to win in this game. He will use high taxes and sometimes leave cities with no units but if you know what % of happiness you need to stay above then this is not a problem and when you blitz you need the extra coin from higher taxes to afford the several armies you will have and eventually to build up your economy. To the east you have Antioch which can give you about 10 k a turn I think and to the west you have Zagreb which has a good mine and can give you a ton of coin every turn. Every Italian city can also give you good coin and later in the game Stockholm or Timbuktu will be prime targets. Timbuktu being the best merchant trade settlement in the entire game.

    BUILDING UP YOUR ECONOMY:

    So if you don't want to play aggressive then you can focus on your economy but you should still take as many rebel settlements as you can and at least focus on one faction at a time. For your economy you start with Constantinople and this is probably the best city in the game starting out. If you build it up you can make more than 10 k a turn in coin from just this one city and you will need it to support your armies. Start with roads everywhere for extra coin and the ability to move armies faster. Then focus on land clearance and communal farming which gives farm income, increases population which then leads to better buildings and more people to tax. Ports and warehouses should be next as they provide good coin and then grain exchanges and markets. At the start of the game build happiness buildings only where your public order is low with the exception of churches needed to fight the other religions. Once you get your economy going you can then start building other stuff and still have the money to support some decent armies.

    You have one of the top ten best infantry units in the game. Varangian Guard are powerful and can be built at cities but you won't get them until later in the game. Your horse archers can make for a good starting unit which you can use to wear out enemy armies but your best unit will be your generals. I have seem LegendofTotalWar defeat an armies ten times his size with just a general and maybe a few units. Use your general to hit enemy units from behind or from the sides. Get them to rout and run them down. Once you get a good charge with your spears pull them back and charge again. This is very devastating on the enemy moral and also wipes out lot's of them. Once you get really good at fighting the AI they will be so easy you won't need to worry about alliances or diplomacy.

    The Mongols and Timurids start out strong. I have seen the Mongols gather 24 army stacks before finding a home land and with their powerful armies this can be a serious problem. You can defeat them in your cities or in bridge battles where they are weaker or go on youtube and watch LegendofTotalWar's recent Venice campaign where he blocks them with forts and picks off their armies one by one. He actually controlled pretty much the entire map when the Mongols invaded. The Mongols and Timurids have great cavalry and elephants so if you can afford it try to take powerful cavalry into battle. Once you wear down their initial starting armies they become just another easy faction to defeat.

    Jihad's won't be much of a problem if you weaken the turks early on and crusades won't be an issue unless the pope really hates you but even then just have a good army in Constantinople or use forts to block them and you should be fine. Once you have a good income you will do just fine in the game untill the black plague comes. When that happens you will go broke so have enough money saved up to get you through the plague. A good navy is important but naval ships are expensive so don't get a lot of them early on if you can't afford them. Merchants can be ok because of the silk you have near Constantinople but be careful as the AI will usually send Merchants to also claim these trade resources. Priests are a must to keep people happy and fight Heretics and spies and watch towers are good to see where the other AI faction's armies are. The last thing I will say is you don't get any gun units besides cannons so keep that in mind and the game is much better with Jack Lusted's AI mod. The AI will keep alliances, build full stack armies and even defend areas with forts and have better units. In battle they will have cavalry on the flanks and play a bit smarter.

    I hope that helps you out.

  14. #14

    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Watchtowers and Forts can be built by your generals if you did not know. Forts are great for blocking the enemy and you only need a single unit inside. If they attack it then you have another turn to prepare for them or you can counter attack them and this prevents them from moving to far. Watch towers are like spies but they can't be moved once built.

    In your settlement tab you can view resources and trade, public order and even open up a building's window to see every building you can build so you can plan out your future economy. The buildings window also tells you what buildings produce what units. Click on a city or castle to bring up the build window and go down to the bottom to see the option for this. You can also change your capital to increase trade if needed and the general's have their build option at the bottom as well.

  15. #15
    Samittaja's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Quote Originally Posted by Socrates1984 View Post
    This is very good advice indeed. I generally agree with everything, and I would rep but I can't for today.
    Thanks!

  16. #16
    marcp's Avatar Libertus
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    Default Re: Byzantine screwed by Hungary

    Quote Originally Posted by s1111233 View Post
    Sanguochi is a strategy game made by Japanese company KOEI, it's a story about China in A.D. 180~225, AKA "Romance of three kingdoms".

    I'm from Taiwan, people here tend to play Sanguochi rather than Total War.
    I missed a piece of this post upon first reading. "Romance of Three Kingdoms" It struck me that I was familiar with the title and recalled having the game for my Nintendo NES in late 80's or very early 90s. I humbly admit that I wasn't patient enough to get into it much as a 13 year old but I will now have to check out one of the latter pc editions of the game.

    Off topic as well I recalled having tried to study up on the original three kingdoms chronicles many years ago but it read like stereo instructions to me! Basically a very dry text but I was lead to believe it was more historically reliable than many a western text from that period, or rather later perhaps. I will have to revisit this as well.

    Great info in this thread from all. If I wasn't knee deep in a bloody Reconquista I would start a Byz campaign immediately!

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