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Thread: Byzantine campaign help

  1. #1
    Reaper_of_Souls's Avatar Foederatus
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    Icon5 Byzantine campaign help

    Can anyone willing to share their tactics and strategies on playing as the Byzantines on both very hard campaign and battle difficulty? I know you have to deal the Hungarians to the north, Venice to the west and the Turks to the East. When I played the Byzantines recently, I only upgrade my economy buildings like ports, wharves, roads etc. I don't upgrade farms as (I think) it would also increase the growth population. My strategy map plan is to quickly blitz the Turks out and capitulate more rebel settlements to the north but then Durazzo is a contested ground with the Venetians coming using their navy. As for the Aegean Sea, I combined my Nicosia and Nicaea fleet to deal with the pirates.

  2. #2
    UndrState's Avatar Centenarius
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    Default Re: Byzantine campaign help

    Quote Originally Posted by Reaper_of_Souls View Post
    ... I don't upgrade farms as (I think) it would also increase the growth population...
    Hi Reaper - I can't give you much advice on this campaign , as I don't know it very well , but I just wanted to respond to this portion . Yes, upgrading farms increases your population growth . And you shouldn't necessarily avoid that . The big problem with strong population growth happens when a settlement becomes "ready to upgrade" - when it's ready like this , Squalor builds up quickly . So , if you are not able to pay for the upgrade right away , chances are you will have growth and Unrest problems , due to Squalor , down the line . [ the only way to remove Squalor in M2TW is via Extermination , which means of course you have to push your city to rebel , and then put it down ] .
    On the other hand , upgrading your Farms increases income in 2 ways ; the obvious being bigger harvests , but the 2nd being that a larger population base means a larger tax base .
    I , for one , focus on building farms first ( unless I need basic roads ) for this reason . As long as you watch the population level and make certain you have spare cash for upgrades , you'll benefit .

  3. #3

    Default Re: Byzantine campaign help

    I just played a Byzantine campaign on VH/VH. Being aggressive early on is important.

    My turn 1 moves:
    Emperor goes to capture Sofia, you don't want the Hungarians to have a castle bordering your capital.
    Prince John heads for Smyrna after that he takes Rhodes and heads for Antioch/Adana/Aleppo by boat. His army is not that strong and needs some more troops from Constantinople or Corinth before heading east
    The general in Nicaea I send to Trebizond by boat, after that he also takes Tbilisi if it's still rebel (if the Turks have it I may wait until I am ready to strike Iconium at the same time).
    The general in Thessalonica I sent to Durazzo. I kept a half stack garrison in there because the Venetians and/or Sicilians love to attack here. It barely held when I was attacked.
    Sent the princess to talk to Hungary, Poland and Russia. Made Alliance with Russia. She was headed for Denmark but then a good candicate came along so I married her to get a good chivalrous general for growing castles. Hired a diplomat to head for Italy.

    In undeveloped cities I build farms before ports because amount of trade depends on population size. You want to grow every settlement asap which is also why I prefer occupying over sacking in the early game (especially small rebel settlements are bad to sack). There are some exceptions, I did sack Antioch since it grows quickly. Jerusalem too.

    I made an alliance with Venice but they betrayed me pretty quickly by besieging Durazzo. The siege failed and by turn 30 I had taken Venice out. Less then 5 turns after I took Venice Milan came to besiege me there. HRE also joined in at Zagreb (which I had taken from Venice) and Hungary attacked me at Sofia. But I had plenty of money and troops to hold on and even took out Hungary around turn 50. Taking out HRE and Italy was easy after that.

    In the east I took Trebizond, Tbilisi, Antioch, Adana, Aleppo, Acre, Damascus and Edessa in that order from the rebels. I was too late to get Jerusalem before Egypt, however a crusade was called on it, Sicily captured it. Then it rebelled a few turns after and I was able to capture it. The Turks were a non-factor in this game. They never expanded and after I was done with the rebels I struck Iconium and Yerevan in the same turn, mopped up their armies and their 2 remaining castles. Rebel Baghdad then also fell to me. After that I prepared to take out Egypt which I did around turn 60.

    My typical army composition was 1 general, 1 melee cav, 4 horse archer, 6 archer, 4 spear inf, 4 sword inf. For fighting Mongols I recommend 1 general 3 melee cav 4 horse archer 8 archer 4 spear.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Byzantine campaign help

    Oh and get between 5-10 priests to move with your conquering armies. That many priests will convert the population fast enough to avoid having huge garrisons for public order. Keep them in the same region as much as possible, they will gain positive traits more easily that way.

  5. #5
    Virian's Avatar Civis
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    Default Re: Byzantine campaign help

    As the above poster said, early aggression is important but you can keep the venitians busy while you focus on the turks as they are your main enemy. If you start taking out catholic factions all the others(including allies) will start disliking you more and more so you need to focus on the muslims first. Once you control The entire peninsula you can finish venice off. However as the romans your greatest asset is not the quality of your armies (especially late game) but your money, diplomacy and numbers. Once you hit what many call critical mass you should be able to defend yourself from the catholics.

    In one of my campaigns I conquered the egyptans and the seljuuk ASAP while I let the venitians annoy me in the west and lose money. Once I consolidated myself in the east I took the built up troops in the west to resist their advances and I immediately conquered Venice.

    The problem with the romans is that they are constantly in a race against time as they lack gunpowder and in vanilla they can't train the siphonatores so they get left behind by their enemies so in roder to win you need numbers which you can only get in the early game.

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