My Byzantine Strategy

[Juggernaut90]

The year in my game right now is like 1250 maybe 1300 And I have Conquered Hungary and Venice after both turned and aligned themselves against me. My income is always outpacing my expentiture I think I got like 30 40 k. Defeating Venice was pretty easy for some reason (they usually are a pain in the @$$) although I had to abandon Venice (Milan Turned on me), but I stopped them at Zagreb, the Hungarians I got impatient with, so I used the old Sherman strategy of total war I took a noble and entire merc army and sacked all of his towns, tore down every building and he ran out of money pretty quick while I gained about 50k from sacking towns, then I ran my main army thru to victory. Never tried it but its a great strategy a bit dirty but great. The Turks are funny first they begin to attack Nicaea (Which I converted to a Citadel) but I brought troops over and broke the siege, then they ask for peace so I say after I just took Iconium I get Adana and Caesara from them, now i'm bullying them for Trebizond and Edessa. god thing too is that the Mongols went North. Only problem is that I dnt have a lot of Nobles a bunch of young tho.

Any other Strategies??

[Prince Constantius]

Use captains against larger 'rebel' armies and achieve 'clear' or 'heroic' victory.
If you get lucky a couple of them may get the man of the hour trait, and be inducted into your famliy as Nobles.

[saggsett]

Why is this in Kingdoms Battle Plans and Strategies ?

[NobleNick]

Why is this in Kingdoms Battle Plans and Strategies ?

It is easy to get the wrong forum, when Kingdoms Battle planning and M2TW battle planning are both sub forums in M2TW. But, you make a good point, saggsett, so...

Moved to M2TW Battle Planning.

Welcome to the TWC forums, Juggernaut90 !

I am in a Byz campaign right now, but a few turns behind you (about 35 turns into the game), and not enough of a difference in strategy to give you much counsel. I am pouncing on the Italian penninsula. Need to get more aggressive on the Turks.

[Antlion]

I've tried every way of expanding, they all seem to end the same way, Constantinople gets mauled by either crusades or a jihad.

i actually sailed down to Alexandria and Cairo and went up the coast of the holy lands to connect my empire at adana, since egypt usually takes my islands anyways, figured i go hit them first before that happens. And i just defended the other side of my empire until hungary got invaded by venice. Ofc i stopped here cause i had 4 stacks of crusaders right at Constantinople with the mongols invading the turks. I still need to go finish that one, see how it all turns out.

[Xamt]

what i always do with the Byzantines is eliminate the threat the turks pose as fast as i can, so i try to get sofia (to stop any western attacks) and dont bother with durazzo since venice seems to be eager on taking it

also i try to get an alliance going with either venice or hungary (or both) early on when they are eager to give it

then i turn and focus on the turks, but i dont eliminate them... ill capture iconium and caesaria and keep trebizond, then turn south into the holy land. i also avoid capturing jerusalem at all costs, but i like having antioch and aleppo

i keep the turks alive (or rather dont finish them off) to have a nice buffer for when the mongols come and i also try to get some sort of peace going with them once i get all i want

after i've secured my eastern borders usually one of the western powers has already declared war on me so i'm happy with moving the theater of operations there and just keeping enough troops in the east to feel safe from threats (usually a full stack of vardariotai does the trick)

i dont keep a navy of sorts early on (maybe 1 ship to transport troops left and right) but depending on what my enemies do (mainly cicilians and egyptians) i might consider building up one sooner rather than later, but im not overly concerned with it since i have 5 cities/castles in the aegean sea (constantinople, nicea, smyrna, corinth and thessalonika) which means i can get 10 ships at least in a single turn if i decide i need them desperately

when it comes to castles over towns i dont go heavy on castles and only keep them around as blocking spots for enemy invations. i will always convert corinth, cyprus, smyrna and trebizond into towns (corinth, cyprus and smyrna asap, trebizond a bit later depending on how the war with the turks goes). i also convert sofia into a town once i capture bran from hungary. i always keep caesaria and aleppo as forts and make do in the early stages of the game with mercenaries

i find having more towns very beneficial (as a rule of the thumb i always convert coastal settlements into towns, even acre) since it gives me the money to upgrade economy and military quickly, pump out elite units non stop and use mercenaries to fill any gaps/weaknesses that i occationaly face

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

uhhhmmm...i wonder what army composition you(actually, everyone) have?
I just wanted to go heavy infantry(like on RTW)but i didn't get that far on my
byzantine campaigns so......

[Walternat0r]

For my Byz campaign i'm currently doing (Ss6.1 m/h, turns 1yr/turn) I built a ring of castles around my "home states" - Sofia, Scopia, Durazzo, Arta, Corinth, Rhodes, Isparta and converted all the other settlements on the Aegean sea into towns so I have a good economy well protected here. Right from the off I allied with the Turks and got military access and I have a diplomat sat in their Sultans lap throwing him monies every turn or so, this way have kept relations at good or higher and no jihad on me yet. I allied myself with Egypt as well as they are prone to jihad'ing aswell, made sure gave them a lengthy tribute of 300 a turn. I have the Black sea almost in my complete possession, with Sinop, Trebizond, Kutaisi, Caffa, Bucharest and am planning to buy Iasi off of Hungary (another staunch ally). Venice attacked my garrison at Belgrade so i've wiped them off the map, I have Ragusa, Zagreb (gifted to Hungary), Venice, Milan, Bern and have recently started on the Sicilians, taking Ancona Bari Naples and Syracuse. I've kept people on my borders as firm allies (Turks, Kievan Rus, Egypt, Hungary and HRE) and have an immaculate reputation (I only have 2 brothel/inn type buildings) so spying is reduced to a couple of mobile watch towers.

My army comp is at the moment is my King with about 12 byz spearmen and some trebizond archers and my prince roaming ahead with 12-20 HA's crushing everything that gets in its way Both king and prince are very high command, chivalry, authority/loyalty and piety with the HA's generally of silver chevron or better status. In the last turn or so the Kievan Rus asked me 4 assistance against the Cumans so have sent a pretty rubbish army (spear milit, few skythikon and peasent archers) with an old and dying family member to help out. Hoping to take some territories then maybe sell them to the 'Rus or Turks, or see if I can take most of Russia, we'll see. Future plans are wiping Sicily off the map, then taking Ajaccio/Cagliari and Rome, perhaps giving his Holiness some pants little african town. From there I think i'ma expand into France/Iberia depending on how things go. Am hoping to keep immaculate rep for the entire game, but as my empire gets bigger it might get a bit messy

[Xamt]

uhhhmmm...i wonder what army composition you(actually, everyone) have?
I just wanted to go heavy infantry(like on RTW)but i didn't get that far on my
byzantine campaigns so......

early on i opt for 1 or 2 stacks of "elite" armies that only feature horse archers
i try to fill their slots as fast as i can (depending on economy) with vardariotai

these armies i use for everything except sieges... i.e. the clear the way for my "sieging" armies, relief towns under siege (if i dont think i can win the assault) or besiege towns/castles with a full garrison in them... they need a lot of microing in the battle to be as effective as they can but it pays off since you can defeat multiple and vastly superior (in numbers) foes

the next type of armies i have is "sieging"... these armies arent kept around, and are rather formed from towns/castles near my target in 1-2 turns max and their job is to capture settlements... they are mainly militias, with a couple of cavalry units and a few castle units (mainly spearmen and the occational non-peasant archer) and rely in the strength of numbers in order to capture settlements (either lightly defended or whose garrison has been starved by my elite armies)

in the later stages of the game when i have access to my more elite units (varangian, byzantine guard archers, greek flamethrowers, archontopoulae) i will keep around a few "foot" armies, charged with defending mountain passes and bridges, while i up the number of HA armies i keep around

the "foot" armies composition varies depending on the front (middle east or europe) but generally it has:
1 General (family member), 1-2 catapults, 2-3 flamethrowers, 3-4 spearmen, 3-4 archers, 3-4 varangians/alamanoi and the rest archontopoulae

i dont keep horse archers in these armies since they dont fit with their defensive purpose

edit: kingdoms byzantines are way better than the original mtw2 ones so i would suggest you get kingdoms and retrofit mod if you dont like using other mods to access the new units (mangonel, flamethrowers, alamanoi etc)

[Musthavename]

I always go for one of two strategies. Either ally with the Hungarians / Venetians and attack the Turks before moving onto Eygpt, or do the opposite. Both Italy and the Levant are rich enough lands and both set you up well in the long term.

[Marcus Septim IV]

i play ss6.1 my strategy is destroy byzantine as fast as possible take their rich capital and move on

[Saturn]

My strategy as Sicily is to send over about 3 stacks of Norman knights mounted and distmounted with silver chevron Italian Miltia with maxed armor via navy and go straight for Constantinople.

[Spamostoc]

Just go looting cities with the second best general you have. Sack, then demolish every building. If you happen to get Crusade or Jihad, just remember that the target is just one city. When you get one called on you ask:

1) Is the city economically important?
2) If it's a castle, is it one of my 3 largest/most developed?
3) Are there settlements nearby that can arm the target settlement?

If you answered #1 with yes, then defend that settlement and keep it un-sieged as much as possible. Cash = more armies.

If you answered #2 with yes, clear the area then fill the garrison with a 2 - stack army and a medium (4-ish star) general and let them handle it.

If you can answer #3 with yes, then use the crusade target as a decoy to distract your enemies and blitz their cities in the meantime. It's also a good way to train generals.

Note: situations take priority numerically

[The Sixth Wizard]

In a Byzantine campaign I did once I just avoided the enemy armies in Venice, Hungary and charged down Sicily. Then I went on a pillage and destroy campaign in which enemy regions were destroyed utterly and left to revolt. This continued into Russia and Poland. Basically the entirety of Eastern Europe was grey and full of stacks left over from the factions I had destroyed in this way. My elite generals were basically paying for themselves. I ended up getting the 15 regions by holding on to a few key castles like Ragusa and Palermo and storming the Turks with my (by now) huge mercenary army which had burned down half of Europe. Too easy.

[Shadowkeith]

I Have Most Of The Eastern Side Of The World Under My Control

[crzyrndm]

almost 3 years

[13lackGu4rd]

all hail thread necromancy!

[The Glorious Moldovan]

This:

all hail thread necromancy!

[ProjectCaddyGuy]

I'm doing a (H/H) Crusades run through with Byzantine right now, and I'll admit, I just found the Greek Firethrowers sweet spot in usage. Siege defense actually. I learned this during the Venetian "Crusade" on Constantinople. I had a full stack in the city, 2 Firethrowers, King, 7 Archer Militia, and the rest a mix of spear militia, Pronoia Heavy Infantry, 2 Alamoin, and a few of the Varangian Guard. The 3 stacks against me, 2 had a Catapult and a Trebuchet in their mix, so I was worried. (Especially since my supporting army didn't show up to reinforce, so 3 armies of 800 vs 1 of 1100. Well, I focused my archers and main army at the door to the 1st siege army, which had battering rams and towers alongside a cat and treb, figuring that was the weakest point. Army 2 was punching through the wall with their cat and treb, So I posted a muscle force, of 2 spears, with a Pronoi and Alamoin, With my Firethrower off to the side of the upcoming hole. \_ } (Straight lines are spears with heavy hitters behind, the } is the Firethrower.) Army 3 had a pair of Ballista, so I figured I had a lot of time before THOSE got through. Army 1 was my main concern, so I fought with them, charging my King out to crush the cat and treb, posting heavy infantry where the towers came up, and overall had a messy, bloody battle there, but wasn't in any severe danger. A battering ram made it through the door, and when troops began entering there, I established a slightly depleted version of the \_ } setup, having already been fighting hand to hand via the towers. When peeking over at army 2's Western penetration, I saw carnage happening, and my firethrowers going from green to chevroning up very fast (2 or 3 SILVER by the end of the battle). A view showed them frying soldiers charging at my spears. Army 2 inflicted 11 casualties, and lost 647 men.... My firethrower did most of that. I took the heavy infantry off army 2's hole, and used them to support my main group which finished off army 1, and then ran to meet army 3 about to enter on the east. I reset the \_ } there, only to find part of 3 sprinting around to the open doors where 1 attacked. Since my main force was too drained to hold both doors, they pulled back to the center, and turtled there. Army 2 finished fleeing, so I brought my elite firethrower pack to the center, and had them close one side, and my main force did the same on 2 other sides. The AI from army 3 did actually swarm in 3 sides, but they got shredded too. Overall, my 1100 men dropped to 640, and the enemy left with 230 total between the 3 armies... Now my supporting army which didnt reinforce for some reason is on cleanup duty while I retrain/refit my garrison. Only lost 1 unit overall, one firethrower who got isolated and mowed down by cavalry.