Need advice with Byzantines

[Engrish]

First off, I am playing on SS 4.1, but the basic premise is the same.

So I started my Byzantine campaign and I'm about a 120 years into it and its the most fun I've ever had in any campaign. I have all of Anatolia and a little bit of the Eastern med but I stopped my expansion in that direction for fear of tangling with the Mongols.

On the other side of my Empire however, I am exploding Westward but I was shocked at how difficult it is to pin down Catholic cities. I am currently at Abysmal relations with EVERY faction except for the two Russian factions, which are Outstanding.

Basically my strategy for conquest of the Catholic nations is to first send a wave of priests ahead of my armies to convert the population to a respectable level, and then conquer. The first few cities worked very well, until the priests start picking up all sorts of unorthodox traits and start turning into high level heretics, which run around my lands with impunity causing all sorts of rebellion. (Rome under the Papal States is currently more heretic than Catholic)

Currently my massive armies of Byz cav, van-guards, guard pikes, and the like are stalemated as garrison units on the front lines which is costing me a fortune and completely halting my expansion. I went from raking in 20K+ per turn to barely breaking even.

Oh and before somebody suggests exterminating/sacking of cities, I'm currently at a Trustworthy rating which I am desperately trying to hold on to. Sure, it is difficult but much more rewarding.

So, how do you guys place the Roman cousins?

[duda]

First off, I am playing on SS 4.1, but the basic premise is the same.

So I started my Byzantine campaign and I'm about a 120 years into it and its the most fun I've ever had in any campaign. I have all of Anatolia and a little bit of the Eastern med but I stopped my expansion in that direction for fear of tangling with the Mongols.

On the other side of my Empire however, I am exploding Westward but I was shocked at how difficult it is to pin down Catholic cities. I am currently at Abysmal relations with EVERY faction except for the two Russian factions, which are Outstanding.

Basically my strategy for conquest of the Catholic nations is to first send a wave of priests ahead of my armies to convert the population to a respectable level, and then conquer. The first few cities worked very well, until the priests start picking up all sorts of unorthodox traits and start turning into high level heretics, which run around my lands with impunity causing all sorts of rebellion.

Currently my massive armies of Byz cav, van-guards, guard pikes, and the like are stalemated as garrison units on the front lines which is costing me a fortune and completely halting my expansion. I went from raking in 20K+ per turn to barely breaking even.

Oh and before somebody suggests exterminating/sacking of cities, I'm currently at a Trustworthy rating which I am desperately trying to hold on to. Sure, it is difficult but much more rewarding.

So, how do you guys place the Roman cousins?

Trustworthy with BYZANTINES...You release Catholics? Dude, they hate you even when you don't...Whatever you do, everyone hates you except russians...SO! Heed my Byzantine motto...
Conversion is for muslims, extermination for catholics...
There's just way too many catholic factions and provinces to convert them all...

[Engrish]

Trustworthy with BYZANTINES...You release Catholics? Dude, they hate you even when you don't...Whatever you do, everyone hates you except russians...SO! Heed my Byzantine motto...
Conversion is for muslims, extermination for catholics...
There's just way too many catholic factions and provinces to convert them all...

Really? I have always been a chivalrous kind of player who never exterminates and only occasionally sacks for money. I guess I'm just too used to playing as the Catholics where I never really have to worry about religious problems until your empire is huge enough to support large garrisons, and you have cardinals which don't go heretic on you.

Speaking of heretics, do Orthodox Bishops go heretic or are they immune?

[duda]

Really? I have always been a chivalrous kind of player who never exterminates and only occasionally sacks for money. I guess I'm just too used to playing as the Catholics where I never really have to worry about religious problems until your empire is huge enough to support large garrisons, and you have cardinals which don't go heretic on you.

Speaking of heretics, do Orthodox Bishops go heretic or are they immune?

Bishops? Yes, but the chances are ridiculously low...I once send DOMINGO PEDRO with the spanish, full piety...He turned heretic after killing like, 15 in the south of France...IT WAS ONE BADASS HERETIC HE FOUGHT...But heretics fight dirty and DOMINGO didn't have the holy hand grenade, soooo...
You see, I release everyone when playing with catholics...And with muslims...But somehow, no one likes the orthodox in the game...Lame...

[Viking Prince]

Playing a few short campaigns with Russia with the Retrofit Mod, I found the priest wave seemed to annoy the Polish and Hungarian factions. (I know, Russians automaticly find the Polish annoyed and annoying.) I suppose building up a military also contributes. I agree, it seems relations worsen more quickly than with the catholic factions --maybe because you tend to be surrounded by other faiths.

[RollingWave]

If your stuck like that, you have to try and look over your entire empire's unit list and try to find guys you don't need and disband them. try to slow down and disband a bit to get back into the positive money zone.

I thought that sacking cities weren't particularly bad for the respect level, its back stabbing allies that really kills it.

[Engrish]

Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I didn't really "backstab" but my opening move was to ally indiscriminately which cost me big reputation points when they started declaring war on one another and I was forced to cancel alliances.

[RollingWave]

Yeah, I learned that the hard way. I didn't really "backstab" but my opening move was to ally indiscriminately which cost me big reputation points when they started declaring war on one another and I was forced to cancel alliances.

i thought canceling alliance isn't exactly that much of a penalty (relative to attacking an ally anyway) but yeah if you cancel a lot your in deep trouble.

by your stage though, it hardly matters as your going to be fighting with almost everyone near you anyway.

[Engrish]

Here is my Empire anyway. Not the greatest, but taking the advice here I have managed to get it back into a period of prosperity.

[Engrish]

Canceling alliances due to allies declaring war indeed does count against you. Several times I dropped a reputation level because of it.

Oh, I was pleasantly surprised with the Byzantine's ability to grow cities so quickly. I currently have more than 12 Huge cities under my command, several of which are around or over 50,000 people, and having a highway network is awesome beyond words when moving armies around. It's like playing the Romans from RTW but being ported to MTW.

Yep, definitely found a new favorite faction.

[RollingWave]

you've already reestablish the height of the Byzantium, now all you need to do is reestablish the entire Roman empire

since you already killed the pope I'm pretty sure no catholics will make nice with ya now might as well make peace with the muslims and got ahead and reinstall the Orthodox as the only Christian faith again

[Kallum]

If you want to be rich and you want to be rich quickly go to egypt take Alexandria and Cairo, upgrade their farms to max lvl and you have yourself some real money makers saved my but when I had to much front wars, to much soldiers and to few cities to gain money, Egypt is a real money maker also dont forget in huge cities you can get up to 6 militia battalions under free upkeep militias suck I know but 6 battalions spearmilitia can replace 6 battalions varangians who you can use to expand

[venice rocks 101]

I do play as the byzantines every once in a while i always eliminaie them as well but the are a very fragile empire to get your money back up use the money cheat every once in a while it won't hurt- add_money 40000 AddMoney must do it that way or it won't work then build up your armies while getting those no good heritics out of your empire. And your right i wouldn't mess with the mongoles either but trust me the attack in russia's territory the farthest the go is in the turks region if you haven't eliminated them yet. Even if you attack the ... which is foolish they won't bother with you also get an alliance with the papal sates he might excomunicate a catholic empire for attacking you( cause he can't do anything to you)

[Mithrane]

Here is my personal take on how to rule my Byzantine empire...

Fighting Muslims? Aim for Chivalry.

Fighting Catholics? Aim for Dread.

Fighting Russia? Which do you need?


I try to keep at least 3-4 generals with very high Chivalry and 3+ with very high dread. Byzantium does very very well with the growth bonus which you gain from Chivalry. They also make great use of roaming horse archer / cavalry armies, which do VERY well with high dread.

When fighting the Muslims, I try to only use generals with medium-high Chivalry, and always release and occupy so as to cultivate a high-chivalry general. Once they get 5+ chivalry, I plant them in a whatever town best meets their other good/bad traits, and use them to grow my economy.

When fighting Catholics, I murder EVERYONE. I typically have 2-3 near fully mounted armies roaming around my western borders. I want those generals to have 6+ dread, mimimum. Dread does very well for hacking away at enemy morale.

I work very hard at pruning bad traits from my generals, and will gladly kill off a member of my own family tree to either remove a bad apple or set up the next ruler of my nation. I will often fight with no general if I think I can get a strategic victory so as to get a new general. I've been known to leave out stacks of junk units to turn rebel so I can farm them for traits.

When I play Byzantines, I leave the Italian lands for the last. I rush to conqure as much of Greece as possible, then, if Hungary is busy, I go for the Black Sea. I usually have enough forces to go for Turkey at the same time. I go from both Antioch-region and Constantinoble while my king typically sails through the Black Sea and down from the Russian Steppes into the Turkish mountains.

From there, I finish off Turkey, consolidate what I have in the west and north, and push to take out Egypt. By then, Sofia typically has a very strong and experienced army, and the Middle East is making me tons of money. So, depending on alliances and such, I either head north into Russia and, Hungary, and Poland, or west into the Italians. I usually only go into the Italians if they are fighting hard with France and HRE as their crossbows are murder to Byz's early infantry and horse archers.

At all costs, I do NOT anger the Pope until I am certain I will have only 1 front and have the strongest empire. And never never never go to war with the Pope near the Mongol invasion. I play with the year setting to 1 or 1.5 per turn instead of the standard 2 because I got tired of everyone dying off so quick. This means the Mongols typically take longer to show up, and I am more prepared. Still, they can cause some major problems.

[Viking Prince]

Mithrane:

I understand your wish to balance dread and chivalry among your generals (not my style however).

But why murder all the catholics and release all of the moslems? I can guess it is simply because of where your genrals are located for battle, but is there something else?

[Mithrane]

Mithrane:

I understand your wish to balance dread and chivalry among your generals (not my style however).

But why murder all the catholics and release all of the moslems? I can guess it is simply because of where your genrals are located for battle, but is there something else?

The location is one reason, the type of army I use in the region is another. In the mountains of the Turkish lands, one needs a good helping of infantry. Also, because the Egyptians use camels, which scare horses, I need to raise morale wherever possible. Chivalry is great for helping your troops hold lines and raises morale on the field for your troops.

In the west, going into the Hungary/Poland area, I use a lot more cavalry. Same with the north and Russia. You can get rather far before you hit woods and mountains, which force you to use more infantry in your armies. So, since these armies are cavalry based, and because cavalry do great with dread, this is where I "grow" dreaded generals. Dread is great for breaking enemy morale, which is already weakened by being harassed by horse archers and then typically broken to near routing with a charge. Once a single unit breaks with a dreaded general, it is usually easy to get the whole lot to break and run, letting you mow them down with your cavalry, thus gaining more to execute, and thus gaining more dread.

Also, the catholics are going to hate you, eventually. Because the Byzantines take a while to get into the really good infantry, but start with magnificent horse archers, and because the east / north is easier to take with cavalry than the mid-west, I always start by killing off the Turks and the Egyptians. Holding Cairo, Constantinoble, Antioch, and Jerusalem means you will have crusades called on you. The catholics will all start to hate you, regardless of diplomatic relations.

So, with waves upon waves of infantry being thrown at you, by this time your horse archer armies have turned into harassment armies. You keep them on their toes, and make sure any armies they send near you are a massive investment in money, time, and men. When they were small armies, your dread broke them easily. Now that they are hunge, and come with archers/cross-bows out the yin-yang, and now that you have access to the high-end Byzantine infantry, which is very very strong, you can field huge invasion forces to push through the incoming western powers and straight on to their cities.

Once you have the city ready to be taken, bring in your dreaded general and invade the place. If you take a city, feel free to sack or exterminate. You should have enough money coming from the east by now that it won't hurt too bad. If you take a castle, use a chivlarous general as it will take a lot of hard infantry fighting to push through a good end game castle. You can then sack if you need money, or occupy, which will raise chivalry.

When you take a castle, leave your chivalrous army of infantry there for a few turns to retrain and await fresh troops from the rear while your horse archer army returns to harassment duty, scouting out and setting up your next attack. Make your way towards Rome.

Have 1 defensive army in the Cairo area, another offensive mixed army with about 1.5/1 cavalry/infantry heading to take out the moors. Have about 2.5 armies worth of evenly mixed troops spread out through the middle east, with the cavlary on roaming duty and the infantry holding tight. Have an all infantry and artillary army in Sofia. Use this as your base for infantry. It is a very mountanous castle, so defending it and its lands is not so good for cavlary. Have 2-4 cavalry based armies spread throughout the Russian lands within reach of eachother so you can counter any large threats. Try to just hold the line along the Polish region, if you can. Not worth the hassle to push into the Danes.

This should leave 2 solid infantry armies on your front with Italy / HRE each with 2-4 artillary (I suggest 2 balista, 1 trebuchet, and 1 mangonel). This should leave 1 VERY strong completely cavalry based army with your most dreaded general (typically your king) and a second cavalry based army with a small archer/infantry selection in it to push around the enemy lines. Use the very dreaded cavalry general as your main attack force for non-sieges and non-mountains. When their troops need replacing, send in good ones from your secondary cavalry force, and send that one back on defense for a few turns while the cavlary gets retrained.

If all goes well, you should take out all of africa about the same time you take out all of Russia and be prepared to take on Italy by now. If you've gone fast, you might even beat the Mongols. If not, use this time to shore up those lines, and see to your homelands. These will be your dark ages. But, you should have the production and lines to keep the Catholics (notice they are all that is left) from breaking you while you pour every dime into beating the snott out of the Mongols.

Once the Mongols are gone, you should now have some VERY experienced generals and some highly experienced troops. These will be your elite squads. Send them to get repaired, re-armed, and refreshed. Gather them up and send in everything you have to take the Italian Pen. Once you do that, you should be at or near your goal, and voila, a win!

It should be noted that by an army, I mean a full stack of units. It should also be noted that, most likely, you will be at war with Venice relatively early on, and Sicily mid-way through. Take the islands, keep a strong navy, do NOT let them get a navy going. The Mediteranian is your weakness. Make sure you keep it safe.

It should also be noted that this strategy expects you to keep milita troops in towns, and anything mentioned is to be kept in castles or strategic locations and is in addition to town-based militias.

[sirfiggin]

Only exterminate a city that rebels. Conquer the East, Egypt can be broken after the first few successful battles, just keep pushing into the nile and DON'T give them a chance to breathe, keep on going until all the East is yours. Maintain an emergency garrison and build towers on the walls of your major cities, just in case the mongols come, use the kwarezm as a buffer if they are still alive. Then, push westwards, into Sicily, north africa and Ragusa. The Sicilians and Venice will be your worst enemies, in 6.0 they've put up a fight for most of the 125 turns I've played...until the CTD... anyways, If another faction takes Rome, you can capture it and sell it to the Pope for a tidy sum, if cash is low.

[Mithrane]

One more thing I forgot to mention is about cities. The Byzantine's greatest strength is their economy. Or, rather, their potential economy. To make best use of it, they must get it to grow. The Byzantines benefit most from farms as they start with large cities and can take large ones, all of which can get Ikonic Art etc to increase growth, which increases taxes.

This is why I try to have chivalrous generals hanging back. Chivalry generates .5% growth per point, in addition to helping order/happiness. I once had a king with full chivalry and maxed out farming traits. Put him in a small town and watched the place explode.

[Viking Prince]

Mithrane: Thanks!

I have a suspended Russian campaign because of some problems on how to approach expansion. I will carefully reread and see how to apply. Maybe I will then be able to proceed with Russia.

[Mithrane]

Russia is a land which teaches you to scout and use troops wisely. They are a very similar army to you, early on, in that they are very cavalry heavy, specifically horse archer. In other words, you're fighting yourself. This is where you learn to counter your own troops, find their weaknesses, strengths, and make judicious use of scouting parties/spies to know exactly where to hit and with what.

Easiest way to beat the Russians is to simply outnumber them. Your economy is better than theirs, and their lands are great for all cavalry armies. Use the cavalry armies to beat back their armies, and 1-2 armies with infantry/artillery to take out cities. Key to them is to push fast and hard. If they get time, their tech will beat yours, and your numbers will count for not.

Oh, and don't forget that you will NEED to fill the entire Russian lands with watch towers. It is a good idea for any country to have watchtowers everywhere so they see everything, but Russia is prone to having people sneak about and your towns are spread too far apart for a quick rescue army to show up.