Can someone tell me how to win with the byzantines??

[Timur_the_Lame]

tell me plz

[PeteSKTemplar]

Vanilla Byzantines are weak bcs of weak spearmen and tough almost exclusively cavalry factions surrounds them. The best solution is to use mod where they have better units (right now SS 6.1 is fine for me).

[eggthief]

they arent weak, they got strong archers and HA's, their infantry is decent and their cavalry is slightly inferior to other cavalry.

[Timur_the_Lame]

so how do u win on vanilla

[PeteSKTemplar]

"Russian metod" - "Quantity has its quality". (J.V. Stalin)

[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.



also.....



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.

[NobleNick]

Hi, PortugalRules.

I am currently playing a H/VH (or is it VH/VH? I keep forgetting...) Byz campaign on Vanilla 1.2 M2TW. So I have a data point to offer. I like Mithrane's post: I am sure he has more experience at both Byzantium and M2TW than I (though I also have heaps of RTW experience). Although I have gone at this a different way than he, I will quote Mithrane from time to time.

Byzantium is a wierd collection of liabilities and opportunies. It is a challenge, to be sure, and is my first M2TW game which I am not sure I will be able to win in roughly 100 turns or less. You have all those blasted crusaders crossing your lands to get to Antioch and Jerusalem; and when the crusade is over, you have full stacks of high quality Catholic units wandering your lands, itching for a fight. Your units are O.K.; but, with few exceptions, not awesome. Your cities are mostly ports, which is great for trade, but opens you up for assault at any time by anyone except the far north. Control of the Med, as Mithrane pointed out, is crucial.

My goal is to win the game early, as it solves lots of problems: I need to build very few siege weapons and have never been able to build a gunpowder unit: My games usually end before or very soon after gunpowder is 'discovered,' and well before the Mongols have a chance to be a big problem. Here is my planned order of annihilation for the Byz campaign:

1.) Venice
2.) Sicily
3.) Papal States
4.) Hungary
5.) Milan
6.) HRE
7.) Poland

In the early game, You get:
Town Militia (free upkeep)
Spear Militia (free upkeep)
Peasant Archers
Archer militia (free upkeep)
Treizond archers
Byzantine Cavalry
Vardariotai (a limited number)

As someone pointed out, "Quantity is a form of quality." The Spear Militia, which get an attack bonus of 8 against cav, and have free upkeep in cities, are serviceable, and a good buy. I make lots of them and keep them for free in the cities. Always keep your cities stuffed with the maximum number of free units which the city will allow (for free). I usually go for a mix of 1:3 of Archer Militia to Spear Militia. Try to stay away from the Town Militia, since their bonus is only 4 against cav.

Trebizond archers are very good archers at any point in the game. To have them in the early game is excellent. A force of 10 Spear Militia backed by 5 Trebizond Archers, 4 Byzantine cav, and a general, while not 'sexy,' is a reasonably priced and solid force which can be used for almost any defensive or offensive task.

...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 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...

Sounds reasonable... But I am walking to the tune of a different drummer: All of the Italian factions have Byzantium on the dinner menu; some just take longer to execute. I rush to grab all of Greece and go as far north as possible without directly attacking Hungary, then get the coastal and island rebel settlements on the Turkish penninsula. By then, Sicily and/or Venice has attacked me; so I start gobbling the offender(s) up. Meanwhile, I make a low budget, half-hearted push towards the Turks: just enough to ensure any battles with them are fought on their territory, not mine. I want Turkey as a buffer against the Mongols.

The Italian crossbows are a pain, but I have several techniques for dealing with them:
1.) Let them attack my castles/settlements. The walls give lots of protection to my defenders, negating most of the crossbow bonus. Once on the walls the crossbows are engaged in hand-to-hand with their secondary weapon, greatly diminishing their attack.
2.) In the field, use all cav forces composed of Vardariotai and Byz cav. Do not engage until the enemy has chased the horses for 40 minutes. Then gang up on individual straggler units. The exhausted soldiers are much easier to beat.
3.) For sieges, use all cav force and just wait until the opponent sallies. Split forces. Lure sallying force to far corner of map with larger "decoy" force (which incudes general, if present). Capture the empty city with smaller force, once the defeders are very far away. Sallying defenders, realizing their mistake, will run back towards the city to recapture the square. Use the larger "decoy" force to shoot/smash into the backs of the running enemy. Even if they make it back to the square in time, your kills will force a defender loss.

...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...

I love picking apart nominal mix armies with all-cav forces. I need to try this 'High Dread" trick! Thanks, Mithrane.

...At all costs, I do NOT anger the Pope until I am certain I will have only 1 front and have the strongest empire. ...Also, the catholics are going to hate you, eventually... The catholics will all start to hate you, regardless of diplomatic relations...

Screw the Pope and the catholic hordes he rode in on. Time your most montrous anti-catholic atrocities to start just AFTER the Pope calls a crusade. Wipe out Sicily. Wipe out Milan if you wish. By all means wipe out those Venetian vermin. Hey, wipe out the Papal Sates if you want: It will be about a quarter of a century before another crusade can be called, so the Pope is powerless against a non-catholic faction. By the time a new crusade can be called, there will be a new Pope, the old one having carried all the Papal wrath and rage against you to his grave.

...So, with waves upon waves of infantry being thrown at you, by this time your horse archer armies have turned into harassment armies. ... 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....pour every dime into beating the snott out of the Mongols...

I haven't gotten this far in my Byz campaign, but Byz infantry do look to be VERY capable and an excellent buy. I highly recommend: 1.) Eliminating some of those catholic factions before they can send those waves of infantry; and 2.) beating the game before the Mongols need to be dealt with.

... 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... in addition to town-based militias.

Agreed on all points.

So, to summarize:

- Take full advantage of free upkeep units.
- Use Spear Militia backed by Archer Militia / Trebizond to hold cities.
- Use Spear Militia backed by Archer Militia / Trebizond and Byz cav for early field battles.
- Use Byzantine Infantry backed byTrebizond and Byz cav for early mid-game field battles.
- Use all-cav half-stacks composed of Vardariotai / byz cav, and underhanded tactics, for excellent stopping power against most conventional armies.
-VERY IMPORTANT: Pay close attention to your economy: Build, build, BUILD your markets, ports, roads and infrastructure.

[Mithrane]

NobleNick :

Yours is the way I used to play this region in the original MTW. It is very viable for anyone who can be aggressive enough to kick the Italians out and just push to the win.

However, I've really really grown to love horse archers. And, loving them so much, I've come to absolutely fear and hate mountains. As the Byzantines, nothing scares me more than archers and crossbows on a hill in the woods. So, you can imagine that the lands of the HRE and northern Italy scare the snot out of me. That, coupled with the fact that the money in the middle east/egypt is just SO tempting, and a love for re-establishing the old Eastern Roman Empire, and I just can't help myself. I've done 3 full Byzantine campaigns in M2TW, and 4+ part-way through. Every one I end up pushing East, regardless of what I tell myself.

It's also fun to have the Mongols there as a time preasure. *grin*

That being said, I'm going to be starting up another Byz campaign soon. And, I'm very much considering making friendly with the Turks, ignoring the East except to make a defensive line, and just taking ALL of the Catholics down with me. I'm looking at you, SCOTTLAND!

[NobleNick]

NobleNick : ... Yours is the way I used to play this region in the original MTW. ....I've done 3 full Byzantine campaigns in M2TW, and 4+ part-way through. Every one I end up pushing East, regardless of what I tell myself.

It's also fun to have the Mongols there as a time preasure. *grin*

Heh, heh, heh. Never played MTW; and I am (hopefully) 40% through my current M2TW long Byz campaign. So I defer to your considerably weightier experience on this one. I am staying in southern Italy to start; but... ~smacks self on forehead~ I was not thinking of all the money to be had by holding the Middle East cities. Well, I am sort of commited to going West. Will try to remember to let you know how it pans out....

[!!!Kriegsbagel!!!]

Blitz the Turks early on. Works every time for me.

[Leutrim]

divide and conquer

[S-te-Fan]

Use many horse archers, that is what I mostly do... They are very quick and can tease your foe by killing 15% of them before the battle begins. Very usseful in my strategy .

[alhoon]

Alexious is a very good general. I rise large armies and conquer much of the rebel states in the first 5-6 turns with a couple of generals. Strike an alliance with the pope and a marriage alliance with the Hungarians so that my borders are more secure. Then I concentrate on the turks and wipe them out as fast as possible. If you personally play the battles you win most of them and you expand really fast.
Economically at first I build up Constantinople, Nicaea and Thessalonica and raise armies with whatever money is left. I sack cities for cash and ransom armies.

[Harry Lime]

Moved to Battle Planning

[tsar_adam]

what i did is i rushed the turks and, this was probaly luck, killed them within like 3 turns of declaring war (i was about ten turns into the game already and they had all there generals in the frontier cities). with the turks gone i captured all of greece. then i sent a force up to caffa and moved into the rebel territorys of russia. then with russia and greece in my hands i did a massive pincer movement on the balkans and germany.

[RollingWave]

mass horse archer, espically against the Catholics, just go for a pure HA army to kill everything moving, then bring a second army of infantry / seiege to umm... seige

[xxxMoRaVexxx]

WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD THE STAINLESS STEEL MOD? I MEAN THE LATEST THING COZ I THINK VANILLA IS BECOMING OUTDATED AND THE FEELING IS OVERWHELMING ONCE U THOUGHT THAT THE ONE UR USING IS OBSOLETE, hehe

[emperornovaroma]

You need horse archers, a lot of them. Byzantine spearment suck, but most of the time you only have them in the beginning so use as little as possible. In early use a lot of horse archers, some spearmen, some trebizond archers.
Later use lancers for anti-cav as spearmen still suck, but use especially byz cav againt cav as they are faster and can hit and run, but ocuppy their cav. Use byz infantry when you can, but dismounted lancers are best as the front line. Vang guards are good at breaking lines. Charge with van guards, then byz infantry or dismounted lancers. also use artillery if u can, makes it easier.latinkon are in late, but really good. so use them in tough battles

[RollingWave]

yeah, it's funny, but just play them like a nomadic faction or something