Byzantines - I have just about no friends right now

[htothehh]

So I'm playing SS 4.1 (no expansion, no other mods), and I started off with an alliance w/ the Turks, then got an alliance with HRE (don't know how that happened since they are always the #1 faction), and then the Russians requested my alliance. Now I'm about 30-40 turns in the game, I have conquered Greece, all the islands in the Aegean/Mediterranean, and three cities on the Western border of Persia, but now I have the Turks attacking me from the East, Templar Knights attacking my islands from the Southeast, Egyptians attacking my island South of Greece from the South, Venetians attacking me from the Northwest, and the Poles attacking me from the North/Northeast, so right now I'm fighting five armies coming from all 4 sides, and almost all of my cities are near rebellion stage and I have no idea what to do. I got all cities, and 2 castles: Corinth and Sofia. Any suggestions? I will take a screenshot later.

[Sarpedon]

I'd take up drinking.

[St Naffatun]

Take your lowest revenue producing cities and sacrifice their defence (he who defends everything defends my ars.. err nothing). Offer them as bargaining chips for a ceasefire. Pick a big fat juicy enemy city and concentrate on pushing them back to it then sacking it. Recruit mercs, like Poochie would say, to the extreme! wiggedy wiggedy

Sacrifice your island defence with a small garrison - but keep powerful navies nearby and sink approaching troop transport ships, then shout "ave it!" at the screen.

Anywhere settlement about to obviously be successfully attacked - demolish all buildings for cash.

[Quark]

htothehh
Ok, I am guessing that you rushed thinks and took to many settlemnts without consolidating.

1. Alliance with Hungry - to keep north of your back, maintain a good garrioson in Sofia, so stop any ideas forming.
2. Marriage Alliance with Sicily - helps keep Venice in check
3. Alliance with Rome, slows down catholics
4. NEVER take Durazzo, Venice and Sicily will fight over it.
5. NEVER take Irakalion (the islands called crete btw), as venice and Egypt will fight over it.
6. Always keep some Skylithion in Corinith to relief an attack on Athens by Venice.
7. Try to keep a good force in Nicosia (Crete) as the Templars will at some point decide that you are easier to kill than the Egyptians.
8. Take Adan early
9. Kill Turks to Caseara, gives yo a fortified eastern border.
10. Try for an alliance with Kiev, or at least prepare for war.
11. Control the Bosphurs with your ships.
12. Consolidate and pick your times to strike at Egypt (when busy with crusades).
13. Merchants Guild in Constantinolpe, Theologians in Nicaea, Swordsmiths in Sofia

[htothehh]

htothehh
Ok, I am guessing that you rushed thinks and took to many settlemnts without consolidating.

1. Alliance with Hungry - to keep north of your back, maintain a good garrioson in Sofia, so stop any ideas forming.
2. Marriage Alliance with Sicily - helps keep Venice in check
3. Alliance with Rome, slows down catholics
4. NEVER take Durazzo, Venice and Sicily will fight over it.
5. NEVER take Irakalion (the islands called crete btw), as venice and Egypt will fight over it.
6. Always keep some Skylithion in Corinith to relief an attack on Athens by Venice.
7. Try to keep a good force in Nicosia (Crete) as the Templars will at some point decide that you are easier to kill than the Egyptians.
8. Take Adan early
9. Kill Turks to Caseara, gives yo a fortified eastern border.
10. Try for an alliance with Kiev, or at least prepare for war.
11. Control the Bosphurs with your ships.
12. Consolidate and pick your times to strike at Egypt (when busy with crusades).
13. Merchants Guild in Constantinolpe, Theologians in Nicaea, Swordsmiths in Sofia

Wow, I guess I did a lot of things incorrectly... I gave up and decided to start a new game, probably as the Byzantines again, but haven't decided yet.

Another question, whenever I auto resolve a battle involving one of my generals, my general always gets the trait that takes 2 hit points off and takes 25% movement points off. Why is that? Is there a way to lower the frequency of it so I don't have to fight every battle on the map?

[LionQ]

htothehh
Ok, I am guessing that you rushed thinks and took to many settlemnts without consolidating.

1. Alliance with Hungry - to keep north of your back, maintain a good garrioson in Sofia, so stop any ideas forming.
2. Marriage Alliance with Sicily - helps keep Venice in check
3. Alliance with Rome, slows down catholics
4. NEVER take Durazzo, Venice and Sicily will fight over it.
5. NEVER take Irakalion (the islands called crete btw), as venice and Egypt will fight over it.
6. Always keep some Skylithion in Corinith to relief an attack on Athens by Venice.
7. Try to keep a good force in Nicosia (Crete) as the Templars will at some point decide that you are easier to kill than the Egyptians.
8. Take Adan early
9. Kill Turks to Caseara, gives yo a fortified eastern border.
10. Try for an alliance with Kiev, or at least prepare for war.
11. Control the Bosphurs with your ships.
12. Consolidate and pick your times to strike at Egypt (when busy with crusades).
13. Merchants Guild in Constantinolpe, Theologians in Nicaea, Swordsmiths in Sofia

Please consider starting to write faction guides.

[Darviathar]

htothehh
Ok, I am guessing that you rushed thinks and took to many settlemnts without consolidating.

1. Alliance with Hungry - to keep north of your back, maintain a good garrioson in Sofia, so stop any ideas forming.
2. Marriage Alliance with Sicily - helps keep Venice in check
3. Alliance with Rome, slows down catholics
4. NEVER take Durazzo, Venice and Sicily will fight over it.
5. NEVER take Irakalion (the islands called crete btw), as venice and Egypt will fight over it.
6. Always keep some Skylithion in Corinith to relief an attack on Athens by Venice.
7. Try to keep a good force in Nicosia (Crete) as the Templars will at some point decide that you are easier to kill than the Egyptians.
8. Take Adan early
9. Kill Turks to Caseara, gives yo a fortified eastern border.
10. Try for an alliance with Kiev, or at least prepare for war.
11. Control the Bosphurs with your ships.
12. Consolidate and pick your times to strike at Egypt (when busy with crusades).
13. Merchants Guild in Constantinolpe, Theologians in Nicaea, Swordsmiths in Sofia

I've started and stopped more Byzantine games than I can count, and I've never seen Venice attack Athens or Corinth. They will, however, attack Thessalonica, perhaps even early on, and this can be a big problem if it comes during a jihad. A Jihad on Constantinople can be very serious business. The constant flow of Jihad armies coming through Anatolia from 3 different factions (the Moors will sometimes come as well) can really be rough. In my current game, I have avoided fighting these in the field, because using the 2 turns/year and RR mods, I simply cannot risk what field armies I have against cheap jihad troops. I build Ballista towers in Constantinople and man the walls with archers. I agree with leaving Durazzo and Iraklion alone early, until you have pushed the Turks back behind Caesarea, but you definitely want to pick these up when you have the strength, as they are part of the requirement for the "Crown of Byzantium" which is a nice ancillary for your Emperor. I recommend an Explorer guild in Constantinople rather than merchant for the simple reason that you are likely to send young generals there for education, and picking up the explorer guild ancillary is almost a sure-thing while they idle away so many turns. Nicosia will come under attack fairly early, but can be defended fairly easily by spears and peasant archers against the militia forces that Egypt sends your way. I formed an alliance with Hungary almost immediately, let them have Sofia and Scopia, and still haven't been attacked by them. It may have been a risky tactic in some sense, but you really cannot afford to develop so many castles early on. The neutral forces in Sofia are tough enough to prevent Hungary from taking it early on, and by the time they do, your alliance has been in place for some time and they are reluctant to attack. Developing Sofia probably means you have to short Adrianople, which is my main troop center. You will need it during the Jihad stages for certain.

[Sebastos Abdes Pantera]

It only happens when Resolving battles in 4.1,It very rarely happens when fighting the battles yourself.I myself still play 4.1 due to computer not being very good,any suggestions on how to get rid of the trait?

[gracul]

I think Quark has better stuff to do

[Quark]

htothehh
The trait is called SeverelyWounded and you can find triggers for it in the SS mods \data\export_descr_character_traits.txt file. In my files I added a trigger to make sure it only kicked in if odds were less than 5 to 1 (ie over this it does not trigger, so you can ignore battles against small armies) eg.

Trigger Battle_General_Took_Heavy_Hits
WhenToTest PostBattle
Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.4
and GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle <= 0.6
and BattleOdds <= 5

Affects SeverelyWounded 1 Chance 4

LionQ
Like many, I am a Byzantium fan, so know what to do with this faction (plus it does not hurt I know the files and how they work).

[htothehh]

Ok, now my section of that trait looks like this, is it good now?

Trigger Battle_General_Took_Heavy_Hits ; SEVERELY WOUNDED TRIGGERS
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.4
and GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle <= 0.6
and BattleOdds <=5 (Added this line, wasn't there before)

Affects SeverelyWounded 1 Chance 5

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Battle_General_Took_Severe_Hits
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.6
and GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle <= 0.8

Affects SeverelyWounded 1 Chance 10

;------------------------------------------
Trigger Battle_General_Took_Deadly_Hits
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition GeneralHPLostRatioinBattle > 0.8

Affects SeverelyWounded 1 Chance 33

;------------------------------------------
Trigger SeverelyWoundedDeterminedRemoveHealth
WhenToTest PostBattle

Condition Trait SeverelyWounded = 1
and Trait HaleAndHearty > 3

Affects HaleAndHearty -1 Chance 100

;------------------------------------------
Trigger SevereWoundsHealedInWild
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition Trait SeverelyWounded = 1
and not EndedInSettlement

Affects SeverelyWounded -1 Chance 50

;------------------------------------------
Trigger SevereWoundsHealedInTown
WhenToTest CharacterTurnEnd

Condition Trait SeverelyWounded = 1
and EndedInSettlement

Affects SeverelyWounded -1 Chance 90

[Quark]

htothehh
Add it to the other two triggers below which also give SeverelyWounded

[AnthoniusII]

So I'm playing SS 4.1 (no expansion, no other mods), and I started off with an alliance w/ the Turks, then got an alliance with HRE (don't know how that happened since they are always the #1 faction), and then the Russians requested my alliance. Now I'm about 30-40 turns in the game, I have conquered Greece, all the islands in the Aegean/Mediterranean, and three cities on the Western border of Persia, but now I have the Turks attacking me from the East, Templar Knights attacking my islands from the Southeast, Egyptians attacking my island South of Greece from the South, Venetians attacking me from the Northwest, and the Poles attacking me from the North/Northeast, so right now I'm fighting five armies coming from all 4 sides, and almost all of my cities are near rebellion stage and I have no idea what to do. I got all cities, and 2 castles: Corinth and Sofia. Any suggestions? I will take a screenshot later.

My friend wellcome to the "byzantine"reality...
The scenario you are playing right now is what happened to the empire all the time!Wars in all fronts!For muslims you hold the door to europe,for europeans you hold the door to asia...You also hold the most stradegic place in the medieval world(Constantinople)...
My advices for you are...If you don't have any diplomatic or financial ways to close some fronts,defend by giving some regions in a front and attack to an other untill they will ask seasefire or you make them Vassals(do not destroy them becouse vassals give you large amounts of money to finance your campaigns)!
When you end with some opponets deal with the others transfaring the expiriend troops from a closed front to an open one!

[tup]

The most important key factor is the Pope if you ask me. In my current Byz campaign (LE) I have the rule not to offer any alliances... well, I forgot the rule after a gaming pause, so I allied with the KoJ, but gave them large chunks of Fatimid lands, so it's ok... so anyways, my only other ally is Novgorod. And that makes the game a whole lot harder, of course. But since I started bribing the Pope regularily it became more easy. I even own Durazzo from the begin and Venice never attacked me. Sicily did so once and I think I'm still at war, but they don't do anything anymore, which is maybe because of the Pope. The less he likes you, the more hostile are the Catholics.
An alliance with the Pope is the best thing you can do in any game with any faction.

[gracul]

I've never played Byz, but since it seems to be very hard then i'll do just the oppossite of what Quark said and try to survive, while playing on rr without byg tho. I'll go to war with the Pope, take Durazzo, and instead of marching on Turks/Fatimids, i'll storm up north for Poland, Kiev and Hungary. Instead of Sicily invading me, ill invade Sicily.

[AnthoniusII]

To make your byz campaigns more interesting see this...'
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=182151

[htothehh]

Why is the Pope so important? I don't get it...

[Quark]

htothehh
Catholic factions are geared to not annoy the pope, otherwise they get excommiunicated. As such if you stay on his good side, when they attack you they annoy him. This increases their chance of getting excommuinicated and getting attacked by other catholic factions, perhaps even crusaded against. If this happens they have fewer forces to attack you with and are keener on peace.

[Vasquez]

No friends? I guess it's time to go out there and rip some.