The Eastern Roman Empire - Faction Guide

[Astaroth]

The Eastern Roman Empire



--------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
I. An Overview
a) Your Empire
b) Loyalty and the Eastern Roman Rebels
c) Religion
d) Corruption and Bad Traits
II. The First Step
III. The Eastern Roman Army
IV. Summary

--------------------------------------------------------


Introduction


The Eastern Roman Empire.

''Alea iacta est'' as Julius Caesar once put it. The die is cast, the Empire has been divided. Centuries ago, Rome had been a small city state. Through blood, iron and tears an empire had been forged, greater than anything the world had ever seen. But it became too big – corruption spread, the emperors could no longer control the vast territory properly. Barbarians began to invade the precious Roman lands, rebellious generals declared themselves emperor. It was inevitable - the Imperium Romanum had to be divided if there was to be any chance of survival. Valentinian I became the emperor of the western part whereas his brother Valens ruled the east. However, while the western part was a bit larger geographically, it was definitely poorer. The eastern half was very wealthy and its language and culture were mainly Greek, whereas the western part was Roman centered and based on Latin. Furthermore, the east was protected against barbarian invasions from the north by the river Danube. Its northern border was much shorter and thus easier to protect than that of the western half. However, in the east another enemy was waiting in the shade: the Sassanid Empire. This mighty and huge Persian kingdom had been Rome's major enemy ever since it took Parthia's place. The Eastern Roman Empire did not only have to face the unwashed barbarians and nomad peoples from the northern steppes, it also had to encounter the merciless Sassanids with their powerful cataphracts. With so many threats to face, will the Empire be able to survive? Can the Danube be hold? Is it possible to stop the Sassanid advance and maybe even strike back? Only a strong emperor can ensure the Eastern Roman Empire's survival. The religious differences within the empire itself have to be solved, the hordes need to be pushed back and the borders have to be defended at any cost. A strong man might even be able to re-unite Rome some day. No longer shall there be an eastern and a western half, the two ought to be united again. But before that can happen, many other problems have to be solved. Right now, it is nothing but a dream, a wish hidden in every true Roman's heart.
However, one day a true leader, an emperor of a united Rome, shall stand in the eternal city again, looking about, from the plains of Gaul to the deserts of Syria. And he shall proudly declare: Veni, vidi, vici.


An Overview


a) Your Empire:


Your capital, Constantinople.


Greece and western Asia Minor.


Eastern Asia Minor and Syria.


Palestine and Egypt.

The Eastern Roman Empire (purple) consists of 25 regions and ranges from the great river Danube in the north to the Nile in the deep south; from the mountains of Illyria to the deserts of Syria and Anatolia. The mighty Constantinople is your capital, once founded by the great Constantine on top of the ancient Greek town Byzantium. At the beginning of the game, you have exactly three agents: one diplomat, one spy and one assassin.

b) Loyalty and the Eastern Roman Rebels:

The late Roman Empire had plenty of trouble with uprisings, rebellions and civil wars. That is represented in the game as well: if one of your regions is unhappy, the people might decide to revolt. When playing any other faction, the city would turn rebel. However, a revolting Eastern Roman town will join the Eastern Roman Rebels (teal). Furthermore, towns will rebel much more easily – just a single turn with less than the necessary 70% happiness can result in a civil revolt in that city. Another issue is loyalty. Your generals, family members and governors don't only have the standard traits such as command stars and influence, they can also gain and lose loyalty points. The lower their loyalty becomes, the more likely they are to desert and to join the Eastern Roman Rebels. Therefore, you have to be very careful when choosing your governors or generals. If you let disloyal characters lead your armies, they might turn on you – resulting in the loss of the whole army. Disloyal governors can even cause your cities to revolt against your reign. I would suggest not letting generals with low loyalty ratings command big armies nor govern any cities. They can be used as cannon fodder, be put in forts without any troops or can simply be put on a ship and suicided against some pirates. If you avoid those disloyal people as much as possible, the Eastern Roman Rebels will not be such a problem. Try to keep the people happy, build buildings that improve the happiness in your towns and lower the taxes if necessary. Less income is bad but losing a whole town is worse. Another way to keep them happy is to solve their religious problems.

c) Religion:

At the beginning of the game, you will get a message saying that paganism is now the most dominant religion in the world. However, your emperor and roughly half of your people are Christian. That will inevitably cause problems with the other half of your empire. Cities, in which the population is mainly pagan, will not tolerate Christian churches or governors. A governor or religious building being of a different religion than the people will cause unhappiness and riots. In order to avoid conflicts, it would be wise not to let Christians govern mainly pagan towns and not to build churches in pagan cities. However, there is also another problem: your leader being Christian will automatically make your pagan settlements somewhat unhappy. Therefore, the issue is clearly complicated and not easy to solve. There is no definite solution but there are several possible ways of dealing with it anyway:

1. The first option is the easier one and will certainly be more profitable in the short run. What you do is simply deal with each town individually. Destroy all Christian churches in pagan settlements and build temples instead, remove all Christian governors from pagan towns. Apply the same measure to Christian settlements, obviously the other way around. That way, your cities will be pacified and happy. No more trouble with religion anymore, no more riots because your governor is Christian. This is definitely the easiest solution as no religious transition has to be made. Each settlement will simply adopt the religion which has the highest percentage of followers. For example, a town with 70% pagans will become pagan, all Christian churches or governors will be removed.

2. The other possibility is to choose a single religion for your whole empire - preferably Christianity as your faction leader and family are both mainly Christian - and forcing your whole empire to adopt it. This will obviously be much more tedious and harder. Furthermore, it will be rather expensive early on. The problem is that many of your towns will become rather unhappy and might even start rioting. As a result, you will have to drop your taxes considerably in order to compensate for the decrease in happiness. That will obviously mean less money and thus an empty treasury.
However, there are also advantages. First of all, once your whole empire has become Christian, the penalty from your emperor having a different religion than the rest of the population will be gone. Secondly, there also won't be problems with neighboring regions slowly converting each others and causing trouble because of growing religious minorities. Thirdly, your mainly Christian family will have an easier time governing the cities of your empire eventually.

Everyone has to decide for himself which option he wishes to choose. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I personally prefer the second one, solely because it seems more realistic and fun that way. There is definitely something to forcing your whole empire under one religion!

d) Corruption and Bad Traits:

The times of the Roman Republic are long gone, no longer are there proud, honest and straightforward men like the great Cato. Instead, the empire overflows with corrupt officials, governors and generals. That is quite a problem, decadence has spread everywhere in your empire. As a result, your towns are poorly governed, your family members steal and waste your tax income and your economy is seriously damaged. It isn't easy to actually do something about it, but avoiding taverns and building academies instead does improve the situation to an extent. However, you will never be able to solve it completely as it plenty of bad traits for the Roman governors are hardcoded. Often, your best option will be to simply remove a city's governor and leave it ungoverned. Due to the horrible traits some of your family members might acquire, some cities will actually be better off without a governor. The useless governors and generals could simply be put into forts where they can't do any damage anymore. Alternatively, you could also sacrifice them in the next battle. Getting proper generals can be quite a pain as well, due to many awful traits you will often have to rely on your tactical abilities instead of a general's command stars. Even if you win plenty of battles, your generals will still not improve easily. Unfortunately, there is not much you can do about that. And after all your generals still field a very powerful and useful heavy cavalry unit.


II. The First Step

Now that we had a thorough look at our great empire, we will have to decide on our first moves. What are our main goals? Where are we supposed to strike first? What do we have to prefer for? Who do we have to fear? Those decisions are never easy but for the ruler of such a great, mighty empire they are even harder. One false choice can lead to death and damnation. One false choice can seal the end of the empire. At first, everything might seem peaceful and unproblematic with wealthy, big towns and big armies – until you realize the strengths of the Sassanids only a few hundred miles away from your cities. Until you notice that tens of thousands of ruthless steppe barbarians aren't far away from your borders. Therefore, our enemies and neighboring countries have to be carefully scouted and investigated.


To the west of your mighty empire there is the Western Roman Empire (red), bordering us in Illyria and Egypt. It is our brother nation , the second part, the other half. Not long ago, both halves were one and they are still closely connected. After all, the two rulers are brothers, they are part of one family. Furthermore, we are all Romans, are all of one blood. However, the Western Empire has many unsolved problems. Underdeveloped areas, underpopulated regions, poor cities, lots of corruption, increasing barbarization of its armies. More and more Germanic foederati have to fill up their ranks and beyond their borders, a storm is approaching. Many young, fresh Germanic tribes are eager to conquer the Western Roman lands, want to plunder the rich cities, wish to taste Roman blood. With the hordes approaching from the east, even more trouble is imminent.
The Western Empire are our allies and brothers. However, can we help them with their problems? Probably not. We have our own issues to deal with. Also, can we really trust them? In their desperate situation it is impossible to tell what they might do. In the distant future, Rome will have to be re-united. Possibly a war - or shall we say civil war? - will arise between us and them. If they are still around by then, that is.




Right north of the Danube there are the Goths (orange), a barbarian people. They field the typical steppe and barbarian armies, consisting of weak spearmen early in the game and strong infantry later on, along with some horse archers and powerful heavy cavalry. At the beginning of the game, they own a single town only. Their forces are relatively weak and they are hardly a threat to you. However, the Gothic people can horde – once their last city is taken, they will form a horde consisting of several stacks of troops. Therefore, attacking them would not be advisable. While they are not a problem early on, they can soon become one. In the far north, the Vandal (brown) and Hunnic (black) hordes prepare for war – they will move south, towards your lands, plundering every town and village in their path of destruction. It is likely that they will drive the Goths out of their lands as well which will result in even more hordes approaching your lands. Between Goths and Huns, the Sarmartians (yellow)own a single town as well. While their tiny kingdom is hardly a threat to your massive empire at the beginning, their ability to horde will most likely cause lots of problems as well. The Huns will drive their troops into your empire. Sarmartians, Huns and Vandals all have relatively similar unit rosters – strong cavalry, horse archers, weak spear infantry and a few strong late elite infantry units. The Huns are even more cavalry based then their two neighbors, fielding the best horse archers and heavy cavalry in the known world. However, the other two peoples are still not even a tiny bit less dangerous. The main problem is not the quality of their units – it is their vast amount of troops, the sheer numbers. Both the Huns and the Vandals will have quite a lot of full stacks at the beginning of the game and both the Sarmartians and the Goths will have sizeable hordes as well, once their settlements are sacked. In total, this means up to four possible hordes invading your lands, each consisting of four to eight full stacks. However, at least you have the Danube as a natural border. The barbarians' horse archers are not great at river battles, holding the Danube's bridges and crossings might be an option. Furthermore, your fortified cities should be able to hold them off as well as long as enough soldiers are ready to defend them.


While those hordes will obviously be hard to fight off, they are by far not your only source of trouble. To the east of your empire, the Sassanids (light blue/teal) are waiting in the shade. Their kingdom consists of five regions and is rather wealthy and powerful. While their infantry, especially the early one, might be weak , their cavalry is amongst the best in the whole known world. Not only do they field powerful horse-archers who will pepper your legionaries from far away, they also have access to different kinds of mighty cataphracts, fully armored horsemen which are almost invincible, in the tradition of their Parthian predecessors. Their lands border yours and the enmity and trouble are inevitable. Only one of the two ancient superpowers can prevail! The battles will be intense but losing is not an option. If they break through the eastern borders, the whole east, the Egyptian breadbasket and the rich Syria will fall into their hands. That would seal the empire's doom. Therefore, the eastern front is just as important, if not more important, than the north-western one.

Now that we had a look at our neighbors, friends, allies and enemies we have to decide on our first moves. I personally would suggest playing defensively, at least early on. You start the game with a considerable empire already and there aren't many profitable towns which you can grab easily. Reforming your empire, upgrading your towns and maximizing your income have a clear priority. With up to four hordes knocking at your northern border and the Sassanid lion waiting not far away from your eastern cities, it would be foolish and way too risky to play aggressively. Spend your time to develop your economy, reform your empire, decide on one religion and enforce it all over the country, build up your troops and secure your borders. Defend the Danube's bridges against the hordes from the north and fight against possible Sassanid invasions on the shores of the Euphrates in Syria. Furthermore, disloyal commanders and generals have to be removed from the ranks and your towns have to be kept happy at any price in order to avoid riots and major rebellions. Aside from religion and defense, your economy is very important. Build roads wherever you can, build and upgrade your ports and markets. Once it is up and running, you can spend more and more money on your military, in order to defend properly and to eventually go on the offensive, facing the Sassanids openly and crushing the hordes out in the open. However, it will take quite some while until that can become reality – many years of camping, waiting, defending and being sieged will come before that.


III. The Eastern Roman Army

Rome has always been famous for its great army. During its early days, the Roman hastati, principes and triarii fought against Hannibal and Philip of Macedonia. Centuries later, Caesar conquered Gaul with some of the first professional Roman legionaries. Once Rome stopped expanding, the legions were positioned along the borders in order to protect the empire's citizens. However, more and more barbarian raids into Roman territory took place and the legions were simply too large, slow and immobile to counter them. Germanics could cross the border, loot settlements and pull back again, way too quickly for the legions which were positioned in camps far apart from each other. If the constant raids and the growing number of invasions were to be stopped, something had to be changed. Therefore, the whole Roman military was reformed. The legions, which had fought under the eagle for many centuries, were completely abolished, the auxilia were reformed. The main part of the Roman army was divided into two main parts, one being the limitanei, the border troops, the other the comitatenses. While the former were only lightly armored and equipped, the latter were more similar to the former legionaries, wearing heavier armor. The Limitanei were those defending the border – they could stop smaller raiding parties and would hold off larger invasions long enough for the comitatenses to arrive from the hinterland. The comitatenses were positioned in camps several dozen miles away from the border, so they could strike quickly and eliminate all invading foes. Furthermore, the Roman cavalry force was strengthened and vastly increased in size. The growing importance of horsemen forced the Romans to adapt. Rome's military had always been about adapting your way of fighting and adopting your enemies' strengths. The Sassanid cataphracts were copied and horse-archers became part of the Roman army as well. In conclusion, the Eastern Roman Empire fields a very diverse unit roster, ranging from strong heavy infantry over horse-archers to powerful cataphracts. This obviously results in a vast amount of possible battle strategies.

One of them would be the typical hammer and anvil tactic. The Eastern Romans have plenty of strong infantry units, heirs of the famous legionaries, who can hold the line and form the center of your army. Powerful cavalry, such as the fully armored cataphracts will be the hammer in that scenario: place them at your flanks and wait for your opponent to attack your center. Once your legionaries have nailed him, your cavalry will be able to flank him quickly. One or two massive charges into the enemies' flanks and backs will be devastating and should make them rout immediately.



Another possible tactic is the 'stronger wing' one. Concentrate your forces on one side of the battlefield and make your troops on the other one form a very long line. Your enemy will approach your army and will most likely begin to destroy your weaker wing. However, your stronger flank will be able to move around his army, attacking his troops from behind. You have to keep in mind that you have to flank and crush his army before your weaker wing falls, though.

Setting up your army like the Romans did originally is also an option. Position your cohorts in a way similar to how the Romans positioned their manipulars. Now you can put your strong archers in-between and even artillery. This formation has the advantage that it is very hard to break – while a long, drawn out battleline might be crushed by a strong push, this formation will not. Especially against cavalry-based factions this can be very handy, the archers and catapults will pick all kinds of horse-archers off at range and the heavy infantry will protect them against melee cavalry. Furthermore, the heavily armored comitatenses can reflect the arrows and will be a good meatshield against the constant rain of arrows.


A typical Roman battle formation during the Republican times. When playing as the Eastern Romans, the triarii, principes and hastati should be replaced with comitatenses and plumbitarii, the velites should be exchanged with archers.

Aside from those tactics mentioned above, there are of course countless of other possibilities. The Eastern Romans field horse-archers, therefore luring and hit-and-run tactics can work as well. Strong archers are also part of the Roman unit roster, opening up even more possibilities. However, even the best strategies will only work if the commanding general is a capable leader! You should keep that in mind at all times.


This is an early Eastern Roman army which will be used at the beginning of the game or later on as town defenders and border troops. Your main troops are the relatively weak limitanei but a few comitatenses and lanciarii will help them hold the battleline. The amount of cavalry in that army is rather big, the longer the Roman Empire lasted, the bigger the importance of cavalry became. However, they are rather lightly armed horsemen and will not be able to stand up against strong heavy cavalry or strong infantry. They can be used to kill skirmishers and archers, though. As a flanking unit they can be useful as well.



In this late Eastern Roman Army quite some changes were made. First of all, all of the weak limatanei units were replaced by the stronger lanciarii and comitatenses. Furthermore, a first cohort was added in order to boost this army's morale. Half of the weaker cavalry got replaced with Equites Cataphractii, much more armored and strong horsemen. The archers got exchanged for a stronger kind and some average artillery was added. Your average field army should be similar to this but variations are of course possible – the Roman unit roster is very diverse.



A very late Roman army. Those men are the elite of the elite, the strongest soldiers with the best weapons and equipment. The amount of cavalry got increased considerably and is now solely made up of cataphracts and the powerful Scholae Palatina. Your cavalry force is now possibly your most important part of the army, use your horsemen wisely and that alone can win most battles. However, the infantry was improved considerably as well. The comitatenses and lanciarii were replaced by stronger plumbitarii who throw little iron arrows. The artillery was upgraded as well. This army should be your ultimate goal, your emperor's personal guard, the crème de la crème.


IV. Summary

The Eastern Roman Empire is certainly an amazing and astonishing faction. Out of all kingdoms and empires in Barbarian Invasion, it is perhaps the most diverse one. The east mixes with the west and the result is beautiful. Syrian archers combined with Roman artillery, strong legionaries supported by powerful eastern cataphracts. As the leader of the Eastern Romans there are many threats you will have to face but the amount of possibilities and options you have is even greater. Christianity or paganism? East or west? Old or new? Furthermore, you will have to decide how to counter the barbarian hordes approaching from all directions. Hold the bridges? Defend the towns only? abandon regions? Or shall we possibly attack? Can aggressive moves succeed against an enemy with a larger army? The task will not be an easy one, Rome's legionaries are not meant to face hordes of horse-archers and heavy cavalry. However, a smart and cunning leader should be able to overcome any disadvantages. After all, that is Rome's true strength! The very basis the empire was founded on. Adapt your strategies to your opponents, utilize your grand unit roster ranging from eastern horse archers over powerful heavy cavalry up to the very best infantry in the world and you will be victorious. Turn back the clock, crush the barbarians, bring back the glorious times and re-unite the empire!
The task will not be an easy one, but a worthy leader, a worthy emperor of the Romans might be able to master it. Lead the proud Romans, the 1000-year-old empire to new glory and victory!