Byzantine Campaign

[Baron Von Daultorez]

Hi everyone, im lookin for help on my byzantine campaign if anyone would be so kind as to give me some advice. Im currently playing SS6.1 H/H after totally dominating M/M, and seen as Byz had been given a changed unit roster, i thought i would give them a try. I started of with my usual technique.

turns 1-10 everything went smooth started developing my finances, collecting troops and positioning etc...

turns 10-20 time to start expanding... all local rebel provinces to fall under the sword. Further development at low tax rates to boost population.

turns 20-30 relative peace as diplomates scour the globe for anyone with so much as a camel to trade.

turn 30....I decided to start purchasing provinces, as i found the AI usally wants 15~20k per province, and i was bringing home 20~15K a turn. So i purchased the west coast of greece from venice, Sofia from hungary and Isparta from turks. Except when i bought Isparta, the gov'nr of the castle decided he wanted it back and launched a counter attack. Which was duly destroyed in a close battle.

Then me and the turks engaged in one of the most fun filled mountain skirmish campaigns i have ever experienced, redoubling both my liking for the byz empire and TW. This lead to the turks being pretty badly beaten losing most of modern day turkey.

Then the sticky brown stuff hits the metaphorical fan. Being sore losers that they are they call a jihad on my capital (not any province i took from them...but my capital) and every muslim faction except the moors joined in (all of whom were my allies and some actually at war with the turks). As a result ive had army after army appear on my borders passing numerous garrisons and defence points striking at the heart of my empire. Im making little if any money, all production has stopped, taxes are slowly increasing, constantiople has been fully garrisoned by city recruitable troops for ease of retraining, any none retrainable troops get mushed in a few turns and the whole supply train is working but not quick enough. I have also seen a slow withdrawal from turkey as im slowly beaten back. I seems that the only option is to abandon my capital to do so...but this i will not do, unless they take it.

Any advice on the battle field or off would be a great help.

[Kazuhiro]

The Fatimids near Constantinople you can probably take on. The rest you have to take either on a river pass, or at the crossings from anatolia to europe.
Try to block one of the routes with ships.
If you have any Citadels in the peninsula than get them to train scythion. As many as you can make to get casualties on the jihadists before they siege. In a situation like this, I usually take as much missle cavalry as I can to kill the enemy general before they siege. After the general dies, its a piece of cake to route them.

[Baron Von Daultorez]

cheers, will give it a try but cant train Scythion yet... anything else

[Sir Walter]

Assassinate leader and Jihad goes home. Literally. Respawns somewhere in their territory.

[Lemming69]

@ Baron

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=182151

go here for a byzantine super submod- makes the byzantine campaign even better

[gta_140]

I agree with what TheKnightRoberts said. Block all the bridges you can to create choke points. If you get lots of spearmen and archers to fight bridge battles it will be a piece of cake. Also get ships to block the passages over water to further hamper them. If all else fails and you feel like you can no longer defend, give Constantinople to one of the muslim faction, preferably the weakest one, and take it back. This will end the Jihad and make things much easier.

[Baron Von Daultorez]

Nevermind it fell the next turn, damn it...

Ow and i now have three full enemy stacks in the middle of my empire with little or no troops to defend whats left, so unless i decide to take a gamble and withdraw to a stronghold sacrificing a few territories and the last 60 turns then i dont know what else to do.

No matter how many fire arrows i throw at a battering ram it never goes down, towers on the otherhand burn like firewood should.


p.s. how do you do spoiler tags on images? before an admin gets on my case

[Anaatti]

Still 700 troops? You should withdraw at the square when morale is getting low

[Loose Cannon]

Ouch, that hurt, of course. But have you learned your lessons?

1. Low taxes are the sign of a weak king. Build farms for population growth and jack those taxes up high.

2. Buying provinces? 15000 florins buys a lot of swords (or arrows) and the men to use them. When you give your enemy money for land they get to buy the swords (and Men). Then they come and take your land.

3. They're on Jihad. Of course your allies broke their treaties. "The enemy of my brother is my friend.(Because my brother is a Muslim heretic) Except when he's an infidel and we've called a Jihad" or something like like that is an old TW saying.

4. They marched past your other cities & armies? How did that happened? You mean they just walked by AND YOU DIDN'T ATTACK. Oh wait first you need money to build and maintain an army.

Ok, now get back in there. Make peace with most of the enemy. Leave one to destroy. Figure out which is the weakest/most worthwhile to conquer and just do it. Go TOTAL WAR ON THEM.

[Persian Horseman]

Wow,
Baron VD, I suggest that you continue playing this game. It sounds very challenging and exciting.

Currently, I am also REALLY enjoying my first ever game on this mod, and it is also Byzantines on H/H. I have played more turns that you have I think, but I was lucky enough that no Jihad was called on me.

I think the Jihad was on Corduba when it fell to the spanish, and only the Moors joined it.

But the weird thing I also found in my game is that, the Egyptians were freakishly strong. They quickly secured their side of africa, parts of saudi arabia and started expanding into Jordan/Syria.

In my game, they were in peace with the kingdom of Antioch, and they killed them off within 4 turns. It was unbelievable.
first turn, siege, damascus and tortosa,
2nd turn conquered those cities, siege antoich,
3rd turn conquer antioch
4th turn kill the last family member of KoA and their last city went rebel.

then they attacked me. I was hoping that the Catholics would do a crusade to save KoA, or to attack jerusalem and weaken the egyptians, but the past 2 crusades were aimed at that castle in southern france owned by Aragon.

So eqypt is massivaly strong.

Will post my pic later, and we can keep track of each other's progress.

Good luck with your campaign.

[Spartan90]

Don't mean to be rude, but just last week or so there was another thread on this EXACT question, maybe look at that for some responses? Nevertheless, I'll continue..

One of the best ways to stop a Jihad army is at river crossings or bridges. Simply put, tie their forces of with some decent infantry that can hold their ground with decent morale. They don't specifically need to be good at killing, they just need to be able to keep the enemy bottlenecked on the bridge / river crossing, and have the morale to handle a bit of friendly fire.

Next, place archers on their right flank (so deploy them on your left). Let them fire at will into the enemy's unprotected right flank (no shield). Use ballistas to shoot into the left flank, then use catapults head on. Be careful here, as there will be friendly fire, so use at your will. The combined effect from fire arrows, fire ballistas, and fire balls of flaming hell should cause mass rout. Then use a few units of light cavalry to smash down as many routers as possible.

Rinse and repeat

[Baron Von Daultorez]

Good news...my Emperor now sits back on his thrown in constantiople. Basically after the end of the Jihad, I signed peace treaties with everyone except the egyptians (even the turks...who started the whole think.) I had to trade a few out lying provinces for peace but they where going to fall anyway unless a ceasefire was agreed. Then i built my strenght on the island just off the coast of acre (nicosia..or something) and now im driving a spearhead into the heart of the holylands. All ports blockaded...and a series of quick trebuchet lead seiges to catch them with their trousers down. Seems to have works except the large stacks fighting the turks are starting to work there way south. Cheers for the advice guys.

[Staffen]

Why not try to raid Alexandria / Cairo with trebuchets and such while you're at it?

[Loose Cannon]

Good work. Now turn up the pressure. Egypt's five largest cities should be your primary targets, bypass the castles for now. If they're at war with the turks Alexandria & Cairo are probably weakly garrisoned and taking those two in 6.1 really wreaks their economy. Then you may get a ceasefire and can turn your attention to the Turks.

The SPOILER tag is the yellow & black symbol left of the YOU TUBE one. I've used it for text but not pictures, so I'm not sure how it works for them.

[Spartan90]

Hmm, I disagree. The AI automatically get craploads of money per turn, so blockading ports or even taking cities do not damage them financially. Take their castles to deny them of any high-tier troops. Unfortunately in this game, you can't really wage an economic war..

[Persian Horseman]

Good to hear that you have got ur capital back.
keep us updated on how ur campaign is going.

But to be honest, one of my personal rules is not to do naval raids. I think it puts the AI at great disadvantage. Thats just my personal opinion.

I say this becuz i have seen a lot of ppl have difficulty against the egyptians and how they end up solving it, is by raiding their lightly defended cities and selling all the buildings and get a lot of money and then leaving it to rebel.

That is not historically accurate, and is not what i consider thinking of a new/smart strategy to beat the AI. I much rather feel the full force of the enemy AI and slowly beat them.

If you take out their heartland (alexandria & cairo), they just become crippled, and its no fun fighting against a crippled enemy.

again, that is my personal preference, I am not telling anyone off or saying others shouldnt do it.

[Loose Cannon]

Historically accurate? Who wants to play Byzantium that way! That means you have to lose when you reach 1453 in the game. No, we want to create the Eastern Roman Empire & conquer the world (or at least the entire map). There are no new/smart strategies for beating the AI only fun ones and always going after the biggest AI is the best.

I don't suggest sacking cities & burning them to the ground-that really puts the AI in a hole it can't recover from. Give the cities back in the ceasefire & go after the next big AI gives Egypt a chance to recover.

If he'd been on Very Hard, he'd been also at war with Kiev, Venice, and maybe Hungary & HRE by this time.

And when he steps up to 6.2 he learn what hard really means

[Sir Walter]

Historically accurate? Who wants to play Byzantium that way! That means you have to lose when you reach 1453 in the game. No, we want to create the Eastern Roman Empire & conquer the world (or at least the entire map). There are no new/smart strategies for beating the AI only fun ones and always going after the biggest AI is the best.

Historically accurate doesn't mean doing what did happen, it means doing what could have happened. And conquering the entire map could not have happened because invading Russia is a waste of time!