How are those damn byzantines doing that

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Every end turn, they besiege 4 of my cities/citadels, with a full stack army and a half stack army as extra reinforcements, even tough I have taken constantinople; Sinop, Adrianople and nicae for quite some time now

I have the heart of their empire yet they remain unscratched it seems and they won't even accept peace when I offer 100.000 (I'm kiev, most of the black sea is mine, trade and farming are bringing in riches beyond belief)

seriously, what do I have to do? where do these armies keep comming from, how do they train them so fast?


I play on easy difficulty by the way

And they are armies of katapracht, latinikon varangian guards, all with silver chevrons, they even recruit a cavalry unit that requires Constantinople to recruit (wich is weird, as that city is mine)

[Lord Lancelot]

I think there is some bug in your campaign

[SirKoskelot]

What version of SS are you playing?

It matters a lot, because in SS6.1, I can recall AI getting lots of free stacks when they had only few territories left. They also seemed to get huge amounts of free cash.

These shouldn't happen in SS6.2, I think.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

I'm playing 6.2

[luciferleigh]

might be coming from thessalonica, athens and corinth, whats the situation with those settlements?

[Rogal Dorn]

Because the Roman descendants are better than you. Mwahahahaha!

[Amon Amarth]

Varangian/Catafraths/Latinikon mix?!! Holy mother of God!!! Pray now my son and whait for a miracle

[Gogolometro]

Suposing you are Venice or Sicily, you can trown in teir face tons of militia good to mashed like potatoes, or if you lucky enough and is the good timing 1 full stack of pesante. I done that with Serenissima Republica. Is the best way to crusk greek bloodlines. None can stand in your ring of stakes, arrows and war hammers.
But I forget you asked why, practicly because they are light years before europe technology in 1100, because they are very rich, and in early campaing after they crush turks, are the biggest empire. So you take 4 provinces from greeks, dont worry, they have 25 more to fight with you.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

I'm Kiev

[Loose Cannon]

There is no Byzantine unit that requires "Constantinople" in 6.2 RC4. "Constantinople" is a hidden resource in RR/RC and allows the recruiting of the CBUR named units from the imperial barracks. So, are you actually using RR/Rc? If not, then you need to take over any Byzantine castle to stop its recruiting of better units. Byzantium starts with 4 castles and can easily conquer 4 more (Arta, Sofia, Scopia, and Cannakale-excuse the spelling) before you get started. Plus anything it takes from the turks. Taking on Byzantium early is not smart strategy-you should have allied with them instead. Make peace with them and get an alliance.

[Ichon]

Byzantines are strong in the early campaign... all the later ones they are pretty weak though. Their heartland is actually Greece more than Anatolia aside from Constantinople. How much finances do they have? Even with only a few castles left they can recruit max units every turn probably though on easy I am not sure how much free stuff they get.

[Point Blank]

And they have many enemies...

[DeliCiousTZM]

Whats the biggie you took his land now he's taking them back, at least your not lossing kiev bring comfort from that taking all his land then whining when he tries to reclaim shame on you good sir!

[sabaku_no_gaara]

Well, we where Allies, but then they betrayed me and layed siege to Bucharest wich I had snatched from the Hungarians in revenge for them attacking Iasi.

So when the Byzantines betrayed the alliance and attacked Bucharest, I sailed a full stack army from Kiev to constantinople, laid siege and took it. I then made peace with the Byzantines, and alied myself witht hem again, and even gave them 10.000 florins as a gift to keep them faithfull allies.

Poland allied itself with Hungary and both started attacking me relentlessly, so I trained a full stack army in Bryansk (castle troops that can be replenished in conquered castles) and a full stack army in Kiev (same but for cities) and conquered 3 hungarian provinces, wich I gave to my Allies in Novgorod, to the sicilians (hoping to trigger war between hungary and sicilly), and to the pope. my armies dammaged from all the fighting then took the 1 polish province that borders me wich I again gave to the pope (hoping the Poles won't retake something from the pope, nor march through it) I brought my veterans home and retrained them, in the mean time finding out that Hngary took back the Sicillian castle and Novgorod city, but not the popes (who is my ally by now).

The Byzantines decided it would be fun to betray me yet again and besieged me, so I set forth and conquered Adrinopolis, Nicea and Sinope.

They then went on a rampage, but after losing about 6 big armies in siege battles they finally accepted peace!

At that point the Kwarezhim decided to go to war with me, so I took Their settlement next to tiblisi I know have all but one ports in the Black sea and the Kwarezhim asked for peace (and I mannaged to buy Tiblisi from them)

unfortunately after 1 turn of peace Lithuania decided to go to war with me, unprovoked.

So I'm preparing to unleash the full might of Kiev on their lands

[JorisofHolland]

War is what happens when you play Total War, especially because they AI can't be modded to behave nice. But I think you want to try out this:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=255238

[sabaku_no_gaara]

I just traded map info with the byzantines, they apear to be tougher then I thought

[JorisofHolland]

Of course they are That's the way they survived for a long time. Romans are hard to bring down, because they're supposed to be.

[Ichon]

In my experience early campaign the only one where Byzantines have much chance of staying powerful and I think Constantinople makes the difference. In later campaigns in SS there are many rebel area which is fine, but also Constantinople is rebel which not only blocks Hellenspont but weakens Byz substantially. I'd rather Byz always have that city and even have a couple levels of naval buildings already constructed there so the fleets they make are stronger for some time than Turks, Venice, and Fatamids.

At least when AI controls Byz. Human player having to reconquer Constantinople is more interesting with the huge walls and large rebel garrison but AI never manages it. I see Hungary or Kievan Rus finally taking it around turn 120 most often in later campaigns. Turks get sidetracked with Mongols and Fatimids and usually die around same time as Byz.

[scarybandit]

"I've seen much of the rest of the world. It is brutal and cruel and dark; Rome is the light."
-Maximus, Gladiator.