Why are the Varangian guard not availble from the start of the Early campaign?

[Conan's Might]

Hi guys,

Loving my Byzantine campaign but was wondering why the Varangian guard are not available to recruit till later on since on wiki it says they were in service of the Byzantine emperors from 911?

Is is due to balancing issues?

[Grunn]

More than likely, though saxon huscarls are recruitable by the byzantines up until they get the guard. so some form of varangian mercernary unit is always available.

[Olaf The Great]

The Saxon Huscarls are available with a huge city and the mayor's palace.

I think it's WAAAAY too high up for them though, it should be available from the start. But either way, the Varangians represent the later armament of the Vikings, the Saxons the earlier one. I do think they should get Scholarii, or a lesser Cataphract unit in the early period though.

[Gogolometro]

1 question, do you feel saxons huscarls are not good enough?

[Medkirtys]

They are slow to get, you can build them in Constantinople after 50 or smthing turns. There are pretty much no more cities that start at large, amirite?

[Mornai]

They are slow to get, you can build them in Constantinople after 50 or smthing turns. There are pretty much no more cities that start at large, amirite?

Jerusalem? Or is that a minor city...?

They're kind of like the upgrade of Saxon Huscarls, so just hang in there!

[Olaf The Great]

Even Constantinople needs to be upgraded, if I recall I could only build the building they require with the max Town hall building at huge city level.

[Gorrrrrn]

Osprey have a new book out about the Varangian Guard.
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/stor..._9781849081795

I've no idea if it is any good - but it would be interesting to get an informed opinion about it.

[Gorrrrrn]

I think the restriction may be to stop human players (and even the AI) from spamming Varangians.
(it's about the only Byzantine unit most people have heard of., an equivalent of the Roman Praetorian Guard.)
I would have thought a large city barracks plus Constantinople hidden_resource would suffice.

[Paladin94610]

Yep. The Scholae units are also very restricted to one city, Constantinople. And some of the restrictions doesn't make any sense. For example, Siphonatores are available only in Constantinople, while Latin gunners through out the empire. Why? That's because the Greekfire is a state-secret and its wielders will only be trained at the capital, Constantinople. So well.. then why are the Fire Ships available in every port and not restricted to the capital?

I might prefer to the Siphonatores and Scholarii being able to train in the core cities of the Empire, Thessalonica, Athens, Constantinople, Adrianople, Nicaea and Cannakale while Varangians and Spartharii tou Vasileos being still restricted to be recruited only at Constantinople instead of all being restricted to Constantinople.

[Gogolometro]

In my campaign Constantinopole is just a huge baracks. All time are for recruitment scolarii, siphonatores, and spatarii. In fact is never wasted, with so long time to recruit them. 7 turns for scolarii.
I am in Italy, Pope is dead and docile, and Rome is the new producer of varangoi. At 1 point may think is imposible to have huge armies, but is wrong. Year is 1315, late campaign and Italy is mine, Venice is vassal and in Alps I have 3 full stacks.
So, when you get huge cities, especially italian ones, varangoi are easy to get. Just build that super city hall.
By the way, after 1300, will discover even the best units of byzantines are not enough. Varangoi are nice, but withoul Latinicon, Alemanoi, latin crossbowmens, the empire will colapse.

[Wismer]

Oh man you can get huscarls in Constantinople??? Do they have the armor piercing attribute? I'm embroiled in numerous wars on nearly every cardinal direction plus a jihad. Though I think ill survive it all, having some axe-chop happy warriors would have been a welcome sight. And I need a city hall? That explains a lot. I wonder what else I am missing.

[Gogolometro]

I not want to spoil your campaign but varangoi are not so cool. Yes they crush armors, yes they have a nice armor, but at last, will discover you need other things. First are the wodden shield swordsmans recruited in 3 level city baracks. They are good, a lot to recruit and have a nice look and stats. That will be the core of swordsmans. Dont imagine will get cutati swordsmans enough. To this great guys add the murtadoi. They are a must. In 1300 already I feel they are obsolete already. Even a half of stack of them. Armors became very powerful in west. Like byzantine you dont have any halebard, the most versatile late unit. So you must use some combo of scutatoi spears, alemanoi and varangoi if you are lucky. Cavalaru and schytion are nice, but at 1300 you need something very different, like genovese mercenarys and german mercenarys. Only 2 good things remain ok, the scutatoi and scolarii.

[Mornai]

I still steamroll the west in the 1300's as the Byzantines. Yeah, it's tougher, but not impossible. Axemen are my favorite type of unit, so the Varangian Guard is my favorite Byzantine unit by far, and i always try to have as much as possible of them in my armies.

[HolyDevil]

Combine those bad boys slashing trough lines with some horse cavalary that rides at 300mph shooting in the back and u got urself a massacre of endless stacks while urs, hardly loses half, even less if u micro manage

still to get to that point where u can afford such stuff, and have the patience to micro the same move over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it will take some time XD