AI Byzantium too strong?

[Etimos]

Ok, this is my third attempt at an early campaign on hard difficulty level as lithuania (I'm weird. I get to a certain spot, and I say "Ehhhhhhh, I think I'll just start over), and for the third time, Byzantium has annihilated Turkey and Hungary before 1200. I've tried giving Turkey money, but between Khwarezm on one side and byzantium on the other, they never survive past turn 100, and it sucks, because turkey has AWESOME late game units! Maybe their early game units need a tune-up? some turkish cavalry buffs or something?

Any suggestions? I'd really like to be able to face off against a late-game Seljuk empire. Byzantium is just killing everything!

[cezarip]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=422635

Was discussed to death. Romans are supposed to be strong in the early campaign. You need to help the turks if you want them survive. In my game as Egypt they are trashing the Romans. All I did was fight something like 2 battles where I helped them and kill 2 roman armies. The rest they did on themselves.

[Liandro]

The Romans are really just sending hordes of spearmen and mounted javelins, which kind of just kick the crap out of everyone else, the problem is they start with so many regions, not the units themselves. If you can do as, cezarip did, the Romans run out of steam kinda quickly and then are on the retreat... however early Turk units are horrible, there's just no way around that. I've used Sicily and went immediately for Corinth, that took the wind right out of their sails 3 turns into the game, after that no more mounted javelins or the early almighty scoutatoi.

[Thefallenhun]

Maybe you aren't playing lithuania right. You have to be really judicious with diplomacy, ally with kievan rus and novgorod, even though you have to kill them later. Also, spam missile cavalry. Use your Lithuanian cavalry, try to have at least 8 units in a standard army, and you will be able to fight more adavanced armies by shooting their heavy cavalry to death with skirmishing cavalry, and then steamrolling their infantry with your superior cavalry force.

[vtec.dominion]

Its quite easy if you don't share any borders with them. Build an offensive army, train 2 or 3 skilled spies to go with with your army, prepare a real navy and raid as many settlements as possible from the sea. Then it's up to you, burn it to the ground, destroy all buildings you and let it rebel or gift/sell these regions to anyone you want. Did it plenty of times once they grew to big and usually they never recovered and failed or died at the end lol.
So if you want Turks survive and become powerful gift them their settlements

[Etimos]

Maybe you aren't playing lithuania right. You have to be really judicious with diplomacy, ally with kievan rus and novgorod, even though you have to kill them later. Also, spam missile cavalry. Use your Lithuanian cavalry, try to have at least 8 units in a standard army, and you will be able to fight more adavanced armies by shooting their heavy cavalry to death with skirmishing cavalry, and then steamrolling their infantry with your superior cavalry force.

........ I think perhaps you are responding to a different thread. This thread isnt even about Lithuania.

[NerZhulen]

I play early campaign VH/VH as republic of genova 80th turn, byzantine empire is completely dominating its area to the east and to the west too...

[Mihajlo]

meh, it is easy even if you share borders with them, question is how to make them more "sane" in game so it can be normal performance by them -without need for human player to go and crush them so they can take slow ride....

[Forever Steadfast]

Lithuania is a faction that requires prudent management. Manage good alliances, get a good economy going and be smart about where and when to expand.

[StupidAlarmClockGuy]

They seem to start off strong but even by turn 50 in my games, they start to run out of steam and quickly. You can't wage a war against six different factions at once when all you've got are crappy spearmen and acontistae.

[paleologos]

In my opinion it is rather difficult to simulate in almost any game (that is fun to play) the true weaknesses of the Graeco-Romans which were of political and social nature.

Politically speaking everyone wanted to be king in the king's stead and many succeeded when the king would suffer a failure. So one in line for the throne only had to help the king fail. The battle of Manzikert need not even had been fought at all. The Seljuks were on to Syria and they only needed Armenia for strategic purposes. Many times during the campaign that led to the Manzikert disaster they proposed to the Romans very good settlements. The problem was that the empire had recently lost a king to death, Sicily and Magna Graecia to the Normans and Armenia to the Seljucs and the new king was as desperate for a field conquest as Marcus Licinius Crassus was a millenium earlier, ironically was destroyed by similar tactics at Carrhae, not too far from Manzikert. The new king also had to deal with treason.

Socially speaking there were not enough people (out of the monasteries that is) to both work the land and serve in the military. They would become monks to dodge drafting. The state had to hire mercenaries and these were expensive. Not to mention wandon embezzelment of army funds.

On the other hand I believe the Seljucs are underpower in the early game. In Manzikert they only fielded horse archers. Not crappy spear militia. Their cavalry was numerous and would only be paid for conquest, not their mere presence.

So my sujestion is to make Roman units more expensive, Roman generals embezzlers and Turkish units larger in number with higher morale and less costly both on recruitment and support. Also Seljuk AI should be tweaked to have them recruit only cavalry until janissaries become available.

Historically speaking the Seljuks did not assault heavilly fortified positions in the 11th century before they had raided and weakend the country around these positions.

[Ferdiad]

+1 for effort but we've seen it all before, Romans too strong, Turks too UP in early and OP in late.

[Etimos]

Ok, I've read the older threads, and none of them really have any solutions in them that I havent already tried.

I've tried `add_money and sending a diplomat over to give the seljuks 200,000 florins early in the game, and they just blow it all on dried figs or something because they're STILL pulverized by turn 100. I dont want to have to restart the damn campaign again, but turkey is GONE, and it sucks because I LIKE TURKEY and i dont like having to give them 200,000 florins every three damn turns and still watch them get eaten away on both sides by the khwarezmians and the byzantines!

There has to be something I can do. Anyone else found a fix? Maybe a tweak to turkish cavalry? can I edit their starting money? I'm not a big modder, so i dont know, but what I do know is that their early game performance is just unacceptable.

[Ferdiad]

Ok, I've read the older threads, and none of them really have any solutions in them that I havent already tried.

I've tried `add_money and sending a diplomat over to give the seljuks 200,000 florins early in the game, and they just blow it all on dried figs or something because they're STILL pulverized by turn 100. I dont want to have to restart the damn campaign again, but turkey is GONE, and it sucks because I LIKE TURKEY and i dont like having to give them 200,000 florins every three damn turns and still watch them get eaten away on both sides by the khwarezmians and the byzantines!

There has to be something I can do. Anyone else found a fix? Maybe a tweak to turkish cavalry? can I edit their starting money? I'm not a big modder, so i dont know, but what I do know is that their early game performance is just unacceptable.

Give em a big kings purse

[Gnostiko]

The problem is their lack of decent infantry in the Early Era. They need access to Ghulam infantry and Ghulam cavalry, which is historically accurate since that's what the core of the Rum Sultanate was composed of anyway. I've done some minor testing with it and results have looked promising.

[Point Blank]

The problem is their lack of decent infantry in the Early Era. They need access to Ghulam infantry and Ghulam cavalry, which is historically accurate since that's what the core of the Rum Sultanate was composed of anyway. I've done some minor testing with it and results have looked promising.

Agreed. Ichon suggested one of their settlements be made a castle, that would be a huge help too.

[omen1710]

Giving money to Seljuks (like as IMF - Turkey relation) isn't a solution for this annoying problem. My suggestion is increasing the abilities of the some units of Seljuks and decreasing the price of some Seljuks' units. In addition to this, decreasing some of Byzantine's units size and increasing some of Byzantine's units prices give us a solution for Seljuks issue.

[Etimos]

Tried giving 500,000 florins to Hungary to see if they could come back a bit and get the damn byzantines off my border. Next turn i get a message "Richest Faction: Byzantium". Damn hungarians turned around and gave the money I gave them straight to the Byzantines. How the hell am I supposed to compensate for such stupidity?

[omen1710]

Tried giving 500,000 florins to Hungary to see if they could come back a bit and get the damn byzantines off my border. Next turn i get a message "Richest Faction: Byzantium". Damn hungarians turned around and gave the money I gave them straight to the Byzantines. How the hell am I supposed to compensate for such stupidity?

I accept Byzantine army is very strong in the begining of 1100. But, rival families stab the Roman emporers in the back in many times. For instance; the situation of Emporer Romanos Diogenos in batte of Manzikert in 1071. I think, it is very hard to reflect this situations into the SS. Because of this, the modders of SS should do something to remove the unbalancing power issue between Byzantine and Seljuks. If Seljuks became more powerful, Byzantine the conqueror is emerged in less probability and we may see some Turks after 1250 more often.

[Thefallenhun]

Ok, this is my third attempt at an early campaign on hard difficulty level as lithuania

That is what I was reponding to