Byzantine help

[Cope]

Anyone know how to win with Byzantines? I keep getting attacked by everyone the whole time - as soon as I deal with one kingdom, like three more come and attack me for no apparent reason.

It also seems a bit weird that I'm at war with Hungary at the start - why? Its annoying enough that I have to deal with unrealistic religious unrest on account of the difference in religion between Orthodox and Catholic - ( despite the fact you may note that part of the mission of the crusade was actually to save Eastern Christians) - but when every Catholic nation goes to war with me and NEVER accepts a cease fire its really tough.

Wondering if anyone had any tips on how to win, at the moment I'm kinda out of cash and just making armies to retake and defend places. As soon as a disband an army to make a new one somewhere else (of more importance) another country attacks the place I've just unfortified!

[Dave Scarface]

Well I would definately get peace with the Turks first thing and maybe peace with Hungary as well. The first settlement you need to take is Preslav. Its very important because it gives you a castle close to Constantinople. You dont want Sofia to fall into Hungarian hands either so move your units up from Thessalonica and recruit a few mercs as well so you can take this castle also. If you dont get peace with Hungary then send all your forces up from Constantinople and take Bucharest. You have one massive advantage unit wise early on, you are able to recruit greekfirethrower mercs. Also greek fireships will win you any navy battles against the Italian States. From turn 1 you should be recruiting units in Durazzo and also send some from Corinth to reinforce this region. Defending Durazzo is not that hard if you get enough defenders. Siege battles are normally easy to defend as long as you dont fall back from the main gates. Put all of your settlements up to very high tax at the start and also use merchants. You should then be financially ahead of everybody else.

Dave

[Cope]

Yeah, I know its not the fault of the mod (which is great btw) but the AI is really retarded. When I finally managed to stablise my economy, for some unknown reason a Jihad was called against Constantinople. That means I'm now at war with Egypt, the Mongols, the Moors and the Turks, all of whom send full stack armies to my capital. Venice (which didn't even have a city, but a full stack army) declared war on me and most retarded of all, The principality of Antioch decided it was going to attack me...

All in all, I lost my northern hold on Italy, I'm going to lose constantinople, I'm going to lose eastern Provinces (thanks Antioch) and despite the fact I finally managed to stop Sicily (who attacked me for another unknown reason) its all for nothing since most of my armies are out of place now. Everytime I've tried to secure a hold on an area, something comes up on the other side of the map where I tend to have no armies and forces me to divert resources. Thus, I get loads of rebellions due to the Orthodox relgion.

As you said, I did rush the Hungarians at the beginning because neither they nor the Turks would accept peace. Problem is in the early game, there simply isn't enough money to maintain advances, especially when a load of other random nations such as the Holy Roman Empire decide to attack you aswell - despite the fact we are of the same faith (kind of).

I've taken to sacking cities now wherever I have some sort of army, and Rome is next. lol, maybe I should start again.

[Dave Scarface]

Are you playing with KGCM + HHB? Because it sounds like the CAI is being very aggressive indeed. I have never played a Byzantium campaign in HHB, so I would'nt know what that campaigns like. I am used to the Byzantium campaign in KGCM 4.2 and I have never seen Antioch attack Byzantium or HRE for that matter. Also in KGCM 4.2, I am always able to get peace with the Turks at the start. A different CAI can make a massive difference to how a mod plays. It may even require the campaign to be rebalanced. A faction like Byzantium might need to start stronger to cope with so many wars. And if a Jihad is called on Constaninople just surrender it and pull your forces out of the city and send them to Adrianople. Once the city falls make peace with all of the muslims except for the faction in Constantinople. Then retake your capital and repair it.

[Cope]

Yeah, the AI is being stupidly agressive.

Every single nation on the game declared war on me, literally, no joke. Nations are attacking me for no reason whatsoever and its kinda ruined the experience somewhat just because its impossible to do anything.

I did eventually save what I had but then I turned the fog off and realized there is no way I could realistically win.

Is there a way of toning down the agressivness of the AI? In addition, and I know its the fault of the Vanilla game, is there a way of making the AI more open to peace? It never accepts ceasfire even when it doesnt even have a city left... rofl.

[ErmanesTheSecond]

I have a way to solve this, i encountered something similar when i gave HRE 100 mill in gold they built up so many armies i could barely fight my way thru them.
of course i had edited the descr_strat file to allow my Byzantines a huge monetary advantage.
Now if you want to beat the crap out of a really agressive AI you need to do a few things...
One go into the export_descr_unit file and edit every Byzantine units stats as you see fit, example give dismounted Latinkon 40 attack, 35 defence and 5 hitpoints, the description at the top of the file should tell you where to find and do these things.
Personally this will make any unit you edit close to invincible, so while you may elimnate a full stack of your enemy you may lose like 5 or 10 men only depending on how elite you enemy's troops are.
Second, you want to go into the descr buildings file and edit around the units so that recruit rate and max availble units can be 9, also edit the recruitment slots for each of your wall/castle types, so youll be able to assemble massive armies fast. Also i found placing certain units availble only to cities and making them castle availble and vice-versa very helpful. If your not gonna use any cheats than i advise you to whatever changes you make copy them into the lower level settlements, so example the latinkon need really higher up buildings to recruit them, move them down to the lowest level stables in order to recruit them early on.
Third, to kick the crap out of mainly captian led AI armies, make your greek bodyguard recruitable from your settlements, and give those generals youll get from doing that some good traits.
Thats basically my version of how to beat an agressive AI, time consuming, and lots of effort but it makes for major fun in game, Remember to back up those two export descr file in case you mess up majorly.
Also when editing keep the spacing and lines the way theve been set so dont put wording at the very first collum when no other similar lines are in that collumn.