good start byz?

[Palandiell]

in vanilla, what is a good start for the byz?

I alwys train 3 diplomats, send one to turkey, one I take on a ship and send em to venice (so I can have em off my back for a while) the other I send to hungary HRE and on. I build roads and markets and then templees everywhere, make cyprus a city and take the town in the lower eastern corner of modern turkey (south of nizäa) then I build the castle in korinth and either start attacking the turks asap or start fending off the venitian invasion.

would you recommend somethingelse?

[In3x]

Attack Durazzo from Thessalonica, Crete from Corinth, Smyrna from Nicaea and Sofia from Constantinople. Build troops in all cities and sack whenever you take a city (except Durazzo). Once this is achieved attack towards the Levant and through the Balkans, also consider attack the Sicilians.

[Silverheart]

Claim/secure Smyrna, Nicaea, Durazzo and Sofia, and you will have a good and steady border.
Then you build up economically while expanding in any of three directions:
North: Continue pushing against Hungary along the coast of the Black sea until you reach Russia. As the only other orthodox faction, Russia is a valuable ally.
East: The easiest path in my opinion. You focus your military expansion on going against the Turks. The best strategy is to move across land towards Antioch, taking all turkish settlements in your path. If you leave the Turks to have the Zagros mountains, they will have to face the Mongols first.
West: Take Crete from Venice, and then (once the war is on anyway) conquer Ragusa and then make a full-scale invasion of Italy.

Once you have claimed Kiev, Antioch or Venice, you should have a sizeable enough empire to sustain increased military activity on other fronts, and you should be fine from there - just make sure to think of Smyrna, Nicaea, Durazzo and Sofia as your last line of defence. Then you can build up Constantinople and Thessalonica with total focus on economy.
Also, make good use of cavalry.
The Byzantine Empire has pretty poor infantry, especially early on, but they also have the best horse archers (Vardariotai) and capable lancer cavalry available pretty early.
Use large numbers (and Trebizond Archers) for your foot troops, and quality cavalry to do the most important work (killing generals, decimating enemy cavalry and routing archers).

[Palandiell]

ok guys I need a little more details. the byz start out with quite meager troops while venice has some quite nice . so you guys are telling me, to basically just build the basic buildings (roads, first market, smal church) and then just spam the low quality infantry and attack in all directions? and I build up my cities later? what about korinth, I need a good castle, should this be korinth?

[TWWolfe]

thats why you want to take Sofia quickly, it will be your main castle in the Balkans.

[Palandiell]

ok: take sofia make it my #1 castle. take smyrna and take down the turks, while possibly leaving them the northern eastern part, so they fight the mongols first. convert cyprus and korinth to cities. link up connectionsto the pope, hungary and russia to make alliances (rest will have atleast trade rights) watch out for venice and fight them in the balkan area, when strong enough, land and take venice in one go. how does that sound? good for the start?

just what about syria and the holy land regions? should I go for it, or will there be too much trouble with egypt, timmys and mongols?

and if I am unlucky and the mongols come my way and not down to egypt or up to the russians, how do I fight em? I can fend off a few stacks with a full city/castle stacked army, but their invasion force is just huge!

[Silverheart]

I think you should focus your expansion on just one direction, and fortify your borders on the other fronts.
If you expand eastwards, then it would be a good idea to keep pushing at least to Acre, Damascus, Aleppo and Edessa (Jerusalem will become a crusade target, so it´s up to you if you want to take the risk) Otherwise, your strategy sounds good.

Now, as I said, militarily you´re going to have to rely on large numbers of light and poor infantry (Spear Militia, Byzantine Spearmen) in the beginning, with your cavalry doing the most important/dangerous jobs - So I hope you´re adept with cavalry tactics. When available, I suggest you start utilizing a mix of Spear Militia and swordsmen infantry (Byzantine Infantry, Dismounted Byzantine Lancers, Dismounted Latinkon) and the long-range archers for support (Trebizond Archers, Byzantine Guard Archers)

And as for the Mongols: they will almost certainly target Antioch, so just build up militarily there until you have Ballista towers and can recruit Byzantine Infantry.
Then, when they arrive, you build up a full garrison of 6 Archer Militia, 6 Byzantine Infantry and 8 Spear Militia - but feel free to replace any of them with troops of better quality if you have any available and can afford them, since the city is basically going to have to fend off the entire Mongol horde on its´ own.
Send large armies to the Antioch region and place them on the bridges to hinder Mongol movement, and wear their horde down with defensive battles (this is why it´s good to have the regions surrounding Antioch, since it makes it much easier to prevent their further expansion)

PS.
I usually keep Corinth as a castle until Sofia has been built up - better to have two poor castles than just one, since you can start recruitment in both of them simultaneously to amass large armies in short time.
DS.