***MY ERE (Byzantine Empire) GUIDE to DM BI***
Ave Darth Vader, DM players and RTW fans!
Having played only as Huns in DM BI, I‘ve decided to give a go for BI once again – this time I chose to test my generalship as the mighty Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantines) – faction both popular in Rome as well as in original Medieval!
Just before we start bringing Constantinople and the heritage of hellenism to it‘s gloryhere are some very interesting and informative sources about Byzantine Empire
:
totalwar.org guide section for ERE
basic info about ERE
ERE in wikipedia
ERE army composition
Byzantine units
Byzantine army in wikepedia
Byzantine army tactics - enjoyed reading this one, esp about Cataphract tactics
ERE flag symbolizing Christian Rome imo (letter “R” with cross)
ERE Catafractii (often called “catas” or Katapraktoi) – the military power symbolizing unit of Byzantine Empire (similar to as legionnairy was in Roman Empire)
ERE BI description
Constantine the Great remade the Roman Empire to suit his own ambitions. He established a new capital in the East at Byzantium, renaming the city Constantinople in his own honour. He established Christianity
as the new state religion and, by force of will alone, ruled a united Roman world. Since his death in 337 AD few have been up to the task of ruling the world on their own. The Roman Empire has, by default, been split into two unequal halves.
Centred on Constantinople, the Eastern Roman Empire is rich and powerful, although largely Greek rather than Roman in character. Unlike the West, trade has remained strong and the tax income of the Eastern Emperors has been sufficient to pay for an efficient military machine. This is just as well, because the Eastern Empire has a border with the Sassanids, a powerful successor to the Persian empire of old
Historically, the Eastern Empire survived the fall of Rome and its armies marched 'For the Senate and People of Rome' for another 1000 years. The renamed Byzantine Empire finally fell in 1453 AD for Ottoman Turks at Constantinople.
To sum up, when the Roman Empire became too bloated to be ruled by one Emperor, it was divided into an Eastern and Western half. The East encompassed the extremely wealthy provinces, including most of the Aegean sea, Anatolia, Egypt, and part of North Africa. Though extremely rich, the Eastern Empire was plagued by internal instability and foreign invasions. The Eastern Roman Empire will start off with a large number of provinces, but will be on the verge of collapse. Heavy legionary infantry and heavy cavalry will be their greatest asset, and vital to the success of the Eastern Empire.
Can you become the new Augustus Justinian? Can you defeat those treacherous easterners Sassanids, save your empire from the nomadic hordes and make Byzantines the most powerful empire in the world once again? Can you recreate history? Strength and Honour be with you in your conquests Emperor!
CAMPAIGN – the strategic part
I. The starting geographical position
Advantages: 1. you start out in one of the richest regions in the known world – with the help of collecting rational taxes and stimulating lucrative sea and land trade Byzantine Empire can become one of the wealthiest factions and an economic powerhouse.
2. Your initial economy can support your standing army, so you can focus further on developing your military forces (particularly uber heavy cavalry catas and legionnaires)
3. You have more stable inner and outer situation than WRE and less enemies at the start.
Disadvantages: 1. Your empire can be overstretched and weakened from inside (religious breakdown and unrest) if you’re not careful;
2. Future/relative danger of hordes invading your northern lands
3. War with Sassanids on eastern front may weaken you.
Overall imho, ERE (Byzantine Empire) has far superior starting position than WRE, potential ‘cashcow’ economy and superb military prospects in the future; You need to eliminate Sassanids and defend against hordes until you begin your counter-offensive on western front and be victorious!
II. Campaign objectives
Hold 34 regions including Constantinople, Alexandria, Rome, Carthage (quite historical objectives)
I find it best to deal with Sassanids first while defending my northern Danube border against fierce hordes constantly reinforcing that border with fresh troops. After the Persians are destroyed you can then turn your attention to expand into Africa and western lands to crush those barbarians and foul romans for good and reunite Roman Empire under your mighty leadership!
III. The economy
In BI most factions start with already quite developed economy so you can concentrate on the military side more. Nevertheless if you want more armies to support your empire, good sea as well as land trade routes and strong economic infrastructure is a must.
Basic tips for a campaign start
1.Convert to Christianity:
2.Organize your settlements as military, economic and generic
3.Aim to build ports and roads to establish lucrative sea and land trade early on. That really helps developing early budget and keeping large and expensive army. Basic ports in the beginning is a must, I realized.
4.Specialize your military settlements: your army’s best lineup is heavy legionary infantry (backbone) and heavy cavalry plus some archer and light cav as support; so plan accordingly.
5.Garisson cities; deploy your armies and organize border defenses
6.Loyalty and generals:choose generals with high loyalty (best choose faction leader and heir or generals with titles) to fight on your fronts so that you won’t loose loyalty so quickly. Award your frontier generals with titles to further boost their loyalty. Get rid of unloyal ones (suicide missions, etc., you’ll be imaginative I know) and place low loyalty characters to govern towns and not fight. Constantly check the loyalty of all of your generals in ‘army’ tab to prevent rebellions.
Your initial settlements
Greece and Balkans
Sirmium (border with WRE and Goths) – this will be your military center, since it’s located near dangerous border and doesn’t have access to sea via port (so not so good for economy anyway). I decided to specialize in heavy legionary infantry and archers for support here. This city also has stone walls which are great for siege defense. Don’t forget to build forts behind bridges (one near Danube and the other near Sirmium behind that river to the east) to slow down possible enemies
Thesalonica (northern Greece) – already has 1st stable (will provide you with light equites cavalry early on), but I opted this settlement for infantry and archer training. Aim to also develop economy here: build ports, traders, mines, etc. Build watchtower near the west border and forts in mountain passes to guard this city.
Athens – economy and cavalry training settlement for me. Don’t wait too long – go straight for Circus Maximus (4th cavalry stables) to get the best and nastiest of your cavalry. On the economy side build ports and roads when you can.
Constantinopole – the starting capital of your empire, very advanced developed city. It will be your generic city providing both economic and military benefits. On the military side, I tried to get the best infantry and cavalry from it. You just got to love 1st comitatenses cohort or equites catafractii (sp?). Remember to build watchtower to the east to see all territory and forts by Danube and along highway.
Kydonia (Crete Island) – purely economic and navy providing settlement cuz it’s in relative safety. You might build 1st barracks to have troops (limitanei) to garrison it.
Asia Minor
Ephesus (western coast of Asia Minor) – financial (what an income from naval trade!) settlement for the most part; build watchtower to the east and couple of forts to minimize raiding and brigand bands.
Ancyra (near modern Ankara) – a military city, train heavy legionary infantry here and reinforce with it the Eastern Sassanid front.
Sinope (north eastern Anatolia) – a border settlement but in relative safety cuz you can block 2 bridges with forts. Good for sea trade. I aimed for developing archery skills here (kinda like Medieval Trebizond region haha!). Those eastern archers are gorgeous.
Caessarea – economy and cavalry all the way here, to support the war effort against Sass.
Middle East and Egypt
Tarsus – purely financial city, nothing else to say about it.
Antioch – kinda like your second Capital (and you may even want to move it here once you destroy Sassanids for more central position in your empire), advanced and generic settlement. Great profits from naval trade. Militarily I trained legions and heavy cavalry here.
Salamis (Cyprus Island) – economy all the way, just ship some garrison from mainland.
Sidon – economy and archers.
Philadelphaea – undeveloped settlement, best go for improving it’s economy and population growth.
Jerusalem – finances and heavy infantry + cavalry for me here. It is a very rioting and hard to maintain public order city, keep a larger force here in case of rebellion so you could exterminate those rebellious scum! Esp using that “let them revolt and kill them all”
Alexandria – like your third capital really. Generic advanced city. Train all types of military here, depend on camel mercs and reinforce Jerusalem and Cyrene with your armies.
Cyrene – African border with WRE, bring always reinforcements here from Alexandria; build watchtowers across the desert.
IV. Rival factions and expansion
Sassanids – the enemy #1 and expansion target at the start of your campaign. They must be dealt with asap (while defending only your northern front from the hordes) or they grow very tiresome and powerful. Only after you’ve destroyed them completely you can turn your attention to the western offensive. The Sassanid’s infantry is no match for your legionnaires; what you must take care is their early heavy and HA cavalry and long range desert archers. Use lots of cav and missile units against Sass.
The Hordes arrive…
Huns, Vandals, Sarmatians, Roxolani, Goths – nomad tribes/people who will come at you in massive powerful hordes. The only way you‘ve got a chance to defend against them is use your natural defence – Danube – fortify/block the bridge passes and station armies on bridges bringing reinforcements from Greece constantly and reinforcing them. Use lots of foot archers and HAs acompanying your legionnaires to win bridge battles; also take advantage of night fighting trait.
The hordes‘ main weapon is HAs and their „hit and run” tactics; like I said make sure you‘ve got plenty of archers defending the bridge (6+ in 20 stack)
WRE – the final enemy – when you have conquered those Persians and defended successfully against the hordes, there‘ll probably be one major enemy left for you (to fulfill your objectives) and that is the old Roman Empire itself! They use almost the same legionary tactics as you, but your main advantage by then should be your heavily armed and armoured “catatank” horsemen to battle them into submission and reunite the roman world under Byzantine banner! Onwards!
Expansion in my campaign
Stabilized my large empire, converted to christianity everywhere and focused on war with sassanids while building up my military and economy infrastructure. On the northen front I only fortified and chosen defensive strategy. Then all of sudden Sarmatians were turned into horde by Huns and appeared in my lands (wtf?) can you believe me (mysteriously crossed the Danube – is it a bug?)
Thank God they didn‘t attack me but marched westwards making life hard for WRE.
Later on when I was battling with Sassanids the Hun horde headed to my border and declared war on me. Fortunately I was prepared for this and fought many bridge battles. Stupid AI send at me 1 stack at a time. This way I was able to defend, but what if they attacked me all at one time? Fighting against Huns was bloody for me.
Finally after long and tiresome battles I finally defeated those nasty Huns, but many of Byzantines didn’t return home from this bloody war.
Oh, I still had the unfinished “bloody business” with Sass, so I made many “crusades” to their land and it was only a matter of time until they were crushed (although they made strong coalition against me with Goths)
Then come the time to march westwards... and you know what will happen – I'm gonna reunite Roman Empire muhahahah! Will write more once I finish campaign.
BATTLEFIELD – the tactical part
„May the spirit and strength of Belisarius – one of the best Byzantine generals – be with you My Lord!“
Byzantine lineup: strong mixture of troops, few weak units; Heavy legionary infantry acts as an anvil, heavy armoured cavalry as a hammer with light and ranged cavalry and foot archers in support.
HEAVY LEGIONARY INFANTRY – the backbone/anvil of your army (10+ units in 20 stack)
Limitanei – („limmies“ as I call them) your early basic infantry. Great for garisson and cost effective troops. They wear good leather armour, helmet, carry descent shields and are spear armed. Btw they have that unique legionary feature – throwing pilas before charge; also can form shield wall, the things that shouldn‘t be underestimated. They were intended for garisson duty and settled near borders to slow the enemy down untill mobile forces can be deployed and reinforce them according historically to Constantine reforms.
Legio Lanciarii – („lancies“) the first/early mobile field legionaries you have – it is their function to meet enemy on the field rather than performing garrison duties. They wear good quality mail armour, helmet, cover themselves with big shield and are spear armed. Also can perform shield wall and throw precursor weapon before closing in. Surely better troops than limitinei, these guys will fill the ranks of your early legion.
Comitantenses („commies“ smile) – your ‘bread ‘n butter’, the standard killing machine, your widely used legionnaires for the most part of campaign imo. Commies are mobile forces, it’s their duty to crush enemy on the battlefield (Constantine reforms). They are armed in standard fashion of legionnaires: wear mail coat, helmet, defend with shield, have pilas and sword spatha (longer one than gladius, which was outdated due to more use of cavalry in those times – romans always adjusted their army to the period).
Plumbatarii – (“plumbies” for short) better legionary heavy infantry than commies (armed in the same manner) due to slightly better stats and have more dart missiles. This is your late standard heavy inf unit (only weaker than 1st cohort) which will hold the line bravely.
Comitantenses 1st cohort – the best heavy infantry you have; a true elite – unit big in number and very courageous skilled legionnaires. Unfortunately you won’t be able to quickly mass-train them (takes 2 turns). You’ll need mostly 2 units of this elite in a stack to inspire your plumbies and commies.
HEAVY CAVALRY – the hammer of your army (minimum ¼ of your army – 5+ units)
Scholae Palatine – the first heavy cavalry unit you will use in battle; it‘s indeed a very solid and reliable unit fighting at flanks near your trusty legionnaires and helping them. Of course every cavalry unit is at disadvantage fighting spearmen. Heavy cav’s role: intercepting other cav; defending flanks; charging flanks and rear of enemy; being in melee longer to batter the line. (This unit should be available in 3rd cav stable – I fixed this bug by editing EDB)
Equites Catafractii – (“catas”) oh yes, now we’re talking about what the Byzantines were famous through ages – the fearsome “cata-tanks”. Armoured from ‘head to toe’ with finest armour and armed with lances for charge and maces for combat - it’s the unit symbolizing the military power of the ERE (like urban legionnaire was in Roman Empire). What can I say about this unit? I absolutely love those guys when they charge. They are almost unstoppable when they crash into enemy. It’s one of my favourite units from BI and favourite from Byzantine Empire. Unfortunately catas aren’t armed with bows too as they were historically, then you’d have a monster killa – super versatile unit. No wonder that middle ages mounted knights developed in a similar fashion to Katapraktoi.
Available in 4th stables. So make sure you build circus maximus asap in such cities as Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria to get these guys into your armies.
Equites Clibinarii – (“clibbies”) same as catas, but these iron-men are with maces for close-combat rather than charge (that’s why I like catas more). They have a better defence and are awesome in melee though I prefer catas more (my opinion)
LIGHT AND RANGED CAVALRY – the supporting and harassing force
Equites Auxilia – the only light cavalry you have. Well it performs the functions you espect of light cavalry that is: harassing light ranged troops, harrying skirmishers from your main force, chasing routers, charging in the back of engaged infantry, chasing HAs. Their weakness is fighting against heavy cavalry and spearmen, as well as being too long in melee. It’s their charge and mobility/speed that is most valuable.
Dromedarii („drommies“ as I call them) – camel mounted light cavalry, performs the same functions of light cav as equites, but better in desert regions. Those camels are cute!
Hippo Toxotai (‚medium archers“ or „hippes“ as I name them lol) – medium ranged cavalry, your own personal HAs (although no match for nomad ones). The Byzantine response to massive hordes of nomad horse archers (very great roman adjusting of foreign military ideas). These HAs act as mounted skirmishers and can even fight hand-to-hand with weakened enough opponent. But their main strength is mobility, distance when showering enemy with arrows. They‘re armed with composite bow, arrows, sword and have mail armour and a helmet. They use the basic HAs hit and run tactics (Read my Hun guide for more on that). In the early stages of campaign you wanna have as many of these guys as you can in your armies.
FOOT ARCHERS – support for your legionnaires
Archers – the cheapest units you‘ve got. Excellent for garisson, crappy in melee. While in the field use their missiles only against light troops, they‘re weak unit esp terrible in melee (will drop like flies lol). They need a lot of experience to make them effective against more heavily armoured troops. And dont even expect to hit any more heavily armoured inf from the front with them lol! But against HAs they can pose some challenge. Also quite good defending stone-walled settlements. Their role is mostly like limitinei, try not to include them in mobile army rather garrison (esp if you have eastern archers)
Eastern Archers – best foot archers you‘ve got, armoured with mail shirt, armed with composite bow, long range arrows, dagger and a helmet plus trained for long range firing, these guys are very valuable in your field mobile army as they make life easier for legionnaires before they enclose by softening the enemy with arrows.
MERCENARIES
Your army is very powerfully balanced so I find mercs are only good in the early campaign and I hire mostly foreign Horse Archers (esp sarmatians).
Infantry
Bosphoran Merc – decent spearmen, heavily armoured, great vs cav, can be good for defending flanks from enemy cav to make life easier for your legionnaires.
Merc Veteranii – basically these are comitantenses working as mercenaries; no need to hire them (hellava expensive) if you have commies (lol) of your own.
Merc Bucelarii – early crossbowmen; popular in WRE. Quite good, but I prefer eastern archers more as they can fire in an arc stationed behind your troops while crossbowmen have low trajectory and must be stationed as skirmishers in front. Nevertheless they are effective against armour.
Cavalry
Camel Raides – cost effective mercs and they are big in number; good to hire these doodes in desert. Great substitution for drommies when you are unable to train them.
Armoured Camel Raides – expensive mercs, but their armour more than pays for their skill.
Merc Equites – hardly hire these since you have plenty to train of your own.
Merc Hippo–Toxotai – same here
Merc Alan Horse Archers – a little better than hippo-toxotai imo; good substitute esp if you‘re lacking HAs.
Merc Sarmatian Horse Archers – the best merc HAs that you can hire imo, cuz they are armoured very well.
Merc Sarmatian Nobles – heavy steppe cavalry, costly though; good if you have plenty of money and lack heavy cavalry esp early in the game.
Balanced Byzantine army
To sum up, here‘s balanced according to my fighting style Byzantine army compositions
Early campaign
1 good loyal general
4-5 Equites Auxilia/Dromedarii (if in desert)
4 archers
10 limitanei + legio lanciarii (use the best available composition)
Medium campaign
1 good loyal general
4 eastern archers
5-6 Hippo toxotai (and can include couple of light cav in this according to your taste)
1-2 Scolae Palatinae
8 comitantenses + legio lanciarii (best available cost-effective mix)
1 Onager if needed
Late campaign – elite army
1 good loyal general
1-2 first comitantenses cohort
7-8 plumbatarii/comitantenses
4 easten archers
2-4 Catafractii/Clibinarii (according to your taste) or more Hippo-Toxotai for a more ranged orientied army.
1 Carriage Ballista (sp?) if needed
„The Imperial Cataphract was a heavy cavalry horse archer and lancer, who symbolized the power of Constantinople in much the same way as the Legionary represented the might of Rome
-Byzantine Formation DV tm
DV Quote: “This is almost identical to the formation that Byzantines mostly used and it was mentioned in the “strategikon”. (Something like Sun Tzu’s Art of War in the middle ages). It is perhaps the cleverest of all the formations because of the interaction that I have forced the AI to have with its units. When it defends, it produces decoys to the left and when the human army approaches it rains shower of javelins against him. Cavalry has a super role in this army because it is seldom isolated and almost all the time supports the attack in various positions of the battlemap. Center and flanks are supported and the AI cavalry interacts to any human try to win the iniative in cavalry charge. A really cunning formation in which the AI general has very high survive ability and Byzantine heavy infantry use shieldwall to protect him at all cost with unique discipline. The weakness of the formation is that sometimes cavalry can be tricked by human and lose 1-2 units as sacrifice and also it is slow in development. The benefit is the discipline and cohesion of the infantry involved. It has 3 sections. Top-center-Rear”.
My customized music for Byzantines
1.Awesome CC light music pack – amazing Gladiator soundtrack really makes the atmosphere battle-hot and roman.
2.Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack – superb music that has christianity flavour and fits to the campaign and battles so well.
3.Vanilla RTW music – some of the tracks for campaign and battles are really great (esp mobilize_soldiers_chant.mp3)
4.EB music from their 2 previews – roman and western greek tracks suit so well for Byzantines.
5.Matrix: Revolutions couple of tracks for an awesome battle atmosphere.
So that's it
Ave Justinian and Belisarius!
Reply With Quote
