A Turn for the Worst

[teks]

Hey guys,
I've been playing as the late byzantine empire and made it all the way to turn 1295. I'm using Gryms IV submod too. Things were dull for the last 50 turns, just owning the crap out of everyone with the badassery known as the byzantine roster, but I think I may have became overconfident. I find myself in one hell of a bad situation after a series of seriously terrible events.

First, a plague hit constantinople, and it crippled my economy. furthermore, the first turn I didn't notice it, and now I have 6 generals carrying the plague. Constantinople is a major center for my empire, and its really hard to avoid the place. It also shut down production of some of my strongest units. This plague is now on its 4th turn.

Second, I took out the rebels in southern Italy. I don't know what happened to sicaly, but they are no more. Sadly, now that I have taken the lands I have genoese stacks landing on the shore along with the popes army. Neither of them seem particularly pleased with me. At all. I've thrown money at the problem so far.

Third, It looks like hungary is ready to try to retake the balkans. I beat them pretty good, but probably shoulda have finished them. I just wanted to keep them as a buffer zone so relations with other nations wouldn't get strained by border disputes. Fortunately I have spies in all of their cities, and very powerful border defenses. We're talking 1 trebutchet, 1 siphonatores, one heavy cavalry (officers orphans), 2 javelins, 2 spears, and 2 archers in each city at the border minimum.

Fourth, a Jihad was called upon constantinople! Talk about hitting a guy when he's down. I lost my best allies, the caliphate in egypt, who also happen to be the only empire stronger then me. Asia minor is a mess. Its very hard to reposition troops there, and the turks still hold a major city in it which I need as a route from the north to the south. Defenses are moderate, but not as strong as the west.

As you can see. I got a problem.
I'm in danger of being completely engulfed in war from 3 sides and my best city, home of my best troops, is shut down with a plague and has a jihad called upon it.
I have 2 elite stacks hanging around the Mediterranean, and a third stuck in south italy.
What I'm thinking of doing is making peace with the pope and Genoa through marriage and possibly giving up southern Italy. That way I can move my king into constantinople as soon as the plague ends. Then I think I'll take my heir into turkish lands to take over Caesarea, which I've prepped with priests already. Leaving my third stack to keep the egyptians at bay.

I'll try to post pics. I think its gonna get messy.

[teks]

A intercepted some of the crusaders. I got like 3-4 stacks of egyptian troops staring down my eastern border, and the first jihad army arrives bearing elephants with guns. Where the hell did they get elephants...with guns. Its pretty much the scariest army I've seen so far in the entire game.

[mystang89]

Turn 1295 or year 1295? Either way I look forward to seeing how you get out of this

[teks]

Thanks for taking interest. Im happy im not the only one playing this today.

Year 1297. Things are going ok, but im only winning the battles. egypts neverending jihad is scary. hungary and the mongols decided to take advantage of the situation and my coffers just hit the red, so i gotta make my soldiers count. I didnt give up naples so my king is still stuck with a ton of precious soldiers and the pope wont back off.

I have a plan.
i have a young general parked at the egyptian border with siege equipment and professional troops. Based on what my spies see he wont stand a chance agsinst the incoming forces, so instead i think ill ferry him right to cairo.if egypt reacts he can run back to the boats. If they dont he will pillage, and he will be a traitor and he will be banished but he will save the empire.

Let the egyptians throw their soldiers against my lands. Constantinople has 3 siphonatores alone. Its not going anywhere. My hier is a night fighter he will keep the seiging stacks down in the meantime. Hungary isnt even a match for my reserves. The real questiin is. Where are the moors?

[Boogie Knight]

To answer your question about elephants with guns, I remember finding, much to my surprise, that one could hire elephant mercenaries in vanilla from a very particular spot. Now, my knowledge of Middle-Eastern geography is terrible, but at a guess I'd say it was east of Anatolia. Probably about level with Constantinople. It's in those hills/mountains about the middle of the map height-wise, and the furthest east you could go in vanilla width-wise. The Timurids and Mongols didn't stand a chance once I found that spot.

Maybe it exists in Stainless Steal as well? I wouldn't know as I'm new to SS and playing the Moors right now. Still, I hope that explains things for you.

[teks]

Thanks for the info on the elephants. Crazy that they can get gun mercs before guns were even around.

Here are some pics, 1298.
This is naples. I guess I can't keep naples without the pope getting in my face. I'm giving this up so I can regain access to my king and his army.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is my strongest general and heir leading the primary army, which is constantly resupplied with boats moving to and from corinth. As a night fighter, he will attempt to single out the incoming stacks.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This is the defense at the now-beseiged Constantinople. I think its pretty solid.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I have an additional army in a boat at the egyptian border. I think they will move north to help repel the egyptian forces as they move in while my king moves to sac their capital.

Now what I'm up against so far...
The forces seiging constantinople are very advanced, but I don't have a spy around there to give them a peek.
This is what my spies do see coming my way. It looks like I'll be losing asia minor at this rate.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I accidentally left a fortress in the west without enough defenses and lost it to hungary. I'm trying to scrounge up a sufficient force to take it back.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The mongols also moved a small army in the far east, but they didn't have a general leading it. My militia intercepted them on a hill and decimated them. Still no sign of the moors, who were the ones who started this.

[T r a n c e]

Nice.. I think the moors have enough in their hands to deal with.

[Boogie Knight]

I have to agree with Trance. Looking at their situation in Iberia, I'd say you're the least of their worries. They probably called that Jihad on you out of nothing more than spite; I think the Muslim factions would be far better served facing the Mongols.

[teks]

It sucks that right before this I was fighting the mongols for fun. 7 years back I was at peace and drowning in money. I declared war on the mongols to help the egyptians and test the scholarii. I just had my heir running amok fighting the biggest mongol stacks I could find just for kicks. At least this series of events happened before new tech becomes available. I'm pretty excited to see what happens once the other factions start brandishing more advanced soldiers.

[Duck of Death]

Looks like you got a fun looking scenario going on
The only thing I would change is, as Byzantines, don't invade Italy until you have the firepower to take it all in the span of about 15 turns...
A lightning campaign with 5-6 stacks... 2 stacks hit Venice, 1 stack sails into southern Italy, 1 stack into Sicily, 1-2 stacks sail into Milan.
That way you, very quickly, have the Pope surrounded and he'll go into defense mode. Means youll probably face 3-4 of his stacks when you try to take Rome, but it will be a matter of wearing him down at that point.

So, maybe give up any Italian territories in exchange for peace with them, then concentrate those forces on shoring up your south, east and north borders... then build up heavy for your western invasion

[teks]

Yeah, the pope just went right to bari
I'll take that advice. I'm gonna try to get on europe's good side for now, and just focus on my friends to the east. It'd be nice to take the rest of asia minor, then I'll make sure that area is super secure. I'm not very hell bent on winning, I just want to have a good time. I figure the slower I go, the harder the game will get, as the AI will be able to establish more powerful and advanced armies while my own travel down the lonely road of obsolescence.

Right now I need a breather though. My king is old, so is my war council at Nicea. I need to get together some pupils to take over their retinue and carry on their work. I defeated both the armies at constantinople in one battle. That was the biggest battle I've fought in stainless steel to date. I meant to record it, but I don gone and goofed it up, so I might replay it with a proper recording. The battle formation was solid and showed off the full potential of akritae and mouratoi on flat ground. I figure many people don't know how to do that.

those elephants I feared so much got roasted. Siphonatores > elephants.

[teks]

Well the jihad is still happening, but I don't see anymore jihading armies. Fighting a two-front battle was pretty horrible, especially when Grym's mod forces me to only attack with my leader and heir, and I can only train quality troops from cities with recruitment authorization. It got even worse when my king died and Order:chivalry was enacted. Any general who ransoms or executes captured soldiers is ordered to stay at Constantinople indefinately.

So, the only active training centers are Corinth, and Constantinople, all soldiers had to be run to the front lines by boat or highway, and only 2 generals can attack at all. I focused on the weaker link, Hungary, and they will probably be finished soon. In the east I almost fell apart when Egypt sent in heavy numbers of mamluk archers, but I got reinforcements of mouratoi and scoutatoi just in time. Currently, things are looking real good. I'm finally making more soldiers then I'm losing, and Constantinople is once again able to train elite soldiers.

Byzantine roster with grym is rough. They have terrible militias and their top soldiers have a very low recruitment pool. Scholarii are awesome, but it takes 7 turns to train them. The biggest challenge was just keeping my professional soldiers from getting worn down before I could replace the ranks. At this point my eastern force contains 3-4 javelins and 5-6 archers just to keep whittling down the enemy as much as possible with fewer losses. Since I release the enemy after every fight, I'm often fighting the exact same soldiers every turn.

[Mitsmann]

One of my usual strategies when a Jihad against Constantinople is declared (and it will be declared at about 50-60 turns after the beginning, and will be a thorn in your foor for a very long time) is to invest from the beginning to Adrianople castle and to take at all costs Targoviste castle.

These two castles provide necessary support to a half-century's of cat and mouse game in your capital. Especially Adrianople should be ever battle-ready, with one or two good generals and a full stack. I use this stack for harassing jihad armies, passing by, even battling one or two stacks in an open field. Even if your stack loses (and i try to deploy my army in this type of battle, with inflicting most enemy casualties tactics), the jihad armies of a faction should have many casualties that in the end, it will be very difficult to take Constantinople in a storm attack. In this plan, Constantinople will of course have a very strong garrison (at least 4 scoutatoi and a lot of archers or multi-tasked acritai) for as long as this jihad incident will last. It may need to play defensively to another front of the empire, holding the line in your borders, since a lot of military production will go to the capital defence. We re talking for a very hard difficulty, when usually Egyptians, Kwarhazmian and Moors will send at about 12-14 full stacks as a first wave and they will keep coming for a while. (at the Jihad incident level, you should have destroyed the Turks)

Targoviste will be used to support the Adrianople army, and other castles as Sofia can be used for your Western defence (which almost totally means Durazzo). Corinth and any other upgraded castle should be used for feeding the other border armies except the far northeastern front where Trebizond can be hold with a decent amount of units due to specific castle built which has a great bottleneck inside the castle just after the gate.

this is my plan when i have the Byzantines. perhaps there are better ones, it was my employed tactic when this happened to me for the first time.

p.s. Since Constantinople will be facing a lot of siege and will have a great lesser income, it is essential for other cities to be at a strong finance level, since they will be the supporting mules of the empire. Thessaloniki and Athens are my financial centers for this time, Nikaea and Smyrna can be a lot of help also.

[bigdaddy1204]

Hey guys,
I've been playing as the late byzantine empire and made it all the way to turn 1295. I'm using Gryms IV submod too. Things were dull for the last 50 turns, just owning the crap out of everyone with the badassery known as the byzantine roster, but I think I may have became overconfident. I find myself in one hell of a bad situation after a series of seriously terrible events.

First, a plague hit constantinople, and it crippled my economy. furthermore, the first turn I didn't notice it, and now I have 6 generals carrying the plague. Constantinople is a major center for my empire, and its really hard to avoid the place. It also shut down production of some of my strongest units. This plague is now on its 4th turn.

Second, I took out the rebels in southern Italy. I don't know what happened to sicaly, but they are no more. Sadly, now that I have taken the lands I have genoese stacks landing on the shore along with the popes army. Neither of them seem particularly pleased with me. At all. I've thrown money at the problem so far.

Third, It looks like hungary is ready to try to retake the balkans. I beat them pretty good, but probably shoulda have finished them. I just wanted to keep them as a buffer zone so relations with other nations wouldn't get strained by border disputes. Fortunately I have spies in all of their cities, and very powerful border defenses. We're talking 1 trebutchet, 1 siphonatores, one heavy cavalry (officers orphans), 2 javelins, 2 spears, and 2 archers in each city at the border minimum.

Fourth, a Jihad was called upon constantinople! Talk about hitting a guy when he's down. I lost my best allies, the caliphate in egypt, who also happen to be the only empire stronger then me. Asia minor is a mess. Its very hard to reposition troops there, and the turks still hold a major city in it which I need as a route from the north to the south. Defenses are moderate, but not as strong as the west.

As you can see. I got a problem.
I'm in danger of being completely engulfed in war from 3 sides and my best city, home of my best troops, is shut down with a plague and has a jihad called upon it.
I have 2 elite stacks hanging around the Mediterranean, and a third stuck in south italy.
What I'm thinking of doing is making peace with the pope and Genoa through marriage and possibly giving up southern Italy. That way I can move my king into constantinople as soon as the plague ends. Then I think I'll take my heir into turkish lands to take over Caesarea, which I've prepped with priests already. Leaving my third stack to keep the egyptians at bay.

I'll try to post pics. I think its gonna get messy.

There is a way to defeat jihads quickly, painlessly and in less than two turns. It works every time.

Let me show you how.

Step one: change your capital city from Constantinople to any other city.
Step two: send a diplomat to any Islamic faction. Offer them Constantinople as a gift.

They will accept your offer, and the Jihad will instantly disband! You can then immediately lay siege to Constantinople, and take it back again the following turn. Because you offered it as a gift, it will be virtually undefended, and can easily be taken back by your garrison units (which will conveniently be standing right next to it).

This quick, relatively painless method is far faster, easier and cheaper than attempting to hold off against endless stacks of units for 20 turns. Try it!

[k/t]

Or you could use auto_win... Or surrender_regions...

Of course exploits and cheats make the game easier. He's not playing with BGR because he wants the game to be easier.

[bigdaddy1204]

Or you could use auto_win... Or surrender_regions...

Of course exploits and cheats make the game easier. He's not playing with BGR because he wants the game to be easier.

Actually I had a go at modding it so that Constantinople is no longer a valid Jihad target, as I think it's a bit ridiculous. There never was a jihad against Constantinople in the time period. Sadly though, despite deleting the words Constantinople 'jihad target' from the descr_regions file, when I launched my next campaign the AI still declared a Jihad against Constantinople. I don't quite understand how this is possible, but was very disappointed.

[danny X]

Did you delete map.rwm?

[bigdaddy1204]

Did you delete map.rwm?

No...

What does map.rwm do?

[danny X]

It builds all the critical map files into one file so the game can generate the map we see in campaigns.

descr_regions is one of those critical files, as are most of the files in the base folder.

Don't worry, although it may take 30 secs to a minute or so, it will regenerate.

[k/t]

You have to delete map.rwm before starting a new campaign, by the way. When you start a campaign, it will take a little longer than usual due to the creation of a new map file.