How to crush Byzantine Empire in mid-late game?

[MattJeburt]

Nearly every game the Byzantine Empire grows so fast and big that it soon behaves like a big cancer incorporating its neighbours step by step.

i even could assassinate 10 rulers in a row in about 5 years to destabilize their empire, but with no success.

Do you have similar experiences?

[Mr W]

I took out the leaders until I got a child ruler then started on the vassals that had large armies. After enough competent people were gone they were never really the same.

[pi73r]

Well, that's how it should behave. By the time byzantine got 15k troops, any player will have 40k+ so it's not like they are a threat to a player.

[delete]

I almost never use any intrigue in game - not kidding!

Focusing on Learning and occasionally Stewardship I've never played a game when I couldn't take out Byzantium at will. I play vanilla Iron man.

Once you get the press multiple claims at once advancement (around year 1100) you can just eat them piece by piece (if you want too). Target two duchies, perhaps 10 or 11 county's, hit them hard and fast before they can react you get the war score. And repeat.

I've no interest in the bad lands of the Balkans; get into Greece through the heel of Italy.

It gets boring after a while.

Early game I will ally with them if I can. It doesn't matter how big they get, they will implode at some point.

Byzantium is a great choice to play; no hassle with inheritance from the off. Compared to Catholicism the religious heresy's are a walk in the park.

[GorishiDan]

My games are the often the opposite - often the byzantine lose land little by little, stability and growth seem to be a thing with the Seljuk empire in my experience

[Germaine's Bra]

Let the Mongols eat them alive

[Baby Jesus]

During my plays on CK3, CK2 and EU4 with extended time line. Byzantium always get rekt at some point, they get super big and then bam civil war, revolts they get attacked from all sides kinda like the game doesnt want them to exist hehe

[Captain Crummy]

Originally posted by MattJeburt:

Nearly every game the Byzantine Empire grows so fast and big that it soon behaves like a big cancer incorporating its neighbours step by step.

i even could assassinate 10 rulers in a row in about 5 years to destabilize their empire, but with no success.

Do you have similar experiences?

Yes, was able to conquer the whole of Europe, North Africa and Russia. But I had to chip endlessy at the Byzantines, the more I chipped the faster they grew.
Then the pope declared a Holy War for the kingdom of Syria (partially in the Byzantine Empire) and we won. Not 5 years after that the entire empire started breaking apart, and its breaking apart fast. Egypt, Nubia, Iraq and others swooped in and all got themselves a piece, now it should be easy for me to overtake the area. I'm around year 1230 now btw.

[The Blind One]

Byzantines do have a notorious capacity to stay stabile compared to other realms. It's mostly because they have an emperor title making succession somewhat easy for them and constantinople being a powerhouse giving a definitive advantage to whomever holds it. I see them gobble up the balkans and even spread out into hungary, caucasus and ukraine more often than I'd wish. It's mostly because they have a lack of opposition to the west and north as compared to the east where they are checked by the abbasids. The lack of proper inner realm factions and real politics helps them a lot as well currently. Let's hope for a good Byzantines DLC or something ... or just download a proper mod for it.

[JC]

Isn't that how it should be? https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/when-did-the-byzantine-empire-fall.html

[Bike Knight]

I've never had an experience where any AI threatened me mid-late game because they don't max out their MAA with surplus gold and thus get rolled easily by my elite armies. Levies are totally useless so they can be safely ignored when looking at a faction's troop count.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2257887921

[Sentient_Toaster]

If it'd mid-to-late, you can have a healthy advantage in troop quality c/o innovations allowing more and better men-at-arms + buildings in your personal domain providing buffs. Not sure how doable that is if you started from a very low-development area (NE, SW extremes of the map?).

e.g. I've had battles where ~11K men-at-arms just obliterate a Byzantine army of 36K+ -- ~130 losses on my side, *15 survivors* on theirs. If you shatter their army like that, their problems will probably increase even after your war with them ends, because both internal factions and other neighbors will smell weakness.

Murdering their rulers until they're replaced with children, and then murdering their guardians and any particularly competent adult council members etc. can also help, but murdering emperors is difficult if you're not pushing Intrigue hard, I believe.

[CrUsHeR]

The BE definitely needs some kind of scripted brake to stop them from expanding.

With the CK2 mechanics, i've never seen them get visibly beyond their original borders. And with the HIP mod (which largely inspired CK3), there is a lot of historical direction to make sure that e.g. the BE does not expand, and in turn the conquerors like Seljuk or Gengis actually succeed with their invasions (and these also stay within the historical areas).

Honestly it is laughable to see an empire which already starts with primogeniture, expanding as far as central africa almost every game. Most coastal areas around Palestine/Syria and Egypt are already conquered by them before a crusade can start.

Why don't other historical empires have primogeniture? It doesn't make any sense. Abbasids and Seljuks fail every game because of this issue.

The same also goes to a lesser extent for the HRE, which also has a tendency to expand like no tomorrow at least in eastern europe but often also France, Spain, etc.

[Mikey]

you take on the byzies mid to late game the same way you take them on early game... one duchy at a time

[MattJeburt]

thanks to all!

Its not really a "problem" with BE, but its kind of strange compared to other realms...

anyway i feel bored in the lategame when i formed a empire because you have endless money and compared to the AI so much troops.

i hope they improve the late game in a DLC or patch...