Why is Byzantium's armies so weak in the extended timeline mod?

[giorgospes]

I have about 450 hours on EU4. It's one of my most beloved games, right after Medieval 2 total war. My favourite nation is Byzantium, right after the reconquest of Constantinople, in 1261. It's a great starting date as you have cores but the countries around you aren't push overs so you have to be careful. However, i noticed that when going to battle, regardless of the amount of coins going to the army, their morale is always at about 65% in the start of the battle. This means that if you want to win nations with the same amount of land as you, you must have more men. I said "ok, i suppose military ideas will fix this" but this isn't the case. I completed Offensive, Quantity and Quality ideas and still my army( with 113% discipline) went to battle like scared little girls. I dealt with it and created a large empire from Milan to Rostov, from Kiev to Alexandria but then, in 1670, France entered into a personal union with Prussia and later( after having annex Prussia) with Sweden. So France( my main rival) went from 200k fielded manpower to 590k in the span of 70 years when i went from 120k to 200k in the same time period. The only thing that saved me was my alliance with Spain and Portugal but still my armies were shattered and routed in 4 battles. HOW DO I FIX THIS(the lack of morale in the army)?

[Medicles]

Usually the go to modifiers for your army are Morale of Armies for the early to midgame and then stacking Disciplin.

If your army always went into battle with like 65% of morale, then you lacked a damn lot of Morale of Armies modifiers, if you were actually on the same tech as your enemy and you had army maintenance on full.

But you are also playing on a mod, which can easily change numbers and that certainly had to be done. The original game is balanced around 1444-1821.

[Malvastor]

What's the actual morale of your armies in the military tab? And what's the max morale of your opponents' armies? If your armies are at 100% morale but have much less than their enemies, it could be that the armies you're facing simply have bonus morale that you don't. France for example gets +20% morale from their national ideas. If they take Defensive for another 15% (or, say, Quantity/Quality/Religious for two policies that add up to 15%. Or both.) and hire a morale advisor, they could be starting every the battle with a base morale 35-60% higher than yours. High discipline will help, but may not totally overcome that kind of disadvantage.

So yeah, I'd load a save from just before a battle (or recreate one if you can) and get a screenshot of the battle window. Mouse over your morale and the enemy's and you'll see exactly what's going into their guys.

[RCMidas]

Right after the reconquest? When the Fourth Crusade spent three days looting, pillaging, and violating the citizenry - compared to the SINGLE DAY that the Ottomans spent doing so two hundred years later? Yeah, I'm not surprised Byzantium at that date is suffering. There is evidence to suggest that some of the damage done to the region by the crusaders had not yet been repaired by the time of the city's fall.

Check what modifiers exist to the country beyond those of ideas and ruler traits. There may well be several things which bolster and restrict the effectiveness of any given nation at such a start date.

[Ares]

I havent played the extended timeline, but Byzantium is one of my favorites, so i have a lot of game time as them, you have great options for expansion in all direction, so because of the constant waring that i do, means that my powerprojection and prestige is high, and so to becomes the army tradition, so even without military ideas, Byzantium early to mid game do generally not have any problems with any nations.

The 65% morale, is either cause of a mod, or you are way behind in military tech, and you lack prestige, powerprojection and army tradition. Compare all those to your rivals, and see if that is the awnser. There is also golden era, that will give 10% morale, and there is other events in the game that can also boost morale and dicipline. But 65% is a big gap that you shouldent have.

[armzngunz]

It may be that you're Roman tech group, oyu need to be Eastern tech group.