How do you win as Byzantine Empire?

[birrebarre]

Hello, i have played this game for a while now but i have never managed to win actually legit as Byzantine, how the f do you do it? I get attacked by the Turks in my ass, then Hungry & Venice & Sicily attack from my face and Egypt attacks my island on Cyprus.

How do i keep up an economy to pay for the big amount of troops i need to have in all these cities that i get attacked from at the same time? Diplomatic things has never helped me, i try kissing all the factions names asses i mentioned and i still get just f:ed over by them

[Inardesco]

First thing you do with Byzantines is taking Sofia. This'll be your shield against Hungary.
2nd thing you do is move all your armies into Anatolia and crush the Turks.

Take Rhodos, make it a city, same with Cyprus, convert it to a city (more money = more troops).

Once you've crushed the Turks in Anatolia you move south into the Holy Land, take Antioch, Acre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Gaza before crushing the Egyptians by taking Alexandria and Cairo.

Once you've got those territories your economy should be more than sufficient enough to take the fight to Hungary, Sicily and Venice.

Don't bother with normal campaign AI. The AI on normal difficulty declares more war than the AI on Very Hard and that causes you to bog down on diplomacy.

As for units; Vardariotai are the best horse archers you can recruit, so if you've got the funds, go for these. Keep your armies light and quick against the Turks to counter their horse archers. Once you encounter the Egyptians you can get a more professional army with Byzantine Lancers and Byzantine Infantry.

When you take the fight into Europe than you want more professional troops like Dismounted Byzantine Lancers, Byzantine Guard Archers and Dis/mounted Latinkon. Early on, your primary archer focus should be on the Trebizond Archers, these are quite powerful early-mid game archers with 9 missile damage. In terms of missile damage that is on par with England's archers aside from not having the AP damage.

Constantinople, Thessalonic and Nicea will be your Trinity of Economy so upgrade the ports asap within these settlements. Also make sure you upgrade Constantinople to Ballista Towers right away to screw up any would be attackers.

Only keep castles that don't have a port when you've expanded. So Adana, a castle at start, should be converted to city but Mosul, should stay a castle. This to make sure your economy is at it's best. With Mosul being also a prime target for Mongols when they arrive, it's great to catch them there and kill them all.

[boiling pie]

what he said.

First expand like mad to grab all rebel provinces. Then expand East first. Take out the Ottomans asap, push on into Lebanon/Syria. This is the richest region of the game. Especially the trade knodes there are insane, so spam merchants.

In the West, don't stop at Sofia, but take the Hungarian castle north of it. It is high level, and has a weaponsmith guild. This is the cornerstone of your defense in the West, and without it, the Hungarians are weak.

Venice has only one castle, which is in Dalmatia. If you manage to take it, they are weakened as well. Don't neglect to build a fleet.

As long as you are weak in the West, it also helps to build good relations with the pope. Sent a diplomat and give him a gift of 200 d per turn. He will love you.

Vardariotai are awesome.

I also recommend to hire mercenaries with crossbows when fighting against Western units.

Edit: and oh yes don't take Durazzo. Everybody wants that lousy province in Albania, so it will only draw you into inconvenient wars with Sicily or the Pope.

[Imagination]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Don't bother with normal campaign AI. The AI on normal difficulty declares more war than the AI on Very Hard and that causes you to bog down on diplomacy.

I always wondered about this. With the normal setting it seems like I am always at war with more factions than I can deal with.

[The Wrath of Santa]

Once you start capturing rebel settlements you'll find that you have more castles than you need so convert some of them to towns (Do not convert Sofia). This has the added bonus of allowing you to build more traders which increases your merchant agent pool. Send these merchants to the lucrative resource cluster in the Antioch area. Later in the game send new merchants to Egypt (another rich area). Develop roads and ports.

The biggest pain in the backside and threat early game is Venice but you should attack the Turks first. If you attack the Turks asap they can be destroyed really quickly and easily. After they've been KO'd concentrate on Venice they'll probably attack first. Never let up on Venice, take Crete first and then go for their castle at Ragusa.

Going for Ragusa can sometimes draw a lot of Venetian forces into the Balkans leaving the city of Venice weakly defended. After taking Ragusa it may be worth using the castle as bait leaving it weakly defended and blocking the valley with a few forts in front of the castle to delay the enemy assault on the castle. Meanwhile sail your main army up the coast and take Venice.

It's usually worth having an agent in the Venice region so you can keep an eye on the size of the garrison. When it's weakly defended and any reinforcements are out of range sail your army to Venice. Sack the city and demolish all the buildings, gift the city to an ally and sail back to Ragusa.

Taking Ragusa and sacking Venice will not only severely weaken Venice making them a spent force but should leave you in a really good position both financially and strategically. Zagreb may also be vulnerable, this is a wealthy settlement with great mines. After this you should be in a stable and secure position.

Venice is the greatest threat early game, dealing with them quickly should give you the space and time to develop your settlements and economy.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by cobalt_arrow:

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Don't bother with normal campaign AI. The AI on normal difficulty declares more war than the AI on Very Hard and that causes you to bog down on diplomacy.

I always wondered about this. With the normal setting it seems like I am always at war with more factions than I can deal with.

The main difference in Normal and Very Hard in terms of the AI declaring war is that the AI can back the war declaration up with military forces on Very Hard. They won't declare war on you if they can't take a settlement right after. This also makes the Ai more reasonable due to them realising when they can and can't win a war, they're more likely to accept treaties (allthough your reputation has to back up your attempts at negotiations -> higher rep = easier diplomacy).


On normal, they do just do it for the arbitrary reason to be at war with you. It doesn't matter if they can or can't strike a settlement, they're just at war with you because they said so. Nothing much to it other than that. They might send a half stack now and again mainly to annoy the living sh*t out of you but hardly ever will they send a force that can actually be a threat.

[jefrada194]

Originally posted by Voyager:

Hello, i have played this game for a while now but i have never managed to win actually legit as Byzantine, how the f do you do it? I get attacked by the Turks in my♥♥♥♥♥ then Hungry & Venice & Sicily attack from my face and Egypt attacks my island on Cyprus.

How do i keep up an economy to pay for the big amount of troops i need to have in all these cities that i get attacked from at the same time? Diplomatic things has never helped me, i try kissing all the factions names asses i mentioned and i still get just f:ed over by them

It is actually quite simple:

1-take smyrna and sofia, and fortify sofia with a large garrison
2-at the same time as sending a small force to take durazzo (which is rarelly taken or covetted by other factions), send a large army immediatly to iconium, as the turks are weak in the early stages. also, send a force to trezibond, on the south shore of the black sea; this will be hugely valuable to attack the back of the turks and destroying them quicker
3-after beating the turks, concentrate on egypt: it is important to wipe them out to early on, since their lands are incredible cash-producerr, and there armies can be devastating later on. Focuse on the middle-east first before taking any european territory.
4-after taking the middle-east you should have enough money to make lots of armies and crush the hungarians and the venitians (who are especially vulnerable to vadaroita horse-archers) then take Rome

You will probably get lots of unhapiness and rebellions in Italy, because (for some reason I don't know) they seem to despise the Orthodox faith. So you'll have to only buy churches and iconists studios in the beginning.

Also, beware of the Empire and especially Milan; they may seem super loyal at first, but they WILL backstab you

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by jefrada194:

2-at the same time as sending a small force to take durazzo

Durazzo is sh*t. Let someone else take it and build it up before bothering with it. The amount of troops you need to dump in there for public order/defence far exceed the money it's gonna make you the first 50-60 turns.

[zeppelinrulez13]

So you have a pretty solid set of Generals early on in your heir and the Emperor himself. This is not even mentioning the 2 future generals you receive that are brothers to your prince. So general wise, you are set for a while. Not only that you have a starting princess that can marry a local leaders son. My personal strategy is to rush Sofia and Smyrna with the Emperor and Prince John respectively. I simultaneously send the princess to Hungary. If you can secure an alliance, awesome. If you can get a marriage alliance, even better. Eastern Europe is a fairly weak area with low income and low populations, so nixing a possible war with a nation that is in this area is not only good because of Hungary's strength, but also creates a shield for you in the North, allowing you to focus on the rich and prosperous areas of Anatolia and the Levant. I also try to cut of the Turks quickly by taking Caesarea, hampering their soldier output.

Now Byzantium ironically has a great late game roster, unlike what history actually was. Varangian Guard and Byzantine soldiers make their city units awesome with their large cavalry roster making their castle recruits awesome. But early game, its bad, especially infantry wise. Make sure you get smithies up quick to buff the weak spearmen. And make heavy use of Schiltroms. But Byzantium does have two units that make early game easier: Trebizond Archers and Vardariotai. Trebizond Archers have long range and fire at a good rate and are fairly cheap. Vardariotai are expensive, but are seriously deadly. They shoot well from their horseback and even better is when they run out of arrows, they become the deadliest light cav in the game.

Diplomatically, things are tough. All the nations in the area will dislike you naturally because of your religion. Official game guides will list Russia as an ally, but cmon, they're not comin down to help. So making friends with Hungary early on when diplomacy is easier is parmount. Also get 2 diplomats fast and send him to all the European nations. You need that trade. Economically things start out quite nice for Byzantium. You begin with the best city in the world: Constantinople. It is close to being a huge city already, and you will be able to unlock your excellent city units earlier than everyone else. Not only that, but you get some good ships from your ports in the Greek fire Dromons, which will carry you through the early game.


Strategically, make sure you expand in the Middle East, nearly all the cities there grow quickly and are economically amazing. Crusades may be a problem, but you will have time after one is declared to build up forces.


Byzantium has a weak early roster saved by a couple good units and a possibility to become great if you can strike well early and defend intelligently.

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

The one thing everyone has failed to mention here is this: The Byzantines are on the frontlines of the invading Mongols......ESPECIALLY when taking the Mid East and Egypt. Turkey gives some good mountain defenses for them, but come into the Holy Lands, Acre, Jerusalem, Mosul, and Egypt and its a whole new story.

[Imagination]

Originally posted by Jack Skellington:

The one thing everyone has failed to mention here is this: The Byzantines are on the frontlines of the invading Mongols......ESPECIALLY when taking the Mid East and Egypt. Turkey gives some good mountain defenses for them, but come into the Holy Lands, Acre, Jerusalem, Mosul, and Egypt and its a whole new story.

I never get far enough into a Byzantium game to worry about the Mongols (cue "Mongol montage"...)

[The Cunning Fox (raZoleg)]

Curbstomp everyone, train lots and lots of spearmen to hold towns. Use archery cavalry to kill off AI before they could reach you.


Quite easy, but very immersion breaking since you can win against anyone just because AI is incredibly bad.

[Inardesco]

Originally posted by Jack Skellington:

The one thing everyone has failed to mention here is this: The Byzantines are on the frontlines of the invading Mongols......ESPECIALLY when taking the Mid East and Egypt. Turkey gives some good mountain defenses for them, but come into the Holy Lands, Acre, Jerusalem, Mosul, and Egypt and its a whole new story.

Doesn't have to be. There are 3 locations where the Mongols can arrive and in all my Byzantine campaigns they ended up in Sarkel region, thus heading to Kiev instead of Antioch. That resulted in me not having to deal with the Mongols because I never expanded further than Iasi north-wise so the Russians and Polish got the brunt of the Mongol Invasion.

By the time the Timurids arrive they aren't really a threat due to your own troop quality.

[boiling pie]

It would be a mistake not to expand East out of fear of the Mongols.
On the contrary, if you develop the Lebanon/Syria region right, it is more then able to handle the Mongol invasion on its own. The region has a high concentration of big cities very close together, so that they can easily reinforce each other. Have a couple of castle provinces for elite units.
The whole area will be death trap for the Mongols.

[Gunther von Rittersburg]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Originally posted by Jack Skellington:

The one thing everyone has failed to mention here is this: The Byzantines are on the frontlines of the invading Mongols......ESPECIALLY when taking the Mid East and Egypt. Turkey gives some good mountain defenses for them, but come into the Holy Lands, Acre, Jerusalem, Mosul, and Egypt and its a whole new story.

Doesn't have to be. There are 3 locations where the Mongols can arrive and in all my Byzantine campaigns they ended up in Sarkel region, thus heading to Kiev instead of Antioch. That resulted in me not having to deal with the Mongols because I never expanded further than Iasi north-wise so the Russians and Polish got the brunt of the Mongol Invasion.

By the time the Timurids arrive they aren't really a threat due to your own troop quality.

Whats the third location?

I know about them showing up in Turkey/the Holy Lands area...they almost never go to Sarkel. Its 99 out of 100 they go into the Holy Lands in all my campaigns. And when they do go to Sarkel, they seem to be more brain dead than in the Holy Lands.

I never have any problems with the Timurids, besides the elephants. I dunno if they're riding on the fear of the Mongols or simply the elephants, but the units I see them use are pretty bad.

[Inardesco]

There's Baghdad (Iraq), Yerevan (Turkey) and Sarkel (Russia).
Baghdad region has Antioch as destination, Yerevan region is a split between Antioch/Adana and Sarkel is Kiev.