Constantinople should not be easily takable early on.

[piggowiggo]

Historically, sieging the Theodosian walls was such a challenge that it was ruled unviable by the Ottomans for half a century, even after they had a completely dominant position in the region. It was only with overwhelming forces and the Orban guns that the conquest became viable.

Key word being viable. Such a siege would be too costly without advanced siege warfare, which is why the Romans held on for so long. It shouldn't be impossible, but it should not be viable. A siege should decimate the besieger's pop and economy if they try it without the proper tech and infrastructure.

My proposal: Constantinople should get a unique building "Theodosian walls" which greatly increase fort level, hostile attrition, and assault casualties. The building would be converted to a destroyed/damaged should it fall and need to be rebuilt.

This creates a situation where tag wiping Byz in the first 10 years or vassalizing them is just less on the table, while not making Byzantium much easier (since you don't want Constantinople sieged anyway.) Rushing Constantinople would do massive pop damage early game, so you'd need to build an empire around it, before you take the jewel of the Bosphorus.

 

[Granite]

Laughs in Fourth Crusade

Ultimately, while besieging Constantinople should certainly be harder than currently implemented, it was far from impossible, even without cannons. Usually, the many sieges Constantinople endured ended for one of three reasons:
- A pressing matter occurred that caused the besiegers to be needed elsewhere (655, 813, 1402)
- The city was relieved, or the defenders repelled the attackers directly (626, 678, 717, 941)
-Or the siege was successful. Either by assault or by the defenders or citizens opening the gates (1204, 1261... sort of. And obviously 1453)

 

[Tahami Tsunami]

Yeah, it wouldn't be impossible (see the 4th Crusade) but I can't think of any cities off the top of my head right now that would be more difficult to siege. Would there be any contenders for that title?

 

[A1rf0rc3]

I agree. I actually just postedo about that on Reddit and was told to post it on the Forums where devs may have a better chance to see it. There's a few mechanics that I think should be added to sieges that could make Constantinople much harder to take, and sieges in general just much more dynamic and interesting.

1. Food: Given that there are granaries in the game, the length of a siege should really be determined either by the time it takes to starve the population out, or the assaulting of forts. If the fort is not blockaded, it should be able to receive some food shipments from abroad.
2. Garrisoning armies in forts: Forts should have a local garrison, but you should also be able to put your army inside the fort. I am thinking of, for instance, the siege of Constantinople, when the Byzantines hired Italian mercs to help them defend the fort.
3. More offensive actions: The besieging army did not just sit there and wait for the enemy to starve out. Outside of sappers and trying to demolish the enemy fortress (something which I think should give the attacking enemy a bonus if they try to assault the fortress), in some sieges, there would be great engineering works. I think of the siege of La Rochelle, where the French pulled all sorts of shenaningans to keep the English from resupplying La Rochelle. If I remember correctly, they built an artillery parc to shoot at the boats, they even tried to block off La Rochelle with physical barriers. These options should cost extra, but allow you to siege a fort even if you are not able to blockade it.
4. Attackers protecting themselves: The besieging army could also fortify their own camp, such that they get combat bonuses / less penalties if a relieving army comes to kick them out of the siege.
5. Assaulting: Assaults should be super costly if you do not have a breach. Breaches should also have different levels, and get more severe as the game progresses. The severity of the breach would determine the cost of the assault / the bonus the defenders get when defending against the assault, and assaults should otherwise be treated exactly like battles (except with the defends having massive combat ability bonuses based on the level of their fort, so high level forts offer better protection, and on the severity of the breach)

These are just a few ideas I had after I saw one of the YouTubers take Constantinople very early on in the game without really even weakening them that much. Irl, the Ottomans mobilized 100 000 people to siege it down. Realistically, you would not need that many, but I still think that you should really need to weaken the Byzantines more such that they are not able to contest your siege navally nor on land.

 

[pheonicia]

Yeah, it wouldn't be impossible (see the 4th Crusade) but I can't think of any cities off the top of my head right now that would be more difficult to siege. Would there be any contenders for that title?

Venice.

I've suggested in the past that seiging Venice without naval superiority should be equivalent to a great project (in eu4 terms).

 

[Gerulus Sum]

I 100% agree - the Theodosian Walls should make it impossible to capture Constantinople without the combination of a blockade, a large army (10,000+ soldiers minimum) and artillery. The Ottomans tried and failed to siege the city four times before 1453, and it ultimately took a massive effort to finally succeed despite the Byzantine Empire being an isolated rump state.

 

[Kazakk]

i just hope the game won't be like eu4 where you need to take all enemy forts, or wait a really long time, before actually winning the war

 

[InvisibleBison]

There was an earlier thread on this same topic: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/about-conquering-constantinople.1743772/

 

[SAmaster]

I suggested in another thread that to promote anti-snowballing (IE not restarting as Byzantium the moment something goes wrong) that Byzantium gets a 'Failure Mission Tree'. Basically as Byzantium would lose land, they would get bonuses to a more defensive mindset, buffing Constantinople, and giving them buffs to diplomacy to cobble together a coalition against the Turks, or other would-be conquerer. This would make the siege of Constantinople more, well to use a buzzword, dynamic, where by the time they are reduced down to a single city-state, the Turks or some other nation needs to seriously invest in siege tech to take the city.

 

[The Colonel]

Garrisoning armies in forts

This would actually be a really interesting mechanic to be able to station a field army into a fort to either hide from direct battle or stiffen the garrison (with some sort of malus to siege progress based on the extra troops).

 

[peteoj]

You should need to both blockade the city and have overwhelming force in order to seize it, it should also be nearly impossible to get a claim on the city and I think it could even start out with a fort level two or three tiers above everyone else. Ultimately I think our idea of Constantinoples invulnerability is soured by the fourth crusade and eventually it's fall to the ottomans but the city was the most besieged city in the west, it had repelled everyone for nearly 1000 years, it's collapse to the fourth crusade was aided by the fact that the Angeloi had no power outside of thrace and every magnate in the provinces ignored them and it's fall to the ottomans was inevitable seeing as it was a shell of its former self and the byzantines were nothing more than a city state.

 

[The Colonel]

Also I just watched AbsoluteHabibi's EU5 preview, and he did in fact show that Constantinople has a (presumably unique) Theodesian Walls building that he said Byz also gets an event option to upgrade further. Didn't show the effect of it though.

 

[peteoj]

Also I just watched AbsoluteHabibi's EU5 preview, and he did in fact show that Constantinople has a (presumably unique) Theodesian Walls building that he said Byz also gets an event option to upgrade further. Didn't show the effect of it though.

Clearly wasn't enough because he ended up conquering the city pretty early.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

I don't think Constantinople should get any kind of special treatment. Sieges of large fortresses should be difficult in general. There should be a real possibility that you try and fail to capture a fortress without it being saved by relief force - this never ever happens in eu4, which is very unrealistic.

 

[Zerodv]

If you can blockade it then you can just starve it out, no need for unrealistically high attrition.

It should be a highly unbreechable coastal fort, not have unlimited reserves of food.

 

[Praetorian44]

Laughs in Fourth Crusade

Ultimately, while besieging Constantinople should certainly be harder than currently implemented, it was far from impossible, even without cannons. Usually, the many sieges Constantinople endured ended for one of three reasons:
- A pressing matter occurred that caused the besiegers to be needed elsewhere (655, 813, 1402)
- The city was relieved, or the defenders repelled the attackers directly (626, 678, 717, 941)
-Or the siege was successful. Either by assault or by the defenders or citizens opening the gates (1204, 1261... sort of. And obviously 1453)

I don't think the Fourth Crusade example is a fair one, as there was a special set of circumstances that allowed the crusaders to take the city.

1) The Byzantines did not expect a siege. They kept a fairly small garrison most of the time, only raising up more men for the defense of the city when a siege was a possibility. The crusaders were supposed be allies, thus no reinforcements were sent to the city. So in a normal situation, there would have been significantly more defenders.

2) A third of the defenders were Varangians, they fled the city in the middle of the siege when they weren't paid. This significantly reduced the size of the already small garrison.

3) The city was incredibly unstable at the time time due to the overthrow of Alexios IV and the recent crowning of a new, and highly contested, emperor (Alexios V). And when he fled during the siege, the city did not have a leader to rally behind. The lack of an emperor, and the infighting that ensured between nobles seeking to gain the crown, most certainly played a role in the fall of the city.

I also don't think the 1261 reconquest is a fair example. The Latin Empire's garrison and the defending fleet had left the city when Nicaeans attacked. In addition, it wasn't even a siege. They entered the city using secret passages, surprising the very small garrison. And that's the other thing, this was the basically the Byzantines taking their own city back, so they had knowledge of the city that a foreign besieger would not.

So the only real example of Constantinople being taken in a normal siege was 1453.

 

[Gerulus Sum]

I don't think the Fourth Crusade example is a fair one, as there was a special set of circumstances that allowed the crusaders to take the city.

1) The Byzantines did not expect a siege. They kept a fairly small garrison most of the time, only raising up more men for the defense of the city when a siege was a possibility. The crusaders were supposed be allies, thus no reinforcements were sent to the city. So in a normal situation, there would have been significantly more defenders.

2) A third of the defenders were Varangians, they fled the city in the middle of the siege when they weren't paid. This significantly reduced the size of the already small garrison.

3) The city was incredibly unstable at the time time due to the overthrow of Alexios IV and the recent crowning of a new, and highly contested, emperor (Alexios V). And when he fled during the siege, the city did not have a leader to rally behind. The lack of an emperor, and the infighting that ensured between nobles seeking to gain the crown, most certainly played a role in the fall of the city.

I also don't think the 1261 reconquest is a fair example. The Latin Empire's garrison and the defending fleet had left the city when Nicaeans attacked. In addition, it wasn't even a siege. They entered the city using secret passages, surprising the very small garrison. And that's the other thing, this was the basically the Byzantines taking their own city back, so they had knowledge of the city that a foreign besieger would not.

So the only real example of Constantinople being taken in a normal siege was 1453.

Exactly, the crusaders were able to take the city in 1204 because the Byzantine government had essentially collapsed. That being said, maybe there should be an event to bypass the Theodosian Walls during a civil war or if the owner has very low stability.

 

[keko6161]

The reason why the ottos didn’t take constantinople earlier was because the greek emperors did their best to keep relations high, there were internal disputes among the ottoman family (with some members escaping to constantinople) and external threats (like the timurids) kept the turks at bay. It wouldn’t make sense to make the city itself unrealistically special in terms of defense. thankfully from Red Hawk’s video it seems like we don’t have to capture the enemy’s capital to take some land from them, so the ottomans don’t need to take Constantinople to grab land from europe

 

[Muezzahan]

It all boils down to the lack of siege mechanics. Both in eu5, eu4, ck3 etc.
Sieges should be more nuanced.

 

[grommile]

a large army (10,000+ soldiers minimum)

I mean, you already need 10k soldiers to maintain a reliable siege of Constantinople in EU4 (and to storm the place through a breach in the Blachernae Walls as happened historically, you need a lot more than 10k).