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Tinto Flavour #23 - 30th of May 2025

Hello, and welcome one more Friday to Tinto Flavour, the happy days in which we take a look at the flavour content of Europa Universalis V!

Today, a day after an infamous anniversary, we will be taking a look at the Byzantine Empire - or Eastern Roman Empire, as you’re free to pick the custom name you prefer for it, as it’s a game rule that you can set before starting the game:
Game Rule Byzantium.png

Game Rule Eastern Roman Empire.png

Let’s now start with the content itself:

Once a proud Empire that stretched from Egypt and the Levant to Iberia and Italy, Byzantium now faces a decadent period that began almost three centuries ago. During his reign, Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos saw fit to dissolve several key institutions, such as the Navy, in an attempt to save the dying economy of the country, while the Theme System continued to be a shadow of what it was, as the Empire lost territory across all fronts.

His successor, Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, is now faced with the difficult task of safeguarding what remains of our once-glorious Empire. To our east, the Ottomans have started amassing a large army to wipe out our remaining holdings in Anatolia, threatening to set foot across the straits. At the same time, King Stefan Uroš IV Dušan Nemanjić eyes Thessaloníki and Northern Epirus like a vulture. Meanwhile, our treasury runs dry of precious coin, and the country may yet be thrown into a perilous civil war, as the family of our Emperor conspires with the Dynatoí behind closed doors.

Country Selection.png

Country Tooltip.png

As usual, please consider all UI, 2D and 3D art WIP.

Byzantium1.png

Eastern Roman Empire1.png

As I don’t want to spark yet another Byzantine discussion, and its subsequent civil war, here you have a couple of map screenshots, with a different country name option each!

Byzantium (which is the name that I will use from now on, as being the most commonly used by the community) starts with a bunch of reforms and privileges:
Estates.png

Most of the Estate Privileges are generic ones, but there’s a unique one for each estate. We will show them in a later section of the TF, as they’re related to the Byzantine Succession Crisis, a disaster that may happen to Byzantium early on.

Regarding the starting reforms, the first is a generic one, while the other two are unique ones:
Reform Autocracy.png

Reform Theme System.png

Building Thema Headquarters.png

Reform Kritai Katholikon.png

Byzantium starts with a ‘State Patriarchy’ policy, as shown last Wednesday:
Policy State Patriarchy.png

And some other unique policies:
Policy Pronoia System.png

Policy Byzantine Law.png

It also has quite a bunch of starting works of art:
Works of Art1.png

Works of Art2.png

The Theodosian Walls are also represented through a unique building:
Building Theodosian Walls.png

Byzantium also has a bunch of advances; we are going to focus on the early-game, historical ones, as they also unlock some Byzantine unique units:
Advance Heart of Orthodoxy.png

Advance Late Cataphracts.png

Unit Byzantine Cataphracts.png

Advance Akritai.png

Unit Akritai.png

Advance Shield of the West.png

Cabinet Action Extensive Conscription.png

Advance Poikilia.png

Advance Expand Varangian Guard.png

Unit Varangians.png

Advance City Taker.png

Unit Modernized Helepolis.png

Let’s now move on to the narrative content for Byzantium. As I mentioned previously, a Succession Crisis is latent in the country, and that would historically lead to the Byzantine Civil War of 1341-1347, which allowed King Stefan Dusan of Serbia to occupy Macedonia and proclaim himself emperor, the Bulgarians to recover some borderlands, and seriously debilitated the country, making it easier for the Ottomans to gain a foothold across the Sea of Marmara, from Gallipoli.

We’re portraying this latent crisis and the general state of decay of the country by some starting privileges, plus some starting inflation, low funds and stability, etc.:
Privilege Corruption Nobility.png

Privilege Corruption Burghers.png

Privilege Corruption Clergy.png

Privilege Corruption Commoners.png

This situation will also spawn in your neighborhood a couple of months after the game starts, although we will talk more in detail about it next Friday:
The Turkish Threat.png

And it’s very likely that this disaster may end up triggering early after the start of the game, if you are not careful enough:
Succession Crisis.png

Succession Crisis2.png

Succession Crisis3.png

It is something we internally call Semi-Generic Disaster. This means that while it uses the texts, panel, etc. of the generic ‘Succession Crisis’ disaster, some countries have unique triggers, events, and content attached to it, so the player can experience similar, but different crisis. The Byzantine Succession Crisis is one of those, therefore.

Independent of whether the player succeeds or not in defeating the Succession Crisis, and not weakening much in the process, Byzantium has a bunch of Dynamic Historical Events:
Event Hesychasm.png


Event Decline Palaiologos Renaissance.png


Event Reforming Kritai Katholikon.png

Reform Reformed Kratoi Katholikon.png


Event Acritic Songs.png


Event Song of Armouris.png


Event Kosntantinos Armenopoulos.png


Event Center of Learning.png


Event Gemistos Plethon.png

Event Gemistos Plethon2.png

Byzantium also has some alt-historical events, one of the few exceptions we make in the game, to include some plausible content in case that Byzantium avoid its decadence…

… However you will have to find it by playing the game when we release it, as that’s all for today! As today is Friday, this will be the schedule for next week:
  • Monday -> Tinto Maps Feedback about the Steppes
  • Tuesday -> Tinto Flavour about the Golden Horde
  • Wednesday -> Tinto Talks about Islam
  • Thursday -> Fourth ‘Behind the Scenes’ video!
  • Friday -> Tinto Flavour about the Ottomans and the Rise of the Turks situation!
And also remember, you can wishlist Europa Universalis V now! Cheers!
 
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Can we change some colours here? They all are pretty close, like make Judaism light blue, Miaphysitism bright red while Paulician and Bogomilism should have different colours from the current ones of Catholic(yellow) and Orthodox since they are mostly in the balkans at the start
 
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Since I do not recognize the empire of the greeks I will suggest some balance changes to guarantee their downfall:

- If Serbia pursues Dusan's ambitions then the event should make them rival Byzantium to prevent the greeks from allying the serbs and so they more actively pursue their claims

- Janissaries should be instantly unlocked by the Ottomans once they embraced Profesional Armies instead of being at the end of the research tree. This would make the timeline of when the janissaries where founded fit better.
 
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Cannot wait for new and innovative ways to destroy Rome, the worst country in the world. <3

Sidenote, is there any flavor for forming Greece? One thing I wished was in EU4 was a way to form a non-Byzantine Greece.
 
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Regarding the Steppe feedback, are there areas that have not been changed in time for the feedback? Such as culture setup, new locations etc. What can we expect to see in the feedback?
 
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Erm actually...he is talking about the Byzantine Empire, not the Roman Empire everybody knows that :)
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The "Byzantine Empire" is the Roman Empire. Objectively. I know you're trolling but man, every joke has a sell by date and this one's gone more rancid than the Liz Truss Lettuce.
 
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I always thought Hagia Sofia was from the 6th century, then I did a little research and aparently it was restored a few times. Still, the one in the game would be the one from the 6th century restoration. So, the policy with buildings like this is to always show the oldest date of their existence in any form? Just curious. I am fine with it either way as long as it is consistent. On that note - what if there is a building and within the timeframe of the game, I can reconstruct it or add to it - will it keep the original date? Say, if I change a small church into a cathedral...
 
Cannot wait for new and innovative ways to destroy Rome, the worst country in the world. <3

Sidenote, is there any flavor for forming Greece? One thing I wished was in EU4 was a way to form a non-Byzantine Greece.
I assume if you want to be Greece you have to release or start as a non-byzantine Greek nation. Which if you spawn Hellenism first, might be a fun way to roleplay restoring the Greek city states power.
 
you're not Rome cuz you dont own Rome and the majority of the population speaks Greek, not Latin
Are we really gonna rehash arguments where one side is speaking historical fact and the other side says crap like this that has no basis in reality?

Can we not be better?
 
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Will there be an event during the Age of Revolutions for the greek war for independance (if still occupied) for the Hellenic Republic / Kingdom of Greece? I hope late game content in general is not neglected.
 
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