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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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Byzantium vs Rome debate is stupid because they are both correct

Byzantium is correct because it’s a cool word

Rome is correct because they were Roman
 
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Its not just some germanic larpers, its the catholic church, who inherited the bureaucratic institutions of the western Roman empire, not to mention its language and capital. The catholic church had a a perfectly valid argument to consider itself the heir of rome, is not just larp.

Pope had no authority to grant anyone the title of Roman Emperor when there was still a legitimate Roman Emperor in Constantinople.

If pope suddenly said I'm the British king now would anyone give a damn about it?

Exactly.
 
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Pope had no authority to grant anyone the title of Roman Emperor when there was still a legitimate Roman Emperor in Constantinople.

If pope suddenly said I'm the British king now would anyone give a damn about it?

Exactly.
It was done at a time when Irene of Athens was in power and the excuse was because she was a woman

Also Charlemagne and Otto weren't no ones(no offense)
 
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Byzantium vs Rome debate is stupid because they are both correct

Byzantium is correct because it’s a cool word

Rome is correct because they were Roman
I think historical accuracy (objective) should trump "it's a cool word" (subjective)
1748621462507.png
 
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View attachment 1309480
View attachment 1309481

The Empire of the Romans were not Greek, there was no such thing as Greek. They called themselves Rhomaioi and spoke a language they called Romaika. The change to greek happened during and because of Ottoman oppression as a way of nationalist revival towards the end of the games time period, certainly not at the very start.

In Byzantium the main language was Middle Greek (Romaic; Ῥωμαϊκή), this is the medieval Greek language, the fact that it differs from the modern one does not make it not Greek. But the idea of the state was as a Roman Christian empire, and not Greece, I agree with this
 
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Then, as it belongs to the 'Hellenic' culture group, you can hover it, and then in any of the cultures, like the 'Pontic' one, to check where you can find it:
View attachment 1309588
I see Gothic belongs to the Hellenic group as it did in EU4 aswell, with the possibility of a culture being in different groups simultaneously, is Gothic in Germanic aswell? Also, do they have the (Crimean) Gothic language or do they still speak Greek?
 
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The randomly selected surname is unintentionally very funny, but also understandable as we don't know his family name (if he had one at all).
BUT, since we don't know his name, what about using one of his monikers/profession name, and make his name something like:

- Ágyúöntő Orbán, "Orbán the cannon-founder"; a profession-based surname
- Magyar Orbán, "Orbán the Hungarian"; this is how the Ottomans referred to him

Honorable mention:
Tüzes Orbán, "Orbán the Fiery"; made up, used only in Bánk Mór's Hunyadi trilogy, but still dope
 
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Sorry to ask a question for yesterday's thread. It was mentioned that the Schism can be mended where Catholicism wins out, or Eastern Orthodox wins out, but it's unclear if that's dependent on the nation trying to mend the schism. Can the Eastern Roman Empire, led by the player, reunite with the Catholic Church (sort of becoming the "Latin Empire"), without intentially losing in wars to Catholic nations?
Why should a true and unconquered empire accept the opinion of defeated schismatics?
 
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The randomly selected surname is unintentionally very funny, but also understandable as we don't know his family name (if he had one at all).
BUT, since we don't know his name, what about using one of his monikers/profession name, and make his name something like:

- Ágyúöntő Orbán, "Orbán the cannon-founder"; a profession-based surname
- Magyar Orbán, "Orbán the Hungarian"; this is how the Ottomans referred to him

Honorable mention:
Tüzes Orbán, "Orbán the Fiery"; made up, used only in Bánk Mór's Hunyadi trilogy, but still dope
What about Viktor Orban

yep a trvke.jpg
 
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In Byzantium the main language was Middle Greek (Romaic; Ῥωμαϊκή),
1748621755945.png


I am aware that the language is essentially the same (in the same way that English of 1400 is "the same" as English)

I am merely referring to the fact that the Romans considered themselves as Roman. They spoke what they called Romeika or Romaic (lots of spellings, but they all basically mean... they spoke Roman!)

I don't much care, before matfer comes in with this again, what non Romans in the Latin world who had a vested interest in denying the Romanness of the Roman Empire to suit their own legitimacy aims, called the Empire or its people. What matters, imo, is what they called themselves, what they had been calling themselves the whole time.

The fact is, the indesputable, laughably obvious fact that I still cannot fathom why people just do not get it or refuse to understand it, is that the proper name should absolutely NOT be "Byzantium" or "Byzantine Empire"

But the idea of the state was as a Roman Christian empire, and not Greece, I agree with this
o7
 
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I see Gothic belongs to the Hellenic group as it did in EU4 aswell, with the possibility of a culture being in different groups simultaneously, is Gothic in Germanic aswell? Also, do they have the (Crimean) Gothic language or do they still speak Greek?
I doubt that in 1337 there was anything Germanic left in them
 
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It was done at a time when Irene of Athens was in power and the excuse was because she was a woman

Also Charlemagne and Otto weren't no ones(no offense)

So what she was a woman? Why Romans should care about what Germans think about their empress? How is that a reason to say "I'm the Roman emperor now and they are not Romans anymore" and why we should take it seriously and not as some poor joke it really was? What Germans did and thought at their court ceremonies had no impact on the legitimacy of the real Roman empire. None.

And Charlemagne received a crown because he saved the pope from local enemies and pope decided to suck up to him in response.

I think historical accuracy (objective) should trump "it's a cool word" (subjective)
View attachment 1309662

Especially in a game that is so rooted in history and claims to care a lot about being as close to real history as possible. They can spend months sifting through old maps and documents to make the map/flags/location names/characters as accurate as possible but then they will go and make "ERE" (and other more historical alternatives) sound as something strange, because apparently ahistorical name is better.

I mean, okay, it's something that can be easily fixed with mods, but it's still strange.
 
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The fact is, the indesputable, laughably obvious fact that I still cannot fathom why people just do not get it or refuse to understand it, is that the proper name should absolutely NOT be "Byzantium" or "Byzantine Empire"
idk, it's just fun I guess watching people lose their freaking minds over such silly things, defending the honour of a people that don't even exist anymore.

I guess you are not trying to lay low anymore. Didn't even last a month. Romans would be ashamed of your lack of contrition ;)
 
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