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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.
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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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I was expecting the Byzantines to have less manpower and more money (including for mercenaries) compared to other people with the same tech (eg France, England, German or Italian states).

Of course, the difference won't be as significant as it was a few hundred years before. But some of those modifiers (Pronoia system, Extensive conscription, theme system) make it sound like the Byzantines will have less money but more manpower than western European states. Unless there are larger modifiers in the other direction that we haven't seen yet?? For example the Byzantine government might give more tax revenue, which the Pronoia system partly undoes.

ray243 said:
Do we have an idea what is the population of the Byzantines land in Europe Vs the population they have lost in Anatolia?

Asia Minor and Anatolia has long been the heart of Byzantine manpower, and the losses of those areas made it challenging for the Byzantines to recover.

I hope there's something to reflect this as the Byzantines that controls the bits of Greece and Europe was never as populated compared to the lands in Anatolia.

Even after the crusaders had taken over parts of the Byzantine lands post 1204, most of them find themselves often not commanding or controlling as much population in the areas they controlled.
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These are in the map threads for the relevant regions (see the sticky with all dev threads). In my opinion the Byzantine population is fair, but if you want to comment those threads are probably the better place to do so..
 
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FleetingRain said:
y2MN5Lt.png


@Pavía dewit. You know you want to.
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Yes it would be cool if their was an option to call the state Rhomania. As in Greek it's Ρωμανία and is actually spelled differently than the country Romania. In Greek the country Romania is called and written as Ρουμανία whereas Byzantium is called Ρωμανία. Also Kaldelis sates that this term Ρωμανία was officially even used by the state on treaties from the 10th century onwards.
 
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FleetingRain said:
I hope EUVI will start in 1454 so we never have these discussions again
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Yeah but there you still have the Despotate of Morea, which outlasted Constantinople by 7 years.
 
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Stevo2940 said:
Also don't forgot about the Mani peninsula which managed to last all the way too 1821.
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Eh, I don’t think they had continuity of government over the nearly 4 centuries they were an Ottoman vassel, and while they were more autonomous than the rest of Greece they were par for the course for the Ottomans. Did Wallachia survive until the formation of Romania?
 
I have couple of questions

1. Will the player be able to promote other cultures and even spread them in desired, reasonable locations? Let's say that as ERE I want to spread Bosnian into Serbian cultured territories.

2. Will the player be able to hybridize the culture. like for example Greco - Armenian or Greco - Serbian?
 
It should exist the possibility to call the country “Roman Empire” as was the real name used by the administration and people.

“Eastern” was not used since 476, and Odoacro and later ostrogoths recognized themselves as theoretical vassals of Eastern Roman Empire and send imperial symbols to then, so Roman Emperor claimed that Empire was reunified and was after that “Roman Empire”.

Later they even captured Italy and Rome for some centuries, so the “Eastern” is incorrect. If the name election is added for history freaks, then Eastern is wrong
 
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Pavía said:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. The central box gives the monthly moves towards the value the arrow point to.

When you hover over the Societal Value itself, you get additional info:
View attachment 1309650
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  1. What is a control importance modifier,
  2. and is it necessary to include the word "modifier" at the end since its meaning is already implied?

For example, we don't say things like "monthly rebel growth modifier" or "maximum war exhaustion modifier"—we just say "monthly rebel growth" or "maximum war exhaustion"
 
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I think the decadence state privileges “Consolidated corruption of […]” as they are generic, could be added to all countries if they are in a disaster or a bad situation.

Like, if you lose hard a war with Spain, end with economic troubles and this affect commoners or burghers this privilege could appear to one of this estates
 
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I'm disappointed that the devastating civil war that broke out shortly after the game's start is going to be represented by a random nobody courtier rebelling instead of a thematic chain of events that deals with the early death of Andronikos III without an adult heir, leaving a power vacuum which caused the conflict between the party surrounding his widow and regent, and the party of John Kantakouzenos, the most important nobleman of the country. This feels cheap and low effort for one of the most played countries in your games. That civil war was a key point in the Roman Empire's final downfall and should be represented with a bit more accuracy.
 
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Pavía said:
We have now in this game some super cool and useful filters for things like this. For instance, if I select the Culture map mode, and then hover the Greek culture in the 'Culture' tab of the 'Society' panel, you can check that there are 3.6M Greek pops in the world, and how they're spread:
View attachment 1309586

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

This way, the players will be able to know where it is interesting for they to expand or improve their diplomatic and cultural influence, without having to know beforehand which pops or culture is linked to another.
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This map mode is great! I loved it in Imperator.

One question, what does the white outline on the cultural map mean? Something to do with majority in a province?
 
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Javilos Septim said:
I'm disappointed that the devastating civil war that broke out shortly after the game's start is going to be represented by a random nobody courtier rebelling instead of a thematic chain of events that deals with the early death of Andronikos III without an adult heir, leaving a power vacuum which caused the conflict between the party surrounding his widow and regent, and the party of John Kantakouzenos, the most important nobleman of the country. This feels cheap and low effort for one of the most played countries in your games. That civil war was a key point in the Roman Empire's final downfall and should be represented with a bit more accuracy.
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I mean we have no idea when Andronikos III feel ill with Malaria so to just rairoad his dead just so the civil war can start its just wrong to me. this system is better more dynamic.
 
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