I haven't played in two years, but I still am pretty savvy at EUIV. That being said, back when I used to play it was on the patch before you had to offer land to call a ally to war. My favorite action in this game is to restore Byzantium to glory, a task which now seems impossible. I can;t get Poland to ally me anymore, and hungary is very reluctant to as well. Is Byzantium even possible anymore? Where the heck do I begin? Seems impossible now. Btw, I play on Ironman usually, on Normal mode.
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I am with you guy, not played on two years and returned now.
Seems an Herculean task to keep up with it, the guides I see floating around are all outdated and useless, so many changes happened.
Seems an Herculean task to keep up with it, the guides I see floating around are all outdated and useless, so many changes happened.
For a long time what you would do is jump in on a war between the Ottomans and Albania, where between Venice+Vassals, one or two Italian minors, Skanderbeg and your troops you can match the Ottos in a fight, then you would build enough war score to seperate peace out for one or two provinces and a ton of cash, then Albania would return the rest of your cores to you. But the Ottomans stopped attacking Albania first reliably, so that fizzled out sadly.
The standard strategy these days is the slightly exploity Budgetmonk pre-emptive strike. You go on the offensive and abuse AI behaviours to capture two Ottoman fortresses and then base race them for the rest of their country, which should give you just enough war score to take back your cores and pay any debts you accrued.
But after you do this an important aspect is to buddy up to the Beyliks, so when the Ottomans attack one of them you jump in on that war much like the old Albania strategy and take the State across the straits and cash/humiliate stuff, as this seriously damages the Ottoman economy while you make plans to expand elsewhere. My current order of events these days is Reconquest -> Fight Serbia -> Beylik War -> Plan for Venice/Genoa -> Actual war of conquest against Ottomans
The standard strategy these days is the slightly exploity Budgetmonk pre-emptive strike. You go on the offensive and abuse AI behaviours to capture two Ottoman fortresses and then base race them for the rest of their country, which should give you just enough war score to take back your cores and pay any debts you accrued.
But after you do this an important aspect is to buddy up to the Beyliks, so when the Ottomans attack one of them you jump in on that war much like the old Albania strategy and take the State across the straits and cash/humiliate stuff, as this seriously damages the Ottoman economy while you make plans to expand elsewhere. My current order of events these days is Reconquest -> Fight Serbia -> Beylik War -> Plan for Venice/Genoa -> Actual war of conquest against Ottomans
I did the Basileus achievement just few days ago. It took dozen tries to get the first war right, but I made it. Allying big boys - Hungary, Poland etc seems quite impossible. Instead I allied Albania (for Skanderbeg), either Serbia or Wallachia depending on which one rivals you, Karaman and potentially some other minor nation. It's important to have at leas one ally in Anatolia to divert the Ottoman attention.
With a little luck, you can deal with the Ottoman stacks. 15K from you, 4K from Albania with that godly general and ~10K from Wallachia does make big enough stack to survive battles. Priorize mil tech, take morale advisor, so on. If Ottomans concentrate on your Anatolian ally, go for Edirne. If they come for you, try to delay them so that your Anatolian ally can occupy stuff. If Ottomans divert their troops, you should be able to beat the European army. It's hard, but this is the only way I've got it work.
With a little luck, you can deal with the Ottoman stacks. 15K from you, 4K from Albania with that godly general and ~10K from Wallachia does make big enough stack to survive battles. Priorize mil tech, take morale advisor, so on. If Ottomans concentrate on your Anatolian ally, go for Edirne. If they come for you, try to delay them so that your Anatolian ally can occupy stuff. If Ottomans divert their troops, you should be able to beat the European army. It's hard, but this is the only way I've got it work.
I don't know. You've heard the saying, all's fair in love and war? Well, I say, all's fair when trying to restore Byzantium.
Sorry if necoring but I just wanted to add some inisght for 1.29 Manchu update with ironman vanilla game (yes, I actually played it without DLCs). In 1.29 there were some changes introduced (sigh) that makes Byzantium veeeery hard to play, but is definietly doable as per attached screenshot.
There are two strategies that seem to work:
The aggresive stance strategy shares commonalities with the YT guide, but since there are some changes like additional forts for Ottos, parts of the original strategy became obsolete. First of all, go and watch the YT guide as it will provide you some background necessary to understand this battleplan. But first things first, appease Burghers and Nobility in order to extract from them money, leaders and monarch points. Delete fort in Greece and schedule building more galleys in Morea and Constantinopole, while Achea should start training troops.
Simultaneously start improving relations with your future partners: Wallachia, Albania and optionally Theodoro + Imereti who will become your allies. Albania and Wallachia are key components of this scenario, while Theodoro and Imereti could contribute navy and some cannon fodder but most likely Ottos will start improving relations with them and they will be in the end unwilling to start a war with your enemy. Improving relations with Mamluks also should be beneficial, as they will give your subsidies during the war which will help you a little financially.
Move your navy and land units to Morea region. Navy actions will be the easiest: you should be able to use it for blocking straits. Deploy your navy to Aegean Sea with "attach friendlies" option selected. Upon entering the war, Athen's fleet will attach itself to you. If Theodoro and Imereti are with you, you can move your fleet to the Crimea region, attach them and start blocking straits leading from Anatolia to Europe.
Trickier part are land unit movements. You will be operating with 2 stacks. Send one, 11k strong, to Wallachia (you need access rights from Hungary), have them wait where Wallachian 8k stack is with "attach friendlies" option selected. The second stack, around 7k strong, should stay in Athens with the same option selected. When war is triggered, Wallachian stack should march to Edirne to lay siege and intercept any rogue Otto stacks that are on this side of strait- with navy blocking straits, they can only march to Constantinople where you can easily dispatch them (Otto stack around 12k) and go back to siege. The Athenian stack should besiege a fort in Macedonia region next to Edirne (Albanians and Athenians should be attached by now creating 14k strong stack).
While the siege plays out, you can play a bit with straits' blockage: you can move your ships to Aegean Sea, allow Otto stack to cross into Constantinopole, and cork up the bottle again- the AI should try driving that stack north to Wallachia and you can intercept it almost immediately. With sieges going on, recruit 1k units in Morea and Constantinople, and send them to conquer provinces without forts.
But as in each Byzantium playthrough, cards are stacked against you. Soon enough Ottos will gather force able to cross the straits and probably they will be able to do so soon before Edirne is taken. Now the Athenian stack is about to shine: if they by any wild chance secure Macedonian fort, you can move them to Edirne right away; if not, you have to dispatch them through a way around. Ottos will throw everything they got to prevent the fall of Edirne and thus, you will be able to see how OP they are. Your forces will be defeated, that's more than certain, but you should end up again with two stacks: Athenian 10k something strong and Wallachian around 12k. AI will now divide its forces sending them in small stacks (6k-8k) to different locations and as soon as your units are recovered, take this opportunity to maul them. If you are lucky and crafty, you should end up with warscore high enough to demand Edirne and thus securing your backyard (as long as your navy will do its job).
Most important thing: by securing monarch points in the earlier phase, you should be able to reach military tech level 4 before Ottos do and maintain this state for a few months securing your land supremacy, but as soon as Ottos got their tech up to 4th level, they will win any land battle where you don't have a 2:1 soldiers advantage (happens all the time; 20k my stack vs 15k Ottos crossing a strait and guess who's winning).
There are two strategies that seem to work:
- "Wait for it" strategy
- Aggresive stance strategy
The aggresive stance strategy shares commonalities with the YT guide, but since there are some changes like additional forts for Ottos, parts of the original strategy became obsolete. First of all, go and watch the YT guide as it will provide you some background necessary to understand this battleplan. But first things first, appease Burghers and Nobility in order to extract from them money, leaders and monarch points. Delete fort in Greece and schedule building more galleys in Morea and Constantinopole, while Achea should start training troops.
Simultaneously start improving relations with your future partners: Wallachia, Albania and optionally Theodoro + Imereti who will become your allies. Albania and Wallachia are key components of this scenario, while Theodoro and Imereti could contribute navy and some cannon fodder but most likely Ottos will start improving relations with them and they will be in the end unwilling to start a war with your enemy. Improving relations with Mamluks also should be beneficial, as they will give your subsidies during the war which will help you a little financially.
Move your navy and land units to Morea region. Navy actions will be the easiest: you should be able to use it for blocking straits. Deploy your navy to Aegean Sea with "attach friendlies" option selected. Upon entering the war, Athen's fleet will attach itself to you. If Theodoro and Imereti are with you, you can move your fleet to the Crimea region, attach them and start blocking straits leading from Anatolia to Europe.
Trickier part are land unit movements. You will be operating with 2 stacks. Send one, 11k strong, to Wallachia (you need access rights from Hungary), have them wait where Wallachian 8k stack is with "attach friendlies" option selected. The second stack, around 7k strong, should stay in Athens with the same option selected. When war is triggered, Wallachian stack should march to Edirne to lay siege and intercept any rogue Otto stacks that are on this side of strait- with navy blocking straits, they can only march to Constantinople where you can easily dispatch them (Otto stack around 12k) and go back to siege. The Athenian stack should besiege a fort in Macedonia region next to Edirne (Albanians and Athenians should be attached by now creating 14k strong stack).
While the siege plays out, you can play a bit with straits' blockage: you can move your ships to Aegean Sea, allow Otto stack to cross into Constantinopole, and cork up the bottle again- the AI should try driving that stack north to Wallachia and you can intercept it almost immediately. With sieges going on, recruit 1k units in Morea and Constantinople, and send them to conquer provinces without forts.
But as in each Byzantium playthrough, cards are stacked against you. Soon enough Ottos will gather force able to cross the straits and probably they will be able to do so soon before Edirne is taken. Now the Athenian stack is about to shine: if they by any wild chance secure Macedonian fort, you can move them to Edirne right away; if not, you have to dispatch them through a way around. Ottos will throw everything they got to prevent the fall of Edirne and thus, you will be able to see how OP they are. Your forces will be defeated, that's more than certain, but you should end up again with two stacks: Athenian 10k something strong and Wallachian around 12k. AI will now divide its forces sending them in small stacks (6k-8k) to different locations and as soon as your units are recovered, take this opportunity to maul them. If you are lucky and crafty, you should end up with warscore high enough to demand Edirne and thus securing your backyard (as long as your navy will do its job).
Most important thing: by securing monarch points in the earlier phase, you should be able to reach military tech level 4 before Ottos do and maintain this state for a few months securing your land supremacy, but as soon as Ottos got their tech up to 4th level, they will win any land battle where you don't have a 2:1 soldiers advantage (happens all the time; 20k my stack vs 15k Ottos crossing a strait and guess who's winning).
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