How about giving the Byzantines an Empire Reform panel?

[howlling]

I came up with an idea while talking on the forum.
(Of course, if it is patched later) Byzantium Empire, like HRE and Ming Dynasty, provides an empire reform panel as much as it is a starting empire.

As the Byzantium Empire is in a state of misery and collapse, the reform points start at 0,
and severe penalties such as 'explosion' of national dissatisfaction, high interest rates, manpower and tax penalties are imposed,
In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, we provide panels with the concept of exploding potential towards the middle and latter half.

Reform points start at 0 as of 1444, and you start off with a penalty right from the start.
but
1) Whenever you recover territory of the Roman Empire
2) Every time you clear a mission in the Byzantine Empire
3) Obtained by consuming 100 prestige through the panel function
4) Reform points can be obtained each time coring is completed.

 

[howlling]

Apart from the opinion of providing a panel, here are the reforms I randomly came up with:

universal reform

1) Resurrection of cataphracts: Vitalization of Byzantine-only cavalry, increased cavalry-to-infantry ratio
2) Administrative control: autonomy reduction bonus and CCR
3) Roman Tolerance: Provinces converted to the state religion are now considered "accepted culture" and the penalty is removed.
4) Resurrection of Legionnaires: infantry fighting power bonus, morale damage reduction
5) Succession Reform: No rebels claiming the throne. The player can choose an heir from among the most outstanding generals, whose stats as a monarch are shown as information, and the sons of the current family, whose stats are not revealed.
6-1 ) Strengthen cooperation with the Patriarch: Now the 'Authority' bonus provides double effect. Instead, it doubles the icon's authority cost. Orthodox Authority is now provided whenever Coring is completed.
6-2) Establishing superiority with the Patriarch: Now 'icons' consume twice as much authority. Instead, the effect of the icon is also doubled. Orthodox Authority is now provided whenever Coring is completed.
7. Lessons from the Crusades: Orthodox Churches (same as Catholics) now have access to Crusading Commands. Crusader targets can be freely designated by the country that owns the panel. The Byzantine Empire activates the same 'Great Crusade' justification as the 13th tier of theocracy.
8-1) Roman Absolutism : Max effect of absolutism +15
8-2) Retro Romanism: You can replace the 8-1 Reform with this Reform in the event of a Revolution. Removes Absolutism proportional penalty from Revolutionary Provinces. (The 8-1 effect is removed, of course.) You can accept the revolution peacefully. If you accept the revolution, the revolution enthusiasm does not decrease and the maximum revolution enthusiasm +10.


Ideology Only Reform

Completion of Conspiracy Ideology - 'Byzantine solution' : Activate the "Conspiracy" tab of the Secret Service. Conspiracies have three functions:

1) Assassinate the monarch of the target country.
2) Activation of Proxy War
3) Raise the relationship with the Byzantines by the amount of the spy network.

1 and 2 require an additional probability roll, the same as ck3. In case of failure, your credibility will immediately drop to 0 and your diplomatic reputation will also be subject to a large penalty.


-(Let's write down all of our ideas!)


Of course, this doesn't take balance into account.
But you'll know roughly what kind of reform it will be.

Reform requires all 100 points, and when it reaches 0, there will definitely be a claimant rebels similar in strength to the Janissary rebels. Also, +10 to country dissatisfaction (+1 per reform progress), +5% interest rates, tax and manpower penalties, trade penalties, etc. This penalty is proportional to points and removes the penalty completely at 80.

However, for the first 0 point start, if Greece recovers successfully, you can immediately get 100 points as a bonus and choose one reform immediately or remove the penalty.

The panel basically disappears with the fall of the Byzantines, but

1) All Orthodox countries.
2) Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
3) Montferrato can be restored and used through a decision when conquering Constantinople.

 

[LukasYork]

Of course, this doesn't take balance into account.

Balance went out the window in EU4 quite some time ago and with Lions of the North and Domination DLCs any pretense of it is completely gone from the game as well so I don't see any problem with that.

This are actually a very interesting ideas you have, definitely worth exploring, unfortunately I don't see that much work ever put into Byzantium in the scope of EU4.
One can hope nonetheless and I'd love to see something akin to your suggestion

 

[merilessj]

It's It's an interesting idea but what would 0 reform actually entail. Are there gonna be huge penalties to army strength and tax modifier like China? If I'm gonna be honest I'd rather have a mission tree similar to majahapet But keep some of the estate interactions In the Empire of China. Basically have basantium start in a disaster called something to the effect of the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire. And by both conquering as well as undertaking decisions which would reform the Empire you can remove the disaster and gain some of these buffs through the missions.

I I like the idea of a reform idea but unsure the best way to do it. I'm just typically not a fan of giving countries straight buffs because to me the challenge of the game completely disappears, and therefore the fun disappears, once you're overpowered.

 

[howlling]

It's It's an interesting idea but what would 0 reform actually entail. Are there gonna be huge penalties to army strength and tax modifier like China? If I'm gonna be honest I'd rather have a mission tree similar to majahapet But keep some of the estate interactions In the Empire of China. Basically have basantium start in a disaster called something to the effect of the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire. And by both conquering as well as undertaking decisions which would reform the Empire you can remove the disaster and gain some of these buffs through the missions.

I I like the idea of a reform idea but unsure the best way to do it. I'm just typically not a fan of giving countries straight buffs because to me the challenge of the game completely disappears, and therefore the fun disappears, once you're overpowered.

I am thinking of the Byzantine Empire's endemic weakness: military rebellion and unstable succession of heirs.
So, at first, I thought of a penalty of "The army with the general assigned to it turns into a rebel army", but it seemed like it could give the player a displeasure.
A drastic reduction in the army means that the enemy may declare war soon.
Of course, that was Byzantine's long tradition(?) and weakness. Still, it should be in a way that doesn't offend the player.

so right now
1) Increase in national dissatisfaction
2) Increased tax, manpower, and loan penalties
3) 'Large-scale' rebels against the throne
I just wrote it in two parts.
If anyone has a better idea, please let me know.

 

[Blk82]

The ERE really wasn't in "decline" in the sense of internal decadence, but it was in decline because it was in the way of the Ottomans. Constantinople probably would have fallen 50 years earlier, but Timur attacked the Ottomans. In fact, the empire was somewhat rebounding over the last half century of its existence. The disaster mechanics exist to force the collapse of large tags, or at least preventing them from blobbing out. The ERE doesn't need special mechanics, as because without player invention, if follows the historical path of ceasing to exist within the first decade or two of the game.

 

[howlling]

The ERE really wasn't in "decline" in the sense of internal decadence, but it was in decline because it was in the way of the Ottomans. Constantinople probably would have fallen 50 years earlier, but Timur attacked the Ottomans. In fact, the empire was somewhat rebounding over the last half century of its existence. The disaster mechanics exist to force the collapse of large tags, or at least preventing them from blobbing out. The ERE doesn't need special mechanics, as because without player invention, if follows the historical path of ceasing to exist within the first decade or two of the game.

Yes, but the reform panel is there for that 'player intervention situation'.
The Byzantine Empire suffered from many endemic weaknesses, especially in a political sense,
and was eventually destroyed by endless civil wars and divisions. Even after the fall, Morea was divided in half and civil war broke out.

In fact, cynically speaking, Byzantium doesn't need any patching. It's Ottoman's 'meal' anyway.
But why are we playing this alternate history game?
Reviving a nation from the brink of extinction and changing the direction of history is very attractive.

In other words, I thought about implementing Byzantium's unique political instability and weakness into the game,
but providing tangible rewards in proportion to it.
So that players in the Byzantium Empire can't breathe in anxiety even after winning against the Ottomans,
so that they worry endlessly. But at the end, the glorious Roman road.

In fact, I thought what it would be like to be able to immediately announce the restoration of Rome,
ignoring the decision when a certain number of reforms have been reached.

 

[vaLor-]

I came up with an idea while talking on the forum.
(Of course, if it is patched later) Byzantium Empire, like HRE and Ming Dynasty, provides an empire reform panel as much as it is a starting empire.

As the Byzantium Empire is in a state of misery and collapse, the reform points start at 0,
and severe penalties such as 'explosion' of national dissatisfaction, high interest rates, manpower and tax penalties are imposed,
In contrast to the Ottoman Empire, we provide panels with the concept of exploding potential towards the middle and latter half.

Reform points start at 0 as of 1444, and you start off with a penalty right from the start.
but
1) Whenever you recover territory of the Roman Empire
2) Every time you clear a mission in the Byzantine Empire
3) Obtained by consuming 100 prestige through the panel function
4) Reform points can be obtained each time coring is completed.

Not a bad suggestion. In fact, I think Byzantium should be way harder to play than it currently is at game start, it's frankly far too easy to 1v1 the Ottomans currently. And more content past the initial cracking of Ottos sounds pretty sick, an integrated path to re-legitimizing yourself as the Roman Empire and breaking/integrating the HRE would make for some fun gameplay too.

 

[Blk82]

The main political conflict in the ERE at the time period was the Council of Florence. However, implementing that specific historical event might create an overly powerful "submit to the Pope" path, in which the ERE affirms the council of Florence, goes Catholic, gets a strong Catholic ally or guarantor, and puts the ERE on easy mode. Under the right conditions, I could even see the AI ERE winning if it happens to snag an alliance with Austria.

 

[howlling]

The main political conflict in the ERE at the time period was the Council of Florence. However, implementing that specific historical event might create an overly powerful "submit to the Pope" path, in which the ERE affirms the council of Florence, goes Catholic, gets a strong Catholic ally or guarantor, and puts the ERE on easy mode. Under the right conditions, I could even see the AI ERE winning if it happens to snag an alliance with Austria.

oh that would be fun
Maybe a route aiming for the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire could be born.

Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and emperor of the Byzantine Empire.
Two Roman emperors.
WOW.

On the other hand, if you take the Orthodox route...
Upon dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, you immediately get free reforms or
Conversely (after the restoration of the 5th Patriarchate) there could be something forcing/requesting Orthodoxy on the Imperial agenda.
If rejected, A war may be possible against the HRE by activating the 'forced conversion' Cause bill and demanding Orthodoxy as the official religion...

 

[xrws31]

Ehhhh, the Empire panels for HRE and Ming are both there to represent that they were both, on paper, massive entities, but which suffered severe problems of administration and internal conflict which limited their capacity to do stuff directly.

That doesn't really apply to Byzantium in 1444. At this point Byzantium is not a huge empire falling apart, its not really an empire at all by this point, other than in name only. Why would Byzantium, by this point, be any different to administrate than any other small/medium nation? If it was 500AD it would make sense, but Byzantium's a bit past it by 1444. I'm not sure that simply having some internal problems is a sufficient reason to have an Empire panel, when literally every tag in the game has internal problems.

 

[howlling]

Ehhhh, the Empire panels for HRE and Ming are both there to represent that they were both, on paper, massive entities, but which suffered severe problems of administration and internal conflict which limited their capacity to do stuff directly.

That doesn't really apply to Byzantium in 1444. At this point Byzantium is not a huge empire falling apart, its not really an empire at all by this point, other than in name only. Why would Byzantium, by this point, be any different to administrate than any other small/medium nation? If it was 500AD it would make sense, but Byzantium's a bit past it by 1444. I'm not sure that simply having some internal problems is a sufficient reason to have an Empire panel, when literally every tag in the game has internal problems.

Surely you could say that.

However, everyone would agree that the Byzantine Empire was different from your average country. And at the same time, at the time of 1444, all of them collapsed and decayed, leaving only the "wonderful signboard", and it is also clear that in 1453, even that signboard was ripped off by the Ottoman Turks.

But what is surprising about the Byzantines is that even in such a shrunken and ruined state, they waged a civil war. As I have already said, even after the fall of Byzantium, civil war broke out in the Morea between Thomas Paleologus and Dimitrios Palaeologus.

This means that unlike the two empires, the Byzantium Empire at the time was "a small country", but it was a country that would collapse on its own without the Ottoman Turks due to many problems and contradictions piled up one after another. (At least I think so.)

In the end, it comes to the conclusion that the player (= the Byzantine monarch of the fictional history) must reform these accumulated political problems and contradictions, and recover the old homeland. However, even the restoration of the old land is not easy. Inevitably, Islamized former Roman lands will create problems that cannot be managed through simple government reforms. Worse still, A thousand-year-old tradition is great in itself, but in this situation, it can be a thorn that oppresses and corrupts the country. It means that it is impossible with normal and mundane reforms.

In the end, each reform must be done through the consent of the old vested interests and citizens or physical crushing, and the form I tried to express this is the Empire Reform Panel.

Maybe the Empire might take a step towards creating a class that counters Dammi, tolerating Islam and creating an Anatolian army. (humanism)
Maybe Empire may create new religious centers in the Age of Reformation (especially the 5 Patriarchs!), bringing their own nation and even Muslim provinces of other countries back to Orthodoxy. (religion)
Maybe they seek to restore the Roman Empire by taking the crown and overthrowing their rivals through active assassination and proxy wars.
Maybe they can create empires that don't even consume diplomatic relations while actively making neighboring states their (diplomatic) vassals through their flamboyant court activities. (court)


In other words, since the Byzantine Empire was rather in a period of decline, I think there is a possibility that it can be reborn as a new Rome according to the direction the player monarch leads without being bound by a set mission or government reform.

It's about giving each player a chance to create the Rome they've envisioned. But the end will all lead to one road.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

Surely you could say that.

However, everyone would agree that the Byzantine Empire was different from your average country. And at the same time, at the time of 1444, all of them collapsed and decayed, leaving only the "wonderful signboard", and it is also clear that in 1453, even that signboard was ripped off by the Ottoman Turks.

But what is surprising about the Byzantines is that even in such a shrunken and ruined state, they waged a civil war. As I have already said, even after the fall of Byzantium, civil war broke out in the Morea between Thomas Paleologus and Dimitrios Palaeologus.

This means that unlike the two empires, the Byzantium Empire at the time was "a small country", but it was a country that would collapse on its own without the Ottoman Turks due to many problems and contradictions piled up one after another. (At least I think so.)

Why is a civil war so suprising to you?

It is not unsual for even declining countries to have internal divisons resulting in civil wars. It just comes down to personal ambitions. The later phases of the commonwealth hat parts of the nobility block reforms needed for the countries survival. The french revolution had nobles clearly oppose any reform while the nation literally went bankrupt.

The byzantines had many periods of decline (early muslim conquests, 900s and then battle of Manzikurt) and later rebuilding. I don't think they were destined to fail (though at 1444 they were definetly done and should be without player intervention).

 

[InvisibleBison]

However, everyone would agree that the Byzantine Empire was different from your average country.

I wouldn't say that Byzantium is any more different from an average country than any other country.

 

[howlling]

Why is a civil war so suprising to you?

It is not unsual for even declining countries to have internal divisons resulting in civil wars. It just comes down to personal ambitions. The later phases of the commonwealth hat parts of the nobility block reforms needed for the countries survival. The french revolution had nobles clearly oppose any reform while the nation literally went bankrupt.

The byzantines had many periods of decline (early muslim conquests, 900s and then battle of Manzikurt) and later rebuilding. I don't think they were destined to fail (though at 1444 they were definetly done and should be without player intervention).

I wouldn't say that Byzantium is any more different from an average country than any other country.

Wow when you say that, that's a tricky one for me to answer. haha..

Having said that, I may be wrong.
Still, if I have to explain/excuse it, it's because I saw civil war as the biggest cause of the decline of the Byzantine Empire, except for the 4th Crusade.

This is because, in essence, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire was only a military commander, a position that could theoretically be challenged by anyone.

Money to maintain your own army
support from (especially in Constantinople) citizens

In fact, there are traces of the penalty of 'determined appearance of rebels claiming the throne when the monarch dies' in the unreformed Byzantine monarchy. This means that even in the eyes of the developers, Byzantium's unique civil war was an endemic contradiction that was different from that of other countries.

The problem is that this is similar to the last vestiges of the Roman Empire/Republicanism. The authority of 1000 to 1500 years is not something that can be ignored, and I thought that this was not something that a reformer could easily change. Rather, it's like countries that start from zero are good at reform. On the contrary, the Byzantines would be in a disadvantageous and difficult position because of their traditions and customs.

The fact that reform points are provided whenever coring is completed is also aimed at citizens.
"Look, will you believe me now? So will you support my reforms?" I wrote it thinking it was to convince the citizens.
To be more precise, it should be called the concept of "approval rating".

 

[PDXBigBoss]

Why not just represent it with a Government mechanic ? The idea is cool though!

 

[ForVictory]

The Byzantines was a poor city state rather then a empire at 1444.

 

[Fusilliban]

Maybe a route aiming for the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire could be born.

Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and emperor of the Byzantine Empire.

You can definitely do this as-is, you just have to force a stalemate in the Religious League war first.

It's tricky, because first you need to force a stalemate in a war someone else declares, and then you need to force-convert HRE countries to Orthodox while you're still outside the HRE and thus not bound by the Peace of Westphalia. It's a lengthy process that doesn't lead to a lot of imperial authority until you do a lot of work, but it's very doable, and some of the final Byzantine mission rewards help with it.

 

[howlling]

Why not just represent it with a Government mechanic ? The idea is cool though!

※ This is just my opinion!

In my opinion, the general government reform mechanic alone was insufficient.

1) Civil wars broke out frequently even in normal or even golden age,
2) It had a system in which the successor changed violently and flexibly according to the support of the Senate / military / citizens (= politically unstable)
3) At the same time, the situation of declaring war against Byzantium from all sides by digging into the weakness of the troops being eaten away by the civil war was repeated...

The problem is, in terms of in-game play, the Byzantine Empire has the best dissatisfaction management of all countries, so it's no exaggeration to say that there are no rebels at all. Of course, even as of 1.35, Byzantium is designed to have claimant rebels spawn more often, and in fact (as I wrote above) the devs tried to put it into a government system. I wished for a stronger, more destructive rebel. It is as if Byzantium, which had barely returned to its heyday, was shattered with the permanent loss of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert and the Ducas Civil War.

I wanted to make players constantly ponder at the crossroads of civil war, external expansion, defense, and reform. Of course, it would be possible to simply recover Roman territory or reform through centralization... In that case, simply collecting points in territory recovery or F2 would be the end. It felt too bad to simply make this Country of desire that way.

In addition, I thought that I could be free from history because it was rather a destroyed empire.
I felt that it was attractive to be able to be reborn as a 'new Rome' as the player led, so I suggested an opinion.

Just in time, the 'court' idea was added in 1.35, so 'Wouldn't Byzantium be able to use this?' I thought Maybe class loyalty can be set as a precondition for passing reforms. Or, the reform points receive a bonus proportional to the loyalty of the class.

 

[howlling]

You can definitely do this as-is, you just have to force a stalemate in the Religious League war first.

It's tricky, because first you need to force a stalemate in a war someone else declares, and then you need to force-convert HRE countries to Orthodox while you're still outside the HRE and thus not bound by the Peace of Westphalia. It's a lengthy process that doesn't lead to a lot of imperial authority until you do a lot of work, but it's very doable, and some of the final Byzantine mission rewards help with it.

Oh, a lot of people don't know about this.
If you make the Orthodox vassal a majority after signing the 'Westphalia Treaty', the Imperial Religion will be converted to Orthodoxy.

But the current structure is too inconvenient. If Byzantium gets patched in the future,

After the restoration of the 5th Patriarchate, I would like to be able to ask for war on the grounds of dissolution of the empire / (About Imperial State Religion) coercion to convert the state religion if it is rejected after making a formal request to the empire agenda.