itt RI plays Europa Universalis III (Heir to the Throne)

[RedImperator]

The spies in EU III are incredibly useful. One of the most useful spy missions is also one of the cheapest and most likely to work: "Infiltrate Administration". For 25 ducats, I can know exactly where every enemy stack is at any given moment. I do this to Hungary immediately. It works on the first try, letting me see all of their forces. Combined with the ledger, which gives me a total count on every army in the world, I have a pretty good idea exactly how much trouble I'm in.

Okay, lots.

The Hungarians have about 30,000 men in total under arms; at this point, I've got about 15,000, and more than half are in Italy. I have a little over 25,000 manpower free, so there's room to grow, but I need to buy some time. Bohemia takes some of the pressure off by immediately invading the north, but the Hungarians still send a bunch of small stacks across my border. Also, an unpleasant surprise: 10,000 Bavarians show up and start sieging Albania.

Once again, the fleet will be my wooden walls--I withdraw the army to Bithynia and close the Sea of Marmara, sealing Asia Minor off and recruiting cavalry in every province. The Hungarians send a siege force to Thrace, but I'm not yet worried--Constantinople starts the game with a Level II fort, as near as I can tell the only one in Europe, and is virtually impossible to storm with these tech levels. The Hungarians are, however, threatening some of my most valuable provinces in the eastern Balkans. I got a pretty big break with the Bavarians sieging one of my least valuable provinces first, but Albania is not going to hold out forever.

Meanwhile I've got 8000 men in Italy and military access nearly all the way to the Alps...hmm.

Get the army assembled and cross the Dardanelles. Swing north and hit the Hungarians from behind, relieving Thrace. The timing couldn't be much better--the Hungarians have thrashed the Bohemians and are starting to send troops to the south, including a 12,000 man doomstack led by the king himself. Once again, the all-cavalry stack proves its worth, smashing scattered enemy forces and hounding them back into Hungary, where I manage to pin them down and destroy them completely. I split my infantry up and start sieging my captured provinces back, and send a big stack to Burgas, in modern Bulgaria. With nothing to do in the Balkans at the moment (I'm unwilling to risk the majority of my hitting power against 10,000 troops with a 3 level land tech advantage), I send the cavalry north to hit newly raised Hungarians units when they spawn, while they're still disorganized and it's possible to annihilate them easily. Keep this up until the Hungarians get their act together and nearly flank me with that big stack; retreat in a hurry to Thrace and wait to see where the doomstack will go. War exhaustion is piling up for the Hungarians and they start seeing nationalist uprisings (one, unfortunately, is Bulgarian and stupidly attacks my infantry stack, requiring me to send the cav to rescue them and eventually destroy the rebels; good going, guys).

Erserum rebels. Mamluks refuse to give me military access to put down the rebellion. Not that concerned about a dirt poor discontiguous Sunni province at the moment.

Meanwhile I cross the alps into Bohemia and...there's nobody home. They sent their entire army to besiege the shittiest border province of a distant enemy with whom they have no competing strategic interests. Superb planning there, AI. Besiege Munich with my infantry, use my cavalry to squash Bavarian relief regiments as they're raised.

Hungarian doomstack enters Byzantine territory and--yes! Just as I hoped, it begins to split up to siege multiple provinces. I don't know if the AI is stupid or just doesn't have enough intel to know I've got a major force nearby, but either way, I kick two small stacks out of the way and then fall on their main stack with a 1.5-1 advantage, which is enough when it's all cav vs. a mixed stack. The stack retreats and I follow into Serbia, Bosnia, all the way to the Dalmation coast, winning fight after fight and tearing it to pieces. What I really want is to kill their king, which, given how war exhausted Hungary is, will probably cause the country to collapse into open rebellion.

Finish sieging all 4 Bavarian home provinces. At this point they've captured Albania, but that just reduces the warscore to 98-2 in my favor. If I wanted, I could take everything but their capital, or make them a vassal, or possibly both, but I have no use for a distant German vassal who's just going to suck me into German wars, and I need three wrong-culture, wrong-religion, poor, distant provinces like I need a hole in my head. Settle for looting their treasury instead. 150 ducats is disappointing, but the main thing is 10,000 enemy troops just vanished off the battlefield.

Erserum declares independence as--the Ottomans! Like fucking zombies, these guys. Oh well--they're a one-province minor surrounded by bigger players. This is an curtain call, not a resurgence.

Hungarian king escapes with only his pride wounded, alas, but the Hungarians have no organized field forces left. Unfortunately, they do have enough money and manpower to keep raising units faster than I can kill them. I can break up formations before they coalesce into another doomstack, but with so many popping up, I can't fan out into Hungary with my infantry and siege a dozen provinces at once. Settle in for a slow grind instead--my objective, I've decided, is to annex Bulgaria entirely and force the release of Bosnia, Serbia, and Wallachia (if I have enough warscore, I'll take Transylvania and give it to Wallachia to form proto-Romania), enough to form a shield of buffer states between us. Plus take whatever's left in their treasury. These cockbites have a lot to answer for.

Speaking of cockbites, the Mamluks declare war.

Now you fuckers are going to get it.

[Stofsk]

this would never have happened if you had just finished writing the voyager fanfic

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

this would never have happened if you had just finished writing the voyager fanfic

demand province/ demand vassalage/ demand annexation/ demand voyager rewrite

[muse]

Forget the Voyager fanfic, I'm still waiting for my appearance in Fast Times...

[RedImperator]

Rargh blarg fuck you Goddammit, now I have a two front war on my hands. I sigh and sue for peace with the Hungarians. Force them to release Serbia and take the province of Burgas. I'll be back, you fuckers.

Regroup the divisions in Thrace. The Mamluks are slicing through Anatolia; once again, the fleet protects Europe. As usual, the AI sends a doomstack (about 18,000 men) with smaller siege stacks trailing it. I wait for my own units to rebuild to full strength and then, when the Mamluk main stack has been worn down somewhat, cross into Asia Minor and hit them with a combined infantry/cavalry stack. And...victory! Break off the cavalry and hound the retreating stack to its destruction, mopping up the small stacks as I go. Infantry fans out behind the cavalry to liberate captures provinces and start sieging the Mamluk provinces in Asia Minor.

Morocco and the Ottomans get in on the fun, declaring war on the Mamluks. Fine by me, as long as they don't start sieging provinces I want. Incidentally, the Golden Horde declared war on me at the same time the Mamluks did, but because Morocco is blocking the land route to my territory, I don't see them. Also allied to the Mamluks is Tripoli, which consists of two North African provinces.

Hmm. It seems while I've been busy dealing with Turks, Hungarians, and third-rate Italian kingdoms, the Mamluks have gone on a tear, swallowing up a huge chunk of the central Arabian peninsula, down both shores of the Red Sea all the way to the Horn of Africa (interrupted only by some Sunni minor holding Mecca itself), and all of modern-day Yemen (the kingdom of Yemen survives as two interior provinces). However, their most important provinces can literally be counted on one hand--Alexandria, which is a Center of Trade, their capital Cairo, Judea, Lebanon, and Aleppo. Damascus, Medina, and the Nile Delta are second-tier, and everything else is pretty much worthless for maintaining a war machine. On the other hand, with them holding all these provinces, getting a decent enough war score to force them to give up their good provinces is going to be a chore--and that's assuming I can deal with the rest of their army.

Split the cavalry into two stacks. The larger stack moves down the Mediterranean coast--Aleppo, Lebanon, Judea. The smaller moves parallel to it--Mus, Damascus, and a bunch of catbox provinces I can't be bothered to spell properly. The idea is to sweep the Mamluks out of Asia and block them at the Sinai peninsula, leaving the infantry to siege the entire Levant in peace. It's only partly successful--the initial sweep catches and kills scattered and disorganized Mamluk regiments, but they keep raising new ones behind the Sinai Line, forcing one cav stack to run around the desert killing them before they can form a coherent group and start hitting infantry--when you have 10,000 men scattered in 1000-2000 man stacks across half a dozen provinces, one decently organized force can really fuck up your day. It doesn't help that the Mamluks have a bunch of shitty desert provinces in the Arabian interior (seriously, why the hell did the AI bother taking these?).

20,000 man Mamluk stack appears in Cairo, led by the Sultan himself. Uh-oh.

Roll up the infantry, retreat all the way to central Anatolia, with the cavalry screening them. Finally organize into one megastack just as the Mamluks catch up.

Take a quick peek back into Europe. Hungary is being invaded from three sides and is beset with rebels, and I can't spare a single man to join in on the feast. God damn it.

Mamluks attack. They have numbers and a higher land tech level, but I have a better general and I'm defending good terrain. If I win, I've pretty much beaten the Mamluks forever--there's no way I'm going to leave them in a state where recovery is possible, no matter how long it takes--and if I lose, it's basically Manzikert Part II and I'm going to spend the rest of the game as a minor Eastern European power if I'm lucky.

Now or never. Hit the unpause button and--go!

Unfortunately, EU III battles basically consist of watching a red line move back and forth, so I can't tell you about the undoubtedly epic sweep of cavalry and clash of infantry. All I can tell you is I saw my red line growing faster than his. Oh shit! Watch my numbers fall fast, get ready to retreat--if I can salvage the army, I might be able to couterattack.

Then the Sultan dies in battle.

Mamluk morale collapses and the army breaks. Don't give them a moment's rest! Break off the cav stacks and start hounding them back into Syria. The doomstack disintegrates entirely in the Syrian desert.

Total Mamluk troops under arms: fewer than 10,000. Available reserve manpower: 0. Money remaining: 0. War exhaustion: 17.

What follows is a tedious 15 year grind, wherein I capture every single Mamluk province, and, for good measure, overrun Tripoli and force-vassalize it. When I finally drag the Mamluks to the peace table, I take Aleppo, Lebanon, Judea, Gaza, and Sinai. Why Gaza and Sinai? Because that blocks their access to their Asian provinces. The ink isn't dry on the peace treaty before I'm sponsoring nationalist rebellions on the Arabian peninsula; in less than a year, they lose everything to either the Kingdom of Syria (who wants Aleppo and Lebanon, but is allied with me for now) or a new Sunni Arab kingdom in modern-day Saudi Arabi and Jordan. Yemen and Oman take the opportunity to strip them of their provinces along the Arabian Sea, and Ethiopian rebels are on the loose in their far south. They still have Cairo and Alexandria, but the loss of the Levant has crippled them permanently. The only question for me is what to do with Alexandria when I eventually capture it--should I keep the COT, or destroy it in favor of a planned new one in Constantinople.

Oh yeah, the Golden Horde. Despite never engaging them in battle, I've somehow racked up a +25 warscore against them and their war exhaustion is nearly 20. Sadly, I can't get them to release Muscovy, but they're willing to cut Ukraine and Crimea loose. Not quite the crippling blow the Mamluks suffered; pretty sure I'm going to have to deal with these guys soon.

[Thanas]

Just you wait till you go up against France. 70+ armies are nothing special by then, heck when I went up against the French as the Byzantines I had over 180k men engaged in a single battle.

[RedImperator]

Just you wait till you go up against France. 70+ armies are nothing special by then, heck when I went up against the French as the Byzantines I had over 180k men engaged in a single battle.

France is definitely growing into the Big Blue Blob. I'm trying to get my eastern flank secured before they grow too big. The plan for now is to take the valuable parts of Egypt and then wall myself in to the east and north with vassals. I might crush the Ethiopians and Swahili and start colonizing East Africa, and Mecca would look pretty good on my trophy wall, but my real focus, hopefully, will be Italy. Which will almost certainly bring me into a fight with France.

Incidentally, I was wondering something: this is all ahistorical as hell, but do you think there's any way the Byzantine Empire could have survived into the 20th century? Even as just a city-state? Or were they doomed even if they did better against the Turks?

[Thanas]

Incidentally, I was wondering something: this is all ahistorical as hell, but do you think there's any way the Byzantine Empire could have survived into the 20th century? Even as just a city-state? Or were they doomed even if they did better against the Turks?

Well, there is a great chance that if the siege of 1453 had failed, Mehmed would have been deposed and a bitter civil war would have followed. In many aspects, the siege was a gamble as much for the Ottomans as for the Byzantines.

That said, unless the Byzantines manage an alliance and personal union with the Hungarians (who also have to do better) there is no chance. Not when they are surrounded by the Ottomans.

[RedImperator]

Figured as much. Maybe with an earlier point of divergence (no Fourth Crusade, or winning Manzikert or something), but then history's too far off course to predict anything.

[Thanas]

Figured as much. Maybe with an earlier point of divergence (no Fourth Crusade, or winning Manzikert or something), but then history's too far off course to predict anything.

Yeah, pretty much. Basically, what wrecked the Byzantines was not Manzikert - they recovered very well from that, especially under the Komneni rule - it was the fourth crusade, followed by the disunity and civil wars. Had they not had some very good rulers, they would have been destroyed after 1204. But by the time they got back into Constantinople, the damage was already done. The funny thing is that the crusades were originally very beneficial to the Byzantine Empire - first and second, for example - but by the time the third got around it got too much too handle.

So basically what one needs is to remove Venice from the picture, but then it veers off into lala-fantasyland, like you said.

That said, EU3 does a very good job of conveying the Byzantine situation - you constantly have to take Provinces just to have a buffer on both sides. That said, a lot of things are also hilariously broken.

For example, if you annex a lot of the provinces to which you have a rightful claim, your infamy level just shots through the roof, making everybody hate you and start wars. Which is BS in my opinion - the christian powers should cheer you on against the muslims, not using this to declare war against you.


Also, the AI becomes horribly dogged to the point that you often stumble from one war to the next. Which can work out great - I now have the greatest empire in 1570, with all of America being practically mine and the Byzantine Empire extending the whole of the Arab peninsula, the whole of North Africa, Spain and Italy as well as Switzerland and Austria, Hungary, the Crimean etc., but it is pretty aggravating not having the chance to sit back and take stock. Why? The high infamy level, that's why. Because if I do not take provinces, the AI will just attack me fully healed when they get the chance again (cue endless war exhaustion and attrition), but if I take provinces, my infamy levels are shot through the roof. Either way, wars.


EDIT: Also, the westernization decision is nearly worthless. Sure, I advance faster, but I am still stuck with the sucky eastern units (though the eastern cavalry is by far the best in the game till 1700) - get swarm cavalry and eastern hussars ASAP - but my infantry still gets stuck with the shitty types. The solution is to start pumping men at arms, tercio infantry, Landsknechte and maurician infantry from your western provinces, but you still need to conquer them first.

[RedImperator]

I'm pretty sure there's something broken with the causus belli system in HttT, because the game tells me things like "Reconquest Causus Belli, 0 infamy for full annexation", and it never works that way. For that matter, I keep getting stability hits for "No Causus Belli" war declarations, even against countries I quite clearly had a causus belli against. The way I see it, you should be able to at least reconquer Asia Minor and the Balkans without infamy--and of course, in the real work, if the Byzantines ever reorganized, re-took Anatolia, and then kicked the Mamluks out of the Holy Land, all of Europe would be cheering them on.

On the other hand, if you modeled that correctly, then the AI wouldn't recognize an aggressive player bent on conquering Europe. You could overrun the richest, most densely populated provinces in the Eastern Med, and then wheel around and punch a happy, smiling Europe right in the face. I'll give Paradox credit for trying to balance historical realism and gameplay necessity in this case.

[Artemas]

In HttT, you have to choose the Casus Belli you want when you declare war. You can only have one, so you will need to choose between two pretty inviting options sometimes. Over all though, HttT fixes a lot of the problems with racking up infamy. In addition, your infamy problem Thanas, wherein you are forced to either continue annexing provinces to continue existing is pretty easily fixed. Just go for concede defeat, or monetary reparations. You get prestige, they lose prestige, and you don't recieve any infamy. I am pretty sure that is a feature in earlier EUIII editions, but am not sure.

EDIT: The casus belli occurs, but it won't do anything untill you've selected it in the declare war screen; it defaults to "no casus belli" automatically.

[Thanas]

In HttT, you have to choose the Casus Belli you want when you declare war. You can only have one, so you will need to choose between two pretty inviting options sometimes. Over all though, HttT fixes a lot of the problems with racking up infamy. In addition, your infamy problem Thanas, wherein you are forced to either continue annexing provinces to continue existing is pretty easily fixed. Just go for concede defeat, or monetary reparations. You get prestige, they lose prestige, and you don't recieve any infamy. I am pretty sure that is a feature in earlier EUIII editions, but am not sure.

Which is pretty worthless if you are a smaller power surrounded by bigger powers, because you need to take provinces. Money is just worthless if you do not have the provinces to give up in the time of war.

[Artemas]

Well, yeah to a degree. In HttT, Byzantium starts with a casus belli that allows them to annex any province they have a core on - no more small country infamy problems, if you're smart. And when you're larger, you don't HAVE to annex provinces in self-defence, you can just settle for other terms. Your infamy will go down, and they won't be in a position to attack again for a while. Truce and all that, plus penalties (especially morale) due to poor prestige.

Of course it depends entirely on your particular game. Sometimes you just need to suffer through a few decades of shittyness and war.

[Imperial Overlord]

That said, unless the Byzantines manage an alliance and personal union with the Hungarians (who also have to do better) there is no chance. Not when they are surrounded by the Ottomans.

This was actually part of the background of an alt-history game we ran at Librium Arcana. I was the Hungarians.

[Thanas]

Well, yeah to a degree. In HttT, Byzantium starts with a casus belli that allows them to annex any province they have a core on - no more small country infamy problems, if you're smart. And when you're larger, you don't HAVE to annex provinces in self-defence, you can just settle for other terms.

Define larger. IF the Golden Horde or France goes after you, you need over 150k manpower, which you can only get with a lot of provinces.

[Artemas]

Well, only if you want major pitched battles. In my current game as Muscovy, I've managed to survive to form Russia, while going 1 on 1 with the Horde would have led to defeat though. The scorch earth option is great for that. But if you're big enough that you, as the Byzantines, are coming up against France, then I think you are big enough to either have A) allies, or B) force a stalemate. Of course it also depends on how quickly your france grew. Anyway, the point was that in HttT, the Byzantine Empire had a casus belli allowing zero-infamy gain if reconquering provinces that you already have cores on, and that if you can hold on for long enough with a high infamy (admittedly difficult at times), then you will reach the point where you no longer have countries declaring war every 6 months. Advisors also help.

[RedImperator]

I'd complain about that feature not being documented, but since I never read the manual, I guess it's my own fault.

[Artemas]

Well, nothing is explained very well, so that complaint is definitely legitimate. Anywho, looking forwards to new updates.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I'm really not convinced at all about the idea that Europe would really give three hurrahs to a resurgent Byzantine Empire conquering vast swathes of the Mediterranean and the Balkans. On the one hand, yes, they were terrified by the Ottoman advance, and much ink was spilled about Constantinople being the bulwark of Christendom against the Saracen invader, etc. On the other hand, by the 1430s most of the Orthodox countries had been somewhat alienated against the Byzantines by the Greek Orthodox Church's decision to open ecumenical discussions with the Pope, and from what I gather their priests predicted much fire and brimstone upon the Patriarch of Constantinople for that blasphemy. Second, many European leaders really didn't seem to give a shit, and plenty, like Venice or France, found it quite profitable at various times to work against the Byzantines or even with the conquering Turks . I don't see why a Byzantine Empire that was gobbling up territory wouldn't be viewed with the same suspicion and aggressive opportunism that was shown to it at... Every other point in its history (and the history of every European country, of course). And not only Muslim territory, but also that of the many little Christian duchies and despotates and such that had sprung up in their old territory which presumably had some relations with and utility for the Mediterranean powers.

And if the Byzantines decided to invade Italy (as most Byzantine players in EUIII do), I honestly can't imagine Rome or Madrid seeing anything but a dagger pointed at them. Naturally, powers like France or the HRE would probably be perfectly happy to see the Pope or the Mediterranean Powers waste themselves against the Greeks, but Paradox AI... Does what it can.

[RedImperator]

I'm really not convinced at all about the idea that Europe would really give three hurrahs to a resurgent Byzantine Empire conquering vast swathes of the Mediterranean and the Balkans. On the one hand, yes, they were terrified by the Ottoman advance, and much ink was spilled about Constantinople being the bulwark of Christendom against the Saracen invader, etc. On the other hand, by the 1430s most of the Orthodox countries had been somewhat alienated against the Byzantines by the Greek Orthodox Church's decision to open ecumenical discussions with the Pope, and from what I gather their priests predicted much fire and brimstone upon the Patriarch of Constantinople for that blasphemy. Second, many European leaders really didn't seem to give a shit, and plenty, like Venice or France, found it quite profitable at various times to work against the Byzantines or even with the conquering Turks . I don't see why a Byzantine Empire that was gobbling up territory wouldn't be viewed with the same suspicion and aggressive opportunism that was shown to it at... Every other point in its history (and the history of every European country, of course). And not only Muslim territory, but also that of the many little Christian duchies and despotates and such that had sprung up in their old territory which presumably had some relations with and utility for the Mediterranean powers.

And if the Byzantines decided to invade Italy (as most Byzantine players in EUIII do), I honestly can't imagine Rome or Madrid seeing anything but a dagger pointed at them. Naturally, powers like France or the HRE would probably be perfectly happy to see the Pope or the Mediterranean Powers waste themselves against the Greeks, but Paradox AI... Does what it can.

Yeah, realistically, 20 minutes after the first Byzantine boot hits Italian soil, the Pope is screaming for help sending them back to Greece where they belong.

Honestly, even if the Byzantines managed to sort out their internal problems and do much, much better against the Muslims than they did in real life, I can't really see how they'd be anything besides a fairly weak, backwards Eastern European state that eventually winds up a puppet of Austria or Britain or whoever. There's just no way that 15th century western Europeans are going to tolerate a Byzantine reemergence for any number of reasons. As near as I can tell from my limited research, they liked the idea of the Byzantine Emperor being the legitimate successor of Augustus a lot more than they would have liked a Byzantine Emperor actually trying to exercise that legitimacy.

[Tritio]

This is all very interesting.
I do have a question: Dispite the enmity between the Churches of Rome and Constantinople, weren't there times when there was an equal or greater amount of discord between Rome and the Christian European nations? Perhaps when the Church of England emerged or when there were two Popes. At such a time, wouldn't help from the Orthodox Church be welcome? If they supported Rome over the Protestants, for example, I could imagine a closer relationship being formed. That might lead to possible reconciliation, if in the first place, the Byzantines survived the Ottomans.

[Thanas]

The Byzantines would not be powerful enough to matter in that scenario.

[Dominus Atheos]

What the hell is "Trust" in this game? I'm trying to diplo-annex Brittany and despite the fact that I have 200 relations with them and a royal marriage, the game says they "deeply distrust" me. Other countries "view me with distrust" or trust me to uphold my bargains". What the hell does that mean and how to increase it?

[Thanas]

You got a bad reputation.