🔔---⚔️ September challenge: The new Belisarius? 🛡️---🔔

[Pocus]

Repost of this:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1985050/ ... 759377086/

https://we.tl/t-p5czn6Eooh

In this challenge, you take control of a much-beleaguered Byzantine Empire at turn 69. You are at war with the Seljuqs and several usurpers.

Try to restore the might of the Byzantine Empire to the best of your abilities. Then take a screenshot at turn 125.

The AI must remain on Balanced difficulty.
No save scumming!
No cheating or exploits (although YMMV on what counts as an exploit!).

Try to play fairly and in good faith, as a new Emperor.

[SuitedQueens]

The AI must remain on Balanced difficulty.
No save scumming!
No cheating or exploits (although YMMV on what counts as an exploit!).

Try to play fairly and in good faith, as a new Emperor.

A few clarifications on Exploits and the optimal solution by using them:

1) Selling/gifting your regions to Novgorod and other distant uninvested states to wall off/create chokepoints. Selling your Vassal Status multiple times to end wars (except Usurpers) and fill up coeffers with shiny coins instantly. Followed by Breaking Vassalage AND sending Disband 90% armies to everyone in a single turn to end all active wars.

2) Actively trying to kill your low Admin (critical) low Piety (no Mulim regions conquest) ruler old fashioned way if you dont get Assassinate Ruler RGD (use, sell off until you sit at 3 RGD or lower). The idea is to gain more Authority from combat with Ruler in the field AND Pillage regions you want to dump temporarily since they are sparse on resource production and loyalty anyway. If region above 50 loyalty queue up Disassemble buildings temporarily.

3) Once you created chokepoints on the East its time to go to war with western Usurpers, Holy Roman Empire and nearby minor nations. Their regions and POP will be useful from the jump. Hopefully new territories provide enough economy to maintain armies that gonna slay eastern legacy banks i.e. Fatimids, Seljuqs, Abbasids. At the end drain Papal and France potentially. AI inept at spotting land to land opportunities if sea lies in-between, which is another argument to delay low yeild eastern regions liberation. Meanwhile rebuild stable regions into tier 2 Gold for the main part.

[Pocus]

I'm trying to work on (1), AI not accepting any region even if offered, but anyway, the exploit will remain. It's impossible for the code to understand that you are donating a string of regions to a neutral neighbor just to be insulated from your enemy.

(2), trying to kill your lousy ruler the old-fashioned way, with the insertion of a sword in his head, seems legit to me.

[Surt]

(1) can you use distance to capital to devalue offered regions in trades? or is it counter productive?

[SuitedQueens]

I'm trying to work on (1), AI not accepting any region even if offered, but anyway, the exploit will remain. It's impossible for the code to understand that you are donating a string of regions to a neutral neighbor just to be insulated from your enemy.

(2), trying to kill your lousy ruler the old-fashioned way, with the insertion of a sword in his head, seems legit to me.

I described (1) cuz these tactics work in MP as well. Dont need any cheats to get these cash injections flowing especially if you build good relationships with majors from the get go. If you remember Vassaling out also work offensively. You retain temporarily conquered territories which gonna be yours after 10 turn timer passed. There is no piece cooldown as well, so you can Break Vassalage and attack same opponent again say if you want to reset War Weariness.

On Neutral powers: maybe simple distance check between capitals will do to determine "sphere of influence". The thing is that bonus for "being in the neighborhood" worth 1 region without walling off strat.

Old fashioned way in (2) stands for Retaliate against high Militia regions, but seems like Big Combat Success effectively has like 0 chance of killing assigned general even without Bodyguards trait and no Luck buildings. In Empires its easy to lose Hannibal by riding acros African 3 huts village. Milking big losses not really sustainable or wirthwile. Looking through the code to find the exact factors influencing the outcomes. Maybe you'll know the answer off the top?

Gonna post RP style AAR since its a good save to showcase some gameplay without exploits. Maybe capture interesting combats on vid.

[Pocus]

In 1.03.4 and onward, when you become a vassal, you immediately return all regions under war conquest. I'll check for the exploit of proposing to be a vassal of several nations at once as a diplomatic deal. It should be invalidated for all.

In Empires, you could die from big battle success more often than expected because of a bug (which is still there until I get approval for the new patch). In Kingdoms, it's fixed, so chances exist but are very low.

I do indeed plan to depreciate the value of a region depending on the distance to the one that will accept it. It's actually already done, but I'll revise it to be more subtle, with more parameters. However, the exploit will remain. Byz can donate to Armenia, neutral to everyone, a buffer of regions between them and the SEL, and they are good. And Armenia is a close nation...

[SuitedQueens]

In 1.03.4 and onward, when you become a vassal, you immediately return all regions under war conquest. I'll check for the exploit of proposing to be a vassal of several nations at once as a diplomatic deal. It should be invalidated for all.

Nice. Selling your Vassal status is problematic cuz benefits far outweight downsides unless you own many Vassals as well. Syphoning resources and units from nations is bigger issue when combined with AI not declaring on you often enough even on the highest aggression setting.

As far as simul proposals go Disband should definitely be checked if possible. Have to limit it to one nation cuz everything else will be exploitable.

I do indeed plan to depreciate the value of a region depending on the distance to the one that will accept it. It's actually already done, but I'll revise it to be more subtle, with more parameters. However, the exploit will remain. Byz can donate to Armenia, neutral to everyone, a buffer of regions between them and the SEL, and they are good. And Armenia is a close nation...

Talking about regions value. IDK if its intended or not, but notable behaviour migrated from Empires particularly noticeable at quick growth setting can happen:
temporarily occupied regions value for Negotiations drops or raises drastically based on Pillaging or Economic development respectively.

[Pocus]

Good points, Disband, Pillaging. I'll note that.

[Surt]

Waiting for the emergency patch to try this!

[Pocus]

Me too! It's being processed ...

[Surt]

First experience in this, the Byzantines are very very rich, their mp is definitely the limit, the amount of mercs is unending as is the revolts!!!

[Surt]

At turn 125:

Byz125.JPG (196.04 KiB) Viewed 2681 times

I should not have focused so much on gold:

gold.JPG (85.91 KiB) Viewed 2681 times

Which make me think the recent change to court expenses was slightly overdone.

[Pocus]

Congratulations, the Empire has been restored.

CE is always tricky to fine-tune and the formula was cleaned up of some oddities, so this patch had to fix it on the safe side. Perhaps it can be then increased back by 10% now.

[Surt]

Well if not fixed a competent Byz could steamroll all.

[Pocus]

So more difficult for nations with many regions, more than an increase in CE depending on current income?

[Surt]

It doesn't really feel difficult playing Byzant once your up in auth, and have a huge surplus.

you could try to set CE to halfway between now and before? my seljuqs will hate it but they might have grown too large too fast and taken too many sucky regions.

[SuitedQueens]

Gets better with penalties (including CE) introduced by Suicidal difficulty. Combined with higher aggression for AI setting and decent rolls on their part, this scenario can be somewhat challenging early on. It's all about stack compositions, so changing that for AI would be the first priority. Less splitting on their part would also help with them taking turns faster, I believe.

[Lennard]

Upps, I totally forgot to post my result here. Finished it mid-october I think. It was a very fun challenge, I hope to see more like this in the future!

[Surt]

Upps, I totally forgot to post my result here. Finished it mid-october I think. It was a very fun challenge, I hope to see more like this in the future!

Ah you were more focused the me!

[Pocus]

It's not too late, Lennard, and I can definitely post another challenge. I have access to many saved games from players.