Welcome friends, welcome to the most intellectual, most pious, and most Roman planet of the galaxy, Earth. This paradise planet has unified in culture, the only culture known to man, ruled by the most excellent basilinna and answers only to the true god.
This was my third attempt at Byzantium: one culture, one faith, true one-tag on normal difficulty. In the first two attempts, I tried no-ally runs which I failed not due to lack of allies, but because coalitions formed, decreasing the speed of world conquest. In all three attempts, I immensely enjoyed playing Byzantium since I had to push myself to my playing capabilities to achieve one culture as a non-horde nation. I do recommend you try this; the main concern is time, and I did not exploit development religiously since I am not a disciplined person.
Few insights that i gathered from my attempts:
- For money going east is good but you guarantee the west becomes a nuisance with 40+ development 8 level forts everywhere.
- Allies are only useful for deterring coalitions to a some degree, they will eventually break the alliance and rival you and coalition will form nonetheless.
- You can seize land from your vassals while in war to get them below 100 development for turning them into pronoia.
- Pronoia is a must for manpower issues.
- Governing capacity will be problematic and court houses are the biggest money sinks.
- Paradox needs to increase supply limits for the last 100 years since your biggest enemy is attrition.
- OPM AI needs to do something with their monarch points other than developing.
- Colonial nations are perfect for manpower and force limit.
- Try to get institution spawns for mana.
- Exploit tax dev whenever you can endure.
Ideas were:
- Administrative for ccr and goverment capacity and also policies.( Culture conversion cost and diplo annex cost)
- Exploration*
- Religious is a must for deus vult and conversions.
- Influence
- Offensive/quantity for QoL
- Humanist for years of separatism and also QoL
*Colonial nations were crucial for my plan, although i couldn't use them well enough they spread greek culture to some degree and give manpower which you need. Also, having a colonist means fighting on different continents which will help you with AE.
I had Russia1,Aragon2,Burgundy3,Anhalt as personal unions and lots of vassals and Lithuania4
1:After i placed my heir,russia decided to rival me. I ended our rivalry via war, sent gifts and all courtesies, royal married and PU'd Russia forcefully.
2:Aragon was a pu that i had due to aggresively royal marrying everyone, which in the long term i regret getting.
3.Standard burgundian pu, i need to learn how the horse event works for free annex.
4:I couldn't pronoai because its development was 100+ and i noticed it only after my second lithuanian reconquest war started.
The main usage of PU's and vassals is usually as rebel killers,they did help me stay sane during my 300+OE times but cost me 3k+diplo points.
I used Budget Monk's island trap opening and used guarantees for truce reset/money making. I threw a lot of babies for better rulers.
Feel free to ask questions.
Ohlone in alta california state, though it was not a stationary capital. I changed my capital with excess admin power to concentrate development.
Unus Deus, Una Imperatrix, Una Cultura
eu4