1. build Germanikeia (1NE) before Sis spawns. Great defensive site (on a hill, and next to a river) with decent production and a logical Summer Palace location.
Sis? Where is Germanikeia exactly?
2. give a city or 2 (Sevasteia +/- Trapezius) to Armenia (preferably one that will flip to Rum in the future) to befriend them and later get them as a voluntary vassal. It will also allow us to steal 1-2 techs from Armenia easier. One less city will make techs cheaper.
I've never had any trouble getting either Armenia or Georgia to be a voluntary vassal, if that has been my desire.
3. Capture Tarsus early on and spread Sunni in a non-Asia Minor city and try to build Spiral Minaret.
Agree on capturing Tarsus early. It is always my first target with the starting Swordsman, after picking up some XP and CityRaider promotions from barbs. I usually keep Antioch (with Sunni) and build Spiral Minaret there personally.
4. Raze Antioch to disallow spawn of PoA, and built a fort on the forested hill just north of it--the only other entrance to Tarsus is blocked off (besides Germanikeia).
PoA has never been a particularly big problem, just another source of XP. If Abbasids are still alive (sometimes, but not always), they will often capture the independent Antioch and suck up a bunch of PoA units in the process. I do make it a strategy to raze Edessa though.
How about spreading Orthodoxy in all our cities (even in India)?
Yup.
Having a city in every province of the map basicly excludes vassals, so I would say that we can't have vassals is one our conditions.
Upon further consideration, probably true. I'm OK to relax the every province of the map condition to avoid unwanted Domination Victory mostly. How about we make it one city within every civ's spawn zone, plus one city on every land mass? Doesn't have to be former capital (if it sucks) or a pre-existsing city per se. No vassals is interesting, needs some more consideration?
My early strategy with Byzantine is always to capture Damascus and Tarsos asap. First go for Tarsos, then hire two merc HAs and take Damascus. Damascus can build all the Sunni wonders easily.
I like.
First tech should be Long Distance Trade.
Agree.
Tbh I don't see the usefulness of Germanikeia. To defend against who? If we are going for the whole map, it is too close to Constantinople to have SP. Soltanieyh in Jerusalem and SP maybe in Estafan or Herat.
Still unsure where Germanikeia is, but I tend to agree "defend against who"? Other than Barbs and spawns/flips, I've never had a problem defending against other existing civs yet.
I'm in.
My usual starting strategy is to set science to zero, then build lots of workers and axemen/horsemen, in order to quickly develop the land and quickly destroy barbarians before they can pillage anything.
Agree. I tend to go easy on the axemen and just build a couple of horsemen units for Barbs. I also focus on Markets early after building enough workers and work boats to get started.
Will a destroyed Antioch stop the spawn of PoA entirely?!
Yes, a destroyed Antioch prevents PoA from spawning...at least the last time I played it.
I think Edessa would also need to be destroyed? As I said earlier, I've never tried to prevent PoA spawning though.
BTW, I do not recommend expanding until we have blast furnace and black powder at least. Which means that conquests will need to wait until most of the major civs have come and gone (probably around 1400 or so, after Ak Koyunlu spawns and maybe even later, after Timurids die).
Agree with limit expanding too much (not beyond about Damascus) for quite some time, definitely get many techs going first.
