Bulgaria

I think Bulgaria's first UHV should be either postponed, or Constantinople ruled out. I don't know about other's experiences, but for me, it takes too long to get engineering and build enough catapults.

My strategy was a cavalry blitzkrieg with the fast-moving Bulgarian special unit, getting it a few turns after I spawned as my first objective. This may have been on an older version, though; I have no idea if it works in Beta 10.

Constantinople can be blitzed if your fast enough ... you'll usually be able to catch it with only 1 defender, which 4 Konniks can handle easily, collapsing Byzans

Bulgarian UHV 1 is hard, but doable, just as it should be.

Honestly I don't usually have any trouble taking Constantinople; there's enough time to get some catapults out and to the walls, and the Byzantines rarely have more than a few archers or axemen there. The problem is that it's hard to do this while still conquering Greece and settling the Balkans; you need to plan ahead and start building settlers early.

And as others have said, the 4 Konniks you start with are sometimes enough to blitz the city from the get-go if the city happens to be poorly defended (or plagued if you're really lucky).

The Konniks are sometimes enough to take Constantinople. The Konniks are always enough to take Adrianopolis and usually you can take Thessaloníki too. If you have those two, you tremendously weaken the Byz.

- Adrianopolis can make about 4 - 5 cats.
- Thessaloniki can build two settlers.
- Preslav gets you some Konniks.
- Settle Sredec (modern day Sofia, near the small town in the mountains), you can get 1 - 2 Konniks and/or cats.
- After the early push, make peace with the Byz (you will have to pay them), then use couple of Konniks to get Belgrade.

The Provinces:
Moesia: Preslav
Thrace: Adrianopolis
Macedonia: you can get it with Sofia, or you can settle later (probably settle is better)
Serbia: get Belgrade, it may be hard if it is razed
Arberia: settle one city
Thessaloníki: Thessaloníki
Constantinople: Constantinople

If Belgrade is razed, then it may be better to use the second settler to get Macedonia.

The problem I have with Bulgaria is not doing the first UHV, it's that I keep collapsing after I complete it, this happened twice already. There's no time to build enough manor/courthouses that early.

Kain3 said:

The problem I have with Bulgaria is not doing the first UHV, it's that I keep collapsing after I complete it, this happened twice already. There's no time to build enough manor/courthouses that early.

Click to expand...

How quickly do the Byzantines collapse after you get Constantinople? All you have to do is hold out for a few turns to get rid of "we won't fight our brothers in faith" and "we want to join our motherland" unhappiness. Honey and Wine helps too. After the Byz collapse, your stability will skyrocket.

I will try it again soon to make sure balance didn't get broken, but I don't think it was.

when i tried Bulgaria last week i kept losing cities due to unstability just after first UHV was finished (and only having the needed cities) ... and it wasn't because of problems with Byzanstine since they collapes nearly instantly after i capped Constantinople

I did the Bulgarian game last week, and I didn't have too many issues - I sent all my cavalry in a mad rush to Constantinople, where Justinian moved one of his two archers out of the city (???) as I approached. Needless to say, Byzantium fell extremely quickly to me. I was a little shaky as I moved to the west, but I never conquered or settled until I was at +2 or 3 and could afford an unlucky stability swing. I was more concerned with getting the faith points, but in the end, I wound up with enough for 110 (I reached 100 3 turns before the time limit and popped another great prophet on the turn after that).

I agree that the time limit was tight, but it was certainly doable if you reserve your settlers and conquests until your stability is ready for it.

By the way - I know the Cordovans respawn as the north African moors after they've been killed off. Will the Bulgarians respawn as the Second Bulgarian Empire if conditions are right? I'm 2/3 through a highly successful Byzantine game right now (all local enemies have been killed - Arabs, Bulgarians, Ottomans) as well as the distant enemies (Genovese, Venetians), but I didn't see a respawn of the Bulgarians (likely because I had a welcoming party strong enough to take Preslav on the turn it was founded - they had time to build no other cities).

rock_star said:

I did the Bulgarian game last week, and I didn't have too many issues - I sent all my cavalry in a mad rush to Constantinople, where Justinian moved one of his two archers out of the city (???) as I approached. Needless to say, Byzantium fell extremely quickly to me. I was a little shaky as I moved to the west, but I never conquered or settled until I was at +2 or 3 and could afford an unlucky stability swing. I was more concerned with getting the faith points, but in the end, I wound up with enough for 110 (I reached 100 3 turns before the time limit and popped another great prophet on the turn after that).

I agree that the time limit was tight, but it was certainly doable if you reserve your settlers and conquests until your stability is ready for it.

By the way - I know the Cordovans respawn as the north African moors after they've been killed off. Will the Bulgarians respawn as the Second Bulgarian Empire if conditions are right? I'm 2/3 through a highly successful Byzantine game right now (all local enemies have been killed - Arabs, Bulgarians, Ottomans) as well as the distant enemies (Genovese, Venetians), but I didn't see a respawn of the Bulgarians (likely because I had a welcoming party strong enough to take Preslav on the turn it was founded - they had time to build no other cities).

Click to expand...

Yes, Bulgaria does respawn in a historically accurate manner, with the revolt of Asen I (the exact time is taken in an interval around the historic date, i.e. you cannot predict exactly which turn it will happen).

I tried Bulgaria on the easiest difficulty in 1.0
I had no problem with UHV1. I think that Byz even collapsed before capturing Constantinaple, but maybe only after it. Even had time to build a few catapults.
Also the Hungarians and Venice were my vassals.
However I couldn't get the faith points. I built all temples and such in my cities and used up two great prophets (theologian, that is) and still only got around 71 points. Probably my error was to build Marco Polo's embassy in Const and it resulted in a great merchant instead of the prophet. I guess that GP's are the only way to do this UHV, right? That'd mean to build wonders that give theologian points, preferably in Constantinaple, as there's already a wonder for this.

Tried again... this time managed to build 4 great theologians in Const, and all cities had all temples, and still only 85 faith points. What am I doing wrong? Can't figure out...
The great people only gave 10fp each, that's not very much.
Also it seemed that spreading my religion to foreign cities by missionaries didn't give any fp. I seem to recall they did in earlier versions?

Nice attempt amrod, I'll try it too.

I've won in previous versions with Bulgaria, and from those experiences I understood that for UHV2 only GPs aren't enough, you need a backup of your own buildings. If you can make 2 cathedrals that's already 18 FPs (5x2 cathedrals + 1x8 temples) wich may be even 26 as you probably already built 8 Monasteries (+ 1x8 monasteries) before making 2 cathedrals, and not to forget that these are 8 cities (+ 1x8 cities - 1xR unfortunate foreign religion presence) which will give you something between 0-8 FPs.

So a bulgarian empire 8-city sized (26-34 FPs) will need 7-8 GPs to complete the quest (hard)

A bulgarian 12-city sized, will have 3 cathedrals (5x3) + 12 temples (1x12) + 12 monasteries (1x12) + 12 cities (1x12) - unfortunate foreign religion (0 - 12) having something between 39-51.

So a bulgarian empire 12-city sized (39-51 FPs) will need 5-6 GPs, a lot easier as Tsarigrad can produce lots of them.

If you can achieve 16 (hard) you'll need only 4-5 GPs (56-68). A couple more cities (1-3) may even let you need only 3, so a warmongering religious empire may achieve this without the need of many GPs.

The easiest way though is the 12-cities, as it's not hard and Tsarigrad can make lots of GPs.

UHV3 is won by taking care of your initial foe (take Constantinople and he dies), the mongol horde (appears in Hungary and Wallachia) and the Ottomans (same strategy as the byzantines), but now you don't need to care about the anatolian flipping zone, only if you conquered it. Just flood Tsarigrad with lots of mounted units wait for the spawn, wait for the flip, deny it and take Brusa. If you didn't take the anatolian cities forget about Brusa, it's easier to just throw your army on the Thracian spawn (Odrin) and defend Tsarigrad against the anatolian Turks (it's better to attack the turks instead of letting them attack Tsarigrad. The Turks have a initial benefit of winning against Constantinople, but not for defending, so smash any attempt).

Spirictum's 12 city size empire sounds about right
I also think that's enough for a fair challenge with this UHV
12 cities are not hard to achieve, and then you already have good chance for those Great Prophets if you play right with the wonders and other great person points

Third try, did the second uhv. Thanks for the tips.
This time had 13 cities (but last was only being developed, so 12 with churches), 3 cathedrals.
Tsarigrad built Round Church for theo points and had several priests. Got 5 great theologians to reach 100 fp.
Cities: besides uhv1 places, have Belgrad, a city in Epirus, south Wallachia and north-east wallachia. No cities in Turkey.
Going for the third uhv goal now.

Finished now
Wondering though, what did the mongols still do in Balkans after 1300?

As for features, it'd be nice to see what units have left to the enemy when refused flip.
Also, I'm not really sure how the game calculates top 5 cities... now Raguza with no wonders and 10 pop was first, when there were bigger cities with wonders.

I think top cities just count your Culture in the respective cities. Maybe I'm wrong, this is just a guess, but playing LoR (a mod that's almost like the original BtS) I've seen frequently that a city that only built Stonehenge was almost always in top1 place for a long time. Then I realized that the Stonehenge not only gives a big culture value (and is the first wonder) but doubles culture in a few turns (because it's counted in years not turns, so for the Stonehenge is a few turns). Maybe this is only in this mod, I don't play original BtS for years.

After this I guessed that top 5 cities counts culture, nothing else

All culture giving buildings double their culture output after the first 1000 years
This is a standars BtS rule, and wasn't changed in any of the mods I saw
Obviously, it has no effect in RFCE though

On the other hand, in RFCE the actual culture output is doubled in your core provinces, while halved in unstable provinces
This means that it's easier for all civs to dominate their core provinces' territory
Probably this also affects the top 5 city calculations, but honestly it doesn't matter too much for me

There are so many hidden rules in this game!