actually, thats a fallacy, if you all already know about the europa universalis series of games. easily the game that kicked my ass out of NESing, out side of, you know...
anyways, I haven't got EUIII yet, and my next game purchase is going to be civ4, not in the least because I'll get my
ing Cataphracts [finally] with that game.
For the time being though, I've got some Byzantine fever that I need to quench, a thirst that even if I had EUIII, I wouldn't be able to solve without modding- so EUII it is then.
The main problem with this, is that every EUII Byzantium game you go through the same paces- change the domestic policies to favor your land moral, take some loans to build an army, and start a war with the ottomans, assuming they don't start one with you first.
Frankly, I'm tired of that set-up. And so, learning how to mod EU2 a little bit, I've decided to make my own scenario.
The point of change is is that the Byzantine empire never revoked Venetian trade rights in Constantinople, and so their trade line still secure, the Venetians never direct the 4th crusade to sack Constantinople, and more over continue to function, more or less, as the Byzantine navy.
The impact of this is that Venice and Byzantium remain on good relations, and start the game in an alliance, as well as a trade agreement. More importantly, the Byzantines, able to concentrate on maiming the infidels, rather then driving out crusaders have reclaimed the lions share of Anatolia, and these area remaining both Orthodox, and Greek. Byzantium has possession of the lower Balkans, as well as the two Greek provinces on the north end of the Black sea, since the Genoese wouldn't have been able to get into the area [due to those rather lucrative trade rights Venice was willing to sack a city over]
More over, Venice still has possession of Crete and the Aegean islands, but has control over Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta and even Sicily, since as the Venetians never had to compete with the Byzantine remnants, Turks, or other Muslim powers, they were free to expand their naval and trade dominance elsewhere where it could be valuable. (as you might expect, Venice is the biggest combatant against Pirates, both Christian and Muslim in the med sea, though more then a few of the Christian pirates would probably be corsairs commissioned by Venice to prey on Muslim shipping, if not their still present rivals in Genoa.
Some of the bigger surprises are that the Kingdom of Jerusalem is still around, although it dosent control Jerusalem, only Lebanon and Samaria, making its capitol at the famed city of Acre. That said, even though they begin as vassals of Byzantium, you may want to try them because in addition to having Arabic as a state culture, they also have Greek, French and Italian marked as well.
Armenia is also a "free" nation in the game, but "Free" in the sense that arnt totally incorporated into a larger empire. yet. They, along with Georgia are Byzantine vassal states.
As far as the Turkish nations goes, I've decided that with as talented as the ottoman leaders were, that even in this time line they would probably rise to prominence- a different Ottoman empire is present in this scenario, having unified most of the other Turkish states under its banner, and making its capital at Damascus, the greatest and most prestigious city in its territory.
As far as any other changes, and scenario set up stuff I've giving the Byzantines three armies, two relatively weak ones, one at either end of the Empire, and keeping a strong central army in Constantinople- this reflects pretty well how the Byzantines went about organizing their empire, and hopefully wont make them too strong, particularly when balanced out by by the Hungarians, and ottomans, and of course to a lesser extent the mameluks, but they dont have a direct connection to Byzantine territory.
I'm going to play around with the starting domestic policies and stuff, too. I'm probably going to make the Byzantines have access to latin tech, as well has have italian has a state culture already, aside from giving them a more quality based army, and probably a . .. .. .. . navy, reflecting how history in this case had unfolded for them. (oh, and ragusa being slavonic has pissed me off- about this time it was still the last refuge for the old dalmatian romance language, and so I've made the province Italian in culture to reflect that.)
I've decided to give the Byzantines knowledge of the Ethiopian capital, but not the rest of Europe, Venice included. I think its just reasonable that since the Byzantines historically knew and dealt with Ethiopia that would continue to deal with them, if able too. Also, i noticed that the Ethiopian tech type was Muslim, and i changed it to orthodox. For fun, I may give them Nubian, and even Greek as sub cultures to make an Ethiopian game both interesting, and playable.
I'd enjoy any thoughts/comments/suggesstions on the set up. if you guys want, once I finish it up, I can upload it if your curious about playing it.
Here is teh map, with all teh changes so far. :yeah
anyways, I haven't got EUIII yet, and my next game purchase is going to be civ4, not in the least because I'll get my
ing Cataphracts [finally] with that game.For the time being though, I've got some Byzantine fever that I need to quench, a thirst that even if I had EUIII, I wouldn't be able to solve without modding- so EUII it is then.
The main problem with this, is that every EUII Byzantium game you go through the same paces- change the domestic policies to favor your land moral, take some loans to build an army, and start a war with the ottomans, assuming they don't start one with you first.
Frankly, I'm tired of that set-up. And so, learning how to mod EU2 a little bit, I've decided to make my own scenario.
The point of change is is that the Byzantine empire never revoked Venetian trade rights in Constantinople, and so their trade line still secure, the Venetians never direct the 4th crusade to sack Constantinople, and more over continue to function, more or less, as the Byzantine navy.
The impact of this is that Venice and Byzantium remain on good relations, and start the game in an alliance, as well as a trade agreement. More importantly, the Byzantines, able to concentrate on maiming the infidels, rather then driving out crusaders have reclaimed the lions share of Anatolia, and these area remaining both Orthodox, and Greek. Byzantium has possession of the lower Balkans, as well as the two Greek provinces on the north end of the Black sea, since the Genoese wouldn't have been able to get into the area [due to those rather lucrative trade rights Venice was willing to sack a city over]
More over, Venice still has possession of Crete and the Aegean islands, but has control over Cyprus, Rhodes, Malta and even Sicily, since as the Venetians never had to compete with the Byzantine remnants, Turks, or other Muslim powers, they were free to expand their naval and trade dominance elsewhere where it could be valuable. (as you might expect, Venice is the biggest combatant against Pirates, both Christian and Muslim in the med sea, though more then a few of the Christian pirates would probably be corsairs commissioned by Venice to prey on Muslim shipping, if not their still present rivals in Genoa.
Some of the bigger surprises are that the Kingdom of Jerusalem is still around, although it dosent control Jerusalem, only Lebanon and Samaria, making its capitol at the famed city of Acre. That said, even though they begin as vassals of Byzantium, you may want to try them because in addition to having Arabic as a state culture, they also have Greek, French and Italian marked as well.
Armenia is also a "free" nation in the game, but "Free" in the sense that arnt totally incorporated into a larger empire. yet. They, along with Georgia are Byzantine vassal states.
As far as the Turkish nations goes, I've decided that with as talented as the ottoman leaders were, that even in this time line they would probably rise to prominence- a different Ottoman empire is present in this scenario, having unified most of the other Turkish states under its banner, and making its capital at Damascus, the greatest and most prestigious city in its territory.
As far as any other changes, and scenario set up stuff I've giving the Byzantines three armies, two relatively weak ones, one at either end of the Empire, and keeping a strong central army in Constantinople- this reflects pretty well how the Byzantines went about organizing their empire, and hopefully wont make them too strong, particularly when balanced out by by the Hungarians, and ottomans, and of course to a lesser extent the mameluks, but they dont have a direct connection to Byzantine territory.
I'm going to play around with the starting domestic policies and stuff, too. I'm probably going to make the Byzantines have access to latin tech, as well has have italian has a state culture already, aside from giving them a more quality based army, and probably a . .. .. .. . navy, reflecting how history in this case had unfolded for them. (oh, and ragusa being slavonic has pissed me off- about this time it was still the last refuge for the old dalmatian romance language, and so I've made the province Italian in culture to reflect that.)
I've decided to give the Byzantines knowledge of the Ethiopian capital, but not the rest of Europe, Venice included. I think its just reasonable that since the Byzantines historically knew and dealt with Ethiopia that would continue to deal with them, if able too. Also, i noticed that the Ethiopian tech type was Muslim, and i changed it to orthodox. For fun, I may give them Nubian, and even Greek as sub cultures to make an Ethiopian game both interesting, and playable.
I'd enjoy any thoughts/comments/suggesstions on the set up. if you guys want, once I finish it up, I can upload it if your curious about playing it.
Here is teh map, with all teh changes so far. :yeah
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