The Conquest of Justinian: The Tale of Byzantium

[Moai_Spammer]

hello everyone, are you ready, because i know i am, this update will show a dark time in the byzantine empire, also, for realism at the beggining i moved the catholic holy city to rome, gave rome carthage, and gave myself the eastern roman lands from the start (because constantinople wasn't settled when i started) well let's go

i'm waaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggg!

That's better

"At one o the crucial moments in the 4th century, constantine the great divided roman empire, and lead a conquest of carthago and the aegyption barbarians.
the empire he created, when he divided rome, would one day turn on the west and conquer the west, but lose in mesopotamia.

on his death, Constantius II took the throne, and the eastern empire declared war on phoenician held babylon, the government of phoenicia then shortly collapsed, and babylon was an independent state."

"At this time relations were deteriorating
with western rome, lead at this time by Valentinian I"

"War was then declared on independant babylon,
and the legions marched on the city.

"Over the next few years, there were missionary
campaigns in babylon, and catholicism was spread
in the city"

"Tensions between wandering arab tribes were worsening,
with camel archer raids being common. These tribes would
be a huge problem when the prophet muhammad came to unite
them. But that happens later in history."

"Cataphracts were being made en masse with the whip
method. The whip method was where the slave population was
put to the whip, where many died from heat stroke or their master's
brutality making the armor and weapons for the soldiers."

"While eastern roman legions were mobilizing, a market in
Constantinople became quite popular, and helped with the empire's
debt."

" The east finally broke, and their emperor, Justin I,
declared war on Romulus Augustus."

"The first attack was on a group of
workers outside of a roman city. Causing more
unrest among the western empire."

"Meanwhile in invasion was taking place
on a city in the south of italy"

"Meanwhile the only camel archer the
eastern empire had (i flipped a camel archer at the start of the game)
was besieging a roman city."

"Another invasion was done on the city of Mediolanum."

"The west then collapsed shortly, and justin I, in old age, commanded an attack
on an arab tribe,he died of heatstroke in the battle, a sign of the
bad luck that was to befall his nephew's reign."

"Here Ends Chapter One:The Eastern Empire"

 

[baseballpie]

Hmmm, restart. Good luck

 

[Moai_Spammer]

thanks, i'll need it, A LOT

 

[mrrandomplayer]

Just remember that if you collapse, you will automatically keep Greece and Turkey. Plus, seeing you reconquer everywhere in the empire is pretty fun. Someone (I don't remember, I think it was Gruekiller) posted a story as the Ottomans in Vanilla RFC where he conquered most of Central/Southern/Eastern Europe, then sent a caravel over to the Americas and got the conquerors and took all of Central/South America. He then collapsed, and the only city he owned was in the New World! He then reconquered all of the New World and declared the game finished. It was hilarious. Collapse isn't as bad as you might think.

Also, remember to burn all cities other than one (usually the capital) when conquering a region, it will save you stability in the long run and prevent respawns. For example, if you conquered France, you would keep Paris and burn the rest. It works!

 

[Moai_Spammer]

thanks, and i've experienced collapse in my byzantine test games, normally a few cataphracts help me get the land back, my only fear is if i collapse around the italian spawn date...in fact i think i've already collapsed once in this story, around 700 or 800

 

[Moai_Spammer]

I just realized that i has moar than 300 posts!!!

 

[GreekAnalyzer]

I just lost a 98% battle.

 

[Moai_Spammer]

ouch, that's gotta hurt, was it one of your best units?

 

[mrrandomplayer]

I just lost a 98% battle.

I once lost a 99.7% battle.

 

[Moai_Spammer]

i once lost a 99.8% battle

 

[Moai_Spammer]

it was my best unit too


let's just say, i'm surprised i'm still playing civ 4 on the same computer

 

[Moai_Spammer]

welcome back everyone to the story where ireland hires war elephants as mercenaries! let's get started now...


"Justinian I was in a tough situation, his predecessor justin I, heard that nomadic arab tribes declared war on him, he didn't really care, until they became an organized caliphate. they demanded the surrender of multiple cities, but he refused, thus starting the first of 2 byzantine arab wars.Oh and a bunch other kingdoms randomly popped up and stuff. Anyhoo,When Justinian took the throne, Hierusalem and Aegypt had just been taken, and he needed something to stop the camel archers, so he met with a group of mercenary war elephants, claiming to be from ireland."

"You're from ireland?"
"Aye"
"You mean the small Celtic nation of the coast of britannia that never trades and has no access to elephants?"
"Aye"
"Then how are you-"
"Do you want our help or not lad"
"Fine, i'll hire your services..."

"And that was that."

"Justinian was REALLY pissed off when attila burn ed down a newly founded byzantine city "

"For years, the arab front was horrible, with byzantine losses up to ankara.It can only be described by the the below picture"

"The byzantines mobilized, ready to conquer, in 910 war was declared, to regain lost lands."

"6000 byzantine heavy swordsmen, deployed in legion formation, snuck up on the archers of as-sur, and easily won the battle."

"The byzantines decided to use their irish elephants to attack arab jihad swordsmen, because the elephants were weird enough to suicide. They surprisingly won."

"Justinian had recently decided to join his men on the battlefield, quickly taking babylon back, however, at justinian's orders, the historic city was burned to the ground, along with it's great oracle"

"Meanwhile, The holy land faced the cataphract horde, and the holy land lost."

"Here are more jihad swordsmen dieing to byzantine cataphracts"

"Meanwhile, the new elephants from phoenicia fought for gaza"

"Arab cataphracts from the first war were rumored to be seen fighting byzantine cataphracts for control of Gaza"

"With important byzantine lands secured, peace was made"

"Here is the byzantine empire in 980 A.D., with the core highlighted in purple."

"And the byzantine empire at this time was also stable"

"But then THIS happened"

"The byzantines agreed, but they vowed revenge..."

"In 1050 A.D., a giant seljuk turk horde appeared, it would later responsible for the ottoman turks appearance."

"20 years later, an independant mesopotamian city faced their wrath."

"10 years later, the Apostolic Palace was made in roma, giving the byzantines even more power in europe."

"Another 20 years later, the seljuks took the poorly defended angora by storm, seeing Holy romans lurking nearby hoping to capture the city, Justinian closed the borders and kicked them out"

Here Ends Chapter II: The Arab-Byzantine war

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Moai, you're taking way too many cities.
If I were you, the only two cities outside your core region that I would have kept would be Jerusalem (doubling shrine income; Temple of Solomon) and Rome (likely Wonders inside and good position).
Everything else, I would've razed immediately as they invite respawns and take up valuable spots in the BFC of other cities.

 

[Moai_Spammer]

well, it's 1460 ingame right now, if you wish to hear what's happened, read the spoiler

Spoiler :

The turks spawned BUT did not go towards constantinople, instead they went to persia, but i declared war because i needed ankrya, they took sur however, so i can take that and raze it, i have egypt, and courthouses in all towns thanks to whipping, i am unstable. Any tips for me, i'm sort of an rfc noob(more of a DoC noob, but you get the point) if you can't tell...

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

well, it's 1460 ingame right now, if you wish to hear what's happened, read the spoiler

Spoiler :

The turks spawned BUT did not go towards constantinople, instead they went to persia, but i declared war because i needed ankrya, they took sur however, so i can take that and raze it, i have egypt, and courthouses in all towns thanks to whipping, i am unstable. Any tips for me, i'm sort of an rfc noob(more of a DoC noob, but you get the point) if you can't tell...

Spoiler :

Byzantium is probably not a good idea for a first civ then; as it requires very fine care to maintain and is plagued with chronic stability problems from various spawns on their territory and bad modifiers.
I would rather recommend England, France, Spain, Mughals or Turks if you're still learning the game.
In fact, if you started a Turkish game, your thread title "The Conquest of Justinian" would actually be fitting!

 

[Moai_Spammer]

Spoiler :

well, it's too late to turn back now, and i've always fancied a challenge, The ottomans stack of doom is down too a knight and a crapload of bombards,and that's in sur(i managed to capture ankyra), and by stack of doom, that's including the fact that they saved me from the mongol invasion when they flipped a bunch of keshiks and trebuchets,so they actually got two stacks, the rng gods have let me win some ridiculously low odds battles so that helped, i think i might actually win, and if not, I'll at least live long enough to make a really good story. oh and can you collapse at unstable?

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Spoiler :

well, it's too late to turn back now, and i've always fancied a challenge, The ottomans stack of doom is down too a knight and a crapload of bombards,and that's in sur(i managed to capture ankyra), and by stack of doom, that's including the fact that they saved me from the mongol invasion when they flipped a bunch of keshiks and trebuchets,so they actually got two stacks, the rng gods have let me win some ridiculously low odds battles so that helped, i think i might actually win, and if not, I'll at least live long enough to make a really good story. oh and can you collapse at unstable?

Spoiler :

No, you risk collapsing at Collapsing. But if you're Unstable and you own more than 1 city in a foreign core, you risk the high chance of dead civs respawning on your territory.

 

[Moai_Spammer]

Spoiler :

Hmm... so that means rome could return... that would suck because i whipped the palace in roma the same turn the turks spawned.

 

[Tomorrow's Dawn]

Spoiler :

Hmm... so that means rome could return... that would suck because i whipped the palace in roma the same turn the turks spawned.

Rome doesn't respawn period. You are however, at risk for an Italian uprising.
Also I just noticed that Babylon is the Phoenician capital.
You need to post that in the OMG Look What Happened in DoC thread.

 

[Moai_Spammer]

well... actually phoenicia conquered babylon and jerusalem and settled carthage and some iberian city, i felt it was too weird for rome not to have carthage so i gave them that in world builder, and i gave myself sur and jerusalem because they would've flipped to me the next turn anyways, but babylon or the iberian city probably still would've been the new capitol.

and phew, if rome respawned i would flip out, but now i think i should give my cities in egypt to arabia, the cities just cost me money and stability. and i do NOT want to have to amphibiously invade crete again (crete flips to egypt for some reason )!