The exarchate of Ravenna

[AnotherPacifist]

I would have put this in the minor suggestions thread, but it might unbalance gameplay if it were to work out, so here goes.

Belisarius, Justinian's great general, had reconquered Italy in the mid 500's. By 600 all that was left is the Exarchate of Ravenna (and Sicily, but another city there will be too much), which included Venice, and that lasted till the early 700's AD. So the Byzantines should really own Venice with the 600 AD start, and this may help balance the overwhelming culture of independent (Lombard presumably?) Rome. Also, if the Byzantines didn't like Rome's culture, they may actually build some troops to try and reconquer it. And if anybody (be it France, Spain, Netherlands or Germany) want to conquer Venice, they will have to brave a war with the Byzantines, which is especially hazardous for Germany. This may delay the control of Italy later.

 

[kairob]

I quite like it, hope it gets in

 

[Rhye]

good idea, you could actually try to edit the WBS yourself (editing the owner of the city, the culture and the units) and see how it goes

 

[Legendre]

It is not to be disputed that the Byzantines controlled Ravenna at this juncture; however, I don't know if I would agree that Venice should be under Byzantine control. Here, I would refer people to A History of Venice by Julius Norwich, which I've just started, and it's turning out to be a fantastic read . When you look at early Venetian history, they technically were under Byzantine suzerainity until much later date (I'm only in the 900s so far!), but were self-governing - though one should note that self-governing and independent are not the same thing, so I suppose that you could go either way on this issue. By the late 900s, I would say that the Adriatic regions, especially Croatia (though later the Doge would claim the title Dux Dalmatia), were Byzantine in name only, and as one historian put it, "The name of the Emporer was officially honored and respected, but he was not obeyed, for he gave no orders." What would be interesting would be if the Byzantines controlled more territories, but give them a larger stability debuff so that territories would declare independence or who knows, have a slight chance for a civ respawn! I've actually had Byzantium make it into modern times as a superpower in 2 out of 3 of my last games so maybe giving them more territories but debuffing their stability rating so their empire breaks up when the Turks spawn could be beneficial. Are other people having the Byzantines survive longer than should be when that region is all up to the AI's?

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I've actually had Byzantium make it into modern times as a superpower in 2 out of 3 of my last games so maybe giving them more territories but debuffing their stability rating so their empire breaks up when the Turks spawn could be beneficial. Are other people having the Byzantines survive longer than should be when that region is all up to the AI's?

Well, I meant for Venice to represent Ravenna (which was under Byzantine control for most of the 500's AD) which was not included in the 600 AD map because it's too close to Rome.
In fact, if Venice was Byzantine it would destabilize the Byzantine empire because Rome's culture would overwhelm it, unless Rhye wants to give it some culture to start (it eventually gets Christianity but it only expands towards the mountains north of it).
I think Byzantines surviving hasn't really been a problem since the new patch came out (Turkey and even Netherlands routinely conquer Constantinople, which causes the empire to fragment automatically into independents).

 

[Verily]

You could even place the real Ravenna instead of Venice; move the wines to the wheat tile, the wheat back to the original tile, and the city to the old wines tile. As long as it had some culture, maybe Christianity and a Christian temple, it would be okay for resisting Independent culture. Or just do the same in Venice; it always bothered me that you have to go through Roman-independent territory to get to Venice.

(Insofar as stability is concerned, couldn't stability just be turned off for the Byzantines and set the empire to automatically fragment when Constantinople falls instead? Or is that what's already done?)

 

[Úmarth]

though one should note that self-governing and independent are not the same thing

You are right there. If we were to take the logic that highly autonomous areas should not count as part of a civ we would have to remove the entire Mongol civ and much of the ancient civs (where technology precluded a completely centralised state).

 

[Rhye]

(Insofar as stability is concerned, couldn't stability just be turned off for the Byzantines and set the empire to automatically fragment when Constantinople falls instead? Or is that what's already done?)

it's exactly as you said, already

 

[Legendre]

I didn't mean to inadvertantly alarm people with the Byzantines surviving until the modern era, I think I just have the weird luck of several strangely developed games in a row. For some reason the Turks have been exceptionally wussy and haven't been conquering Constantinople, but in these games I've had the luck of the plagues have occuring much later so that and some other factors have kept Second Rome intact it seems. Also, I just like civ's respawning and making a mess of things so any way of making that happen is always a plus IMO .

 

[Verily]

I didn't mean to inadvertantly alarm people with the Byzantines surviving until the modern era, I think I just have the weird luck of several strangely developed games in a row. For some reason the Turks have been exceptionally wussy and haven't been conquering Constantinople, but in these games I've had the luck of the plagues have occuring much later so that and some other factors have kept Second Rome intact it seems. Also, I just like civ's respawning and making a mess of things so any way of making that happen is always a plus IMO .

Are you playing the most recent patch? The Byzantines were surviving very late earlier because they tended to research Gunpowder early, but now I never see them outlast the Turkish spawn by more than five turns.

 

[onedreamer]

Well, I meant for Venice to represent Ravenna (which was under Byzantine control for most of the 500's AD) which was not included in the 600 AD map because it's too close to Rome.
In fact, if Venice was Byzantine it would destabilize the Byzantine empire because Rome's culture would overwhelm it, unless Rhye wants to give it some culture to start (it eventually gets Christianity but it only expands towards the mountains north of it).
I think Byzantines surviving hasn't really been a problem since the new patch came out (Turkey and even Netherlands routinely conquer Constantinople, which causes the empire to fragment automatically into independents).

But Rome was part of the Exarchate...

 

[AnotherPacifist]

But Rome was part of the Exarchate...

It was at one point, but I thought the pope was fairly independent of the Exarch, and the Lombards had most of the other Italian territories. In any case at the end (750 or so) Ravenna and its surrounding area were the only territories left, so if we start at 600 AD Venice alone would be more representative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mappa_italia_bizantina_e_longobarda.jpg

 

[onedreamer]

I don't understand why Venice is more representative since it was quite unimportant at the time, anyways what I meant to say is that having the Exarchate without Rome would be wrong, especially having Rome eating culturally the Exarchate. Rome and Venice should be part of the same indipendent civ in the 600 AD (the Exarchate) or both be part of the Byzantine indipendent civ (better IMO). Surely the culture in Rome shouldn't be Langobard, since they never managed to conquer it. Instead of having an indipendent Exarchate in the 600 AD though, I'd love the contrary, the indipendent Langobard Civ. The Langobards are an extremely important part in the History of Italy, in fact the italian culture comes from the merging of the Roman and Langobard ones. The Langobards were the only barbarians who actively pursued this and tried to build a united nation out of Italy. If not for the Roman Church and Charlemagne, we could have had a united Italy much before the 19th century.
Anyways back to RFC: I would see better an indipendent Langobard Civ with Milan or Pavia and Benevento (in place of Pompeii), and a Byzantine Rome.
The destiny of these indipendent cities is to be conquered anyways, so I think that having cities that didn't maintain total indipendence makes more sense.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, Milan's out (too close to Frankfurt). I agree with Benevento or even an extra city in the south (held at various times by Muslims, Vikings and Spain) as the Kingdom of Naples.

Having a Byzantine Rome would seriously jeopardize its instability (i.e. it would be too stable), and I thought recent patches have made it impossible for Byzantines and independents to be AP resident--which makes sense since you can't interact with them diplomatically.

Which brings up the point of having a playable Byzantine Empire, but we all know Rhye's opposition to that.

 

[onedreamer]

then 2 indipendent civs will work. Milan too close to Frankfurt ? Wow, I really don't see that (isn't it 3 tiles away ?). Monument, religion and temple will make it a no-problem for a long time anyways.

 

[kairob]

Byzantines dont have stability. They auto-collapse if they lose constantinople.

 

[Lokolus]

Milan is too close to Marseilles, not Frankfurt. I think the AI shoul'd buid Napoli more often and replace Pompeii with Neapolis, so it could be reasonable in later times.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

So I just ran a "test" of Byzantine Venice. I thought I would stay close to the action and be "neutral" by playing Netherlands. But my culture (with Spiral Minaret, Univ of Sankore, Notre Dame and Leaning Tower) collapsed Germany by 1500 (Otto again stupidly founded Hamburg, which is actually a great location if not for the Dutch) and it was France who conquered Venice while leaving Rome alone. So I modified the 600 AD unlocked file and I'm going to run several American starts. If people want to compare results attached is my file (named Byzantine Venice 600 AD unlocked.CivBeyondSwordSave--note that you may have to change it back to .CivBeyondSwordWBSave).
The only thing that's changed is Venice is Byzantine (all the buildings and units are the same--have to click all of them from scratch since there's no way to change a unit/city's identity).

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Um, something very strange is happening. I'm seeing things like "Inca has declared war on Inca!" and "Vikings has agreed to become a vassal of Vikings." I've seen this before with other WB starts so I don't think this is just my file.

In the first run: Arabia collapsed the Byzantine empire by capturing Constantinople, shortly after the Turks spawned, and Germany got both Venice and Rome after that and was top in score. All the Europeans are still alive but no Dutch or English cities in America. Hm...

Second run: Turkey flips Constantinople and Athens. Netherlands was a culture-monger (built both Spiral Minaret and Notre Dame) and collapses Germany. France captures Venice and Rome and becomes top in score after Arabia collapses in the 1700's. England has St. John's and Spain has Havana, that's it for their New World cities.

If anything, having a Byzantine Venice seems to preserve it longer until Turkey arrives on the scene. Also the Italian peninsula isn't occupied until the 1400's, which is closer to real life (e.g. French incursions). The only thing left out is having some Spanish influence in southern Italy.

 

[Verily]

Um, something very strange is happening. I'm seeing things like "Inca has declared war on Inca!" and "Vikings has agreed to become a vassal of Vikings." I've seen this before with other WB starts so I don't think this is just my file.

In the first run: Arabia collapsed the Byzantine empire by capturing Constantinople, shortly after the Turks spawned, and Germany got both Venice and Rome after that and was top in score. All the Europeans are still alive but no Dutch or English cities in America. Hm...

Second run: Turkey flips Constantinople and Athens. Netherlands was a culture-monger (built both Spiral Minaret and Notre Dame) and collapses Germany. France captures Venice and Rome and becomes top in score after Arabia collapses in the 1700's. England has St. John's and Spain has Havana, that's it for their New World cities.

If anything, having a Byzantine Venice seems to preserve it longer until Turkey arrives on the scene. Also the Italian peninsula isn't occupied until the 1400's, which is closer to real life (e.g. French incursions). The only thing left out is having some Spanish influence in southern Italy.

I've seen Spain found Messina plenty of times before.