Byzantine Empire in Europa Universalis, part 1

Preamble: I enjoy grand strategy games, particularly historical ones, but I don’t pretend to be a great player of them (see my Portugal campaign). I have my inspired moments as well as my bad. I sometimes like to modify a game file or two to reflect a radically unhistorical circumstance. I dig history, but these write-ups are more on the fun side. So if you get offended by something or think I’m a doof for making light of a “serious” game, go play in traffic, okay? I assure you it isn’t worth your getting flustered.

Regular amble: I began a grand campaign as the Byzantine Empire in 1399 AD. Quickly I realized I’m not good enough of a player that I could survive long with what they had in the default game. To give myself a fighting chance, I went into some game files and user-created mods. I started the timeline earlier and gave myself Crete for kicks. I also decided to change the region from orthodox to catholic. The reason being that I like to deal with Pope stuff, and I can only do that as a catholic nation. If you’re slapping your skull and shouting, “but that’s not realistic!” You are correct, but don’t worry I’m about to get the face-slap of history in a sec.

I addressed my public. “Gentlemen of the Empire! Oh, and ladies who bow to our every whim. (Suffrage is centuries away, girls. Hang in there.) We’ve already seen the writing on the wall, as it were. So I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the untimely deaths of our previous Emperor and his court were purely coincidental and not at all caused by poisoned wine. I’m recruiting armies for a grand Reconquistium of our former Imperial lands and…holy crap, there’s an Ottoman army just outside our walls!”

I spent the early part of the game focusing on commerce and diplomacy. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither would New Rome. Achaea (southwestern bit of modern day Greece), Naxos (islands in the Aegean Sea) and I became very chummy. Soon we were in an alliance with some balkan neighbors for mutual protection against the Ottoman/Bosnia/Serbia alliance. “Not yet!” was our battlecry.

There’s one thing I had going for me while biding my time. The Timurids were in a war with the Ottomans. Deadlocked. Meanwhile, I built a little cash store to buy some mercenaries. It was time to address the country. Again.

“People, first off, I wanna thank you for using the plumbing system. Constantinople is no longer the fecal capital of the world. Another thing, it’s no longer Constantinople. The city is now named Byzantium, which sounds much cooler. Lastly, let’s go kick some Ottoman buttocks.”

Next: Not yet…not yet…okay…yet! Part 2.

(Played on Europa Universalis 3: In Nomine expansion)