Outnumber the Turks 3 to 1✦No Loans✦300 Dev in 1463✦Bankrupt Ottomans✦No 1 Byzantium Strategy in

[@juliang8676]

Nice method, its honestly quite a simple strategy im surprised noone else has thought of it. Wonderfully optimised though!

[@Timotheus-SVK]

Byzantium Tactics on YT: "This tactic works 100%, you cannot fail it" Me doing the tactic for the 20th time: "Are you serious?" :D :D

[@thestudentYT]

I said 99% ;) But to be fair the Meta of Alliances and so on already changed a lot since the video released

[@Negi2468]

​@@thestudentYTWhat's the new alliance meta?

[@carter.5814]

@@thestudentYT thinking about doing an updated vid?

[@mikefast1740]

@@thestudentYT it still worked for me when i tried it now for the first time

[@lepyroberserk8486]

Been trying for 15 times, ottomans never attacked candar that i do not vassalize yet, and qara qoyunlu attack georgia leading e in a war of death.

[@LemonCake101]

Scrolls through the Ironman Byzantium starts... average Byzantium enjoyer, what can I say! Thanks for the video mention, yes, the achievements are something we have to set aside in my version. Excellent video as always! People always seem to forget Hungary exists when playing Byzantium, and calling in Muscovy is a great shout, since given that you are Orthodox too, its much easier to ally them then a Catholic.

[@hyperion3145]

The Hungarian AI seems to be particularly garbage in my run, it has never reinforced a single battle and always has half of its army just standing around for some reason. Albania at least bothers to attack the Ottomans when it can.

[@voltazh]

Restored the Roman Empire in the 1760s with this method playing chill-ish. Would play again 10/10

[@Burglar225]

Your videos are so damn underrated man. I'm more than 4k hours into the game, playing it for almost ten years without any major interruption. And still every single of your videos is just so damn good. Some even mindblowing, specifically thinking of the Teutonic Order into Germany strat. Really fucking mindblowing! Thank you for you absolutely insane content and keep going on!

[@anthroposium]

Very ingenious strategy! In my game I didn't fight the Ottomans until 1457, trying to revoke that nasty military privilege doing it like Absolute Habibi did. Luckily everything went smooth after that, but with this strategy it would've been even smoother and faster :)

[@Jaxxon]

It's such a flex that you did this with hard mode on. Thanks for always providing the most optimised guides!

[@Ataf.83]

Ive been following you fir quite sometime and never made a comment. I can call my self above average player with around 10k hours. Keep up the good work really enjoyed you videos and wish you all the best. Great content for eu4

[@alatamore]

Of all of the Byz strats I’ve seen and tried so far this one looks the best. I will have to give it a try on my next Byz run. Sadly it could be a while before I even try the other updated nations because I keep trying increasingly OP Byz starts. 😂

[@aeryka]

I've not tried Byz yet in this patch but this strategy looks fun so definitely going to try it out! There are so many different campaign ideas I've gotten from your videos so thank you for all the great content!

[@moranii1843]

Trans?

[@aeryka]

@@moranii1843 what

[@Hunter-e7e]

@@aeryka probably meant you must be trans since no girl plays EU4

[@K1tsune__]

Holy s**t, tried it two times myself, one time on singleplayer for achievement and one time on chill multi with friend and it worked out perfectly. Big thanks good sir, wonder why there were no popular vids about this before, it truly is way simplier than the other strats, until today every time I tried the Byz's I went for all out attack and bankruptcy afterwards, but this is a life changer :D

[@VivaChandles]

I haven’t played Byzantium yet this patch and I will definitely reference this video when I do. Love this channel. Love that its way more holistic than just tag strats. Love the interesting content

[@ivanvrankovic9852]

This is by far the best strategy I've seen as Byzantium. I tried it 3 times, 1st time Epirus allied Albania... 2nd time Candar and Dulkadir allied themselves and when Ottomans declared on Dulkadir, they also killed Candar but the 3rd time I played was perfect, all was going well until Muscovite Pretender rebels spawned which drew Muscovy out of the war and Ottomans+Qara Quoyunlu killed Georgia. I should've won it without them tho, I guess it was my mistake... Certainly I'll use this strategy again, thank you

[@enochinri]

I am a huge fan of your channel dude, I don't know how you manage to be so creative and consistent with your uploads... Keep up with the good work!

[@Scottx125Productions]

Get this man a triumph!

[@minilutherundseinefreunde3802]

Thought the description was a cap, then I saw the video was from TheStudent and my disbelief instantly vannished

[@DeathColor96]

Consistently comes up with new strategies and "exploits" that are super good and optimized. TheStudent is built different.

[@dmitriysmirnoff8636]

Man, that's some 5 head move level of a strategy. Thanks to God that the guy who made Plan Barbarossa wasn't you.

[@David-bh7hs]

I love this strategy. It’s actually my go-to byz strat that I’ve used for a few patches now, but its very very good :)

[@threshdyr8871]

Will give it a shot, great video 👍

[@NiktusN]

World class content! And what fresh content it is, comparing to the same old stuff from the usual "other" channels.

[@thestudentYT]

Exept that every other channel already did a Byz strategy as well xd

[@jackbradley4737]

You’ve earned yourself a subscriber!

[@Tassil777]

Big thumbs up, very smart, also get galata debuff off constantinople so early. By far smartest and easiest strat i have tried

[@AmariFukui]

Using diplomacy to destroy your enemies 3 to 1 is the most Byzantine thing i've ever seen

[@lindypill]

Great content as always

[@joshuafitzgeraldeypie9557]

Your videos are amazing, thank you!

[@haritos90]

Really love the strat! Reminds a little of the enforce peace strat as Ryukyu to get in war without being declared on. I often see other creators getting too excited to release Astrakhan or vassalize Great Horde to conquer lands north to Crimea, while actually it's more beneficial to keep alliance with Muscovy, take only Theodoros land for missions and fish for a Russian PU for the next 3 hundred years. Persian and Mamluks lands are much more valuable for Byzantium expansion because of trade, not to mention of course going back to Rome.

[@candiman4243]

Honestly, every time I've done a successful Byzantium run, (which is like 5 times over the past versions) I get muscovy as a PU without even trying. I don't know if it's just good luck or russia just has a tendency to have rulers die

[@Tyrazial]

Subbed to your channel from this video. Great work man. I am absolutely going to be trying this on my next Byz play. Love that map mod too. Very thematic. ^^

[@olivierroth5579]

Amazing video, thank you, works perfectly

[@SuperJJAlexander]

Nice video and strategy! One small gripe I have with your statements is that if you trap the Ottomans on Cephalonia after conquering all their lands, their troops disappeared in my run. So the trap in Cephalonia strategy does get Otto to 0 troops in the field and the vultures and jackals will swoop down upon them.

[@JonWilde2105]

I'm curious about the trigger conditions for the Reinforce Constantinople mission. It seems you need to have 6 base manpower in Constantinople, up from 4 at the start of the game. At 27:51, Constantinople still has 4 base manpower. Were the conditions changed in a patch since this playthrough? I checked by didn't see anything in the notes for 1.36 to 1.37.2.

[@Old_Harry7]

Back in the day I actually developed an almost identical strategy, the main difference was that after the Ottomans were to attack a minor nation in Anatolia I would spam ships, capture the Gelibolu fort by rushing it and then carpet siege the Balkans making sure to set myself up for the Bulgaria rebel path. This strategy of yours requires more wits in attacking Candar at the right moment but besides that I'd say it's basically the same strategy from the one I'm already familiar with.

[@bassdasdwadsasdasw]

This strategy reminds me of one of the Aragon strats back in the old days where you vassalize Byz to get a good defensive war with the Turks. Kinda funny how it's kinda come full circle

[@NiceBoaT_98]

great campaign man, i'm always watching your vids. although i prefer using BudgetMonk's island isolation technique (because it lets me to disengage the clerical debuffs) but this is still viable.

[@freesoftwareextremist8119]

I just tried this (with lots of restarting) and this doesn't seem to be as easy anymore. I managed getting the alliances in time, but attacking Candar was very difficult. First the timing. Attacking them too early led the Ottomans to give 13k condotteri to Ramazan, completely crushing my mercenaries back in Constantinople. Attacking too late and I wouldn't be able to make the siege. Landing in Candar was another challenge. Candar has 7k troops in my game and it's simply impossible to fight them with just 6 transports, I cannot get the other troops over in time befor the Candar army gets back it's morale and reinforces. However, I eventually nailed the timing als also managed to land, by waiting until the Ottomans had their army on Candars border, putting my 6k army on the boats, declaring on them and transport the troops onto their capital. For some reason the AI doesn't fight you (maybe because of the Ottoman stack?). If you time it right, the Ottomans will declare shortly after and deal with the Candar army and even help you siege the fort! However the big problem comes after I made peace with the Ottomans. In my game, the Ottomans only guaranteed Ragusa, which I had no way of attacking. After I made peace the entire world ganged up on the Ottomans and completely dismantled them, which meant that now, I would need to fight Austria, Genoa and the Mamluks...

[@rjukishyn]

Magnam viam vidi cum paucissimis "dolis". tu es optimus frater.

[@MoragTong]

great strat, man. congrats :)

[@peterfeuerbach5231]

The german dialect is strong in this one. Love it

[@milan-px5uq]

wow, simple but very effective

[@testudo2203]

It doesn’t work now. Made several attempts. Once I managed to roll this kind of alliance set when Candar allied Crimea, but they always fight my landing forces. It’s -2 dice from landing and -1 from the terrain. No chances. And also on my “normal” difficulty Candar has 7k troops, not 5k. So there’s also a very small chance of capturing transport ships. You’ll have to build them in this case. The only solution I see is to have at least +2 transport ships from his army. 9 transports from 7k Candar army and catch the moment of tech 4 mil when he will have tech 3. In this case there’s a chance. Maybe I’ll try later. It should work.

[@konstantinzaitsev5320]

This run has to have more likes!

[@RKNGL]

On the rare occasion Austria does flip friendly they're usually over the diplo limit.

[@GERdeathstar]

Cool strategy! Trying it out right now. I'm on restart #4 now, here's how the previous ones failed: Epirus allying the Pope Candar allying the Mamluks -1 Stab event followed by unexpected ruler death & ensuing rebels Candar allying Dulkadir, meaning the Ottos declared war on Dulkadir, dragged Candar into the war and even though I was quick enough to start the siege of Candar, the Ottos peaced out quickly, annexed Dulk and truced Candar So you really gotta keep an eye on the alliances or this won't work

[@thestudentYT]

Yes sure but the first 3 things are like super unlucky still...

[@red2theelectricboogaloo961]

in mine the ottomans just allied naples, qara qoyunlu, fezzan, shirvan, transoxiana, and all my allies kept getting in debt and were generally busy in a bunch of other wars so i was just waiting around. quit at 1470 cuz its taking too long. at least the ottomans didn't start really blobbing yet but yeah and i was always getting out-teched by the ottomans as soon as i went up a mil tech so that stings even more.

[@belisarius1453]

Best strategy so far!

[@dutchy4830]

i had the same level of expansion using the Cephalonia strategy, taking cores and seizing ankara and then killing the anatolian minors whilst attacking bulgaria/wallacia by 1462 but my money situation was much worse and the cephelonia strategy feels cheezy. I like this strategy more because it doesnt rely on admiral rng as much and it gets ae ticking slightly quicker with candar Thanks for sharing, i think this is the meta strategy

[@ICaImI]

The renowned german efficiency.

[@jiyerminable]

did it today, pretty awesome strategy, worked perfectly although I forgot to ally hungary before going to war hhaah

[@alfafran6533]

Tried this twice, both times Candar allied the mamluks. Still trying to get through the first war but its so insane that they are winning a 30k vs 30k even generals so hard its a bit crazy. Might try the colonial strat.

[@aluminiumknight4038]

A wise muscovite advisor: your majesty never hesitated to defend orthodox brothers but I'm afraid this is war between turks and turks. Who isthis candaroglu? The Romans didn't mention candaroglu vassal in our alliance agreement, and they didn't take your majesty's permission before vassalizing then. Thus, your majesty, you should not be obliged to fight this war for them. We should send troops to guard Constantinople but nothing else Another advisor: your majesty, I suspect the byzantines are trying to drag into their offensive wars for their own benifit without telling the truth, we should send our army to punish them for their audacity! The Grand Kniaz: as a reward for the success in novgorod, I'm sending all of our troops on vacation, I heard the black sea isn't frozen this time of the year, march south!

[@petrfrolov1591]

damn, that is genius...

[@Merrit16]

A couple of ammendments I'd make. First, you shouldnt take the extra provonces or war reps in the otto second war. They arent exactly making much money for you to take a portion of, and if you dont take the provinces then you have a super short peace. Second, once the bukgarian seperatists have started taking ottomans land, suege back your own provinces and release bulgaria. It stops you having to take the land by force and saves you a lot of AE. You can inherit the land for free after using the new vassel system

[@thestudentYT]

But then Bulgaria gets insane amounts of liberty desire from the defected Provinces... Also I have permanent Claims on that Orthodix land that I gain a freely accepted culture from the missions so it is really valueable land for me to own by myself... And also Bulgaria is Orthodox and I am also Orthodox and no one else around is Orthodox so the AE is IRELEVANT AS HELL and also Bulgaria can give me another 100~ ducats in the peace deal... What do you think of these facts?

[@LOKJAV]

Funny thing is this exact thing happened to me where the Ottomans were on the other side of this. As Milan I declared no CB war on some random north African country. I wasn’t really doing anything as I just wanted the stab loss to trigger disaster. Said country got vassalised by Ottomans ally...

[@dunndudebemelol]

Ottomans seem to rush candar every time i go for it, need to work on being quicker in my case! Good guide

[@thestudentYT]

Yeah you shoul actually try to do everything as fast as possible :)

[@Ereen36]

You are best!

[@CatNibbles]

When I saw you attacking candar and the ottomans attacking them I realized exactly where you were going with this. Nice strat. The only advantage I cam see to using Budgetmonks strat over yours is getting to revoke the previlage of the church unions, which is nice but you can still do that not too far in the future with your strat.

[@aqvamarek5316]

You do not want to revoke the union of the church...as orthodox nation, you can get burgundy for free, so keep 1 diplomat on burgundy and push a royal marriage-alliance, so that you an trigger the inhertiance. You AE is mostly on non Catholics, so growing your power with merc and units should be enough, to get them.

[@worldboxvn8214]

I have to Create another account just to give this video one more like. God I love this kind of content

[@fowerld5893]

Hello @TheStudent, I attempted to partially reproduce your solution; In my case, Candar was allied with Dulkadir and so I declared war on Candar. Easy war but timed before the Ottomans declared war on Dulkadir and tried to invade their provinces. Then I vassalized Dulkadir but I didn't enter into a defensive war against the Ottomans even if I make peace with Candar... I don't understand why :/

[@thestudentYT]

Were the Ottomans at war with Dulkadir when you vassalized them?

[@fowerld5893]

Indeed it was not obvious in my prompt but yes Ottoman were at war with Dulkadir to get Marash @@thestudentYT

[@michalmonstrov137]

The Student is THE Teacher

[@FurrovorJahrenbearbeitet]

starkes Video

[@Nikita-ASMR]

einfach heftig

[@funfungerman8401]

Wie dein Profilbild

[@ionutbadea7915]

Thank you, for some reason loans give me anxiety and I can't enjoy a playthrough if Im relying on them

[@HolyPire]

Very nice!

[@sean58271]

Top tier strategy.

[@aqvamarek5316]

You forgot the Byz->neaples->burgundy inheritance tactic, were you simply outgrow ottoman on other parts of the map, and keep your alliance always bigger, than a random AI alliance next to ottoman borders. AI will always DOW the weakest neighbour alliance, so it is relative easy to "outrun" them, and take your land and missions, later.

[@thestudentYT]

I would still prefer this as it also matches really well with the Missions as without defeting the Ottomans you can only do like 3 missions of the entire Roman reconquest path and even for those you'll have to wait around 5 years for Alfonso to die...

[@aidancrussell105]

Strat failed successfully. Everything going good, but the Ottomans instead decided to declare on Karaman with Mamluks ally instead of Candar. But that meant I was able to declare on the Ottomans myself calling in everyone except Muscovy, and because they were distracted fighting the Mams was a pretty easy war to win

[@xOdySx]

Quite impresive, really. Efficient and definetely allow quicker expansion. If I would be you I would take Wallachia or at least make them vassal and Pronoiar. Doing Biz run (now already Rome). I went via Mercs way and to be honest it was... SIMPLE. Mercs generals can be very good (like 4-5 shock!) + all these morale things for mercs from missions. I was able to stack wipe Ottoman stacks! Of course, loans were not avoided but generally I was having them less than 10 for sure and repayed nicely after few next wars like vs Naples which just got released from PU. Ultimately I fell that this Bizantine update made them even easier. I did succeed in the 1st attempt...

[@knightoffailure1869]

This is a bit misleading. Muscovy is actually a super difficult ally to pull early on and rarely flips friendly before 1447 AT THE EARLIEST (most of my runs have it just not happening by the times the Ottomans declare on Candar). More importantly though, Candar is super likely to ally Dulkadir, putting them directly in the Ottomans first war without making them the war leader, which pretty well puts a bullet into this strat’s head.

[@thestudentYT]

I didn't lie about the number of my attempts... I literally did more than 20 full Ironman Playthroughs and several more console testing games and I was able to pull Muscovy in literally every game! This went so far that if I reached +100 relations with them on January 1446 I could tell you EXACTLY on which day they'll flip friendly (26th of June) because I played this so often... and same goes for the Candar alliances which is why I also said in the video that they sometimes ally Dulkadir and sometimes even the Mamluks but rarely (as Dulkadir gets very often Shirvan or Crimea and no one else) So idk what game settings you chose because maybe you play on very hard or something or you didn't have the 100 relations with moscovy or maybe pdx change the mechanics completly with the bug fixes updates but everything that I presented in this video was the truth of how the game works (or worked at the time if it should have changed) so don't blame me for that you can be sure I did more than most people like to do for their guides ;)

[@knightoffailure1869]

@@thestudentYT Thanks for the reply man! I apologize if that came off as harsh, I didn’t want to blame you, and I appreciate your EU4 content so I definitely don’t want to make you feel bad about making it. I was just surprised by the shear number of Dulkadir alliances and Muscovy rejections I got in a row (to be fair it was only like five games that it killed, so that maybe isn’t so much in the grand scheme) but I have no doubt you’re telling the truth and that it’s either the new update or just bad RNG. I’ll do a full reset and see if it fixes it, and keep in mind what you said about Muscovy’s exact timing. I also edited the above comment to be nicer worded, since I want people to like your content.

[@thestudentYT]

Oh do you mean you just savescummed the same savegame over and over again?? That would explain a lot because of course if they ally Dulkadir and you savescum then they'll ally Dulkadir again... you have to do a full restart 1444 in such a case to don't have the same game again (I thought that was casual though tbh xd)

[@knightoffailure1869]

@@thestudentYT Nah no savescumming, but I’ve heard that sometimes the game will continue doing similar things as long as you keep quitting to the main menu, whereas more of the caches get cleared if you close the program completely. Not sure it’s true, but figured it was worth a try. Either way, you were totally spot on about Muscovy, June 26th all but one of my recent runs, but Dulkadir and Candar are still allies at least 50% of the time, which is pretty much an instant reset for me, since I’ve never seen the Ottoman’s go for Candar over Dulkadir, even when their whole army is wiped out and Sinop is just sitting there. Not so bad I suppose, since it’s only about 1-2 months of play before you know, but so far it’s still a minority of my games that have had salvageable RNG.

[@ecchihaven8089]

I suggest giving out privliges first before selling titles, 142 ducats after giving out the +1 mil since it takes 10 crownland

[@nikolaitregouet]

Amazing

[@Krzyziu]

Looks nice, trying this at the moment, so far 2 attempts and Candar is struggling with gaining strong allies and being crushed as first target

[@thestudentYT]

Did Dulkadir get strong allies?

[@thestudentYT]

The Ottomans never attacked Candar first if they have Crimea as an ally didn't they get Crimea in your game?

[@Krzyziu]

@@thestudentYT Playing normal difficulty. They ally Ramazanx2 and Mamluks once

[@Krzyziu]

Allied Crimea on 4th attempt@@thestudentYT

[@thestudentYT]

You know they allied Ramazan in my Game as well but still they attacked Dulkadier first as they had also only a minor ally

[@shawnb1649]

Once you have +50 relations, you can set your relation to a country you want to ally as friendly.

[@thestudentYT]

Yes and I also did that

[@isaacgrenfell6400]

That feeling when Epirus allies Genoa 5 times in a row

[@nantucketsleighrider7983]

Using skanderbro on normal difficulty makes you able to fight the Otto head on, and mop the floor with them

[@stevenmelendez6683]

Excelente método 👍

[@McWerp]

How do you get them to attack Candar? Every time I try this they do everything they possibly can to avoid attacking whoever I try and start a fight with. They've attacked into OPMs allied to venice, hungary, ajam rather than the weak and defenceless Candar. Is there some trick to it?

[@muhammedoezbay1404]

You can do the same strat with any nation. Its not a exploit of course but it feels like.

[@infaraday6862]

I'm going to try this later but this seems rng heavy... What really drains me with byz is having to constantly restart. Right now you need to have a very specific setup with Georgia + Candar + Dulkadir in order to pull this off EDIT: in my games candar allies dulkadir and the ottomans always declare on dulkadir

[@daanw6270]

Do the ottomans always ally Wallachia after that first war? What if they don't? Do you truce break? Also, would it be worth it to Humiliate them in that second war instead of the money/provinces that cost double? Edit: forgot to say, fantastic guide btw. By far the best I've seen so far!

[@MuckyBeef]

They normally guarantee ragusa and/or serbia, atleast in my runs, I dont think it being wallchart is super important just go for whoever the ottomans guarantee that is easiest too attack

[@JanXXVI]

Nice Strategy, but as far as the best or most optimal i can't agree. You are spending a lot of AE, missing out on cash, delaying revoking the churches union, which is a damn anoying modifier with the sheer amont of rebells that will trigger. Most optimal so far seem to be to restart unthil you are not rivaled by Genoa or Venice. Get their reputation to 50, and don't build any ships before that. Take out Epirus while doing that, now you can go for Ottomans after the Epirus war, while they attack the turkish minors, they usually attack while there's around 100 days before your ships ready, important to get the releations up as fast as possible, also if you have to attack them before the ships are ready, you'll want a navy morale advisor or to have fully annexed epirus for that ships morale bonus. Alternativly Aragorn might release Naples, and you'll have claims after the epirus war, which means you can attack them before they get any allies, taking the Naples land and money or if you rivaled them, land and humiliate, will be a good boost against against the Ottomans. Fight the Ottomans by trapping them on the turkish side, have Athens ships attach to yours, and let single stacks cross over for you to wipe them, by having your ships in port when they run away and taking them out again for the wipe. Once most of the Ottoman forces are gone, you can peace out for your cores, except Edirne for easy access to capital, and take all the land so you block them out of the Balkans, along with 900 ducats of cash, all yours, if you have played this smart, you don't necessary have any or much debt either, get right back into a war again with the Ottomans, for white peace or cash. Get admin tech 4, build 5 churces and remove the church union(i have played with this modifier on for a long time, and the amount of rebells that spawns are ridiculous) Now get your Catholic allies like Austria, Spawn the Bulgar rebelles, attack venice and promise Austria Land, get Austrian troops to attach to yours, as they can wander out on the Bulgarian rebells. Defeat Venice, take out the knights if they joined. Right after you peace out, you can attack Albania and reset Venice truce, or you could have attacked Albania before peacing out Venice, get all the Bulgarian land as they spawn, core them up and your ready for next war with Ottomans. If the aim is just to destroy the Ottomans, then yes the guide is very good, but if playing Optimally, utilizing the reconquest cb and Permanent core, for less AE and admin along with zero diplo expenditure, then it's best to follow the missions.

[@thestudentYT]

And how often did your tactic works? After my several Ironman Game expierience (in which I also tried something similar) I saw that this is basically 1 out of 10 Games and that not even considering the several restarts of Genoa rival which will be also very rare... I I understand what you say but it is after all not really valuable if in reality such a Game would need 1 out of 10 RNG (if not less considering all the different things that you mentioned) and that also only if you don't make a single mistake in the first 20-30 years of the Game which is also unrealistic... Sure it would be better if everything works as you said but I would really like to see the actual Game that you played with this tactic and the amount of hours that it took you to get to this point. And then we should compare a Game with my Strategy in 1500 and one of yours in 1500 (if you manage to actually set one up eventually) and then we'll see how big the difference actually is after 60 years... I never said this is perfect: I said it is the No 1 Strategy (by this point) for 1.36 and that includes getting as close to 100% efficiency as possible while minimizing the RNG and difficulty. And I think most EU4 players would say that such a strategy is better than the one you suggested don't you think? But anyways I am happy to encourage other people to think of other ways of course so I actually enjoy such a discussion!

[@JanXXVI]

@@thestudentYT My Third game where i have done this. It's not that RNG once you allow for all the restarts that it can take for not having Genoa rival you, which can take up to 10 times. Once your rep is up with Genoa and Venice you build your ships at regular 1 years time. That way you get 7 Gallies, well after 400 days as Athens will take some longer, but you can have all that you need in 2 years, or if you captured some ships, you can attack after that one year. Don't vassalise Epirus, you need the morale bonus to repair the army, which is not hard to do, just get a +2 army reformer, finish the 2 missions and have 20 troops, that way you can use the old strategy of bombarding and assaulting Gallipoli. And don't sit on the balkans for years, let one and one stack over, as your armies will have high morale now, and stackwipe the Ottomans forces peacemeal, with the ships allowing and blockading the Bosporus strait. I Destroyed the Ottomans so completely that after peacing out with all cores and calims except Edirne and cutting them off from the Balkans, i could Grab 900 ducats, attacked Ragusa straight after, had to update the claim, as the Ottoman would not have joined had the Month tick passed, Occupied their capital, the balkans and destroyed some troops, peacing out for over 600 more ducats. If Naples is released or not before the Ottoman war is RNG, and i would jump on it should it happend before, and there are ofcourse some rng to if Austria will join against Venice or not, but most time they will, i Opted to wait for admin tech 4, to build the 5 churces and end the union, not grabing land from the estates before that was done. Ended the union and Got my Chatolic allies, Austria would not join against Venice so i went for Serbia instead, having ended their alliance once i got the cash from them, so the truce timer was up. In the meantime i can build favours with Austria, but im also strong enough to fight Venice on my own, i have a large Navy of 31 ships, i have ended my reliance on republics, repaired the army and ended the church union, just one modifier remaining but need more trade income for that.

[@thestudentYT]

"If Naples is released or not before the Ottoman War is RNG, and I would jump on it should it happen before" now as you were using the word "would" that means that it didn't happen in your game: So tell me: How did you repair the Army and assult the Gallipoli Fort with only having 54 developement?

[@JanXXVI]

​@@thestudentYT Well it did happend, yes it's rng but not rare. You can still outsiege him. But i have played Byzantium so many times over the years, that only what's most optimal is what's interesting for me, not whats going to happend every time and be a sure thing. But you adjust, has a game been particurlarly unlucky i restart. The games i've had on this patch, the siege racing is very doable, but getting Naples lands first is much more desirable as fighting the Ottomans will be easier, and you'll have expanded early into Italy so you can work off some AE. The biggest hurdle early for me in this patch is Admin, specially if your ruler doesnt die early, followed by AE, but AE is a bit easier than previous patch, since you can get -30 extra for a while. AE is a big thing in any good Byzantium game, if your expanding at your max capacity and going for a early Roman Empire. That is also why i recommend doing the missions, reconquest cb, useing the permaclaims, which reduces admin cost and AE.

[@DeathColor96]

I know a way to improve the strategy. If you control all of the ottomans provinces and give them all except vidin to hungary, he will give you back all your cores except edirne. Before going to war with Candar you should claim every province of the ottomans as vital interest which will make the AI give you control of every province in the defensive war. Then you should control vidin before hungary joins so he cant take land in his peace deal. before transfering the control of the provinces to hungary you should turn of the forts maintenance and station one troop on each fort in the anatolia region. This will make you siege down the province right after hungary peaced out. Muscovy will also white peace right after which gives you pretty much all the gold from the peace deal. Then you can do your peace deal which will almost cost no diplo points and get about 700 ducats aswell! You have to give hungary all your land before the ottomans unconditionally surrender so beware of that.

[@thestudentYT]

Ok that sounds really strong but does it actually works relyably? I tried to make the AI peace out seperatly often enough already in different sitiations (Burgundy on France, England on France, Bohemia on Poland) amd in those Examples the AI never really peaced out at all even though they had all the occupations... Have you tested it more than once at least?

[@DeathColor96]

@@thestudentYT I have not done alot of attempts on this patch, I just recalled that I have done this strategy alot of times in earlier builds. It has to be tested some more of course but it looked promising from my point of view. I'm not going to say that I know how the AI works but I believe the keys to this strategy is land connection, vital interest and the nations war enthusiasm. War enthusiasm might be the reason they didn't want to peace out in your cases. I also tried giving all occupations to muscovy and Georgia. They both peaced out but only took money and war rep. The only one who gave me my land back was Hungary. Will probably try it some more today.

[@DeathColor96]

​@@thestudentYT Update: I got it to work with Hungary again, the trickiest part is to make them peace out before the ottomans unconditionally surrender. They will peace out quicker if I let them occupy provinces they are interested in and still give me my provinces back but the best thing would be for them to not take anything. One game I couldn't get them to peace out my provinces and I believe it was because they weren't rivaling the ottomans but might need to be further explored... When the ottomans start to delete their units (if they have any left) is when you need to make sure everything is in position for you. If the ottomans control any province they wont unconditionally surrender so the trick is to give Hungary every province before you occupy everything. I believe this method is pretty consistent if you know how it works, it's just a little harder to do. I believe it's worth checking out. :)

[@robinr.2095]

You’re Maps and Flags are looking so oldschool and cool. Can you please tell me which mods you are using? :)

[@thestudentYT]

Video description

[@rtleitao78]

Impressive

[@therearenoshortcuts9868]

Hello question about a variation of this strategy: what about allying hungry and muscovy and then provoking the Ottomans into attacking you by building 4 heavy ships?? not sure if this is a programmed thing, everytime I try to build 4 heavy ships the Ottoman always attack me when the ships are 1/3 done...

[@thestudentYT]

Idk if that works repeatably...

[@carltonleboss]

You should do a Georgia guide. Very nice Byz strat.

[@aqvamarek5316]

As Georgia, aim and form Persia. Your mountain noble privilege matches perfectly with Persia goverment (-20% dev cost) and there mountain Dev coat reductions.

[@darrellhon2868]

So far, Candar consistently allies Mamluks in my games. I will try restarting two or three more times, but I'm losing hope. Do you know if this was patched?

[@thestudentYT]

I don't know if it was but lately I got another comment from someone saying that in his game Candar always allies Dulkadir so... I really don't know what I should think of that right now...

[@infaraday6862]

Every youtuber pretends to have the perfect strat when it's just pure RNG. Not only did I restart several times so that Georgia had proper interests, but I had to restart 3 more times because the alliance setup was wrong. Then, with only Candar + Crimea, my navy gets destroyed and I can't land AND hungary did not want to ally me because too many relations. The only reliable method is restarting until Georgia marks the proper provinces, allying Serbia then dissolving to ally Albania and taking a fuckload of mercs. All other methods are pure luck.

[@thestudentYT]

I get a lot of these comments lately but I can asure you that it wasn't that bad when I made the video... I know it because I absolutely HATE to savescum 30 Times for one alliance or something... So I am sorry to hear that it doesn't work anymore but I really tested it A LOT by that time so I wasn't lying with that

[@tobiasdyhr9116]

Looks like a nice strategy, but sadly I can´t get it to work. Either Georgia won't help in the war against Candar, Ottomans never attack Candar ( haven't fully sieged them ), or when it all works out 1 out of 20 games Moscow leaves within a few months. How do I prevent this?

[@aguy3664]

my only issue with this strat is that it really relies on getting good rolls in the first battle against candar

[@diothemaid]

Hungary in my game had too many diplo relations to ally, also I just could not pull off the landing on Candar, who beat me back twice, partially due to Ramazan coming over and helping out their fleet, second time a day before the Ottomans were going to reinforce me. Also the galleys took long to build. I do not have the KoK DLC so it must work a bit differently though

[@thestudentYT]

Did you call Georgia in to help? Because they have another 10 ships which together with Athens fleet is enough to beat Candars and Ramazans always if you reinforce your allies fleets... But honestly the thing with hungary happened also in one of my games which I would actually say is a reason to restart as it happens so rarely but theoretically Muscovy and Georgia would be enough to beat the Ottomans as well And did you do the landing on Candar as I showed in the Video? Becausr that worked on Hard difficulty always

[@Zapparapski]

Great video and I love the idea of forcing war on the ottomans! But I can't seem to pull it off. The part until candars vassalisation is working, also there are some immediate restarts (i.e. Georgian ruler is a pacifist or bad merc generals). I've tried about 20-30 resets now and I've never seen Candar ally the Great Horde, most times Ramazan, sometimes Dulkadir (which is also a restart). But that might just be bad RNG or maybe it would help rivaling them to seek bigger allies. Then comes the war against the ottomans and I can't win it.. Allied AI is not following or splitting up to run from the balkans to Georgia to unsiege a non-fort province, meanwhile the ottomans and AQ snipe our troops away. 4-5 years into the war and the war goal is still in ottoman hand and the allies are leaving white peaced, leaving me to get crushed. I loved the video and the explanations is top noche

[@thestudentYT]

Maybe the AI is generally more capeable on hard difficulty... (but that should also affect the Ottomans so...) Did you set all Armies to allow attachement? Also if the Ottomans go for your troops directly then that's perfect: Just go onto Cephalonia (which is owned by a scutaged Epirus), let the Ottomans Cross and then trap them with your Navy... I often catched like 15/16k Units which is a lot for the early Game and with the Heavy Ship your Navy should easily be strong enough)

[@Zapparapski]

@@thestudentYT I only allowed attachement for the armies when I wanted a specific position strengthened (i.e. taking Gallipoli or defending a siege which is almost won). The Ottomans are not going directly for my troops and I tried to get Gallipoli and the balkans asap, so that the AI can concentrate on Sinop and AQ. Also setting targets for the AI doesn't seem to interest them at all.. I assigned AQ's capital to Georgia and they just sit at the border when AQ's troops are around Antalya. The scutage vassal part was not part of the video or did I miss that part? Anyway, I'll give it a few more gos and see if I get lucky with Candars allies

[@thestudentYT]

Yes actually I forgot to scutage them but I did trap a few Ottomans still... And Bro: Yes the AI doesn't care about targets.. But YOU can be their target to attach: Just keep small stacks on allow attachement all the time so that they attach to you and then you can do with their armies whatever you want xd

[@Zapparapski]

@@thestudentYT Cheers, I'll give that a try! And thanks for the tips!

[@jonfanz]

just wanted to say that I've been having the same difficulty. I had one run that felt amazing, but then all of my allies white peaced out. Since then, I've never found a situation where I can beat Ottos to Candar *and* land successfully. Maybe I'm doing something horribly wrong, but attempting the water landing just gets my 5 to 6k stacks wiped. Still, a very great video and I'm working at it. Thank you @thestudentYT

[@EMENİKE1]

nice info bro by the way what is name of the your map mod ?

[@thestudentYT]

Video description

[@EMENİKE1]

qizilbashs can relase a nation like janniseries ? tnx a lot

[@thestudentYT]

I never told you that right?

[@Bazsaroozsa]

I've failed this 5 times in a row... it's always some obscure one time bullshit that gets in the way. Once the Ottomans decided to support the independence of Naples and locked itself into a neverending war... like I literally cannot get to 1448 without having to restart lmao.

[@thestudentYT]

What?? The Ottomans supported Naples before 1446 and fought a War against Aragon and its allies??? You havd to be the luckiest person alive... that has to be a one in a million Game right there xd

[@red2theelectricboogaloo961]

@@thestudentYT in my game they also supported naples. wasnt able to do the war on ottos early enough because genoa allied epirus and locked me in the war which prevented me from getting the allies needed to DOW the ottomans in time. the end result was that they kept on rolling past me and i wasn't able to get a good opportunity to take out the ottomans. i also said DOW, yeah, i couldn't trick them into a defensive war because candar allied to mamluks. couldn't make use of muscovy because no great horde.

[@thestudentYT]

@@red2theelectricboogaloo961 if Epirus gets an ally in the first month or if Candar allies the mamluks that is both an instant restart as I said in my video and you get get Muscovy as an Ally always in 1446, the Great Horde doesn't matter at all there... and if you just have a game where you can attack epirus and Candar without the Mamluks or Dulkadir (which happens rarely) then everything easily works as I showed

[@Merapsco]

Epic

[@thephilosophyofhorror]

Hm, it is a nice strategy :) Personally I am getting rid of the union of churches event asap, so can't ally with Hungary (or maybe I could; at games I could still ally the Knights, though you don't need them if Epirus in Cephalonia is your vassal). I usually end up getting something like 5 loans (easily repayed in the peace deal). The ottomans get bankrupt with that normal strategy (two merc groups to take the Kallipoli fort etc) anyway, after a few years.

[@Negi2468]

I tried this strategy of repeatedly landing 6k unite into 7k in candar, and it did not work. The generals on both merc companies were pretty good too, like 5 or 6 shock. I'd be interested in seeing a demo if you could show it. What I found was that in between waves they always got a hefty reinforce tick. Did you have a naval leader that was speeding up the naval landing, or did you perfectly time it so they wouldnt get a reinforce tick?

[@thestudentYT]

Sure timing was a thing as well but I think you could see what happened in my Games in this video right?

[@Negi2468]

I think I figured it out, but in this reinforce strategy, you're suiciding the palace guard into the enemy units, right? If I let them retreat onto the boats, there seemed to be no way to get there in time before the enemy got morale back. So in that case, do you build another merc company to replace them? Also, the alliance RNG is kinda annoying especially since it takes a while to be determined. It seems to also be a reset if Candar only allies Ramazan (either that, or you have to declare really early), and that's on top of having georgia be balanced or militarist (i never got a militarist georgia in like 30 restarts, but I got balanced and that also works). Have you come up with anything more consistent since then? My best run of this strategy was actually to NoCB Candar as soon as I got my alliances off, but because the Ottomans were only attacking dulkadir rather than Shirvan, and because we didn't have crimea or great horde as strategic depth, I wasn't able to accomplish the total destruction you got here. @@thestudentYT

[@Negi2468]

Also I tried the sieging manip, but ottos are refusing to attack an alliance consisting of just candar (I full annexed Ramazan after letting it siege down. Was that a mistake?)

[@thestudentYT]

Yeah of course you need 2 Merc companies... I think I showed that in the video as well right? But sacraficing them is not needed as you can use like 10 days or so to get them fleeing on to your ships and then directly docking them into your Burgas harbor and getting the other Mercs with 2 more regular units on the boats at the same time so all that is maximum one Morale tick for them which should be fine... also maybe you could keeo your cavalry to pay some extra money to make it easier to defeat them. And yes the Alliance part was the most RNG thing already when I released this video but now it seems to be worse but honestly I feel really sorry for you because it doesn't work anymore but I haven't touched Byz anymore since then so I cannot really help you any more than this

[@thestudentYT]

Yes with only Ramazan or Candar actually I would recommend exactly what I showed in the video so leaving the siege open on both Candar and Ramazan because Ottos also really like to attack and take Ramazan so if you could vassalize them as well that would be a doubled chance

[@shafiqhasrin8346]

Having trouble emulating this strat. My difficulties comes mainly from: 1) having the right alliance setup between Dulkadir and Candar. 2. Allies having numbers advantage but Ottomans win engagements despite being outnumbered via; mil tech advantage for example. I appreciate if anyone has any advice as I very much prefer this early punitive war compared to the slow grind of ganking naples or the tedium of island trapping.

[@thestudentYT]

If Dulkadir allies Candar is a thing that you can see within the first 2 months so just see if it happens and if it happens just restart (and do a full restart not just savescum because then they are going to ally them again) And for the 2nd thing just get around 16k troops yourself and have them all on allowing friendly units to attach so that Hungary joins them and then start the siege race because if you stand with 30k troops on a fort then they won't attack you and instead just walk over to Georgia and start sieging them (btw you should be tech 4 already as well by that point) and then when Moscovy comes it's just a vassal swarm that the Ottomans can't win. Btw you could still try to trap smaller stacks on Cephalonia if they hunt you down (I often trapped 16k, so half of their Army) which makes it basically a free war after that

[@shafiqhasrin8346]

@@thestudentYT Thanks for the prompt reply! Can’t express the pure euphoria I felt when I saw the ottomans amassing their regiments around Sinop as my 1k stack sits there. Besides this explosive Byzantine opening, I was also impressed with the tactic of softening up the enemies camping your naval landings. I’m very pleased to add this in my repertoire.

[@KaminaLagann]

Ottomans didn’t even declare a war when I did this 😭😭

[@ordinacijamariomalnar197]

Can you please make a video on ideas for Byzantine empire. Would be really appreciated. You are genious!

[@thestudentYT]

This is a video for the Byzantine Empire... I am not sure what you mean?

[@ordinacijamariomalnar197]

@@thestudentYT i meant on choice for early mid game and late game idea choices. What to choose if you want to becearly colonizer, what to choose if you wanna go naval talassocracy or trade magnate or Roman empire renewal etc.

[@thestudentYT]

@@ordinacijamariomalnar197 I guess that is pretty logical: For coloniting take Expansion, for Blobbing take Adm, for Naval Gameplay take Maritime, for playing Tall take Infrastructure and so on and so on... Honestly that is not enough for a video on this channel :)

[@ordinacijamariomalnar197]

@@thestudentYT do you see inovativness anywhere as Byzantium?

[@thestudentYT]

@@ordinacijamariomalnar197 Not really... don't get me wrong That is a strong idea group but it is simply not worth it compared to Adm, Influence, Infrastructure, Quality, Offensive, Diplomatic and even Espionage if you want to go crazy in Europe... you see it is not that much about "innovative is a bad Idea group" it's more like " you cannot tell me that missing Adm or Quality is worth taking Inno"

[@leaky6020]

whenever i declare on candar, ottomans never declares on them, instead attacking some other nation

[@CESAROXY]

great strat but, landing units if Candar builds 7k troops is next to impossible, unless AI decides to randomly move away, which is a huga gamble. secondly, timing the attack with ottomans is a massive pain in the ass

[@thestudentYT]

It was not a hugr gamble in my Games... Just land with 6k Units, get defeated, land with the next 6k and the'll move away because they'll have less than 5k Units left (of course land with the mercs that havr thr best Generals and not with the free company