EU4 1.33 Byzantium Guide - THIS Is How To ALWAYS WIN

[@TheRedHawk]

What is the next nation that I should do a guide about? Leave a comment here and join The Discord to chat with me and get the save-game if you're a KZbin Member: discord.gg/ksDjjUhKHd Check out more nation guides here: kzbin.info/aero/PLsO8A6cTBgguX6W3b2j-9IlbSHn2nR8wO

[@fidoruh]

I'd be down to see a Venice game.

[@stefant8877]

can you do a guide for wallachia or moldavia?

[@the_0_]

Be a chad, do a guide for the eastern siberian opm tribes.

[@cyrildepinoy1352]

How about a Karaman guide ?

[@zevelgamer.]

Cornwall

[@josephcola9662]

Alright! Now if only I could get a BYZ game where Austria doesn't get a PU on GREAT BRITIAN AND POLAND, maybe could actually finally reform Rome!

[@AdamSmith-sr3rh]

Feelsbadman

[@GothBoiCliiqz]

In my games GB always pus Muscovy, or Denmark does

[@fatihcetin3183]

Fake "kaisers" scare you? Smh

[@GothBoiCliiqz]

@@fatihcetin3183 fake Kaiser’s?

[@DocsDota]

Not a problem. Just have them as permanent ally and once 1700s kick in move into their dynasty and you'll get PU over EVERYTHING =)

[@josephcola9662]

24:30 For anyone subjugating Wallachia or Moldovia, take a look at their mission trees. They both have a mission where if they occupy the Ottoman capital, they'll impale the Sultan and his son, which is not only metal AF, but can also really help you out by screwing over the Turk's mana generation.

[@jose13neo]

Now I need to do a Wallachia or Moldovia run

[@YippeeMK]

Playing as Wallachia was one of my favourite games, impaling the Sultan, forming Romania and expanding into Venice and Austria

[@kevinaustin51]

God I love vlad

[@xzardas541]

Byzantium is my favorite nation for restoring rome Just after burgundy with identity crisis, forming france, ireland, scotland, england, sardinia piedmont, two sicilies and finally ending as byzantium in single day, in the process getting so many buffs it turns into unholly nightmarish abomination for next 20 years or so. So yay for byzantium.

[@mansteinchan6763]

why i cant understand what you say

[@xzardas541]

@@mansteinchan6763 My goals are beyond human comprehension. What I'm saying is a strategy of playing as burgundy and forming france as soon as you can to use OP french missions to get PU spain and vassalize poland. And since you are stuck as france waiting for age of absolutism to get those sweet permament buffs from missions you will have fully conquered british isles and italy and most propably murdered ottomans at this point cause france is kinda OP. So why not store bunch of admin and diplo points and reform into every nation you can before ending up as byzantium to gett all thier mission rewards. This creates absurd amount of buffs like 3x rule britania from ireland scotlan and england missions.

[@mansteinchan6763]

@@xzardas541 i read a lot and understand.but thats nosense,you dont must lose france core and cathlic to become byz,thats waste and unnecessary and no interest

[@xzardas541]

@@mansteinchan6763 I never said it is optimal, it is fun tho, and orthodox with byzantine missions is far better than catholic, I can convert so fast that rebels never manage to spawn in newly conquered provinces.

[@Sqancer]

From my experience, ottomans often just move their capital to anatolia if you don't take edirne. Also there is cool trick with the bulgarian separatist - you have to landlock bulgarian cores (owned by ottomans) and force rebels to spawn in your provice (e.g. burgas or silistre) and once the separatist cross the border to the ottoman lands, just release bulgaria as vasal. If the rebels succeeds you gain free lands for your vasal.

[@thecritic860]

That sometimes happened to me, but it usually only happens if everyone starts kicking Ottomans after you do so. If the ai doesn’t, then they shouldn’t. That was my experience at least.

[@arianistvanic6772]

they move their capital if you cut it off from anatolia (taking albania plus bulgarian coast)

[@mypersonalchannel12]

The trigger of it is if you make them landlocked so don't make them landlocked and they won't move their capital.

[@PixelHazlitt]

And in my experience that next location is Hudavendigar if they still have it.

[@eqcr2177]

@@thecritic860 The idea is to force them to spawn in YOUR Bulgarian territories (at 50% or above), they will go to the Ottomans lands (since you forced them to spawn they will be a bigger army) and if you landlocked the area the ottomans cannot get rid of them, eventually they will flip.

[@josephcola9662]

2:50 I build a carrack in Constantinople. Being able to naval barrage because of the extra canons makes a massive difference.

[@jannesfransen]

Yooo, the red hawk coming in with the real save. I was litterally thinking about starting a byz game earlier today but couldn't find a guide for 1.33. thank you so much!

[@FuzzyStarburst]

I'm a fairly new player, around 100-200 hours. This guide got me into my first Byzantine run. It's 1740, and I'm just a few French provinces away from forming the Roman Empire. Outstanding guide, thanks! My only issue is that my first Ottoman war didn't go nearly as cleanly as yours did, but it worked out anyway.

[@RmsOceanic]

Several points of experience: - Epirus' diplomatic situation in December 1444 is a coinflip for me: Either they've rivaled Albania, we cannot rival them, but they're vulnerable; or they rival us and ally someone we can't reach without our navy, often Albania. Definitely doesn't feel like 90%. Also don't forget to enforce their religion to make them more loyal, and harvest prestige before the Ottoman war. - In the first Ottoman war, consider declaring for Thessaly/Selanik (if you're not taking Edirne), or Edirne (if you are). These are the most expensive provinces in war score terms, and by making them the war goal you reduce their cost slightly. Handly if you're trying to squeeze a little more out of it. - Instead of taking Orhid directly from the ottomans, I like to return it to Serbia. It's cheaper in war score to do that, and it means you can immediately make a play for Kosovo. We get a claim on it through missions so if you're feeling confident you can immediately gun for it. - Instead of ten galleys I stick to your old build recommendation of four galleys and two heavies. The heavies give my fleet a surprising amount of depth, and it's useful because other Mediterranean fleets like to throw a few in as well. To enable this, I like to spend 50 admin at the start to improve Constantinople's infrastructure, which not only slightly boosts its output and makes it cheaper to dev, but the shipbuilding time is reduced. It's taken me to the late 16th century before I consider un-improving for gov cap costs. - If you've a spare diplomat, make sure you have some claims on the Aegean islands from Venice and Genoa, in case you have an opportunity to strike against them. Genoa's usually pretty isolated after the Shadow Kingdom, unless they befriended Austria. An annoying part to this is for whatever reason I find Venice very aggressive in converting their greek Orthodox lands, sometimes starting immediately, so by the time I'm ready to fight them I'm fighting for lands with Religious Zeal. But it's important to have the option available to you. It's also often a good way through alliances to snatch Cyprus before the Mamluks get it. - Quantity's a solid choice, but I like Diplomatic as well for an opener. My reasoning is the war score cost reduction, but not to blob harder, it's to have room to grab Cash and Reps from whoever I fight, leaving more money to invest in myself. You may not expand as aggressively as you would with quantity, but you leave yourself a solid heartland. - I've seen others mention it, but if you landlock the Ottoman's Balkan provinces (Take Silvestre for yourself, Orhid to serbia), then spit out Bulgarian separatists, they will drift into Ottoman lands and in five years spit out a completely isolated Bulgaria for you to conquer. This is obviously more expensive in admin points, but it allows you to weaken the Ottomans during your downtime. This can be risky however, since if they get mixed up in a war with Europeans Hungary will inevitably let them march in and siege it from the rebels. No harm in making a backup save if you're attempting this. - In terms of westward expansion, I generally don't bother going further than the Balkans until later in the game, like after absolutism. Once you've got Ragusa locked down Constantinople becomes a great pseudo-endnode for trade, so focusing on the East is a better expenditure of your gov cap. The major exception is if Naples is still in a PU with someone, or have been trimmed down a bit. Either way they become a nice longterm vassal with some rich reconquests for you. And on that front if the Iberian wedding happens as usual, a province of Aragon's to reconquest can be devastating against Spain. Aside from vassals my main western conquests would be Corsica and Rome, mainly for missions.

[@lonerangerv1224]

the province that is the wargoal is not cheaper at all. The casus belli modifiers apply to all eligible provinces.

[@jorikweegenaar7662]

The Bulgarian separatist trick is really nice, but why not take the province back after the separatists sieged it, to spawn Bulgaria as your vassal. This way, the Bulgarian separatists will return the isolated Ottoman provinces to your subject Bulgaria. No risk, full reward :)

[@RmsOceanic]

@@jorikweegenaar7662 You can certainly do that, though in my personal experience the resulting Bulgaria has pretty high liberty desire and will take a while to wrangle under control. Also I save my vassal slots for opportunities, like previously mentioned Naples, an OPM Karaman which makes a great reconquest opportunity later, and definitely Syria when I'm getting into it with the Mamluks.

[@DocsDota]

​@@RmsOceanic I tried this last patch, it's a good strat, just that Bulgaria will be useless to you for a very long time (due to high liberty). But the idea is to save a war against the Ottos by doing this, as Ottomans are going to be completely driven off the balkans within the first war. Plus it prevents any other Balkan nations from taking Bulgarian provinces as they'll flip quite fast before Ottomans completely collapse. This gives you time to even fight a war against Venice or Albania (or both? =O) in the mean while.

[@YippeeMK]

Some good tips thanks

[@ericsaxon5736]

15:14 I like your first peace deal but I don't generally take Mesambria, since it is both a BYZ and a BUL core and if you release BUL you lose your core. Rather, if you take Silitria, you can release BUL without losing your valuable core in Mesambria. :)

[@dashungrigefeini]

If u take Silistra tho,Edirne is landlocked and Otto's will move their Capital

[@ericsaxon5736]

@@dashungrigefeini I did not say to take both, I said to take Silistria in place of Mesambria. But really, any Bulgarian province is good, as long as you don't take the BYZ core that you then lose immediately.

[@LightxHeaven]

Let's go Byzantium! Strengthen the Noble Privilegies!

[@TheRedHawk]

Hell yeah!

[@ValensBellator]

**War with Epirus ends** “I did forget to mention you should rival Epirus before the war is done” Dang man you know video editing is a thing right? I forgot to rival them too!! 😂

[@Sulidaire]

Forts while in war? What the hell? The AI is like my ex in 1.33 - super defensive and fights take forever

[@DaGaJbmKojJe]

I had a war with austria today and it literally took me 7-10 years to win because they had over 20 forts and we had only 3-4 battles because the AI kept running away because of how much weaker their army was

[@gothia6515]

27:48 In a situation similiar to this you could also make a border with Karaman to vassalize them for all their juicy cores.

[@mcalkis5771]

Just a minor tweak, be sure to attack Epirus as soon as your 8k stack reaches Athens, because they can get allies on day one.

[@planetarylizard1297]

Yeah, I had the same experience with them. You need to atk early.

[@austin.j.barrett]

Yup, I can attest to this

[@sIkLeGAMING]

Title: ..THIS is How To ALWAYS WIN first minute: reset

[@TheRedHawk]

Lmao it be like that sometimes

[@foramaro]

99% no aliances in epirus. 5 runs: 3 albania 1 knight 1 pope Wp)

[@jackshepard9784]

I was just looking for an updated Byzantium guide from you the other day, couldn’t find one so I just figured it out lol. Currently working towards my Basileus achievement as we speak 😎

[@motsuwu]

"I've been looking forward to this" -Count Dooku

[@AVUJonas]

lol seems like you beat me to it :(

[@Alexrocksdude_]

I'd love to see a Norway guide, it has so much potential to become a viking empire!

[@ellyheartfilia4417]

If you want to see your loans in 1.33 hover over the icon at the top that tells you you have outstanding loans, it will list them individually.

[@divingdown6173]

I wanted to do a basileus run and red hawk uploads when I need a byz guide, a great day for sure

[@TheRedHawk]

Enjoy!

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

But this guide is useless for ante bellum...?

[@divingdown6173]

@@Testimony_Of_JTF lmfao, just realized ante bellum was a mod, meant basileus achievement haha

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

@@divingdown6173 Oh ok then

[@daangoes121]

Just had my first ever good running Byzantium run thanks to this guide

[@DarthHippygaming]

I used the 1.32 guide but had a hard time. Ill be able to get the Pentarchy but no Mare Nostrum.

[@TheRedHawk]

That guide isn't relevant anymore! I hope this one can help you!

[@DarthHippygaming]

@@TheRedHawk It would have I'm at like 1715 and marching into Alexandria and Rome.

[@martinaustin6230]

@@DarthHippygaming You have a 100 years. Plenty of time to do Mare Nostrum.

[@isaacandersen1]

In my run roades got rebels and flipped to me as well, I think it’s just a symptom of the knights not having the troops to fight the revolt, or the intelligence to raise autonomy.

[@matheusGMN]

Perfect timing with Jack Rackham's video of the last emperor of the Byzantine Empire, I left that video already wanting to start an eu4 campaign to dream of what could've been! and this video delivers!

[@PixelHazlitt]

Karaman into Rûm was a slog in this patch. It took me until 1601 to finally finish off the Ottomans. Venice was the only country to attack and take land outside of myself and it didn’t help that Austria was PUd early by France (crazy right?) Bohemia blobbed into Hungary hard. Timmy is a gigantic paper tiger. Having the Mamluks as a ally goes a mile to keeping them out of Anatolia.

[@9EscFan5]

I have followed your guide for 80/90%. I was lucky to stackwipe one of their 'European' armies while the other was locked in Anatolia. I did this without naval barraging (I did not go for the extra ships). I was even nice enough to give Albania and The Knights their cores. My economy also did not get that hurt. I also took 'Expansionist Zealotry', which might have helped defeating their stacks (together with the morale of armies advisor). This all only took 5 or 6 restarts. Thank you for the guide!

[@Bruh-ff2tw]

For third idea group I like influence. You do a LOT of vassal feeding as Byzantium, so influence will help out quite a bit. I also do a lot of culture converting since the gothic culture group is tiny. So the policy from Religious + influence combined with religious culture means even high dev provinces can be converted for ~10 diplo mana.

[@DeWellstein]

Tried this method, won the first war, but was stuck in -3 stability, a broken economy and a peasants war. gonna retry it with a mix between my own and your method. mine usually consisted of having allies to the ottomans east and west, forcing them to split their forces

[@Spoontamer4]

I was literally playing as Byzantium earlier today having problems with it and I found no 1.33 guides You're fucking amazing Red Hawk :D

[@gunarliepins]

Great content as always :) There's still that thing about the Baltic Crusader TO guide I've been waiting for though... (and yes, by this point I will continue to ask below every guide video just out of principle, I'm way too committed by now! ;) )

[@abrahama1268]

This is my second try, in the first, the one I'm about to dump, austria became dominant towards me, albania allied austria and was guaranteed by venice, venice declared war upon me, then the ottos did the same, then austria came too, I know that with some effort could still be a good campaing, but I'm resetting this shit now. Anyways a GOD guide btw, thank you very much Mr Hawk.

[@henkslaaf3738]

You can also attack Ragusa to drag the Ottoman in. Then the war is still on your terms and can peace Otto out or reset truce to 5 years.

[@Banne7722]

Tried my first time since forever with Byz. Worked perfectly on first try in Ironman (1.34). Could pay off all debts with the gold from the first war. Thanks!

[@MasonMitchell52]

Due to low content output in CK3 I’m hopping back into EU4 and your guides are amazing man!

[@jabloko992]

After having tried this guide over a dozen times, a few additional points: 1. Declare on Epirus on dec. 11th. Red Hawk says they don't get allies 99% of the time, that is 100% false, they get Albania and the Knights VERY often and you don't want to or need to wait to declare on them, since they can't hurt you, therefore, declare immediately to save yourself a fair few restarts 2. If the Ottomans get Crimea as an ally, restart, because they will have access around the black sea and will grind you down. Crimea itself will stop you from carpet sieging long enough for the Ottomans to get across

[@Sforza_1994]

Did you find a better guide?

[@jabloko992]

​@@Sforza_1994 No, this guide did work after all, it just took a bit of adjustment. One thing I did was to simply wait for the Ottomans to declare on an Anatolian minor, and then delete the mercs super quickly so I didn't end up wrecking my economy and was in pretty good shape after all was said and done. Currently I'm in 1700 with a giga-byzantine empire, fighting a unification war against Spain and I only need France, 1/3 of Italy and 2 provinces from Great Britain to reform Rome proper (and to integrate all my vassals).

[@Sforza_1994]

@@jabloko992 Chad

[@baddweather6362]

-You can trade favors for trust to albania after the Ottoman wars to keep them as allies for another war or two. -Rather than taking cheaper advisors (and then not getting advisors) you can take the monopolies and pay for all of the initial regiments and ships with that -The best case scenario when declaring on the Ottomans is when they have one stack on the European side- if you wait too long they will go to war in Anatolia and move both stacks over making it really hard to get a high warscore without going bankrupt.

[@aidan8698]

Nice touch adding Maurice in the thumbnail. Poor guy had 5 of his sons executed right in front of him before he himself was executed.

[@grimandflinwow]

Good Tip - If you want to keep alb or the knights as allies after not giving land, after the war you should have around 20 favours, you can spend 10 of them to increase trust, and that will prevent them from leaving as a ally.

[@AM-id3xz]

Nice, Probably my most successful game ever was Aragon, I vassalised Byzantium, beat the hell out of the ottomans and released Bulgaria, very successful game and I partly followed your Aragon guide

[@danielupton3734]

Thanks so much, beat Ottos first try with this guide, didn't go quite as well as your war but I'm bankruptcy free and got my cores back

[@DocsDota]

For the first war, have you considered letting anatolian armies march through and siege your greek provinces one by one then locking them so you can stackwipe them? Do it twice or thrice will empty their manpower pool for a fast 100%. Then you can even give knight's 100% provinces so they take anatolian provinces before you siege down their lands again.

[@SlayerJustro]

Bro I was literally searching everywhere for a good updated Byzantium guide, I watched your older one and got annoyed because somethings didn't work anymore. Thank you so much for posting and updated guide literally a day later!

[@derQuik]

If you have Epirus as Vasall u can give the estate Strong Duchies

[@Madbrad2000]

note: if you're struggling with getting allies and not being declared on too quickly (common on very hard diff), hire mercs on DAY 1. The Ottos declare war on you because you're one of their weakest targets. If you hire mercs, they will likely reconsider. If you wait too long, it's too late. In my exp, they often declare war on Albania instead, then shift all their troops into Anatolia. That's when you declare war - occupy Gallipoli, then delete all your mercs (unless Crimea is likely to bother you, then deal with them first). Also don't worry about taking too much territoy. Take the bulgarian core, lots of money, then truce break war afterwards

[@papifear]

Great guide! I just started playing eu4 a few days ago and I got super lucky on my 2nd war as the Ottomans had just finished fighting rebels and had only ~14k troops and 0 manpower so I got to win the war without fighting a single army :P I did mess up a little as both the Hungarians and Austrians wouldnt ally me for some reason so I allied Bohemia. Maybe it's because I got lucky but I still think this was 1000x easier than unifying Japan (which I couldn't do on Normal and had to change the difficulty to easy XD)

[@mansteinchan6763]

prepare you play Majapahit+shogun，its beutiful

[@Nhadaly]

I personally prefer the religious ideas as the byzantines. The conversions, boosted by your national ideas and your massive tolerance of the true faith will help keep rebels down. The holy war/cleansing of heresy cb is amazing too, it feels like you're playing a horde.

[@shalom_-fk7hn]

we need byzantium guides every patch

[@GyaruRespecter]

One of the most weirdly satisfying things in EU4 is getting a crapton of low 20-something ducats loans, then winning wars and paying them all in quick succession after getting loads of money from expanding.

[@AVUJonas]

Count Dooku: I've been looking forward to this..

[@dabkolay]

I literally was waiting for this xd

[@chiken3207]

From my experience in 1.33 there is a very good chance for the Ottomans to attack someone in Anatolia before they go for you, especially when you are allied with Albania and the knights. The rest is pretty much the same. Except you can disband your mercenaries after Gallipoli and you don’t need to draw your Allies in. The advantages of doing this are 1. You can get all your debt paid off even before end of the war. 2. You can take all the money for yourself. So after the war you will have decent economy and manpower reserve to fight the Serbs. You can still make the same peace deal with them like in the video.

[@pira707]

the knights keep allying epirus for me lmaoo

[@chiken3207]

@@pira707 You will have to declare on them in December, they might get an ally if you wait too long.

[@TimeLord-rt7ku]

I had this very thing happen to me, however the ottoman army never got smaller as a result of me not having any battles with them, made my second war with them impossible, for some stupid reason my 25k army can’t take on a 12k ottoman army

[@pira707]

@@chiken3207 yea ended up doing this and failed at forming the roman empire :( Im doing a spanish playthru and Im much more closer to forming rome

[@chiken3207]

@@TimeLord-rt7ku I was in the same situation when I fought the ottomans the second time. Make sure you have like 30 galleys blocking the strait(ottoman navy somehow gets stronger after the first war). If you are not comfortable fighting them again you can fight them when their army is fighting an Asia minor, but you should be able to call in Austria or Hungary to help you, if you allied them of course. I was successful 9 of 10 times with this strat.

[@jeroennienhuis3711]

Worked like a charm, thanks! :D

[@analogGigabyte]

Pretty crazy to watch these while living in Athens in real life and knowing all that complicated history

[@darthrevan618]

Oh hey nice i just had my first successful Byzantine campaign a few weeks ago as well :D

[@truegamer_007]

I swear to god red hawk, I just started a Byzantium game yesterday with your 1.31 guide 😂 and now you do this

[@TheMercyfulEmperor]

Honestly seizing Rila monasteries for yourself is a great tactic. +10% religious unity is so great given you're fighting heathens constantly

[@SupremeMetalOverlord]

Someone make a time machine and get this man to serve as the new Belisarius.

[@gfmendesfernando]

Love your content man! Can I make a suggestion on a topic for another video? For newbies like me, it would be really useful to know what game mechanics it is okay to abuse, in order to have a really good performance...such as loans, diplo relations, overextension, corruption, unrest, war exaustion...you know? Like...for me, I am really square in my gameplay, and always try to not be in debt, nor exceed diplo slots and so on... Anyway, keep up the good work dude

[@space318]

basically, loans: try not to take 4% unless necessary. if possible use burgher loans whenever you can. dip rel depends on your situation. ideally at or under capacity but sometimes its worth it to go over. oe, if you can handle it, it literally means nothing. if you dont want death stick below 100. corruption is terrible bc of all powers cost among other things. unrest doesnt really matter if you have a strong enough army and kill all your rebels (hand in hand with oe) war exhaustion can get nasty if out of hand but most of the time you really dont need to worry about it unless youre needing to core a ton of land and you have very high war exhaustion. ae is just a number. dont be afraid to use burgher loans for necessary expenses like building buildings to improve economy or build army if needed and etc.

[@Berra-san]

Great guide and super eazy to execute!

[@tfljmartis]

I personally don't take Burgas, as it's a Bulgarian core, instead I take Tolcu to release Bulgaria from, then take Burgas for myself in the second Ottoman war, which is use to take Bulgaria's cores back.

[@sityqwai]

In my game as Byz I was kinda guy of good luck - Ottomans declared war on Candar so all of their armies were on Anatolia and I even didn't have to fight them. Also they build a fort in Kesriye and it's actually good because it gives more warscore. And it was really cool thing that they allied Crimea - my allies just sieged it and I managed to get 90 warscore.

[@Vekhh]

Well im starting to watching but i wanted to say that I ineed suceeded to go up in a first (and another wars) as Byzantium but already on this 1.33 patch and using guides for 1.31 - you also did that guide. And yeah pretty quickly i noticed that they must've noticed all those guides which were basically on the same rules and changed Ottomans behaviour. The longest siege were in Macedon - Selenik or smth - my war goal but luckly my ottoman AI didnt build any of forts (or didnt suceeded). I didnt took as much land as I wanted but it gave me position to win another wars (but also unluckly - Inflation, corruption and ottoman's allies that made 2nd war with ottomans even harder). But as I said - I managed to pull it off even having out of data guides. It showes that usually the patch changes arent that great and MOSTLY if u stay around the main points of ur plan in guide and if u have a brain and do it all carefully, save often - then u can pull it off. PS: I watched all 1.31 guides but the one with I was the closest was BudgetMonk's guide because rest of the guides had estates privilages i didnt wanted or couldnt do and because i dont have almost no DLC. I was focused on navy dominance, at fast sieging Thessalonikae and blocking strait for Ottomans but that didnt succeeded bcs of the prolonged first siege.

[@seltin1988]

would you ever do a walkthroug/let's play of this nation? would love to see all of the old empire reunited :)

[@belisarius1453]

thank you, just what i been looking for

[@epictrollface51]

If you stand in edirne and keep your fleet in the Sea of Marmara you can usually bait their ally or their smaller stack into gallipoli and then wipe it using the ships. Just make sure to not keep your ships docked for too long or Athens/Epirus will put their ships there

[@khalidgagnon8753]

Thank you for this guide. Thanks to it and probably 50-or-so tries I have a new problem; How to keep my junior partner (Hungary) from breaking away. Decent upgrade in problems lol 😆

[@Cyberhhhh]

By "ALWAYS WIN" you must mean win less than a fifth of the time when RNG works in your favor, like having Epirus not ally someone or Ottomans declare on you before you're ready

[@uitre1598]

3:58 Yeah, it got allies 6 times in a row, true 99% of the time they won't be allied with anyone. Seems like a new version broke it.

[@Old_Harry7]

Useful tip: if you don't mind restarting you can also wait for the Ottomans to declare a war against dulkadir or karaman, they will move all of their regiments from the Balkans to Anatolia in the process, at that point you can declare the reconquest war, blockade the Constantinople strait, bombard the fort and rush it. Once you sieged the fort the Ottomans will not be able to cross and you can safely carpet siege the Balkans, lower army maintenance and wait for the war exhaustion to fill (by doing this you should end the war without a single loan) In the peace deal I raccomend you take all of the costal Balkan provinces, make Bulgarian rebels spawn, unsieged your lands from the rebel's control and once they cross into ottoman Bulgarian territory you can released Bulgaria as a vassal and the rebels will conquer the rest of the cores for you since the Ottomans will not be able to fight them (you must not give them military acces obviously). After that j suggest you to attack Serbia for the gold mine and expand into Europe while waiting for the truce with the Ottomans to expire. Since at first you are going to do a lot of conquering in orthodox provinces I suggest you take quantity ideas first and religious ideas after, so that when you will start to expand into Anatolia you'll have sufficient missionary strength to convert those muslim provinces in a short amount of time.

[@leonarduskarolusiuliustant7498]

I was able to win my first war against the Ottomans completely alone, with only Athens and Epirus (because I did the Epirus war before ) as my vassals. I didn't even have to sell titles at the start, I gave all of the three mana privileges immediately. Just the burgher loans were sufficient. I just needed to hire two mercenary companies for the war. Only negative side, because of the relative strength of the alliances I could get a little less territory (my cores minus Edirne + one Bulgarian core ) and a lot less money. But I didn't even come close to bankrupcy.

[@andrewbecker3656]

I find it so weird when I think huh I might try "said country" everytime I look on youtube for a guide its only maybe at most 2 days old! Great minds think alike I guess! good guide keep it up!

[@simonmalund]

Time to restore the roman empire

[@bojanssen6169]

Something that worked for me is I allied Hungary (by scornfully insulting Otto and setting attitude to threatened) when I started building my mercs. Because of my 27k and the 20k from Hungary, the Ottomans thought they couldn't beat me and started moving all their troops to Anatolia. After a barrage of Gallipoli they were stuck and I could get rid of all the mercenaries really soon. Could take pretty much the same peace deal with less loand and without having fought them once.

[@jonathan.171]

I got lucky in my recent Byzantium campaign because for some reason a huge amount of ottoman soldiers died in their war with Candar and Karaman, so I didn't have to hire as many mercenaries to beat them, and i never had to go bankrupt after the war because of that.

[@mansteinchan6763]

why dont claim and fight to Ragusa? Turkey wont give up the protect of them, that can decrease a lot of truce

[@davidhunters1717]

the thumbnails look so juicy recently

[@andreisabau7829]

Great guide pal!

[@zatboi8033]

epirus gets allies every fucking game, im so fucking tired of restarting

[@kappakeepo7875]

Declare the war a few months earlier and you're good

[@kazogai]

I never understood Byzantophiles until I made a Tengri Byzantium run with religious ideas and no secondary faith. When EU4 gives a nation, you make them "cursed nation" and have fun with them.

[@thuukies]

guau this guide avtually worked, even for me, im ultra content... father bless red hawk

[@boomwizardyt7228]

everytime i move my army to gelibou they just walk in and destroy my army

[@Crushnaut]

Epirus ALWAYS has an alliance. LOL killing me here.

[@Madbrad2000]

declare war on 11 december, don't wait.

[@salami6252]

Took me an hour of restarting until epirus didn't form any alliances

[@salami6252]

then i failed that run because Venice declared on me during my first ottoman war

[@Madbrad2000]

if you declare war on 11th december eprius won't be allied

[@nicholasboutilier9915]

23:04 or just hover over the loans tab

[@mfcrocker]

The Rhodes thing happened to me too (in 1.34), such a weird one!

[@Evan_30]

22:22, I've been seeing OPM Byzantium surviving in Rhodes a lot in this patch.

[@electron6423]

I really cant wait to end with the military duty and go play eu4😍

[@pewpewsamurai09]

Thanks for doing what I requested (yes I did request this)

[@Zerotexful]

Good guide . finnally made with 1.33 thanks @the red hawk

[@eqcr2177]

Hmmm... On the second war with Ottomans, DO NOT reconquest for Edirne if you are not returning a bunch of (Bulgaria's cores), just conquest so you don't pay extra Diplo. cost if all you can only get your one core back.

[@kylekeiper4514]

One small nitpick - I don't think you have to move your trader back to Constantinople to do the Hostile Trading edict; Ottomans have a trader in Aleppo, too, so if you set Hostile Trading in Aleppo, it still gives you +25% spy network construction against the Ottomans. Gives you *slightly* more trade power since you have two transfers to home node instead of just one.

[@kylekeiper4514]

Another one is don't take back your Bulgarian core - you'll lose that core when you release Bulgaria as a vassal. Instead, take it for yourself in the Bulgarian reconquest war for yourself.

[@kindadumb916]

Welp, time to play the Byzantines again. I swear beating the ottomans is like a drug

[@ungaoogabooga8388]

The way i play early war with ottomans is get enough allies were ottomans will attack someone in anatolia and then when they do i declare war and siege their europe possessions, then i bait their army into constanople were you can stack wipe then siege anatolia

[@matthewhannigan1916]

In my game I made the mistake of deleting my light and transport ships, meaning I didn't initially have enough cannon to bombard Luckily, the Ottomans had most of their troops in Anatolia so I was able to siege down the Balkan forts before assaulting Kocaeli and peacing out

[@HungTran-nk6bj]

In the first war peace deal you can force religion on epirus, it only has 9 warscores

[@gkfhjzhshsh998]

In my case i beat the ottomans so much in the first war that they got declared by everyone in anatolia and by poland because they had moldova and wallachia so i ended up surrounded by poland and venice and when i tried to expand in the weak anatolian guys venice declared and i rage quit XD

[@HazmanFTW]

Whoa, Budget Monk, you're sounding different today xD

[@jeffydude2008]

Nice guide thanks!