Everything hinges on the success of that first Ottoman war, which in turn depends on two conditions: This gives Byzantium a couple of years’ grace to build up its forces, possibly mop up some of the one-province statelets, and then hit the Ottomans during that narrow window of opportunity. As the game begins, the Ottoman Empire might be much larger than the Byzantine, but it has a distraction on its eastern border: the fearsome Tamerlane (whose Timurids are dark red in the first screenshot). The answer is, by following the One Right Way To Play Byzantium ( per EU3’s official forum). How did I, a player of mediocre skill, pull this off? And the Byzantine writ now even extends to southern Italy. Venice has been reduced to a Byzantine vassal state. The one-province minors are gone, absorbed into the Byzantine fold. This is my Byzantine empire about a century later, in the 1490s: In real life, the Ottomans would finally destroy the Byzantines in a little over fifty years’ time. What was once its empire is now held by various one-province statelets such as Achaea and the Knights of Rhodes the Venetians (teal)… and the Ottoman Empire (green). In 1399, Byzantium (purple) is a two-province rump, comprising Constantinople and the southern tip of Greece. EU3 opens in 1399, and as the following screenshot illustrates, by this point the Byzantines are a pitiful shadow of the glory that was Rome:
Then I tried my hand at playing the Byzantine Empire in Europa Universalis III (with the Heir to the Throne expansion). Couldn’t you still have fun playing that one right way? Now, while I intellectually knew what this meant, I didn’t quite grasp why it was a problem. In this situation, players don’t win because they were creative, or because they were skilful and flexible planners they won because they precisely followed the One Right Sequence Of Events. One of the supposed sins of strategy game design is making a game, or a level, that feels like a puzzle. Part 2: The Manchus, hordes, and the consequences of deficit spending. Part 1: The Byzantine Empire and puzzle-like gameplay. This is part 1 of an irregular series on Europa Universalis III. Note: Europa Universalis IV is now out! You can find my EU4 coverage here.
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