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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Therein lies the trouble....
If you have anything less than a 100% war score, you cannot carte blanche dictate the terms of peace to the enemy. If they have a province out of reach, then the "provisional government" can hole up there and thumb their collective noses at you. This, however, is not without risks on their part.
Any time you offer peace that is more generous by 10% or greater than your current war score, a refusal on their part will result in a hit of -1 Stability for them. Do that often enough, and eventually they will face rebellions. If their capitol should fall to the rebels, then every province of theirs that you currently control will automatically be ceded to you. This is known as "Turbo-Annexation" from EUI days, when it was not possible to win more than 3 provinces at a time from an enemy nation.
Best advice is to wait them out and find or make a way to that last province and conquer it as well (cozy up to whomever is blocking your access and gain military access with that nation).
They will be much more agreeable when you control them, lock, stock, and barrel.
Also, I second the advice made earlier here. Don't bother spending your 200d on 100 tech points. While that is a valid use of your money, the funds are better spent for other things. That's sort of a last resort expense, if you've bought absolutely everything and are just idling till you complete the tech trees (and once in a while, it is useful to give you +3 stab just before January 1, when taxes are collected, but you have to be understandably huge for this to pay dividends).
Best course is to focus on one tech at a time, to the exclusion of all the others. This is because of the neighbor bonus, and the fact that you don't get "partial credit" for partially researched techs.
Infrastructure 5, by the way, is the hands down most important tech in the game. Get it, and no matter who you're playing, your problems are OVER! 
Inf. 2 is pretty pivotal too, in the sense that, instead of spending your 200d to get you a 100d increase in tech, you could spend that money to build refineries, which give you a permanant boost to a province's tax base and +5d per month added to trade research, which will (eventually) be the largest component of your economy (this, in addition to giving you a +1% boost to trade efficiency, per refinery built).
Alternatively, if you're fed up with the war, then take the 3-4 provinces you can get, take all their money, and hit them again in five years...
-=Vel=-
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Thanks for the advices 
I was finally fed up, reloaded a savegame that was ten years earlier (where I was already at 99 % ^^) and just asked for 48 % worth of victory, which, being less than half of what I earned, they accepted immediately. Of course, I'm holding quite a bit of a grudge against them, so they can expect that I'm back on them in a few years :P
Didn't knew that if they only had to have their capital falling to the rebels. I
For the economy : I didn't knew you could gain whole new step suddendly. I thought concentrating on trade (to reach trade 3 and get the possibility to have monopoly), but it seems that infra is even more important ?
(though, are you sure that refineries are in infra 2 ? I'm already on infra 2, and the only manufactory I've noticed is arts school, or something like that).
I suppose I know what I'll do tonight, anyway ^^
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Ah well, not really a warmonger (I'm rather the "builder" type in Civilization, in fact ^^).
But hey, I have Byzantium, and I have to get back my core provinces and regain the ancient borders of the empire !
And taking a backwater nation without any decent fame, well, it doesn't really inspire me. I need to feel the flow of grand history, to get in character.
And, well, Byzantium is as small as you can get while still playing "grand" historical nations ^^
And I'm not afraid about burning out the game too fast due to lack of challenge. I've never been really interested in challenge, much more in consistency and immersion ^^
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Just double-checked myself. Inf 3 is the pre-req for refineries...sorry 'bout that!
So yes, I'd recommend building a Fine Arts academy ASAP in your capitol, and if possible (you should be able to) put all efforts into Infrastructure until you gain at least Inf 3. If you have already smashed the Ottos, you'll prolly have no serious warring to face (unless you severely tick off all of Europe) until you can hold out for Inf 5 and mayoral promotions. At that time, you can mint some coin without inflation (which is the biggest killer in the game), and see a tidy monthly income, in addition to your annual taxation.
After that, you will prolly need a period of focus on military (land) tech until you get to Land 11 (muskets...graphic change for your units) and then, ply all efforts into Trade.
Trade is ultimately the most important element from an income perspective, but you will find yourself wasting a lot of resources getting serious about setting up a trade empire before you have at least a 50% trade efficiency, so I'd not mess with it too much till then (unless you find a totally empty CoT and can build up a strong presence there early, with no competition).
In the early and mid game though, nothing will aid you more than Inf. 5, and anything you can do to a) lower your tech costs and b) gain more infrastruture research (go to war and leave your slider settings to full infrastruture, then when you pillage, all the pillage money is put into Infrastructure research too!) will do wonders for your economy.
-=Vel=-
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Ok, so full speed toward infra, then.
It'll be long, though. I went a bit conquest-happy, withough having yet the grasp of the subtle checks and balances of the game, and I find myself with quite a lot of territories (all Turkey but Candar, all the coast from Aleppo to Cyrenaic except for Egypt, most of the Balkans and all Nubia), with a big part of them not being of my culture neither my religion. Thus, I'm afraid I've seriously slowed down my tech research, by augmenting the cost due to the size, but having an income rising slower due to the twice 30 % penalty in taxes :-/
Oh, a side note : I am allowed to colonize Sinai, Cataract, and a province of Nubia and one just aside Cyrenaic whose name escape me at the moment, and still their population is well above 2000 people. Is this normal ?
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Very well put! And yes...in the early game, before you build up your Land Military Tech level, you will observe that combat tends to be a good bit more random than it is once your tech level climbs (and especially after hitting Land 11). Once you reach that stage, you will rarely see bizzare and unexpected results (sometimes they do happen, just like in real life, but the frequency will certainly decrease).
Nonetheless, bear in mind that if you stack enough odds against you (attacking into a mountain or marsh province, across a river, facing military commander of note, etc, then even a modest force can and will chew your larger army to pieces, so be aware of this, and use it (terrain) to your advantage whenever possible.
Also bear in mind that when fighting in rough terrain, having more cavalry than infantry actually penalizes you in combat, so keep an eye on your army composition and always be sure to use the "right" composition for the job.
I have written some general strategy tips earlier (one of them just recently got bumped) that you may also find helpful, and I will have to crack open the game and do a strategic analysis of Byzantium (akin to the one I did for Venice before I got sick)...that could be fun! 
-=Vel=-
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Yes...if you have gone conquest happy and have a lot of off culture, off religion provinces in-hand, you may want to consider releasing some of these as vassals. You see a -33% tax malus for off culture, and another -33% for off-religion (total hit of -66%), whereas if they are your vassals, you gain 50% of their incomes, so you actually come out better AND you wind up lowering your tech and stability costs. Recommend forming an alliance with your vassals as a core, and that should keep you in good steading (spending money to keep your relations up with them).
Colonization: Any province that is less than 5k population, you can send colonists to, so what you are seeing is well within the realm of possibility. IIRC (and don't quote me on this), any province that is outside of Europe proper and under 5k population will gain your culture when all nationalism fades (not sure if this applies to the ME, but it seems to apply to captured colonial cities in NA).
Sounds like you're learning fast! 
-=Vel=-
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adi321
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for the record Stability doesn't affect troops morale.
and if you need lots of strategy tips and help about the game come to the official forums.
we are a really friendly bunch on the euii forum.
Another thing.
EUII gives you lots of info if you have patience.
Almost any value ingame can be broken down to many factors if you are patient and hover you mouse pointer over the value in question
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Ah, so THIS is the use of releasing Vassal ^^
I'm afraid I'm far too nationalistic to let any province going out of my grasp, though ^^
But I admit, I'm wondering if I won't be obliged to do so if I want to catch up. I'm insanely backward by now (all tech but infra at 2, infra at 3, while most enemies are on 5 or 6, year 1550).
I've had a great monarch, doubled with a good nifty minister and his +3 to every abilities, and have been able to strike a good deal in heresy and convert most of my empire to the One Good Religion That Reduce Revolt 
But I feel like I'm overextended into quite poor regions (particularly the African ones).
Adi321 : I've already sneaked into the official forums, though only posted only one thread yet ^^
It's true that the game is quite addicting once you understand the interface and the concepts. Extremely well-thought out, and include countly ideas and mechanisms I'm dieing to see intergrated in Civilization and Total War. Very much more realistic than everything I've seen yet in the genre.
Only grips : the interface and the graphics are really to be improved, and the amount of unfavourable events is just plain maddening. Dealing with constant revolts is perhaps quite realistic, but it's getting on my nerves to the point I'm often reloading when it happens *shame*
(yes, I know, there is good reasons for these revolts happening, like lack of stability, difference in religion and culture, but well, it's still too much for a difficulty "easy" ^^)
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Yes...you are in a relatively poor region, tis true, and while it is entirely possible to keep all those provinces under your control and (eventually) gain a decent tech level, it will be unduly hard on you, I suspect.
Even if you don't want to give away toooo much land to vassals, I'd recommend doing it at least on a limited basis (and you will see some improvement in your overall situation), and then focus on Infrastructure to boost your income.
Important slider positions for you would be:
Centralization! (need the production effie and 2% research price break per step. Full centralization is a must have!)
Plutocracy (+1 Inf and +1 Trade Effie per slider move....good long term growth potential)
Innovation/NarrowMinded slider is a two edged sword for you, so tread carefully!
On the one hand, it's mighty tempting to gain that nice cut in tech price by going innovative....a real godsend, HOWEVER....given your high numbers of off-culture and off-religion provinces, going Innovative will absolutely CRUSH your stability (making it prohibitively expensive to maintain) if it's not there already. And you will lose missionaries, and the ability to convert provinces to your religion. OUCH!
On the other hand, going Narrow Minded will decrease stab costs, at the expense of tech cost. Centerline is the SAFEST choice, or slightly narrow minded for missionaries, and if/when you can convert some provs to same religion, then drift toward innovation.
If you're behind in land tech, then you NEED quality! (might want to stay in serfdom to help control stab, and the morale hit isn't that bad, esp. if you go quality to offset).
-=Vel=-
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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I have to make quite a lot of work with the sliders ^^
Byzantium is quite conservative right from the start, and I took several events that forced me to go even further in this direction.
Not so long ago, I was at only one step before the max of narrowmindedness, decentralization and aristocracy... You can imagine how fast I'm discovering things ^^
I've been heading on centralization, and eased narrowmindedness, but I'm still not on the center. My stability is horribly expensive, and I can't really allow to take hits on it. Especially considering the widespread off-culture of my empire, and a lot of off-religion (though this is now a marginal problem, due to missionnaries ^^).
I was heading for Free citizens and Quality right from the start, so no problem here (hey, Roman legionnaries were known for being very high quality troops, and the population was mainly free citizen ^^).
I hope that trade monopolies and infra really give a good deal of bucks, I'll need all this as soon as possible if I don't want to become the backwater hole of the world ^^
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Free Citizens are quite good, but bear in mind that this too, will increase your stability costs (it also comes with higher troop morale and greater production effie tho, so in this case, you may be able to offset the stab hit in other ways). If you have already converted some of those off-religion provinces, then you can get away with lessening narrow-mindedness, although each step you take in this direction (toward innovation) will increase your stability costs. Definitely keep enough of a narrow minded focus to keep getting Missionaries...very expensive, but when you finally succeed in conversions, you will see immediate economic benefits.
Ways to boost your economy are primarily these:
* Build toward Infra 5 and promote Bailiffs, Justicars, and Mayors in all provinces (and when you get to Inf 5 and have eliminated all current inflation, begin minting some coin).
* Build Manufactories whenever possible! The two biggest and most important ones in your case will be fine arts centers and refineries. Just as each refinery adds +5d per month to trade research, each fine arts center adds +5d per month toward stability, provided that you are not already at max stability. Not to mention the fact that all manufactory types add a permanant bonus to the tax base of the province they are built in.
* Conversions to state religion. Again, very expensive, but a successful conversion removes the 33% tax malus for off-religion, which directly impacts the bottom line
* Once Trade Effie tops 50%, gaining a strong mercantile presence in every CoT you can see will take you far (and at this point, start trading maps like crazy to uncover those far eastern CoT's which are HUGE!).
Best recommendation regarding building a trade empire: Do not focus on monopolies right away. Build up a strong (3-4 merchant) trade presence in all CoT's that are visible first. This provides durable, long term income. Once you have accomplished this, revisit the largest of these and make monopolistic plays in them. After that, it's all a matter of maintenance. 
-=Vel=-
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Well, I'm trying ^^
I'm already with Bailiff in all my provinces. I've to wait to get to infra 4 and 5 for the rest, it seems.
I've built one art manuf and three refineries. But I've stopped due to a dilemma : if I was directing my money full-scale to treasury in order to be able to pay for the manuf, my research was stagnant. If I was directing my money on research, I didn't get the funds to build the manuf. And if I was saving slowly to buy factories in the long term, the inflation was killing any progress I could make...
The problem is that I had to bankrupt right from the start to be able to beat the Otto, and so I've practically begun the game with something like 40 % infla. It's rather stable now, but it's at 67 %, so...
I'm a bit desperate to see England and France hovering at level 12 in land tech, while I'm still at lvl 2 (I managed to made peace with England during my last war against Venice, before they could send units on my land. I see know that I was luckier than I thought with the peace !).
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999 time: 05:19
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Yep, Inflation is a KILLER! Avoid bankruptcies at all costs! The main reason that inflation will kill you is that it impacts ALL your costs (stability, troop costs, tech costs, manufactory costs, the works!)
The only two ways to bring inflation down are "Deflation Events" and Mayoral promotions at Inf 5.
When you have mayors in all provinces you control, you will see a 0.025% annual decrease in inflation (which unfortunately, in your case, means that the game will be over before you can bring inflation fully under control).
I always try to rack up no more than 5% inflation before gaining Inf. 5 and mayors (even this small amount will take my mayors 25 years to undo, so if possible, I avoid ALL inflation, but sometimes you have no choice).
Bankruptcies will increase inflation by +20% (as you are no doubt, now aware! ), and some event choices will increase your inflation. Unless the benefits are HUGE, I always opt for the non-inflationary options. The rest simply are not worth it, IMO.
Given all of this, you might find it easier to begin a new Byzantium game with these ideas in mind, and see how you fare now that you've gained a deeper understanding of stuff.
-=Vel=-
PS: With small nations, loans are like cocaine! Very addicting, but also quite dangerous (because your income level makes these loans difficult to repay). There are some nations with whom I make regular use of loans (England, France, Aragon) because their economies makes repayment without inflation quite easy, but the smaller you are, the more likely you are to have to endure inflation to repay the loan.
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ravagon
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Australia
Sep 1999 time: 13:19
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quote: Originally posted by Velociryx
Given all of this, you might find it easier to begin a new Byzantium game with these ideas in mind, and see how you fare now that you've gained a deeper understanding of stuff.
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I heartily agree with this - It sounds pretty much like my first attempt at Byzantium.
With your inflation so high your tech costs will skyrocket proportionally. They're already higher than the Catholic countries because of your tech group (Orthodox) and this doesn't change with the [event that gives you Italian culture and changes your religion to catholic - don't remember what its called atm] AFAIK.
[Even with governers it'll take a long while to bring that down to a manageable level. You could try and save as much money as you can - a large treasury is supposed to increase the chance of an 'exceptional year' event triggering ...]
Not to mention the narrowmindedness which will hurt you further.
It sounds as though you have far too many conquered Turkish/Muslim provinces too - more damage to your tech costs (as well as your stability) due to off-cultures which you can't fix with missionaries.
You could possibly try releasing some as vassals if it would divest you of some of the more undesirable provinces?
Concentrating more on the Balkans would have served you better I think - before Austria inherits Hungary in particular.
You probably won't have too many problems for the next century or so as you can counteract an opponents superior tech with high morale and good force deployments to an extent, but once you're into the 17th-18th Century with Catholic nations ( Venice/Austria in particular) around Land 30-40+ while you're still below 10 you'll get very seriously hammered.
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Akka
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In front of my computer.
Nov 2001 time: 06:19
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Yes, the events kept some really nasty surprises (but at least, it WAS surprising, there's the pleasure of discovering ^^).
Never had the Italian culture event, but got the "becomes catholic". Refused it, of course (how Byzanitum could do that ? Never !), which of course didn't helped the narrowmindedness.
And a shock when seeing suddendly the huge white blob when Austria merged with Hungary. Especially as both of them has fared quite well. They know own most of central Europe (and Poland seems to have absorbed Lithuania as well, which give a huge country as well).
I've finally reached 5 infra, and it's been quite some time I haven't been at war. Most of other are lvl 15-16 in tech, but I'm starting to get a good economy, and the inflation is more or less under control, so I think I will be able to hang not too far away. I'll probably have to use extensive diplomacy to absorb some wealthy provinces, or to reduce the power of the biggest badasses around.
I'm firmly allied with France, anyway, so it makes a good big buddy in Western Europe. I could even use the wars it started again rebellious province to get Naple, and had a huge stroke of luck with a "converting heretics" event that fall on it only few years after that ^^
Funny how the price of some tech level is three times higher than the very next one, though.
But it's annoying how you can't spare money to build factories without the infla kicking in. If I start to put about half my income in treasury, I'm sure to get a 0,1 % infla each month. Damn.
Though, it's now reduced to 57 %, through mayors and two "exceptionnal years".
I'll have to see what it will become ^^
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Micha

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Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany
Oct 2002 time: 06:19
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Just as an exaple, this is the event that fires when Constantinople is annexed by Ottomans, making it their capital and changing all province cultures/religions to turkish/sunni. It is to be found under /DB/Events/major_tur.txt and reads:
code: #The City of Men's Desire# #Capital moved#
event = {
id = 3353
trigger = {
owned = {
province = 357
data = -1
}
NOT = {
exists = BYZ
}
}
random = no
country = TUR
name = "EVENTNAME3353"
desc = "EVENTHIST3353"
style = 1
date = { day = 1 month = january year = 1419 }
offset = 30
deathdate = { day = 1 month = january year = 1491 }
action_a ={ #Constantinople is new capital#
name = "ACTIONNAME3353A"
command = { type = capital which = 357 }
command = { type = domestic which = CENTRALIZATION value = 1 }
command = { type = provinceculture which = 357 value = turkish }
command = { type = provinceculture which = 477 value = turkish }
command = { type = provinceculture which = 478 value = turkish }
command = { type = provincereligion which = 477 value = sunni }
command = { type = provincereligion which = 478 value = sunni }
command = { type = provincereligion which = 357 value = sunni }
command = { type = stability value = 2 }
}
action_b ={ #Let us keep the Old one instead#
name = "ACTIONNAME3353B"
command = { type = provinceculture which = 358 value = turkish }
command = { type = provinceculture which = 477 value = turkish }
command = { type = provinceculture which = 478 value = turkish }
command = { type = provincereligion which = 477 value = sunni }
command = { type = provincereligion which = 478 value = sunni }
command = { type = domestic which = CENTRALIZATION value = -3 }
command = { type = stability value = -1 }
}
}
In order to make a similar event for Byzantium (without capital move), you need to change the following:
code: id = 3352
This is the event-ID. Change it to any number > 10,000 to be safe. lets say "id = 10001"
code: trigger = { owned = { province = 357 data = -1}}
This is the trigger of your event. In this case, itīs triggered when the country that this event belongs to ("-1" means owner, could also be the specific tag like "TUR" for ottomans or "BYZ" for byzantium) has got ownership (not just control) over the province #357 (= Constantinople).
In order to find out what province has which ID, open the excelsheet "/DB/province.csv". There you can also adjust city and province names (not the ones printed on the map, but those displayed in menues).
The second part of the trigger only says that Byzantium mustnīt exist for this event to fire, but you donīt need that for your own event.
code: country = TUR
This one is important. Change it to "country = BYZ" if you want the event to fire for Byzantium. If you ever wondered about which country has which tag, just look at the eventfiles in /DB/Events; there youīll find a file for (almost?) each country.
code: name = "EVENTNAME3353" desc = "EVENTHIST3353"
These two are links to /Config/text.csv to make it easier to translate texts into other languages. For your purpose, itīs much better to simply insert the text you want into the quotation marks.
name = "Byzantine colonization of Arabia"
desc = "When the first Byzantine armies reached the Arabian cities, they were greeted by force of arms. But now .... [etc]"
You see that "name" determines the event name that will be displayed in the log, while "desc" is the description only displayed to the player that has this event.
code: date = { day = 1 month = january year = 1419 }
offset = 30
deathdate = { day = 1 month = january year = 1491 }
Well, I think this is self-explanatory. Offset says how many days the interval has, in which the trigger conditions are checked. Bigger offsets make the game faster (well, this only applies for quite old systems or tenthousands of events) and you need to fulfil the conditions longer in order to fire the event, while "offset = 1" will make the event fire as you first fulfil the trigger conditions.
The rest of the event should explain itself. Change the names of the different options you should be able to chose from in the game (action_a = {..}, action_b = {..}) by altering the "name = ..." and play with the different effect. You will find descriptions on what the effects can be in /DB/eventmanual.txt
Hope this helps, have fun
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Micha

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Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany
Oct 2002 time: 06:19
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Allright. (Though I rather meant the actual number which you see when you hover the mouse over "respectable" and wait a few seconds )
Good diplo events, IMO, donīt change your badboy count... However, I have tried a game on hard/furious as Byzantium and got pretty lucky in the start by getting drawn into a war versus Genoa. I ended up having both Crimean provinces (Kaffa and Kerch) by 1421, which gave me a good start.
However, the Ottomans kept DOWing me every five years, while Golden Horde, Athens, Ragusa, Albania and Georgia seemed to do "shifts" in being at war with me.
When my war exhaustion reached a sizeable 14% I had to give up all my conquered provinces... 
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