Truly a good guide, extra hot tip for people tho you can ally the knights and get their navy on side which is a massive plus alongside 2-4K more men, best part is you don’t even have to give them any land in the peace deal
I really like this kind of video, you should really make more! The number of content creators doing detailed openers for 1.30 is relatively low and I really like the style you went for with this video.
Yup, best Byzantium walkthrough by far. Been playing since 2014 and have just finally beat the Ottomans, and it wasn't for the lack of trying. Thank you Fisherman! Now to get the Byzantium to Rome achievement...
This video really slows things down, breaks down each step, and provides lots of helpful info. Even if I try this and it doesn’t work for me, I’m glad to see an EU4 video that doesn’t run at a hundred mph and confuse the heck out of me. Thank you!
The only guide I have followed for byzantium. I had to try a couple of times but it worked in the end. Your guide was easy to follow. Now I will keep on fighting the Ottomans in the coming wars ahead. Thanks alot!
Ive tried many, many guides to beating back the ottomans...So many of them are heavily RNG based. This worked first time, tried again a few more times, worked every time. BEST guide out there, love the details and the extra bits you threw in. Thanks for the guide, and you have a new subscriber. =)
I love the second war because you just lure them across the straight, one stack by one and wipe them on Constantinople. They then get into a debt spiral, GG.
Praise your video!!! Never was I able to do it. Now on the 5th try, I made it! Now, every single time Oto dogpiled on Konstantinopol, which is different than in your guide, but it was just a minor nuisance. Now I need to figure out how to survive as a Purple Hatchling. Going to watch your 1.29 vids and will subscribe.
Really cool that the video helped you! Don't forget to make multiple saves, haha. Yeah what you describe is actually what happens most of the time, unfortunately one of the few times the Ottomans decided to do something different was when I recorded my footage, but nice that you could adapt to the problem =).
really thank you byzantium bro XD ! i have try ,and try,BUT YEAH THE OTTOMAN ARE VAINQUISH !-just i don't have understand for kocaeli i precise for numbers of people won't have understand : when you launch your fleet the 19th june,lock you game speed to 1/2 MAX! when you arrive at Constantinople the 1st ,wait the 4th and the 4 launch your troop to kocaeli and your fleet block the bosphore!-number of people-and me^^- don't have understand how capture kocaeli with 2troops^^ !i suggest to attack epire during your war when you hae blocked the ottoman,never people attack you during the 1st/2nd war against the ottoman,but just after DESTROY all minor nation around : venise or anatolian or poland attempt to attack when you have bulgary and when you try to anex them,blob before and never people attacking X) ! gg for your guide men !thank you !
Holy βασιλεύς, the production quality of the first 60 seconds alone got me to like and subscribe to your channel. You make great videos sire, keep it up. O Starvros Nika!
That's a pretty solid strategy, I tested it and it worked on the first attempt. I would add just a note. If Epirus doesn't get any ally on 11th November, it's worth attacking it first since it is very likely that they would get an alliance with Genova or Venice which, in the first 20 years, are really hard to destroy due to their superior navies. I toke my core and vassalized the rest to use their navy but they didn't help in the war with the Ottos because they were still disloyal. I integrated Epirus as soon as possible along with Athens and I got their navy (about 8 ships) which was helpful to build my own. Thanks, for the video, keep up the good work.
Amazing video, well detailed step by step. However it still sounds so complicated to me lol I'm sure whether I'm lazy or dumb haha The perfect timing part is the hardest in my opinion. But I'll manage one day. As I'll also one day manage to play Wallachia ;__;
Thank you for the compliment! Don't worry, it also took me a lot of tries before I understood what was going on, haha. I also write a lot of stuff down if I find out something interesting or hear tips and tricks from other content creators, could help you as well. I don't know if I explained it or showed it well in the video, but if you move your boats, you can hold your mouse over a little green arrow that appears, and it will tell you when the ship will arrive at the destination. That way you won't have to guess the timing, otherwise, the ship travel time from Morea to Constantinople ranges between 13-10 days, depending on the movement speed of the admiral. I hope this helps, good luck!
@@thefisherman6642 Thanks!!! I'll try it after my buggy Austria game 😂 ((Great Britain has all its army, like 50k, in same province doing nothing and suffering from attrition, getting dominated by 5k army rebels lol))
I've tried this 3 times now: the timing thing worked perfectly on the first try but the Ottomans had TWO allies and they destroyed me. The other two times my troops land on the 1st and as soon as the gold noise plays that indicates a new month, the fort is magically garrisoned...
@@Cadam_ You land your troops the first on Constantinople to have the ready for departure, or do your troops land the first of the new month on Kocaeli? You want them to land on Kocaeli before the new month starts, otherwise the fort will indeed have a minor garrison established and it will turn into a regular siege.
Bonjour de la france !! Merci a toi pour ce tuto !! j'en ai suivie 2 auparavant et a chaque fois je me suis fais défaire par les otttomans !! Là premier essaie première victoire !
After 4 attempts, I was able to finally beat the Ottomans! Not as well as I would have liked, but it was still a win. Managed to get some of the coast, wasn't able to get Thrace, but I did get Galippoli out of the deal though. The AI did some weird stuff, like split 2/3rds of it's army to go after my 2k in Anatolia while I was sieging Macedonia compleatly shutting down my attempt to invade other there during the war. Guide works like a charm, just beware of some AI RNG.
Yeah, unfortunately the guide can never be 100% foolproof because of RNG elements in the game, but nevertheless, nice to hear the video helped you out! :)
Since I've been getting a lot of questions about this, I thought I would make a sticky note: It was a bit unfortunate that the exact footage I recorded was of a game where the Ottomans deviated from the normal path, but 9/10 times the Ottomans will just put both their armies on Constantinople, as opposed to splitting them up. I also explained this in the video, but it probably got lost in translation a bit. Either way, if the Ottomans put their main armies on Constantinople, you can still engage and defeat there with your main army because of the 20 combat width, and lack of morale they should have due to being not fully recharged yet. Also, it is likely that Albania and Athens just decide to behave incompetent and not support you, this also happened to me and I just put Athens on siege mode, until they decided to actually do something useful. I hope this helped you out, and thank you for the overwhelming support! =)
It is true that 30k ottoman army can be defeated, but they just come back from the Anatolian side when I try to siege Gallipoli. I tried that a lot of times and they decided to attack me in every start. What should be done in this case?
Easily the hardest part now is the aftermath. Which is always halarious to watch: Day 1: Purple Phoenix!! Flawless 100% Day 2: Venice declares war, genoa joins, both vassals have alliances, bankrupt, and I realize while I was blockading the ottomans built more 8 heavy ships than I can build this decade
It kind of depends what you want, I give some more elaborate suggestions and considerations in the "Best Basileus" video I made in 1.29, you could find some inspiration there. Either way, you will need religious or humanist at some point to help with all the Muslim lands you are going to acquire. I prefer Religious for Byzantium runs. Rushing 2 ideas of Admin could be worth it for the core-cost reduction. Or, innovative is also pretty neat for every game you play, over the course of the game the bonuses are just really good. And you will want some military ideas as well, Offensive and Quality also stack well with Innovative for the policy. Reading up on some of the idea groups in the wiki if you want to make a more informed decision definitely helps. I hope this helps you out a bit, and good luck with the run! =)
I managed to get 96% warscore and take all cores and 400 ducats and 10% reparations - PERFECTION. Except for the part that his entire army attacked Constantinopole, but I managed to destroy em and win then stackwiping later.
@@thefisherman6642 I just have Q - what should I focus on next? Anatolia or Balkans? Balkans are more developed then Anatolia I guess, but I'll have to stop Mamluks from taking land.
From my experience, when you defeat the Ottomans, the Mamluks will sort of become the new Ottomans. You will want to fight the Ottomans again as soon as you are recovered enough (or confident enough in your own abilities to perhaps stretch your economy and manpower a bit more), but in between fighting the Ottomans I would try to expand into the Balkans (kosovo goldmine and Serbia as a march are nice to have), or maybe the Crimea area, and see if you can find allies to fight Venice, who is also a pain in the butt. You could check out my Byzantine Basileus video, although it is made in 1.29, the general idea of the Post-Opening Byzantium has remained the same, so maybe you can find some inspiration there!
I was extremely frustrated to why my 2 man marines won't cross the strait before they arrive at Constantinople, turns out I didn't have a maneuver general. Make sure you put a high maneuver general, which sometimes can cause a bit more havoc by running around in Anatolia.
@@thefisherman6642 I had huge problems with timing the ship landing right though, because for some reason it did not properly show, when the ship would arrive!. Other then that, I'd go Admin, quality/offensive, and then Diplo/Religious. If you want to comfortably conquer.
No, it was a bit unfortunate that the exact footage I recorded was of a game where the Ottomans deviated from the normal path, but what you describe is what actually happens most of the time, as I also mentioned in the video. If the Ottomans put their main armies on Constantinople, you can still engage them there with your main army because of the 20 combat width, and lack of morale they should have due to being not fully recharged yet. So in short: they mostly don't split, make sure you're army can fill 20 combat width (i.e. have at least 20K troops) and fight them in Constantinople. I hope this helped you out!
omg it fukn worked!! thank u!! i had to retry like 4 times but that was on me im like really slow and i dont have all hte dlc, buuuuut thank you so muuhc
Yeah, that often gives me headaches as well. It appears that basically with every update/patch PDX introduces - even minor ones - there is a chance it changes AI behaviour and patterns.
Currently working on something else, but I've always wanted to play a sea-roaming, island-hopping bunch of Knights, so I'll definitely check it out. Thank you for the suggestion! ;)
@@thefisherman6642 Yeah please do considering Jerusalem is considered to be one of the hardest nations to form. BTW you have a new subscriber! I am sorry I did not find your chanel sooner
If you want just go bankrupt otherwise restructure debt I wouldn't recommend bankruptcy as then Venice or Genoa might attack you and allies will ditch you. Strongly recommend just restructuring debt and using ottoman money to pay it off
You'll be fine ;). After the war your economy is big enough to handle it, otherwise, sit back, relax, slow down, and invest some monarch points to buff up production and taxation. It's also a good experience to learn to deal with large amounts of loans and restabilising your economy =).
In all my games, ottomans always keep 1 galley/barque in the sea of Marmara, making the strategy with taking Kocaeli unviable. Sadness. might be due to a recent patch perhaps?
@@thefisherman6642 After a few retries, I managed to finally succeed it the hard way, allied wallachia and albania (serbia was rivalling wallachia and I specifically wanted wallachia because they get an amazing mission where if I give them edirne ownership in war, they kill the sultan, also albania for the general). Got a couple other allies, including trezibond to act as a distraction, cyprus for the extra boats, vassalized epirus very early and took my core to get myself even more boats on my side, etc. I let them delcare on me. The early war was nasty, with me mostly waiting out and trying to push the ottos out of the balkans, I took their 2 forts in europe bar their capital, and managed to maneuver and prevent them from occupying my allies or my own provinces. After they took constantinople though, they went full retard and went all the way to trezibond, and I was able to recapture it while they were gone. After that I deleted all my mercs and managed to take about 60% warscore in provinces, but also get money to pay off part of my insane debt, after the war I essentially locked out the ottomans from the balkans, replaced their insane starting sultan with a crappy 2/1/0 and ended up only 330ish ducats in debt. Subsequent wars were a breeze and I was deliberately taking fewer provinces back in the balkans to milk more money out of them instead.
I had that problem as well, then as soon as I kill it a trade fleet comes through and ties me up long enough that my army can't make it. What finally worked is shown in the video but not mentioned, leave your fleet in the Constantinople harbour until the trade fleets pass through, then send it out into the sea of Marmara. They aren't trying to fight you intentionally but just going along their route. The main fleet in the Gelibolu harbour won't come out to challenge yours. At least not with Albania as an ally and Epirus as a vassal even though they're disloyal.
well i overrun ottomans at bosporus narrows 30k vs 21k with greatest generals(emperor and merc leader, no albania) prince with 2k cut off bosporus narrows territory on anatolia in nice timing retreating forces has been trapped at gallipoli emperor overrun them all ottoman military movement wasn't precise, but at least it was useful to me. thx.
Yeah that's just part of the AI RNG process, and it was a bit unfortunate that the exact footage I recorded was of a game where the Ottomans deviated from the normal path, but what you describe is what happens most of the time.
It was a bit unfortunate that the exact footage I recorded was of a game where the Ottomans deviated from the normal path, but 9/10 times the Ottomans will just put both their armies on Constantinople, as opposed to splitting them up. I also explained this in the video, but it probably got lost in translation a bit. Either way, if the Ottomans put their main armies on Constantinople, you can still engage and defeat there with your main army because of the 20 combat width, and lack of morale they should have due to being not fully recharged yet. I hope this helped you! =)
When I try this they always send the full 30k stack to siege Constantinople what do I do?? Yes, needless to say, engaging the stack is a 100% loss even mustering the garrison and with a military advisor ... and even if I luck out and win they just reinforce and come back, wtf do I do? I just restarded until I got the split AI behaviour, worked perfectly from there although I almost went bankrupt, thanks.
It was a bit unfortunate that the exact footage I recorded was of a game where the Ottomans deviated from the normal path, but what you describe is what happens most of the time. If the Ottomans put their main armies on Constantinople, you can still engage them there with your main army because of the 20 combat width, and lack of morale they should have due to being not fully recharged yet. Of course, bad luck on the dice rolls can still screw you over, but the 30K shouldn't be too much of an issue as I also had to deal with it during my preparation runs most of the times. I hope this helped you out! =)
Bad start with the estates. Immediately get +1 from all of them to get to 0 crownland. An event will fire to give you back to 30% crownland for a privelege to nobility, take it then immediately summon diet and revoke the priveledge. You could theoretically take money this way too. This way you lose 20 loyalty with nobility (they're above cap anyway) and get 3 points a month for no long term malus.
You have to wait 20 years before you can revoke the privilege, and the loyalty of the nobility must be higher than their influence. So it's not a valid strategy IMO
@@justaskr.7750 As I said, you do have to wait 20 years since there is no option to revoke it immediately. It even says it in the tool tip for that privilege in-game.
Thank you for the compliment! As far as I can tell, the changes that came with 1.30.3 were hotfixes and therefore relatively minor changes, and they did not seem to have influenced the Ottomans. If you have also seen my "two purple phoenixes" video for Byzantium in 1.28/1.29, the strategy hasn't really changed that much over time, I just had to tweak the details and account for the reworked mercenary and estate mechanics. Therefore, even if 1.30.3 would have more influence than I am currently aware of, the template is still the same and you can give your own flavour to it. Of course it would take some more time and thinking from your part, but that could also be a fun learning experience I think =). Then again, if you do encounter significant changes, please let me know, because then I can start thinking about them, haha. I hope this helped you out! :)
@@thefisherman6642 I know, man. I still can't find a way to consistently win. The last patch increased Ottoman's troops and the merc strategy doesn't seem to work anymore..
@@giokun100 For some reason patches always do that, I still don't understand how patches dealing with completely other parts of the world, change the Ottoman AI, haha. On Very Hard, what could work, is trying to vassalize Episure and the Knights of Rhodes first, for extra soldiers, and especially extra navy to gain more help in controlling Marmara.
Tried this the other day and worked first time.....even with having to hire 2 more merc companies than planned to compensate for Skanderbeg because of stupidly forgetting to ally Albania before declaring on the Ottomans.....still struggled afterwards with the extra loans plus the RNG being shitty and giving me loads of Bruh moments via events until about 1500......10/10 Side note wondering if anyone knows if the Byzantines got hard coded to be more likely to get bad events in this patch or just a bad RNG run?
Sounds like you made good improvisations! As for the events, yeah could be a logical fallacy, but from personal experience it seems related to stability, the more negative your stability is, the more negative events you get, the more positive your stability, the more positive events you get. Ruler traits are probably also involved, and estates mechanics, sometimes you just get back luck I suppose, but I definitely feel your sentiment, haha. How did your run evolve besides that?
@@thefisherman6642 After the first war was able to mothball the forts and still had enough manpower after sacking off the mercs to kill off Epirus straight after + the knights - they were Epirus's only ally so took Rhodes too. 2nd ottoman war just cheesed it and looted the balkans over and over blocking the bosphorous. fed most of their land to bulgaria.... after this took over what was left of serbia and dev'd up Kosovo..helped a bit. Third war on the ottomans was the charm....got the Anatolic coast back then was able to chain war Karaman & Candar, vassalising candar. by 1500 we had most of Anatolia back. a few years of consolidation later while picking off minors like trebizond etc had the 'last' restructured loan from the start paid off in 1520 ish. With religious ideas in hand 1550 i started chipping away at the Mamluks & QQ....1600 most of them gone.....fast forward to where we are now 1690 100 absolutism and most of India & the middle east conquered......noted your thing about vassal marches as well and so decided to try it out....got a 350 dev Hisn Kayfa & Khorasan as marches. Saw Tunis beaten to an OPM so vassaled them and took all their cores back...they actually have been very good investments...Hisn & Khorasan with their good mil ideas. Tunis not so much but only took them opportunistically. Thinking to finish up in India then spend the last 100 years going for Mare Nostrum...don't think i can turn this one into a WC as was too slow earlier on but dont really want to - done it once and that's enough haha. Nah solid guide that and now my friend who has less than 100 hours in this game is going to try. Subbed and looking forward to the next one
@@bazirancovekOh, "marines" as a special unit type don't exist in EU4, they do in HOI4 though, I just called them 'marines' to give a better suggestion as to what their task was in this strategy. I apologize if I gave you a false idea, haha
@@thefisherman6642 I know you didnt mean as a special units but I think that somewgere they said in the dev diary that they would add them. They would have bonuses as less disembark time and no attrition at sea but I guess they scraped them off and replaced them with revolutionary guards
@@bazirancovek I have to apologize, lol, because marines as a special unit do actually exist now! I only just found it, so you were right, haha. I still need to figure out how to build them.
I arrive on August 1st with 2 stack marines but every time the fort is at full maintenance do I arrive a day later so they don’t pull it out of mothballing it?
You mean you arrive on August 1st in Constantinople to start the war, or on August 1st on Kocaeli? In the second case, you want to arrive before the new month ticks. In the first case: as soon as you arrive on Constantinople, the Ottomans will see you as a 'threat', and they will unmothball their fort. But fort garrison works similarly to army moral recovery: it only happens each new month. So, if you depart on August 1st, and still arrive on Kocaeli before the end of August, the garrison is practically still 'empty', despite it 'appearing' unmothballed. Therefore you still get easy siege. Doing it in this way sort of 'tricks' the fort mechanic, you could argue it's an exploit, but it's basically how the fort mechanic works, you can apply it to whatever nation you play or whichever war you engage in, it's really powerful once you get handy with it. Did this help you with your question? =)
Hey man, great video! It worked flawlessly the first time, but then I tried it again, and now it doesn't. The 2k worth of marines can't siege the fort in notCoachella because it's a level 2 now. Not sure if they just changed it or what.
If I recall correctly the fort is always level 2, because it is an actual fort, as opposed to a 'capital fort' which is level 1. What could have happened, however, which is also interesting, is that the Ottomans have activated an "defensive edict" themselves, in that case you should add an extra 1 or 2 K soldiers to that stack, that should do the trick. It could be one of the instances where the AI does a more 'rare' move, another example of this is the Ottomans having an ally like Ramazan who has a big fleet, then they will also be more aggressive in attacking your ships and the whole operation is also not likely to succeed either. If not, let me know, because then I need to check out what could be going on. I hope this helped you out =).
Thanks for the prompt reply! It takes me 6k troops to siege it down. And the monthly “zero garrison” trick doesn’t seem to work at all now, either. Can’t figure it out. I’ll give it a few more gos, but the only other thing I can think of is that I added two more DLC after the 1.3 patch, and that maybe somehow that is screwing up the mechanics. Because it worked perfectly before I added them. Weird.
Yeah that's sad, dealing with bankruptcies can be difficult. Having strong allies helps, and investing all your admin points in +3 stability, so when the bankruptcy hits, you go back to 0 stability, instead of somewhere in the negative. On top of that, check your truces, other nations can't/won't attack you if you have a truce with them. So all in all, a 'controlled bankruptcy' is pretty easy to survive and can be quite powerful as a tool to reset your economy. I hope this helped you somewhat, if you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask =)
@@thefisherman6642 That's actually really good advice and I can't believe you cared to respond! I'll keep it in mind. I just started a Brandenburg campaign where within 10 years I got all lands needed for prussia, became HRE emperor, and got 2 PU's, then later as Brandenburg actually convinced the emperor to make me King OF Prussia (I'm assuming you're familiar with the historical events surrounding that, where they were only granted having a king IN Prussia). SO definitely one of my best campaigns ever so far!
Yeah that is a danger that lurks beneath the surface, but if all is good and well, you shouldn't have to go bankrupt, at least not in the early game. But you're right, as soon as you go bankrupt, Venice, Genoa, and some others, will likely jump on you.
I didn't get this to work: *The sea battle in Marmara lasted too long so my 2k army got wiped out *The sea battle got lost since the Ottos simply had too many ships *Ottos had enough soldiers with enough morale so my 24k main army (standing army + 3 merc companies) got defeated This is on Very Hard and the newest patch though, so don't know it they buffed the Ottos somehow.
Well, to be honest, I record my videos on 'normal' difficulty, because that's what most people play on, so I just cater to the biggest group. So I think these problems mostly derive from playing on Very Hard, you could try to invade Epirus quickly first, and vassalize them to get additional naval power, and often the Knights are willing to ally you as well, so the combined naval power of Albania, Epirus, the Knights, and yourself, could turn the tide in your favour. Let me know if you succeeded in the meantime, because I'm curious myself =).
@@thefisherman6642 I've tried this and Budgetmonk strat on Very Hard and didn't get it to work. What did work sometimes, however, was to get as many allies as possible (esp Albania cus of Skanderbeg, otherwise Theodoro, Trebizond, Serbia/Wallachia/Bosnia, Cyprus etc, vassalize Epirus) and build an army to little bit over force limit, build a huge galley navy, then wait for the Ottos to attack. They will leave a huge stack at Constantinople (use Defensive Edict), so I hire around 3 merc companies and kill off the other stack they use to siege Athens (made a March) and surrounding area, with Skanderbegs help, After that it's possible to take on the stack sieging Constantinople. Ideally pick off their smaller stacks and fight in advantageous terrain. Skanderbeg has a tendency to stack wipe. Then it's about taking down their fort blocking the strait (use naval barrage) asap, then block them off with the galleys. After some time the warscore will have ticked so high you can take back most of your cores. They might march their armies all around the Black Sea, but it's usually quite easy to defeat their isolated stacks and fight defensively. Using Monetary Policy through the Burghers helped with the loans. The next wars are easier as it's about blocking off the strait and occupying the west, then get stronger allies that rival Ottos to wipe them out.
I keep losing the battle of Constantinople, Skanderbeg and Athens are worthless and never attach to my armies. I'll keep trying but I'm on attempt 15 or so at this point lol
I have to admit that Albania and Athens also completely disregarded my armies at first, which is why I decided to increase my own army size a bit to be able to do it solo and just set Athens to siege mode. Let me know if you succeeded!
@@thefisherman6642 my issue seems to be that the 30k stack never splits up at Constantinople. So even if I do win the battle, and I manage to trap him at Gallipoli, I never manage to stack wipe him. He retreats to his north western most province, I chase and beat him again, but then he retreats to Anatolia because AQ has retaken Biga by that point. If Albania and Athens would ever attach to my army, I'm sure this would have been over 20 restarts ago lol. This is a great guide and I will continue to try in the future, but I think I need a break for a while!
Albania doesn't want to join me. It's related to their army strength and manpower. Edit: Ok so I managed to win the war taking back my cores + Northern Epirus and released a puppet Bulgaria in the one Thrace province that is Bulgarian. So it's all great now, right? Well I got a regency during the war so I can't declare a war. I had to wait around 10 years doing nothing. It's not so bad, you may think. So it really isn't. I check to declare war on Epirus and my eyes were horrified when I saw that Poland was to join. I quickly checked with other countries and lo and behold... Poland is the Defender of the Faith. It doesn't end there. I can think of a way of beating Poland at this on my own so I declare war aaaaaand all Polish allies enter the war. rip to this save. Unless y'all have any ideas?
Yikes, yeah that sucks. If it happens more often I think it could be best to work around that problem for now and focus on areas that are more obtainable, or just chill out a bit and focus on the continuation wars against the Ottomans. I personally like to become buddies with Muscovy, since they will likely help you out because of shared religion, and hating Poland sooner or later, and I find that for some reason Muscovy often falls into a PU with you, the player. I hope this helped you out a bit, or that you already have found some ways to deal with it yourself. Also, don't be shy to just copy your savefiles and 'savescum', don't let the 'elitists' make you think you're a bad player for doing it, because everybody does it ;).
@@thefisherman6642Muscovy doesn't want to ally me at this stage but I did manage to win the PU over Imereti and I may begin expansion in that region. As for savescumming, I do it very often. Thanks for the help!
