Originally Posted by
Giorgios
Regarding restricting the Byzantines, I think there's fundamentally here a bit of a misunderstanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Empire, which didn't (certainly before 1204) really resemble any other Christian kingdom in how it operated.
Legitimacy, in Romanía, depended on primarily on the acclamation of the populace of Constantinople, not on blood, military ability, or whatever- this is a direct continuation of the republican pretences of Augustus, where the Emperor derived his power from the consent of the Roman people. The "Crown" for Byzantium should therefore be granted to the holder of the imperial capital, but with certain conditions.
Firstly, no Emperor, aside from Justinian, ever survived serious popular discontent in the capital. I'd therefore suggest that, should happiness in Constantinople ever dip below 100%, the Crown title would become in doubt. This would then spark provincial revolts- for these, see below. And there should be a significant happiness bonus for the Emperor being present in the capital, and penalty for his absence. And to further demonstrate the centrality of the capital, is there a mechanism to make the loss of Constantinople an instant faction destruction for the Byzantines? Probably not, but if this could be done, it would be worth investigating.
Romanía's direct descent from the old Roman Republic meant that, theoretically, any capable man could become the most important in the state, and this led to plenty of generals being more than capable of revolt throughout imperial history. This changed slightly in the Komnenian period, where revolts did tend to be family affairs, but I'd argue this is probably down to the sheer size of the extended Komnenian family. I'd therefore suggest that Byzantine generals should be considerably less loyal than those of other factions- for the Byzantine player, sending any general other than the Emperor and his closest confidantes out on campaign with large armies should be a serious risk. And this, of course, provides serious risks of its own- without the Emperor residing in the capital, the happiness penalties start to bite.