We originally included Nikephoros Basilakes and Alexios Komnenos as well in the first script, however somehow they got lost in the course of our production process. Sorry to everyone who misses these great characters in the video, we’ll review our process to make sure this does not happen again. To see what we had to say about them, you are welcome to join our discord :)

I mean the fact the lords rebel every 5 seconds is pretty accurate

They should add a Bureaucratic government system, like what you see in the Fallen Eagle mod.

Actually, you're mistaken about the extent of Greek culture. Inner Anatolia *was*, in fact, purely Greek-speaking by this point. The last of the native Anatolian languages had died out centuries earlier. While during the Classical and Archaic Greek era only the Anatolian coastline was settled by Greeks, during the Hellenistic and Roman eras (~300 BC to 600 AD) the Greek language gradually became predominant in *all* of Anatolia, save for the Armenian-speaking lands in the very east. Crimea, too, had a long history of Greek settlement.

Really glad that Eastern Romans are getting an entire expansion considering their portrayal is one of the most inaccurate in the game.

What's your source on Inner Anatolia, Crimea and Southern Italy not being Greek exactly? The maps you show are misleading since they show either the distribution of Greeks in the 5th Century B.C, or the historical distribution after the 13th Century, none of which apply to 1066. Infact, given the empire's history of repopulating desolate areas in the Balkans with Greeks from Anatolia, I think it would be safe to say there were more Greeks in Anatolia than in Greece at this time.

I will point out that Greek culture being present in Italy is actually quite accurate, as at the time of the Normans' late medieval conquest of southern Italy and Sicily (in the late 12th century), the Salento peninsula (the "heel" of Italy), up to one-third of Sicily (concentrated in the Val Demone), and much of Calabria and Lucania were still largely Greek-speaking.

as a cultural heritage student at University of Gothenburg specifically interested in eastern Roman society and culture I feel the need to say that even though distinct from the Latin Roman culture, the eastern Roman culture was far more similar to the Latin roman culture than it was to the Hellenic Greek culture. There still lived people who called themselves Hellenes (Hellenic Greeks) but were distinctly different from the majority Greek speaking Roman. The Greek speaking Romans were more similar to their Latin counterparts than the Latins were to their own culture just some 100 years before them. During the time when the Western and Eastern Roman empire still existed together and even some time before, people started referring to both the Latin and the Greek speaking people as just Romans sense their culture had blended to the point where the major difference between them were their mother tongue. A culture is not just defined from what's the most common language. The video was great I just wanted to clarify some things.

I think Nubia would be a cool place to look at. A Christian holdout that didn't fall to Islam into 1500s. I've always found playthoughs there really interesting because you have all Africa to your West, you aren't far from the Mediterranean but not that close either.

On CK2 some mods created a imperial government that tried to mimick the Roman empire administration, later paradox release their own version but it's kinda embarrassing they took that long to fix this and only released in their last expansion of the game

I think you have something wrong, in ck3 culture portrays popular language which was in fact greek in almost all of anatolia. As far as inner anatolia we know for a fact that capadocia was greek. Almost all of the coastline and very much of inner anatolia was greek.The wrong was in the Balkans where greek is actually overrepresented. Slavs Bulgars ruman and other semi nomadic tribes settled there and mixed with the local populace.Greek became majority in thesally and epirus after relocations of greeks from anatolia under many emperors and especially Alexios komnenos.For the start culture is wrong in the Balkans not in Anatolia where minor changes would need to be made

Inland anatolia did have a majority greek population cuz under roman rule and under the greek kingdoms wich apeared from alexanders empire it got greekified

I would be very interested to see how they go about representing an administrative empire like Byzantium in a game that is based on feudalism. Especially considering that CK3 is focused on family rule and governorships in Byzantium were normally nonhereditary.

They weren't "the descendants" or "the continuation" they were the roman empire

I think the Dutchy problem is because they forgot to port the theme system from CK 2. While the theme system from CK 2 wasn't perfect, you did actually appoint who would control the theme (or dutchy) until the Strategos would die and then come back to you as a ruler. When you got bigger, you could grant Kingdom sized titles under similar conditions called Exarchs and the state being an Exarchate. I employed this system to actually keep a super roman empire together. Dutchies were left untouched but the Exarchates were granted by the emperor. So I had mega-confederations (at the size of three empires) as to keep an area more united and less likely to fight the emperor directly. One of them was called the "Western Confederation" which packed Hispania, Britannia and Francia in one state under the Roman Empire. The African Confederation being another. The latest I had was the Indian Confederation which covered most of Northern India and later Tibet. I never got around to taking over the Chinese throne. All I gotta say is the system of confederations was pretty cool as a means to control so much land without having non-stop civil wars. Add in that I eventually revived ancient Hellenic Paganism and made the religion cosmopolitan which resulted in an empire where multiple religions actually co-existed and the religion mechanic in CK 2 was essentially made irrelevant. Tolerance and relations between the pagans, muslims and christians ended up pretty smooth by the end of the run. The Patriarch, Pope and Caliph were all subjects to the Pontifex Maximus Emperor. Christian, Muslim and any other religious ruler were left be as the Exarchate system ensured that no matter their religion, they would be loyal to the emperor.

The idea that "the culture of the Byzantine empire was very different than the Roman empire" is a bit misleading, as it's comparing periods of history, not different civilizations or cultures. For example, was the culture of the Romans in old Rome significantly different from the culture of Constantinople in the year 800? The culture of the Byzantine empire in the 5th or 6th century was in keeping with, and an organic continuation of Roman culture of the 4th or 3rd centuries. The culture of the 7th or 8th century Byzantines was in-keeping with their culture of the 5th and 6th. And Byzantine culture in the 9th and 10th centuries is in keeping with their culture during 7th and 8th, and so on it goes backward or forward in time. We're talking about the evolution of a culture and civilization, not a sudden rupture or departure. In say... the 9th or 10th century, many of the offices of the bureaucracy, government, positions and titles, ranks, etc, dated all the way back to classical times, and not just the titles of "Augustus" and "Caesar," but from top to bottom of the state apparatus. The emperor Basil II(who died in 1025) had made a decree that the wealthy dynatoi of Anatolia needed to prove ancestral ownership of their immense estates as far back as the reign of Augustus. Constantinople was founded as a Latin speaking city, and conversely, Greek was very common in Rome. They were sister capitals of the same polity; and their cultures remained rather compatible during the early middle ages, and even after Rome became independent of New Rome(around 750-800). Latin was gradually marginalized in the east between 500-1000, and the same happened to Greek in the west, but one place medieval scholars could go in western Europe to learn Greek was actually Rome.

Well as a greek I agree that first the culture map in ck3 is incorrect and there are some mods that help with that my personal biggest problem with the culture map is that we don’t have vlachs or aromanians in the pindus and in Thessaly as a aromanian myself that my bias I guess second the pronunciation of the themes (θέματα or themata in greek) first it’s Optimati or optimaton (οπτιματον) opsikion is correct (οψικιον) Anatolic or anatolia (the East in greek ) kapadokia , sevastia the rest is correct and I guess you forgot paflagonia or paphlagonia also basilios is more accurately translated into king and basilica as queen we still call a king vasilia or basilios also there are a lot of times when people that had themata became emperors a lot of Byzantine dynasty’s started that way and at last you didn’t mention the Komnenos dynasty that are present in 1066 and will become the emperors in the future also I think Alexios Komnenos or Alexios the 2 is alive in 1066

Very cool video! I imagine that the point about the feudal system not applying to the Byzantines could also apply to plenty of other places too, I know in Wales for example that this system barely worked in the way it’s portrayed in game.

How well it portrayed: - Famously loyal to the emperor Varangian Guard can be hired by anyone with enough money I guess that concludes it:)

really is kinda embarassing that we're more than 2 and half years out and the byzantines still dont have any unique mechanics or systems to represent their historical siutuation despite that previously being the case in ck2 already

One thing I noticed a few years ago about the history here is that this time period from Basil II’s reconquests onward showed an interesting trend where some themes that were previously under constant threat from mostly Arab or Slavic (‘Rus) raiders had been converted into civilian administrations under “krites” instead of strategoi, doux, or katepanos.

Hey, great video as always. Have you even heard of the mod "The Fallen Eagle"? small disclaimer Im part of the TFE team but a review of our portrayal of our Byzantine/Roman Empire would be very cool :)

-the byzantine empire *was* continuously called the roman empire (as its surviving half) and was acknowledged as such by western germanic-ruled kingdoms until some time from justinian's invasion of italy and charlemagne's coronation as emperor. as for the greek culture of this empire, this was not an aberration from the earlier roman empire, but more just an escalation of the existing usage of greek as a language of learned elites across the whole roman world, and as the lingua franca *instead of latin* in most of the already-hellenized roman east. the rest of the cultures in regular contact with constantinople, or at least the ones who were aware of the earlier roman empire, also saw no distinction between the former and latter periods. you have to remember these people were at best only dimly aware of historical events taking place in past centuries: to the vast majority of the population, there were no other romans besides the ones who we would call greek, and the evidence to the contrary were laboriously excavated to ideologically justify the HRE and the papacy. -the hellenization of anatolia as seen on the map is correct for the period: the anatolian languages were extinct by the 5th century CE, and inner anatolia would only lose its greek-speaking character after turkic incursions in the later 11th century.

4:20 But these are not examples of inaccuracies, though: Crimea had significant Greek settlements through very large parts of history and even today Ukraine has a significant Greek minority. The same goes for Southern Italy that was originally called "Magna Graecia" or "Great Greece" and still has a Greek speaking minority today and likely a much more significant Greek population in 1066. There also should not be a significant Turkish minority in 1066 as you suggest as they would, with the Seljuks, arrive later (if the Byzantines lose the starting war).

Honestly though by the 10th and 11th centuries most of Anatolia was almost thoroughly Hellenized.

Kinda passed over the Komnenoi chads Btw is the representation of the byzzies a bit better in Ck2 in which they’re an elective monarchy whose electors beside some powerful council vassals also has your chosen generals? Imo idk how would a totally historically accurate Byzantine system would work on a gameplay perspective, it would make playing as a vassal practically imposible without having the objective of becoming the emperor in a single generation.

Basileus is pronounced vasilefs On another note, the byzantines are unquestionably the continuation of the roman empire. Yes it was quite different a place by 1066, but it got there slowly through centuries of reform. In the 500s, after the western half of the empire faded away, the east retained the exact same political system for a good 300 years. It only really started becoming noticeably different by the late 800s, and even up to the 4th crusade in the 1200s, the state was still structured around a coin economy, unlike western europe whose feudal states were based on land holdings of individuals. The rich and powerful in the byzantine world still were seen as mere state officials like it had been since classical times, we even get nods to this from the writings of crusaders who visited, as they were apalled that commoners in Constantinople would heckle the emperor if they disagreed with him, indeed that disagreeing with the emperor was permissible at all was a foreign idea to them.

Aside from the needed imperial rework I hope we finally get a great schism mechanic or at least an event if we begin in 867

Thanks for the video I hope you do one about abbasid

To be fair to Naples, it was originally a Greek colony ("Neapolis") in ancient times. However I myself have like, literally no idea what the actual culture of the area was like back then.

In CK2, Byzantium was just in constant revolution.

One video idea is that you can show the characters who would become well known Crusaders or if they don’t exist yet, you can show their family .

It would be cool to have an imperial government type that allows for checkbox that allows for the return of the "possesed" land to be return to the emperor upon the death of its ruler or that automatically grants it to a character depending on the pareters chose by the emperor(pious people or people of the same dynasty as the previous ruler or people of the emperor's dynasty etc). And feudal rulers could change to it if they have maximum crown attority and the approval of strong vassal( of course, most vassal would rebel, making it a very important point in the campaign if the player desires it)

Great video! Would love to see one on Venice, Pisa and genua or Frisia

For the culture of the byzantine empire while yes it wasn't as greek as shown in the game it wasn't as small as the picture you show in the video. That photo depicts greeks in the 19th century after all the killings and displacements of the ottomans. The Greek mainland was mostly dominated by Greeks and so was the whole coast of Anatolia. As for the interior of it it was again mostly greek majority or if you'd like the Greek culture domitaned there and it only stared to fade away after the incursion of the Seljuks into Anatolia. Finally Crimea was indeed mostly inhabited by goths and the Balkans by the 11th century had the Illyrians almost completely gone so it only makes sense to have the Bulgars as the dominant non greek culture in the Balkans. As for south Italy if you exclude Naples where you are completely right the two other majority greek regions are I believe semi reasonable since there is still a significant Greek prenecne there and has been since the ancient greek first colonized south Italy (magna grecia)

Very niche request but id love a video on what is known about the old Basque religion you can form. There doesnt seem to be a lot of info on it so it would be cool to see what is actually supported vs what was guessed/favricated by Paradox to fill in the blanks

It’s pretty interesting how the ai usually does as Byzantium because usually for me they take a lot of North Africa but not Egypt,then after a failed crusade they take back Syria but lose Anatolian land.

Im pretty sure you can also find the komnenos dynasty is 1066 bizantine empire A very important historical character when talking about the crusades taking into account the fact that it was kinda alexios komnenos who asked the pope for the first crusade

The culture w of Byzantine Anatolia was Greek in that periodand the territorial losses in Anatolia and the full loss of Italy happened during his successors. The theme system was in decline in the period and by the end of the period , it introduced feudal elements. As for the infighting, the central authority literally collapsed between 1071 and 1081.

CK2 took a long time, but eneded up with a good version of the byzantine government. Titles are not hereditary, the succession is murky, and its all about the court titles, the intrigue and bribes, and if you breathe the wrong way the empire will just dethrone you and place someone else

I think it bears considering that the Byzantines being "culturally different" to ancient Romans doesn't make their claim to Roman-ness less valid. After all, Romans of Augustus' time were already very culturally different to those of the city's founding, with a totally different government, styles of dress, cultural imports from Carthage, Gaul, Iberia, Greece and more, and even different naming systems. The people of Greece and Anatolia had been Romans for many centuries while the western empire still existed, and nothing magically changed when it fell to make them stop being Romans. In any case, I think Paradox using the Theme system as a foundation for in-game duchies isn't an oversight so much as a limitation of the game engine as it stands. They designed a basic set of mechanics around 11th century feudalism, and this is the closest equivalent they can latch onto. The designers have talked about knowing the discrepancy in interviews (as you'd expect, since there are somewhat more accurate mechanics in CK2 as of its expansions). I agree it makes it dissonant to play as and makes me less inclined to play as them compared to in 2, though.

I love your videos 👍🏻❤️

I feel like the best way to portray the Byzantine Empire is very different from Feudalism. The different Aristocratic clans called Dynatoi, didn't rule hereditary provinces, but they owned vast tracts of land and did monopolize positions in government including the themes. At one point, two noble families had their members basically governing every single theme in Anatolia. So it may be accurate to protray noble aristocratic clans where the dynasty head owns several powerful character modifiers to represent the estates of the clan, while the clan itself has good modifiers to represent this as well. Meanwhile, the more members of the clan that rule counties and themes, the more power and abilities members of that clan may have, power they can use for the empire's benefit or not. Meanwhile, the ability for generals and governors to revolt and seize the empire is accurate, so revolting a pressing a claim to the empire is alright. However, it is also very frequent where an emperors child didn't inherit after their father and instead a palace coup or maneuvering caused someone else to be crowned emperor, like what happened to Romanos IV. So the imperial elective system of CK2 might be a good system for that. Meanwhile, the governors should most definitely not be allowed to attack one another, as that would just be a revolt against the central government, though it is accurate that many rebellions were only done by a single theme. Meanwhile the system of Tagmata isn't too hard to portray, as those were just the Emperor's personal troops. Although I would also consider some special mercenary abilities of the empire, as the empire did frequently use mercenaries, for better or worse. The diarchy system can probably be used for high administrative positions as well, and court positions should be very common and powerful as well as helpful for the Byzantines.

Within the mechanics of the game is probably difficult to represent the empire accurately without making it too easy. With high crown authority, viceroyalty, standing army and lots of money you can easily exploit the position. In CK2 the imperial system in a way was fixed the (ruined someone says) forcing you to pick your generals among your nobles only basically mimicking the thematic system, and forcing an elective system because overall the roman/byzantine empire was never purely hereditary. Culturewise, yes there was a lot of "greek" in the beginning especially, like in southern Italy that didn't truly latinize if not after the Norman conquest, so I would not really consider that a mistake.

Very good video, i would hope for a rework of the vassal system within the Empire. Although i was hoping you would at least spend some time on the Byzantines in 867 considering that the Emperor Basileos I isn't supposed to be the Emperor until a full year later when he kills Michael III.

Something I personally feel weird about in CK3s Byzantium is the claims you get from the Pope/patriarch. In the game your religious head (at least if you are Catholic or Orthodox) can sell claims to titles owned by sinful lords to pious lords for piety. The pope can hand out these claims if the owner is sinful, like a murderer or a fornicator but also if the ruler is a child or a woman. Which is a bit weird. It's even weirder when the Orthodox patriarch, which is supposed to be beneath the Emperor is handling out claims to provinces to other provincial rulers without the Emperor having a say. I think a better way to have this system would be to have the Emperor capable of getting legal revocation claims with patriarchal support instead of other vassals buying them.

Whats the music in the background? It's so good!

Feels like the centralisation problem could be fixed with just locking so the feudal lord’s successor has to be the emperor, and starting with the highest crown authority

I don´t think PDX overlooked that their duchies are in fact more like modern gouvernantes. It´s just a simplification. Like it is a simplification (in my opinion so simplified that it´s just wrong) to call all of Europe feudal and even give all of Europe a feudal structure with counts, dukes and kings. Even in the most "feudal" realms like France or Germany there was nearly never a time or place that was like that.

Great video! I really hope there's a major revamp of the Byzantine Empire as an expansion/update. I think as part of that, if your capital is in Constantinople, you should have a major "Hostile Scheme Success Chance" buff and a significant "Hostile Resistance Chance" penalty. Would make things spicy as apparently the Imperial Court was in History. The game could even assign those buffs and penalties to *any* courtier or guest in Constantinople. No royal court was more "intriguing" than Constantinople! ^_^

ooo! Can't wait for this one. As for next, I'd love to see one on the Abbasids in 867!

One thing to add will be the conquest of Bulgaria. It is said that after the conquest, the emperor gave titles the then bulgarian nobility in the armenian heartland with the idea to remove any idea of a bulgarian uprisings in the future.

and dont forget the parania was a garanting the tax income or part of it and not only was the land not owned they had no authority over it exept the collection of certain taxes or recieving them as anuity or pension or salary

very interesting your videos. in ck2 i play with a mod called "historic immersion project", it's a total overhaul of the game. the project is to make the game as faithful as possible to the history. I was curious to know how much they got.

Ck2 did a better job at portraying the system of non hereditary rule in duchy equivalents. You could had out Themes that were non hereditary and caused no penalty to revoke. Every feudal vassal of yours would have a negative opinion based of how many Themes you had.

For people who lived in the Byzantine Empire not much has changed as Western Rome became defunct. To them they’ve always been Roman and continue to be, unless they have specific interests that necessitated frequent travels to the city of Rome they might even think that being Roman means being Greek!

Medieval Rome wasn't a descendant of the Romans, it was Rome. Using language like "they saw themselves as Rome" is condescending. Also John Haldon argues that by 1066 the Theme system had broken down as the Empire went on the offensive. Anyway, Thematic organisation isn't equivalent to Feudalism, it's something else entirely. A product of Rome's extreme centralisation. Pronoia played a part but really wasn't widely used. What existed in Medieval Rome wasn't replicated until The Sun King. And Anatolia was heavily Greek. So Greek in fact that over the centuries Emperors transplanted the Greek population to Greece in order to de-Slav the regions.

One little nitpick. Southern Crimea being Greek is accurate. While there were Tatars there, they were on the northern plains. And while there were goths there, there were only very few. The main part of the population in the south was Greek. Indeed that population of Crimean Greeks with their own unique dialect of Greek still exists today, though they were moved into what is now the Donbass by the Russians in the 18th century. I believe there were about 90k-100k ethnic Greeks in Ukraine and Russia as of last count

The only parts that would not, perhaps, be majority Greek would be the inner Anatolian lands, with the entire coast of Anatolia remaining Greek. The rest as I see it is quite accurate.

I would like a "heal the schism" mechanic to reuinte the empire through herculean effort, causing either the HRE or Byzantines being absorbed by and taking on the government type of the one that triggers the event.

Some points of interest. 1) the Eastern regions (and basically all of Anatolia) was lost to the Seljuk Turks by Romanos IV, not Constantine X. 2) One of the possible explanations for the low crown authority could stem from the history of the themes themselves: Initially, there were only 5 themes (approximately the size of the kingdoms inside the Byzantine Empire at the 1066 start date, although I can't speak for the accuracy of the borders off-hand). As the strategoi (who were both the provincial governor of a theme as well as the commander of the theme's military forces) proved incredibly powerful and rebellious, emperors often found themselves either giving concessions to the strategoi as well as breaking the themes up into smaller provinces that would be unable to challenge imperial authority alone. This also led to the creation of an imperial field army, but that's described later. 3) Pronoia was a reform that came from Alexios I after the theme system collapsed and - to put it in Paradox gaming terms - the main imperial army, the imperial tagmata...which would basically included the Scholae Palatinae, Varangian Guard (both of which are shown as mercenary companies in CK2 and 3), and all the emperor's Men-at-Arms regiments, was stack wiped at Manzikert in 1071 with Romanos IV captured. The pronoia system was a way to raise troops (local and foreign) without having to directly pay for their military service. Some ways I think the Byzantine military could be improved would be to replace the levies with strateia (a term for the soldier-farmers that were given hereditary farmlands in exchange for military service...the farms were meant to fund and provide for a stratiot's training, arms, armor, and horse). Personally, I'd give the strateia a minor stat boost over basic levies. I'd also give the Byzantines (except for the emperor) a much lower limit on MAA regiments (maybe 1 for a count, 3 for a duke, 5 for a king, and the normal number for the emperor). Additionally, let the Byzantines get an option for implementing the pronoia system, which removes the entire system outlined here (allowing the emperors to save more money from having to carry the empire military). That's my spitball idea though. Someone else will need to tell me their thoughts on it. Additionally, I'd bring back the viceroyalty system from CK2, since that offered Byzantine emperors MUCH more control and influence over the vassals than ANY other monarch at the time, picking and choosing who moves up in the world at court and who is pushed down the ranks. If you do a part 2, I'd recommend mentioning the houses of Komnenos (obviously), Angelos, and Palaiologos. I can't remember any Laskaris house in the 1066 start date, but I do know there's a Bryennios, which did have considerable influence in the empire. For a separate episode, can you do the Kievan Rus?

If the hinted expansion will be anything like the CK2 one then there will be some things but the fundamental issues with the presentation of the political system will remain because changing that would require a big rework for just one realm.

great video & love the background music, what is the title of this songh?

i am more of an EU4 player myself, and smth that i've noticed there in the Extended Timeline mod as well as here in CK3 was that in 1066, the romans have no holdings in Italy anymore. pretty sure they lose their last fort there in 1071(Bari, i think) just a bit before the infamous battle at Mazikert. why isn't Bari appearing in "byzantine" hands in either game? also... while i do get feudalism somewhat... i really am ignorant in how the romans managed their lands(till 1204, since whatever came after was virtually feudal till 1453). i wish i knew how their political system worked, how and why generals rebelled, and most importantly... court intrigues. where can i find books with these? i only hear/read that at one random point a general decided to rebel. why? idk. or that an emperor was assassinated by someone, even though he ruled well. why? idk. my mind simply cannot understand how the romans lived for so long with such issues in their state management. and how could they had fix(grammar be damned) their inheritance system? or rather... why the west had one and accepted it, and the romans did not? plenty of emperors made their sons co-emperors, yet it was a very unstable transition of power many times. P.S. love how the map looks in CK3. and how the empire is mapped in districts, provinces and such. much better imho compared to how eu4 shows.

In regards to the cultures, if you truly are a history nerd, then you’d know that the Assyrians and Arabs were never a significant part of the empire and were usually situated on the frontier in the east and usually on the non Roman side of the frontier, also if you’re pissed that Thracians don’t exist, you can thank the irl Bulgarians that exterminated them, also that brings us to the Bulgarians which are part of the empire in 1066 and are just north of it in 867 if your pissed about the Illyrians not being around, you can again thank another invading people irl called the Slavs, which exterminated them much earlier than even the Thracians were wiped out, which brings us to the Slavs, who are in fact part of the empire but on the north western Balkan frontier and usually on the non Roman side of it, this is because much like real life the Roman’s in CK3 try to keep all invading and non Roman people out of their empire, meaning the Arabs Bulgarians Slavs assyrians and others, however the Arminians have always had good relations with the Roman’s and thus are a bigger part of the empire and it’s culture, also because Basil the vulgar slayer subjugated them (or was it one of his successors?). Anyway getting back to the cultures, the goths stopped being a thing the minute they became the Ostrogoths and the visigoths and this happened while the western empire was still around so way way way before the ck3 start dates, you can still find some Visigoths in Iberia in 867 but that’s about it since that culture had largely died offa be splintered into the other Christian cultures of Iberia, the Ostrogoths were unfortunately wiped out by both the Roman’s with a Belisarius and by the Lombards right after, as for the Khazars, yes they had a few alliances with the Byzantines historically but were never settled in the imperial lands, and the same can be said about the Turks, but in regards to the Turks, they were especially feared and kept out of all imperial lands whenever possible but all this happened after the 1070’s so not during the ck3 start date in 1066

Any chance to take a look at feudal system in CK3 and compare it to irl?

and in the byzatine empire all classes paid taxes and the nobility paid more this is why even the rich nobility worked in the army since they where even responsible to pay their pessant taxes if they earned less than a certain income as well as naboring farmers

The fact that Southern Italy is shown as partly Greek in culture isn't absurd at all. While yes, people had been migrating and moving around constantly, the majority were indeed Greek in the areas portrayed in-game. This has been the case since the antiquity when the cities were founded by Greek colonists and to some extent remains so even today. If you're interested, you should look up information about the current Greek settlements in Rheggio Di Calabria.

What are you talking about dude? Draw a line from the gulf of Alexandretta to a point on the Black Sea coast some distance east of Trebizond and be assured that the overwhelmingly preponderant language of Anatolia west of that line was Greek in 1066 AD. Inner Anatolia included Cappadocia one of the heartlands of the Empire where Greek was spoken. Incidentally there was still considerable Greek remnants in southern Italy at the time. In fact southern Italy and western Sicily were likely to have been primarily Greek speaking well into the 12th century AD.

I could agree about cultural differences in Balkans and southern italy especially in Naples but i heavily disagree about the greek culture of anatolia. during the 10th century the region was heavily Hellenised and only the eastern themes started to get armenian refugees due to nomad invasions of turkish tribes still crimea should have its own culture group as it has nomad Slavic gothic and freek influence at this time. Still i am greek and most sources are mostly greek so if im on the wrong id like to gear a different opinion

Cool video! And what's the music you used in the video?

Hi great video! I had a question: why didn't they call themselves Caesar if they wanted to emphasize a connection to Rome?

I think the Byzantine's should have a professional army instead of levies. The army would be stronger, but it would also have a passive maintenance cost. If nothing else, they could simply increase the amount and size of men-at-arms regiments and decrease the amount of levies for Byzantines. That would be a great way of balancing out the more centralized government system, which would give the Emperor a larger percentage of tax revenue than feudal lords.

When the legacy of Persia comes out this fall can you do a video on it?

in Greek when you see "oi" in the end its because of plural, you pronounce it as normal "i"

Anyone recognize what movie those scenes in the video are from?

Any plans to do a video on Age of Empires series?

Your intro is the epitaph of seikilos

Hopefully Bulgaria and orthodoxy as a whole get improved with Byzantium

Does anyone know the name of the song playing in the background?

In CK2, when playing the basileus you could make vicedukes and viceroys because you had the "imperial" government type instead of feudal

Optimatoi is actually pronounced Optimatee. essentialy, in greek when Ο is followed by I then the 2 letters together "oi" are pronounced as an "e". Bucellarians would be pronounced more like Bukelarians, with a hard C, like a K. Same for cibyrrhaeots, the C would be pronounced as K. Chaldia would be haldia, but with a bit of a pronounciation I can't properly explain here. That Ch couldn't be represented better in english. In greek, the letter Χ is pronounced "hee" (you can google the sound if it doesn't make sense), and Chaldia in greek would be Χαλδια, with an "X". Any I didn't mention you pronounced correctly. Honorable mention of sebastea which you pronounced correctly but the intonation should be on the last e, so SebastEa. This word actually comes from the greek word Σεβασμός, which means respect. Sebastea would be how they would call a "respectable woman" back then. EDIT: Same for the word "PRONOIA", like optimatoi, you'd pronounce it pronea. This word actually means "forethought", however in modern greek and I assume back then too, when we talk about "pronoia" we mean the sum of systems the state uses to support the inhabitants, so the health system, the help for the poor and needy, help with finding work, help for orphan children etc.

4:15 no it doesn't. In fact there are STILL Greeks in Crimea,Russia and Ukraine in the hundreds of thousands and during Byzantine times,yes the Greeks were a majority in inter Anatolia too. They also made pluralities minorities or sometimes majorities in ares of Egypt and the Levant too. Greek culture isn't over-represented in game,it's just historically accurate Edit:Forgot to talk about Italy where there are still tens(some estimates even say 200k)of thousands of Greeks even today. A place that had been colonized by the ancient Greeks and used to be a Greek and Greek Orthodox majority area for many many centuries. Btw Southern Italians of today have more Greek DNA than they have Latin for that exact reason

Alexios needed mention.

The Byzantine Empire is better portrayed in CK 2 regarding their inner bureaucracy, where they start with "Vice Duchies", duchy titles that are not inherited and can be given away anew once the current Strategos dies. However, they start there with it as early as 769, I don't know, if that is accurate. Regarding CK 3, they recently announced the return of the "Imperial"-Government Form with the next big expansion, I'm looking forward to it!

Whats the music called in the backround?

i dont understand why we're getting a persian dlc when there should be a lot of changes to the byzantines

thematic troops paid less tax as they didnt pay the military tax since they where sopposed to theoraticly use it to equipt themselves as well as train themselves and maintain their equiptment

Great video but please, make the music quieter

What movie are the video clips from?

Could you cover the abbasids?

Can you do a video talking about Khazaria maybe?

I would like to see some sort of thematic system instituted, as well as either an overhaul of the levy system to more closely resemble the one in CK2 (which was much better and more in line with the Byzantine system) or tweak the Byzantine culture to allow more men at arms. I would also like to see a better system for handling mercenaries in the Byzantine empire and the various cultural auxiliaries they made use of, such as the varangians. In game they are just another mercenary company but if you could instead recruit them and things like Bucellari as men at arms from other cultures that would be great. I generally feel the game should be more permissive in letting you use certain cultural units without having to blend the culture or convert. Oh, also greek fire is worth mentioning. Of course the issue here is making the Byzantines too OP and fleshed out in the game so there has to be some kind of counterbalance. The best I can think of is limiting their army size and making everything more expensive. So they can't get as many armies in the field and they will generally be outnumbered and potentially outmaneuvered. So very powerful but you need to pick your battles carefully as a single loss can cost you dearly. Which lines up with Byzantine doctrine.

You didn't mention the Komnenoi :(

You didn’t mention Alexios Comnenos as the duke of Boukellarion, would go on to become one of the best emperors of all time

why are the subtitles all glitchy?

The term August is also a word that changed meaning. It's meaning was a person who was revered to becoming a titel. The same with Imperator from which french and english get theri name for Emperor only meant one that was a commander. MArcus Aureulius name as Emperor were Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. There was quite a differens in cultrual change in the timeline we tradition call the Roman Empire. Take the new diete Sol invictus and mithras. There is also that Julius Caesar didn't not speak latin but greek. Since it was the language of culture. There is change when citizenship was granted to all within the empire. THere military were in revamped after Marrius. The Roman Legion didn't look like Julius Caesars legion during Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus. P:S. One thing that I see people don't know is that the Roman standered the Eagle is a symbol of Jupiter.

Very good pronunciation for a german creator!

Didn't they also have a standing army? Not this levy system?

Hopefully some of these will be fixed or at least addressed in the expansion