I’m sure the opponents of France were really frustrated when Napoleon showed up. I’m sure the opponents of the Mongols were frustrated when Genghis Khan showed up. I’m sure when the Ottomans invaded Habsburg territory in the early 1700s and Eugene of Savoy ran them over they were frustrated. And I’m sure the opponents of Rhomania were frustrated when Andreas Niketas showed up.
Societies don’t produce geniuses consistently. Compare French martial leadership in the Napoleonic Wars versus the Franco-Prussian Wars for just one of many examples. Rhomania has produced some geniuses both IOTL and ITTL, but frankly
other societies get their turns too, and some of those societies can get them at times and places that can be really frustrating for the Romans.
Rhomania does not have a monopoly on competence and innovation, and for it to have one ITTL would be utterly unrealistic.
And bad luck happens. The explosion of the magazine at Belgrade is identical to an OTL event that occurred during the Peninsular War, allowing the French to take a Spanish fortress. The Byzantines IOTL lost a battle with the Bulgarians because the Byzantines were winning but then their commander needed to pee. He dismounted to do so, and his horse escaped and ran through the Byzantine lines. Seeing their commander’s rider-less horse, they thought he’d been killed and panicked, allowing the Bulgarians to regroup and then rout the demoralized Byzantines. There’s a reason why the more crazy stuff that happens ITTL I endnote with the OTL inspiration to show that it’s not out of bounds of reality.
Rome lost literally hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of men to storms during the First Punic War. Weather can make or break a campaign, especially in pre-industrial times without motorized transport. Also having issue with a Roman siege failing because of an early monsoon (which is a thing; the Earth’s climatic cycle has patterns but it’s not an atomic clock) while repeatedly expecting a storm to sink the entire Spanish fleet definitely looks like a double-standard.
And sometimes the ‘bad luck’ is from a system that is flawed, such as the current setup of the eastern Katepanates, but systems always have flaws, either intentional or unintentional, and while sometimes they can be ignored, other times they are a real problem. Or the system prioritizes values that are inappropriate for changed circumstances. As
@JSC pointed out, the Drakid-era army prioritized loyalty first and bravery second, and only then competence. This makes complete sense for an administration traumatized by the Time of Troubles and anxious to avoid a repeat. In that it succeeded, but its focus on loyalty first became a problem in the new circumstances of Theodor’s invasion.
Sometimes bad things just happen because the world is a chaotic system and people can only control so many variables. Sometimes bad luck happens because it flows organically from a flawed system that exists for in-setting reasons. Neither of those are ‘deus ex machina’. A deus ex machina would be an asteroid falling out of the sky and sinking the Roman fleet, or the monsoon showing up three months early.
Speaking of badasses, firstly they’re overrated. Subotai himself, properly briefed for 1940s tech and warfare, couldn’t have turned the tide for Imperial Japan once it was fighting the US. The material disparity was far too massive, just as Subotai couldn’t have won in his own time if Kievan Rus had turned out for battle with machine guns instead of medieval weaponry. This is especially prevalent moving into modern times where the ability to mobilize resources for long conflicts is key. Rhomania won because it had a superior
system as opposed to superior
individuals, which is far more reliable for success. The reason Theodor got as far as he did was because he lucked into having a generation of brilliant military leaders, which is not a reliable mechanism for victory,
and he still lost.
Secondly, there have been Roman ‘badasses’ anyway. People are reaching back nearly 50 years for examples of bad Roman luck, while ignoring the likes of Manuel Philanthropenos and even young Odysseus who are recent TL characters.
Thirdly, the whole cult of badassery is questionable in its own right, focusing on sheer fighting prowess at the expense of all else. The Spartans are hailed as amazing badasses, which makes people overlook the fact that Spartan society was literally one of the monstrous and inhumane societies in all of history, including the twentieth century. Seriously, it’d be better to be a slave in the antebellum American south than to be a Spartan helot. At least in the American south they didn’t require the elite boys to kill a slave as part of their rite to become a man.
As for consequences being unfairly skewed against the Romans, consider the settings. A Roman army went on a rampage in southern Germany, destroying a major anti-Triune force, which allowed the Triunes to turn around and destroy the other major anti-Triune force. The Romans have, regardless of intent, substantially aided the Triunes in their conquest of the Rhineland, and are also making noises about annexing northern Italy. The Spanish meanwhile are sending forces to a colonial area. One area is a much bigger deal than the other, so actions there matter much more and so earn greater consequences. France trying to grab the Rhineland is a much bigger deal than France grabbing Vietnam. Threatening metropole and metropole-adjacent areas is going to get a much bigger backlash than threatening colonies literally halfway around the world.
I’m still writing, and the story will continue, but Rhomania will have good leaders and bad ones, and good luck at times and bad luck at others, and good systems at times and bad systems at others,
and so will all their neighbors, be they friend or foe. And that interaction, the mix of those possibilities and the myriad of outcomes they can generate, is, I think, an important factor in creating a compelling and interesting story.
