Anyone here up for a complete overhaul of the Byzantine Empire? As you can see, the Byzzies must have no dukes, no counts, but instead all lands must be under the king, except for the bishoprics. That said, the Emperor must have unlimited demesne, and his crown authority can be the same as the Imperial Authority in EU3. However, controlling vast tracts of land will raise the exhaustion of the Roman people. Constantinople must also be a special city, with two kinds of troops, the Varangian Guard and the city levies, has high tax, better defenses, prestige, etc. There should also be an option to regain Rome, unify the churches, bonuses in defending against the Muslims and Venetians, etc. And Rhomanions must be tolerant to Islam and Turk culture, no penalty in having Islam and Turk in the demesne, but bonuses to Orthodox and Greek ones. The military levies should be divided into tagmas not by counties, which will have varying amount of troops and troop types, according to region culture and religion, tech, and the like. For example, for Latin tagmas there will be the Roman knights, for the Anatolian tagmas there'll be the kataphraktos, or horse archers. And also, if the heir has any birth defects, he/she is not eligible to be the emperor, thus the title will pass on to the next.
Now that the school year here is coming to a close, freeing up lots of my time, I would like to engage in creating an overhaul of the Byzantine Empire.