I sense disaster for the allies. Things have been going a bit too well for them so far.
Agreed; on the other hand, Eastern Rome needs to learn a little lesson in how to beware of Hubris.
Well Im not going to spoil anything aside from mentioning that Crete had a large Venetian population and Aragon liked their duchy.
I really like this so far. It's nice to see focus on details, timelines tend to loose some immersion when they switch to great imperial conflicts.
Btw, from whose POV are these chapters written?
Uhh... I honestly don't know who'd write these. Maybe its a podcast on an alternate Byzantine Empire?
The Venetians were pretty blind to have missed such a perfect storm.
I think a war this successful would definitely breed victory disease and also arguments over spoils. Beware, Romans!
It might just be me, but Venice seems to have reacted somewhat slowly to developments. They seemed to be always caught off guard by Genoese improvements in finance, shipping, warfare, etc and Genoa didn't exactly try to hide it.
Who is leading the rhoman army? And if venice is defeated this could see ragusa free! I now wanna see a ragusa wank, even if this is a eastern roman TL? Whose with me? Ragusa wank
I don't know who's leading the army at this time.
Ragusa is off limits at this time. You'd need Venice to be destroyed in its entirely or to be sacked for it to accept that level of defeat. Ragusa, and all of Dalmatia play a vital role in the Republic's economy and sources of manpower and would fight to the death to protect it.
Great timeline -- well thought out -- you might want to cover the concessions given by Genoa to Byz to come into the battle -- ie back to 10% tariff - also confused why the loan from Genoa to build a Genoa fleet in Byz -- i would think instead of a loan a payment + profit
Thank you! Whilst I did have thoughts of explaining how the planning and finances and concessions in detail, I don't want to be bogged down as much, so Im purposefully leaving things a little bit vague to keep the story going at what I feel is an acceptable pace. I mean, its already like 10 or so updates and I'm still not even a decade after the POD!
As for the loans, Genoa knows that it almost certainly would be short on cash following the conclusion of this war. Historically this war almost bankrupted them. Here, they would want to give the necessary money needed but at the same time have a better chance of getting that money back. I think, via a loan, the payments would be more 'presentable' to the Romans (and thus less likely for them to turn their backs on paying the money) than an agreement of trade concessions or a cut of the profits. A loan also has the benefit of keeping their potential rival poorer by forcing them to pay whats basically tribute, but in a nicer package.
BTW if the sea is controlled and a revolt can be made Crete is quite possible to seize being cut off
That's true, but there's still the problem of several thousand armed Venetians that need to be dealt with, and who historically have been able to quell revolts from the indigenous Greeks until reinforcements from the motherland drive.
An interesting aside -- one of the curious things was the Egyptians going through Byz to supply slaves from the Caucasus to man their army -- a more prosperous Byz seeing he success of the Mamuluks might also be tempted to form some type of unit for Super Vargarians
Ok that's cool, and could work for at least a few decades. With a lower Venetian presence in the Black Sea (they were the main slavers in this region) the Byzantines can take up the niche of middle-man ferrying slaves captured from the steppes towards the buyers in Egypt, the Maghreb and Mesopotamia. For a few decades at most mind as, to my knowledge, the Golden Horde has already started to decline and when Timur comes it and its economy will be crippled. Should a alternate Khanate of Crimea arise than it'd be much weaker than historically as there'd be no Ottoman support to finance their raids. Which means the supply of slaves will be much lower as will the time slavery will be profitable (It'll only be a matter of time before the Russians push down and end the trade once and for all).
However, I feel I must note that even if we get a slave soldier detachment serving the Emperor they may not be the most reliable troops and would try to interfere in court politics as soon as they can. Happened in Egypt, happened in Delhi, happened with the Ottomans. But eh, all states make stupid decisions.
But of course, this all depends on the dynamics going on in Egypt, of which I have things planned for.
Fully on board with time line
Good update.
Hope the Romans survive longer than OTL.
Well they're already massively powerful compared to where they were IOTL, so I think its pretty likely they'll have a better shot.