Falling of the byzantine empire

It's really never that simple. Are mercenaries better than a regular army. Well it depends on what you mean by regular armies. If you include feudal systems then mercenaries are clearly superior. Since then are quicker, more professional, and generally speaking more loyal to the states. Also, standing armies are much more expensive unless you are in the constant state of war. Also, standing armies are much more likely to turn against you in civil war.

While a good hindsight point (how can you tell someone is a legend while you're their contemporary?), the main problem with manzikert was the mass desertion of the byzantine mercenary forces. Their Turks and Norman Knights just up and vamoosed before the big fight

Real life isn't Total War

Well, I keep thinking is just too expensive, at the end they didnt have any money.... but that might be a product of 1000 years of getting raided

>But a regular army is more reliable, mercenaries are expensive and not that useful
No.

t. Gustavus Adolphus

The Byzantines were actually quite rich because of the the central location of Byzantium. It was the political structure of the Byzantines that was their undoing. Civil wars were too common

They were literally the richest people around by a wide margin.

In the past, as the centuries went, their treasure dissapeared, most of it went for the sassanid wars

Well yeah there were moments of financial strain, but with the exception of the Arabs they were generally much richer than their enemies.

The death of Andronikos III and the following succession war was the final nail in the coffin. Andronikos lost pretty much all of Byzantium's Anatolian territory but was pretty successful in reclaiming large swaths of Greece and centralizing the state. If there had been a peaceful transition to a strong ruler, it's likely Byzantium could've stabilized into a territory contiguous with modern Greece + Thrace and kept the Turks in Asia. But the war between Andronikos III's son John V and his right hand man John Kantakouzenos pretty much annihilated everything the Romans had left.