Why aren't you using the medieval Roman Empire as a background to your setting anons?

>Not following the creed of St Peter
Get out of here you eastern heretic

You're thinking of England.

But se talking about it's eastern more specifically during it's reemergence of the 9th and 10th century.

The media loves to forget them

>The Pope having any power over the Emperor

No little latin you're the heretic!

>"Byzantines" is a retroactively applied term. The East Romans called themselves Roman.

>Don't speak Latin
Ever since Roman citizenship was extended to all those living within the borders of the Roman Empire, only a tiny minority of Romans has spoken Latin. The East Romans spoke Greek, the language of the Roman educated class.

>Don't practice the Roman faith
You mean Chalcedonian Christianity? Because the only kind of Christianity closer to it other than Eastern Orthodoxy is Roman Catholocism, and even that's debatable.

>Didn't control Rome throughout its existence
By the last two centuries of its existence, Rome wasn't even the capital of the Western Empire. Rome was only around for sentimental value by that point. If the Roman Empire is defined by having Rome as its capital, it stopped existing under Constantine the Great, the last emperor who ruled over a unified empire alone and not uncoincidentally the emperor who moved the capital to New Rome: Constantinople.

t. Constantine Gyropolis

This is excellent. Saved.

>This

People who say that the byzantines weren't romans are spouting nonsense and memes.

I'm currently reading Harry Turtledove's Videssos Cycle. Quite liking it.

If the Byzantines weren't Romans, they were certainly the heirs to their legacy.

After my CK2 campaign as the byzantines ended with the conquest of the former roman territories, with numerous aditions. I've started to think how to live in the renewed empire would be like.

By the laws I've passed and by it's size I imagine it would be pretty comfy.

>east rome
>not rome

>>Don't speak Latin
K
>>Don't practice the Roman faith
The catholic faith in all fairness is the wrong one from their point of view, the victor of rome kinda sorta decided he would be the most powerful man in europe and excommunicated the others.
>Didn't control Rome throughout its existence
They held it as much as they could, look user this is closer to saying the Seleucid are not a Hellenistic kingdom. because the majority language wasn't XYZ

>The catholic faith in all fairness is the wrong one from their point of view, the victor of rome kinda sorta decided he would be the most powerful man in europe and excommunicated the others.
And the results rather show who won that one.

Those crusades to the holy surely worked great!

*holy land

As much as i love my church, the eastern appear to be do much better today
>ratzinger abidcates for no good reason
>new socialist pope.
>screeching feminists defiling the vadican
>we should allow more Muslim in europe, that's a great idea (despite their prophet being a pawn of the devil to lead the faithful away from god.)
i am not happy

It's pretty easy being snarky behind the safety of your computer and drenched in first world luxuries and hindsight.

>First Crusade
Roaring succes
>Second Crusade
Failed attempt to capitalize on the succes of the first
>Third Crusade
Mixed bag, Richard does manage to secure the future safety of the Crusader State and make some minor gainz but can't regain Jerusalem
>Fourth Crusade
Doesn't count, Venetians are barely even Christian. My money is on them being a bunch of crypto-Jews
>Fifth Crusade
Bitter defeat
>Sixth Crusade
An often forgotten smashing victory. Effectively the entire Holy Land is regained, including Jerusalem.
>Seventh Crusade
The last "real" crusade, launched by Louis IX. Despite being a military defeat, Saint Louis was so BASED and VIRTUOUS that the Saracens voluntarily abandoned Acre. Diplomatically it's sort of a succes.
>Eight Crusade
Stopped before it started.

All in all they weren't failures. The real problem was the very nature of the Seventh and Eight Crusades: they were Saint Louis' pet projects with exactly zero foreign support. They were entirely French affairs rather than Papal affairs, showing that the erosion of Papal authority killed any enthousiasm for further crusading efforts. For reference: the Seventh Crusade ended in 1254, and the (Second) Kingdom of Jerusalem ended in 1291, almost half a century later.

>As much as i love my church
Vatican II is a joke. Hell, the modern Catholic Church is even straight-up anti-apologetics because it's "anti-atheist", "anti-muslim" and "anti-protestant" (no fucking shit). The Society of St. Pius is probably the closest thing to a real successor to Vatican I.

How many times have you had to crush a revolt and how built up are the provinces infrastructures?

> Patriarch of Mars
That sounds actually pretty radical.

I would, but the stars aren't right, you know?

Guten tag, Bruder. I too hate Voltaire and love Karl der Groß, but the Byzantines are also Roman.

Well, considering how we Orthodox do things...There probably would be a Patriarch of Mars. Whether there should be a Patriarch of Earth would be its own bag of problems.

>I too hate Voltaire and love Karl der Groß

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widukind
>Widukind became a hero for German nationalists in the early 20th century.
>Christian nationalists also lauded him, linking Charlemagne with the humiliation of French domination after World War I, especially the occupation of the Rhineland, portraying Charlemagne as a "French" invader.[6]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_II_of_France
>Philip II, known as Philip Augustus (French: Philippe Auguste; 21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223), was King of France from 1180 to 1223, a member of the House of Capet. Philip's predecessors had been known as kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French monarch to style himself king of France.

I imagine you'll work it out when you get there. With a lot of shouting.

They managed to survive for a 1000 years despite constant warfare on two fronts, thats an amazing capacity for resilience. Maybe if civil war hadnt been their favorite pastime they would still be around today.

I was able to Max out all my castles, don't really know how my vassals fared.

The price you pay when you make the highest office of the land open for anyone that can take It.

It would have helped to not lose almost half of your nation and arguably the most important bits to Muslim invaders because you were too busy having a dick swinging contest with the fucking Persians.

Eh. It's like a band that one-by-one replaces its members until there are no original members left, except maybe the singer. If all the members had quit at the same time and been replaced by a whole new line-up, nobody would say it's the same band, but bit-by-bit is a different story.

>What's the deal with the Holy Roman Empire? It isn't holy, it isn't Roman, and it isn't an empire. What's the deal with that?!

germans being germans

>people being unironically religious in 2017

Wew lad

Medieval Roman Empire means an alternate reality where the Western empire managed to hang on and eek out an existence as a polity.for another few hundred years.

If you are talking the East then you have to specify that,

Enjoy being enlightened by your own intelligence you euphoric fuck

>actually needing to play pretend in real life

lol you're supposed to keep that to the roleplaying games s m h f a m

>These borders
Literally indefensible. You have two halves that are completely incapable of supporting each other because there aren't enough trees for the empire to maintain a navy large enough to transport armies and supplies between the two halves, and your entire eastern border has no natural borders.

>your entire eastern border has no natural borders.
Anatolia is a pretty good position to defend. It's full of mountains with rather narrow passes that can serve as chokepoints and as the map shows, it is dotted by rivers that could also serve as a good defensive line.

>People are actually religious in THE CURRENT YEAR? How can people actually believe different things from me in THE CURRENT YEAR?
You've fallen for the Marxist meme of teleological history, especially in regards of the proletariat abandoning the 'opiate of the people' to eventually achieve a workers paradise on earth. You probably believe that our 'enlightened culture' has 'outgrown' Christianity, which is but a stale remnant of a darker age. The numbers actually dictate the opposite (and you'd think numbers would be the first thing you'd go for, considering how much New Atheists love the words "logic" and "reason").

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/

The religiously unaffiliated (not even atheists, and there is a difference. For example, in the US about 25% are unaffiliated, but only 3% identify as atheist and 4% as agnostic, with the rest being more wishy-washy "nothing in particular" or "I don't know") are projected to marginally grow in total numbers but spectacularly decline as a share of the global population. So not only are there still religious people in THE CURRENT YEAR, there will actually be a lot more of them in THE FUTURE YEARS.

>B-But Christianity is declining in Europe and the US! T-these are the enlightened parts of the world!
And fertility rates are below replacement level in these regions (the US less so than Europe), as is the norm among the unaffiliated. Europe now actually has to import Muslims in order to replace their heavily declining (or at best stagnant, but only Catholic Ireland has that luxury) population. Far from being free from religion, Europe has only opted to be oppressed by another, far less tolerant, religion.

The progressive paradigm of Europe outgrowing Christianity is far from the truth and the numbers actually dictate the opposite: Christianity is outgrowing Europe.

Let's not forget that was the fire worshippers that started this whole debacle.

>He believes the ERE was an entity separate from Rome and it's traditions

because i like guns

>Stalin was a saint
They are already at this level. Patriarchy of Mars when?

Is flamethrowers one of those guns?

Because this shit is so fucking over-used I'm amazed you consider it rare, OP

Well I've never participate in any RPG with it being the background, mostly is mystical france and scandinavia.

>>Don't speak Latin
Greek was the language of the Elire during the republic.
>>Don't practice the Roman faith
Christianity is Roman as fuck
>>Didn't control Rome throughout its existence
It's the ROMAN empire, not the empire of ROME.

The city didn't mean shit, it's citizens did, and since Caracalla there were a hell of a lot of citizens outside rome.

Because I use the Holy Roman Empire from XVI century. It's more fun this way. Nobody can solve that clusterfuck it became! The emperor pretends to be ruling, the lords pretend to be ruled! No matter where you land your ass there's a power struggle happening! Free cities feuding with nobles, nobles bickering between themselves. Every other square foot of land have some different laws! Imperial bureaucracy serving only itself and ever expanding!

It was actually the fire worshipers avenging the brutal murder of a dear friend of the current Sassanid Emperor, who owed both his life and his position to the Byzantines.

>Everything changed when the fire nation attacked

Which is why I like the byzantines so much It's a realm with a greater stability than it's neighbours. A clear chain of command and learned populace for the time atleast.

It literally was.

Debating it is a meme.

>It literally was.

The ERE split when the WRE was still around, user-sama.

That's kinda the point.

If Britain fell during WW2 and become something else entirely and King George took his family over to Canada - after a few hundred years we'd stop calling it the British Commonwealth and recognize it as something distinct.

Maybe it's a better place to live but I wouldn't prefer it that much for an RPG setting.

That's literally what happened in Brasil.

You just need to put your setting in a bigger scale, for example from the seventh to the tenth century the Romans had little control over the balkans and was fighting hard to keep what they had left of Anatolia their neighbours were slavic tribes and the Arab caliphate and they were fighting hard against the lombards to mantain the little that they have left in italy.
Pretty good setting to put in a table game

>Byzantine Empire during the First Crusade

Okay, so you've got this ancient empire that has dwindled significantly in the past few centuries, but under the leadership of an energetic young emperor they seem to be making a resurgence. To the East, the decentralized tribes of foreigners who had invaded the Empire a century ago are seemingly incapable of organizing a unified threat to the Empire that seeks to reconquer their heartland. To the West you have a collection of petty kingdoms squabbling over petty slights and old grudges who have thus far escaped the hungry eyes of the Empire, offering them brief respite from invasion and, hopefully, enough time to consolidate their holdings and form a truly unified force.

Traveling through the Empire is a strange group of religious fanatics, whose belief in "holy war" is quaint or even vaguely heretical to the Empire. Their swords will be used against the tribes and their esoteric, mighty benefactors beyond, but the lands they conquer - lands rightfully belonging to the Empire - will be parceled out to the Crusading leaders.

>Pretty good setting to put in a table game

The easiest way to do this scenario, I think, is starting up a campaign of CK2 at the Alexiad start and letting the game run for maybe 50 years. Do this, grab the names and habits of the national figures, and convert them into tabletop characters. Nothing says "memorable" like an ambitious homosexual lazy-ass Emperor who nonetheless has lofty ambitions to conquer Anatolia and see his daughter married to the Hungarians.

I much prefer the Macedonian Renassance, but a Alexiad game would be pretty good.

Because my setting is post-Renaissance Age of Sail/Age of Reformation themed, so any version of the Roman Empire wouldn't make sense.

But what about your next setting?

>English Royal family still has french coat of arms in their heraldry

>The ERE split when the WRE was still around, user-sama.
It didn't "split", Constantine's heirs divided the two. Both halves had an emperor, but (in title) they were both equally emperor of the entirety of the Roman Empire. When the West Roman Empire fell, the East Roman Empire didn't stop being Roman, it just meant that there was only one wholly Roman Emperor left of the entire Roman Empire, the Western half of which was occupied by barbarians. And then there's the fact that Constantine himself, who ruled over the whole empire singlehandedly, moved the capital to Constantinople.

The situation is more like King George moving the capital to Glasgow, and 50 years later London falling to muzzies.

That said, the situation you describe the backstory for Code Geass' Britannia (which does not include the British Isles). Fictional example, true that, but we don't really have any historical examples of this unusual situation outside of the Roman Empire.

Mongol Empire setting is way cooler

Code Gayass is shit.

What was schism over fashion?

>And then there's the fact that Constantine himself, who ruled over the whole empire singlehandedly, moved the capital to Constantinople.

Was controlling Gaul and Britannia always a meme for the Romans? If I recall, the vast majority of manufacturing, economy, population and culture was being produced east of Italy. The only Western possession whose loss was felt was Hispania, and that's only because the Iberian Peninsula is choke full of resources (particularly metals and ore.)

The schism that finally separated the Orthodox Church from Catholicism involved an argument over priestly raiment - a petty conversation, but there's been centuries of bickering before that so it was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

The Roman Empire FEELS basic but is pretty much never used.
The true basic is some fusion of medieval England and France with some elements from the Renaissance to the 19'eme siecle.

>The true basic is some fusion of medieval England and France with some elements from the Renaissance to the 19'eme siecle.

Which sucks because most people never actually roll with a proper England or France. Give me some Absolutism France with a literal Sun King, or England during the Heptarchy.

>Was controlling Gaul and Britannia always a meme for the Romans?
Gaul and modern France have a lot of arable land though. Britannia was mostly seen as a mystical land filled with all kinds of riches, only to be incredibly underwhelming when the Romans actually got there.

Neither were "worthless", but it's clear that when the empire was cut in half the Eastern half got a much better deal and ended up being significantly richer. The West on the other hand had agriculture from the Maghreb and Gaul, the ores from Hispania, Italia itself and that's it.

>literal Sun King
Wouldn't that turn France into an early modern Egypt?

>Wouldn't that turn France into an early modern Egypt?

Yes.

Steppe nomads games are pretty shit in my experience

The most powerful empire in my setting is an Elvish empire that is a mix of the Chinese (to a lesser extent) and Persia and Byzantium (to a greater extent). The relationship between the central imperial elite and the rising landed magnates that push the borders westward is one of my favorite parts of byzantine history and so plays a major part in my setting.

>rising landed magnates that push the borders westward is one of my favorite parts
In my setting they push westwards, in Byzantium's case they pushed east/south-east

Or the rise of the centralized state, with a shrewd monarch who through intrigue, diplomacy and conquest increases the size of the royal demesne

youtube.com/watch?v=yvGHp3YBEC8

doesn't look too egyptian tho

>not the Holy Roman Empire
How the fuck can you have a reformation without religious wars in the empire itself?

I'm actually using it in its later years as a basis for my setting. I love how it balkanizes and has a ton of successor states with similar cultures, and states that have risen to prominence on their own around it.

>pretend
I don't pretend.
I don't pretend i know if any divine goobly goop exists which means.
I don't pretend i know it doesn't

Now if only we could say the same for the Mohamed heresy

What would have happened if The Empire was instead split into North and South, with Cyprus as the cutoff?

>and your entire eastern border has no natural borders.

To be fair he's utterly wrong but the Western Empire had far easier borders to defend. The Rhine to the North, and the Sahara to the South. Nothing ever attacked from the South, so effectively they had just one very easy to defend border.

There's a reason why France has ceaselessly attempted to expand towards the Rhine: the Central European plain is the only real weakness in its natural borders, which makes the German lightning victory in Fall Gelb nothing more than logical. Imagine something like the Maginot Line across the entire Rhine (which the Belgians refused to cooperate in by declaring themselves entirely neutral), then the Germans would have close to no chance of entering France.

And somehow the West Romans fucked that up. That's what happens when you let G*rmanics into your country.

user, everyone knows the history - the Rhine river froze so it was solid enough to walk on, and a bunch of Germanics streamed in. Too many to hold back even if the Romans had tried. Rivers aren't as hard a border as actual mountains.

>Didn't speak Latin

Neither did most Romans. Did you get your knowledge of Rome from Fallout New Vegas?

Gibbon go home, you made up the frozen rhine.

>Literally the uninterupted continuation of the Roman Empire
>Not Rome

Do you retard thing that just because they evolved it means that they're not the same entity? If you go by that logic, then the roman empire stopped being roman because it stopped being a republic and the roman republic stopped being roman because it stopped being a kingdom

Diff user
not going to directly defend that idea but i like a bit of devil's advocacy. (I personally believe the Turks did an immeasurable evil in killing the last of the roman empire.)
I mean it's a Theseus's paradox.
Thanks to the Marian reforms, the Latifunda problem, the over all Hellenization of the late republic, the loss of the myth of the roman farmer, the loss of duty to the state, the shifting demographics with large slaves imports and the ingratiation of Latin allies and Italian allies.
The republic did cease to resemble it self by the time Augustus took the stage.
And we honestly don't know how much of the imperial period is writing the future into the past, that story of Cato the younger being so determined that Livus Drussus could not effect him what so ever is most likely a bullshit but the Greeks believed in part in fundamental unchangeable character.

At what point do we categorize it as something else?

There is a reason why we need to break these period up between the pre-republic, the republic, the empire, the decline and the east extension because the Theseus ship has been replace so far that it is hard to recognize.
East rome would appear, ethnically, socially, militarily and culturally more akin to the successor states of Alexander to the Romans, republic and possibly up to late empire. So why refer to them as a Romans at all? We do not refer to the kingdom of Ptolemy or the Seleucid empire as Macedon, despite rising from the Hellenistic generals and being at the top level (much like east rome) Aristocratically Hellenistic.

Because they were the uninterupted continuation and they kept calling themselves roman and identifying with a roman identity instead of being a successor state until the 4th crusade. It evolved throughout the years just like any other state. They kept the same laws, titles and administration and added on top of it and remained "Rome" in both name and spirit. Is England not England anymore because it's no longer a feudal shithole ruled by retardedly aggressive french vikings?

>Is England not England anymore because it's no longer a feudal shithole ruled by retardedly aggressive french vikings?
youtube.com/watch?v=WJheODYpuEI

You're all a bunch of uneducated g*yreek barbarian plebeians. Go crucify yourselves after you're done having disgusting ass sex with each other.

Woah there, Powell. One city being remarkably multicultural does not mean it's no longer part of a larger culture, otherwise America would have pretty much no American large cities. Give it a generation or two and those strange foreigners will be the most English Englishmen, eager to assert themselves as being English instead of the parentage of their fathers and the most likely to hate on immigrants.