Let me be the first to say congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I've greatly enjoyed your work so far and look forward to seeing more once you've settled into married life :)
I think it'd be much more likely that if Hungary and Vlachia came to Rhomania's aid it would be seperately; Hungary would invade Venice and possibly harass Adriatic shipping while Vlachia would deal with those upstart Serbians and Bulgarians.
However those minerals aren't readily apparent as they're mostly inland, with some of those deposits in pretty inhospitable locations. It was also only after about half a century of settlement (of the east coast) that any notable deposits were discovered. And all the petroleum is offshore of the...
Is that such a bad thing? They got dealt such a terrible hand in the later centuries OTL so it'd be less wank and more correcting the timeline right? :p
Really enjoying this take on the Byzantine Empire, I've become quite interested in the the history of the Empire ever since playing them in EU3. It's even plausible to boot! What with the rise and fall of the fortunes of the Byzantines in the centuries preceeding their final defeat...
My current Byzantine game, with HTTT of course... and boy am I loving the expansion. Current year is 1669, and prior to inheriting them recently, I've been in PU with Lithuania and (soon to be inherited :D) Muscovy since the early to mid 1500's. I've only used the new Obscure Documents CB once...