Suggestion needed with Byzantium
R5: Actual situation with my game.
After having played for one thousand hours and with some help from youtube and reddit managed to play a pair of decent playtrhought (Spain and Commonwealth on top), I still feel that there is something that I miss.
I'm playing with Byzantium the year is 1472 and I managed to win (hardly) my second war with Ottos (Austria helped a lot). I still make only 18 ducats avevn with the gold mine in Dardania. My military is healed but still clumsy (110 Disci, 41 AT) only 13k men, managed to take what I could from Naples before Aragon CB them, and vassalized Bosnia.
Looking at videos where ppl trash Ottos like nothing, I think I'm doing something wrong: my alliances are frail (Austria will break it in seconds from the screen), my military is laughable, I have a +5 income but filed only the military advisor.
I almost have the same problem with all but the 3 strongest nations of the game (even with France I struggle ffs!), how can I improve and how can I do better with this game?
Thanks in advance guys!