Just for those interested in the more detailed backstory of the mod.

This history was adapted from the backstory of Lord_Finnish's Byzantium mod for Darkest Hour. I have their permission to use it.

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History

When Michael VIII Palaiologos reconquered Constantinople from the Latins in 1261, the Empire was split into three Greek and countless Latin successor states and the Romans were pressed from all directions. However, Michael was blessed with favourable events from abroad. Fearing a second Latin invasion Michael negotiated a union of the churches with the Pope, eliminating his support for any Latin invasions. This break in hostilities enabled Michael to build a proper navy for his Empire. He spent most of his reign combating Bulgarians and Turks, the former of which he managed to largely subdue. His successes brought the Empire from the brink of ruin and he is considered one of the best Emperors. His successors varied in quality but were able to hold to their power, and the reign of John V culminated in the Serbian victory over the Turks at Maritsa in 1371

This victory along with further successes (especially the Latin victory at Nicopolis in 1396) prevented the Turks from gaining a foothold in Thrace. The Palaiologoian restoration was finalized during the Ottoman interregnum in 1402-1413 which happened at the time of Manuel II who managed to capitalize on the Turkish anarchy by subsidizing the Turk rebels, winning their loyalty. This with the destruction of Ottoman army by Timur in 1402 removed the last acute threats to the Empire's existence. The Turkish anarchy along with careful diplomacy had allowed Manuel II and his successor John VIII stabilize the Empire and regain areas held by the Latins. John VIII made extensive tours around Europe and his warm welcome encouraged many Roman thinkers and artists visit Italy, triggering the Renaissance. Thessaly fell in 1481, setting path for reconquest of Greece which was completed in 1511. The Empire, although still minimal in size and power, entered a period of peace helped by extensive diplomacy and cultural links to especially Serbs and Russians.

With the Empire's independence secured with Russian help, there was little use for licking the Latins' boots, who had nevertheless found a new enemy from the Mamluks of Egypt, who had come to control most of North Africa and Middle East. The Komnenoi returned from Trebizond to rule the Empire from 1561 to 1599, during which Serbia was absorbed into the Empire and a series of clashes with Austria and Hungary ensued over the control of Croatia and Vallachia. At its greatest extent in this turbulent time the Empire reached from Nicaea to Zagreb and from Sparta to the Moldavian border. Over the course of 18th century, however, the Romans were ejected from Croatia during a particularly violent civil war between the Marinoi and the Spiroi (the latter prevailed and ruled the Empire 1794-1822). Serbia also revolted to become its own nation in 1799, never to fall in Roman hands again.

The Rhomanian Empire participated in the Napoleonic Wars on the Allied side, successfully making gains in Anatolia, but overall performance in this war remained lackluster. The first decades of 19th century were plagued by internal problems. Roman aristrocracy returned to its old tradition of civil strife, causing a series of wars over the years that ended only in the return of the Palaiologos dynasty (who had last occupied the throne in 1534) under the leadership of Romanos VII. Romanos deposed Georgios III Stavros in 1831, bringing the already longest-ruling Roman dynasty back to power. First conquests were made in Anatolia, where the southwestern coast was liberated from Turkish occupation for the first time since 13th century.

Thus began what many consider Rhomania's most recent golden era. Romanos VII kickstarted the industrialization of the Empire in the 1830s, and helped to fund the development of a rail system spanning from Peloponessos to Constantinople. For a time, Rhomania rivaled even Britain and France in industrial terms.

As he fostered industrialization, the Empire engaged in the Eastern Reconquista, a war spanning a decade against the then-reigning Ottoman Turks (who still held dominion over most of Anatolia, parts of Syria, and most of Iraq) from 1836 into the 1840s. Having already had its army destroyed, the Ottomans hardly put up a fight before they were, with the exception of their Kurdish and Iraqi territories, annexed into the Empire. A revolution later, and the Ottomans were dethroned, replaced by a Turkish-lead republic known as Mesopotamia.

The birth and development of nationalism, in the form of Hellenism and Romanism, in Rhomania through the 19th century underscored the jingoistic foreign policy and pragmatism the establishment engaged in. As it developed culturally, it expanded to the south through the 'New Crusade': a period of wars between Rhomania and the Mamluks in Egypt over the status of the holy land that took place from the late 1840s into the late 1870s.

Two major factors that contributed to the end of this golden age were the intervention of the British and French, and steadily growing enmity between the Rhomanians and their Russian allies.

The British and French lodged formal complaints to the Imperial government about Rhomania's activities in the middle east, seeing a strong Mamluk state as important to the balance of the region. After the Paris Conference on the Status of the Middle East in 1862, attended by all of the European major powers, ended with the general agreement that the Rhomans needed to withdraw from the Middle East, the British and French intervened against the Rhomanians at several key moments. They dashed Rhoman advances, suppressed their fleets, or embargoed them. Each intervention set the Empire back on their plans.

At around the same time the pan-slavist Russian Empire, though initially a strong ally during the Eastern Reconquista, took issue with the treatment of the Bulgarian minority in Rhomania as the Romanist movements ran their course. This culminated in a formal request for Bulgarian independence in exchange for continued support against the Mamluks from the Russian Empire. Romanos, at this time an aged and bitter man, sent back an official correspondence condemning Russian interference in what he described 'matters of state' and, in a sort of ♥♥♥ for tat, demanded the independence of the Polish, Balts, and Finns. While this was intended to demonstrate the ludicrous nature of the Russian demands, it instead sent the Russian Empire into a frenzy.

The 'New Crusade' ended with the Treaty of Damascus in 1878, after Romanos' death, with Rhomania shamed and the Mamluk state being subjugated to Britain, with Syria held as a dominion between Britain and France. Manuel III Palaiologos, the new emperor, found himself in control of a state filled with an extremely resentful population, and attracting the ire of all the other major European powers except for the nascent Germany, and Austria.

Just two years thereafter, the Bulgarian War began with Russian-supported Bulgarian troops seizing major cities in the Balkans, from Macedonia to Silistria. Simultaneously, the Russians threw their lot in with the new Bulgarian state, and sent an expeditionary force through Wallachia to support the revolters. The war raged for four long years, and was incredibly fluid, with advances and counteradvances being made almost weekly and no victory or defeat in sight. At their greatest extent, the Bulgarian-aligned forces controlled everything from Kallipolis to Larissa through most of 1882. Things rapidly changed after the Battle of Kallipolis late into 1882, which saw a large part of the Russian expedition captured or killed. The Rhoman Aegean Fleet, shortly thereafter, practically wiped out the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the Battle of Burgas when the former caught the latter offguard while the latter was supporting the Bulgarian defense of the city -- they were pushed into the harbor, and then destroyed wholesale.

Larissa was abandoned by the Bulgarians in early May of 1883, fearing encirclement was imminent. The recapture of the Trans-Macedonian Railway gave the Rhoman forces a sharp impetus and before long they had practically fully recaptured Macedonia. Combined with an embargo from Germany, in support of the Rhomans, the Russians had been principally knocked out. The war continued for some time at a lower intensity than it had been, with the Bulgarians managing to tighten up their defensive strategy and retake Burgas by Christmas of 1883. The Rhomanians, meanwhile, bided their time and prepared for a Spring offensive intended to end the war.

But just as things were looking up for Rhomania, the French and British began to pressure them to push for a peace treaty before Bulgaria had been fully defeated. With their forces occupied in the Balkans, almost nothing could be spared to potentially defend Anatolia from an incursion from the south.

Manuel thus, with France and Germany as mediators, negotiated a settlement. Bulgaria would be free, but Macedonia would remain in Rhoman control, with its political status to be decided in a future negotiation on the Bulgarian-dominated regions thereof.

Though not a total loss, the secession of Bulgaria enraged much of the population -- especially the Anatolians, who had been disproportionately drafted into the Army as the war dragged on, an unfortunate result of the occupation of much of Thrace. Despite having ruled for only a few short years, Manuel III had become extremely unpopular, and the Anatolians, with aristocratic support from much of the Heartland Rhoman establishment, backed a new candidate for the throne: John Komnenos, head of the Komnenid family. Though an Anatolian himself, most of the Rhoman nobility had a positive opinion of the man, and when agitation demanding Manuel's abdication reached a boiling point, only the Macedonians and Thracians supported the reigning Emperor. The civil war that ensued was brief and relatively bloodless. Manuel abdicated not long after the start of hostilities, with the 'war' having only a single actual battle, between Komnenid forces and the loyalist garrison in Smyrna.

John was crowned John IX, and though he tried his best to stabilize it, the Empire had already slipped into a state of virtually perpetual civil strife. Albanian, Bulgarian, and Latin nationalists agitated constantly for their own liberation. Protests, boycotts, industrial sabotage, and rioting became common throughout the last decade of the 19th century and even into the first decade of the 20th. The industry, once a point of pride, was rotting from within. The Navy was decades obsolescent. The Army could hardly afford to arm itself. Major private companies and even much of the nobility were going bankrupt seemingly every other week.

When the Great War came around, however, there was a brief moment of brightness: a cause to rally around, a new motivation to bring Rhomania into the modern era once again. With Austrian and German support, during the first three years of the war, Rhomania quickly modernized its infrastructure and industry. The riots and boycotts stopped, and Rhomania saw success for the first time in a half a century, driving as far south as Jerusalem and successfully holding much of its gains for a significant part of the war. It was not to last, however, and with the Deluge in early 1918, the Rhomanians lost control over most of Anatolia to a foreign aggressor once again.

The Treaty of Versailles dictated the creation of a new state -- the Anatolian Repubic, which was really Turkish-dominated -- as well as the re-liberation of Bulgaria. Once again defeated and demoralized, the Rhomans were struck even harder than most by the Great Depression. When John IX died in 1931, his son Alexios VI took the throne and attempted to institute several reforms during his short reign. He died in 1934, and was succeeded by Konstantinos XIV.

Demographics
There are four major ethnic groups within Rhomania:

-Heartlanders, Heartland Rhomans, Nicaeans: Rhomanians who have been firmly under Rhoman control since not long after 1261, and are located on the coasts of the Sea of Marmara. Their culture and dialect reflects this close tie to the Empire. The largest ethnic group of Rhomania.
-Anatolians: Rhomanians whose culture is a result of the fluidity with which Anatolia's political status has shifted. Many speak a very Turkish-influenced dialect of Greek, and they are generally known for being merchants and seafarers. They can be found throughout Anatolia, but are most heavily concentrated on the coasts (with Trapezous, Famagusta, and Smyrna being centers of their culture). They are the second largest ethnic group Rhomania. The current emperor, Konstantinos XIV, is an ethnic Anatolian.
-Hellenes: Also derogatorily known as "wild Greeks", Hellenes are similar to Anatolians in that the cultural divergence suffered by Hellenes is related to the fluidity with which the lands they reside have changed hands. They are influenced linguistically by Albanians, Bulgarians and Macedonians, Serbs, as well as Latins, and are concentrated in Macedonia, Thessaly, and to a lesser extent Attica. They have a very distinct literary tradition, and are generally more secular than Heartlanders.
-Latins: Linguistically speak a dialect of Greek with heavy Latin and French influences. Most Latins are Catholic, and are by and large the result of the reconquest of Greece taking as long as it did. Principally concentrated in Peloponnesos, Attica, and Crete.