I must say Messiah (cheaper and stronger GP) paired with Just War (+20% when attacking city of your religion) is great fun, almost OP. I am not sure why Just War is an enhancer when it doesn’t actually help your religion spread. Sure, it gives you motivation to spread, but that’s more like a founder benefit. Since both are enhancers, only Theodora can pull off this particular trick. First time at immortal that I was able to clear my continent — Egypt and Babylon (the later with Great Wall). But even after drilling into his territory with a couple GG, he didn’t fall until I got arty. So this prolly says more about how weak I am, than Messiah+JW being OP!
I only ended up purchasing a few units with Holy Warriors, maybe 4-6. I think HW is best if you don’t use faith for anything else. Maybe if you have a strat where you can count on HS for enhancing? Or just enhance late? I rarely catch HS and, as described by others earlier in this thread, unlocking the dual UUs really delays Byzantium getting to theology. This game, I was very vested in using faith for GP. Just War really helped me break out of my turtle habit. Messiah means you never need to use more than one GP burn.
Byzantines probably works best at King to Emperor difficulty.
You could say the same thing about Egypt! A UA that is greatly diminished at higher difficulty levels.
Above that and the bonuses the AI gets just makes things moot.
With Byzantium, you need to found. Which you can do at higher levels. Desert or tundra starts makes things much easier. All the religious benefits are quite good, so unless you are gaming for a particular combination, no need for a cooked start. But founding is still a crap shoot. At least with Egypt, going in you know the UA will only be used for National Wonders!
Building a special religious strategy is really the key to this Civ.
I don’t agree that you need a “special” strategy. Even founding late, there are very good Founder, Follower, and Enhancers available. That said, I had something particular in mind that I wanted to try, so I needed a faith generating pantheon, so I re-rolled until I got desert or tundra.
Otherwise compare this Civ to say Egypt... So really what is the better Civ here????
Since you can use their UA more than half the time at higher levels, clearly Byzantium! Egypt’s wonder-building UA is mostly useless at Immortal/Deity. And at lower levels, you don’t need it. But for folks who like to wonder whore, it can be fun. (But still only at lower levels.)
Regarding Holy Warriors I think it's doable if you can use your bonus belief and pantheon to get extra faith... But yes Celts are probably better. But Celts have a forest bias so you probably can't get Desert Folklore whereas Byzantine can get desert starts.
Celts get faith from unimproved forest, so they get an early boost similar to what other civs get from desert and tundra. The difference is that Desert Folklore and Dance of the Aurora work all game long for significant amounts of faith (since your territory grows), whereas one chops forests as Celts. I too am not following the suggestion for Celts as a good candidate for exploiting Holy Warriors. I would think a renaissance era UU would be best. One has to found for HW to be available (since it is a follower belief). I guess since the AI likes to pick HW, you need a civ that can found early, and Celts are good for that.
Anyone have strats where Holy Warriors is a make/break element of your gameplay at Immortal/Deity?
