Does Byzantium need a boost?

Looking into playing byzantines but it appears like it is very difficult to take advantage of the extra religious belief. I usually play Emperor or Immortal and while I don't have trouble getting a religion if I pick a Civ that has early faith based buildings like Egypt or Mayans I can see this being quite difficult with Byzantines. It seems like you have to take Piety which is a weak SP tree to start with as well as get Stonehenge.

For this reason people seem to rate them as one of the worst Civs in the game right now. I was thinking as a religious based Civ they should get some other means to get a religion more easily. What do people think of these options for improving the Byzantines.

1) The extra UA belief can be picked even if it is already chosen by another Civ.
This would make Byzantium unique as the only Civ that allows you to pick any belief (that you haven't already chosen of course) even if another Civ has already taken it. If you think about it, there are many religions that share various beliefs and practices. For instance Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy both have Cathedrals, and multiple religions have a tithing system.
So if you are beaten to a particular belief, Byzantium gives you the chance to still take that belief which alleviates the lack of faith you get in the early game. So even if you're late to starting a religion because your adversaries all got faith wonders you know you still can get at least 1 belief that you want. So you don't have to ragequit from badluck.

2) Give Cataphracts a unique promotion that allows them to generate faith upon defeating an enemy unit. Or alternatively that could be given to them as a base promotion. Since Cataphracts are a relatively early game unit it would allow them to generate faith so you aren't so reliant on shrines and temples.

3) Receive a free great prophet at Theology or buffed shrines and temples. Thats a third option for making it easier for Byzantium to get a religion but personally I think options 1 or 2 are better seeing as they offer a more unique strategy. Also there are already Civs in the game that get better shrines/temples and free Great people i.e. Egypt and Mayans.

Faith when pillaging with a Cataphract seems like a good idea to me as it is a mechanic that isn't in the game yet.

A small buff will do: make Byzantium must trigger faith ruin after turn 20 (Similar as Shoshone UA but not that flexible). This way Byzantium can get ahead in grabbing a good pantheon so getting a religion is possible even in deity.

I rolled the Byzantines not too long ago for one of my Emperor games, and it was difficult...

It doesn't help Byzantium when the AI's seem to be quite fond of choosing Piety as their first tree. I choose Liberty and tried to get to the finisher asap, and choose a Great Prophet, I ended up founding the last religion.

Yes, I do think the Byzantines need some sort of mechanic to generate faith faster to make use of their UA. Since Byzantium's UU's are early. Maybe upon capturing a city they can acquire a certain amount of faith? That could be added to their UA.

Byzantium's UU is designed to be defensive with roads.

I think byzantium with piety is a very difficult thing to pull off without falling behind. The only time when i managed to keep up was when I had 2-3 alied maritime CS. If I go any other policy I risk not getting the beliefs I want for my religion.

now that I think about it, Byz is actually the most "no ability" civ. you will lose out on religion at higher difficulties, and the early units gets obsolete very fast. a good challenge on deity, I guess.

What about something like Byzantium requiring 15-20% less faith for acquiring a pantheon or religion?

Hakan-i Cihan said:

What about something like Byzantium requiring 15-20% less faith for acquiring a pantheon or religion?

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I think that in a game with celts and ethiopia, byzantium needs something to guarantee them being at least 3rd ones to get a religion.

This mod give Byzantium another bonus: +4 faith for holy site.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=160128843

Autoclave said:

I think that in a game with celts and ethiopia, byzantium needs something to guarantee them being at least 3rd ones to get a religion.

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I know that. For garanteeing a religion early there are 4 ways:

1. Give additional faith
2. Religions and pantheon requires less faith
3. Free Great Prophet at certain technology
4. Free Piety SP early in the game(?)

The first is already in use for some civs in UA or UB. The last one is actually what Poland has in a different way. Whats left is point 2 and 3. And I would expect that 3 maybe would be to OP. So suggestion 2 seemed most logical. Only I don't know how much less faith it should be in percentages.

Just add "Receive free Great Prophet when you discover Calendar (or Writing)."

Hakan-i Cihan said:

I know that. For garanteeing a religion early there are 4 ways:

1. Give additional faith
2. Religions and pantheon requires less faith
3. Free Great Prophet at certain technology
4. Free Piety SP early in the game(?)

And I would expect that 3 maybe would be to OP..

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Where it's OP ? Right now Ethiopia has guaranteed (even first may be) religion at the time when it already has a UA. Same story with Maya. Babylon and Venice receive their GP in addition to their UA and nobody calls it OP.

FeiLing said:

Faith when pillaging with a Cataphract seems like a good idea to me as it is a mechanic that isn't in the game yet.

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Byzantium should get "Get faith after each enemy kill" for all units, which is always active (all eras, every unit, or at least, all melee units)

but dunno, I live Byzantium as they are. That one extra belief can be useful, especially if you have resource\terrain advantage. Culture and Faith from silver\gold\wine\incense, along with Monastery, missionary spam and 13 hex religion spread.

Redaxe said:

For instance Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy both have Cathedrals, and multiple religions have a tithing system.

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because they are same faith, same believes, only slightly different customs. Alto, EO had bit different view of afterlife, Hell in particular. In Roman Catholic, Hell is eternal, in EO it's not (souls are stuck in Hell until they are purged of sins, which can be nearly forever, depending on how much person has sinned)

I don't think they need a boost, but piety as an opener tree could use one. Something like giving +1 culture from shrines from the piety opener, that way you wouldn't necessarily have to rely on a culture pantheon to get your early policies. A buff to early piety is a buff to byzantium as well.

In general I hate how overpowered tradition is compared to the other trees but this probably isnt the thread to complain about it.

If you want to guarantee a religion, build a shrine after you research pottery and beeline theology for the hagia sophia. Stonehenge won't go amiss either.
I've been beaten to a religion in my last few games meaning I could concentrate on other things. In fact relations were high with my religious neighbor, and I got 2 faith buildings in each city(from 2 diffo religions).

another suggestion, give them 1 culture for every 2 faith generated each turn. By end game they'll net about 3-4 thousand extra culture, only equal to an extra sopol, but it will help them surf the piety tree.

There is a cool idea about Byz religion, which also has some historical background.
The Estern Orthodoxy wasn't something they invented indeed, initially they shared the Christianity with Rome and later Constantinopol and Rome split because of different geo-political reasons which are too long for this post. But they still share the same religion, the question was only who control the flock and who get the money. So Byz just took a religion from other Civ and modify it to their own use. Thus, here is my idea about Byz unique ability that should be in some wat inline with their current ua, which I believe is more balanced and which has the historical background.

Byz ua: When using prophet, than instead of inventing new religion Byz enhances the religion which is already in the city where the prophet stands by adding a bonus belief to it.
The civilization which originated the religion should also benefit from Byz bonus belief. It's againt the historical background, but this way other civilizations will want to bring you their religions to benefit from a bonus belief, so chances to waste the ua are minimized.

I really like option 1 in the OP. Another possibility, for a slightly bigger buff, would be if Byzantium simply started the game with the Piety opener.

Just because a civ doesnt work as well at deity or immortal does not mean they are useless, just harder to play at that level. The other levels are valid too.

Byzantium can be good for culture victory, if you get a religion, select 3 religious buildings and finish piety and get the +2 tourism for religious buildings. I accomplished this on Warlord (my default diffulculty for trying things). I had 7 cities and start was amazing with tons of wine.