Byzantine Religion

[Dawnpromise]

I'm sure there are plenty of threads discussing religion and what beliefs you should take, but let's make a thread to discuss specifically how religion relates in regards to Byzantium.

Byzantium's UA is three-fold:
1. They get an additional 'bonus belief' when founding an religion. This belief may any Pantheon (excluding Celtic specific pantheons of course), Follower, Founder, or Enhancer belief. Reformation beliefs are excluded from this part of the UA.
2. They may select their religious beliefs even if another religion has already adopted it in their religion. This means you do not have to race to get a specific belief in your religion.
3. They may always found a religion. This means even if the cap on found able religions has been met they may use their next Great Prophet to found religion if they do not have a Holy City under their control. This means even if you founded a religion already but lost your holy city you may found another. This limit on how many religion you can found is depended on how many icons are available to choose from.

Byzantium's UB is the Bascilica which has two main differences from the Temple which it replaces:
1. Instead of a flat +3 faith it generates +1 faith for every 2 citizens in a city. This means that at 6 citizens it will be equal to the faith output of the temple and will begin outpacing the temple at 8+ citizens.
2. Doubles the city's religious pressure via trade routes. This helps to insure the spread of your religion among your trade partners and internally in your own empire. I'm not certain how exactly this functions with the Ritual Enhancer belief.

Byzantium's UU is the Cataphract which replaces the Knight and isn't of particular interest to this discussion but is a solid unit regardless.

Byzantium's strength lies entirely in their religious flexibility, they can be easily adapted to any
play style so long as you're willing to play the religion game.

Here's some of my current advice towards Byzantium's Relgion:
~ Mastery is too good not to adopt. So long as you have specialists in the city you gain +2 to the specialists yield. In guild cities this can add up to +18 culture by itself. If you go tradition you should most definitely take it as a Follower Belief upon founding.
~ Per Follower Beliefs take a long time to show their use and unless you're willing to launch in inquisition to stamp any an all neighboring religions then you may be better off with a building belief. That said they're also the some of the lowest maintenance beliefs.
~ Pantheon Beliefs are strong early on. Most pantheons give flat yield increases to cities following them. Spirit of the Desert and God of Stars and Sky can let you thrive where other civs barely manage.
~ Look for synergy. Some beliefs function very well in tandem with other beliefs. Here's some examples:
Theocratic Rule + Synagogues = "We Love the Pope Day" a buff to all yields during WLTK day in cities good if you've a knack for trading and city state influence to get the luxuries.
Mandate of Heaven + Mosques = "Divine Age" Golden ages get even better, add on the fact that the Piety policy branch allows you to faith buy Great Artists who can spark Golden Ages and you can just keep this going perpetually.
Apostolic Tradition or Way of the Pilgrim + Churches + Evangelism (+ optional "One World, One Religion Reformation) = "Would you like to talk about our lord and savior?" Missionaries become stupidly potent, spreading your religion and granting you bonus yields every time you spread your religion. Note: These effects also apply to Great Prophets when they spread religion.

Hopefully that can be enough to start the conversation. I'm curious what other strategies and thoughts others have regarding Byzantium. I know most people consider them a tad weak but frankly they've become my favorite civ purely due to their Religious game.

 

[CrazyG]

A strategy I like is

Ceremonial Burial
Mandate of Heaven
Mastery

Sainthood
Mandirs (This one can be pretty much anything, but I like to avoid great person assassinations)
To the Glory of God

Pantheon is flexible, God-King abuses Mandate well. God of All is good, or something related to terrain. You don't need a faith heavy pantheon, and its okay to found late.

This is a strong build for a flexible tradition game. Basic idea is to stack great person synergy and get awesome amounts of culture from burning them, and use your heavy faith production to buy tons late game using glory of god. Byz does it well because you guarantee all the beliefs and have access to more faith than other tradition civs. Mandate of Heaven as the bonus belief is awesome, the extra 20% food and production really pushes your capital farther while providing a solid amount of other yields as well.

I was able to win a one city challenge on immortal with this religion.

 

[agc28]

Can anybody comment on Way of the Transcendance?

I find it especially strong to get +300 National Yields per era, scaled by era. It is even stronger if you can get religion before Classical Age. In Classical age, it is equivalent of 2-3 free technolology, and in the subsequent ages it often means 1-2 free technology per era change. Obviously, this is in addition to the large culture faith and gold lumpsum.

It is very strong when coupled with Progress (culture gain per tech) and to a lesser extent, Holy Law (science + faith gain per new policy). Holy Law is only combinable with Transcendance if we play with Byzantine.

I imagine this slows down significantly later on, but when I play on Immortal, this option allows me to snowball ahead in tech by classical age or medieval at the latest, and then my knights would be fighting horseman for a long time.

Am I using this belief efficiently? I find it OP, but I kinda want a second opinion on this.

 

[Dawnpromise]

Can anybody comment on Way of the Transcendance?

I find it especially strong to get +300 National Yields per era, scaled by era. It is even stronger if you can get religion before Classical Age. In Classical age, it is equivalent of 2-3 free technolology, and in the subsequent ages it often means 1-2 free technology per era change. Obviously, this is in addition to the large culture faith and gold lumpsum.

It is very strong when coupled with Progress (culture gain per tech) and to a lesser extent, Holy Law (science + faith gain per new policy). Holy Law is only combinable with Transcendance if we play with Byzantine.

I imagine this slows down significantly later on, but when I play on Immortal, this option allows me to snowball ahead in tech by classical age or medieval at the latest, and then my knights would be fighting horseman for a long time.

Am I using this belief efficiently? I find it OP, but I kinda want a second opinion on this.

Seems like a solid plan if you're pursuing a tech era rush strategy, and certainly helps compensate for Byzantium's kinda meh early game. Also the +5 food and gold on holy sites is worth considering once you get your basilica's built. Remember Byzantium produces more faith then any other civ, always good to consider what you're going to throw it at.

 

[CrazyG]

Can anybody comment on Way of the Transcendance?

I find it especially strong to get +300 National Yields per era, scaled by era. It is even stronger if you can get religion before Classical Age. In Classical age, it is equivalent of 2-3 free technolology, and in the subsequent ages it often means 1-2 free technology per era change. Obviously, this is in addition to the large culture faith and gold lumpsum.

It is very strong when coupled with Progress (culture gain per tech) and to a lesser extent, Holy Law (science + faith gain per new policy). Holy Law is only combinable with Transcendance if we play with Byzantine.

I imagine this slows down significantly later on, but when I play on Immortal, this option allows me to snowball ahead in tech by classical age or medieval at the latest, and then my knights would be fighting horseman for a long time.

Am I using this belief efficiently? I find it OP, but I kinda want a second opinion on this.

Its usually what I pick if I found a religion in Ancient Era and probably a very solid path for progress Byz. Rushing Cataphracts is definently a strong strategy, I never thought to the double founder for more science but I'm going to try that soon. Looks awesome to me.

 

[Strigvir]

Picking Way of Transcendence + Hero Worship is a good combo just for bonuses to Holy Sites alone. Combined with Resilience + Piety tree, it results in relatively cheap 5 5 Holy Site. These are equally good for popping on plantation luxury tiles in the capital and to help developing cities.

 

[FoxOfWar]

Byzantine is one of my favourite civs to play, because that religious flexibility combined with not having to care to rush it makes the post-founding classical-renaissance game usually a very, very blooming stage one way or another.

Something that I used to love is Sacred Sites + three religious buildings(+Monasteries) + spamming cities. Creates absolutely ginormous religious pressure (and resistance) and snowballs into tourism ball with every city created. And made a nice challenge since spamming cities angers nearby civs like no tomorrow. ;D

...that said, haven't tried it since the tourism scaling change. I wonder if it can still work, after all Byzantine can still easily create +12-ish tourism per city by midgame. At the very worst that'd end up being ~3 per city (as the scaling caps at 75% reduction), but it would cramp your holy tourism city something really bad too. I guess there is a balance somewhere to be reached, but infinite city spam + Byzantine Sacred Sites is probably out of the question now.

EDIT: Gave the Sacred Sites city spammery a somewhat-calculated attempt which worked: with pretty much guaranteed 21 tourism per city (3 from each religious building, 3 from hotels, 2 from arenas and another 4 from whichever was the golden age + tourism at architecture one). Because of each city however lowering your tourism, end result was that the most tourism from just those raw yields is at 16-17 cities, getting about 190 total. So not too shabby.

That said though, it probably is still more effective to go fairly tall with CV with the usual Tradition, spamming great people. And of course Byzantine can customise a pretty mean 'tall tourism' religion too.