Does Byzantium need a boost?

[beetle]

I think we can agree that the AI in Civ V is not a strong point.

For sure!

A broken UA is more of a factor when playing a Civ though.

Quite true. I think we can all agreed that, because you were playing a totally random setup and rolled a great plains map, not being able to exploit a water-based UU/UB/UA would make the game less enjoyable. (Setting yourself up for a challenge is different.)

Fixing things from an AI perspective seems a distraction in this context.

I could not disagree more. This one detail is objectively and unambiguously broken from an AI perspective. Any fix that corrects this particular defect for the AI will almost certainly fix things for a weak human player (at any level) as well as the strong human player using Theodora at Immortal or Deity.

How would it be implemented that Byz would always get a religion? Would they get it automatically such as when a tech was researched? Which tech? Too early and it will get a religion first, too late and it will reward lazy gameplay as you would be guaranteed a religion. If it was based on a palace yield or a unique specialist that could be worked it would allow Byz to get the first as well as the most powerful religion.

You raise very legitimate concerns. I would love to see the discussion focused on specifics mechanics to fix the problem without being OP.

There are other UA abilities that the AI just does not handle well...

I submit for your consideration that there is huge difference between the AI not handling certain civ UA abilities well and, for all intents and purposes, a particular civ not having a UA at all.

 

[KmDubya]

All of your arguments are invalid. For sacred sites you have to go deep into Piety. And most of beliefs are weaker then UA and some of them just on-par with them. Even most of UB are = two beliefs.
Lets check:
Egyptian UB = Religious Center + local Church Property
Shongai = Choral Music + local Church Property
Celts = Asceticism + Religious Center
Maya = Improved Messenger of the Gods + Organized Religion

And everyone of them can be doubled by the "same" beliefs. On top of that you shouldn't care about "# followers" and other religious concerns.

Sorry but right now you have to correct UA of Maya, Ethiopia, Celts by adding "You will get one of first religions for free in addition to UA" and after that also correct Byzantine UA to something like "You will never get a first religion. And without hard focus on religion won't get religion (= UA) at all".

All ideas about adopting foreign religion is pure idiocy and historically inaccurate and whole idea of religions in civ 5 is that you can tailor what you need. For example there is no sense if you adopt tradition-like religion when your empire looks like republic.

P.S. And explain me: why imaginary "super" religion is so OP but Babylon's and Korea's sciense is an usual thing for you. The same for Zulu's warfare, Vinece's and Portugal's gold etc.

When I randomly get Byz I know that I want to get a religion. It is their strong point. based on this I tailor my gameplay to make sure that I get the religion that I want. If Maya , Celts or Ethiopia are in the game they will get first pantheons and most likely first religion but with 40+ civs they won't be in every game and usually not in the same one. In the case where the three super early faith generating civs are not in the game then it is an even fight to be the first. Lucky natural wonders, religious city states, ruins or favorable faith generating terrain based pantheons will determine who is first.

Every game with every civ if I want to get a religion I can get it. It won't be first but it will happen. Now this is on Emporer level, the fact that on diety it does not work does not matter to me. To me diety depends on super optimal use of the game mechanics bordering on exploits, your opinion may differ but don't use deity level access to founding a religion as a defense of Byz weakness (this is a pre-emptive response to a point not yet raised).

In response to the one UB= two beliefs, so what? With Byz you get to choose and get the exact beliefs you want. And you still have two more beliefs to choose and possibly a reformation as well.

Sacred sites will get you the win pretty much guaranteed if you get two or more buildings and aggressively expand. With Byz you get the chance of getting 3 of the 4 faith buildings. It requires full piety but again so what? If you guarantee Byz the first religion then they can pick two buildings with the first great prophet and have a chance at one of the remaining two when they enhance. That pretty much gets the win every time.

I am not saying that Byz is a top tier or even above average civ, just that they are not broken for the player. As for the AI's use of Byz I have not seen them enough times to comment.

 

[Quitzz]

And you still have two more beliefs to choose and possibly a reformation as well.

WTF ? Everyone have "possibly a reformation" and "two more beliefs".
If you still don't get:
Siam (for example) with religion:
UB = Ancestor Worship + Choral Music AND entire religion PLUS UA
Byzantium for the same bonus have to waste Pantheon and Extra/Follower beliefs as result we have religion that has one less belief for the price of UA.

Main strength of Byzantium is his versatile. Cost of this is that any extra belief is not even close powerfull as UB or UA of onther nations. And if you dont let Byz found one of the first religion then UA quickly transform to a trash in most cases.
Seems you think that only Ethiopia, Maya and Celts are a problem but it's not true. Siam can get an early friend/ally CS, same for Vinece. Polnad can finish Piety or Liberty faster then anyone. Shoshone can found one of the first pantheons and even get a first religion. Many nations have desert/tundra bias so all they need to outrun Byzantium is just a pantheon. Should I mention Spain ?

Please don't even try to start talk about Piety. Because if a nation have to do something special to making UA work it's already is a greatest fail of design.

As a last words today: EVERY nation without UB has a two parts UA and Byzantium is the one of two those has only one part UA. Second one is Rome but it works no matter how when and what you doing.

 

[greygamer]

WTF ? Everyone have "possibly a reformation" and "two more beliefs".
If you still don't get:
Siam (for example) with religion:
UB = Ancestor Worship + Choral Music AND entire religion PLUS UA
Byzantium for the same bonus have to waste Pantheon and Extra/Follower beliefs as result we have religion that has one less belief for the price of UA.

Main strength of Byzantium is his versatile. Cost of this is that any extra belief is not even close powerfull as UB or UA of onther nations. And if you dont let Byz found one of the first religion then UA quickly transform to a trash in most cases.
Seems you think that only Ethiopia, Maya and Celts are a problem but it's not true. Siam can get an early friend/ally CS, same for Vinece. Polnad can finish Piety or Liberty faster then anyone. Shoshone can found one of the first pantheons and even get a first religion. Many nations have desert/tundra bias so all they need to outrun Byzantium is just a pantheon. Should I mention Spain ?

Please don't even try to start talk about Piety. Because if a nation have to do something special to making UA work it's already is a greatest fail of design.

As a last words today: EVERY nation without UB has a two parts UA and Byzantium is the one of two those has only one part UA. Second one is Rome but it works no matter how when and what you doing.

Good points, probably why most of the others don't feel like you have to re-roll early on. Possible exception is Indonesia without Iron but that is something for another thread.

 

[Rooftrellen]

I disagree. Just because you get an extra belief you don't necessarily get the best religion. Many beliefs are situational, and the ones you need might be taken by the time your found. Other beliefs require you to spread your religion wide to get best benefits, and circumstances might not allow you (you might start next to Ethiopia or Maya, or someone who has a good faith-producing natural wonder). A major point of what has been discussed by many people in the later part of this thread is that if we guarantee Byzantium a religion (by letting them bypass the fixed limit and found even after the normal number of religions are taken), they will be secured a chance to use their UA but it won't be a change that gives them a huge boost because in those circumstances where this change will come into play - all religions are taken before Byzantium get to found - the number of available beliefs will be heavily reduced, the quality of the remaining beliefs will be much lower, and other civs will be much further progressed in spreading their religion, both factors meaning it will be very unlikely or at least very challenging for Byzantium to found a super-religion at this point.

Most beliefs are situational, and and many of them don't fit together. You probably don't want to end up with Cathedrals and Holy Warriors.

I would rather be guaranteed 2nd religion without a bonus belief than last religion with one in most cases. If they were guaranteed a religion, it would be made even worse on any map where civs are separated by water (dedicating to the certainty of a late religion and finding out the civs you can't see are just ignoring it would be more than a minor irritation.)

They benefit from a religion but have no way to help get it. Just help them get it, still requiring some sort of dedication, and they can get that good religion with some work or likely still get it late without working for it. That would seem to satisfy all sides.

Replace one of their UU's with a UB that replaces the colosseum, the Hippodrome. Give it a (historically accurate) faith boost, and then they would be able to build the hippodrome early, using precious early beakers and hammers, to get their "super religion" or play a more normal game and probably get a midling religion, but leaving the chance that ignoring faith could still leave them without a religion.

There should be some sort of tradeoff involved though. How the AI should cope with it is another question, but right now, I find Theodora does actually get a religion in most of my games, but matched against most other religious civs, she ends up not being able to spread it, and matched up against more militaristic civs, she gets her legs broken early. Offering the AI that faith building, I would imagine, would allow her to satisfy her need for faith and also get better defense (which I believe she loves) by leading her to comp bowmen, making her religion and defense more reliable.

 

[greygamer]

Most beliefs are situational, and and many of them don't fit together. You probably don't want to end up with Cathedrals and Holy Warriors.

I would rather be guaranteed 2nd religion without a bonus belief than last religion with one in most cases. If they were guaranteed a religion, it would be made even worse on any map where civs are separated by water (dedicating to the certainty of a late religion and finding out the civs you can't see are just ignoring it would be more than a minor irritation.)

They benefit from a religion but have no way to help get it. Just help them get it, still requiring some sort of dedication, and they can get that good religion with some work or likely still get it late without working for it. That would seem to satisfy all sides.

Replace one of their UU's with a UB that replaces the colosseum, the Hippodrome. Give it a (historically accurate) faith boost, and then they would be able to build the hippodrome early, using precious early beakers and hammers, to get their "super religion" or play a more normal game and probably get a midling religion, but leaving the chance that ignoring faith could still leave them without a religion.

There should be some sort of tradeoff involved though. How the AI should cope with it is another question, but right now, I find Theodora does actually get a religion in most of my games, but matched against most other religious civs, she ends up not being able to spread it, and matched up against more militaristic civs, she gets her legs broken early. Offering the AI that faith building, I would imagine, would allow her to satisfy her need for faith and also get better defense (which I believe she loves) by leading her to comp bowmen, making her religion and defense more reliable.

I feel this way about the Byzantines, what I find frustrating is not founding a religion even if I make it my top priority because of other factors.

I don't really care about how Byzantine does as an AI (this is why the AI issue is for me a 'distraction'), other AI civs are also not very successful but that is surely another discussion. As is if some of the beliefs should be improved, certain combinations will always be better than others.

Byzantine's religious angle is difficult to model in game because of the circumstances that brought it about. It is like trying to make a civillization based on the Holy Roman Empire. It seems to me civs based on offshoots of other civs have not been particularly successful (popular) because of this although there may be a civ I haven't considered, maybe the Dutch?

 

[KmDubya]

WTF ? Everyone have "possibly a reformation" and "two more beliefs".
If you still don't get:
Siam (for example) with religion:
UB = Ancestor Worship + Choral Music AND entire religion PLUS UA
Byzantium for the same bonus have to waste Pantheon and Extra/Follower beliefs as result we have religion that has one less belief for the price of UA.

Main strength of Byzantium is his versatile. Cost of this is that any extra belief is not even close powerfull as UB or UA of onther nations. And if you dont let Byz found one of the first religion then UA quickly transform to a trash in most cases.
Seems you think that only Ethiopia, Maya and Celts are a problem but it's not true. Siam can get an early friend/ally CS, same for Vinece. Polnad can finish Piety or Liberty faster then anyone. Shoshone can found one of the first pantheons and even get a first religion. Many nations have desert/tundra bias so all they need to outrun Byzantium is just a pantheon. Should I mention Spain ?

Please don't even try to start talk about Piety. Because if a nation have to do something special to making UA work it's already is a greatest fail of design.

As a last words today: EVERY nation without UB has a two parts UA and Byzantium is the one of two those has only one part UA. Second one is Rome but it works no matter how when and what you doing.

I guess the only solution is to use world builder and add Mt Sinai to your capital. That sounds like what you are looking for. Perhaps a mod does this already.

 

[Quitzz]

I guess the only solution is to use world builder and add Mt Sinai to your capital. That sounds like what you are looking for. Perhaps a mod does this already.

I'm not sure about right translation but here in my country people say in cases like yours: "When the arguments become weaker, the words become more vituperative".

 

[Redaxe]

Whilst you can cherrypick the most powerful beliefs to build a super strong religion I can think of only 2 possible strategy's that might make it too easy for Byzantine.

1) Faith Buildings and Sacred Sites (But this really requires rushing a religion, rushing piety and rushing to go wide which is likely to be very difficult to pull all 3 off in higher difficulties. Maybe I'm not doing it right but I've tried this strategy before without Byzantine so I got 2 faith buildings and a 3rd by using missionaries from one city that was converted to a different religion. This did not win me an early game and while my tourism was decent it wasn't enough to win the game in the renaissance like people have reported. But again maybe my strategy isn't right.

If a player thinks this faith building/Sacred Sites strategy is unfairly powerful but insists on repeating it every game regardless then I would say that is their problem, its a single player game and they can exploit that strategy all they like, no different from someone rerolling the map as Spain until they are next to GBR and King Solomons Mines.
On multiplayer its not going to work because everyone will know what you're doing and counter you.
I highly doubt that the AI Theodora is unlikely to ever pursue 3 religious buildings, while the AI favour them I doubt its smart enough to do that. And if it does miraculously rush SS, 3 religious buildings and proceeds to ICS the world then well enjoy the challenge the AI throws at you, suck it up and deal with it.

2) Combing 2 powerful founder beliefs (i.e. Tithes, Pilgrimage) Messiah and Unity of the Prophets to create a global super-religion that is unassailable by other religions.

Well so be it, this strategy nets you heaps of gold and faith which can help you win the game, but its not going to win it outright. And if you play on a higher difficulty its going to nullify this strategy considerably as other Civs can still faith bomb you with prophets a lot earlier than you can do to them. It still requires going Piety for the reformation which is going to slow you down anyway, and still require lots of faith to kickstart you which is difficult anyway on a high difficulty.

So unless other people can demonstrate my argument to be invalid I don't see how the game is broken if Byzantine is given the opportunity to get a religion first. There are ways to beat the game easily on Diety, namely to pick Spain and reset the map until you're near Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. I can't see how playing Byzantine and being lucky enough to get a religion first on Diety is going to make the game an automatic win. Byzantine may require some luck right now but even a good start puts you nowhere near the same league as a lucky Spain start.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Whilst you can cherrypick the most powerful beliefs to build a super strong religion I can think of only 2 possible strategy's that might make it too easy for Byzantine.

1) Faith Buildings and Sacred Sites (But this really requires rushing a religion, rushing piety and rushing to go wide which is likely to be very difficult to pull all 3 off in higher difficulties. Maybe I'm not doing it right but I've tried this strategy before without Byzantine so I got 2 faith buildings and a 3rd by using missionaries from one city that was converted to a different religion. This did not win me an early game and while my tourism was decent it wasn't enough to win the game in the renaissance like people have reported. But again maybe my strategy isn't right.

If a player thinks this faith building/Sacred Sites strategy is unfairly powerful but insists on repeating it every game regardless then I would say that is their problem, its a single player game and they can exploit that strategy all they like, no different from someone rerolling the map as Spain until they are next to GBR and King Solomons Mines.
On multiplayer its not going to work because everyone will know what you're doing and counter you.
I highly doubt that the AI Theodora is unlikely to ever pursue 3 religious buildings, while the AI favour them I doubt its smart enough to do that. And if it does miraculously rush SS, 3 religious buildings and proceeds to ICS the world then well enjoy the challenge the AI throws at you, suck it up and deal with it.

2) Combing 2 powerful founder beliefs (i.e. Tithes, Pilgrimage) Messiah and Unity of the Prophets to create a global super-religion that is unassailable by other religions.

Well so be it, this strategy nets you heaps of gold and faith which can help you win the game, but its not going to win it outright. And if you play on a higher difficulty its going to nullify this strategy considerably as other Civs can still faith bomb you with prophets a lot earlier than you can do to them. It still requires going Piety for the reformation which is going to slow you down anyway, and still require lots of faith to kickstart you which is difficult anyway on a high difficulty.

So unless other people can demonstrate my argument to be invalid I don't see how the game is broken if Byzantine is given the opportunity to get a religion first. There are ways to beat the game easily on Diety, namely to pick Spain and reset the map until you're near Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. I can't see how playing Byzantine and being lucky enough to get a religion first on Diety is going to make the game an automatic win. Byzantine may require some luck right now but even a good start puts you nowhere near the same league as a lucky Spain start.

Even if they get the last religion, the extra belief is still good enough.. it just is not as versatile if you get it later (since you have to choose the best from a poor pile... but a second Founder or early second Enhancer can help ensure that you get significant benefits from the religion.. if you get it)

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Well I was thinking that, maybe they did purposely that the Byzantines are assured of a religion. I could live with this idea too, if there was a compensation for not having an own religion. Maybe they should gain +2 or something a like in cities with a foreign religion until they find their own religion (if they would of course). So that they would simply have a bonus for cities following religion of someone else as long as they have no own religion. Of course this bonus should not be larger than having an own religion.

 

[Rooftrellen]

I feel this way about the Byzantines, what I find frustrating is not founding a religion even if I make it my top priority because of other factors.

I don't really care about how Byzantine does as an AI (this is why the AI issue is for me a 'distraction'), other AI civs are also not very successful but that is surely another discussion. As is if some of the beliefs should be improved, certain combinations will always be better than others.

Byzantine's religious angle is difficult to model in game because of the circumstances that brought it about. It is like trying to make a civillization based on the Holy Roman Empire. It seems to me civs based on offshoots of other civs have not been particularly successful (popular) because of this although there may be a civ I haven't considered, maybe the Dutch?

And the problem is that if you are playing with a even a few super religious civs, the bonuses they get can keep you from getting a religion no matter how hard you try to get one. And it's not a deity problem, exclusively.

The AI will never be good in Civ V, but I was considering how the AI and human player could both benefit from a change.

Byzantium has a problem as an offshoot civ in that they didn't consider themselves an offshoot civ. They WERE Rome. Heck, they were the MAIN PART of Rome (after Constantine moved the capital to the east, even after his descendants divided the empire, the West never really regained it's former glory, though this, itself is a complex situation). The division is something we draw in the sand looking back, not something they felt.

We don't see this problem with, for instance, France, Spain, America, Portugal, or Brazil all of which came from civs that are also in the game (and with Germany's UA pointing to the Germanic tribes, you could even claim England). Heck, Romans, themselves, claimed to be an offshoot of Greece.

This problem is actually reflected in the Cataphract, more associated with Persia and more widely adopted.

Still, their piety, is famous, though religious matters at the time were much more complicated during Theodora's lifetime than we might realize today. There were many different types of Christianity, and the older pagan gods were far from forgotten, as well. Heck, the reason I suggest the hippodrome as a solution is two fold:

1) It is super iconic for Byzantium.

2) I actually know someone who studies religion in relation to horse racing. It was an absurdly common practice to invoke blessings for your team and curses (up to wishing death) on teams you didn't like, which relates to that super iconic religous aspect as well.

And at the same time, it should guarantee a religion, IF you work for it, while not just handing them one as part of their UA.

TL;DR: History is complex.

 

[bbbt]

I propose this for Byzantium: You can choose to pick the second belief at any point in the religion process.

Basically, if you like, you an choose a second pantheon at the same time as you get your first pantheon.

Or, you can wait, like now, and choose a second belief when you found your religion.

Or, if you want, you can finish piety, and choose two reformation beliefs.

It's up to you (but you only get to do it once, of course).

That way, it's still powerful on lower levels, but even on deity, you can get some benefit from their UA, even if it's only 30 turns of extra culture/food from a 2nd pantheon before you get stuck with an AI religion. That extra boost at the beginning of the game could certainly be helpful - probably more benefit than you'd get from Ramses's UA on deity

Additional thought: It might be OP, but maybe, in addition to this, Byzantium's 'extra' belief always stays with them - i.e. a city gets the benefit from it even their city converts to a foreign religion.

 

[Teproc]

Hippodrome is a great idea as a UB for Byzantium, from a historical standpoint. The supporter teams (blues and greens) were actually an extremely important part of their political system, as weird as that sounds.

 

[beetle]

I am responding again because I would like to have an unassailable argument that can be passed along to developers as a clear bug defect.

I don't really care about how Byzantine does as an AI

You should care because, if it is indeed too often the case that Theodora does not have a UA, it means that your games with Byzantium in them have been less entertaining than they should have been. Most players will not realize they have been cheated in this respect!

this is why the AI issue is for me a 'distraction'

Since you are contributing to this thread, clearly you have an opinion on this issue! Evaluating the OP question from the perspective of the AI is objective, and leads to an unambiguous affirmative response. Can you point out where my logic on this is flawed?

other AI civs are also not very successful but that is surely another discussion.

That many other AI civs are not very successful is surely another discussion, but it is relevant to this thread that Byzantium is so much more broken (for the AI) than any other civ!

 

[Beaver79]

I am responding again because I would like to have an unassailable argument that can be passed along to developers as a clear bug defect.

The guy you are bashing was on your side for most of this. I think he just realizes how absurd your demands have become.

This won't be patched because it's not a problem and your unassailable argument is very assailable.

If you want to make Byzantium OP you'll have to settle for a mod.

 

[Wodan]

The best argument is that it causes a NPE.

A negative play experience means that a customer spends significant effort pursuing a chosen strategy that the designers put into the game. Then, due to no fault of the customer, the game causes that entire strategy to fall apart. As a result, the customer feels that her time was completely wasted, that it's poor game design.

Some customers will be turned off and will cease to be customers. Some may give it another shot, perhaps with another Civ, and if a similar thing happens, then those customers, too, will go away and will cease to be customers. All of them are likely to report their dislike to friends and on the internet. Some may even write poor reviews.

To a for-profit company marketing a commercial venture, all of the above is the very definition of a Bad Thing and to be avoided.

Removing a NPE-causing factor is inarguable. This is not "my gameplay idea is better than your gameplay idea." This is lost $ales for expansions, DLC, Civ 6, and other 2k/Firaxis titles.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I strongly agree Byz needs a fix so here's my two cents.

i like the colosseum replacement but like temples it would come too late to help with first-founding.

maybe Byz's UA can add (this has probably already been said somewhere) buying shrines and temples with faith. cost rated as fraction of the 6 dot yield of the standard faith buildings: so 33 for shrines and 66 for temples pre-Ren.

hm, that's still 33 turns before you make back that faith which at an example 6-faith-per-turn base doesn't bring the first great prophet any sooner... ok i give up. Byzantium is just really bad.

 

[greygamer]

I am responding again because I would like to have an unassailable argument that can be passed along to developers as a clear bug defect.

You should care because, if it is indeed too often the case that Theodora does not have a UA, it means that your games with Byzantium in them have been less entertaining than they should have been. Most players will not realize they have been cheated in this respect!

Since you are contributing to this thread, clearly you have an opinion on this issue! Evaluating the OP question from the perspective of the AI is objective, and leads to an unambiguous affirmative response. Can you point out where my logic on this is flawed?

That many other AI civs are not very successful is surely another discussion, but it is relevant to this thread that Byzantium is so much more broken (for the AI) than any other civ!

My point is the AI is generally broken, I have had games where Byzantine is successful as an AI. More important to me is my experience playing a civ is 'rewarding'. It has nothing to do with your logic, we simply want different things from any fix to Byzantine.
Looking for an"unassailable argument" actually weakens your case, is there even such a thing? Just reading this and other threads you will always find opposite opinions equally convinced they are correct, the best you can hope for is a consensus.

The best argument is that it causes a NPE.

A negative play experience means that a customer spends significant effort pursuing a chosen strategy that the designers put into the game. Then, due to no fault of the customer, the game causes that entire strategy to fall apart. As a result, the customer feels that her time was completely wasted, that it's poor game design.

Some customers will be turned off and will cease to be customers. Some may give it another shot, perhaps with another Civ, and if a similar thing happens, then those customers, too, will go away and will cease to be customers. All of them are likely to report their dislike to friends and on the internet. Some may even write poor reviews.

To a for-profit company marketing a commercial venture, all of the above is the very definition of a Bad Thing and to be avoided.

Removing a NPE-causing factor is inarguable. This is not "my gameplay idea is better than your gameplay idea." This is lost $ales for expansions, DLC, Civ 6, and other 2k/Firaxis titles.

Yes, I totally agree. It is for me about how much fun a Civ is as a player

 

[GhostSalsa]

decided to put my money where my mouth is and try a BNW game as Theodora. it's going better than i thought.

Spoiler :