[NFP] A General Strategy for Basil II of Byzantium

It took way longer than I expected it to, but I finally finished my guide for Basil II from the New Frontiers' September 2020 update. It took a whole year for me to get around to this, but better late than never, I guess? The full guide can be found at my blog at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2021/08/11/Civilization-VI-strategy-Basil-II-of-Byzantium.aspx

A few highlights from the guide:
Since Byzantine military units spread Byzantium's religion when they kill enemy units, Byzantium can send its Missionaries in one direction, and send its army in the other direction, and convert rivals on both sides. Byzantium should focus on converting holy cities early, which grants a combat bonus to both military and religious units, and makes both conquest and further conversions easier. Basil will also have a steady supply of free heavy cavalry units from the Hippodromes, which deal full damage to cities converted to Byzantium's religion. Byzantium can play for both religious victory and conquest victory at the same time.

The Dromon can be a very useful unit for Byzantium. With 2 range, Galleys can shield the Dromon while it attacks enemy Galleys and Quadriremes without the Quadriremes being able to attack back. Killing enemy naval units behind the line can convert their cities before your land armies get there, and potentially convert their holy city, making it easier to conquer.

Bbased on my testing, it appears that if Byzantium did not found its own religion, its units will spread the majority religion when they kill enemy units. However, if Byzantium did found a religion, its units spread Byzantium's founding religion, even if most of Byzantium's cities have been converted to another religion. This can be a way of re-converting your cities if you can defeat an invading force. Just use your units to deal the killing blows, since bombardment from walls does not seem to spread Byzantium's religion.

Also, based on my testing, it appears that air units do not receive the bonuses from Taxis. They do not get combat bonuses, nor do they spread Byzantium's religion when killing units. I believe this is a bug, so hopefully it will be fixed by Firaxis at some point.

Using military units to spread religion also frees up Byzantium to spend faith on things other than religious units, while still being able to convert rivals. And having free units mean you can pass on military beliefs like Warrior Monks. Taking beliefs like Jesuit Education, or dedication bonuses like Monumentality allows faith to be spent on infrastructure.

The full guide contains plenty of other tips and tricks for playing as or against Basil II and Byzantium. I welcome any feedback, and I look forward to reading other players' tips and tricks as well.
Thanks for reading, and happy Civ-ing!

 

One additional thing that I should be highlighted is the extra +1 GP point from holy sites - that can make a huge difference in terms of being able to found a religion (which, as you note, is crucial for Byzantium).

Also, having recently finished my first Byzantium playthrough, I was surprised at how powerful the Dromon was, relatively speaking. I was expecting their other abilities to be strong (and they were - on Emperor the game was kind of a joke with them), but I had not factored in how much of a difference a two-range naval unit in the classical era would make. The +10 against units means early bombardment of land units is actually feasible, and helps nicely with the spreading the religion on kills.

 

About to start a Byz game, glad I checked this subforum.

 

Thanks for the guide. Interesting read. But do you know how the mechanics of Taxis work? To me it seems totally random if it actually spreads to nearby cities or not... If there are 10 cities within range, 5 will get it and 5 not most of the time. Unless there is something I dont understand, it seems to be very bugged.

 

It kind of works like winning a religious battle works. If you kill a unit all cities within range of that kill receive some pressure towards Byzantiums religion. They don't loose any foreign religions pressure though. So the smaller your targets cities are the faster you can convert them this way.

 

My problem is that it seem to trigger pretty randomly. I need to dive into why to see if it is buggy, or I dont understand the mecahnics. I just found out it wont always show the 250+ visual, and it will sometimes require a save and reload to update. But still I dont get it to work like I think it should.

So I finished a game with Byzantium now and some points are more clear at least. The range of Taxis is 6, and not 10 as the Wiki says. Also you need to have revealed the cities. Unknown cities are not affected. Range units are counted from the tile they are shooting from, melee units will count from the defenders tile. A save and reload will update the cities to correct religious numbers.

Btw Byzantium is probably the fastest of all civs if you are aiming for a quick religious win, as Taxis potentially can affect so many cities with just one combat.