Oh my, giant multiquote post incoming.
Good plan. Maybe a more expansive/aggressive leader could be useful later on in history to represent the Komnenian Restoration? Alexios himself, perhaps? There's a few good Byzzie leaderheads floating around on this site that could stand in for him (but I'm surprised no one's ever tried to make Alexios).
Yeah, I also thought it would be good to use Alexios Komnenos as a later LH for Byzantium (likely with SoI Basil's graphics). Don't know if an aggressive personality would fit him though. Of course he consolidated the empire, but didn't expand it really. Rather the Komnenian restoration also included a cultural renaissance. So I'd go with Justinian = defensive/religious, Alexios = cultural/religious.
No computer for me as a gift but I was able to run a few test games on my brothers computer. I ran two 3000bc starts which I then played around with each in a number of different ways.
First off there is something wrong with the flip. I get a "these cities are trying to defect to the new civ" message, even though the new civ is me. If you say no you get a buttload of cataphracts which then teleport all over your lands as they defect to the new civ which is me. Saying yes to the flip allows the game to proceed as normal, but I have noticed a wide discrepancy in the number of troops you receive. Once I even got nothing!
Happy birthday! Sorry to hear you still have no own computer. And it would've been good to see a screenshot of this
Second, the Cataphract is uber-op at 330 ad. On the games when I started with the aformentioned buttload of cataphracts I was able to expand outward in all directions with only stability to hold me back. Even on games when I didn't start with a lot of cataphracts, the easy access to iron and horses, and the plethora of seafood for whipping allows you to field an invincible army that easily sweeps aside all of the ancient age civs. Once arabia spawns, even they only have a slight defence, I was getting 75% against longbowmen behind walls or camel archers with combat 2 cataphracts.
I suggest that the byzantines don't spawn with the ability to create cataphracts so they will have to withstand the initial onslaught of barbs and praets with contemporary units.
You're right, they're definitively too much. How about Legions spawning instead? They aren't their own UU, but would be kinda historical.
Other notes:
- twice my capital moved to Tyrus on the flip.
-the byzantine horse archer is the coolest looking unit in the game
-Rome is super expansive now. They even took over Greece in one of the games! Their new UP keeps surprising me, funny to see a roman army appear on Crete!
-Both Carthage and Babylon were alive and kicking, until I showed up!
-the barb pressure is great in Europe
-Maybe there should be an early diplomacy bonus with Rome, they declared on me every single time.
I'll try if I can reproduce the Tyrus issue. What do you think about Carthaginian/Babylonian presence in 330 AD? Fine, or does something need to be done about it? Diplomacy bonus with Rome should come with Catholicism, doesn't it?
It's the early 1400s in my Byzantine game now. After crushing those upstart Turks (Roma invicta!) I noticed that, shortly thereafter, my stability rapidly went to poop. I noticed that, even though I didn't control any cities outside my historical range, my expansion score was -34 (!). Upon investigation, I found that under my civics, it wasn't even running Subjugation (the default civic for expansion). So apparently my government had... no policy on expansion?
A timely Golden Age from getting the second UHV goal managed to save me from utter collapse, but the expansion score still hasn't gone up, even though I've switched it to Viceroyalty now.
I'll look what's up with the expansion category, maybe Rhye needed to manually set everyone to Subjugation there to make the new category work (it doesn't really matter though). I kinda like Byzantium's expansion stability though, although I have no idea why their core empire yield that bad scores as well.
And if I may recommend something, perhaps the dynamic name for a Byzantine republic should the the Republic of Rhomania?
Good idea, will be in.
Is there any way to guarantee the Roman UP units won't appear on islands? I saw an army of 4 Praetorians on Rhodes during my game.
Difficult to determine if a tile is part of an island. Currently the UP spawns units in a random tile in the BFC of a random enemy city. A solution would only be to only allow tiles directly next to the targeted city, but this increases the probability that no free tile can be found (which currently results in the units spawning in your capital instead).
Regarding barbarian pressure for 3000BC, is there some way of disbanding all those barbarian units immediately prior to the rise of the European states? It seems like France and Germany always begin with a huge number of horse archers and catapults flipped to them.
Good point. While a strong military for the Europeans might not be that bad, it's to luck dependent for both player and AI. Could be that this is the reason for several instances of medieval super Germany.
EDIT: By the way, are you making any changes to the city names map in the near future? Because I noticed that, as the Portuguese went on the warpath across the former France and Germany, that the names of Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Vienna stayed the same when they should be Marselha, Bordéus, and Viena, respectively. Similarly, Russian Stockholm should be Stokgol'm.
Absolutely, they'll be part of the CityNameManager as soon as possible. If you encounter something similar, just keep mentioning it, things like these are easily incorporated no matter what I'm working at.
As for the Arabs, the Ai is weak and dosnt conquer anything (although human players shoudnt have a prob
). Around the same time period the arabs are suppose to conquer everything between Pakistan and Morrocco. Is it possible (just for the Ai) to have a bigger spawn area. Ive also noticed that the Arabs found too many cities in Arabia and dont try to settle cities like Damascus, Baghdad, Fez and Luxor. Cud u discourage them from settling more that one city in Arabia.
My current version of 1.71 (in the SVN currently) already gives Al-Iskandariyya, Al-Qahirah and Al-Quds to the Arabs. I'm currently divided whether the already preplaced Tisfun should flip to them as well (turning into Baghdad). Currently the Byzantines conquer it too often, but I'll try if reworking both civ's overlay maps (especially Byzantium's) might solve that as well).
I've also made the same observation as you that Arabia wastes its starting settlers on useless cities in Yemen and Oman, so I currently think if it's better to place their settlers in Cairo or Baghdad when they flip.
And for 600 ad can there be Damascus rather than Alexendratte. Damascus was much more important than Alexendratte. Maybe u can switch the resources around for Damascus and especially for Tisfun/Baghdad (for it to be able to be the largest and most important city in the middle ages).
Alexandretta is gone in 1.71, although I have replaced it with Antiochia on the same spot.
By the way Leoreth have u decided which cities u want for the moors?
Currently I think Marrakesh, Al-Jazair, Tunis and Isbiliyah would suffice.
Leoreth, are you planning on making changes to units, esp mounted units soon?
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Great suggestions, but I don't want to open that can of worms parallel to all that Byzantine trouble. I think the cataphract can be fixed independently to this.
Yes i have just experienced one playing as China.
IMO The Byzantines get too many cities with their spawn, so decreasing their production might work, + I would like to see a strong Arabia, so giving them more camel archers at start might work aswell.
Damn, then I'll reinvestigate.
Okay, then you're another one who supports my impression that they're too productive.
Its just that the Byzantines need to be thinking more defencivlly rather than aggresivly. They should be building up the cities they have, rather than trying to conquer all of Persia
Agree. Part of the problem is that I've consciously increased the aggression values towards Persia for Greece, so the Byzantines with their currently Greek war map suffer from this as well. I think this is solvable with a combination of better maps and changed leader personalities.
Also I would still strongly urge you Leoreth to give them a so-so defended city in Sicily to mark their occupation of Italy at the start of the game and also a so-so defended Dyrachium in the Balkans. Also production should be nerfed as you said.
I still want to leave some cities to be founded by them, to be honest. With their attention averted from the northern Black Sea and the Middle East, so they still have some good spots to send their settlers to.
Oh my, another bad result of low Pantheon usage in the classical world. Unfortunately no idea what to do about that currently
On the Cataphract issue:
For me, three approaches present themselves to solve that issue.
1. View cataphracts as Byzantine knight counterpart
This would mean they'd be moved to feudalism, would be only slightly nerfed or made more expensive. Byzantium won't spawn with feudalism anymore.
2. View cataphracts as a Byzantine knight predecessor
This is probably the more historical variant. Keep the cataphracts at an earlier tech they know on spawn, but make them weaker than their knight counterpart, like the strength 9 suggestion by civ_king.
3. Use the Varangian guard instead
Has the advantage that they were in service for a longer time than the traditional cataphracts (later Byzantium tended to use lighter cavalry), but are also ahistorical in that they never entered the actual army in greater numbers. They would fit better into the idea of a defensive Byzantium.
