Does Byzantium need a boost?

[x2Madda]

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.

This is a problem. It seems some people want Piety opener to do "more" but the very thing you proposed is already an indirect action of picking Piety. That Panthenon belief can be a lot of things, some give happiness some give faith and some give culture including +1:: per shrine and it is a good pick! But people want to stick with +15% Growth or +1:: from Desert/Tundra instead and then cry Piety is weak. As Byzantium, you get to pick both the extra shrine culture and then +1 faith from whatever if you so choose.

Byzantium needs a boost because religion alone doesn't win you the game. It can certainly help! And religions are a great feature to the game, but when you plan to use religion to help your victory condition come to fruition you really need an early pick of the abilities that will secure your chosen victory path and with so many other civs able to get a religion so early, Byzantium just doesn't cut it. If the bonus pick could also be a reformation belief however then yes they would be 100% perfectly balanced because then it would be high risk for high reward.

2 Reformation beliefs would be incredible but the trade of is that you need to work to get a religion, which at the moment seems to be the draw back to picking them, it would then become the trade off/balance similar to how Spain works at present.

 

[rattlejaw]

Honestly, the biggest problem with Byzantium isn't that their UA is badly designed, but that it's bad in practice because of the way Civ's difficulty scales. Consider how much better they would be if it were possible to play on an even difficulty (i.e. Prince) against AI that actually know how to play the game. They're not that bad in MP, from what I understand--though that's more down to the units than anything.

An extra religious belief is actually a pretty powerful thing, but founding a religion on Immortal or Deity is pretty much a matter of luck even if you want to trust in the worst starting tree in the game--and have fun with that if you go Piety and fail to secure a religion, which definitely happens. I've missed religions on Deity with a 10 faith per turn income, which represents a pretty decent stroke of luck with pantheons and multiple cities with shrines built early. And even a best-case scenario tends to leave you with the dregs as far as beliefs are concerned. It's a good thing the AI doesn't value Tithe, because at least you'll always have that.

I'm all for a redesign, mostly because Byzantium doesn't feel terribly Byzantine, but I'm not sure a fix can be as simple as tweaking a few numbers. It's not the civ itself that's the problem, it's the fact that the AI is stone stupid and needs to be handed huge advantages to keep pace with players.

 

[Vitruvius]

I don't mind the unique units just that they are in the wrong place, ancient/classical instead of medieval. The trouble is as some have mentioned its very hard to get a lot of use out of early ships and horses because they're expensive to build and you have to focus on trying to invest in faith.

Byzantium sits between classical and medieval. They are already weak by the time of the crusades. It makes sense to give them units that are better than classical but worse than medieval. Speaking of out of place uniques, the satrap court comes after banking..

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[isau]

Letting Byzantine start with Pottery, just like the Huns start with Animal Husbandry, would help it out a lot.

 

[JamesCivFan]

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.

^This. Cannot agree more.

 

[Redaxe]

I wonder if the devs original intent was for Byzantine to be a domination focused civ. 2 unique units does imply this but it might be a lot more interesting if there was some synergy between early conquest and religion. I'm not sure if that's historically accurate but it might give this civ a bit more flavor. I know the Celts already have this with the Pictish warriors.
But I suppose adjusting the UA to provide some culture for each shrine and temple is another option.

 

[greygamer]

Leave my Dromons alone
They are instead of triremes so you can get them early. Then they upgrade to the galleass by which time some have at least 2 promotions. The galleass is very good at reducing walled cities when employed in numbers especially if they get the logistics/range promotion. Then they upgrade into Frigates; frigates that may already have the logistics/range promotion (or both.)

Note: I play mainly on Continent maps

I'd rather lose the Cataphract if I have to lose a UU.

In my opinion the problem is you need Philosophy to build temples and at higher difficulty levels the AI will get there first. You can try to built Stonehenge but that is by no means certain. Having an UA that you might not get to use, even when you go for it sucks It makes them a bit too RNG dependant especially at the higher level of difficulty. Some good solutions have been suggested here. Fixing the Piety tree to allow for quicker faith generation would not help because the AI would also benefit.

How about the UA include being able to adopt any religion already founded once they earn a prophet, that way they get a religion. The religions available might not be ideal but they can add another belief to it.

 

[Quitzz]

To say that byzantium rely on religion completely is like saying mongols relies on killing cs or germans killing barbs. Its just a UA and many civs have UAs that are weak outright. Byzantium relies on religion but once they get it its strong because of extra beliefs. The best thing is byzantium doesnt need piety at all to get reformation belief. Byzantium can happily ignore piety and focus on other branches.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Germans rely on barb camps clearing and if u dont use it then you use them in a wrong way. And I love how you froget that his UA is also a unit maintenance discount. So their UA always usefull.
Next. Mongols has the same story All mounted units have +1 moves Movement + easy mode when u capture CS. May be it's not so impressive but tbh their generals already like whole China UA.

The best thing is byzantium doesnt need piety at all to get reformation belief. Byzantium can happily ignore piety and focus on other branches.

What did u smoke ? They can't chose a reformation without piety.

 

[kamex]

I tried a game recently as Byzantine on Emp Pangaea. I tried tithe plus texts and preechers, then took unity of the prophets. Converted the world by 100AD. Every single city (except rival holy cities which where covered in my pressure). It was so broke it was side split-tingly funny.

 

[Browd]

They can't chose a reformation without piety.

Correct. Byz cannot use their bonus belief to select a reformation belief. Only way to do that is to take Piety's Reformation social policy.

 

[Ninakoru]

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.

I think this is the main problem. Byzamtium should go for piety on higher levels to ensure a religion, but not going tradition, or liberty to a lesser extent can make things impossible.

Piety definitely needs a boost. It's easily the worst tree right now.

Honor says hello.

 

[damnyankees]

How about this - all social policies in the policy tree are double effective for Byzantium:

• Organized religion: +2 Faith from Shrines and Temple.
• Mandate of heaven: 40% discount on all purchases of religious units and buildings with Faith.
• Theocracy Temples: increase a city's gold output by 50%. Holy Sites provide +6 gold.
• Religious tolerance: Cities with a majority religion also get the Pantheon belief bonus of the second and third most popular religion.
• Reformation: If you founded a religion, gain two bonus Reformation beliefs.

This would both make it much easier for then to get a religion, and really make their religious-oriented society much more powerful.

 

[budweiser]

I tried a game recently as Byzantine on Emp Pangaea. I tried tithe plus texts and preechers, then took unity of the prophets. Converted the world by 100AD. Every single city (except rival holy cities which where covered in my pressure). It was so broke it was side split-tingly funny.

Nice job!

Now my idea for immortal/diety is to bee-line Hagia Sofia and use that as the first prophet, not the finisher. You would not be obliged to go full Piety at first, but partial piety combined with something else. This should score you 3rd to 5th religion without losing out on too many solid picks.

Here is my first try on the above. Took a culture pantheon to boost policies. Full Liberty Oracle and then GE rush. Because civ is evil, Russia went full piety and stole the name of my religion. But you can see, I still have tons of picks to choose from.

 

[MantaRevan]

Honor is probably worse, but the only time you would actually choose it is if you're going to hardline domination, where it becomes sufficiently more useful.

 

[greygamer]

I think this is the main problem. Byzamtium should go for piety on higher levels to ensure a religion, but not going tradition, or liberty to a lesser extent can make things impossible.
Honor says hello.

Doesn't help, to really benefit from Piety you need to go wide early (more shrines) or get to Philosophy before the AI (for Temples) so it still doesn't ensure Religion everytime. On the highest levels the AI have an extra settler and bonus tech, starting at King they always get Pottery. On top of this they are getting a bonus to beaker production so good luck with beating the AI to Philosophy if they are making that a priority. Of course one of them will get the GL as well and if they use that to get Philosophy that's another AI that will get a Religion first.

So let's break this down; a religious AI will probably beat you to Stonhenge, a Science AI will beat you to Philosophy. I don't know if the AI get a bonus to faith production,if so then things are even worse. Add in any civ that gets a faith result when they are exploring ruins and you can find all the Religions gone very quickly indeed.

This leaves Byzantine needing 'luck' to ensure a religion on the higher difficulty levels, in my opinion they are more luck dependant than the other civs once you get to the high levels unless you cook the settings. The best building for the Byzantines is the Great Library because it gets you to Philosophy quickly (and Temples). Maybe the solution is moving Temples to an easier to get tech that the AI will only make a priority if they are 'religious'.

 

[Redaxe]

How about this - all social policies in the policy tree are double effective for Byzantium:

• Organized religion: +2 Faith from Shrines and Temple.
• Mandate of heaven: 40% discount on all purchases of religious units and buildings with Faith.
• Theocracy Temples: increase a city's gold output by 50%. Holy Sites provide +6 gold.
• Religious tolerance: Cities with a majority religion also get the Pantheon belief bonus of the second and third most popular religion.
• Reformation: If you founded a religion, gain two bonus Reformation beliefs.

This would both make it much easier for then to get a religion, and really make their religious-oriented society much more powerful.

While this sounds cool and I would love to try this, it would be so overpowered to be beyond broken. And I don't think its fair for Piety to be weak for every Civ and crazy strong for Byzantine.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Byzantium should seriously just get +1 faith in the Palace, that would at least guarantee an early pantheon barring a horrifying fluke.

 

[Stellarnight]

I would offer the following suggestion to buff the UA.

Everytime a Pantheon is found(including your own), gain 5 faith. Every religion that is found(including your own) gives you 40 faith.

It pretty much guarantees you a Pantheon (though it might not be the one you want) and should get you a religion most of the time unless the RNG screws you over. IF you want a good religion with good beliefs, you still need to work for it but the bonuses are there to help you at least get a religion. It sort of scales with difficulty. On lower levels, the AI will take some time to found a religion so you might as well just build shrines and temples on your own so the bonus is marginal but on higher levels where the AI will found pantheons and religions faster than you, it keeps you in the race at least.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

I think they're fine as is. There's nothing wrong with a civ that doesn't have every aspect scale equally effectively across all difficulty levels. Some make the same argument for Egypt (though I've argued that to death and must simply digress...) I've beaten deity, and have just moved from regularly playing emperor to regularly playing immortal, and I think they're fine as is. So far I've always been able to found a religion with them without going piety, though I didn't get first crack at the picks, but that isn't their bonus, it's the bonus for Ethiopia and the Celts. So it must be people who play exclusively deity that find them unattractive, and to those people, take a step down to immortal for byzantine. If they're too proud... sorry, unsatisfied with that option, either play a different civ or discover how well their UUs can be exploited. Many other civs have UUs and even UAs (Ethiopia comes to mind) that aren't super attractive, but still are good picks because players figure out how to capitalize on their other advantages.

So my vote is to keep them as is. If the overwhelming majority insist that a change is necessary, I'd like to make two more subtle changes:
1.)AFEs maintain their area-effect promotion with upgrades. The maori demonstrate how maintaining this promotion is powerful but for Byzantine, it gets obnoxious in the industrial age having a secondary, cumulative Ggeneral that you can't stack for protection.
2.)to solve the problem for deity level play, switch the bonus belief prerequisite from founding a religion to having all cities being homogenous with a majority religion.

Kinda tootin' my own horn here, but I like this concept. For lower level play, it delays the acquisition of a very powerful bonus. For games where you can't found a religion, you still get the benefit. And here's the kicker: remember that it applies to that religion, which isn't necessarily yours, thus making the founder more powerful as well, and maybe you get a diplomatic bonus for improving their religion. Finally, it gives a special flavor to having Byzantine in the game as an AI civ, similar but better than the unique advantages of having Morocco or Sweden in the game (or conquering a civ that has a great UI)

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Man, good old Byzantium. I always get thoughts back on AoEII whenever they're mentioned.

Sadly, the main issue with Piety is that you get no Culture from it whatsoever. THe finisher doesn't count, since all the other policy trees give a culture boost on the opener. Maybe the Piety opener could give +1 culture for each shrine and temple or something? OTherwise you risk crippling yourself rushing the reformation belief.