Does Byzantium need a boost?

[Beaver79]

I'm opposed to giving them any sort of + faith bonuses. Correct me if I'm wrong but don't they get their extra belief right when they pop their second prophet?

On a number of occasions I have gotten mosques and pagodas with a ciz that doesn't get a +faith bonus. At that point you don't have to worry about happiness or culture or faith and it's pretty much a win. If you can get 2 under those conditions you would get 3 with Byzantium. Stop what you are doing and fill out piety. +6 tourism per city that early would end the game pretty quick. You can't make it easy to achieve that.

There are a whole bunch of civs whose UAs are broken if you don't use them.

Mongols if you never attack a city state
America if you don't buy a tile
France if you didn't build a guild
Iroquois if you chop down your forests
I bet you could say that about half the civs.

 

[JohnMK]

Mongols can attack city states all game long, America buy tiles all game long, if the Iroquois chop down their forests, at least they got some benefit out of them. Byzantium's ability to use its AU can evaporate rather quickly. On balance I'd like to see something done, but nothing more than a very gentle nudge. Letting them found a religion even after the normal number have been founded, just doesn't feel right to me. Not to mention, it's the kind of fancy fix that developers are usually least likely to implement at this stage.

 

[greygamer]

There are a whole bunch of civs whose UAs are broken if you don't use them.

Why wouldn't you exploit the UA of your Civ? The difference is Byzantine can have bad luck that stops them from exploiting it. AI get religious CS / faith ruins and Byzantine don't. In it's current form the UA doesn't even represent what is unique about the Byzantines. It is just a badly designed UA imo.

One of the biggest criticisms I read on the forums is of randomness that gimps you from the start. Byzantine suffers from this the most imo.

 

[black213]

It's too late. Much more elegant solution: Receive a Great Prophet when they advance to the next era.

It's far from late. It's on the same path as Philosophy, a tech everyone should be prioritizing highly. As with D&P, though important only for culture playthroughs.
Receiving a Great Prophet after entering classical doesn't really fit Byzantium... Theology has the Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine wonder after all. Along with many other religious wonders.


Fun fact: before G&K was released, there was some speculation that Byzantium would receive a Prophet from Theology. It fits Byzantium greatly.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Is there any evidence that these kind of threads ever lead to games changes or patches? Are we not just navel gazing? (Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I would like to know.)

I'm pretty sure the devs check in from time to time; they're invested. And there has been some evidence that our bickering has been effective. Ex: there were several threads in Civ IV discussing how pointless the explorer unit was, when Civ5 came out, it was omitted and the scout is the only scouting unit and has no upgrade... so now we complain about that

The idea that Byzantium could further enhance an established religion I find even more interesting. This models real life denominations, and is probably more powerful than starting a new religion, so I like it a lot! It might be harder for the devs to implement and seems like it might lead to some difficulties. For example, does Theodora get the benefit of founder beliefs in this case? If so, does a benefit like Tithe get split 50/50 between Byzantium and the original founder, or is there more money for everyone?

Thanks for the endorsement, regarding sharing/splitting founder beliefs I'd vote no and no, there should still be some incentive for Theodora to found a religion as opposed to piggybacking, and the founder belief seems appropriate, same rationale on exclusion from enhancer belief. The only tricky part is the reformation belief if both Byzantine and the religion's founder go Piety. In this case, I'd again vote that Byzantine should have an incentive for founding, and would have to forgo a reformation belief. If this is too harsh, first one to reform gets to pick and second would unlock the reformation belief already assigned to the religion.


Here's another proposal that may make everyone happy, and I prefer it for historical significance (at least for the celts): switch the traits of the Celtic Pictish Warrior and the Byzantine African Forest Elephant The African Forest Elephant would now earn the empire faith for defeating enemy units and the Pictish Warrior has an area-effect combat penalty to enemy units. Furthermore, I'd recommend that the AFE earns faith equal to the FULL strength of the enemy unit (as opposed to the PW currently earning half) but much like the current system it loses the ability with upgrade.

From the Byzantine perspective, you now have an additional, very strong out to accumulating faith early, but lose it before Renaissance so they're not stepping on the toes of the other zealot's UAs and UBs. There's still a sense of urgency for the Byzantine player to found a religion, which there should be; the Byzantine player should breath a sigh of relief when they find a religious mountain (to which there are several) or find a religious CS, otherwise consider a run at SH or seriously consider Piety (which is always an option), and to either supplement any of these outs or to bail them out when all these options fail, there's the UU. This is also why I'm strongly opposed to the all the various suggestions that guarantee founding a religion (Free GP, allow them to found even if none are left.) I also am opposed to the suggestion that Byzantine should have extra advantages in the piety tree because no other civ is all but forced to pick an SP tree and it drastically effects gameplay, creativity, replay-ability, and overall enjoyment when one of these choices is made for you.

From the Celt's perspective, the current PW is overkill. The forest bonus is enough to ensure that you get what you want out of a religion. The awesome history of the Celtic/Gaelic/Welsh is that of a peaceful, agrarian culture who's not out to instigate or infringe on another culture. However, if you oppress them or try to take their lands, they will !@#$ YOU UP! Bring your advanced technology and superior numbers, it only gives them better things to shove up your behind and more behinds for the shoving. The area-effect bonus allows them to do just that;

 

[Quitzz]

It's far from late.

It's late. Even more: it's very late. It's pure tradition tech so you wanna gimp them even more lol.

It's far from late. It's on the same path as Philosophy, a tech everyone should be prioritizing highly.

Orly ? If I go Liberty why I should waste my time for the useless tech instead of markets/workshops ? Same with Honor. If you can play only with Tradition it doesn't mean that everyone play this way.
Even more: no one of Byzantine UU on this tech path. Gimp x2

Receiving a Great Prophet after entering classical doesn't really fit Byzantium... Theology has the Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine wonder after all. Along with many other religious wonders.

Seems you are very uninformed in history. You should know at least that Hagia Sophia was built 200 years later after Сonstantinople and 500 years BEFORE curch split.
In fact they are were сhristians from the beggining of empire and for sure before Ethiopia lol. But ingame we got a first-religion-Ethiopia and most religious nation in history - Byzantium without religion. I don't even ask why the Celts (they were pagans at the time when Christianity was adopted in Roman Empire and in Constantinople as capital) able to found religion first.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I'm pretty sure the devs check in from time to time; they're invested. And there has been some evidence that our bickering has been effective. Ex: there were several threads in Civ IV discussing how pointless the explorer unit was, when Civ5 came out, it was omitted and the scout is the only scouting unit and has no upgrade... so now we complain about that

Thanks for the endorsement, regarding sharing/splitting founder beliefs I'd vote no and no, there should still be some incentive for Theodora to found a religion as opposed to piggybacking, and the founder belief seems appropriate, same rationale on exclusion from enhancer belief. The only tricky part is the reformation belief if both Byzantine and the religion's founder go Piety. In this case, I'd again vote that Byzantine should have an incentive for founding, and would have to forgo a reformation belief. If this is too harsh, first one to reform gets to pick and second would unlock the reformation belief already assigned to the religion.


Here's another proposal that may make everyone happy, and I prefer it for historical significance (at least for the celts): switch the traits of the Celtic Pictish Warrior and the Byzantine African Forest Elephant The African Forest Elephant would now earn the empire faith for defeating enemy units and the Pictish Warrior has an area-effect combat penalty to enemy units. Furthermore, I'd recommend that the AFE earns faith equal to the FULL strength of the enemy unit (as opposed to the PW currently earning half) but much like the current system it loses the ability with upgrade.

From the Byzantine perspective, you now have an additional, very strong out to accumulating faith early, but lose it before Renaissance so they're not stepping on the toes of the other zealot's UAs and UBs. There's still a sense of urgency for the Byzantine player to found a religion, which there should be; the Byzantine player should breath a sigh of relief when they find a religious mountain (to which there are several) or find a religious CS, otherwise consider a run at SH or seriously consider Piety (which is always an option), and to either supplement any of these outs or to bail them out when all these options fail, there's the UU. This is also why I'm strongly opposed to the all the various suggestions that guarantee founding a religion (Free GP, allow them to found even if none are left.) I also am opposed to the suggestion that Byzantine should have extra advantages in the piety tree because no other civ is all but forced to pick an SP tree and it drastically effects gameplay, creativity, replay-ability, and overall enjoyment when one of these choices is made for you.

From the Celt's perspective, the current PW is overkill. The forest bonus is enough to ensure that you get what you want out of a religion. The awesome history of the Celtic/Gaelic/Welsh is that of a peaceful, agrarian culture who's not out to instigate or infringe on another culture. However, if you oppress them or try to take their lands, they will !@#$ YOU UP! Bring your advanced technology and superior numbers, it only gives them better things to shove up your behind and more behinds for the shoving. The area-effect bonus allows them to do just that;

Which Byzantine African forest elephant??? You mean cataphract right?? African forest elephants are Carthagian units.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Which Byzantine African forest elephant??? You mean cataphract right?? African forest elephants are Carthagian units.

OOPS!! LOL. darn light bluish/purplish civs. Yeah, cataphracts, give em some faith upon kills.

 

[Skykiller]

For me, Byzantium cannot remain how it is now. The main problem, and this has been highlighted a lot, is that it may be unable to found a religion making its UA completely useless.

Thus, Byzantium needs something to get some extra faith or at least making founding a religion easier. I don't think they should have extra faith directly in the UA (this would make the celts underpowered in comparaison). This extra power should be indirect (like a building or a prequisit or

What I think would be good is a UB that would replace the Cataphact. This UB is a replacement for the Temple (called Basilica) that should give either extra faith (e.g. 4 faith instead of 2) or faith based on population (e.g. 2 base faith + 1 faith for 4 citizen in the city).

 

[budweiser]

I tried playing them twice and bee-lined HS both times to get religion 2 and 3 respectively. This is on immortal. There is probably no problem in their design, but instead how they are played. IE no one know how to play them. I don't really know.

They are a total medieval civ. By renaissance, they were done historically. However, for 1000 years their city was the greatest thing in Eastern Europe. High population, tremendous trade powerful church. They did attack and take land, then they turtled.

 

[Grendeldef]

I tried playing them twice and bee-lined HS both times to get religion 2 and 3 respectively. This is on immortal. There is probably no problem in their design, but instead how they are played. IE no one know how to play them. I don't really know.

Oh yes there's a problem. Anecdotal evidence from lower lvls doesn't really prove much of anything and even on deity AI is occasionally so screwed that weird things can happen. After a while I actually finished a game yesterday with Shoshones and even with pantheon & two prophet pops from ruins and Desert Folklore belief I was unable to found a religion - all 5 gone before T55 and no Ethiopia, Celts nor Byzantine in the game. Very weird game & funny story but totally irrelevant in regards of Byzantine UA.
There's still quite a difference between immortal & deity and moreover there's a vast gap in between what a human and an AI can do. Also, playing two or even few more games hardly gives a comprehensive coverage of any aspect of the game and one of the problems here seems to be that people put too much emphasis on their own, very limited, experiences of any given situation.

As there's is no religious VC going Piety seems like a plan B anyway and grasping a secondary plan just to take a possible use of UA isn't acceptable.

 

[greygamer]

I tried playing them twice and bee-lined HS both times to get religion 2 and 3 respectively. This is on immortal. There is probably no problem in their design, but instead how they are played. IE no one know how to play them. I don't really know.

I have a nagging feeling that this could be the case, but no one has come forward with 'this is how you can almost always get a religion with Byzantine even on the largest maps' type post. At which point I will go Ahhhhh... that's what I didn't think of

 

[Wodan]

I have a nagging feeling that this could be the case, but no one has come forward with 'this is how you can almost always get a religion with Byzantine even on the largest maps' type post. At which point I will go Ahhhhh... that's what I didn't think of

Unless we can change that to: "this is how you can ALWAYS get a religion with Byzantium" then there's a problem.

In my book, if you can completely lose your UA as a result of other player's actions and totally out of your control, then there's a problem.

This problem is made even worse because you would have spent several hundred turns of the game optimizing your gameplay toward getting and using your UA, before you found out that it was kaput. In other words, quit the game right then in disgust, knowing you completely wasted several hours/days of your time.

 

[Wodan]

Think of it this way:

What if, on the first turn of the game, the computer popped up a big display message, saying:

The game has determined that your opponents include 4 or more out of these civs: Ethopia, Celts, Egypt (etc.), OR out of civs who have already predetermined they are going to start with the Piety tree. As a result, the game has decided to completely STRIP you of your UA for the rest of the game.

Have fun, and thank you for playing CiV!

That wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Yes? It would?

Well, this is worse than that!

 

[budweiser]

No, on diety which I dont care too much about you also cannot get The Great Library. I would categorize Byzantium along those line on Diety.

On immortal and below, I would say your chance is 90% to get a religion.

 

[JohnMK]

If we can achieve a consensus, something that none of us finds perfect but isn't too objectionable, then we might be able to get the developers' attention. A unified front can help. Some argue for no change, others for pretty significant changes. And nobody's talking about nerfing Byzantium. The balance is in favor of a mild buff to Byzantium's ability to obtain a religion.

My suggestion earlier (+2 faith/turn PER other religion founded, going to +0 once max # is reached or Byzantium founds a religion), was calibrated to appeal to this middle ground, as it really only kicks in to high gear once the danger of losing out on the religion race draws near, and it leaves the mechanic in place that allows nations like the Maya and Celts to found religions earlier than most. My idea, I'll give it a 7.

Modification of above idea: Only kicks in once Theology has been researched by Byzantium. Boost effect to +5 faith/turn per other religion founded, again going to 0 eventually). Not sure on this, have to think about it, but in general I like ideas that help Byzantium get a religion late-ish. I'll give this one a 6.

Cataphract faith from kills doesn't appeal to me, I'm not quite sure why, so I won't veto the idea. But it does adhere to my goal of getting Byzantium a religion late-ish. 5.

Guaranteed or higher likelihood of faith ruins is alright, but in the hands of the AI or a thoughtless human player might be invested in something other than faith-generation pantheons. I'll give this one a 6.

+4 faith from Holy Sites seems, being polite now, rather unhelpful. Veto. 0.

Allowing Byzantium to exceed the max # of religions with a late religion doesn't feel right to me, I could expound on that but won't in this post. But I won't veto it. 1. Too many religions allowed already. (I mod my game to allow only 5 on huge maps, etc.).

Free Great Prophet, interesting. Not useful if the max # of religions is reached already, however. It would have to come before Theology, too, which doesn't feel historically right for Byzantium. 3.

Free Piety opener? Neutral. 5.

Religion & Pantheon requiring less faith. 3.

+2 faith in capital. Maybe. I'll give it a 5, since it seems like it could make founding an early religion more likely than I prefer. But it's better than the status quo.

+1 (or +2?) faith per shrine/temple. I'll give it a 5.

If I've missed another sensible proposal (even if you disagree with it), please remind me.

 

[Aaron90495]

If we can achieve a consensus, something that none of us finds perfect but isn't too objectionable, then we might be able to get the developers' attention. A unified front can help. Some argue for no change, others for pretty significant changes. And nobody's talking about nerfing Byzantium. The balance is in favor of a mild buff to Byzantium's ability to obtain a religion. My suggestion earlier (+2 faith/turn PER other religion founded, going to +0 once max # is reached or Byzantium founds a religion), was calibrated to appeal to this middle ground, as it really only kicks in to high gear once the danger of losing out on the religion race draws near, and it leaves the mechanic in place that allows nations like the Maya and Celts to found religions earlier than most. My idea, I'll give it a 7. Modification of above idea: Only kicks in once Theology has been researched by Byzantium. Boost effect to +5 faith/turn per other religion founded, again going to 0 eventually). Not sure on this, have to think about it, but in general I like ideas that help Byzantium get a religion late-ish. I'll give this one a 6. Cataphract faith from kills doesn't appeal to me, I'm not quite sure why, so I won't veto the idea. But it does adhere to my goal of getting Byzantium a religion late-ish. 5. Guaranteed or higher likelihood of faith ruins is alright, but in the hands of the AI or a thoughtless human player might be invested in something other than faith-generation pantheons. I'll give this one a 6. +4 faith from Holy Sites seems, being polite now, rather unhelpful. Veto. 0. Allowing Byzantium to exceed the max # of religions with a late religion doesn't feel right to me, I could expound on that but won't in this post. But I won't veto it. 1. Too many religions allowed already. (I mod my game to allow only 5 on huge maps, etc.). Free Great Prophet, interesting. Not useful if the max # of religions is reached already, however. It would have to come before Theology, too, which doesn't feel historically right for Byzantium. 3. Free Piety opener? Neutral. 5. Religion & Pantheon requiring less faith. 3. If I've missed another sensible proposal (even if you disagree with it), please remind me.

I believe there were also the suggestions of +2 faith in the capital and a flat +1 (or was it +2?) from shrines and temples.

 

[JohnMK]

One thing to keep in mind is that we shouldn't make it too much more difficult for historically non-religious civs to found a religion, which is what we do by handing out bonuses to Celts, etc. If they (non-religious boni civ, e.g., Germany) go squarely for a religion, i.e., opening and working through Piety, it would certainly be terribly annoying for their game to have spawned Ethiopia, Celts, Maya, and Byzantium. I believe the developers clearly intended that hard work in one focused area should be rewarded, yet they did want some civs to found early religions with minimal effort. Adding one more auto-pilot religion civ into the mix might prove discouraging, although such a risk is certainly part of what makes the game fun, as success (or revenge) is all the sweeter.

Suffice it to say, I'm with all those who believe a mild buff is in order for our beloved Byzantium.

 

[MKDELTA3]

If I've missed another sensible proposal (even if you disagree with it), please remind me.

I suggested Faith upon opening a new social policy based on the amount of social policies you already have. Something like 5 x number of social policies.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I suggested Faith upon opening a new social policy based on the amount of social policies you already have. Something like 5 x number of social policies.

I like this idea, in a way... it is original, but can't imagine how it would work out. It would just give 50 faith after the first 4 social policies. I don't know if that would be enough...

It inspired me to think of another suggestion. Substitute the social policy with religious buildings:
Each time byzantines construct a religious building in a city for the first time they will gain a lump sum of faith. It is not unique though now I think of it, kind a religion version of Korea's UA.