Does Byzantium need a boost?

[Ninakoru]

The UA is one of the best in the game; many of the religious beliefs are as powerful or more powerful than some civs' UAs (no? I'd take tithe, religious community, or religious centers over Bushido or Barbary Corsairs any day of the week)

And that's your opinion. While most UAs are in play from turn 0, here in order to benefit the UA you have to found the religion with absolutely any extras on the religion department, and with a horrible piety that is not used on the higher levels, but the AI loves it.

I don't think Byzantium should be granted a religion, but should have a minor boost to help them get a religion over most civs that doesn't have any faith-related ability.

Any minor faith boost would suffice, some extra possibilities:

· Faith +1 in cap when pottery is researched (not fast panthon but steady gain for nothing).
· Faith from barbs (str/2)
· For each pantheon founded, +10 faith.
· Double faith from faithful CSs.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Byzantium should get a rework. I think it'd be perfect if:

Dromon replaced the Galeass, with strengths adjusted., the Cataphract replaced the Knight, being both slower and tankier, and was unlocked at Theology instead of Monarchy (much better and earlier placement in the tech line with it being right on the road to Universities).

Also, we could add something with +faith added to the UA too. Not sure what though. +1 faith for every faith structure and wonder in the capital? That'd be a fitting improvement which wouldn't grow overpowered, because it'd still require you to actually do stuff to get benefits.

 

[greygamer]

2. adopting 'someone else's' religion (ie it gets a second holy city... yours which then has the new belief applied)

I feel that fits better with Byzantine's history

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

2. adopting 'someone else's' religion (ie it gets a second holy city... yours which then has the new belief applied)

I feel that fits better with Byzantine's history

I would like to see this too. But the player should be able to choose whether to found a new religion if these are available or "Byzantinize" someone else's religion.

 

[Redaxe]

Well there seems to be a lot of people in favour of giving Byzantine the unique ability to adopt and modify another Civs religion. I must admit it is certainly an intriguing idea, although I have no idea of what it would take to code this in.

But I will try and apply this 'religious adoption' to a hypothetical Civ scenario so we can at least flesh out what this might look like in game.

So to try and closely follow the 'historical' religious history lets just say that you start Civ 5 as Byzantine. Your neighbour is Rome who allies with Jeruslaem, a nearby religious citystate (I know historically it was a Roman puppet state but that's the most accurate way I can think of doing this).
Rome soon starts the religion Catholicism and chooses the following 2 beliefs
1) Founder Belief: Tithes
2) Follower Belief: Cathedral

Shortly Rome is able to enhance its religion and picks the next 2 beliefs

3) Follower: Monasteries
3) Enhancer: Reliquary

Now Rome's religion spreads to Antioch first and converts some of your citizens. Antioch is one of your Byzantine cities but it is NOT your capital. Roman Catholicism continues to spread and finally reaches your capital Constantinople.
At this point in time you haven't reached the 200 faith required for the first Great Prophet so once your first citizen is converted to Catholicism you get a message giving you the choice to adopt Catholicism as your own new religion. If you click no, you can choose Catholicism later by reopening the religions tab and clicking a new found religion icon. If you have multiple available religions you can choose whatever religion you prefer from this option. As long as there is at least 1 religious follower in your Capital you can adopt that religion.

If you choose to adopt Catholicism, the next thing that happens is you get to choose the name and bonus belief of your new religion. So we choose Eastern Orthodoxy and for the bonus belief we take 'Pilgrimage'.
Obviously for Byzantine it’s good to have more founder beliefs as these will only benefit your civ. Now because Catholicism (the host religion) is already enhanced we cannot choose anymore beliefs outside of a Reformation belief as our religion is also enhanced. You also cannot adopt another civs Reformation belief.

So our Byzantine Religion of Eastern Orthodoxy is now a holy city at Constantinople (the majority of the population is converted once the religion starts) and the capital begins emitting religious pressure. So the beliefs of our religion are
1) Tithes
2) Cathedral
3) Monastery
4) Reliquary
5) Pilgrimage (bonus)

So now Rome will not get the benefit of Tithe from followers of Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople and Byzantine will get this income instead. However our other city Antioch is still following Roman Catholicism so the benefit of Tithe will go to Rome. Our first priority then is to spread our religion as fast as we can and convert as many cities as possible to snowball the increase in gold and faith from our 2 founder beliefs.

Note that if Roman Catholicism had reached our capital Constantinople and we started Eastern Orthodoxy BEFORE Catholicism had enhanced then we would only start with Tithes, Cathedrals and Pilgrimage (bonus). In this case we would still need to generate a Great Prophet to enhance our own religion.

Otherwise we could have started a religion first and chosen whatever beliefs that were available as per normal.

Balance Issues.
1) If you adopt an enhanced religion you save yourself the faith cost of 2 Great Prophets. That is a saving of 500 faith. I can't do more than speculate if that would be an unfair advantage to Byzantine. Remember it does come at a cost of choosing all your own beliefs.
2) Fireaxis would need to increase the numerical limit of religions for Byzantine and probably increase the number of beliefs available
3) How should the AI respond if we take and modify there religion, Roman Catholicism. Should that cause a negative diplomatic effect from Rome or should it be positive or neutral?
4) Can a Byzantine AI be programmed to make the choices above to adopt a religion in this manner?

What do people think of this? As others have previously mentioned we don't know if Fireaxis are still reading the forums and making balance changes but if the forums are active with positive discussions then we may have a chance of getting their attention.
For instance the last patch added special unique artefacts to the hidden sites unlocked by the Exploration Finisher policy. The forums had been full of suggestions for that feature and its quite possible the devs may have read some of our ideas on that.

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Well there seems to be a lot of people in favour of giving Byzantine the unique ability to adopt and modify another Civs religion. I must admit it is certainly an intriguing idea, although I have no idea of what it would take to code this in.

But I will try and apply this 'religious adoption' to a hypothetical Civ scenario so we can at least flesh out what this might look like in game.

So to try and closely follow the 'historical' religious history lets just say that you start Civ 5 as Byzantine. Your neighbour is Rome who allies with Jeruslaem, a nearby religious citystate (I know historically it was a Roman puppet state but that's the most accurate way I can think of doing this).
Rome soon starts the religion Catholicism and chooses the following 2 beliefs
1) Founder Belief: Tithes
2) Follower Belief: Cathedral

Shortly Rome is able to enhance its religion and picks the next 2 beliefs

3) Follower: Monasteries
3) Enhancer: Reliquary

Now Rome's religion spreads to Antioch first and converts some of your citizens. Antioch is one of your Byzantine cities but it is NOT your capital. Roman Catholicism continues to spread and finally reaches your capital Constantinople.
At this point in time you haven't reached the 200 faith required for the first Great Prophet so once your first citizen is converted to Catholicism you get a message giving you the choice to adopt Catholicism as your own new religion. If you click no, you can choose Catholicism later by reopening the religions tab and clicking a new found religion icon. If you have multiple available religions you can choose whatever religion you prefer from this option. As long as there is at least 1 religious follower in your Capital you can adopt that religion.

If you choose to adopt Catholicism, the next thing that happens is you get to choose the name and bonus belief of your new religion. So we choose Eastern Orthodoxy and for the bonus belief we take 'Pilgrimage'.
Obviously for Byzantine it’s good to have more founder beliefs as these will only benefit your civ. Now because Catholicism (the host religion) is already enhanced we cannot choose anymore beliefs outside of a Reformation belief as our religion is also enhanced. You also cannot adopt another civs Reformation belief.

So our Byzantine Religion of Eastern Orthodoxy is now a holy city at Constantinople (the majority of the population is converted once the religion starts) and the capital begins emitting religious pressure. So the beliefs of our religion are
1) Tithes
2) Cathedral
3) Monastery
4) Reliquary
5) Pilgrimage (bonus)

So now Rome will not get the benefit of Tithe from followers of Eastern Orthodoxy in Constantinople and Byzantine will get this income instead. However our other city Antioch is still following Roman Catholicism so the benefit of Tithe will go to Rome. Our first priority then is to spread our religion as fast as we can and convert as many cities as possible to snowball the increase in gold and faith from our 2 founder beliefs.

Note that if Roman Catholicism had reached our capital Constantinople and we started Eastern Orthodoxy BEFORE Catholicism had enhanced then we would only start with Tithes, Cathedrals and Pilgrimage (bonus). In this case we would still need to generate a Great Prophet to enhance our own religion.

Otherwise we could have started a religion first and chosen whatever beliefs that were available as per normal.

Balance Issues.
1) If you adopt an enhanced religion you save yourself the faith cost of 2 Great Prophets. That is a saving of 500 faith. I can't do more than speculate if that would be an unfair advantage to Byzantine. Remember it does come at a cost of choosing all your own beliefs.
2) Fireaxis would need to increase the numerical limit of religions for Byzantine and probably increase the number of beliefs available
3) How should the AI respond if we take and modify there religion, Roman Catholicism. Should that cause a negative diplomatic effect from Rome or should it be positive or neutral?
4) Can a Byzantine AI be programmed to make the choices above to adopt a religion in this manner?

What do people think of this? As others have previously mentioned we don't know if Fireaxis are still reading the forums and making balance changes but if the forums are active with positive discussions then we may have a chance of getting their attention.
For instance the last patch added special unique artefacts to the hidden sites unlocked by the Exploration Finisher policy. The forums had been full of suggestions for that feature and its quite possible the devs may have read some of our ideas on that.

Nicely worked out. I definitly think the UA should be changed along these lines.

Maybe some suggestion to your balance issue #1. I think that you should still require a great prophet to adopt/convert the religion in one of your cities. It should not necissarily be present in the capital. And if you are to adopt another one's religion you require it to spread it's religion to one of your cities. This could take a lot of time. If you consider that it will require first the time to found a religion and then the time to enhance it, the game will be already around medieval era. The religion could already spread after the religion is founded. If the Byzantines find their religion at that moment, they will still need another great prophet. Or if you wait till the religion is enhanced, it takes a lot of time in which you cannot make use of the founder and bonus belief.

I'm thinking of another issue. It has also relation with your #2 issue. When an not-enhanced religion is adopted by the byzantines should both religions Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in your example receive the same beliefs from enhancing the religion? In that case who will choose them, the first to enhance the religiom?

This point does not concern balance, but there is still the issue concerning the name and icon of the religion. Are you able to choose from one of the other religion icons (and names) or should the religion automatically given a name and icon with the initial religions name and icon in it? For example if you adopt Hinduism, your religion will be named Hinuism orthodoxy and your religion icon will be hinduism icon + something covering the orthodoxy part.

 

[beetle]

Balance Issues:

1. If you adopt an enhanced religion you save yourself the faith cost of 2 Great Prophets. That is a saving of 500 faith. I can't do more than speculate if that would be an unfair advantage to Byzantine. Remember it does come at a cost of choosing all your own beliefs.
2. Fireaxis would need to increase the numerical limit of religions for Byzantine and probably increase the number of beliefs available.
3. How should the AI respond if we take and modify there religion, Roman Catholicism. Should that cause a negative diplomatic effect from Rome or should it be positive or neutral?
4. Can a Byzantine AI be programmed to make the choices above to adopt a religion in this manner?

As much as I like the idea that Byzantium should be able to co-opt a religion, I think you are spot on that its more complicated than it might seem at first.

1. I worry that the idea is OP. I would think that at least one GP would be necessary, but even saving one GP is significant. On top of that, there is the issue that (1) reforming a good religion >> founding a late religion; and (2) the significant advantage of not having the opportunity costs associated with early pursuit of faith.
2. For the reasons you give, it really does seem that sharing a religion between two civs raises significant complications. Elsewhere in this thread people have given examples of how the adding even one religion to some large games is not possible. Adding beliefs to resolve this only makes the problem more complicated!
3. Arguments for negative/positive diplomatic effect can made either way, so a choice would be arbitrary. Which is just as well, since adding a new diplomatic modify is almost certainly non-trivial. So no net effect, which is too bad, since both cooperation and vicious factional warfare between religious sects have historical precedent!
4. This is part that I don’t think is a problem. The AI would always choose founding over reforming (assuming that stays as an option) and for reforming would use the same sub-optimal algorithms used now for picking beliefs.

I think we should try to get consensus on the least disruptive way to help the AI Theodora found a religion. Naturally, a human player should have the same benefit. Denominations can be in the next major sequel!

It still seems to me that something like X faith per turn per religion founded (until Byzantium gets their first GP). Is the easy way to go, if we can agree on X. If the solution is a free GP, the trigger should be pretty broad, since the AI can’t be counted upon to pursue Theology in a timely fashion.

 

[Quineloe]

Byzantium sharing the religion of another Civ sounds good, but it wouldn't exactly be balanced. Two civs actively trying to spread a religion, maybe the other civ even being a faith powerhouse? All the other Civs with a religion might as well give up trying to spread theirs at that point.

At least with Byz you know when to ragequit much sooner.

 

[beetle]

At least with Byz you know when to ragequit much sooner.

LOL, so true! Unfortunately, the AI Theodora does not get that option. Your point about two civs spreading the same religion being OP is fair too.

 

[Redaxe]

You guys are right, you should be required to use a Great Prophet to adopt a foreign religion. I don't know why I didn't think of that before, guess that's why it pays to run these ideas through the community.
I also think it would work best to allow you to adopt a religion so long as at least one of your citizens has been converted to a religion, regardless of the city they are in. So to use the above example again, Roman Catholicism spread to our city of Antioch first and then later the capital. Regardless of this we cannot adopt Roman Catholicism into Eastern Orthodoxy until we generate our Great Prophet so that is still a high priority.

I would say that if Roman Catholicism is enhanced by the time we adopt it into Eastern Orthodoxy than that's fine. You still have to spend a Great Prophet and you only get to choose the bonus belief when you start the religion. If it takes that long for you to start a religion you're leaving it rather late and your faith generation is likely to be low so its probably not going to make/break a game. And by that time its possible that competing religions have had a good head start on you. The purpose of this improvement is to make the Byzantine UA usable even if you can't start your own religion. This is intended to make the Byzantine civilization more competitive, even on higher difficulties or a bad start. I don't think its going to be game-breaking. I think most players would prefer to start their own religion and this system will help the AI.

If you adopt Catholicism into Eastern Orthodoxy before its enhanced then the religions just split earlier and ultimately there are less similarities between the two. Both need to be individually enhanced which I think is fine. That means Byzantine requires a 2nd Great Prophet to enhance which could be seen as a disadvantage but they still get their initial bonus belief and it still achieves our goal of guaranteeing Byzantine a religion. Sure you may be late and not get all the choices you or the AI would prefer but you get something regardless.

As far as denominations go this is a little more tricky and probably best left to Civ 6. You could argue that Christianity is a denomination of Judaism. The religion was started in Judea by Jewish men that started of preaching in Synagogues using Jewish religious texts. Now I'm not going to divert this into a religious discussion but simply to point out that many religions have split from older faiths.
So if our Eastern Orthodoxy adopts Catholicism after it is enhanced it probably could be considered a separate denomination as nearly all the beliefs are identical but if the split of was before they enhanced then they have more differences than similarities and could probably be seen as very different religions.

Regarding the number of religious beliefs in the game you would only need to have a total increase of 4 beliefs (as that is the most extra beliefs that this system would use) which would not be hard for the devs to add in. I.E Byzantine adopts 2 beliefs, takes a bonus 1 and 2 enhances and possibly gets a reformation.
Also it wouldn't be a bad thing to see some of the beliefs go through a balance patch. When you are almost always choosing Tithe, Pagodas and Mosques for beliefs that suggests some rebalancing may be required.

For instance I can't ever see myself choosing Religious Art for the +5 culture/tourism in the Hermitage. Maybe it would be really good for a 1 city civ like Venice but I think it should get +2 faith/+1 happiness per artwork in the Hermitage giving a total of 5 culture, 5 tourism, 6 faith and 3 happiness.... or maybe having extra art slots to help a civ like Venice be able to get a cultural victory.

 

[kaspergm]

I agree with most of what people say here. I think Byzans should have the ability to reform a religion, which would take the action of a Great Prophet, and which would require the religion to be reformed to be present in the city where the action is formed - which would then become the holy city of the new religion. I think when a religion is reformed, Byzans should be required to change at least some beliefs, but I can't decide how many ... some options could be:

1. Exactly one belief must be changed no matter whether religion is enhanced or not, free choice which one.
2. A fixed number of beliefs (one, two, three?) can be changed, but doesn't have to be. (Personally not keen on having this option, as that would potentially make two identical religions which doesn't make sense.)
3. Founder belief must be changed. If religion is enhanced, one follower belief must be changed, while the other remains. If religion is not enhanced, first follower belief remains unchanged, but Byzans selects a second one like everybody else when enhacing. Pantheon belief remains that of original religion.
4. Pantheon belief changes to that of Byzans, but Founder belief remains unchanged. One follower belief is changed similar to case #3.

I would myself favor option #3, because I think this has a fair compromise between making religion separate from the original religion but still being somewhat familiar to it. Having a new Founder belief makes sense, because this gives Byzantium good incentive to spread their own religion - spreading someone else's religion is generally helping them more than it's helping you, at least if it's outside your borders. Sharing the Pantheon and one Follower belief (plus Enhancer if religion was enhanced) on the other hand means there's still a strong tie between the two religions.

I guess in all this talk it is implied that if Byzantium gets this ability, their special bonus beliefs falls away - or does that still come into play if they form their own religion from beginning?

 

[Wodan]

I still think that giving Byzantium a 2nd UA (bonus faith generation) is (1) overpowered and (2) does not solve the problem, it only makes it less frequent. People keep bringing it up but to me it's a non-start.

I'm liking the reform/co-opt idea even more after seeing what others have to say. However, the reform idea, in some incarnations, also does not solve the problem.

The only workable solutions must allow Byzantium to always be able to found a religion, such as with one of the following:

• free GP
• as soon as X-1 other Civs found a religion, Byzantium automatically founds theirs for free
• reserve one religion for Byzantium (meaning other civs have one less religion to choose from before being unable to found another)
• allow Byzantium to exceed the max # of religions by 1 OR
• change the UA altogether

 

[kaspergm]

I'm liking the reform/co-opt idea even more after seeing what others have to say. However, the reform idea, in some incarnations, also does not solve the problem.

The only workable solutions must allow Byzantium to always be able to found a religion, such as with one of the following.

This is why I think the idea of giving them the ability to reform a religion if all religions are taken is a smart and interesting solution, because as I see it, it bypasses the problem without having to become too generic (bypassing the limit or reserving a religion for them). It makes them different but at the same time makes certain they always get the benefit of having a religion which is their own.


In the meantime, I wanted to try to make a mod that tried to fix the Byzantium issue a bit. For this purpose, because I don't think it's possible to add Faith to the palace as part of their UA in the current game code, I wanted to play with the idea of giving them a UB Temple replacement (Basilica) instead of the Dromon. I came as far as creating an icon - how does that look? - but does anybody have any suggestions for what this special building should have as its effect. Increased Faith and no maintenance, or something more creative?

Spoiler :

 

[Redaxe]

Wodan: The only situation I can think of where Byzantium wouldn't be able to get any religious believers is if their cities were beyond the range of external religious pressure and no-one with a religion sends either trade routes or missionaries. I think that is an unlikely scenario. On higher difficulties, the AIs spam missionaries like crazy and I've been in between 2 AI Civs that endlessly spam Great Prophets at my cities to convert them to their own religions. The only other possibility of course is if Byzantine was destroyed early in which case their UA isn't going to save them anyway.

If the AI is set to a level where it is very bad at expanding and generating faith to the point where religion has very little effect on the game than the difficulty is probably so low I wouldn't consider it even remotely fair for the AI.

Kaspergm: Yes I think if Byzantine adopts a foreign religion you should also lose your Pantheon and take the adopted belief. This should be intended as a slight disadvantage to Byzantine so if you are that late to founding a religion than there is a small penalty. This represents your people abandoning their original beliefs and adopting the new religion. However you still get your bonus belief so if there's something your civ really needs, i.e. science, growth, gold or happiness you have choices to make up for that.

So going back to the original example lets say Rome (the original religion) had ample access to Gold and Silver and chose Religious Idols (+1 faith/+1 culture per resource) but we had neither of these resources. We adopt Roman Catholicism and lose our own Pantheon and get Religious Idols which is useless to us. However because we took Pilgrimage our generation of Faith is going to increasingly snowball so that we may end up converting some Roman cities.
IF that happens then Rome doesn't really lose out too badly from it. They no longer get their founder belief but they still get access to their original Pantheon as well as the Follower Beliefs. And if one of these Follower beliefs was something that needs to be maintained like Religious Community (+1% production per follower [max 15%]) and not a one-off building like Cathedrals than Rome will still benefit from our new Eastern Orthodoxy.

So to summarise if Byzantium is too late to found its own religion and has to adopt one, it will lose its Pantheon but it still gets a religion. It may not be the best possible religion for Byzantine but it will have enough benefits to make it a critical part of the Civs strategy. And don't forget the bonus belief you also get.

So if you're playing Diety which obviously means you can't get stonehenge and you are unlikely to generate enough early faith to get a good religion so you can simply go militaristic with Dromons and Cataphracts and wait for someone to spread a religion to you. For the Great Prophet you could either build a shrine/temple to generate faith or finish the Piety/Liberty tree.

If you want to make a mod for Byzantine and add a Basilica to replace the temple that will help but obviously may not be enough to guarantee the AI a religion. As for its effect something to distinguish it from the Burial Tomb perhaps add a specialist slot to the building (like the temple in Vanilla civ 5) that when worked produces 2 faith, 1 culture, 1 gold and maybe 1 production?
It seems powerful but you have to work one of your population in the building to get the benefit and that comes at a cost to food and growth so it needs to be decent. So a total yield of 4 or 5 should be balanced. Requiring one population to work the building helps add to the theme of Byzantium being a religious civilization where a significant part of the population is involved in religious duties.

 

[kaspergm]

If you want to make a mod for Byzantine and add a Basilica to replace the temple that will help but obviously may not be enough to guarantee the AI a religion. As for its effect something to distinguish it from the Burial Tomb perhaps add a specialist slot to the building (like the temple in Vanilla civ 5) that when worked produces 2 faith, 1 culture, 1 gold and maybe 1 production?
It seems powerful but you have to work one of your population in the building to get the benefit and that comes at a cost to food and growth so it needs to be decent. So a total yield of 4 or 5 should be balanced. Requiring one population to work the building helps add to the theme of Byzantium being a religious civilization where a significant part of the population is involved in religious duties.

I actually really like this idea of having this special "priest" specialist be part of their UA. One could even make a specialist slot in the palace which would have the benefit of a) securing early faith production, b) makes sense with the fact that the emperor was head of the church.

 

[Redaxe]

I actually really like this idea of having this special "priest" specialist be part of their UA. One could even make a specialist slot in the palace which would have the benefit of a) securing early faith production, b) makes sense with the fact that the emperor was head of the church.

Yes and this 'Priest' specialist working in the palace could possibly even be linked to the UA. I'm not sure if that is possible though, I haven't even looked at the modding tools for Civ 5. The intent here is that Byzantine doesn't get free faith. That advantage is for Ethiopia, Maya and Celts.
But since religion is a key part of your UA you can't afford to ignore it so if you do need the extra faith then it comes at a cost to early productivity/growth. So you might work the palace or Basilica some of the time to quickly get your Pantheon or first Great Prophet but at other-times you might put the specialist to work on a tile for food/productivity.

 

[Wodan]

In the meantime, I wanted to try to make a mod that tried to fix the Byzantium issue a bit. I wanted to play with the idea of giving them a UB Temple replacement (Basilica) instead of the Dromon.

Good luck. Just me, I'd replace the Cataphract rather than the Dromon.

 

[kaspergm]

Yes and this 'Priest' specialist working in the palace could possibly even be linked to the UA. I'm not sure if that is possible though, I haven't even looked at the modding tools for Civ 5. The intent here is that Byzantine doesn't get free faith. That advantage is for Ethiopia, Maya and Celts.
But since religion is a key part of your UA you can't afford to ignore it so if you do need the extra faith then it comes at a cost to early productivity/growth. So you might work the palace or Basilica some of the time to quickly get your Pantheon or first Great Prophet but at other-times you might put the specialist to work on a tile for food/productivity.

I know it's possible to add new specialists. I'll have to look around for someone to help me with the icon art. As for the Palace, the main question is whether I can add another unique building and not have it show up in the interface or anything, because what I'll try to do is make a unique Palace replacement for Byzantium that they get for free instead of the Palace when starting game, which is identical to normal palace but has the Priest slot. I'll have to ask in the modding section how to do that.

 

[Quitzz]

The intent here is that Byzantine doesn't get free faith. That advantage is for Ethiopia, Maya and Celts.

Lol. Maya's and Ethiopia's UB both should be reworked. Both faith bonuses are clearly unfair and should be moved to a later techs.

 

[Redaxe]

I know it's possible to add new specialists. I'll have to look around for someone to help me with the icon art. As for the Palace, the main question is whether I can add another unique building and not have it show up in the interface or anything, because what I'll try to do is make a unique Palace replacement for Byzantium that they get for free instead of the Palace when starting game, which is identical to normal palace but has the Priest slot. I'll have to ask in the modding section how to do that.

A palace replacement would be interesting - no other Civ has anything like this and it adds to the theme of a centralized religion governed by the Emperor as you mentioned. Perhaps it could be called the 'Grand Basilica'. It would have the normal Palace stats but include the specialist slot that can be worked to produce extra faith.
That would mean that you don't need to replace either UU. So cataphracts and Dromon can stay.
Unless the devs decide to do another balance patch or expansion we probably won't see this adopted religion so a unique Byzantine Palace added to the UA is perhaps the best we can do in the meantime.