An eco bonus proposal for weak civs

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Hi.
After playing byzantines twice in a row, i am a few dissapointed with them.

I usually tend to like defensive civs (koreans, inca, teutons), and get used quickly to play verstaile ones (sarracens, spanish). However, I feel byzantines are not defensive enpugh or lack the adaptability of other civs. When they reach imperial, they miss some of key techs for they wide tech tree. They have worse paladins without bloodlines, worse HCA without parthian tactics, worse champions, even worse siege without siege engineers…
Some of the last upgrades (champions, paladins, siege ram, their UU) are very expensive to try without a true eco bonus.

Because of this, i thought the following bonus for them. However, since the common agreement says that they are balbced and their UU need a cost reduction, maybe this following bonus could be applied to other civ.

Bonus: technologies that upgrades units/buildings, such as the palladin/arbalester/etc upgrade, cost a bit % less.

This bonus would help them to FU their units, because usually it is more expensive to pay for an unit upgrade instead of common tech like those in the university or smith. So they would become more adaptable, without increasing their late game power. This fits with their discounted imperial age and even with their discounted trash because it would help to make tech transitions during castle or early imperial age. Also, it would make their paladins a better option despite lacking 2 upgrades.

I know chinese have some discount for all their techs so the ammount of the discount should bit different (maybe only reducing one resource?)

I didnt stated the ammount of the discount because i think ot is better to dicuss the bonus concept in the first place and then fix the numbers.

I only want to propose this bonus for the byzantines, or other civ if it can heps it better

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I think you need to learn how Byzantines work in a game. They’re effective for reasons that you didn’t mention, like their trash spam and discount to get to Imperial Age. Plus their buildings are ultra tanky.

This is the problem with non-random civs. People assume a civ is broken now, because they have no experience with them. :upside_down_face:

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I aknowledge i dont know how to play the trash spam. This is why i leave the option to discuss the bonus for other civs.

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Byzantines are a Counter-Unit civ. They spam cheaper Skirmisher, Spearmen and Camel line units, to compensate for bad Paladins and Cataphract upgrades being too expensive. They also have decent Arbalests and HCs.

Avoid any Cavalry as Byz, even Cav Archers, as without Bloodlines, they are very frail in Imperial Age. Knight and Scout line without Bloodlines and Blast Furnace are also useless in 1v1.

You will need to spam Trash units as Byz, and use them as meatshield for your better Archery Range and Siege Workshop units.
Cataphracts are also a great unit that counters it’s most natural counter, truly enshrining Byzantines as a Counter-Unit civ.

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I dont think 2 games is enough to determine the strength and weaknesses of a civ. Also it is possible you play the civ wrong.

Byzs are pretty solid to be fair. They are defensive because they have great trash to counter the units of the enemy. This means you have to play adaptive. Try to figure out what yout enemy will do and make counter units. If they change units, you need to change as well. Being a counter civ is the strength of the game.

I like the post of @JonOli12. Most of the thing i wanna said, are already said by him.

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In fact, i have played a lot aganist byzantines (several friends of mine play them), but a few times with them… The better byzantine players within my friends are those who spam more the trash.

The bonus I suggested is to enhance their adaptability a bit, and to make their last upgrades which lack some key technologies (like paladin, HCA, siege ram, elite cataphract) more appealing, but i know they are balanced right now (they are mid tier). I only thought they lack some kind of powerin imperial age, despite reaching it before.
However, i will try to spam the trash, and switch to HC/arbalester more in late game.

Despite this, I still think their UU deserve a cost reduction, at least in the UT upgrade. Or maybe make the UT as part of the elite upgrade to make up a new UT, although I think this would be OP.

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IMO you just don’t go gold units on byz’s beside siege and maybe archers (non-mentioning camels for obvious reasons), instead you bank up all of your gold and win the “first to tech” war. go ham on trash units and then you have oh so many trebs, while in tg’s you can be slinging the extra gold and spamming trash on your opponents, they don’t really need a civ eco bonus, I think that: to buff any aspect of the civ, they’d need to nerf/change Logistica, since all they really lack is Bloodlines and Blast Furnace (both which gets replaced for AoE damage on their UU)

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This thread is teaching me a lot of things. Thanks for the tips.

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Byz are good. They’re the most annoying civ ever. The original quantity over quality. Plus, with an early imp you get to have gunpowder units before anyone else (except turks). Plus, they have FU Arbalesters.

The only thing the need is an small reduction in either elite cataphrac or logistics that’s it

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Me parece muy buena e interesante tu propuesta. Gracias por ese aporte.

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I have always been an advocate of removin Paladin from Byzantines, in exchange for a large cost reduction in the Cataphract upgrades (Elite and Logistica).

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Better let them keep paladin and reduce paladin upgrade cost. It is better for the byzantines if they can get access to paladins compared to elite cataphracts, because it is easier to train paladins where needed in appropriate quantities thanks to being trainable from stables. Much easier and more flexible to play.

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Why?
Paladins are already way too strong, and fully deserve their stupidly high price, as they have stupidly high stats.
People want a reason to use Cataphracts, not Paladins.

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Which people? Have you made a poll about it?
I wanna use units, which are not castle-dependent, because it is so much easier to train them where needed in appropriate amounts.

Besides, you have tried to support your general anti-paladin rhetoric byzantine case with argument, that byzantine paladins are too weak, not worth researching and should be removed from game. By that logic making their upgrade cheaper should not overpower byzantines too much…

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That was my starting point. But byzantines has this problem with lots of their units in their tech tree. They have the units upgrades but lack the last smith techs, parthian tactics, siege engineers, etc, so usually it is not worth to upgrade those units and is better keep spamming trash.

I need to play byzantines more to get used to their trash spam to reconsider the bonus again.
But if not for byzantines, it can be an interesting bonus for another new civ in released a hypotetcal and idealistic future patch.

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I like idea of cheaper units upgrades as civ bonus. For Byz, will help them a lot in their counter-play, because will allow them tech-swich easier. Will give them also relativly good early bonus, because after this their MaA will apear faster. And, will give them masive buff on water. Cheaper War Galley upgrade combine with theit strong Fires may be very strong.

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It is already the Chinese bonus. A general discount to all techs, including unit upgrades.

It is OP as all â– â– â– â– .

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So?
Italians have part of this. And Spanish. And Vietnamese.

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Cheaper units upgrades sounds way too generic, and let’s be real, people will just use it only to spam trash all day long 11

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The effect depends of the discount size and resources affected. Maybe it should affect only to food (or wood, or gold).

Chinese already has a staggered tech discount bonus with 10% in feudal (20% in imperial), and yet they are not famous enough for their m@a rush. And at imperial, lile byzantines, chinese also lack some great techs or units (siege engineer, paladin, hussar, bombard cannon, HC) but at least they can upgrade and transition to them in a cheaper, fluent way. However, i cant feel this flow in imperial age with byzantines. They seem more sturdy to me.