I’m a bit disappointed with the Byzantine, the lack of their utilization of their Greek Orthodoxy faith is a let down for me. It’s played a small role on Aoe2 and I was hoping it would play a bigger role in Aoe4. I mention on another post that the civ could place monks in monasteries and gather faith, as the faith accumulate the civilization gains buff for villagers or production, kinda how the rus hunting bonus works. I’m Greek Orthodox myself so I do have my bias but I do know the faith has a big impact of the empire. Constantine the first established Christianity as main religion and it’s ironic they used the sigil of the XP intertwined which was given to Constantine by God stating “in this sign you will conquer”. (Yea Ik it’s not a coke plate translation but you understand). Again a bit of a let down they could have done some neat upgrades through the faith as well to further increase faith or the buffs received. I do understand the HRE is in the game but many other civs have their unique faith bonus.
Hopefully, the Byzantines can be at least having some unique techs that benefits their Monks and Monasteries. A good proposed unique tech is “Ecumenical Council” and what it can do is let Monks heal 100% faster.
As a Greek myself I hope that they speak Greek at least in the game, also they mentioned Greek fire but I agree regarding the utilization of the Greek Orthodoxy within Byzantine it’s a miss to not have it.
I also hope the Byzantines would be speaking Greek because that was the primary language of the Byzantine Empire though I wonder if the military units would still speak Latin?
This might be because I am a bit bias here but I don’t see any real relevance on having any Latin speaking units in the game as this is the Eastern Roman Empire and it was separated from the Western Roman Empire which also had died out pretty much when the Eastern Roman Empire was alive and well.
I’d hope and desire for 100% Greek, although they change over the different ages however what I think will happen is for them to speak Latin in the dark age and then Greek in all other ages.
Worst case scenario will be they do the same mistake as in AoE2 where they only speak Latin, this would bother me quite a bit.
I highly doubt they will speak Latin, AOE4 so far has been very thorough in their research of languages for nations. I could see Dark Age Byzantines have some leftover Latin or a mix in their language (not an expert on evolution of language myself)
Considering that AoE4 is supposed to be more historically accurate than the other games, I do also expect that the units would be speaking Greek.
Historical accuracy? That’s over. Jeanne d’Arc super-warrior with super-hand cannon…
The variant civs including Jeanne D’arc are clearly stated as what if scenarios for a civilization.
I don’t think future full civs will be less historically accurate than the civs that are already made. Historical accuracy is often sacrificed for gameplay mechanics like spearmen not having shields, arrows never missing, mangonels being onagers instead of a traction trebuchet, archers shooting arrows while they are being attacked in melee range, the longbowman unique unit doing more damage and having more range than other archers etc.
I hope they get more original than that, it’s just a AoE2 port…
I’m confident they’ll speak Greek, no doubt about it. It’s no mistery Pizzantines spoke that, so yeah.
Your understanding that Civs are treated differently than Variants is over. Never was I’d say!
It was already over 25 years ago with the original Age of Empires 1 game. Old men who waves their arms and soldiers are magically healed or converted in battle…
I wonder how the music will be and age up for the byzantines. We might get orthodox Christianity that way added in the way of music.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Rus have an orthodox religious bonus (warrior monk, trinity landmark) and the Romans (Byzantines in game) that converted them didn’t. The Byzantines do get pilgrims flask, but that is not exactly an orthodox religious bonus since a lot of the pilgrims traveling through the Roman Empire were catholic. Hopefully the Byzantines get some orthodox religious bonus. Maybe a martyrdom tech making units die instead of converting. Iconography giving churches some kind of aura bonus. ######## monks not being able to marry thus returning some of their gold cost after dying instead of passing their wealth onto their descendants.
why is this word censored its a tech in AoE 2
The forum autocensor makes some interesting choices at times. Including usernames!
It’s annoying I wish these forums and AoE 4 had a way to turn off the ######## ### censor. it’s so ####### ######### and yes i’m purposefully triggering it in this post.
Byzantines are confirmed to speak Greek from the creator week.
Oh that’s great to hear! From the dark age or later ages? 
Although the Dark age gameplay I saw had the content creator talking over the units, I’m 95% sure they were speaking Greek. So no Latin.
Edit: Also the music is really nice… as usual for this game. And the mercenaries speak their own language, or at least the Keshiks spoke Mongolian when I saw them.
Since they are using already made unique units for mercenaries I would except their voice lines to just stay the same as what they had with the base civ.