The Byzantine are unique and has been really fun. However, the civ does feel a bit undertuned especially early game. The following changes aim to make Cistern water levels a more integral part of city building by providing scaling benefits depending on water level. It also aims to make landmarks more competitive with each other at each age.
Also, Varangian Guards are at a strange spot right now being another gold unit that competes with Cataphracts for resources with Cataphracts being the better option in most cases and also slightly weaker than other unique MAA. The changes aim to give it a niche within standard Byzantine roster and also making Berserking more deadly in melee fitting a berserker.
Also, not saying every single item should be implemented. Just throwing out ideas.
Byzantine Potential Changes:
Civilization bonuses
Field stones
-Stones gathered per tile for constructed buildings increased from 2 to 4
Landmarks
Feudal
Grand Winery
-Increase olive oil gathering bonus from 60% to 100%
-Olive oil can be exchanged at Market at a favorable rate
-Added Mill upgrades
Hippodrome
Castle
Golden Horn Tower
-Can select which mercenary to auto produce
Cistern of the First Hill
-Increase water level by 2
-Flask production speed scales with water level(45/40/35/30/25) seconds
-All cisterns heal within radius based on water level(1/2/3/4/5) hp/s
-Allows individual units to toggle Auto-Flask
Imperial
Foreign Engineering Company
Palatine School
-Strengthen Byzantine unique units by increasing health by 10%
-Spawn percentage scales with water level(30%/35%/40%/45%/50%)
Unique Units
Cataphracts
-Trample damage increased from 10 to 20
Varangian Guards
-Berserking increase attack speed by 15% in addition to +6 attack and armor is reduced
by 3 from 4
-Can be recruited from Mercenary House for olive oil(locked behind a tech)
-Veteran and Elite Contract upgrades doesn’t apply to Varangian Guards
-Can be recruited during Feudal
-Has increased armor near Town Centers and Keeps in addition to Wonders
Limitanei
Cheirosiphon
-Base damage increased from 28 to 35
Dromon
-Increase movement speed by 15%
-Can attack while moving
Unique Buildings
Cistern
-Gathering rate bonus increased to (10%/15%/20%/25%/30%)
Aqueduct
Mercenary House
Olive Grove
Buffing the Cistern of the First Hill, and the Palantine School based upon cistern water level is interesting in that it integrates further the need to develop and maintain aqueduct infrastructure, and makes the infrastructure even more of a priority for the enemy.
Increasing the Field stones bonus would help the early game, which needs a boost.
The Varangian guards need help. However, I would not want them to be recruited from the Mercenary House, that just does not seem right, as they are not like the mercenaries. I want to like them, but they are underwhelming in my games, so I hope to see a boost to them soon. Increasing the attach speed would be somewhat useful, but I wonder if they should simply be re-imagined as a stronger attack, but less durability is sort of a wash.
Winery gathering buff should become permanent buff for all berries and farms. No need to change the rates. Or if they refuse to make it a global then make the aura as big as Aachen chapel’s aura AND up it to 80%.
Traders should be able to toggled between oil Primary or gold Primary resource like french does .
Each the mercenaries should either present a cost discount or training time discount to its standard counterpart. Example 2 camel riders at the neutral market should cost 150 oil each and or train that batch in 40s. Especially if they refuse to bring neutral trade units available in all merc houses when at least one house is near said neutral trade post.
I think this might be overkill. I think the main issue Byzantine faces is that most of their benefits come online slightly too late. Mercenaries being behind batch production means you can’t have them out until a certain point (they are also delayed by having to tech into a contract), oil being locked behind certain food instead of being produced by all food, cisterns and aquaducts having too long building times and some counterintuitive units like Varangians and Cheirosiphons being super gold costly yet not really all that useful for their price.
What I find weird is that I feel I’m always behind on economy as Byzantines. It kind of feels that the only saving grace is when Mercenaries come online. I’m not sure I’m convinced that the Cistern gather rate is actually as high as it claims. @Shneider177 did some calculations suggesting that they are on pair with second TC for quite a while, but it personally doesn’t feel that way in game at all.
I was skeptical too so i tried a game vs ai where I did nothing but eco; first time i did straight 5 cistern vs second time fast 2nd tc into cisterns. Stop both games around 16min-16min 40s and the TC into cistern was ahead SLIGHTLY after negating the cost of villagers present and the cost of 2nd TC and cisterns respectively.
The only thing that wasn’t done to the theoretical numbers was I got eco upgrades as I could and I wasn’t able to get the same upgrades at the same time to keep the experiment more one to one.
Gonna try again this morning with a 2nd TC NO upgrades into cistern 15min game vs straight 5 cistern no upgrades 15min game.
No they need heavy buffs and are weak. Need maa in fedual and a cost reduction. The cisterns need a bigger buffs. More unque techs as well. A defense tech like hre to make walls and building have more hitpoints. Cost reduction for towers
I think general buffs have to be carefully considered. I feel the issue at the moment is more certain factions being clearly broken and needing to be pulled back.
With that said - I think the Winery is bad and the Cistern of the First Hill is for some fast castle Cataphract build that just isn’t viable. I think they need to be fundamentally changed if they are going to be used.
Yea I like cisterns/aqueducts playing an integral part of Byzantine infrastructure as well so that opponents have more incentive to cut off aqueduct connections. Cistern of the First Hill and Palatine School aren’t as competitive as the counterparts and I think having them scale with water level can help with that. Also, Golden Horn and Foreign Engineering Company are affected by water level so it makes sense to have all landmarks do the same. Also Palatine School doesn’t offer anything if you’re not building units so it’ll be nice if it provide something for existing units sort of like how Foreign Engineering Company unlocks unique techs for all mercenaries. I choose a small HP boost for simplicity but could be other stuff like landmark exclusive unique techs, etc.
The Varangian Guard being recruited from the Mercenary House is meant to have them cost olive oil that could be unlocked behind a tech or contract. You can still recruit them from barracks for gold. Historically, Varangians were mercenary elite units as well so thematically it isn’t too far off. The reason for this is so they have a niche when placed against Cataphracts since both are gold heavy units.
The Berserk change is because currently you lose 4 armor each for melee and range which means a potential 8 armor lost against mixed comps for only 6 more attacks meaning you have a net loss against mixed comps. Personally I see Berserking as exchanging defense for more offense so the ratio should make sense. This means 4 armor loss would be fair if the attack boost is upgraded to 8. However ranged armor is generally worth more than melee armor and varangians are melee units so that’s why I also added another 15% attack speed during Berserk and can stack with Tear Drop Shield unique tech.
I think others say Feudal Varangians might be too strong which is fair, but I do think Varangians should be both an Olive oil and gold unit as their niche.
Yea if Winery applies permanent buff to all berries and farms regardless of radius then its’ fair to not change the rates. It would be nice for it to have Mill upgrades for smoother transition instead of awkwardly building a Mill just for upgrades.
Yea traders having a toggle would be nice. My idea was to have olive oil exchanged at the market for a good rate similar to how Rus Golden Gate works but exclusively for Olive oil. So you can exchange gold for olive oil or vice versa at a good rate.
I think currently Mercenary House near neutral trade post trains trade post mercenaries 33% faster. But it would be nice to have additional benefits
Yea LOL some of the stuff is me being greedy like Trample. But I do think Berserk should be changed because it makes you lose potentially 8 armor against mixed comps for only a 6 damage boost. Range units would melt the Varangians so the ability should get some changes to make it so they’re stronger in melee for the increased risk from range.
The purpose of putting Varangians in Mercenary House is so it can also be an Olive oil unit since you’ll most likely use your gold to make Cataphracts instead. It’s fine if it isn’t available during feudal, I just suggested that so Byzantine got an answer for Feudal MAA rush instead of relying solely on Keshiks which comes slowly from Olive oil.
Flask already has a 45 second cooldown for the unit that just used the ability so making flask also take 45 seconds to recharge the total stock makes it too weak late game once armies get larger. Unless flask is changed to each unit gets a 45 seconds cooldown ability with no limit, then I think allowing it to recharge total stock faster should be fair since you can only hold up to 10 anyway.
Trade already provides 33%oil worth of gold. They should add the ability to swap that ratio from gold primary to gold secondary OR if that’s too strong they could allow an option for oil primary but less than 33% gold secondary. Like a 5oil to 1 gold trade option.
Also i still think byz should be played defensively like malian. Turtle cistern lots of spears and merc compliment until it’s time to reek havoc!!!
While I agree with many of the things said on the list. I don’t agree with turning the Varangian Guard into a mercenary unit and while the Varangian Guards were mercenaries, they however, served as elite guards who were protecting the emperor rather than being mercenaries who only went to Byzantine territory just to fight in the battlefield rather than being permanent residents of the Byzantine Empire. Now the Byzantines do need many improvements done like adding their unique religious technologies to reflect their devotion to Orthodox Christianity.
The cost of Varangians would make them way too difficult to use in Feudal. They don’t have any particular trait that would makes them specifically interesting in that age either, so I don’t see the point of that change.
A castle archer dealing 9 damage to a varangian with pierce armour would normally be doing 33% of their maximum amount. With Berserking, that goes up to 77%. It basically renders this costly unit useless in a any realistic matchup. The thing to consider here is that ranged units have the advantage of hitting the same unit, so even -2 armour is actually a massive deal when you take that into consideration.
The payoff? It just doesn’t make sense either. Melee units are rather weak in general, and 6 damage just doesn’t accomplish much. Sure, it makes you kill a Knight much faster–but at the cost of a gold heavy unit. The MAA tends to have the role of soaking damage as well; you’d usually want to back off and produce some spears rather than throw away your MAA.
Overall I think the Berserking ability just doesn’t feel good for what it costs. I’ll throw a suggestion that would actually make me want to press that button; make them cleave when its active. That’d justify the awful price.
I also do not agree with adding oil to their cost. I actually think that absurd 40 gold cost stems from them having made it cost oil prior; it was likely 20 oil and 20 gold. But, no primary unit should cost oil, so they likely changed it. They are technically mercenaries so there is some kind of reasoning behind it. But, it is not good for gameplay.
I dont really like them cleaving with Berserk active, it would make them a better Landsknecht and that seems strange to me. I would like to see their max health go up pretty significantly OR for them to gain some hefty health regeneration while berserking making them units that can grind a frontline but still get deleted under focused fire. Right now, they just evaporate and that feels terrible.
Berserk conceptually is fine and is a tried and true mech used in all games. Our issue is our Berserk mode is too costly for the marginal benefits it provides.
Imo they should add an attack speed mechanic as ot fits thematically with a guy putting away his shield and focusing on swinging his axe/mace more intently an quickly.
I want a teardrop shielded vanguard’s Berserk mode to be able to kill an abbasid 1 boot camp ghulam. but HAVE it cost the vanguard 95% of its life.