as the resident “add Australia to AoE3” guy I sympathise with how it’s fun to think of silly civs to add which make people annoyed when you suggest them (because there are better options)
I love the focus on mercenaries and defences! Very thematic.
I think the Vangarian guard units from your design sound like they would be hell to fight against without cannons.
Also I agree with @MUTYLATOR5553 that the olive oil idea is a bit weird. I think it would be much more appropriate to have a single “olive grove” farm building to replace the mill and estate. Maybe it gathers both food and coin at the same time, with the option to toggle the percentages like you mentioned?
As @HoopThrower kind of said the Greeks would be more appropriate as a civ for sure. What would be weird and cool would be if you could play as Byzantium in ages I, II, (and III?), but then instead of advancing to the next age you have to revolt to either the Ottomans or the Greeks, with new units and techs!
So, a hybrid of Byzantines & Greeks civ? I kinda thought about that too, but I’m still not clear on how to implement that.
Perhaps we start as a vassal to the Ottomans & have a unique age up mechanic which is in the form of decisions?
Example:
Age II
Stay as vasals: Byzantines units are able to upgrade to Veteran levels, while gain decision to revolt as Byzantines at the next age up
Submit to Ottomans Annexation: Gains Ottomans military units & gain access to its upgrades, but lost the ability to upgrade Byzantine units, gains decision to revolt as Greece at Age V
The Aztecs don’t turn into Mexico and the Inca don’t turn into Peru either so why would the Byzantines have to represent the Ottoman occupation and Greek independence?
Exactly. Aztecs and Incas are not a pre/after Spanish occupation hybrid civ. Why should Byzantines or Greek be one? Let them be either fully Greek or fully Byzantine
also to add inca as is rn is very much pre 1492, so byz wouldn’t completely break things, also portugese AI persona henry the navigator lived while byz existed so why not
Other than replying to the person above me, I was also trying to find new ways to age up. Of course, I also want a full fledged Byzantines civ rather than a hybrid one.
Byzantines are already in the game in the only way it actually makes sense for the timeline: as a unique tech of the House of Phanar. Anything else is entirely pointless to add.
Ok, we can add Safavid/Afsharid Persia. The others are nonsensical additions.
The Byzantines represent the swan-song of the medieval age. The fact that many refer the Falll of Constantinople as the beginning of the Early Modern Age (pretty much where AoEIII starts) says it all, no
A nod via the House of Phanar is fine. I’d much rather a focus on Greeks as proper revolution via Ottomans.
The Incan Empire collapsed in the 1572 while the Byzantine Empire collapsed in 1453 and Henry the Navigator died in 1460, seven years after the Fall of Constantinople.
I’d love to see a Greek revolution with maybe one or two anachronisms thrown in (such as Flamethrowers reskinned to Cheirosiphon), but this is the wrong game for a full fledged Byzantine civ.
We don’t need yet another Euro civ. We got two really good ones last DLC. I would rather have more from Africa, Asia, or South America. Failing that, I would like the Comanches.
The Byzantines always named non-guard soldier types after their weapons, tax bracket or ethnic origin. Hence Vardariotai named after Magyar colonists near Thessaloniki. Hence Akritai from the border regions. Stratiotai, and towards the end of the empire, Pronoiariai, after the size of a soldier’s estate.
So it #### ### ########## who were named after their large shields. Despite usually NOT having round shields, several Byzantine authors insisted on calling the line infantry “Oplitai” or Hoplites as a call back to Hellenstic glory, so any time you see this, assume the source speaks of Skoutatoi.
If these men are to be represented in AoE3 as a hypothetical Byzantium operating in the Age of Sail, they should not replace the Pikemen (who should be in the Barracks as is, since Manuel II established a corps of Western European-style late medieval pikes, a troop type that was explicitly noted for being something the Muslim polities nearby had never seen before). They should be musket infantry akin to the Janissary—high hitpoints OR melee armor (the latter to reference how Byzantine military manuals instructed commanders to always place the most heavily armored Skoutatoi in front). Byzantium was the only state in all of Christendom whose armies were focused on professional line infantry after the final division of the Carolignan Empire. So a gunpowder heavy AoE game should have even the Byzantines reflect that.
They should also have a Dragoon-type unit in this proposal, simply called Mavroi, or “black [powder] [soldiers]”. If the Ottomans had gunpowder cavalry in the 1400s, we can extend that to Byzantium.
As for a Skirmisher, every single non-native civ bar the Japanese and Hausa either have no archers, or a way to supersede them with training riflemen. This includes all Europeans, even the Swedes, who can train Jaegers at the Barracks. Bring in the Akritai, who can act as a Skirmisher with identical melee and ranged damage (say 13 and 13?)…with really good melee multipliers against light cavalry only.
