You can’t see how mercenaries, soldiers of war from potentially far away lands, can’t be unique?
They are set apart from regular armies, work for foreign states and are usually small in number?
If anything, Mercenaries are one of the better candidates for Unique Units. They are literally distinguished from actual armies, and have sought their own destiny away from their homeland and how their own armies operate.
So to make this clear, you think that mercenary units do not come from standing armies of other civs?
Mercenaries could as well just be retired personell or people who have been dismissed. Why should they be unique?
Those far away lands you talk about are the actual civs that we have available. So it only makes sense that those also are available as mercenary units.
This civ looks so fun to play
That is not how that worked. You’d have similarities in strategy of mercenary armies to whose army they originated for sure. There would historically be a lot more experimentation with mercenaries armies however, as their trade was war and they relied on relied more on unconventional strategies to take advantage of. Traditional armies are far more conservative in their methods, and would typically only budge when forced to.
But, that is besides the point here. You’re basically moving the goalpost. Foreign army = Foreign units, yes, you can copy paste units. The point here is that you shouldn’t. It hurts the original civilization’s personality, and it is a lazy and uninspired design decision, as this mechanic could have been something entirely new and interesting, rather than reusing the same content as before.
Again, I ask of you to read my original comment.
So we need nest of bees with greek fire abilities and everybody will be happy in this carnage 
I did, which is why I already said: I appreciate that you are aware that you are speaking for yourself.
As I don’t think it hurts anything, we don’t even know how the unique resource works yet and how often mercenary units can be purchased with it.
The Romans (Byzantines) did use mercenaries but most of their mercenaries were European or Turkic. The Catalan Company, the Varangian Guard, and Italian mercenaries to name a few famous ones.
It would be more historically accurate to give them Italian gunpowder mercenaries rather than Chinese. maybe even making them only access gunpowder units through mercenaries since the Romans didn’t really produce cannons.
I hope Byzantines aren’t also producing Great Bombards because that wouldn’t be accurate.
You mentioned the key, Byzantium can solve their problem of lacking gunpowder weapons through the use of “mercenaries”.
Mongolian Warriors in the Byzantine Army: According to a historian of the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century, during the reign of Kai Kobad Sultan (1220-1237) The Seljuks once defeated the Mongol servants of the Nicene Empire to join the army. Although it was an isolated evidence, Mikhail VIII was almost certain to have signed a treaty with the Khan of the Ilkhanate, Hulagu, in 1261, and ##### Khan of the 1282 Khanate also provided 4000 Mongolian soldiers to advance towards Thessaly. In 1305, the Great Khan of the Ilkhanate promised to provide 40000 soldiers to Andronicus II. In 1308, he sent 30000 more troops into Bithynia and recaptured a large number of Byzantine towns from the Turks. The Mongolian troops during the battle between Andronica and the Serbs may have originated from this
Is it possible that the logical chain is: Byzantium has hired the Mongolian army+the Mongolian army has equipped rockets=Byzantium can use landmarks to produce Nest of Bees?
It is quite farfetched, but it is not unreasonable. Even without considering whether the actual proportion of rockets in the Mongolian army is sufficient for them to flow from Chinese hands to Mongols and then to Byzantines, I still oppose the abuse of characteristic units.
That nest of bees thing bothers me too it feels devs are pushing every button out of panic.As far as i know they didnt used nest of bees in real life and they will probably get french canon too.If they gave them great bombard this is pure fantasy.
Lets come to their mercenary,varangian guards needs to be mercenary unit and not the replacement of man at arms also i hope they gave them logical mecenaries like they hired in real life.Actually all civs need to have access to mercs but they need to take away gold from player as long as they stay alive , like the opposite of relics they will consume gold.
From what I’m aware of, the Varangian Guard doesn’t replace the Man-At-Arms because the information about the Byzantines never said that they replace the Man-At-Arms but yes, I do agree that it should be a mercenary unit while still being unique to the Byzantines.
Mercenary units are going to be more expensive because they use a resources that is probably difficult to acquire, so you probably can’t get as many Nest of bees with Byzantine, and also its only in age 4, unlike china who get them in age 3. So that’s good thing.
Well, I’m happy to discuss mechanics questions again, especially whether they are historical or not.
About Byzantines mercenaries: I remember that some concepts included them quite a bit, the one most committed to its existence was that of “vanlijie” (NEW DIY II The Byzantine Empire 拜占庭帝国).
Congratulations vanlijie!, your concept of mercenaries became Canon. Of course, when the DLC is released, perhaps we can do a complete topic to compare which concept ideas were helpful and which were discarded.
Anyway, getting to the point of the mercenaries:
Catalan Company.- Considering that Civ Aragón does not yet exist, and now that there is no longer a problem with them sharing architecture with Castilla (Civ Variante), if they put them in it is likely that they will exist in the future.
Italians, Genoese, Venetians.- Considering that the Venetians, Genoese, or Italians do not yet exist, except for “Hints” that they will exist in the future and therefore also include their mercenaries, for the moment their existence It’s not safe at all.
Mongols.- Uhm… I think I forgot the point of the topic… AH, historicity of the Neest of Bees. Well I will answer that in the next message, so as not to divert the topic.
I started studying the subject, and curiously I remembered something from a Book on Firearms in Medieval India (1). There I discovered that firearms were invented by the Chinese around the 13th and 14th centuries (5), before the Mongol invasion. It is not known whether it was first due to the Chola trade with China, or due to the Mongol Invasion in the north, but the Rajput kingdoms and the Islamic Sultanates of India had names for Chinese firearms, especially those used by the Mongols against they. They differentiated between a traction trebuchet that fire explosives (huo pao) Hand cannon (huo chi’ang), and the fire arrows (tir-i hawai, or ba wabal-i qaus giriftar amada), and even rockets (hawai, and latter barn), in Persian. Apparently they took a liking to the Rockets and bought plans to make their own versions of rockets, but that’s another story.
Well, the thing is that the Mongols invaded India and gave them their Rocket technology. The Mongols also invaded the Byzantine Empire, but to some extent reached a “Truce” with diplomatic relations. (3)
Considering this temporary alliance, and that the Mongol army at that time used “Neest of Bees” from China engineers, then it must be considered that the Byzantine Neest of Bees are not Chinese, but "Mongols".
On the other hand, although stories of the use of rockets are not so frequent in the Middle Ages, Europeans actually acquired rocket technology through the Silk Road and trade with Arabia. Although they were generally used for fireworks and as toys, in some cases they were used for war. The only specific case of this would be the Battle of Othée, in Burgundy 1408 (4.5). Note: they europeoans use rockets, but did’t use the nest of bees, only the rockets: they never discover the the technology of rocket launcher, and because that they uses bows, crossbows or handcannon to throw them as a incendiary proyectile.
Finally, the referred sources and an image with Osprey’s text about the hiring of Mongols in the Byzantine army.
Iqtidar Alam Khan, Gunpowder and Firearms_ Warfare in Medieval India-Oxford University Press (2004) (Aligarh Historians Society Series)
Heath, Ian and McBride, Angus. Byzantine Armies: AD 1118–1461. Osprey Publishing, 1995, ISBN 1-85532-347-8.
Nicholas Michael and G A Embleton (1983). Armies of Medieval Burgundy 1364–1477. Osprey. p. twenty-one.
From Osprey, Byzantine Armies AD 1118-1461, for educational purposes:
But allowing Byzantium to produce bees and all the characteristic siege weapons themselves is absurd.
The weapons produced by Europeans who acquired rocket technology cannot be directly represented by NOB, otherwise there is no need to distinguish so many types of cannons in the game, after all, they are essentially tubular firearms that fire stones/iron balls.
True, I don’t expect that the Nest of bees to become a common unit either since it wasn’t.
I only mentioned that there was an idea of the existence of “rockets” in the European medieval period, although in practice they were used more as party pyrotechnics, and not with the complexity and in the same way as the siege weapon that is the Nest of Bees.
At least among the generals who tried to use rockets for sieges, mainly to set buildings on fire, they always varied in their way of trying to launch them. The most typical way was with bows, but also with crossbows and handcannons, they never came up with the idea of using them propelled by a rocket launcher (So the europeans never get the technology of Neest of Bees), and on the other hand there was already the technology of incendiary arrows with tar to set buildings on fire, so the rockets were in many cases unnecessary (except if one did not have good archers in their army, like the French or Burgundian, who like use them).
“Medieval depiction of English soldiers possibly armed with fire arrows or rocket propelled projectiles. Credit: Woolwich Arsenal”
In any case, apparently in the game, the depicted “Bizantine unit Nest of Bees”, are Mongol mercenaries using the Nest of Bees, and not Chinese mercenaries. Because is build in a Mercenary trade Camp Landmark, let’s hope that when they decide the name of the unit, they don’t say that they are Chinese mercenaries, because they weren’t.
Although taking as an example the foreign Mongol units of their Landmark Khaganate Palace, such as “Khaganate Palace Guard”, “Khaganagate Warrior Monk”; I guess for the Byzantines it will be something similar, like “Mercenary Nest of Bees”, or “Khaganate Nest of Bees”. And if not, then we can complain.
Playing the Byzantines into the Imperial Age and winning the game is inherently ahistoric since out of all civs in the game they have the earliest end IRL. So let’s not split hairs over exactly what foreign mercenary units they get. Had they continued to expand and not started to decline, they would have had more contact with China by virtue of controlling the silk road. On top of that, even IRL they had frequent contact with the Mongols who possessed this technology. I don’t necessarily love the idea of giving them the NoB or GB from a gameplay perspective, but don’t care too much about it from a historical perspective because its still inspired by their frequent use of mercenaries. If the Byzantines were truly historical, then your villager gather rates, building HP, unit stats, etc would get worse as the ages progress instead of better lol.
Actually, the designer of the Great Bombard came to the Byzantines before the Ottomans and offered to produce it for them but they couldn’t afford it. So if you’re already breaking history by role-playing as a ‘victorious’ Byzantine civ, then it would be appropriate for them to get the GB as well.
Except they shouldn’t, by any claim. The game, for it’s time period, could also feature more advanced firearms than handcannons and I’m talking european armies. So absolutely there’s no reason for a Chinese-exclusive gunpowder use. That technology had already spread.
The Chinese still have plenty of UUs, but i get what you mean. I get what you mean but they have a limited appearance both in the Mongols and the Byzantines. Though I thought that after the Pyrotechnics rework the Chinese lost some identity, and didn’t like it. Although that extra range is sweet… But I would replace the cannons with arquebuses at that point.
Lazy, lazy, lazy! I wonder why the Devs are sooooo lazy?! They’re just lazy! Oh and did I mention that the Devs are lazy? In case I didn’t, they’re LAZY!!!
So you did write something interesting… that’s more reasonable, my worry is that they’re embedding deeply in a Civ a generic concept like the mercenaries. I’m not saying that the Byzantines didn’t use them a lot, I’m imagining what could happen if another Civ that used mercenaries a lot was added… They don’t get mercenaries at all? They get it too and both them and the Byzantines get more bland? The Byzantines get reworked? The mercenaries could be a shared mechanic to some extent, given how general it is, so having this unique to the Byzantines can be troublesome.
An AoE2 legacy. I’d give them bows in Castle actually though.
Well, you got a point there. But come on! 
