With the new Romans coming out would it make sense balance-wise also to give the Byzantines the legionary to replace the two-handed swordsman and champion?
Edit: Here are the base stats for Legionary
hp: 75
Attack: 12
melee/pierce armor: 2/2
Although not as strong as the Roman Legionary, it would definitely be a better upgrade compared to the Byzantine champions. Romans don’t get supplies or gambesons while the Byzantines do.
Nah.
Maybe ? It however would be much weaker than the roman one.
yay? They should
20 characters.
Nah, keep the Byzantines the way they are. Part of the reason, I feel, that the Legionary replaces the Two-Handed Swordsman and Champion is because when Rome was around, shields were still being used by infantry. The Byzantine Empire was around a lot longer, so they coexisted with two-handed swords.
And
+4 attack vs infantry.
+4 attack vs standard building
+8 attack vs Eagle Warrior.
If you’re going to bother making a Romans civ that’s supposed to be distinct from the Byzantines, it should at least be…distinct from the Byzantines. The civs already share the Dromon, and the Centurion looks like a reskinned cataphract. They don’t also need to share a UU which very obviously emphasizes the earliest period of the game.
If Byzantines were getting a new UU of some sort, I’d rather it’s the Flamethrower, because it’s simply incredibly cool.
Right??? I’ve always thought that flamethrowers should be playable in AoE2.
If anything should replace the Champion for the Byzantines, it should be the Varangian, the later Byzantine empire didn’t use much heavy infantry anyway. The Varangians are pretty much the only documented unit we know of.
This.
That’s cute idea. But they were not the only heavy infantrymen recruited…
And Frankish and Catalan (Latin mercenaries in general). So perhaps the two-handed swordsmen play the role of those.
But the Varangians are iconic for Byzantines. At the least start by giving them to us as a scenario editor unit (it could double as a Saxon housecarl too.
We can leave Byzantine as what it is.
If we consider Byzantine starts from A.D. 800, or even A.D. 600, when Latin language fades away, they don’t even use this Latin word ‘legion’ as an organization any more.
Before this time, the newly added Roman civ presents history better.
Exactly. The legion system disappeared in the early 7th century; gone were the familiar “legions”, “cohorts” and “alae” of old Rome, and in their place were small Greek infantry battalions or horse regiments called an “arithmos”, “tagma” or “numerus”.
I would rather it be the flame tower that already existed in the game, probably unlockable after researching Greek Fire. But Flame Thrower is cool too.
This is the kind of flamethrower Byzantines should have. It looks amazing, and could have cool abilities.
Yes I wouldn’t mind having Legionary available for Byzantine. They need a cheap soft counter to infantry as cataphract are just too expensive to get.
Not necessarily weaker, They are cheaper to train because of supply and are stronger against arrow because of gambeson
They byzantine now represent the medioeval roman empire, so there isn’t place for a legionary unit there, as the military apparatus changed drastically.
The idea is that one have a professional hevy infantry regularly payed from the comitatus, the other have the cheap levy light infantry coming from theme.
Legionary has the Romans’ civ shield. However, I do find it a bit strange that the Western Romans Centurion has Constantine’s Chi Rho symbol?
Cough cough Paladin shield.
Anyway I don’t want Legionary for Byzantines. That will make them more similar which should be avoided at all cost.