The only Two Buffs (3 MAX) Byzantines Needs

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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After playing byz exclusively for the last 2 months I’ve painstakingly concluded the only 2 buffs byz needs.

  1. The ability to batch OR singularly que mercenaries. If anything they can offer a training speed buff fir batch que which would help for first batch and late game (too strong???hmmm)

  2. All 3 food upgrades add 5% oil production from berries and 2% to farms.

These 2 buff will jumpstart byzantine versatility while maintaining a clear and fair counterplay.

The 3rd buffs is IFF the first 2 aren’t overkill. Give a flat 25 stone discount on all cisterns. So from 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 to 25, 75, 125, 175, 225, 275. When not going for an early feudal 2nd TC (IMO early 2nd TC is a mistake) its a popular idea to long distance 3-4 villagers on stone in order to immediately put up 2 cisterns in dark age. But this buff would allow for placing 2 cisterns without any long distance mining. And help cistern progression.

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food upgrade already increase oil production because you gather faster and carry/drop the same.

I like the batch queue for mercenaries as it’s thematic and differentiate from regular units. I think its unfair if they can spam longbow as fast as English for example. I don’t think they should change that, but they could make the contract take only 5 seconds to research.

Instead id prefer a small buff on grand winery, for example training monk in feudal or the wheelbarrow tech

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While this technically is true; the 15% bonus oil gathering rate doesn’t do enough to make oil impactful earlier (15% nets you 0.0495 oil per second or 2.97 oil per min); and that’s my endeavor to promote more EARLY & consistent oil usage.

Also I think you gloss over the major inefficiency of the current oil batch of units; its similar to the original HRE Burgave Palace; its that each time you do NOT have sufficient oil to produce a batch the production building goes idle; AND worse than the original Burgrave, since you do NOT have a production speed bonus you literally recoup none of that idle time.

This is partly what makes merc moot early.

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Counter proposal:

  • Cistern cost changed to 40, 80, 120, 160, 200 (Higher to start than your suggestion, but scales better). Make it less punishing to expand out cisterns late game to where you need.
  • Cistern build time reduced from 20s to either 10s or 15s.
  • Merc contracts cost no oil and reduced to 5 seconds.
  • Cheirosiphon gold cost reduced from 100 to 50

But I think the idea is the same. Byz is pretty good in castle+ once eco is setup. It’s just a little too expensive to get going. So devs should start with small buffs to cisterns/oil to let Byz get going just a bit faster.

However, I’d add that Cheirosiphon are too expensive. They are an interesting ram variant, but not strictly better. Even ignoring the cost difference, regular rams are superior in common game situations. The extra gold Byz pays is too much.

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regular rams are BUSTED and the dev’s have already said they are looking nerfing them; so I dont think we should compare the 2.