Byzantines still suck (~1000 elo)

[RecoJohnson]

Byzantines lack of eco bonus means they lose 1 on 1 against most civs with good castle age production. It also means that stone walling sets you behind drastically (aka taking 2-3 vills off to wall base) for 10 seconds * 50 wall pieces (3 minutes of walling per vill)

Most cavalry races beat their Calvary in every way for cheaper. If you invest in camels you cannot raid with them because of low damage for vill sniping. The camels are not a deterrent for franks/teutons/slavs because if they throw enough knights they can avoid camel encounters and snipe vills easily.
If you make knights your nights lose against theirs , so your knights are mostly good for sniping vills and not taking engagements.

Regular archers take a long time to mass and infantry / cavalry are better in most situations. A good example the other day I was fighting Armenian feudal age long-swords with archers. The archers arent a match for 3 pierce armor 11 damage infantry in feudal.

Cheaper pikemen are great, except you can only start producing pikemen the moment you hit feudal so if a civ with an eco bonus hits feudal before you they are likely already scout rushing before you can get pikemen out.

Cataphracts are a completely useless unit unless you are fighting a pure infantry civ. Even then massing enough cataphracts in time to defend is almost impossible. You will be forced to invest in infantry damage/armor upgrades or archers long before you can mass 8 cataphracts due to their high cost. They lose against every unit except swordsmen or melee infantry castle units.

Hopefully the upcoming monk patch will make a significant difference in healing armies for byzantines.

My suggestions for helping out Byzantines:
Allow pikemen production in dark age so you can start production while going up to feudal.
Allow them to construct stone walls faster than other civs (since they were famous for walls anyway)

Most 1000+ elo players seem to know from my experience: if you just harass Byzantines early they cannot recover. Their power spike is late castle once they have enough resources to produce 2 types of gold units.

[KingKickAss]

The spearman thing is a huge leap in logic. An economy bonus isn't going to just boost someone into feudal age, let alone gap you in your feudal age timing to the point where they can build multiple stables, scout cav, and get them across the map to your base. A lot of what you said here is logic being bent, like why are you spamming knights to fight a civ that has better knights when you have cheaper pikes? Why are you raiding with camels? Don't do those things then?

Byzantines can essentially counter units for cheaper. If you get attacked by archers in Feudal, you can make skirmishers without getting set back as much as another civ, same can be said for spears. Like, they have a full unit tree with the exception of heavy scorpion and siege onager.

You know what the eco bonus is? The skirmisher/spear discount. Any situation where you make those units, you're saving resources, because why wouldn't you be building those? If someone has better knights than you, you obviously aren't going to try and beat their knights with your knights.

They have a filled out tech tree which is what you're meant to utilize, they aren't like other civs where they have a very obvious strength you lean into to win.

[RecoJohnson]

I get the whole cheaper counter unit mechanic.

Maybe what I am really complaining about is that every battle just feels like a trash war battle without getting to use most of the Byzantines civ bonuses. 99% of the time catapgracts are useless so theres little incentive to build a castle unless using it to defend eco. Even then its hard to decide do I build walls or a castle or a TC because walls are too expensive to do both unless you put vills on stone and then sacrifice your ability to produce enough trash units.

The other situation where i would disagree with you is team games. You can spam trash units all day but if you are fighting 2 gold unit armies you will never produce enough trash to time efficiently kill them and still be able to raid the enemy. I think the reliance on their cheaper trash units is gimicky at best, and doesn't allow counter raiding. And it falls off in imperial hard since byzantine trash loses against generic trash and loses pop efficiency.

[KingKickAss]

Originally posted by Pfc. Rico 509th:

I get the whole cheaper counter unit mechanic.

Maybe what I am really complaining about is that every battle just feels like a trash war battle without getting to use most of the Byzantines civ bonuses. 99% of the time catapgracts are useless so theres little incentive to build a castle unless using it to defend eco. Even then its hard to decide do I build walls or a castle or a TC because walls are too expensive to do both unless you put vills on stone and then sacrifice your ability to produce enough trash units.

The other situation where i would disagree with you is team games. You can spam trash units all day but if you are fighting 2 gold unit armies you will never produce enough trash to time efficiently kill them and still be able to raid the enemy. I think the reliance on their cheaper trash units is gimicky at best, and doesn't allow counter raiding. And it falls off in imperial hard since byzantine trash loses against generic trash and loses pop efficiency.

Cataphracts are kind of weird. They're really expensive but they can be pretty nasty. Definitely a luxury unit. But trash spam is their civ's thing, on top of having pretty much every option available.

Your team game situation makes sense, but my question is that if its a team game and you're fighting two gold armies with your trash, what is your partner doing? And wont every other civ fold in the same situation?

[theworld]

Kinda lol thread to be honest.

Their recent tournament performance has been very impressive, contrary to the narrative in the 1st post.

[Vemonia]

I agree with KingKickAss.

Byzantines are fine, according to stats.io they have 47% win rate at 1000-1200 Elo, which isnt stellar, but is in the acceptable 45% to 55% range. Their 53.5% win rate bove 1900 Elo shows how strong they are when played "well".

They may be an unintuitive civ for many because their strategy in 1v1 is to "outlast" their opponent until late game, where they are a top civ in trash wars when there is little to no gold on the map.
They are not good at brute forcing with stronger units.

Camel counter knights very well because they are cheaper (even more as Byzantines), stronger (in camels vs knights) and faster. You talked about camels like knight can run away, which they cannot.

Camels raid is not nearly as good as knight raids, but still forces the opponents villagers to leave unprotected (by castle r TC) regions.

Byzantines struggle against double gold compositions, true. But Byzantines skirms + pikes/camels is so cheap that they can hold their own. Or they stay behind (house and pallisade) walls and defend with monks/siege.

Against Franks, you add monks and get ready for atonment. You also go pikes and xbows, as your opponent dont want to invest in skirms ir xbow too much. The franks biggest weaknesses is 1) weak trash, 2) weak imperial ranges 3) no atnment/redemption.
Against Teutons, you wall up with palissades, and go cav archers. The teutons biggest weaknesses are 1) weak trash 2) weak to cav archers.
Againat slavs, it is harder, i guess you go xbows, pikes and monks. They lach heresy for what it is worth, are somewhat weak to cav archers, but do not seem to have a glaring weakness to traditional units (mangudais and turcs cav archers arent your traditional units).

Cataphracts is the unit you make against eagles or huskarls mainly. Most UU arent supposed to be played out of Arena/Nomad style of maps anyways. Cataphracts are less used than others because they are more niche, but much more powerful in this niche (where Byzantines would have a glearing weakness without cataphracts).

Team games are another story for balance. Bevause it is mainly about the double gold comp knight+xbows. Byzantines are avarage for both. Having FU arbalesters make them a decent flank even though not the best. Having PBA Paladins given them a better late game than most civs (except non Celt Paladin civs + Slavs, Persians, Berbers, Sicilians and maybe Tatars), assuming you survive mid game lack of BloodLines.
The problem is position picking. The would be ore popular (along with civs like magyars, portuguese, italians, chinese) if there were no position peaking. If in team games you consistantly face Britons flank and Franks pocket, then yeah it sucks to be Byzantines just like it sucks to be any of 80% of the other civs in the game.

[Quintem]

Originally posted by Pfc. Rico 509th:

Regular archers take a long time to mass and infantry / cavalry are better in most situations. A good example the other day I was fighting Armenian feudal age long-swords with archers. The archers arent a match for 3 pierce armor 11 damage infantry in feudal.

Archers are better still than infantry, especially early game. If you had the patience one archer could infinitely kite around endless men-at-arms.

They're generally in my opinion the go to gold unit unless you're going camels to deal with knights. They kill infantry, they defend you against knights if you're walled in. They allow aggression if you want to push out using pikes to protect.

How could he have 3 pierce armour in feudal? Base is 1, scale armour is +1 so a total of 2. 11 damage is high but it's not a problem since archers can kite away or hide behind walls.

[Maxidonis]

Originally posted by Quintem:

How could he have 3 pierce armour in feudal? Base is 1, scale armour is +1 so a total of 2.

Same goes for 11 damage. Sounds to me like he's running into upgraded Castle Age Long Swordsmen, and getting them confused with Feudal Age Men-At-Arms who only have 6 base damage while Long-Swordsmen have 9 and can get +2 in Castle Age.

If I'm correct, this means he's using Feudal Age units against Castle Age units, which is obviously disadvantageous.

[RecoJohnson]

Correct i meant +2 armor and +10 damage.
They can very cheaply transition to +3 armor and +11 damage as soon as they hit castle.

[Jäveln]

would love some bonuses beside cheaper units never liked those bonuses i prefer stat bonuses to cheaper units even though i love that civ that got cheaper elephants and you can amss them jsut like regular infantry

[Heimdall313]

My main issue with Byzantines is power creep of other civs, tbh. Byzantine has no shoving power, and you can only pump skirms+halbs into a problem for so long until you actually have to PUSH into a defended position and you just flop into it until the rams get there.
Byzantines have Cataphracts not so much as a "luxury unit", but as a band-aid. Byzantines struggle against Infantry in general, with no real answer to things like Huskarl + Champ floods, Eagle Warriors, and Cheiftains boosted Champs/Berserks that can cost effectively handle Arbs for the first two, and Cavalier/Paladins in the Viking example. Byzantine Champs and especially Cavalier/Paladin struggle in mirror matches. Cavalier/Paladin missing 2 points of Atk and -20 HP are that much more inefficient against enemy Arbalests, and consequently your Camels are less effective vs Tarkan, Steppe Lancers, etc. and you're constantly forced into trying to solve too many problems via trash.

There's no real "core" composition, the Paladin v Elite Cataphract debate is eternal (short version: you're almost always better off with Knights), and you really need to counter your enemy correctly or you're screwed. They have really wide tech options, but are missing the most tragically, specifically crippling ones. Byzantine Arb spam is a thing because its the only unit that actually gets all its important upgrades.
If you can't starve your enemy out of Gold in order to beat them via attrition in trash wars, you generally struggle with Byzantine. The sheer brutality of Mongol Steppe Lancers in early castle...

[theworld]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

with no real answer to things like Huskarl + Champ floods, Eagle Warriors, and Cheiftains boosted Champs/Berserks that can cost effectively handle Arbs for the first two,

Hand Cannoneer

[Blackout4711]

You just gotta play defensive

[Jäveln]

their unique unit is incredibly destructive against infantry if you can get that far to get elite and trample but since noone goes infantry civs beside goths which will rush you and outnumber you before you get far enough

[Vemonia]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

My main issue with Byzantines is power creep of other civs, tbh. Byzantine has no shoving power, and you can only pump skirms+halbs into a problem for so long until you actually have to PUSH into a defended position and you just flop into it until the rams get there.
Byzantines have Cataphracts not so much as a "luxury unit", but as a band-aid. Byzantines struggle against Infantry in general, with no real answer to things like Huskarl + Champ floods, Eagle Warriors, and Cheiftains boosted Champs/Berserks that can cost effectively handle Arbs for the first two, and Cavalier/Paladins in the Viking example. Byzantine Champs and especially Cavalier/Paladin struggle in mirror matches. Cavalier/Paladin missing 2 points of Atk and -20 HP are that much more inefficient against enemy Arbalests, and consequently your Camels are less effective vs Tarkan, Steppe Lancers, etc. and you're constantly forced into trying to solve too many problems via trash.

There's no real "core" composition, the Paladin v Elite Cataphract debate is eternal (short version: you're almost always better off with Knights), and you really need to counter your enemy correctly or you're screwed. They have really wide tech options, but are missing the most tragically, specifically crippling ones. Byzantine Arb spam is a thing because its the only unit that actually gets all its important upgrades.
If you can't starve your enemy out of Gold in order to beat them via attrition in trash wars, you generally struggle with Byzantine. The sheer brutality of Mongol Steppe Lancers in early castle...

Just to be sure I understood well: this complain is about you personally not enjoying Byzantines, right ? Not about the civ being bad/poorly designed.

I agree that the civ has no real power unit, it is the civ design to win by countering whatever your opponent is doing instead of rolling over him with a power unit.

The go-to unit for Byzantines is the xbow line, so it is typically its core unit composition when not going for the cheaper counter units. The arbalesters have no bonus, but it is fine. The civ trades some power for unit diversity and ability to counter.

I think I like Byzantines because it feels more intuitive and satisfying for me to counter what my opponent does more than going to one strong unit no matter what. Like if my opponents makes knights, I think "I have to go monks, pikes or camels" and not "whatever, he makes his strong unit, I make mine". I think it depends on the player mentality.

Originally posted by Jäveln:

their unique unit is incredibly destructive against infantry if you can get that far to get elite and trample but since noone goes infantry civs beside goths which will rush you and outnumber you before you get far enough

I didnt play much against Goths since the hunting buff. Are they really that oppressive in the early game now ? The civ doesnt strikes me as a civ rushing and crushing you in the early to mid game.

I dont think you need all upgrades to beat the infantry spam. I think you should focus on having many cataphracts first.

Cataphracts are also strong against eagles. I think esgle civs struggle against skirms+cataphracts.

[theworld]

Originally posted by Vemonia:

Cataphracts are also strong against eagles. I think esgle civs struggle against skirms+cataphracts.

They don't. All eagle civs have ecos that are far superior to Byz, and have no problem upgrading to Elite Eagle + UT. Byz has a big problem even upgrading to Elite, let alone Elite+Logistica.

Mayan Eagles with full upgrades trade EVENLY on gold with non-elite Cataphracts with full Blacksmith upgrades. And they can field a lot more of them than 2:1 ratio and dominate your Cataphracts through Lanchester Square Laws.