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1:22 Team bonus: monks heal 100% faster
2:15 Buildings +10%/+20%/+30%/+40% HP
3:22 Camels, skirms, pikes cost 25% less
4:10 Fire ships attack 25% faster
5:10 Advance to Imperial Age costs 33% less
5:55 Town watch, town patrol free
UNIQUE UNIT AND TECHS
6:45 The Cataphract
9:40 Greek Fire
9:55 Logistica
TECH TREE
11:00 Archers B+
11:25 Infantry A-
11:45 Cavalry B+
12:20 Siege B
12:40 Navy A-
13:05 Monks A-
13:25 Defenses A+
13:45 Trash A-
14:20 General thoughts
14:45 Sponsor
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Previous overview (outdated):
Game: Age of Empires II Definitive Edition
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byzantines strategy 101: stall the game and win by drag war XD
I wish you did AOE 3 stuff aswell.
"Against Goths or Evil Warriors" XD
13:43 This point has always stuck with me. In Age of Kings, every civilization was designated as either an Offensive or Defensive civ, but only 2 (Byzantines and Teutons) were actually considered Defensive.
Then came The Conquerors, where each civilization was given a different title to correlate with their strengths. But while Teutons became the Infantry Civilization, Byzantines stayed as the Defensive Civilisation. And I always found that impressive.
I love the Byzantines their history and their culture, especially how they evolved from the Eastern Roman Empire to the Byzantine Empire, how their architecture, dress, army and weapons evolved to be a mix of Western Greeks and eastern ME/North African cultures.
What I would love to see for the Byzantines:
Please give us regional/civ accurate unit skins for all the B,A,S units. Either as a purely visible mod/addition or as standard.
Add Burning oil as a generic tech for most civs to the university. (Increases defensive arrow fire from castles + 4 attack against rams.) As well as add Tracking,and Cartography back into the game. (More techs and complexity adds more fun adds more small elements to learn and master.)
I'd much rather have the Persians or Byzantines get Free HC and Free WB. To me, vast empires such as the Persian Empire and the Byzantine Empires (Bordering the Fertile Crescent) should have an eco focus since their administration of their vast empires were so good. Where ''lesser'' Empires and Kingdoms situated in cold , barren regions that focused more on raids like the Goths and Norse should have a unit focus such as Cheap infantry (Goths) and cheap trash + Beserks slowly generate gold when attacking buildings. (Vikings)
Vikings.
We need a completely new architecture set for the Vikings (That resemble their beautiful Norse church wonder)
The main emphasis is on the long boats and their over use of Arbs, the rest are not to important and can be left as is.
Have Vikings lose free hand cart + lose Arbalerster but instead they get Halbedier,(NB!) have their longboats be able to attack as well as transport units (Infantry/vils/monks/kings only) (loses transport ships but they have non attacking Longboats in feudal age.) and gift them cheap trash units Halbs + strong Angon Skirmishers.They could also give the berserkers a new trait that allows them to accumulate Food or Gold when damaging an enemy building thus aiding in their ecco in an accurate and interesting way.
Castles cost change to 450 stone and 300 wood (Wood castles have lower HP) OR… Since they get Halbs change their unique tech Chieftains to allow Beserks to be made in TCs even after all castles have been lost.
I’d enjoy raiding coastlines and rivers using longboats to transport infantry and Angon skirms to the shores of my enemies.
I'd say give them other buffs to help in the late game, for instance to have their eco speciality exchanged with the Byzantines speciality.
The Vikings came from a cold, barren mountainous/fjord covered boggy area, Norway,Sweden,Scandinavia where agriculture was highly difficult to maintain, thus their focus was on fishing, but as their culture and cities grew, it became a necessity to raid other shores/peoples in order to survive and thrive. Thus they started to use their brilliant longboats to conquer the northern seas and raid countless European and Mediterranean kingdoms. So I was wandering, why the devs gave the Vikings (Which literally mean Raiders) such a strong economy by means of free handcart and wheelbarrow?
Where the Byzantines/Persians are famous for already having a well established society and Empire by the time of the Middle ages (They had wheelbarrow even before the Western Roman empire fell), with a professional standing army and immense economy and trade. (For such a strong wealthy Empire, why do they have to focus on Trash units in game?)
For me, the two civs will be perfectly compensated to have those two traits switch.
The Byzantines get an ecco upgrade like free wheelbarrow and the Vikings get cheap trash units.
Now, combine that with Viking Wood architecture Castles: Castles cost change to 450 stone and 300 wood (Wood castles have lower HP but they can create a lot more of them due to less stone cost) OR… Since they get Halbs change their unique tech Chieftains to allow Beserks to be made in TCs even after all castles have been lost.
That will always allow Vikings to create Beserkes in large numbers and have cheap Halbs and Angon/Frakka skirms to back them up throughout the game and into the late game. (Celt skirms also need a buff) No need for arbs. Then you take your Berserks+ trash , get onto your longboats and go Viking/Raid the enemy shores. (Without wasting wood nor pop space on Transport ships) They could also give the berserkers a new trait that allows them to accumulate Food or Gold when damaging an enemy building thus aiding in their ecco in an accurate and interesting way.
Peasant:’’If Vikings lose arb they will be useless in imp. FALSE!!!!! Proof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDdgAdxDBXo&list=PLGVjiUKVQd71JOPjx4C1NxzhEoTMGbtw-&index=34
Watch both the 1st and 2nd games.
VIKINGS SHOULD LOSE ARBS!!!
Byzantines.
In turn have Byzantines lose Hand cannoneer, bombard cannon and bombard tower , [to have them not become intensely OP and these forms of warfare was much more used by their neighbours (Italy) and enemies (Turks)].(If WB+HC goes to Persia then no need for Byzantines to loose gunpowder) Trash becomes more expensive and Imp becomes more expensive but Civ gets free wheel burrow and free hand cart. (For even when they were still the Eastern Roman empire, they already had WB+HC)(If Persia gets Free HC+Free WB then Byzantines retain their cheap camels)
Byzantines get a unique tech in the Feudal age barracks: Justinian Reforms – Sword line +1 Melee or Pierce armour from castle age.
(Optional) Enables the technology of Varangian Guard from the Feudal age.
In Feudal age , Byzanitne army (As well as Viking allies) gain access to a special unit in the Barracks called the Varangian Guard. – Expensive , slow moving but difficult to convert with a limited build amount.
Since the Byzantines are a Defensive civ, the Varangian Guards can have a high attack boost when in the vicinity of a TC or Castle but outside a certain radius from these buildings the VG should lose the strong attack bonus and just be as strong as a normal Man at Arms/Long Sword/Champion.
(Highly loyal guards of the Emperor) To defend against early rushes , but since they are expensive,slow and limited, you will have to think strategically as to when and where to deploy/station them.
Unique Castle techs remain Logistica.
Greek fire – Fireships damage adjacent ships. (Loses the useless+1 range buff)
Please give Byzantines Camel trade carts and a proper architecture something like this will be perfect: [Steam Workshop::[IA] Catbarf's Byzantine Buildings V2 (WiP IA Version)]
since 80% of their empire and trade stretched across the deserts of Anatolia, the Levant and North Africa. Byzantine ships should also acquire beautiful coloured Lateen sails.
Intro Music is back !!
It'll maybe sound weird but my first favorite Civ was byzantines until I discovered Goths, which is kind of ironic
One thing you didn't mention about team games is their defensive boosts helping out, offsetting some of the short comings of them or their teammates. 3 Parts come to mind:
1: If you can get the frontline spawn as a byzantine you can buy alot of extra boom time for the backline player(s) due to your extra building health and cheap counter units meaning you can hold out with less support for longer, buying more time for the backline to boom and enter the fight as a bigger threat instead of having to slow the boom inorder to save the teammate(s) who is under attack
2: Synergizing with teammates/covering their weakness's, for an example, the portuges are strong in long games as their fetoria's provide infinite stone to build/repair defenses and castles, infinite gold to allow for making siege engines, ships and even non trash troops but they get bullied in shorter games as that is 20 pop cap on a building that does not make up for its drain, at 200 pop cap it is 10% of your total pop per building, with a Byzantine teammate doing heavier lifting in the fight, the portugues can have some fetoria's and essentially play mob boss, funding their allies.
One of my buddies plays them and builds almost max fetoria's possible and funds the 2-3 of us in our wars, this boost also helps offset the cost of cataphracts and lets the byzantine make the most of their extra tower and castle hp.
3: Fortifying/ saving a teammate, the cheap units allows the byzantine to throw a swarm of troops into a falling city in an attempt to beat the attackers back outside and the extra building hp helps them seal breaches in the original defenses or build a new defensive position that can hold.
I once had a match of ages during a land party where my teammate has attacked by my dad who also plays byzantines, between using cheaper camel hordes to smash the trebuchets and my stronger defenses, I kept my ally alive while another teammate dropped my dad's allies and forced him to abandon the siege.
Do you by any chance do analysis or casting on some pro games? I'd like to watch that. Or do you recommend a channel for that? Thanks
Byzantennes, to my experiance, are extreemly flexible and able to outlive their opponent.
But they are extreemly bad at actually beating their opponent…
KHMER PLEASE. Pretty please I know not a Tom has changed but I love them and would really enjoy knowing the numbers you have on their bonuses/units overall. If nothings really changed please let me knoe
When u realize an Age of Kings civ is still on the top 5 in 2022 you know original devs are awsome.
While Byzantines most certainly were second and official Rome they were greeks aswell
The SotL theme is always a serotonin rush
The ideal civ should have
A for Archers
B for Barracks
C for Cavalry
D for Defenses
E for Eco
When r u going to make vedio on Indian civs
Cool remaster from your original video.
Admit it, you wanted to make a second cataprhract video!
Alongside Teutons they were my favourite civ back in the day; open tech tree with great defense. I can see why they wouldn't have an excellent win rate online though. I think you need to play outside the box with them as they aren't exceptional at any particular offensive strategy.
My intuition tells me that the more your Byzantine army is larger than the enemies army the more effective diverting a few resources into monks for healing would be, and conversly the smaller comparitively your army the worse it would be diverting resources into monks. The question I have is where is the crossover from worth it, to actively bad for you?
Disagree with you first statement. Current meta being crossbows and knights byz counters hard. But whatever. Strong buildings, cheap trash to beat any gold spqm like turks and franks
Historically, it's kind of weird that the Byzantines lacks Parthian tactics since they would be the most likely among European civs to adopt it, with them being mortal enemies. In the Gothic war, ERE horse archers posed quite a threat, and the Goths really couldn't deal with them due to their unfamiliarity with Eastern warfare.
I like to play them defensively where I primarily react to the enemy attack until I can mount an offensive of my own, but since I don't play competitively I have no idea how that fairs against competitors vs ai and casuals.
I think the Byzantines and the Goths are the only two civilisations from AoK and the Conquerors I never learned to enjoy, and especially the Byzantines. I'm surprised to hear they're a fan favourite.
great vid again. Can you make a vid. about Scorpions and E-Scorpion? What's the best civ to use it etc.
MORE WALLS. ALL THE WALLS
You put way too much effort into this. You should've just said "Best civ in the game, and always will be." since it is. But I guess you wouldn't have gotten as many views that way!
I watch ur video to sleep. And ur end music woke me everytime🥲
laughs in 1453
0:21 Probably because they speak pretty, that was my reason lol
Not having to research town watch and town patrol also means that time can be used for training villagers instead.
Loved the video. I know you've made alot of great videos about eco upgradses and tcs in aoe2. I'd really enjoy a video about how to best invest resources into your economy, what order & what time to do it.
Nice
yo spirit of the four
Well, I love your videos, but I don't like A+ for defences.
They're worse at fast repairing Castles, if it's slow, their buildings are not much dreadful for ships, their defensive Siege (especially without HScorp) will be outranged by the siege with SiegeEng…
Byzantines need something, it’s bugged for a long time but they lack something to me.
How about a unique wall to fit their defensive civ nature and to be historically accurate
Theodosian wall
Equivalent or better than fortified wall stat wise, but it gives nearby units a bonus to range and/or attack damage and/or disadvantage to attacker.
Hell, make it easier to repair (1 villager is 2x, 2 villagers is 4x, 3 is 6x the repair rate) which references when an earthquake severely damaged the wall, and and army was marched to attack the vulnerable city only to find that they Wall was repaired in an insanely short period of time.
That would be a clearly and uniquely defensive feature exemplifying a “defensive civilization”.
And may fix my gripe with the civ as is.
"Because they are romans"
I only learned Byzantines were romans after 10 years playing this game 🤣
Anti Anti-Cavalry Infantry Cavalry will be my new way of describing the Cataphracts to new players for sure.
Everyone always talks about how expensive the elite cataphract upgrade is, but I don't see a lot of people talk about if you need the upgrade.
If your opponent has upgrades on his elite eagles and you lack any upgrade on your cataphract, the unupgraded cataphract still does great. They also have other use cases. If you have 10 unupgraded cataphract, you force an opponent to switch out of their unit of choice if it was something like a petty huskarl. Imagine that your opponent invested in the elite huskarl upgrade and now needs to unlock an entire new unit line because someone spent 700 food and 750 gold on creating 10 cataphracts.
Hi guys spirit of the law here
Disagree on B+ Archer rating. The civ has FU arbalest and cheaper FU skirms as well. CA isn’t that common anyways. IMO it should have been atleast A-
Otherwise good video
great overview! just wanted to point out koreans are also officially called a defensive civ, defensive and naval.
If anyone is interested in history of Byzantine Empire i recommend
"The History of Byzantium" podcast by Robin Pierson. Good stuff
A- for their infantry. So the Spanish barrack deserve a A, the Celtic one a A+ and the Burmese one a… A what?
did SoTL missed economy tech
THE INTRO IS BACKKKKKK
The Byzantines are the Greeks, not the Romans.
The missing + 2 melee atk make them " look weak"
I see the devs want Gurjaras to become a permanent global ban for all tournaments going forward.