My Honest Opinion of Byzantines in AOE4...
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- Lets talk Byzantines...
Guide to play Byzantines: • How to play Byzantines...
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olive oil should power tanks
Stone world tank 🤌
From dark age
🗿
😂
In dark age
I appreiciate these videos because I just started playing the game so it is nice to learn civilizations this way
I main Byz and everything you said is absolutely spot on .. thanks for explaining feudal age because I feel this in a lot of games if I get pushed .. great video 👍🏽
I already posted this but I think the feudal chapel landmark for Byzantines should be turned into an Aachen type landmark where it can be a universal dropoff and give you oil for all resources dropped off. That would give you a huge early boost in oil and some feudal mercenaries to defend you while you do the cistern transition. This wouldn't be broken cause you can only drop off so much resources to the landmark. Or if it becomes broken tune the bonus oil gained from other resources than berries smaller accordingly later
The whole point of hiring mercenaries was you dont have to train them, They got you out of trouble fast when needed. Mercs shouldent have a production time, you pay them ,you get them, instantly , thats how it should work.
would be unbalanced late game
Scale cost
bad idea. dont want seeing 1 villager turning into an instant army after building a mercenary camp behind enemy lines.
imagine wiping the byz army and another army is in your base lol
@@jjz3562 maybe instant production if within cistern influence
I get that, but instantly spawning units is the bane of balance right now.
Great analysis as always. I watch a lot of Turin’s FFA streams, he did one recently where he steamrolled a lot of civs with Byz in Imperial.
Also with the current very aggressive feudal meta it’s a bit of a double whammy for Byz in that age. Slow like you say in a meta that really punishes that play style.
Thanks for the insight. You’re definitely one of the higher game IQ players and your tournament wins reflect that!
I'd like to see the cisterns cost 100 stone each. The buff increments are all equal each level as you add more, so the cost should reflect that as well, similar to how OTT military schools are 100 stone each. I like the idea of mercenary house being able to produce one mercenary at a time. The wood cost for mercenary house can be dropped a bit so multiple mercenary houses can be built to allow multiple single units to be produced, maybe add a max amount. The mercenary contract can cost food and/or gold instead of oil so oil can be allocated to producing mercenaries early on. Also, I'd like to see Cistern of the First Hill to allow the cistern level to go to 6.
This is the best content you out out by a very wide margin.
I think either giving them a type of gremlin unit that you can spawn for a small amount of food though doesn't last forever, or make the first cistern provide +10% gathering rate making the new max 30%. Also make Cistern of the first hill increase the max level to 6.
I too think that the Varangian Guard should get its armor buff while within any landmark. Not just a wonder.
I love Byzantines but their feudal landmarks feel so bad tbh. Hippodrome just feels like a low impact version of School of Cavalry and Grand Winery feels like a shit version of Aachen Chapel.
I think if you’re gonna give Byzantines better feudal age play, looking at their landmarks is probably the best place to start. Maybe even swapping the ages on some of them. Like am I the only one who thinks it would make more sense to have a cistern landmark as a feudal age landmark instead of castle age? I have 5 cisterns up by the time I get to castle age basically every game so Cistern of the First Hill always loses a lot of its relevance by the time I’d be building it
hippodrome is good to counter english rush, winery is pretty solid when you actually use mercs
Don't play Biz but would making Biz TCs count as aqueducts be enough to speed them up
This is a great idea
Holy crap this is actually a great idea, except i feel it would incentivize 2tc play way too much...
They could limit it by only the landmark TC counting as an aquaduct.
Maybe the price scaling of cisterns should be reduced? Like the next one costs 25 stone more instead of 50
Sounds a little powerful, maybe add a condition that can make it cheaper? Like maybe cisterns cost less if they are in the radius of another cistern? That way you have to choose between more coverage for cisterns or cheaper cisterns
I agree, byz do need a slight buff in fuedal. I would suggest a system similar to ottomans vizier points except your rewarded for completing specific tasks. That way you buff them by making players be more active in fuedal. Their age up is not that much slower with cistern opening as long as your food and gold are in the influence of the first cistern. Also in terms of early merc production you could make it so everytime you level up a contract it spawns 1 set of units. This would give you early units in fuedal should you go mercs. That way building a merc building pays off right away similar to other production buildings. Either way I just don't think giving them more oil is a good way to improve them. I think that part was done really well, the fact that they have a 5th resource is actually very difficult too balance and I think they hit the nail on the head.
I feel like the strength of byz is that you can build units normally and hard switch with mercs to counter the enemy counter
Not really, as you are locked into a choice with the contract
Low league player here, but a Byzantine enjoyer. One thing I was thinking as a feudal buff would be to allow the winery to produce religious units right away rather than having to wait for castle. Would help keep units alive to survive feudal and gives more counterplay against civs that rely on relics.
As a person who's been to Greek Orthodox churches and has a bachelors on Byzantine/Modern Greek history, it'd absolutely wild to me that they have 0 religious bonuses in this game.
I mailed HRE before Byzantines released and I loved their game play and prelate bonuses/buffs.
Biggest winery buff would be having mill techs in it
@@Peacemaker8D also thought about that, my guess is they wont since it's a religious buidling, but if they did I certainly wouldnt complain
Honestly I would prefer if Grand Winery was a mercenary house than a monestary
absolutely wild to me that its a food drop off but no mill tech? seems unintuitive
At this point: Great content Beasty! ... i love playing them. It feels so strong, cause u have to do so much, but than the opponent attacks in feudal and u realice: Ok, i am not strong. I have to alive.^^
Miss opportunities no defensive Greek fire, and the only land unit is a ram replacement that is worst than a normal ram. Let it target land units. Mercs just take way to long to produce to really use
Thank you for this video. Very informative.
To make thier plausible realistic make building cheap, and fast. This would make it worth rebuilding while you're getting destroyed. They should also buff soldiers stats near resivours.
The byzantines were slowly losing for years but held on incredibly long.
I have a 70% win rate with Byzantines right now playing mostly diamond players…it was rough at first but it’s vital to use olive oil/cisterns properly and early.
Where did thou learn?
@@chefboyardee2670 trial and error :p
what do you do when legacy, china, english all in you ? by the time u age up they have units already rallying in ur base
@@nationarmy2514 yeah definitely seem to get rushed almost every game as Byz. I found that building a tower with arrow slits to protect gold around the 5/6 minute mark helps tremendously. Then I usually go Winery landmark on berries/harvest them quickly so I can build mercenaries asap as I go fast castle with golden horn. Against English/china/legacy you know ranged units are coming so I go Silk Road contract into Javelin throwers asap to counter this, then spam Varangian Guards. Gotta pick the contract that best fits against your opponent. You’ll kick some butts if you get the timing right, gl 👍
i figured out if legacy goes fast castle and attack, u just die.. u dont even have time to castle urself. Same can happen with Japanese @@CaptainTerrific09
I'm such a nerd for the byzantine aesthetics in the game, was waiting for their release so much, and now regret being a gold league player cuz I feel like I tank games every time I try them lol
just keep practicing, they are pretty good. Scout you opponent heavily to have better army trades.
could these hypotetical changes work?
-Cisters are "like landmarks" they cant be destroyed at all, they go to 1 hp and loses all the buffs granted until fully repaired, also cisters scales per water level (started with low hp but more cisterns added grants extra HP to all cisters until (lvl 5) but the 3, 4 and 5 cisterns are a little bit expensive, (also more hp means in late game, more time/res required for fully repaired)
*edit: they can only be repaired by using stone but have that landmark mechanic.
-Berries bushes are gathered 15% faster and grants 1 more olive per deposit
-Hypodrome "triump" last 1.5 seconds per charge (maybe increase slightly the time to get a charge)
-Mercenaries house give the option to train a single unit at 50% training time than original unit (also groups are trained double as their counterparts) and the contract research changes just to 30 seconds all contracts and all versions (as elite)
(sorry if english is not good at all)
Delhi's boost speed of ONE HUNDRED PERCENT for 10 secs on their maa is far better than 30 percent for 30 seconds. As he said it's all about closing the distance, and 100 fkin percent for 10 secs is enough to catch and surround absolutely anything. AND delhi has a permanent 20 percent attack speed bonus (as well as eventualy +3 attack) without any defensive debuff. VG cost DOUBLE THE GOLD, beasty does not seem to be addressing it. Then it's question of playing Byz without gold in imperial, ok but then where are your VG? I don't get it..
I don't get why beasty is insisting on this VG thing. I agree with everything else, but if we get (rightfully) the limitanei shieldwall nerf (because i agree this is busted), then Byz has no infantry frontline past feudal. You can not sustain having double cost men at arms (who btw also happen to have less HP than generic maa if you did not know) in a civ with no boost to trade or gold in general. If we gest berserk nerf then just give byz generic men at arms at this point.
Or even better, leave our VG alone lmao.
Don’t nerf shield wall it’s the only thing keeping byz afloat 😭
As far as the buff needed during feudal age..... I think that if you could buy single units from the mercenary house (without increasing per unit price) - this would be a positive bonus for byz. Having to save up to 400-500 oil to then produce 3-5 units is rough. Selling oil early is something i consider but it doesn't seem too worth it. To finish my rant - olive oil is no good unless you have 1000's of it.
Allow cheirosiphons to target units directly lol
Cheaper cisterns that are easier to siege could be interesting. Like easier to set up but also easier to contest.
If the aquaducts in particular had like a siege damage vulnerability (being exposed, intricate infrastructure) the Byzantines could ramp up faster but would also have to work harder to keep everything connected.
100% Agreee
I wish there was more talk though on varangian guards before they're fully paraded, and how costly it is to get there. The disparity between unupgraded and upgraded VG is insane. They go from one of the worst MAA to one of the best. But it's so late in the game when that happens. They ain't worth it in castle age at all. I feel like they should get buffed earlier if their imp age stuff gets nerfed(which I do agree with)
Buff their health above normal MaA. Nerf the speed tech. Maybe make berserk less extreme. 4 more damage for -2 armor.
@@Nickball97 So lets just make them less unique.
@@themos4761 LOL at the idea that buffing their HP makes them less unique. Hey I have an idea for making OOTD unique then. Reduce all their unit health to 1. That is UNIQUE.
Varangians should probably have same HP as standard MAA but not higher. Berserk needs no buffs. Nerf the speed to 15%.
@@johanlassen6448 your reading comprehension is clearly lacking.
@@themos4761 No, I think the problem here is your lack of logic.
Especially since BYZ Eco boost in the form of 5-piece Cistern network has the easiest counterplay (just break 1 Aqueduct tile) aka the highest risk, it shouldn't be the most expensive/slowest to get up and running.
And yes, choosing the Merc Contract should be instant, and potentially free. Choosing & paying a fair price for the units should be enough!
When it comes to the timing of the first mercenaries, why not get one batch when the research time for the contract is done. Adjust research time and cost if necessary
Great Video. Would love to see something similar for OotD
Its coming!
@@BeastyqtSC2 thanks and marry Xmas if you celebrate
Feel like half of Byz landmarks are in the wrong age. I think it would help if Palatine School was moved to either Feudal or Castle replacing the eco landmarks. Then they could buff Winery and Cistern of First Hill. Winery should have a 10x10 influence grid for the farms and if moved to castle it should be able to train monks since it's supposed to be a monastery anyways, if moved to imp they can increase the oil bonus. Cistern of the First Hill could be moved to imp to enable a stronger tier 6 network or moved to feudal where it counts as 2 cisterns for the network.
I think that the Berserking ability taking away almost the 50% of the armor of Varangian Guards is a enough counterpart for that, the problem ist the way units fight/how the game is programmed, even if you attack move they tend to focus 1 unit/the closest to them, so the way to win every fight really, is making the ranged units of the enemy overkill as much as you can, since ranged units are the ones that deal the most damage, and since the unit targeting sucks,.
Men at arms that are classified as heavy infantry (another problem is the counter system, it doesnt make sense that the units dont take into account armor itself but the classification of a unit) to calculate dmg, have a very high advantage all the time because the only real counter is kiting them, but because of the movespeed they get they seems OP, they really arent, is just the way the game works, if the units fought as groups and micromanaging the attacks was not thing (like in Total War games) Varangian Guard would suck as hell
Cavalarios af!
I think being able to use Oil to be able to be at least used as Eco upgrades would be great.
Byzantines are fun to play and dont need anything changed. The problem is the gamers not the civ if there is a problem. They need to be better. Or like figure out the civ themselves instead of being told how to play it. With Byzantines I have so many routes to victory its almost choice paralysis, and if you choose wrong you can get punished for it if you fightn someone smart or lucky haha
LOL no.
What if you scale price & mercenary counts with contract level? (For exemple: Contrat level 1: 300 oil, 3 longbows, ...)
Yo letting the grand winery act as a mercenary house would be a good idea, take away the monestary part and make it a mercenary camp instead
What if byzantines got cheaper stone walls in feudal? Still slow but you can protect your cisterns and get some units out easier
What's Beasty's favorite civ?
JD
Instead of making hiring mercs more viable in feudal before you've transitioned to building olive groves just sell all your berry oil for faster age up bc you'll be getting free mercs with the horn landmark.
good when playing against booming civ, not recommended against heavy feudal aggression
Why cant varangians be in feudal?
Please change the lack of food for China as well early game. Feudal is rough for them against rushes.
I dont agree with Beasty on this, because the Byz have limitanei with the spear wall which is very OP in feudal with the right supporting unit. Moreover you get heavy cavalry Keshiks in feudal through the mercenary house, and better horsemen with gold generating raids.
Yes I am always late to age up in feudal, but I very often end up trampling my opponent in late feudal. My take is that Byzantines are indeed late... but they are very strong. If they are made faster then this civ will just annihilate everything.
Make the cisterns guard towers too?
Imo if the devs want to make byz late game civ.. they should help em on defense a little bit. sure the mango on tower is good.. but when do u even make it to castle age? even if you do ull prob die b4 u get ur stuff going. 95% of the games i've played with byz there's literally all in age 2 and you cant rly do anything ab it.. there are 2 specific games i've played thjat i was mind blown. both against legacy.
1) i got all by guards age 2.. i had 10 units and he had like 30-40 and iwas literally gone.. guards runing me under TC.
2) One more game i played against them i tried to rush age 3 .. raw age 3. i wasn't even half way through my eco to get age 3.. legacy was age 3 sooooo fast. and it was basically over..
I really love byz. and i have few advices that could help em and hope to see any of these happening.
1) do smth to strenghten their defenses, one way or another. like all eco based civs have. (look china, legacy, english, rus, japan etc)
2) build cistern and cistern walls much faster
3) Make their men at arms feudal unit
4) Maybe make the religious landmark on age 2 (dont remember the name) make the berry olive oil global? Cuz as of rn, you have 2 landmarks. a) monastery with not a decent value imo and b) a bufed stable
5) Maybe make 4 stages of cistern instead of 5? start with 10% buff instead of 5?
Byzantines have bad early game but they have an insane imp. So if you buff their feudal you make their imp even better
The same applies to the Abbasids dynasty where everything takes more time to develop. I just hope that discussions of nerfs and buffs stop in this game because they're making it more uneven and unstable.
I haven't played them at all, but have people tried a fast 2nd TC with the extra stone and build cisterns in feudal age? Might help building with extra civs.
Ha I've been doing this, it's good in team games but in general you have no defence at all if you rush 2TCs on Byzantines. It's not that it won't work but if someone calls your bluff early on you don't really have a good counterplay.
good 👍👍
If byz can upgrade its tower with oil, then fedual def is dealed
Maybe this would be too good, but could the Town Center count as a Cistern?
I feel like going winery should pop mecs
Aqueducts should auto-construct connections between cisterns with siege equipment animations.
Cabalariosh
well done
Oil from sheep is a bad idea. Remember how OP Rus used to be when it used to get bunti from sheep? It's the same with byzantines. But yes, mercenaries should be individually purchaseable. And berries should give more olive oil. Should also probably have a gather rate boost like abbasid/delhi.
I think the issue with not having oil on sheep is it makes things awkward. You just feel suboptimal if you are not gathering berries but you dont have the tempo to secure extra berries. You want to collect sheep cause they are safe and decent gather rate but you also don't because you are not getting oil.
@@shakaraeq4674 that's exactly why, add that abbasid/delhi bonus to byzantines. That way going for berries from the beginning makes sense. And it also meshes well with mercenary builds. To collect further oil in feudal, you have to actually put effort in map control to secure berries, or go for farm transition
@purnabhishek it's not the same though. The difference between collecting sheep and berries for Abba and Delhi is just a small gathering difference. For byzantines you are losing access to a large chunk of your unit roster. I'm addition byzantines have poor option for guaranteed map control and moving out early on the map puts you in a losing position.
Limitanei is problematic design, frankly. A 50% DR vs ranged is far, far too extreme of an asymmetry to introduce into a civ. And that's kind of how they are in general. They're all-or-nothing. Very binary. 25% gather rate bonus stacking multiplicatively with 20% oil production out of farms is basically english farm efficiency (almost exactly the same, save only that english farms produce gold, and oil pays for the unit price, not just the gold component), but you also get 25% on other resources, which English does not get.
So what you end up with is a civ with extremely strong bonuses, but a lot of awkward constraints, and no growth bonuses except a 20% reduction in farm cost (which is meaningful).
By growth I mean civs have two categories of econ bonuses, efficiency (what any given amount of stuff provides) and growth (how quickly you can grow your economy). Byzantines don't have any especial way to grow faster bar cheaper farms, but their efficiency bonuses are extreme.
The problem with that kind of set-up, is if you make it ramp better, those players don't need map resources much, so they can play a very defensive style that tends to become obnoxious, it's very English-like in general, while they have the attack rate bonus, byz have cheap units that can't really be beaten by ranged units, meaning to push through them and into a base you need a lot of melee, which naturally performs poorly in a constricted space.
I like elements of how Byzantines are designed, but frankly, I think they'll be a balance nightmare for many months yet to come.
No black bar on the stream? Weak.
Yessir
how is the varangian guard is strong you use berserk and the armor goes down by 5 it dies instantly ranged units kill it, the cav dont have a charge
and the grand vinery is not even a real landmark
VG armor goes down by 4. Agreed that they are not that strong. Other MAAs are better overall, especially when we factor cost.
They say 1 Longbow costs 90 Oil. Why 5 Longbow cost 500 Oil ??? 5x90 is 450!! xD
Varangians should be the strongest MAA in the game. They are the most formidable melee infantry formation in history. And in the game they cost twice the gold of regular MAA and only come online in Imperial.
Also statistically, while Byzantines do very well at the 30-40 min mark, they also dip massively from the 50 min mark onward and yes that includes Conq IV. If you compare that to China, their very late game is incredibly strong and only gets stronger the longer a game goes on.
Swedish landsnetch is the most formidable infantry in the middle ages. Byzantines are basically underpowered romans
The Varangians were absolutely not "the most formidable melee infantry formation in history" and even if they had been that is irrelevant because game balance is not tied to history, if it was the game would be completely different.
@@duchessskye4072 They most certainly were. No other melee infantry has the kind of track record that they had. Among other things they were the only infantry in history to survive a flanking charge by Norman knights, singlehandedly saved Byzantine holdings in Southern Italy, led the charge in reconquering Sicily, crushed the Bulgarians, destroyed the Pechenegs and half a dozen more invasions. Even in defeats such at Manzikert and Constantinople (1204) they were the only unit to truly stand their ground and in the latter battle even pushed back the Crusaders from the walls. Again: no other melee infantry formation has had that kind of track record against such varied opposition.
The fact is that you have absolutely no idea what the Varangians were or how they operated so why do you even argue little one?
For that matter your argument that game balance is not tied to history does not hold water. Knights/Lancers are still based on expensive and heavily armored mounted troops. Archers are still archers. Samurai still get Odachi. Clearly there is some effort done and if you are going to use the name you ought to pay homage to the history of the unit. And finally, as far as game balance goes, I already said that they cost twice the gold of normal MAA and only become good in Imperial so why don't you argue the entire point instead of acting like an obnoxious ass?
@@johanlassen6448 attributing the military success of the eastern roman empire onto the varangians is an extreme oversimplification of events which literally no credible historian would agree with.
You can take a ton of different units throughout history and without nuance list their military successes. I could do the same with the Swiss infantry, or the Spartans, or the Tercios, etc.
@@duchessskye4072 HAHAHA. No little one, no. The Romans themselves attributed those successes to the Varangians, nor did I say that ALL ERE military success were due to them. The same way the US Army Rangers are an exceptionally potent military formation today. While it does not mean they alone are responsible for US military success, they have been an integral and decisive part of it. Again: argue the points made, not what you wish the points were. I mean seriously it is evident you have not read the source material and have not scrutinized the specific performance of the Varangians in those battles. Instead you content yourself with saying "well they were part of a larger army therefore we can't say anything about them as a unit". I guess Messi isn't a great football player because it was Barcelona/Argentina that won. By the same logic Michael Jordan was not a great basketball player either. The Sherman was not a good tank. The MG42 was not a good machinegun. Alexander was not a great general. You are being dishonest and are clearly misinformed.
And yet I could name you multiple instances of those military formations also doing exceptionally poorly. But OFC you know absolutely nothing of military matters miss make-believe armchair historian. I guess you must have lost a game or two to the Byzantines and are now salty about it. Sit down and be quiet. No one asked for your unqualified opinion.
Also - there is no credible historian who would disagree with my assessment regarding the performance of the Varangians so you can take your attempt at suppression technique and shove it back where it came from.
And i thought ottd is slow🤣
@beasty - so what you want is -- to neutralize Burgrave (which is a landmark). So, if something is left for HRE, you want to finish that also. Don't you remember or have any Loyalty to HRE, which I think once was your favorite civ. I don't wanna say, but you should be ashamed of yourself. You don't respect other League players (gold, bronze, plat). You speak for them - "your Opponent civ is OP, and what you playing is weak". After a couple of times, it seems your non-sense, rather than something very useful. You have never spoke (with weightage for HRE), if someone speaks, you block them from "twitch". You call other players Mother as pig (Marine Lord). You are not a champion material. Its just by chance that you play and win good matches. And, in time - that too has declined. You think you are making sense, but in reality you are getting more and more delusional with time.
You don't care for HRE, you don't care for balances now .... the only solution ou have for other (mostly new civs is) -- buff them in one way or another. If Mercenary-House also acts as Burgrave, then what's the use of even keeping HRE in Game?
* the point is the game was made with Unique civs (which is now totally destroyed), now most of civs are just similar.
* Nearly all civs either have early monks, or Landmarks Age-3 where they can be produced, even Monks that have +15 damage and XIL can complete Age-3 in about 6 mins now. While fastest HRE can reach Age-3 is by 7min.
* Cavalry now in Age -2 (effective) -- French, Joan-de-Arc, Delhi, Byzantines (via contract), Rus, Mongol, etc. --- Where is that Unique Quality (all are harrasing and all have knights in Feudal) if Delhi doesn't have it has strong Horesemen to harass.
* Don't you see where game is going ? You could have cursed and spoke your voiced against (Variant Civs) as people would expect --- but you are so dillusional every wrong decision and money-mint greediness has been seconded/justified form you - in recent history, defeneding the mammoth and collisional decision-mistakes by Devs.
* You are nowhere to where your thoughts were in history, you are not as decent or thoughtful as you used to be ..... you have been cursed by your own quality! Really, shame on you! And, keep demeaning (gold, plat, bronze) players, and think you are oversmart!
. Pathetic video!
Very slow oil from wood maybe?
the stupid thing is that the mercs arent even needed to win the standard byz units are already strong enough, atleast int lategame lol
i would say buff mercs and nerf standard units to an extenct and make early game a bit easier to play
i'm 68% winrate platinum but keep bitching ppl, they might make them stronger xD
wooden cisterns that can be upgraded into stone