Sorry, mate. But this is a "git gud" post. Byzantines are hard, you need cisterns, you need farms for olive oil to make mercenaries. Put production buildings inside cistern influence.

Ottomans make pikemen in Dark Age because of Military School, TC arrow counters that.

I can beat AI in absurd difficult with Byzantines easily.

Byzantines are fun, take some time to learn them.

Take care.

If you struggle with going 2 TCs and cisterns, why don't you choose to use only one of them, at least at the beginning?

Byzantines have awesome production bonuses when built up. Make sure u have cisterns and invest in olive oil. church wonder increases olive oil a lot. also imperial age wonder can give u 30% of ur army for free. mercenaries give u units that complement your army. But to you
r defense i think Byzantines are the hardest civ as they need to do a lot of city planning

I recently started playing and only play multiplayer, but I also noticed that Byzantines is garbage for efficiency. It's not just about the complexity of the faction or more microcontrol, it's about the fact that their bonuses are simply useless compared to other factions. The cistern gives a bonus to the speed of resource collection by 10% at the first level and by 26% at the last level. But for comparison, in Germany the priest immediately gives 40% of the collection speed immediately). In addition, he can move and give a bonus in the radius if he enters the church. And the research speed bonuses are almost useless. The only bonus that has any significance is the speed of unit production, although the cost of the aqueduct at the beginning of the game is such that it is easier to build an additional building for production.

That's why I skipped this faction and didn't even start playing for it. In addition, I noticed that there were no players for this faction against me at all, which says a lot). This faction is at the bottom of the tier list in terms of effectiveness.
And the Ottomans are, yes, they are effective, their buildings give free units and this faction is often found in opponents.

The only problem I had with the Byzantines was when I was unable to connect two sections of wall so the AI could just run through that little gap and wreak havoc. Then again, this can happen with any civ. Seriously, how did this even become a thing?

Originally posted by Unknown:

Sorry, mate. But this is a "git gud" post. Byzantines are hard, you need cisterns, you need farms for olive oil to make mercenaries. Put production buildings inside cistern influence.

Ottomans make pikemen in Dark Age because of Military School, TC arrow counters that.

I can beat AI in absurd difficult with Byzantines easily.

Byzantines are fun, take some time to learn them.

Take care.

Ofc it is a git gud post. Yet I can't be denied that the Byzantines are the worst civ for early game. Ofc u need cisterns, ofc u need to build farms, but the thing is, that I haven't the ressources to do so. The otoman AI starts attacking after 5+ minutes. I need all the food and wood for barracks and spearmen. Hardly anything left for farms. Getting stone is hard too if I need all workers on stone. Following this the Otomans level up to 2nd age shortly after. Then the outpace me in economy, units and research.
It IS a ddifcult civ, but why on earth does it have the worst opening of ALL other civs. I did 4 civs already and I could do it with the rest of them too. Just not with the Byzantines.

Originally posted by The Owlogram:

If you struggle with going 2 TCs and cisterns, why don't you choose to use only one of them, at least at the beginning?

I chose on, but regardless what I choose I get outpaced every time. I simply can't get out as much units as the otomans and I can't level up to 2nd age as fast. They wipe me in the first 10 minutes.

Originally posted by karxarinis:

Byzantines have awesome production bonuses when built up. Make sure u have cisterns and invest in olive oil. church wonder increases olive oil a lot. also imperial age wonder can give u 30% of ur army for free. mercenaries give u units that complement your army. But to you
r defense i think Byzantines are the hardest civ as they need to do a lot of city planning

I don't come to the point to even build farms. As stated in the other comments I get wiped in roughly 10 minutes. I don't have the wood to build farms or the oil to train mercenaries, for I need all wood and food for units to fend of the otoman hords.

I played it myself to check and things just don't happen the way you described them. They attacked at 6 minutes with just spears (and I kinda provoked them) but after losing them all they lost their steam and weren't a threat anymore. I wasn't even playing well cuz I don't really play Byzantine and the EW start threw me off (didn't even realise I started with a cistern).

You're wrong, Byzantines are good.
Even if you were correct, you're talking about Empire Wars vs the AI. The game isn't balanced around Empire Wars.

Byzantines are harder to play by casual gamer because of cistern piping planning. It takes more time to focus on constructing piping when playing against AI with higher apm than you. Their units, fully upgraded are not weak. Combined with no active pause in game, this is just a case that you just have to play and trained more with byzantines.

Everytime i play byzantines i focus on resources and production and i always manage to produce more than the opponents. Their units are average but you get more.
cisterns give gather production speed and reseach speed. all are important. also early u can arm ur villagers this can be effective too.. Towers and forts and walls can get catupults this is really effective. U need to farm for food or use fishing boats so that u get oil on top. U need to trade instead of using villagers to mine because again u get oil on top. Oil is +20-30% of food and trade. Both are limmitless. And you can get really good units from oil. You need to play with oil in mind if you ignore it you get a 30-40% weaker civ. For example early game u can use ur oil to get longbows. These are really effective at that point. later u can use ooil to get rus gunners .. I really like these as well. If you want u cann invest in mongol mounted archers and unlock a completrly different playstyle

Originally posted by LordAtrox:

Originally posted by karxarinis:

Byzantines have awesome production bonuses when built up. Make sure u have cisterns and invest in olive oil. church wonder increases olive oil a lot. also imperial age wonder can give u 30% of ur army for free. mercenaries give u units that complement your army. But to you
r defense i think Byzantines are the hardest civ as they need to do a lot of city planning

I don't come to the point to even build farms. As stated in the other comments I get wiped in roughly 10 minutes. I don't have the wood to build farms or the oil to train mercenaries, for I need all wood and food for units to fend of the otoman hords.

use olive oil to produce longbows. Build the church wonder next to berry bushes. After gathering them you will have enough oil for 10 longbows as u make 5 per order. These are "free" units as u buy with oil.

Honest take on Byzantines: lots of tactical flexibility, but also a lot of micro.

Like others are saying, you have to balance a lot of things at once, from how much olive oil needs to be prioritized, to placing cisterns in useful places, to knowing what mercenaries to unlock, and so forth.

They are the side that has the most micro IMO, and it's not even close. But the flip side is that there's a lot under your control, too, then.


Some key things:

#1 - Cisterns are key. Ignoring them will instantly reduce the effectiveness of the Byzantines.

#2 - Olive oil and mercs are also key. Even if you don't plan to use a lot of mercs, sell the olive oil off at least. Having a high float of olive oil is another way to limit yourself unnecessarily.

#3 - Pilgrim flasks should be microed. Don't let low health limitani take them if you have merc elephants or cataphracts that need them more. Micro the flasks if you go that route.

#4 - The shield wall for limitani is often not overly practical, but against some sides it can be rather useful. If the English throw early longbows out at you, limitani can be a nice and nasty surprise for them.

#5 - Same with trample. Trample lets your cataphracts noclip through the enemy, basically, and that can also be a nasty surprise. It's not always going to be practical to use, especially against a spaced-out enemy formation, but it can be a powerful ability in some spots.

#6 - Yet another situational but possibly potent trait for the Byzantines is that their horsemen have a unique upgrade to grant gold for kills of econ units. This makes them rather handy raiders, because catching an opponent off-guard at a resource site in this case means you bolster your own econ while hurting theirs.

#7 - Adapt. The Byzantines are the worst side to just trudge ahead with the same tactics and army composition. Mercenaries allow you to re-calibrate to what your opponent is doing... limitani and cataphracts both have active abilities that can throw off the usual tactics and let spears tank ranged damage or cavalry clip through to the enemy rear. Varangian Guard can activate an ability to increase damage and speed.



Long story short, the Byzantines are a lot of micro but also a lot of control over your approach.

Except not a single OotD unit has ever been nerfed? Like they got a slight nerf to Swabia palace at the start of this season, and a bug fix because their xbow were accidentally made way better and that's it. It's funny you bring up AoE2, because recently they got a bunch of new civs and one of them is absolutely ruining multiplayer, and is about as strong as release day Lancaster. Except it didn't get hotfixed in less than 24 hours lmao