Byzantines Overview AoE2
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- čas přidán 2. 07. 2024
- The defensive civ. This video is another in my series of civilization overviews for AoE 2 HD and Forgotten Empires.
As always, I go over the civilization's bonuses in HD, FE changes, and then grade their tech tree based on my own impressions playing the civ, wrapping up with some recommendations and cautionary advice.
Patreon: www.patreon.com/SpiritoftheLaw - Hry
I fell in love with the Byzantines when i first installed AoE2, back in '99.
Now i'm doing a PhD in Byzantine History.
Best civ ever.
+NIkephoros have you seen extra historys story on justinian
Is it just me or the cataphract got nerfed in the African kingdoms?
+Chillhelm der Breite huh my cataphract seems to die more quickly to pikes
So tell me: is Belissarius an underrated commander? You don´t get to see him mentioned along the lines of Scipio, Hannibal, Caesar, etc.
Did you also convert to Orthodox Christianity?
Yeah the Byzantines are pretty good, just don't leave the gate open.
Godammit Mehmet II
Trade Cart Open The Gate XD
+Iris Trismegistus
Do people really believe that story ?
dude999 B The Wall of Constantinople were really damn good to have survived cannon fire for quite a while. It may have fueled the belief that a small opening in the wall allowed the Turks a good avenue to direct their cannon fire.
Ottoman cannons can't melt Byzantine walls 1453 was an inside job
Good review. Thanks for it!
I want tatoh vs spirit of the law
It's T90!
Thanks for it!!
Aren't you two the same people?
Hi
Spirit of the Details. Im impressed how much work you put into your vids!
+Erich von Manstain Thanks :) quality over quantity haha
What cheat do u use to train units immediately
What cheat do u use to train units immediately
+Max Blumenfeld 2003 aegis ;) Google it
+BlogTV thanks a lot friend
Byzantines: "Jack of all trades, Master of none....but still better than a master of one."
This argument really depends on how good they are at being the jack of all trades. And they are quite good in everything actually.
what civs are master os one ?
juanma9511 Huns, Goths, and Aztecs come to mind.
Urban Cohort
they seem preatty good civs as far as i know
Indeed they are. Just because it's a common saying doesn't make it true XD
Still, versatility is a strength of the byzantines.
14:45 its hilarious how the monk tries to convince the barracks to join the dark side and the barracks screams heresy and kills itself.
LOL
So that's why I liked the Byzantines so much back then, their castle-unit is all like "Fuck your counters." and that explains why my Turks got their asses so easily removed that one game today.
+Tarik360 The awkward moment when Turks conquered Byzantines in real life :D
+tazeris To be fair, whilst they didn't have 'direct' allies when they needed them most, it's not like christian Europe didn't try to sink the Ottomans... They just failed - e.g. The Battle of Varna.
+tazeris Not just days. The Ottoman siege lasted for months. But I'm not talking about that. They didn't receive reinforcements during the siege because the Ottomans had already beaten back a catholic crusade just a few years prior, and those who hadn't participated in the crusade didn't see much hope for saving constantinople by that point - and even less value in trying.
+tazeris Good side from evil? Please care to elaborate?
"it is a freakin gate of hell for europe, a bastion that separate good side from evil,"
Do you mean that Europe is the good side and Turkish empire the evil?
It's a bit silly that the giant reason to use the Cataphracts is completely in hidden stats. On the outside, they are simply uselesy when compared to the knight line of units, but their hidden stats are simply insane.
Paladins may beat them in battles, but who would really want to use paladins against a civilization that can produce halberdiers at reduced cost?
Tyrian3k or cheap heavy camels
When i started the game many years ago i had the idea that having all eco tecs, paladin and hand canoner is the most important thing, so i took byzanz and made Paladins, and i joked to.myself, "lol the chatapract is pointless even more expensive than the k ight and weaker" good was i wrong.....
@@KleinerGrenadier thats me in my childhood when i didnt had internet to get all these details ;-;
Conquistadors, Mangudais, other most of Heavy Cavalry Archer Unique Units (Genitours, Arambai, Kipchak), Heavy Cavalry Archers of Turks, Hun, Mongol etc, Paladins, Boyars, all kind of Elephants and Chu Ko Nu beat Cataphracts. Heavy Cavalries(full upgrade) of Turks, Bumese, Chinese may beats. Heavy Camels, Heavy Cavalries, Janissaries, Hand Cannoeers and Halberdiers can support to Heavy Cavalry Archers against to Paladins and Cataphract. Composition of Large group of Skirmishers, Arbalesters and Archer Unique Units, Scorpions and small group of Halberdier can be tried lack of Cavalry and Cavalry Archer. But less effective
@@orkunyucel3095 Byzantines can win everyone if you play slightly better, if you are equal skilled it depends on the map/position/enemy civ. But its common knowledge that if you think you are better, you just play Byzantines :)
Cataphracts will come at the end, when they will be ahead in the economy/tech and a mix with really cheap trash units and/or good monks will destroy any enemy composition.
10 months ago you had 2500 subs...... And now you're at 36000..... Awesome job man
46500 now. :) Let's hope he won't pull a ZeroEmpires move aswell. :P
50.000 now and still going strong
+Erdem Aras 57.000
Amazing 69000 now
almost 80K
So in a nutshell:
The Byzantines are really tuff to kill and if you try to attack them with highly upgraded units, they will just throw pikemen in your face until you die. :D
+TheFancyRoman sounds like what happened with Constantinople in real life :P
Yeah:
Byzantine: HAHAHAA! Fuck you Ottomans!... ottomen? Whatever! We have a 10 by 56 meter wall wich you cant destroy! >:D
Ottomans: We have gunpowder.
I dont know how large that wall was
+TheFancyRoman The walls actually stopped the cannons, the huge Ottoman cannons took such a long time to reload they had time to repear the walls.
Oh... then what was the reason why Constantinople fell then?
They were vastly outnumbered, and If I recall correctly an Italian dude who brought about 800 troops he had payed for himself was given command of the defence, and during a skirmish he was wounded, and pulled back. The men saw this, and a small retreat began, wich left a very small gap open, from where the Ottomans flooded in. The rest is history. (This is also history). I think thats about the situation, there were also many other reasons, but I think that was the last drop! Anyways, this is just a 15 year old guys memory, so dont take it as an absoluta fact!
I just ran across these videos, and man, you have got absolutely superb production value. Congrats on your subscriber base (+1 here), and thank you!
Seeing today's release of the new Byzantine overview made me come back to this one, and my my, how far you've come since 2500 subscribers.
I remember discovering you and T90 back in mid-late 2015 while I was in college, and actually copying your style in early 2017 when making my own tutorials for a browser game called Dominus. I only ever made a half dozen before I stopped playing when I graduated and went into a full-time job, but I enjoyed doing it.
And I've been a longtime sub and fan of your content. I love your mathematical analyses of this 20+ year old game.
Keep it up, man!
Byzantines is love
binge watching this playlist , so good
its 5 years later and amazing how i can go back, enjoy and relearn a lot of things. Thank you for such amaging job for so much time!
Thank you so much for your enjoyable, very well researched, greatly edited videos!
Byzantines are my personal favorite, along with the Italians.
wooo go Byzantines ! The best civ in AoE and the true descendants of the Roman Empire !
RoyalGuard1001 lol you're royal guard from pixelated apollo's mtw2 videos, right?
RoyalGuard1001 not really descendants; they were the Roman Empire itself after the Western part fell.
lol. there arent any descendants. the romans went extinct during the fucking dark ages
htf5555 Uh no lol. The Eastern Romans survived until the Ottomans killed them in 1453. The whole idea of the “Dark Ages” killing Rome is a product of the Enlightenment, so it’s more or less complete bullcrap.
@@htf5555 The Byzantine isn't even a valid term, it came later after the empire collapsed. They was Romans (everyone called them like that). The terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire were coined in modern times to describe political entities that were de facto independent; contemporary Romans did not consider the Empire to have been split into two separate empires but viewed it as a single polity governed by two separate imperial courts as an administrative expediency. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, and the Western imperial court in Ravenna was formally dissolved by Justinian in 554. The Eastern imperial court survived until 1453.
Great review, I love listening to your reviews Spirit.
Your videos are always very informative. I love that. Keep it up.
0:19 Listen the eargasmic jingle.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
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The Byzantines were my favorite civilization when I first got the game. They suited my play style perfectly. I'm a defensive player who waits for the late game to do most of my fighting. I also prefer water maps (where my micro happened to be better than on land based maps). I found that I could usually replenish my navy faster than my opponent after a major battle.
2,500 subs back then! Wow Spirit has come a long way!
Anti anti cavalry cavalry: Cataphract
Anti anti infantry infantry: Huskarl
Anti anti archer archer: Chu Ko Nu
Cataphract, as Spirit said, is countered cost effectively by Paladins. You're thinking of Boyars. Huskarl excells in pierce armor, it's an anti archer unit, not anti meele. You're thinking of Teutonic Knights or Jaguar Warriors. Chu Ko Nu manages a bit better than regular archer against Skirmishers and other high pierce armor targets [still not great] it doesn't posses significant bulk, bonus damage or enough own pierce armor to call it anti archer. You're thinking of Rattan Archers.
Otherwise, everything checks out.
@@michabaron4129 read what i wrote, please
@@Kxoe559 ah, there we go, I've made a fool out of myself
lol
except Teutonic knights can crush huskarls
DO MAYANS NAO!
Your channel is great. I always knew Aoe2 was a math game! And your content proves it and all I have to do is watch it, sit back, and relax. Once again, great channel and great content! I have subbed.
14:54 villager moonwalking!
I don't think I've seen a bad video out of you yet. Keep it up!
The Mayans :D an amazing Civ! I look forward to that, and to see your view on the Saracens.
This was my favorite civilization!
+Achillez I love the Byzantines to. They're pretty much the Romans, because they're the "Eastern Roman Empire". Rome never truly fell in the 5th century, it just changed places.
+sgauden02 I think Roman Empire was more about attack, not defence :P but if you speaking about superiority, i can see that.
+Thessaloz George And then they got christianized.
+sgauden02 Y'know what's REALLY funny about this whole Byzantines coming from the Romans stuff?
In Age of Empires 1, the Romans didn't have Cataphracts. They were mostly just infantry focused, plus siege, but their cavalry stopped at the "Cavalry" unit. They didn't even upgrade it to "Heavy Cavalry".
But in Age of Empires 2, the Byzantines (which are supposed to succeed the Roman Empire) follow a completely different line, focusing on defense and their infantry being average while their cavalry is very diverse. Plus, this time, they have Cataphracts, something completely denied to them.
It's like the Romans and the Byzantines are two totally completely different civilizations! One would not think the latter was the successor of the former if he/she did not know that aspect of History yet.
MrDibara the cataphract developed as a response to the tactics of their neighboring countries, it makes sense if you relate them to the flexibility of the Roman army. cataphract armor looks like a full body lorica segmentata/chain mail combo up close, and influenced the later European knight armor of the late medieval period. I think byzantine armor still looks pretty sick though, even by comparison to later and more advanced plate armors
One thing which I think was worth a mention but you didn't was they get full gunpowder. Despite being expensive, gunpowder often gives that high damage punch you need.
trevor Wilkinson exactly
trevor Wilkinson I didn't intentionally hide the fact they have the 3 gunpowder units, but yeah, I don't usually see them as a separate gunpowder group, but rather, the hand cannoneer as part of the archer set, bombard cannon as part of the seige, etc.
When I talked about the lack of punch that I've found the Byzantines have the post imperial age, comparing their units to the Mayan Eagle Warrior, Frank/Hun Paladin, Korean siege/wagon, Persian War Elephant, etc. Maybe I'm overlooking something, but I don't think Byzantines should really be using hand cannoneers at all (except maybe just after you advance to imperial) - what can the unit do that can't be done better and more efficiently with Cataphracts and Skirmishers? :/ They're also a bit too easily slaughtered, in my opinion, to raid someone's base unprotected, like Eagles and Paladins can. That was just my line of thinking, but I'm intrigued about why you brought gunpowder up.
Spirit Of The Law I think bombards are underrated as they are a great counter to trebs and can be created faster and cheaper. With the chemistry upgrade which you should do anyway to get that +1 on range units, you don't have to spend a fortune on tech-ing into hand cannoneers. They are great against melee units and their main weakness is onagers, as even though skirms have a bonus against them, they have a bonus against skirms too. They have a high damage output and have little health, like most archers, So behind a protective wall they provide a good punch. I like to use hussar as a meatshield and to push, with hand cannons and cannons as to deal the damage. cannons also deal great with onagers if you mirco them complimenting the weakness of the hand cannons.
I often feel gunpowder is seperate from the usual tech lines as a bunch of civs don't get good gunpowder and this limits unit choice.
Spirit Of The Law Halberds are a very cost-effective way to kill cataphracts despite their bonus damage resistance, simply because the bonus halberds get is very high, unlike pikes and camels. Hand cannoneers are a good way to deal with mass halberds, since the Byzantine siege line is lacking other than the bombard cannon, which isn't the best siege weapon against units.
@@SpiritOfTheLaw way late to reply, sorry, but I have gotten some decent use out of hand cannons in the past when in very late imp age when gold starts getting tight.
Screened by a good bit of halbs (ala the pike and shot era irl)and using some decent tactics (probably using staggered formation) to make sure that they survive well and your halbs take the brunt of the casualties they're a decent way to get some more power/pop count in your army and counter anti-trash units without putting your gold units on the front line (you will need some cavalry to hit siege/other tactically significant targets quickly though).
If you're well into a war of attrition and trying to maximize the amount of resources (esp gold) you come out of in any engagement (win or loose) having your gold units in the rear where they can bail if things go south, and avoid casualties if they go well is circumstantially viable at least at non-elite levels of play (I haven't gone that high, so I can't comment there, myself)
Very nice video! I'm glad you're doing the Mayans next. They're my favorite and I wanna learn more about them.
Wargod Brothers I'm not turning it down because eventually I would love to see him do a video for every Civ, but FYI, at last with non-hd/forgotten high level people, Mayans are super popular. there was big tournament called "war is coming" or wic for short. at one point one of the dudes on CZcams/twitch who commentates AoE2 games was all "oh look at that, another Mayan sling".
I'm not saying there is necessarily a guide because i haven't looked, and I'm not saying any guide found will be as cool as Laws' videos :p, but there are definitely examples of high level Mayan play out there! :D
Hahonryuu God yes. The WiC tournament was a fucking dissapointment. Wanna win? Sling the mayans. All the games were the same
Man, 5 years ago, 25,000 subs. You’ve come a long way.
Hi There, I'm gonna throw the request out for the Goths. They're my absolute favorite, but they're probably not as competitively viable as other races, still love that mass of fast producing infantry though. It would be fun to learn their strengths and weaknesses in the detail that you give your civ reviews.
Looking forward to the next one.
Thanks for all the hard work!
Even though they're labeled as a "defensive" civ, i like to castle rush with Byzantines. Reason being, putting forward castles up around enemy town can kill opponent badly with their extra building hp bonus(Byzantine castles are very hard to kill sooo many hp) and even without a stable the basic cats make a solid early unit to use before oppenent can get upgrades for its own units. They lack the push post imp in large part to no blast furnace, so imping quick & staying on top of enemy base is key to win quickly as Byzantines.
Amazing as always!
Don't worry. Your pronunciation is fine. It sounds much more similar to the Greek or Italian pronunciation than the silly Brits do.
I pronounce it "Eastern Roman Empire". Sometimes swap Eastern for Late. ;X
No you don't.
lel
+No I don't
That's pretty close... there are more and more historians fessing up that the Byzantine Empire never existed and was in fact some form of post-Eastern Roman Empire sort of thing...
+PowermadNavigator Historians? Ya sure?
1MoreRep
Well, in the end it's their call that matters to a lot of people... then again, it's way too optimistic to believe most of what's in the history books at today's schools and universities...
Spirit, you should redo some of these Civ overviews. Much has changed and I'm sure you have some different opinions regarding certain strategies and aspects of these Civs. It would be cool to see you review your Civ overviews. Particularly with Civs like this and the britons and all your early on videos! You're awesome!
I came from your last videos, just to laugh on how OP are the cataphracts. Keep your good work brother!
Great video as usual. Like I told you before, I really dig these Civ overviews. definitely keep them coming. If i had to vote i would love to see the other forgotten civs, Magyars Incas Italians and Indians. You've already read my mind and did some of my favorite Civs already (Teutons, Japanese, and Byzantines) and added a new favorite as well (Slavs)
if not the forgotten ones (seriously though, so many people ignore them because the mainstream is non HD/forgotten it seems like =/) then i vote for two other ones i like, the Chinese and Spanish. Or less used ones like Turks or Koreans.
I swear, most times I look for a game to watch from high level people, unless its random civs, its all Huns Aztecs Mayans Vikings(if water) with maybe some others here and there, but mostly those 4. Water is ALWAYS viking unless random -_-
As an Englishman I can confirm that literally no English person I know says by-zan-tynes, we all say bih-zan-teens
Sulphuric_Glue - Depends where in England. Me and my mates say Bye-Zan-Tynes.
I'm from East Sussex and i say Biz-anne-teens
I’m Cheshire and that word is too long for us farmers-
But I say bye-zan-tines
I always pronounced it Rho-man Im-pie-er
Buy-Zan-Tines. Because it was centred around Byzantium. (Buy-Zan-Tee-Um).
You're Canadian, aren't you?
Great video! I love the Byzantines.
Here's a critique, YOUR AWSOME!! Thank you for the accurate videos.
2500 subs... Blows my mind how far the channel has come since then. It has a hundred times more than that now.
I love hearing him thank the viewers for 2500 subscribes, as of this comment he's at 144K and deserves it. The internet needs more factual, proven analysis, but more than that it needs more content creators who try to be genuinely good people in their videos.
2016 - 2.5K
2019 - 144K
2022 - 365K :)
"Impeyro, Aago, Presto, Saane, Correctus"
Equelen, rodbouget, yus, choppa, diig
Latin.
@@deaclavilis6760 Salve
@@Aryan-hv3lw Salve o amice.
I haven't played AoE in years but I still enjoy these videos!
Between your videos and the music in the video. Your great at making videos keep it up
Byzantines: Super-Saver Civilization.
hi there, thank you for your videos, great job! I think cataphracts with logistica can beat frank paladins in number, e. g. 40 vs 40, can you do a test of in what numbers cataphracts start wining?
I took the quiz twice with slightly differently answers and got the Byzantines both times. I wanted to make sure I was using the beat civ for what I wanted to accomplish and it turns out I was. Thanks for the overview and the quiz; both are very helpful.
Great detail in this review
out of topic, I just love your voice
Thx 4 making this vid. i would love to see a vid about the not so common civs, like the koreans,Italians, etc.
Nice, thanks. I have been waiting for this one. :D
Great video. Can't wait for the Mayans!
Actually, according to my Greek dad you're pronouncing Byzantine correctly.
+TyranidsBJ Im pretty sure even english people pronounce it like that. Im no english myself, and i do speak english with a heavy norvegian accent, but, i think zero empires ( the person running the zero empires channel) is english, he speaks with a strong english accent and even he pronounces it like that.
How to pronounce it correctly:
Bee - zn - teen
How to not pronounce it correctly:
Bai - zn - teen
+nem tudom I pronounce it like that too and I'm also English. In fact I've never even heard the alternative.
MGX93dot Me neither, even tho im FAR from being english, but atleast i can still be a gentleman! Also i wish i could speak with an english accent, thats just so sexy.
It's Βυζαντινή. Pronounced: vee-zah-dee-nee.
Always my favourite team and unit (Cataphract).
Hi! I love all your overviews. Could you make a picture or a video making a comparison between all the civs. Something like a comparison chart when we can see de marks of all the civilizations in their different aspects! I will be very grateful to you!
my favorite civ ally combo is byzantine (me), Aztec, chinese. I just played a game recently where my cataphract army was nearly crushed by a massed wall of briton long bows until my Aztec ally came in with a wall of monks and started converting the enemy units and driving them back. The Aztec monks also benefit from the byzantine team bonus, allowing them to heal faster, and between the three civs you have you infantry, archers, cavalry, seige, and navy covered.
damn,I played as the byzantines,only to know that
Infantry rushed,use catapract
Archer Rushed,use Cheap Skirmisher
Cavalry Rushed,use Spears
Siege Rushed,use cataphract + Some Light Cavalry,to deal with archers
Random FatCat - Yes they are great civ, but how do you defend if you get rushed in the Feudal Age and can't produce Caraphracts before you have a castle? Byzantines biggest weakness is early rushes IMO
I feel like bombard canon is a huge advantage. It makes trebuchet obsolete because there is no downtime for assembly/disassembly while still having the overpowered range. Byzantines have been my favorite civilization for a long time because of the tech tree, but you are right it's not so good for a early game rush...
man, your style changed so much since 2015... I like that
good work!!!
Actually Byzantines are my favorite civilizations to play they have everything
Spirit Of The Law I don't understand why the Byzantines lack Parthian Tactics in their tech trees, the Roman Republic fought against the Parthian Empire (Persia) and even continued to war as the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire against the Sassanids, having fought them for most of a millennium would have taught the Roman / Byzantine commanders at least *some* of the tactics employed by their eastern neighbors. Byzantines also lacking siege engineers strikes me as odd as well, considering Roman / Byzantine engineers were not exclusive to building roads and aqueducts. The lack of Architecture also seems out of place (especially since it would make them the *uber* defensive civ with harder to kill buildings) due to the fact that Roman and Byzantine engineers were responsible for maintenance and construction of things like Aqueducts, THE *HAGIA SOPHIA* which was the largest church in Europe for almost 1,000 years.
Then you go ask how the chinese and vietnamese lack handcannons. They invented gunpowder in the end
And they had some of the best siege (in real life)0
And better medicine than most of the civs with herbal medicine.
And the treadmill crane invented by _Rome_ was only, to my knowledge, lost in the former western empire (and the Byzantine Empire was known for being able to put up structures quickly, as seen when they rebuilt the walls of Constantinople when they were knocked down by an earthquake before and invading army could reach the city.
And the fire ships as depicted in game should be a unique unit
Etc.
Yeah, they had to nerf the Byzantines big time for balance.
Thank You Sooooo Mush
this and mongols are my all time favorite civs, when i was a kid in vanilla aoe2 the first time i beat hardest ai i just walled up and played defensive as byzantines.
sooo...the cataphracts are basically anti-anti cavalry-cavalry units ?
anti infantry
?!
Double negative, you basically just said they are cavalry units.
ItsDoomMan Unknown It's a joke regarding how Spirit describes units with weird niches.
Yeah xD I didn't know about this crazy defense bonuses vs pikes and camels
4:01
that gave me anxiety... xD
Your videos are making want to play AOE again .
Watching this before friday's tournament. Amazing job. Until now, i belive the Spanish, Japanese and Bysantine are my top three.
so would cataphracts negate the anti-cav bonus on geonese crossbowmen from FE?
"Speaking of which, I have been listening to the requests you've been making, and the most popular has been the Byzantine-"
*HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*
YESSSSS... Thank you for posting these guides
These have helped me so much to learn so much about this game and how to play
Thanks you for posting these aoe videos
Btw first
One of my favourite opening musics
I see them as a cavalry and naval civ.
agreed but they are indeed a very defensive civ to due to their bonuses and availability of bombard towers & free town watch. defense makes for a great offense. :) i love the byzantines
I really like those fire ships and spears/skirms/camels.
Thomas Huffcutt agreed, your pikemen are canon fodder, to keep your enemies attention while your cavalry hits their weak spot. archers and monks clean up the mess.
What do you call an armoured cat?
A "CAT-A-PHRACT"
Lakrids Fisken I AM CALLING THE POLICE
Constantinople needs help!
I like puns :D
Jesus calm down there Dad.
You are the best aoe researcher out
wait, back then you only had 250 subs!? You've gone so far now!
will you be making a new set of overviews when patch 4.8 comes out?
I was already planning to redo the early overviews (including this one) and do the African Kingdom civs, but all the changes in 4.8 certainly make me more motivated to hurry up with them
re-do slavs perhaps?
Your silly american accent is right since the name comes from Byzantium which is the latin name for the greek colony that then became Constantinople.
Aye, and the Byzantines called themselves Romans :D
"But only if you call now?"
I died with that.
Byzantines were my main. My friends usually rock with high gold makers (Spanish), Britain, and Turks/mongols depending on the map.
I played mostly a flanking Calvary, and monk support.
"B" rating...And their the Byzantines...Clever.
Please make a overview of the spanish.. its my fav civ, but I cant find any good strategy.
claudio Mazzoni Similar to hun or mongol strategies, but you use conquistadors, and hit-and-run. They have a good navy as well.
***** Thank you, but how would you implement the monk aspect of their civilization?
claudio Mazzoni I don't know about that part. But the conquistadors are really really tough to deal with when the spanish player has the advantage. Mix them up with knights or light cavalry and suddenly the skirmishers start having troubles.
claudio Mazzoni Hmm good point. Just treat them like you would with regular monks. After all, their missionaries are faster and may be useful for defending against small but strong attacks, I suppose. :p
angelowl89 but isn't "everyone" tough to deal with when they have the advantage? seems like iffy logic. im not denying some civs, assuming played semi competently, apply a wee bit more pressure than others...but if you are winning and have the edge, then yeah, you are hard to deal with...so long as you are paying attention for that onager shot ^_~
Epic Video Perhaps covers everything About Byzantines.
Cheers
subscribed again. thanks for the wonderful analysis. i was really waiting for someone to compare cataphracts and paladins and explain logistica in numbers. great video
just onw thing, you said that you faced a problem of ending the game with byzantines and showed that mayans can end a game more easily . but i face difficulty with mayans too to end the game. plumed archers and eagles are not that good to just crush someone's town. i need raw paldin or samurai power or something.
waiting for your mayans review but i would really like to see chinese or koreans(espacially chinese with their chu ko nus). me and my cousin used to play chinese and japanese in 2v2 arabia. he(japanese) loaded his champions in my siege rams(chinese) and chu ko nus protecting any melee damage from opponents
Breaking News: Mayans lived in Arabia )))
NO they didnt
Silly Billy The Mayans came from Babylon so technically...
Mayans lived in Mexico...
Yes, but they didn't just grow out of the ground.
Mayan and Inca burial grounds have been founds with countless materials that cannot be found anywhere in the Americas (At least at that time) but were fairly prominent in Egypt and Arabia, so that suggests either trading (For which there is no foundation) or a migration, which seems extremely likely. Multiple people have already crossed the Atlantic ocean from various points using canoes/kayaks, so it seems to be the leading theory.
Macdeas
Actually I did see evidence of Egyptians trying to trade over the Atlantic in that era a few years back.
Apparently they stopped because at the time most of their people were slaves, servants and dept-slaves, so most of them decided to abandon crew and stay in the new land they arrived in.
Because of this only a few ships came back, leading to massive economy losses for the egyptian rich elite.
just build walls and play safe if you think the enemy player is better than you. If you are better player the variety of options will get you the win, you can counter everything. So just master Byzantines and win games :P
Btw Cataph and Camels is the best possible cavalary in this game, i don't agree with that grade, A++
Both get destroyed by really good ranged units, although I would assume that eh castle age cataphract is insane. As well, I would say that the Cataphract is probably the only unit in the game with no obvious hard counters. (I guess Genoese Crossbows might qualify, though)
@@rovsea-3761 Do Cataphracts get the bonus damage from genoese X-bows? Either way they are a good counter though.
Go Byzantines! Old School Hipster Catacraft FTW! Great Video i learned a Lot from my Favorte Empire =)
Yeah, I started to play either Byzantines or Slavs as my two main Civs for a while now. They feel so good to use in general.
As Slavs, it is the very few times I favour Champions, since I prefer using other units worth gold, but Slav Champions in hordes can clean up grouped enemies really well. Much less Halberdiers, due to calvary being sliced by them so well.
Never using Archers, using a combination of different Siege Ongars, Siege Rams, and Heavy Scorpions is something I enjoy, since I love seeing hundreds of Halberdiers being followed by Siege Weapons. Lastly, I always have Boyars as a replacement for knights, and use them to help clear up tanky units such as Champions, other Knights, and even Siege Weapons.
Same with Byzantines for the most part. I favour the use of Halberdiers and Skrimishers, often throwing in Camels only when I see the enemy has a large assortment of Knights that are too much for Halberdiers alone. Although their Siege is weak, Siege Rams and Trebuchets pretty much fill the lack of Siege Ongars and Heavy Scorpions, along with cheaper trash units. They also have the Cataphracts, which has a similar trample element that Slav Infantry have, as well as acting as an Anti-Anti-Calvary Infantry Unit, making it good against Halberdiers and such whilst negating enemies from using the same cheap soldiers I am using to better deal with my 'knights'.
I also love how both have Monk Upgrades, as I like to use Monks to gather Relics and heal the units equivalent to knights, as well as steal enemy infantry. I also usually use Hussars whenever I feel that Siege or Monks are a greater problem, and they fill that role fine. Overall, when I play, I pick either or.
How can you counter 200 British longbowmen when they shoot out your siege before it gets in range?
Put skirms into rams and send them alongside with onagers and hussars maybe
Assuming the longbowmen do not readjust their targets and shoot the Onagers to oblivion that is. Which a human player would most likely do.
Knights
William put elite skirmishers in rams, a la troje
Huskarl Flood drowns everyone
I don't pronounce them Byzantines, in either form.The proper name is Eastern Roman Empire.
yeah, you're wrong; john's more toward the right idea. much like saying "byzantine empire," "eastern roman empire" is a modern historiographic convention; they called themselves Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων
(Basileía Rhōmaíōn) or Imperium Romanum, in greek and latin, respectively. in other words, they saw themselves as the true heirs to the roman empire, and would probably have taken issue with the "eastern" stipulation
I'm from the UK and I've always pronounced it the same way you do!
really like your intro song
1 problem:Romania is in the north of Bulgaria
I don't think the map is referring to the modern country Romania, but the Roman Empire, which is what the Byzantines would have thought of themselves as. I'm not a historian, but maybe Romania was Greek or Latin for Roman? This map also uses the same terminology: 1.bp.blogspot.com/-K0y8coPIYbE/Tuvd9jzCfJI/AAAAAAAACdU/HRZpU73aeu8/s1600/Byzantine+map+Justinian.gif
Edit: sorry, fixed the link
well,it surely is not your fault,but i just wanted to tell you that the map at the beginning isn't quite accurate
getting tired of butthurt Balkan people always complaining about nothing.
+Solomon Anderson kurva román
It's very accurate! The people in Byzantium called themselves Romans, the word byzantines came years after the occupation of Constantinople or Instabul. The language in Byzantium was Greek and not latin, because of the majority of Greeks so in Greek they were the Romans "Ρωμαίοι" and their epire was called Roman "Ρωμανία". Romania in north of Bulgaria is called in Greek "Ρουμανία" so you can understand that there isnt any mistake
japanese navy is not that good spirit
Great review as always, thanks for your work !
I've got few questions though :
Does the skirmishers get the bonus from thumb ring?
What blacksmith upgrade affects the cataphract and the skirmishers ?
Peace
I'm amazed at how much you put into the videos it's awesome! Can someone steer me in a direction on how to test units?! I can never get it right....