Byzantines

The Byzantines are a civilization within Knights and Barbarians. This article covers Bizantium in the game and its history.

Outlines Homecity: Constantinople

Personality: Emperor Basil II                                                                                                                                                                                            Revolutions: The byzantines can revolt to either of these three late medieval powers Bonuses:
 * Bulgaria:  make all units cost less resources                                                                                            * Serbia: sends serbian hussar mercenaries                                                                                            *Sicily : sends gun carracks
 * Byzantine Houses generate coin slowly
 * Byzantine age-ups cost only coin
 * Byzantine Walls are stronger and all buildings except Towers and Castles are built quicker
 * Byzantine Cavalry Archers become available one age early but also replace Light Cavalry
 * Byzantines get two free Tower Wagons with each age-up

Unique Units


 * Varangian Guard: replaces halberdier,far more capable against infantry.
 * Akritas: replaces skirmisher more a general purpose unit
 * Fire thrower: replaces hand gunner,becomes avaliable with greek fire
 * Kataphraktos: replaces knigth,slightly more powerful
 * Fire Galley: upgrades galley becomes avaliable with greek fire

Royal Guard Units


 * spearmen (Doryphoros)
 * Cavalry Archer (Trapezitos)

feudalism choices The Byzantines can choose any of these three regions in the Feudalism system:
 * Trebizond, Gateway to the Orient: benefits the gather rates for coin and XP.
 * Wallachia, Danube Lowlands: benefits gather rates for farming, as well as the stats of ranged cavalry units.
 * Epirus, the Western Frontier: benefits the building of fortifications and the cost of aging up

religions

 * orthodoxism (main religion): + villager units have more hitpoints, - villager units gather coin at a slightly slower rate.
 * Armenian Christianity (reformed religion): + villagers and cavalry have increased line-of-sight, - villagers have fewer hitpoints.
 * Judaism (outside religion): + villagers gather coin slightly faster, - Priests have fewer hitpoints, Priests move more slowly.

tatics
The bonuses of the Byzantines serve to make them the most defensive of all civilisations in Knights and Barbarians. However, they also give the Byzantines an edge in a strategy more focused on map control and raiding, if they so choose. The Byzantines are very coin-focused, and their bonuses accomodate for that.

History
The Byzantine civilisation in Knights and Barbarians represents the Byzantine Empire, one of the major powers of the early middle ages, and still significantly influential in later centuries, when its power had dwindled, but its prestige had remained largely untouched. The Byzantine Empire was in the unique position of being able to claim to be a direct continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire. In fact, the Byzantines prefered to refer to themselves as Romans, and they took pride in being able to call Constantinople, the Byzantine homecity in Knights and Barbarians, their capitol. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Byzantium was keen to take over some previously Roman territories, which they did with some success, conquering southern Iberia and significant parts of Italy. The Byzantines even briefly held the city of Rome itself.

All things considered, the Byzantines hadn't fared at all badly in the power vacuum that was created when the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist. Soon however, it would prove impossible for Byzantium to defend its widely stretched empire against other empires that had started to come into prominence. The Byzantines directly faced the Rashidun Caliphate, to which it lost Egypt and the Holy Land, as well as its successor the Umayyad Caliphate, to which Byzantium lost its Iberian holdings, Sicily and all territories it had left in Syria. Meanwhile, the rise of the Franks in Western Europe proved to be another headache for the Byzantines. While the Byzantines and Franks never declared war on each other, Frankish conquests did make it very difficult for Byzantium to undertake any military expeditions to Italy, and when Charlemagne declared himself Western Roman Emperor, Byzantine ambitions in Western Europe were made completely impossible. The only empire of the early Middle Ages that the Byzantines faced with some success was the First Bulgarian Empire, situated directly north of Constantinople. Some Byzantine emperors were more succesful in facing the Bulgarian threat than others, but judging by his nickname "the Bulgar-slayer", Emperor Basil II of the Macedonian dynasty, the Byzantine AI personality in Knights and Barbarians, was pretty adept at dealing with the Bulgarians to the north.

After the death of Basil, and the fall of the Macedonian dynasty, Byzantium fell into a long period of decline. The Crusades brought some temporary solace, but eventually the Crusades would turn against the Byzantines, as Constantinople was sacked in the Fourth Crusade, and the Byzantines were left with nothing else than the Despotate of Epirus, a poor agricultural region on the Adriatic coast. The Palaiologos dynasty would attempt to bring the Byzantine Empire back to its former glory, but didn't really manage to do so. Constantinople was reconquered under the Palaiologoi, but the empire was already standing with one foot in the grave. The Ottoman Empire would deal the final blow to the Byzantines, conquering region after region, until in 1453, Constantinople itself was conquered, and the Byzantine empire ceased to exist.