Byzantium
Basil II
Uniques and adjacency effects read from the game data.
Victory focusDominationReligion
Kit at a glance
Basil's Byzantium fuses crusade and conversion: units grow stronger for every Holy City following your religion, defeating enemy units spreads your faith to nearby cities, and cavalry deal full damage to cities that share it. War is the missionary work.
Opening: the first 60 turns
Basil needs a religion by the Classical era, so the opening is Holy Site first. Scout, warrior, settler, then Astrology immediately after Pottery and a Holy Site placed against mountains or woods before the second settler leaves. Follow with Bronze Working and Horseback Riding, and start Games and Recreation civics early so a Hippodrome, which grants heavy cavalry as it is built up, can be laid down in the capital before turn fifty. The second city goes to the coast if there is one, because Dromons from Shipbuilding dominate early water and their extra range makes them safe barbarian hunters. The third city should border the neighbor you intend to convert. A Great Prophet by turn sixty is the hard deadline; everything else bends around it.
Unique to this civilization
District
Hippodrome
Replaces Entertainment Complex
Civic: Games and Recreation
Unit
Dromon
Replaces Quadrireme
Technology: Shipbuilding
Adjacency effects
No adjacency bonus — standard district rules apply.
How to play it
Found a religion no matter what — the whole kit runs on it — then build hippodromes for free heavy cavalry and ride into your neighbors. Tagmata knights and faith-bought armies mean your military budget is faith, not production.
Victory paths
Domination is the primary route and it is scheduled around the Divine Right civic. Once Tagmata appear, a stack of them with a few crossbows becomes a moving zone of extra strength, and every enemy unit they destroy pushes Byzantine faith into the nearby cities, so the target is half converted before the siege begins. Cities that already follow your religion take full damage from cavalry, which removes the usual heavy-cavalry weakness against walls. Holy cities converted to your religion enlarge the bonus further. Religious victory is the natural twin: the same wars convert whole regions, and after two or three conquests most of the continent already follows you, leaving only distant civs for apostles. Choose religion over domination when the remaining enemies are overseas.
Synergies: city-states, wonders, policies
Yerevan for apostle promotions and Valletta for faith-bought walls and buildings in captured cities are the key suzerainties. Moksha in the capital gives religious units an extra promotion through Patron Saint while Victor travels with the army to hold new cities. Wonders that fit are Hagia Sophia, which stretches every religious unit's charges, and Statue of Zeus for free early units; Mahabodhi Temple's apostles double as Tagma escorts. Crusade as the enhancer belief stacks with the civ's own religious-war bonuses to absurd levels inside converted enemy land. Policy cards Chivalry, Feudal Contract and Scripture run the faith-to-cavalry economy, with Limes to keep captures. God of War is the pantheon of choice, refunding faith on every kill near a Holy Site.
Weaknesses and counters
Missing the Great Prophet ends the game plan outright, and Basil has no fallback economy, so an unlucky start with poor Holy Site adjacency and several religious rivals is genuinely dangerous. The kit is slow to start: Tagmata are a Medieval-era tool, and Dromons only matter on water, so an early rush from a neighbor finds ordinary warriors. Faith spent on cavalry is faith not spent on apostles, and players who fight before converting the target lose the full-damage bonus and struggle against walls like any other cavalry civ. Opponents should build walls, run inquisitors to purge Byzantine pressure, and keep a pikeman line; without followers to fight in, the crusade stalls. Isolated island starts or wide ocean maps leave the cavalry with nowhere to ride.
Similar civilizations
Related guides
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