Zhuge Nu Rush? Nah, let's make PALACE GUARDS

[@FalkoN-RTS]

How are Byzantines not hard nerfed yet? 1. They start with a cistern that increases gather rate. 2. Their farms are cheaper and provide 2 resources. (Cheaper and better, makes no sense) 3. Mangonel towers are OP. 4. They can basically counter all civs because of the variety from mercenary house. 5. They can make a huge army and still go castle age because of mercenary house. 6. They have increased unit production because of the cistern. And can also speed up research or boost defense with a single click. 7. Their villagers can attack too with the cistern ability. This civ is COMPLETELY ruining the ladder, if they don't get a nerf in season 8 I think many people will call a quit to this game.

[@eljouser]

In paper they sound OP. but if you check the stats, they are just at the middle of the ladder, or bellow, on all levels, averaging on 50.7% win rate. Seems perfectly balanced. Everything you said is true and great, but every civ has advantages that rivals these. Moreover, the mercenary house is not as good as you'd think: if you want to truly pump units from it, it means you'd need to float too much food to produce enough oil, and therefore lack on other resources. More importantly, Byz has no significant benefits regarding relics, siege, healing, archers, crossbows. They also lack knights and deliver a strong but hard-to-mass unit (cataphracts); they have no defensive landmark; and you need to keep expanding the cisterns to enjoy the benefit, therefore using a lot of stone, which is always in short. Right now, all civs are in a good spot and have powerfoul bonuses that rival Byz's bonuses. For example, Golden Age 1 gives 10% more gathering rate to all villagers without having to spend extra resources, and regardless of where these villagers are. Or HRE's prelate buff nearby villages by 40% gathering rate. Or Mongol's Yam Network buffs villagers and trade carts speed. Etc So, yeah, byz is fun, balanced, and versatile. But it's not OP