Trebizond, Gateway to the Orient: benefits the gather rates for coin and XP.The Byzantines can choose any of these three regions in the Feudalism system: Judaism (outside religion): + villagers gather coin slightly faster, - Priests have fewer hitpoints, Priests move more slowly.Armenian Christianity (reformed religion): + villagers and cavalry have increased line-of-sight, - villagers have fewer hitpoints.Orthodoxism (main religion): + villager units have more hitpoints, - villager units gather coin at a slightly slower rate.The Byzantines have a choice of the following three religions: The Byzantines start each game with 6 Peasants, 2 Crates of Food and 2 Crates of Wood. The Byzantines are part of the European civset, which means they get the Town Square and its Feudalism system, as well as the possibility to fire up a Revolution, and access to Royal Guard upgrades. 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.

Constantinople was reconquered under the Palaiologoi, but the empire was already standing with one foot in the grave. The Palaiologos dynasty would attempt to bring the Byzantine Empire back to its former glory, butДidn't really manage to do so.

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. Pretty adept at dealing with the Bulgarians to the north.ДЄfter the death of Basil, and the fall of the Macedonian dynasty, Byzantium fell into a long period of decline. 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 Some Byzantine emperors were more succesful in facing 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. 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. Meanwhile, the rise of the Franks in Western Europe proved to be another headache for the Byzantines. 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. 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 even briefly held the city of Rome itself.ДЄll 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. 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. 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.

The ByzantineEmpire was in the unique position of being able to claim to be a direct continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire. 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.

Age of empires 2 byzantines