History Characters / AgeOfEmpiresIV

* BoringButPractical: While only lightly armored, Horsemen are very cheap to train and can still remain as viable raiders and general workhorse cavalry well into the late-game.

* DrumsOfWar: The Mehter is a unique Ottoman cavalry unit that serves as a war drummer, enhancing the attack and defence of any nearby units.

* DefogOfWar: English Men-at-Arms can build campfires, which, in addition to its natural line of sight, also boosts that of nearby allied units.

Man-at-Arms can construct campfires, granting +30% sight range to nearby units\\

'''Landmarks''': Council Hall[[note]]Archery Range that produces units at double speed[[/note]]/Abbey of Kings[[note]]can produce the King, heals nearby friendly units that are out of combat[[/note]], King's Palace[[note]]acts as a Town Center with double health[[/note]]/White Tower[[note]]acts as a Keep with double production and research speed[[/note]], Berkshire Palace[[note]]acts as a Keep with all projectiles having a 15 tile range, all arrows fired will be incendiary[[/note]]/Wynguard Palace[[note]]produces a choice of four unit batches to train, including the unique Ranger and Footman[[/note]]\\

* LesCollaborateurs: Yuan Raiders are Mongol horsemen who have thrown their lot with the Chinese and excel against economic units.

!!Sofa

* JackOfAllStats: The Sofa is a 'medium' cavalry unit, in comparison to the Horseman (light cavalry) and Knight/Lancer (heavy cavalry). Compared to the Knight/Lancer, the Sofa is weaker in combat, but also cheaper and faster.

* AwesomePersonnelCarrier: Though it's mostly meant for destroying buildings, you can also use it as an effective troop transport by putting Varrangian Guards inside. Thanks to the Byzantines' unique bonus, doing so increases the thing's armor by one with each Guard inside, making it incredibly effective at bringing the Varrangians close to the enemy unscathed. As for the awesome part, it's basically a medieval APC with flamethrower.

* WorkerUnit: The Trader has no combat capacities whatsoever and instead travels between a home Market and either a Trade Post or another player's Market, gathering gold in the process (and potentially other resources with civilisation-specific bonuses).

* WorkerUnit: The Trader is incapable of combat whatsoever and instead travels between a home Market and either a Trade Post or another player's Market, gathering gold in the process (and potentially other resources with civilisation-specific bonuses).

* AnnoyingArrows: The main weakness of archers is that their arrows only deal bonus damage against light-armored units, like Spearmen, and are ineffective against heavy units, like Men-at-Arms and Knights.

* RenovatingThePlayerHeadquarters: Unique among other civilizations, the Abbasids and Ayyubids can only build ''one'' Landmark, namely the House of Wisdom. Instead, new wings are added to it as a prerequisites for advancing to the next Age, each giving distinct bonuses or units.

* FireBreathingWeapon: The Cheirosiphon is equipped with Greek Fire, which remains over time and leaves burning ground that deals damage to anything caught in the blaze

* EliteMooks: Bannermen units are not only all Samurai, but are also more powerful than their melee, archer and cavalry equivalents.

** '''Industrial''': The Byzantines have access to cisterns, which massively boost the gather rate and military production of any worker or building in their vicinity. While this bonus can take a while to get going, the Byzantines can churn out units like there's no tomorrow once they do. Further bolstering this are their Landmarks, which periodically produce free unit in the case of the Golden Horn Tower or occasionally spawn free extra units in the case of the Palatine School.

** '''Elitist''': Byzantine unique units tend to cost a fair bit more than the base units of other civs, which they make up for with greater stats. This is not always a straight upgrade, however. Only the Limitanei and Cataphracts are straight-up better than their base counterparts, while the Varangians trade some health for greater damage. The Cheirosiphon is situationally better than the base ram depending on whether they are garrisoned by Varangians or not. Furthermore, the Byzantine army roster is supplemented by mercenaries, who can get rid of any glaring hole in their base roster at the cost of being difficult to mass since they cost a lot in Olives and take a while to come out.

** '''Science''': The afforementioned cisterns also boost the research speed of their technologies, allowing the Byzantines to rapidly outtech their foes or play catchup if fallen behind.
** '''Elitist''': Byzantine unique units tend to cost a fair bit more than the base units of other civs, which they make up for with greater stats. This is not always a straight upgrade, however. Only the Limitanei and Cataphracts are straight-up better than their base counterparts, while the Varangians trade some health for greater damage. The Cheirosiphon is situationally better than the base ram depending on whether or not they are garrisoned by Varangians. Furthermore, the Byzantine army roster is supplemented by mercenaries, who can get rid of any glaring hole in their base roster at the cost of being difficult to mass since they cost a lot in Olives and take a while to come out.

* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: Thanks to their InstantMilitia ability, Byzantine villagers can turn the table on raiding horsemen and hunt them down with spears instead.

** For a faction that is described by the game as defense-focused, the Byzantines are arguably one of the least defensive factions. The problem comes from the fact that their strongest defensive bonuses, like the cistern's Praesidium influence and mangonel emplacements, only come to play in the late game and after heavy stone investments. Early on, not only do the Byzantines not have any significant defensive bonuses, they are also among the few civs to not have any military landmarks that can act as a keep, leaving them unable to obtain a defensive strongpoint by ageing up like many other factions. Even when the Byzantines do gain access to stone defense in Age 3, their reliance on stone to build cisterns in earlier ages often leaves them slightly strapped for it by that point, making them unable to get their defenses up as quickly as others. By contrast, civs like the Rus, Chinese and English all have access to powerful defensive landmarks on top of not needing stone to boost their gather rate, allowing them to afford a much more extensive and earlier defense.

* FoeTossingCharge: The Trample ability lets Cataphract plow straight through the enemy line, allowing them to reach the enemy backline and attack their siege or ranged units. A spearwall can stop this, but a big enough Cataphract charge can plow through that anyway.

* '''Science''': The afforementioned cisterns also boost the research speed of their technologies, allowing the Byzantines to rapidly outtech their foes or play catchup if fallen behind.
* '''Elitist''': Byzantine unique units tend to cost a fair bit more than the base units of other civs, which they make up for with greater stats. This is not always a straight upgrade, however. Only the Limitanei and Cataphracts are straight-up better than their base counterparts, while the Varangians trade some health for greater damage. The Cheirosiphon is situationally better than the base ram depending on whether or not they are garrisoned by Varangians. Furthermore, the Byzantine army roster is supplemented by mercenaries, who can get rid of any glaring hole in their base roster at the cost of being difficult to mass since they cost a lot in Olives and take a while to come out.

* ACommanderIsYou: Industrial/Science. One of the two central gimmicks of the faction is that they can build cisterns, which grant a hefty speed bonus to workers and buildings around them. This includes both unit production and research, so the Byzantines can churn out units like there's no tomorrow once they get their economy rolling. This is supplemented by several of their landmarks, which produce units for free. The other central gimmick is that the faction has a fourth resource, Olive Oil, which can be used to recruit unique units from other factions, so the already spammy Byzantines can spam even more units using only the bonus resource they get from gathering food.

** For a faction that is described by the game as defense-focused, the Byzantines are arguably one of the least defensive factions. The problem comes from the fact that their strongest defensive bonuses, like the cistern's Praesidium influence and mangonel emplacements, only come to play in the late game and after heavy stone investments. Early on, not only do the Byzantines not have any significant defensive bonuses, they are also among the few civs to not have any military landmarks that can act as a keep at all, leaving them unable to obtain a defensive strongpoint by ageing up like many other factions. Even when the Byzantines do gain access to stone defense in Age 3, their reliance on stone to build cisterns in earlier ages often leaves them slightly strapped for it by that point, leaving their defensive work a bit delayed compared to everyone else. By contrast, the Rus, Chinese and English all have access to powerful defensive landmarks on top of not needing stone to boost their economy, allowing them to afford much more extensive and earlier defense. The Rus in particular even have the ability to train cheap militia units from their Kremlin landmark, making them extremely resistant to an early rush at very little investment. In comparison, the Byzantines' only unique countermeasure against an early rush is their [[InstantMilitia Akritoi]] ability, which is situationally useful at best (the ability is indeed good at shutting down an enemy tower rush) and a good way to kill off one's valuable villagers at worst.
** Furthermore, it's perfectly viable, if even recommended, to play the Byzantines as an aggressive faction; one of their Age I landmarks is the Hippodrome, which allows for the recruitment and buffing of horsemen as soon as the new age begins. Along with this, the Byzantines have two powerful technologies, Expilatores[[note]]gives increased damage against villagers and make them drop gold for horsemen[[/note]] and Trapezites[[note]]make any unit near a scout do more torch damage to buildings[[/note]], which turn horsemen into peasant killing machines that can also quickly destroy buildings. If the enemy's base defense proves too much, the Byzantines can in turn send in the Limitanei, whose ranged resistance allow them to just tank the Town Center's arrows while they burn it to the ground.

* CannonFodder: Thanks to their relatively low cost, quick training time and durability against ranged attacks, Limitanei are meatshields par excellence. On their own, Limitanei will die in droves to virtually any infantry due to Shield Wall crippling their damage output. When used as disposable speed bumps to hold the enemy in place, however, Limitanei will quickly prove their worth buying time for your ranged and siege units to blast the enemy into pieces.

* CannonFodder: Thanks to their low cost (80 food and 10 wood, which are readily available in the late-game), quick training time and durability against ranged attacks, Limitanei are meatshields par excellence. What they lack in killing ability, they make up for in staying power, being vulnerable to neither cavalry nor archers thanks to Shieldwall, allowing them to be excellent speed bumps against enemy advance while friendly ranged units rain down fire on them.

* CannonFodder: Thanks to their low cost, quick training time and durability against ranged attacks, Limitanei are meatshields par excellence. What they lack in killing ability, they make up for in staying power, being vulnerable to neither cavalry nor archers, allowing them to be an excellent speed bump against enemy advance while friendly ranged units rain down fire on the enemy.

* CannonFodder: Thanks to their low cost, quick training time and durability against ranged attacks, Limitanei are meatshields par excellence. What they lack in killing ability, they make up for in staying power, being vulnerable to neither cavalry nor archers, allowing them to hold the line while friendly ranged units rain down fire on the enemy.

* MightyGlacier: Thanks to their low cost, quick training time and durability against ranged attacks, Limitanei are meatshields par excellence. What they lack in killing ability, they make up for in staying power, being vulnerable to neither cavalry nor archers, allowing them to hold the line while friendly ranged units rain down fire on the enemy.

* StanceSystem: Limitanei can form Roman legionary-style shield walls for extra protection and durability at the expense of unit speed.

** For a faction that is described by the game as defense-focused, the Byzantines are arguably one of the least defensive factions. The problem comes from the fact that their strongest defensive bonuses, like the cistern's Praesidium influence and mangonel emplacements, only come to play in the late game and after heavy stone investments. Early on, not only do the Byzantines not have any significant defensive bonuses, they are also are among the few civs to not have any military landmarks that can act as a keep at all, leaving them unable to obtain a defensive strongpoint by ageing up like many other factions. Even when the Byzantines do gain access to stone defense in Age 3, their reliance on stone to build cisterns in earlier ages often leaves them slightly strapped for it by that point, leaving their defensive work a bit delayed compared to everyone else. By contrast, the Rus, Chinese and English all have access to powerful defensive landmarks on top of not needing stone to boost their economy, allowing them to afford much more extensive and earlier defense. The Rus in particular even have the ability to train cheap militia units from their Kremlin landmark, making them extremely resistant to an early rush at very little investment. In comparison, the Byzantines' only unique countermeasure against an early rush is their [[InstantMilitia Akritoi]] ability, which is situationally useful at best (the ability is indeed good at shutting down an enemy tower rush) and a good way to kill off one's valuable villagers at worst.