What's that one pet buff/need/rebalance you'd love to see implemented?

EDIT: title should read /nerf/, stupid autocorrect

For me it's the Cataphract.

I don't think I could make my point much better than /u/Wolfssenger did about a month ago in the Byz/Persian civ matchup thread:

Cataphracts

One thing I want to touch on is how left in the dust cataphracts have been. A quick analysis of their castle and imperial forms:

Hp: 110(150) Attack: 9(12) Armor: 2 (+12/16 cavalry armor) PA: 1 Rate of fire: 1.83(1.73) Speed: 1.35 70f 75g 20s creation time Elite upgrade cost: 1600f 800g

One thing that jumps out is that they only have 1 pierce armor, meaning they take a whopping 5 damage per shot from FU arbs when FU. Additionally, the elite upgrade costs only 250g less than cavalier and paladin combined. When adding logistica, it ends up costing a whopping 2600f 1400g. When accounting for blacksmith upgrades/husbandry, that's over 5000 resources upgrading a unit who, while overall solid serves a role in team games equally or better filled even by no bloodlines/blast furnace paladins (raiding, frontline), can only be made from a castle, costs 10f more and is utterly infeasible to field in a 1v1.

Considering every new unique cavalry unit has at least 2 pierce armor after elite upgrade with respectable stats, I'd propose the following:

Elite +1 PA Logistica cost reduced to 500f 300g Elite upgrade reduced to 1200f 600g Maybe -5s creation time

With these changes they could at least serve as a lategame power punch that with the reduction to it's upgrade cost might see it's intended purpose as a strong all around frontliner that's a solid choice in more than just games vs eagles. I'm tentative to give any more in fear of making it op, but it's high costs, castle gate and already missing cav upgrades should keep it in a respectably sized niche.

I think this is all really well framed, and whether or not the suggested rebalancing is fair or not, the points about their current costs and relative downsides still stand from an economic pov.

See, my Byz Bois have really been done dirty by a little something called power creep. Way back last millennium, the civ ecosystem was much smaller (and the pop cap was 75), and the niche that the Byz and their Cats occupied actually made sense within the meta and from a game design pov. Now with the recent explosion of so many new civs, the introduction of so many new bonuses and new counter-counter-counters, all creating such a broader and more diverse meta, that original intent behind the Cats as "high cost/high reward tank-ass unit" has been diluted to "option you really can't afford to waste res on".

The original feeling of the Byz has been mutated. Battles with the Byz feel like a reactive rather than proactive game, trying to switch between cheap trash counters + a few archers and monks until your numbers just exhaust your opponent's gold. Maybe I'm playing them wrong, but I feel like Cats no longer exist as a strategic choice. Maybe they were when 15 was a lot of units, but no longer.

Anyway, what pipe-dream rebalances would you get on a soapbox about?