NC CLXXIV - Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire

[ConfusedCounsel]

Flip! Flip! Flip! Flip!

 

[Gumbolt]

Took a while to get round to playing and finishing this. 1440ad Domination. Thanks Elite for a fun game.

Spoiler :

Settled on plains hill. Built GW, Oracle and Mids in capital.

Went for HBR and took our Monty.

Expanded to 6-7 cities. Then went for phants/pults and attacked Willem. Took peace leaving him with 2 cities. I lacked feudalism at this point.

Had to steal my way to catch up with Pascal. Got a Gspy to help me. Stole a raft of techs including Nationalism. I was somewhat helped techwise when I met the Mongols too.

Eventually reached cuirs 1110ad or so. Took out all but 1 of Willems cities. (Left an island city.) Wiped out Pascal off map. He had 13 cities and Willem as Vassel.

Incans got rifles around 1330ad. They had been fighting French all game. He only had 5 cities. Skipped him and attacked French instead. Vasseled French 2 turns before they hit rifles.

Settled 5-6 duff cities and hit culture at 100%. As French cities came out of revolt game was one.

Not the prettiest of wins but HBR/Phants/ Cuirs did the trick here. I was close to MS for rifles if I had needed it.

 

[nate46]

This game is old! But, since its an Imperialistic leader with bad starting food, I thought it would be the ideal map to demonstrate the power of the super spiffy "four one-pop cities" strategy! Because growing your capitol is overrated!


Played Immortal with no huts or events. Turn 50 (2000 bc):

Spoiler :

Tech: Mining --> BW --> Agri --> Pottery --> halfway to writing.

Build order in cap: Worker --> Settler --> Worker --> Settler --> Warrior --> Settler --> warriors

Build order in 2nd city: Settler --> Worker --> warriors

Build order in 3rd city: Worker --> Warriors.



I'm a little bit slow on tech, and the barbs are after my copper but I think this is coming along nicely. Gonna chop another settler soon in Nicea and grab that gold/wheat spot, then I'll probably Axe/catapult rush somebody.

 

[aitkensam]

Thanks for resurrecting this thread. It was a really fun map. Managed to get an immortal conquest win in 1120AD with score of 388861. Pretty high for me, probably because I only whipped on one turn after lib, then ran caste and pacifism.. weird...

 

[nate46]

Played a bit more, to 625 bc:

Spoiler :

I forgot to explore and open my borders. whoops.



Count 'em. That's 8 catapults, 13 axes and 3 spears.

Monte is going to die

 

[georgjorge]

@nate:

Spoiler :

Nice stack! A bit light on the Cats though since you don't seem to be producing any more of those in your cities...siege just die so fast...

I don't remember the exact thread, but someone convincingly calculated that in almost all situations working non-riverside cottages isn't worth it unless a) it's a capital with an Academy under Bureaucracy b) you're going for the really long game (space or UN diplo). In a conquest game such as this one I would have worked more farms instead for heavier whipping and/or more consistent bulbing (Machinery/Engineering/Gunpowder/Chemistry).

 

[nate46]

@georgjorg

Spoiler :

I usually build more cats and less axes but my timing was off... Monte has plenty of forests though, so i ended up chopping a few more of them.

as for the cottages... I don't really get the logic for not working as much commerce as possible at this point in the game? I mean, I have plenty of hammers. Every one of my cities has a barracks and if i build any more units i'm going to be paying for them out of the rear. Also its not like i can build civil service farms at this point in the game to work instead of the cottages.

But you're right about having too few cats, i managed to lose like 6 of them to extremely unlucky rolls... whipped a few more while killing off monte, but i'm not going to be able to finish off Willem until i get cataphracts as he has too many crossbows. Still, the game's looking pretty good despite losing most of my 70% combat rolls... wiped monte and i razed one of Willem's cities (the one with the apostolic palace-- i hate that wonder!). I'm about 5 turns from cataphracts which will come at about 135 ad

In retrospect i should have attacked willem sooner before cleaning up monte's stupid tundra cities, if this was deity i'd probably lose but we already know that...

 

[Izuul]

Wow, just tried this on Deity...

Spoiler :

Settled 4 cities and then got a dagger DOW from Monty. Red fist for 1 turn and DOW the next turn with a few chariots. I'm still about a half dozen turns from getting copper and horses online so I'm pretty much screwed. I think i would have a pretty mediocre time trying to defend with warriors

Spoiler :

Before

After

Edit: Interesting. I reloading my game a few turns back and he didn't do it. I'm not gonna cheese and play on like that, but i wish Tachy or someone like that was still around here to explain the mechanics of that type of DOW.

 

[Fippy]

Happened to me sometimes when an AI sent out some units for a barb city.
Then they turned around..very short warning time

2 possibilities i think, you get an unlucky war check roll in between turns.
Or barb city gets taken, and they are now without a target?
Hmm or maybe 3, looking at your screenie it's possible they were moving towards the barb city far east.
Not sure if you being in between had some unwanted surprise effect ~~

But yep, warmongers sending out small stacks for barb cities means dangerous times.
Attack stacks already moving are not wasting time, if they get a new target

Or something entirely different that also happened to me before, they settle some crappy city close and now you are a nice, weak and close land target. Units were moving with that settler, possibly..

 

[SittinDown]

(first post!)

Monarch with Huts. (I've never won on Monarch before, but I beat Prince consistently and have been working on my BC game heavily from lurking the forums here)

Spoiler :

Settled on the elephant. explored coast and found Monty and William.
4 cities founded by 2000 BC - built the Mids ~1200. first to Alpha, to back fill. Hutted Math, so I went Construction to Elepult Monty... but then realized I was dumb and forgot I needed HBR. ...so I teched Aesthetics to hope to trade for HBR, but I didn't manage diplomacy well enough for them to like me that much, and burned a ton of time getting my elephants up. I was the same religion as Mony and William.
Econ was strong because I cottaged a lot, did a failgold build and re-sold a bunch of techs to losers like Napoleon for not much money.

Monty backstab DoW on me. I fended him off easily, but lost a lot of siege, and will have to build up the army some more.

 

[Choeimok]

Justinian is, I think I think the leader I've had my worst games with. While I think I haven't managed to win with Asoka (he's good, but I've had screwy starts when playing as him) or Mao yet either... Justinian games were the worst so far. He has alright traits for war, decent uniques and is one of the most threatening AIs, but his early economy is just so terrible. I don't like IMP at all unless it's Victoria or Julius, I always end up bankrupting myself.


Prince/Normal, NHNENV

Well, damn it. I had a big post, but got a session timeout and lost everything in the spoiler, browser still knew the above part for some reason.

Spoiler Shorter and without pictures, up to 1725 AD :

Essentially, what happened is that I built a lot of wonders, settled 8 cities and got attacked by 3 enemies on 2 fronts at once around maybe 800 AD, but managed to peace out Napoleon (from far southeast, had no business DOWing me but did so anyway), beat back Huayna's exclave on my eastern border after also peacing him out once, he came back (accidentally got no tech in peace deal with him due to misclick, that was painful as he really wanted out of the war at any cost at that point), reduce Monty, who I had previously helplessly lost a city to before getting peace using my jewish AP, in the west to an island (he's currently subject of a jewish dogpile crusade I started, and hopefully my only friend Kublai will kill him) and later turned my stack against Willem in the far west and wiped him out at the date I stopped playing. Took one ceasefire because he got Grenadiers and my Rifle-based stack got pretty battered in front of his capital, but in the second war he was toast.

I skipped Lib and beelined Rifling after realizing I had no suitable Iron yet at Guilds (only in the deepest Tundra), got it around 1100 AD and had no real use for the UU - a supermedic, a visibility guy, and lots of rifles and siege. After that, I got Steel and then beelined Assembly Line, which I got recently.

My settled specialist capital was the only thing keeping me alive, but Pacal is almost in the modern era while I'm still contemplating if I want Lib+Comm or stay in Mercantilism and go directly for tanks... but he doesn't have Infantry yet, so I plan to attack him once my western stack meets up with severely weakened eastern one (Huayna had a big Cuir/Cannon stack, and I lost a lot of good troops at decent odds including my only 2 CR3 Rifles - but I managed to take out the 2 cities he had north of my new eastern neighbor Pacal so hopefully he will leave me alone now.)

Well, here's one picture, a map:

I'm huge, but economy is still very dependent on my capital. Anyway, I plan to take my western troops, currently my big stack is in Middleburg and other troop contingents are scattered around Rotterdam and Nijmegen, to meet up with my eastern ones and DOW the Mayans before they get too far ahead. Until then, taking a break from the very necessary unit spamming to build factories (and Pentagon), I probably should switch out of wartime civics for a few turns...
Me and Huayna are the only ones currently not at war with Monty and Pacal is also fighting Napoleon, so I hope that both he will be too busy to get too good troops and somebody will help with my cultural unhappiness. Kublai is my friend and was first in the dogpile because I bribed him, maybe he will do it.

 

[Choeimok]

Spoiler 18-something AD :

Pacal eventually did get Infantry, negating my tech advantage...

... but he had essentially already traded most of his core land for Napoleon's dry snaky original home. Unfortunately tabbing out for this screenshot crashed my game, so I was set back by 2 turns and had to among other things retake Lakamha with my main stack.

I kept pushing, for the last bit even with tanks...

... but decided to leave Pacal off the hook after reducing him to the french peninsula he mostly conquered while I was taking his northern border cities. Bastard still didn't want to give me Radio, so I took MilTrad, his gold and a city for it that I will probably quickly lose since the next target is of course my old enemy HC. His core land should be sufficient for the victory without having to backstab my old southwestern buddy... or build a navy, I still have 0 boats.

My cannon stack has taken a severe beating against the Infantry, but maybe 15 are still alive, some scrub culture defense bombarders, some CR veterans... I will have Artillery before long and am sitting on a big pile of money...

Economy-wise, Monty's old core (mostly commerce-ish cities) is still very prone to massive unhappiness, but it has gotten better since I got most buildings and jails in there, my culture is mostly up to 40% or higher (Thanks Sistine Chapel!). The old dutch lands (Amsterdam/Utrecht/Rotterdam, not those tundra fringes) are mostly production-oriented and also hated me before I ended the war with Pacal while my own core of Constantinople-Thessalonica (Shrine+WS+good all-around land)+Nicaea (mediocre plains cow + wine city but it has the HE and been pumping units nonstop since the late medieval with the short interruption for a factory) seems to be fine in comparison. Maybe it's because I have more religions in the region and therefore more temples.

Civic-wise, I did end up getting liberalism and communism from Kublai while beelining Industrialism... and then realizing it's useless without Combustion, which requires Railroad which is useful to me anyway. Also had to take Emancipation to stop the hate, but Pacal did build the Redentor for me...

 

[Choeimok]

Spoiler Domination, 1874 AD :

Huayna had Cavalry, Artillery and Anti-Tanks, but no Infantry or Tanks. It wasn't really a knife through butter style war like Monty once I started an offensive with Rifles against his typical junk, but my veteran Infs did quite well here.

I did lose Lyon, but somewhere, something came out of rebellion or got a border pop, and there it was. Kind of convenient, as I was planning to go to bed after taking Cuzco anyway.


Both Napoleon and Montezuma ended u surviving as OPMs on their exile islands. The former actually ended up becoming friendly near the end due to Representation and his newfound hatred of Huayna Capac. Kind of a shame that I didn't manage to take out the Aztecs, really. Kublai has been at war with him for centuries after I bribed him, nothing ever happened. Once a frigate blockaded a turn or two, then sailed away again.


Hard-fought, but I finally got a win with this guy, and the traits actually came in quite handy - IMP more for the GGs than the Settlers, something like Ramesses probably would have been better all-around for this start, but now it doesn't matter. The turning point was around 1000 AD - I had lost Nicomedia (NW ice city) to Monty who had previously also beaten Willem around (had Maastricht for a long time and razed another city which I didn't notice while playing, blame the BUG log spam) and had a nasty late classical doomstack. I peaced him out but got under assault in the east from Huayna and Napoleon, barely holding out with a few whipped maces and cats... but then my Rifling beeline finished, Monty's longbows weren't up to the task and the lime green turned grey a lot quicker than it felt like in game - and poof, half the map is grey and I win.


I don't think it ever got much bigger than this size - I could have built commie watermills, but didn't want to get rid of those old and well-developed towns. Still, the absolute core of my empire until near the end, an all-around good city. IMP actually was quite nice for the wonder spamming as the 2 or so settlers I built in here left a lot of time to build more wonders, and I still got 8 cities. Would a REX (direct east was kind of lousy though, so I only could have rexed towards Tenochtitlan) or a rush on Monty have been a better plan? Probably, but SSEs are just really fun to play. I used exactly 3 GPs not for settling - Academy scientist, shrine prophet (just the jewish one), Medic GG. Just like it would have been better not to try and build a block of one of my religions (3 of the 4 I only founded because I wanted the techs - CoL from Oracle, Philo because I was still at peace and hadn't given up on Lib yet, Theo for the AP - I was in Confucianism at first, as it had better domestic spread, but zealot Monty and Willem (later became kebab, but was jewish for most of the game) got Judaism so it seemed like a great choice against the smaller Buddhist and Hindu countries east. Ha!
Despite this being legendary, culture victory was not really an option though - too aggressive neighbors and no really good third city in my original land. (Thessalonica, directly NW, was great but no match for the city of the world's desire). I had Sistine and lots of religions, but Monty, Napoleon and Huayna were jerks and later, when you have a big stack, you use that big stack.

 

[pigswill]

Immortal marathon 800bc.

Spoiler :

Abandoned as a defeat. Started off quietly, settled on eles, second city to north west, third city to south for horses, HA beeline after worker techs. Built Gwall. 1200bc Monte declared (7 cities, axes, spears and chariots. Had just got to HbR and started chopping/whipping HAs, beat off first attacks, captured a couple of his cities and got peace. Monte had already settled a couple more cities and redeclared 900bc, lost one of my captured city to a stack of 14 units (5 axes, couple of spears, chariots, couple of archers). Not so good but I had a few HAs and a few forests left. 800bc HC adopts bureaucracy. I gave up.