HUI Game # 4 - Justinian

Ok, here's the deal guys, since joining the forum i have quickly gone from Warlord to Monarch, and since starting the HUI series have now moved up to Emperor, i started this series of games to help me improve as well as to provide a learning platform for others. I will probably be playing shorter turn sets than maybe the ALC's for example as i would want more advice, specially in the early game. Writing up the updates and posting the pictures etc might also make it a bit more interesting to keep playing the game.

You can find links to all HUI series games here

Please follow the same protocol as the ALC series, in terms of shadowing etc.

Everyone is invited to offer opinions and advice, and to make your own attempt at playing the same game. But if you do play a "shadow game", I kindly request that you refrain from posting spoilers--i.e. any facts or even hints about the map, opponents, and so on--before I'm there myself. I'm trying to play the game as authentically as possible. Without further a due on to game,

Round 1 - "Crowded Neighborhood" - 4000BC to 2320BC
Round 2 - "Setting the foundation" - 2320 BC to 250 AD

Our game settings for the 4th game of the series -



Standard / Panagea as i thought maybe we can mix things up a bit this time round. Normal speed as usual and Emperor difficulty level. Let's see how long i can carry on with my sucsess at Emperor shall we ...
And our leader for this game, Justinian of the Byzantines ...



Spiritual & Imperialistic, well i kind of like imperialistic as it would lend itself well both for Rexing with increased settler production speeds + war with the faster GG's. Spiritual - cant really say i love the trait, but it's ok i guess.
Starting techs, i would liked something i could use right away like, agri, mining or fishing but we'll just have to make do .

And His UU & UB



The powerful Cataphract, so it's already been suggested to me that i beeline guilds and go on the rampage with them, how do they do against fortified LB's? Do we need seige? How best do i use them?
And the UB - The Hippodrome, seems like Horses are the key to this guy

Let's move onto the starting location then shall we ...



I seemed to have lucked out again , i'm wondering if i should settle 1 SE (in between the Gold and the corn), thoughts please?

PS - Stop ing

YES! GOLD!!!!

im thinking about moving the settler to the forrest at SE (hah... we are thinking the same)... i allmost never settle at flood plains they are simply to good not to cottage!

BUT, you might miss Buddism!

Mining is my 1st tech choise...

I'd move the warrior onto the gold and go from there. Settling in place and cottaging the hell out of the riverside tiles is a nice thought. 3food capital is nice for pumping out the initial workers/settlers.
Though longterm its not that great a cottaging site I think, too many hills. If warrior 1se reveals another food resource I'd move and use it as a production site. Even if there wasnt you could farm the floodplains and work all those plains hills.

Tricky start, not too sure really.

avdale said:

Settling in place and cottaging the hell out of the riverside tiles is a nice thought. 3food capital is nice for pumping out the initial workers/settlers.

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you dont get 3 food from settling on flood plains...

Just a thought here, as I'm considering this at some point if I eventually start my own series. Basically I can't play this series because WB saves aren't provided and I just don't play without BUFFY or BUG (not in custom assets). I understand that you don't want to spoil the map. However, if you find a sheet of paper roughly the size of your screen you could cut out a portion at the top right to show the WB options and adhere it to screen while creating the save.

you dont get 3 food from settling on flood plains...

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True...

Ugh I'm tired, take whatever I said with a grain of salt.

@ lymond

maybe i'll just ask one of the others to create a WB save for me so that i could post it here, i have never really created a WB save so let me just mess around with it a bit myself and get used to it, before i try it.

BTW - I am playing with the BUG mode.

Would like to second the request for a WB-save!

Thoughts...did you buy that lottery ticket after? Oh, and thanks for your pearls of wisdom re: getting the army of jans and cannons together at the end of HUI 3. Insights like that are really helpful to anyone following or lurking that wishes to improve their game.

Back in the land of HUI 4, the silk (which is merely OK), together with the gold and FPs, obviously suggest a commerce bias to Constantinople - assuming you settle 1SE to get the FP 2SE of your settler. That said, the tiles to the N and N,NE of that FP (2SE of the settler) look a little brown. For that reason, I'd concur with others and move the warrior onto the gold first and then re-post after you see what the surrounding land looks like before deciding.

Edit: without wishing to veer off topic, do BUG and BUFFY impact the ability to load a save? I ask because I don't use either but have never had a problem opening Shafi's or anyone else's save when online.

Saves are specific to the mod used when they were made. I.e if I make a save running with no mods someone using Buffy or Bug cannot open it.

Shafi said:

@ lymond

maybe i'll just ask one of the others to create a WB save for me so that i could post it here, i have never really created a WB save so let me just mess around with it a bit myself and get used to it, before i try it.

BTW - I am playing with the BUG mode.

Click to expand...

Actually creating a WB save is really easy. The thing I don't understand is I believe there's a bit of simple coding or something that effects how the civs are shown or not when loading the first time. Someone may be able to give advice on that. Basically the point that you can see all the civs on the civ select screen after choosing Play Scenario as opposed to just going straight to the title civ.

As for BUG and BUFFY, I understand the problem is related to running BUG in custom assets. Doing so impacts other mods people choose to play with. Some are fine with this this static mod, but I prefer flexibility since I play with BUFFY a lot for GOTMs (it's basically BUG though). Loading the saves like Shafi just bring up an unmodded version for me but would utilize BUG if in custom assets. WBs can be played with just about anything as far as I know. I assume most folks play with a variation a various unaltered gameplay type mods.

avdale said:

Saves are specific to the mod used when they were made. I.e if I make a save running with no mods someone using Buffy or Bug cannot open it.

Click to expand...

Or if BUG is run in custom assets. I don't understand the mechanics exactly of why that happens. It appears that Shafi is running a version of BUG but the saves come off as no mod, so I assume he runs it as custom assets.

at LG -

quote -
Edit: without wishing to veer off topic, do BUG and BUFFY impact the ability to load a save? I ask because I don't use either but have never had a problem opening Shafi's or anyone else's save when online.

Conversely to my point above, if a save is created within a mod (not custom assets) then you would have to have that mod to load it. For instance, you must have BUFFY installed to play BOTMs. (BTS Game of the Month games)

Yea... move the warrior, but unless you find another resource, I don't think moving to gain 1 fp is worth the forest and 1 turn. It also looks like there's quite a bit of brown tiles down there.
Moreover, since this is Pangea, and you seem to be in the southern hemisphere, in place has more blocking value. ->Imperialistic gains from chop chop whip whip.

We move the warrior on to the gold, and the 1 SE spot does not look good, too much brown to the east ,



So we settle in place and begin researching Agriculture whilst the first build is worker. We meet our neighbor shortly and he came from the west.



We finish Agriculture and begin researching Mining. A short while later our 2nd neighbor comes from the east this time,



We finish building the worker and start on the warrior next. We complete researching Mining and begin researching BW next. And another neighbor pops by from the east to say hi,



We finish production of the warrior and then produce a 2nd warrior followed by a settler. We complete BW and don’t see any copper in the vicinity, so next we start researching AH to find them horses. We finish AH and ...



We have access to Horses! We also have stone in the area but the terrain is really bad. We begin researching Pottery next.



Izzy’s borders. We finish Pottery and begin researching Masonry next, I don’t know if I should have gone writing instead but I was tempted to give myself a shot at the GW. And another one of our neighbours shows up, this one sure is a piece of work



We finish the settler, and then another warrior and begin on a worker. Well it’s time for you to give your input people, so tell me where do I settle that Horse city? Also which other locations should we prioritize? Here’s a look at the world as we know it,



Also can someone please do a dotmap for me? I’m looking at you lg

You have another civ up north -- Ottomans or Joao?

Horse city goes 1E to pick up clam. BW for next tech - not masonry .

Spiritual - cant really say i love the trait, but it's ok i guess.

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One of the games strongest trait, and in my opinion is the strongest. It allows for some ridiculous levels of civic and religion swaps for absolutely any purpose ranging from Diplo, Production (Slavery ), Economic (Caste?) whatever.
Any trait allowing you to run Caste and Slavery at effectively the same time, or run Pacifism while next to Monty and Shaka is very strong in my book

The powerful Cataphract, so it's already been suggested to me that i beeline guilds and go on the rampage with them, how do they do against fortified LB's? Do we need seige? How best do i use them?

Click to expand...

They can perform decently without siege if your careful to attack less defended cities, but to get the most of them use spies. Spies using the Incite Revolt mission will serve all your sieging needs.

And the UB - The Hippodrome, seems like Horses are the key to this guy

Click to expand...

The +1 from this UB is just the tiny icing on the cake......
It gives a +1 as standard, which is better than the normal Theatre needing rare Incense, and more importantly it gives +2 every 10% raise of the culture slider. That is HUGE

It can soak up obsene amounts of whip and draft or even be used as a strong replacement for HR (i.e delay Monarchy get Drama). It fits in nicely in most strategies at some point, and works well with Spiritual due to its ability to be changed in an instant.

Honestly, the horse city goes... on the horse. It's the only place to grab both floodplains and the clam. Unless if there's another seafood resource in that desert peninsula, I don't see another city in that area that's worth settling.

Leventis said:

You have another civ up north -- Ottomans or Joao?

Horse city goes 1E to pick up clam. BW for next tech - not masonry .

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It's the Ottomans. BW is already done, i was thinking Writing probably would have been a better choice than masonry i reckon ...

UWHabs said:

Honestly, the horse city goes... on the horse. It's the only place to grab both floodplains and the clam. Unless if there's another seafood resource in that desert peninsula, I don't see another city in that area that's worth settling.

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hmmm ... seems like settling on the horse might make for a decent city, yeah it's just wicked that the horse and stone resources had to be placed in the middle of a frickin dessert wasteland

UWHabs said:

Honestly, the horse city goes... on the horse. It's the only place to grab both floodplains and the clam. Unless if there's another seafood resource in that desert peninsula, I don't see another city in that area that's worth settling.

Click to expand...

I personally don't like this suggestion that much but it may end up being the best one given the state of things.

You're trading 2 grasslands and a horse tile for 1 flood plain, a lake, 2 desert tiles, riverside bonus and a desert hill. You also don't get the clams in the first ring but get fp in the first ring and a 2 center tile vs a 142 tile. Horses come online right away but you need 3 more turns to hook up the city.

Given that you don't have Fishing now, i'd go on the horses, build a monument and a wb next.
Also, swap in a granary in Constantinople for 1 turn (22, it'll allow it to grow to size 4 and then you can resume the worker ->whip (30 something + 22 + some prod = finished granary)