Thoughts on Byzantine strategy.

[Yeosol]

Normally I can figure a civ out pretty quickly (or at least eventually).
I don't understand what to do with the Byzantines.

For a start I'm not very familiar with Spiritual and have almost no experience with Imperialistic. I understand them in a general sense, or that is to say independently. However I can't figure out out how they would work together. The UB also confuses me. The UU is pretty simple in its self(crush stuff) but how do I maximize the use of Knights?

Anyone understand this Civ? Experience with Byzantines? The Traits? Help me out guys, how do you play them?

btw I'm playing on monarch.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I've only played with the Byzantines once, but it was a pretty good game, considering I have little experience with non financial civs. I do think Imperialistic is one of the weakest traits, but it helps in the initial land rush, the game was high seas fractal, so while my continent had the majority of the land with 5 civs on it, it was still a very small landmass. At 7 cities i I had the most, so from the beginning had a big advantage. This is less effective on medium and low sea levels, though it's still an advantage if you know how to manage rapid growth without having your economy crash.

Imperialistic is also a military trait. Provides great synergy with the great wall. Declare war, wait for them to enter your lands, slaughter their SOD, rack up the great generals, then go on the offensive.

Spiritual is a top tier trait. Lets you constantly switch civics to match whatever you need. It lets you switch from OR to theocracy in preparation for war, and then back for the post-war rebuilding period. Or how about switching to nationhood, drafting, then switching back to free speech of liberalism 5 turns later, waiting for the angry faces to disappear, and go at it again. Constantly switching civics is a huge advantage, and it's very painful for non-spiritual civs. Get big enough and even switching just 1 civic will take 2 turns if you're not spiritual.

It's a great tool for diplomacy. Switch to other religions for the diplomatic benefits long enough to do your deal, and then switch back 5 turns later.

The UB is also great for warring. 2 happy faces per 10% is huge and greatly helps combat war weariness, and horses are often easier to get than dye is.

[SnowlyWhite]

if monarch, it'd be wise to get mids even without stone

ub - means that at slider 20% culture, you have +5 happy instead of normally +2(the rng is nice and will give you ponnies as byzantium, yet dyes aren't guaranteed)

uu - direct ep to target; chew bubble gum, build spies and cataphracts; position your units before declaration; declare; storm them. Nothing stops catas for a long time except elephants to a certain degree; ai builds few pikes, so those aren't an issue either. And with stable, your catas with c1/shock will munch his pikes anyway.

make sure your target ain't charlie, as... he builds pikes since it's his uu. Not that they're able to stop you, but it'll sting more then average.

the best trait ingame:

early game - slavery/or when you need stuff built. Caste, caste/paci later in order to farm your gp in your gp farms. Assigning specialists while waiting for whip unhappiness to disappear a non issue with that uber ub.
Vassalage/theo when a queue of units is about to get out of your cities.

mid/late game - slavery/or when you need stuff build. Nationalism/theo when you draft; bureau when you don't draft(if bureau is worth - probably isn't as you have a huge empire); fs/emancipation if the ais donated lotsa towns while waiting for the next city to get out of revolt - culture slider goes lower since you don't have to combat emancipation anymore. Slavery/or when city x comes out of revolt after you captured it in order to whip infrastructure there. Caste/paci when you start starving a city in order to pop the next gp.

all the game - hog diplo bonuses for switching to fav. religion/civic from random ais.

if you stay more then 10 turns without swapping civics once, you're sloopy

imperialistic... not so kinky on monarch, but hey, the guy's already a monster... GW+imperialistic if you wait after war declaration for his sod to come and attack you on your turf will result in many ggs; even without gw, you'll get more ggs.
the other thing -> chop forest -> when done, queue settler -> next turn, switch to whatever you were building -> chop forest -> when done, queue settler. It'll be out in a couple of turns, depending on gamespeed with 2 chops.

[Yeosol]

The UB dose look powerful if if you run it at 20% (or 10% even). I have to admit I don't think I've ever used the culture slider. I always play a style trying to max science so culture seems like a slow down of the science. However I guess the potential +5 population makes up for the loss in sci.

I guess Byz is really about dominating the mid game when your UU and UB come into usefulness (as well as spiritual). An SE would be favorable here as well (hence pyramids right?) but I hate having to build them straight up. I mean there seriously pricey. However this may work well with Imperialistic right? Hammers saved on settlers can be put to wonders.

Orical-> CoL could also work well, getting that Spiritual trait to work earlier.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

You use the culture slider when you're warring. Unless you have jails in every city, built mount rushmore, and are running police state, war weariness from a prolonged war will cause tons of warweariness and raising the culture slider is a must. The only time you would use the culture slider in peacetime is if you're going for a culture win or are running an SE with caste system late game.

[Cam_H]

Comprehensive Leader Guide: Justinian by noto might be of interest.

[paulthebug]

You might want to read the Justinian University thread. You can do a search to locate it. The best walkthrough I have ever read here.

[mystyfly]

Yeah, Justinians uni is great but without pictures

With just, I often try an early rush to get the first GG to get CR-2 trebs later when I launch my cata-war. The UU is decent, Spi is huge, Imp is so-so, UB is great (for warmongering).

[brades]

My third emperor win on random leaders, large map fractal was with justinian. The coloring actually made me think I was barbarians for a second, lol. With justinian I would only go for 2 wonders for sure, the great wall and the pyramids. The key to justinian is to REX like crazy, your first few settlers out should be to block AI expansion, even if you get the "our close borders spark tension" modifier because we actually want to be attacked. While you continue to send settlers all over the place load those border cities up with defensive units. Hopefully when you get attacked you will be ready and will pop great generals very quickly with the great wall and imperialistic. Settle the generals and with representation you can have your science fueled by your military leaders. The key to Justinian is the REX part of the game, you should be able to have the most land once the expansion phase of the game is up. Spiritual might be my favorite trait because it allows for drastic economy shifts without the anarchy. During peacetime Id run something like OR or pacifism, switch to theocracy to mass build units, etc. The key to spiritual is never having downtime when you switch out of suboptimal civics. If you add up all the turns of anarchy you would have if you switched to a new civic when it was beneficial to you with a non spiritual leader you may lose over 20 turns through the course of the game which is huge.