Nobles Club CLV - Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire

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Deonnim

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 17, 2010
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The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Justinian I of Byzantium, whom we last played in NC C. The Byzantines start with Mysticism and The Wheel.
  • Traits: Justinian I is Spiritual and Imperialistic. SPI means faster temples, but its chief benefit is no anarchy when switching civics. This can be a diplomatic trait: it lets you yield to AI demands for civic and religion switches, gaining you improved relations, while allowing you to change back easily five turns later. IMP means 50% faster productions of settlers, and doubles the rate of Great Generals.
  • The UB: The Hippodrome, a Theatre with +1 :), another +1 :) with horses (which are necessary for the UU) and +1 :) per 5% :culture: instead of per 10%. This can help with a large amount of war weariness or with larger cities sooner, given enough :health: resources.

  • The UU: The Cataphract, a Knight with 12 Strength instead of 10, but lacking first-strike immunity.
And the start:

Spoiler map details :
Fractal, med water level, cylindrical wrap, temperate climate.
Spoiler edits :
No edits were made. Confirmed our UU resource is close by, as well as each AI having access to at least 1 strategic resource.
Spoiler more on map :
It looks like everyone has close to the same amount of land and resources. The map is split into three large-ish islands + 1 small, but they are close enough that all civs can meet each other through workboats at the least. Two of the civs are on their own islands, but are only semi-isolated, this hopefully shouldn't be a problem.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC CLV Justinian I Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Prince. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
If you're playing at higher level than Monarch, consider also giving them Hunting at Emperor, Agriculture at Immortal, and The Wheel at Deity.
Spoiler huts and events :
Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.
 

Attachments

Thank you to everyone who played this map and gave feedback on it, I learned a fair amount from it. I'll keep a closer eye on food and resources with the next map, I actually forgot how much everyone rightfully hates plains cows

Spoiler :

I haven't had much time to play this, just recently moved. I managed to play around with this, I think two or three times so far, and am realizing that I never got rid of my poor play habits from playing on easier levels. Once I get the map finished for the next NC, I'll sit down with this one and try it out again. This was a much rougher start than I had anticipated, especially with the lack of decent techs that Just starts out with. Here's to hoping that I can beat some of those misplays out of my system soon.
 
Spoiler :

I hope y'all enjoy this, I wanted to go for something a little bit different with the map. Let's see how well this works out. :)


I'm torn about where to actually settle this. If we SIP, we get cows and gold in the BFC, plus a FP and a few hills. Yet it leaves out the pigs down south that could possibly be picked up by another city. The other option is to settle 1S, that picks up both the cow and the pig, while still leaving us with fresh water.

I suppose the best thing is to move the warrior 1S to see what it opens up and help cement that decision.
 
If these 3 are the only resources, 1S for sure. Capital needs food. The more the better.
 
Mizar said:
... and they are where ? :confused:
Click to expand...

D'oh, this is what happens you post at work. Sorry, I feel like an idiot now, I'll attach them now.


FIXED...Saves should be attached to the original post. Sorry about that everyone
 
Warrior 1 SE, settler 1 SE is my first thought. Re-evaluate on T1.

Spoiler :
Opening screenshot reveals flood plains to the east, so I'd rather settle in that direction. Considering Justinian's starting techs, teching AH (plus mining) is going to be a pain.
 
Deonnim said:
D'oh, this is what happens you post at work. Sorry, I feel like an idiot now, I'll attach them now.
Click to expand...

it's ok. i often forget to attach files in emails. and look through nc's history. it's happened numerous times.:lol:
 
sampsa said:
Warrior 1 SE, settler 1 SE is my first thought. Re-evaluate on T1.

Spoiler :
Opening screenshot reveals flood plains to the east, so I'd rather settle in that direction. Considering Justinian's starting techs, teching AH (plus mining) is going to be a pain.
Click to expand...

Spoiler :

I was trying to go for a decent start, even with us lacking the techs to research immediately. I also figured it would be a learning lesson for those involved as to which might be the best path to go. I ended up testing it out on Noble, and all of my bad habits came back, so I can't really gauge how well this will play out. I don't think it should be overly difficult, but we'll see when the better players than I try their hands at it.
 
dalamb said:
Even after all my years of posting maps, I still sometimes forget the .zip file. I think I once even posted a .rar file by mistake.
Click to expand...

i didn't think that was a mistake. Rar should be a given format. :p
 
gave this a go on Immortal.

Justinian is a somewhat poor leader in the beginning.
Spiritual shines later, when you can actually switch often between slavery/caste and org.Rel/Theocracy.
IMP helps a bit with expansion, nothing spectacular.
The starting techs Myst/Wheel are the worst you can actually have. (of course cataphracts rule once you're actually there and in a reasonable position).

first 20
Spoiler :

For this start, it looks particular bleak, as we need no less than all 3 expansive techs (AH, Mining & BW) to get anything going.
Could be a slow start.



Fog reading suggests that we have some floodplain east (BTS capaital position should not contain any desert)
Only 2 visible ressources back up that hope.
That means that at least on the way to AH we can use AGR to not have an idle worker for many turns.



Founded capital 1S to get the pig and in fact some nice floodplain to the east.
Worker first, no plain hill, no exp, slow crawl.
To AH via Agriculture.

1st hut scout, second hut kinda hit a reasonable break, Mining.
At least that means BW/chopping to kickstart development is not off ages.
Met Spain and of course everyone's favorite zealot founds Buddhism...



preliminary dot map. Spain's borders bolded in yellow.

Red: Race is on with Spain, hope she has something better in here east
Purple is the cottage Mecca
Blue: some production, might forgoe the marble (pick up with 3rd border) and plant in a different configuration, keeping the 2 food ressources.
everything might get adjusted for copper and/or Horses
 
Immortal/normal/NHNE

T31:

Spoiler :
So, settler 1SE as promised. Thought for a long time on T1 whether to settle 1S on the PH for short term gains or go 1NE 1E and go for a strong long term capital. Decided to go for the extra :hammers:. Turns out my capital spot killed two seafood, and the long term spot would have claimed corn, too. Oops.

Found Isabella's border quickly, with a nice floodplain on the outer ring of her culture. Judging from the amount of forest, she doesn't have many improveable tiles, so I just camped my warrior there, waiting for the victim. And on T12 spider caught the fly:

Civ4ScreenShot0024_zpsd489fd52.jpg


Had I known I can do that, I would have started with a settler in cap. Build order in capital was worker-settler-settler-worker (yes, in size1, working the gold). Tech path was mining-BW-agri-pottery. With the help of chops, I was able to expand extremely fast. You don't often have 3 cities on T31.

Civ4ScreenShot0025_zps806f76c7.jpg


Chopping a 3rd worker, then improving the corn and some floodplains. Unimproved floodplains are not horrible tiles to work anyway and the cities are connected, so they help :commerce:-wise.
 
up to 2300 BC

Spoiler :

with the help of chops, got 2 quick IMP settlers out to settle red and purple.
slaved workers with overflow into monuments and starting horse connection and cottages.

Found out that we're on an island with room for 12-15 cities total, that means Izzy has to go :hammer:
 
T50:

Spoiler :
Tech writing-fishing-math. Fishing because I found out about some islands that I wanted to scout. Math because I was wanted to go towards construction, but not sure if it was the best way. Still lacking AH. Settled 4th on the marble (settler/worker pump at size 1), but obviously should have looked into settling the fp-area in NE.

Civ4ScreenShot0026_zps850314ec.jpg


T75:

Spoiler :
Tech sailing-AH-masonry. Sailing for foreign trade routes, also planning to settle an offshore city for better domestic trade routes. Used the GS to an academy in new Constantinople and I'm putting hammers into a palace there already. Bella has Stonehenge and also won the Oracle, so she'll have a shrine very soon. Plan is to archerpult her.

Civ4ScreenShot0029_zpsf85ff357.jpg
 
T100:

Spoiler :
So archerpult it was. Declare T98 and march straight towards Madrid. Bombarded with 5 cats I think, attacked with 7 (three survived). Archers mopped up. She had been wasting her :hammers: on missionaries, so she had barely any units.

Civ4ScreenShot0032_zpsf565e9a3.jpg




The prize was nice:

Civ4ScreenShot0033_zps5a5464ca.jpg




T115 (1AD)

Spoiler :
Left her with two cities and extorted techs in peace deal.

Civ4ScreenShot0034_zpsd3ce5980.jpg




Capital was moved - I whipped a market so it's shamefully small still, but +10:food: per turn makes it grow very quickly. Note the original capital, it has not produced a single :food: in the entire game. :)

Civ4ScreenShot0035_zps0842de9e.jpg




I think I'll just use my bureau cap to tech towards guilds and ignore liberalism. Any :gp: will probably be best spent to a golden age.
 
Hi, I felt like trying this game, I'm playing on Immortal, Marathon, no huts.

I got into this situation with my initial expansion:

Spoiler :


I tried a burst of chop / whip expansion with IMP to grab some nice spots before Isabella could (slowed down a bit while getting 4 workers done too), and I got horses secured and loads of floodplains, but she snuck Sevile into my centre location which I might be able to culture flip, or if not I'm preparing for a HA rush to grab hers and the barb cites up north:

4m76jSF.png


Thinking of moving my Capital to Adrianopole later, and making GP farms in Thessalonica and the NW barb city


Edit - What a complete fail:

Spoiler :


/rage

nwQuZ6u.png


I built both a monument and library in all my cities asap too
 
I'm going to try this one on Emperor, I usually play Monarch.
I expect a resource to pop up on the grassland hill 1N of the warrior.
What to research first? Normally, you'd go worker+animal husbandry here, but we don't have pre-reqs.
 
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