ALC Game 33: Byzantium / Justinian I

[sylvanllewelyn]

Round 4: dark ages (400AD - 700AD)

450AD: the French decided to retake their cities.

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I never made a serious effort to invade and annex these lands in the first place, so no surprises that I wasn't getting much out of it. After inflicting some casualties, both cities were retaken by the French.

I did find an opportunity to drag them down. I self-researched drama and it's a monopoly tech.

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The French, of course, also had allies

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The Greeks demanded techs from me earlier. I knew I did not need to bother.

I ended up siding with the Mansa. Oh well.

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Just like the fall of the Roman empire, we regressed from a republic to a feudal monarchy:

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Paused the game at 700AD. Preparations will probably take around several turns.

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I have not yet confirmed attack route. Probably Tours, Avignon, Paris, Orleans, Lyons.

Tech situation. Guilds is a monopoly tech.

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I could trade it away for civil service and philosophy but I have no immediate use for those techs. I am not running pacifism and my capital is weak. Also I actually want vassalage. My preconception is that knights are similar to cataphracts against longbows but combat promotions work on base strength.

Mansa Musa is researching engineering and I would rather have that because it speeds up road movement and thus reinforcements. But I will need construction to trade for engineering.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

At deity, where every small city has walls and every large city has castles, curaissers are a big improvement over cataphracts. At immortal, where some of your targets might not have engineering yet, cataphracts feel very similar.

Round 5: conquest of France (700AD - 980AD)

I was pondering whether to trade guilds away and, if so, for what. The answer is actually obvious but I didn't see it because I lost focus of the overall game plan:

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Gold. I did prebuild horse archers. The only decision consistent with the game plan is to upgrade as many horse archers as possible and then to counter-attack as soon as possible.

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Since Mansa Musa trades every tech away, I should trade it away myself so I get something out of it:

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I still have a lot of espionage points on Mansa Musa, which I put to good use

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And then trade it away for more techs

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First to music! I trade it away for more gold

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Whenever I trade Mansa Musa a technology, I have to immediately trade it around to everyone else.

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Before the French are dead, I use up the remaining espionage points to take some gold

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I enter the high middle ages with paper close to completion.

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The original plan as suggested by viewers is to attack Mansa Musa when I have cataphracts. I want to but there is complication: Shaka is winning and is about to take Mali cities.

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Djenne is not even on a hill.

Arabia and Mali signed peace so at least the Mali are not being dogpiled.

If I attack the Mali, they will crumble, but may also capitulate to Shaka which will be disastrous.

If I attack the Zulu, then I fight a unit-spammer with many cities and rich cities.

I got 19 cataphracts. Some need a couple of turns to heal up. I got two medic III generals and just got another one.

 

[konata_LS]

Good job for conquering de Gaulle's land! Stealing gold before their disappearance is genius .

With 18 cities and tech lead, you're already in a dominant position now. Attacking Shaka would be tougher than attacking Mansa, but in this case, Mansa might ask to be your peaceful vassal (same religion + mutual military struggle).

TBH, I've never thought about the difference between Cataphracts on IMM and on DEI, as the highest level that I've personally played is Monarch. So on difficulties lower than IMM, Cataphracts' usefulness lasts much longer than on DEI .

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

With 18 cities and tech lead, you're already in a dominant position now. Attacking Shaka would be tougher than attacking Mansa, but in this case, Mansa might ask to be your peaceful vassal (same religion + mutual military struggle).

TBH, I've never thought about the difference between Cataphracts on IMM and on DEI, as the highest level that I've personally played is Monarch. So on difficulties lower than IMM, Cataphracts' usefulness lasts much longer than on DEI .

More cities leads to higher maintenance costs. My research is stagnating and I am falling behind in technology. I am not in a dominant position. The geopolitics suck. The Mali are feeding technology to the Greeks who in-turn gives it to their suzerain state the Khmer which then freely trades them to Buddhist best-buddies the Arabs. The Zulu are backwards because they are not part of this research alliance but they are hitting the Mali very hard and the Mali are about to capitulate.

I do not want a unit-spammer with many cities to gain access to the latest military technology.

Round 6: reign of the medieval knights (980AD - 1260AD)

I have to attack the Zulu. I have to stop more Mali cities from being taken.

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The picture appears that my cataphracts are freely roaming around the battlefield. In truth I am going to suffer a lot of casualties. Catapults will suicide into my units followed by horse archers and maceman...

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The economy is struggling. I have to use slavery to keep producing cataphracts to keep up with the war effort. Everytime I sacrifice population the commerce output suffers. I launch a golden age to stem the bleeding and to speed up the forbidden palace in Paris. I need courthouses but I do not want one in every city.

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Since I took the heat off the Mali, they sign peace with the Zulu... and give them engineering. Now my cataphracts can be freely picked off by hit-and-run pikemen that can hide in castles.

The Zulu are beaten down and are willing to capitulate. I do not want to take them as vassals. But I do need to sign a peace treaty with them before they capitulate to someone else and drag me into a fight I cannot win.

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Good thing I did. The very next turn they submitted to the Khmer. Now the Khmer have two vassals. Annoying, but that's not exactly going to stop me from finishing off the Zulu. If I have to, I can start a war later to finish off the Zulu, then gift a city to the Khmer to settle things.

However, since the Zulu are now under the Khmer, their technology will improve. The root cause of this problem is still the Mali. But first, one final tech steal:

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Since I got no friends anyway, mercantilism will be useful. Most cities got a free citizen, which... I guess is OK when running representation?

The technology situation is not getting better:

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Finally the Mali will have to die. As if there are not enough reasons to kill them, I add one more: their cultural borders are stealing my fully-matured cottages.

I should have enough cataphracts to do the job.

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I even throw in the garrison units from nearby cities to clean up the heavily-damaged defenders. There is an unhappiness penalty for undefended cities but in my case, the constraint is food, not happiness.

State of the empire at 1260AD

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The original North-West has courthouses. Paris has the forbidden palace. I plan to move the palace to a more Southern location.

To the East, I am about to launch a trade mission with the Greeks. Yes, I got a Great Merchant at 10% odds.

I am one turn from finishing education. Then I need to make decisions. I begin by eliminating bad options:

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Attacking the Arabs is not an option. All their cities are defended by castles and city-garrison III longbows. The only way to take those down, before cannons, is to sabotage the walls, reduce defenses with a stack of trebuchets with accuracy, attack with city-raider II trebuchets, then attack the city defenders. Large stacks of camel riders will wreck the trebuchets before any of this can happen.

In fact the Arabs are plotting and I probably have to get ready to defend against their invasion! The Khmer might even join, in which case it becomes Always War. Thankfully their unit composition is not great against a stack of cataphracts either. I did make sure some of my cataphracts have the formation promotion exactly for this type of scenario.

Options after education:
1. Attempt liberalism. If so, what tech do I get?
2. Attempt economics. I can use a Great Merchant to speed it up, rather than trade mission.
3. Directly research astronomy and settle the continent to the North. It will be released as a vassal state, I am not paying colonial expenses. I get trade routes, land area towards domination, and most importantly, deny it from other civilisations. They got crabs and maybe a couple others.
4. Directly research nationalism. I have 30 cities. I can draft 3 maceman a turn and draft unhappiness only lasts 10 turns. Then I just have to train the trebuchets.

 

[pigswill]

Can you get domination using medieval units or will you need to modernise your army?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Can you get domination using medieval units or will you need to modernise your army?

Moot question. I am currently unable to modernise my army.

Round 7: Always war with tech trading (1260AD - 1400AD)

After finishing education, I see only the Khmer have education. So I have a shot at liberalism. The Great Merchant is used for a trade mission netting 1300 gold. I use the gold to get liberalism. A lightbulb towards Economics gives 1382 beakers, basically no difference.

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Since I have the Mausoleum of Maussollos, captured from the Mali, the Taj Mahal would be nice, but the Khmer took it before I even have nationalism.

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The real danger is the Apostolic Palace. Thankfully Arabia is a contender or the game ends immediately.

As expected, Arabia declares war on me. Since I anticipated the war declaration, I moved the cataphracts from the former Mali lands to the West without pausing to heal.

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Overwhelming numbers parked outside my city. Fortunately for me, their composition is not very good against cataphracts. The city of Tatar I let them capture. I evacuated to buy time to gather my units for a counter-attack.

With one turn to liberalism, I manage to get an important trade

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Little did I know, this is the last technology trade I will make for the next few centuries.

Liberalism comes in and I took nationalism because I had to. I had a feeling the Khmer will join the war any moment and I am going to need to draft muskets non-stop.

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Civic switch. I am a diehard fan of spiritual. I think I already saved twelve turns of anarchy so far, plus the second-order effects from efficiency gain.

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I chose caste system instead of slavery. I needed a great person farm so I can run golden ages if I have to. I do have the Mausoleum of Maussollos after all. Drafting also strains my food supply. My lands are not food-poor but not food-rich either.

1330AD: the Khmer does join the war. Now it is us against the whole world.

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You know the frustrating part? This was not an apostolic palace resolution. I did not attack the Arabs. The Arabs attacked me, then they peace-vassal to the Khmer, then the Khmer and all the vassals also declared war on me. They also share technologies around almost immediately. This is not looking good.

I add signs on the map to spread out my drafting.

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My overall strategy was to hold the Western front with cataphracts, while trebuchets and drafted muskets will push the Southern front against the Zulu. I need to finish them off or seriously cripple them before they gain the next generation of military technology. I can't fight against the Arabs and the Zulu together.

And then the Khmer showed up.

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[sylvanllewelyn]

Round 8: Fighting for peace (1400AD - 1550AD)

Besides swarming me in numbers and forcing me into scorched earth strategies on the Western front, the Khmer also have a navy for striking into my heartlands.

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It's a good thing muskets also make good defenders. Apparently the AI are not very good against muskets and longbows.

Now they want peace. So do I, but I have to finish off the Zulu. I cannot allow them to feed advanced weapons to the Zulu so I have to defy. On the positive side, Buddhism is not widespread in my empire.

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Finally an opening in 1525AD, a lull before the next wave of attackers. To sign peace, I need to take a city and then offer it to them. I choose Damascus because the surrounding cultural pressure makes it useless to me anyway.

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The final hurrah of the cataphracts. I say final hurrah because, by the time I finish off the Zulu at 1550AD, this is the technology situation.

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In the final couple of fights, I did have to fight against Zulu rifles. Only against small numbers could I have brute-forced muskets into wiping them out.

All the remaining player now has rifles and cavalry. Almost upgraded them all in one turn. My armies are now completely outclassed. If this war continues I am kind of dead.

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Time to sign peace. Please ignore the fact that I razed an Arab city sometime during the war.

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State of the empire. In case it wasn't obvious, I have been suffering emancipation penalty for a while.

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And war wariness penalty. And drafting penalty. And motherland penalty. And apostolic palace villain penalty. I thought this was a good opportunity to demonstrate the power of the hippodrome - - a relief that it wasn't necessary. Continuous drafting kept the population "in check" relative to happiness sources.

Now I got ten turns of peace treaty.

* * * * *

How bloody was the fighting?

I lost 52 cataphracts, 42 musketmen, 15 axemen, 13 trebuchets plus miscellaneous.

My Great General bar says 82/300.

 

[migalhone]

The situation feels dreadful. Is a victory via domination still possible?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

The situation feels dreadful. Is a victory via domination still possible?

Domination is the only victory condition I can see. I own around 55% of the land. The other 45% are united against me with immortal-level AI bonuses. In the long run I will be overtaken in commerce and production. But I do not have to play the long run.

Round 9: Cottage & Espionage Hybrid Economy (1550AD - 1695AD)

My most immediate threats are divine wrath (6 turns) and peace treaty expiry (10 turns). The solution is to adopt Buddhism and spread it as quickly as possible to my whole empire.

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Suryavarman's favourite civic is also conveniently organised religion. Both Suryvarman and Saladin have high religious diplomatic modifiers.

After researching democracy, I went for astronomy. Long overdue, and required for stopping them from taking the whole island unimpeded.

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The AI always struggles at racing to world wonders with prerequisite city improvements. I am not entirely sure what they were gunning for but...

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... whatever it is, they are up to NO GOOD. I turn off the research slider and save up gold, in case my intuition proves correct.

Time for rush-buying

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With representation, mercantilism, and 35 cities, I think it's worth it.

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At this point, the textbook says research communism next and run caste system + state property. In this case it might not be the most appropriate. I have too many villages and towns, emancipation penalty's a female canine, and too few workshops / watermills.

And what can I produce with all the workshops? Cataphracts against cavalry, riflemen against infantry, cannons against airships. Most importantly they got railroads, so they will never be "spread thin". Their stack(s) will just perfectly follow mine.

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I do have comparative advantages in manufacturing and crop yield. (I say comparative advantage, because the demographics does not reflect that I am fighting an alliance.)

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So I have to somehow convert these two resources into research. The best way to do this is by espionage.

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More specifically, hybrid espionage, not full espionage. I first whip forges in all my cities. Then I will whip out courthouses, since I will not use state property, and jails, since I plan to win by domination, in most cities. They also give spy specialist slots. The whipping is assisted by the organised religion civic. (Real shame someone else has the Kremlin!) I have no plans to build the more advanced espionage buildings because I don't have too much use for too much espionage points once I reach tech parity.

As for the hippodromes, I build them in several large cities. This is in case I need to switch out of emancipation during a war. Most of the other cities are not happiness-constrained and thus have no need.

I stop at 1695AD, when I am allowed to make the next round of civic switching.

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Civics: the usual tradeoffs.

Government: representation or universal suffrage? Note that police state is not obvious even during war. I have a lot of specialists and towns. I also have jails in the bigger cities, the ones that may actualyl become happiness-constrained.

For legal, probably nationhood to start with. Drafting rifles are great and I can use the espionage bonus. Later on free speech because drafting infantry is not so efficient. And... (wait for this)... I got lots of town.

The rest are pretty obvious. Stay in emancipation if at all possible. Mercantilism because I got no friends. Theocracy because everyone's Buddhist anyway and I want stronger units.

Espionage overwhelming...

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[migalhone]

So how can espionage help you win domination?

 

[Snowbird]

Domination is the only victory condition I can see. I own around 55% of the land. The other 45% are united against me with immortal-level AI bonuses. In the long run I will be overtaken in commerce and production. But I do not have to play the long run.

Proceeds to build/rush buy world wonders... I hate to be negative but in the last ~30 turn set there is not much in terms of short goals(Astro maybe).

I think AI outproducing human is a factor either for Diety or if AI has way more land. The main thing is AI building every building and terrain improvements. The only focussed terrain improvement from AI are mass cottage spam, but these end up being pushovers.

For buildings I don't think (in geenral) at 16xx date curthouses are paying off - state property is better...

For improvements - lets's take a look at the poor city of Constitanopole -- so plains farm (for irrigation probably), FP farm and green farm for +3F to work 0F4 hammer workshops and engineer... which you know could be - FP cottage+green cottage (riverside plains cottage too if irrigation can be done other way) and a couple of windmills or cutting plain farm or engineer. Ulundi... also not clear what the city is trying to do -- whip some infrastructure maybe?

In short, if you run emancipation then cottage everything and aim for corps... (might need curthouses for corp expenses). I'd rather run state property, build research, then Manhattan, then nukes.

In the current situation - nukes and paratroopers are probably the best. Or Sushi to boost population and manipulate for UN -- might be a tight margin cause colony needs to put you over top in the victory voting.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

@Snowbird
Don't "hate" to be negative. Sisiutil's purpose was to receive criticism. (Probably, I would do one or two more, and then let someone else continue the quest).

You are correct, I neglected adjusting the improvements on captured territory. This is a result of neglecting workers. Most of my workers were killed during centuries of continuous warfare.

BUT... you are right, I could have just... trained new ones. *ahem*

I wasn't really "working" the engineer though... I am in mercantilism so I needed to put the bonus specialist somewhere.

You may have noticed how my mind has been stuck "inside the box" that my advantage is "more cities".
1. espionage city improvements such as courthouses and jails. They generate base espionage points and I can have one of each in every city. It's like creating virtual land tiles.
2. statue of liberty and mercantilism. The number of free specialists also depends on number of cities. More virtual land tiles.
3. corporations. They give a bonus to each single city. Again more virtual land tiles.

Once inside the box, espionage, courthouses, and corporations all seemed to fit together.

It never occured to me that I could gain the upper hand over the AI in terms of playing differently from how they were programmed to do. I always assumed that they will just overtake me with difficulty bonuses. Note that it's the AIs that have been running state property for some time already. (Obviously not me, I don't the communism tech!).

Interestingly, Statue of Liberty is the only wonder I built and actually finished. The rest were captured. I initially built the SoL for failgold, just like some other wonders, until I kept watching the espionage screen and noticed the AI wasn't making much progress. I wasn't desperate for it but I didn't want them to have it either.

Of course you might be correct that I should not have made the effort to completed it. Let me think about that.

Much to learn.

Having whipped the courthouses, I am pretty stuck with the corporations plan. Still there are action points to be taken:
AP1: build more workers.
AP2: change riverside farms into watermills
AP3: convert plains workshops into cottages or just not work them
AP4: aim for nukes and paratroopers.

(not sure about AP4... spamming tanks would be easier... I'll try)

 

[Snowbird]

Do you have/plan to have proper great people for the corps?

In pics it is 40% Great Spy coming up... With no merchant and engineer corps... well, just do not happen.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Do you have/plan to have proper great people for the corps?

In pics it is 40% Great Spy coming up... With no merchant and engineer corps... well, just do not happen.

I have a great scientist and I just got a great engineer. I can also switch into pacifism & caste temporarily for a great merchant if I want to. I can do that since I just whipped down my cities. The problem is I am far away from all the technology required to found corporations. All the choices might have already been taken by then. This is why I feel stealing techs is so important.

Edit: I do not have steam power so the yields do not reflect the possible presence of coal.

In the unfortunate event the corporations are taken, then yes, caste system, state property, workshops everywhere, then throw all the abolitionists into the hippodrome tracks.

 

[Snowbird]

Given the timetable and cor gains ... just go state property and nukes.

Enough nukes should just erase whatever they have in the cities and then some unit has to walk in and capture. Paratroopers can walk in the city the same nuking turn (I think workers in the cities stop this - but some improvement sabotage turn before helps). This way one turn war - no fuss, no worries about railroads.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

State property and nukes. The advice was well-received... by my opponents.

Round 10: Fortuitous distractions (1695AD - 1824AD)

While I convert all the workshops into cottages, I wanted population to grow more quickly so there are citizens to work the cottages. Reached 1730AD biology

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Also trading material, which I did not expect.

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Selling a monopoly tech for small quantities of gold is not a mistake. To repeat, once I trade a tech to one member of the team, I might as well sell it to the rest of the team for one gold.

My spies keep doing their work

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Three important events in 1760AD. Mining Incorporated founded. Launched 3-person golden age. Religious excommunication blocked.

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The third one indicated that I had enough Buddhists to block AP resolutions, and enough population to block UN diplomatic defeat.

Then the manure hit the circulation device again:

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Right, steal all the gold. Rush assembly line. Need infantry fast. Of course during all this time I have been drafting rifles nonstop.

Then they showed up with a wave of SAM infantry, cavalry, and way too many city-raider II artillery. I suicided all my cannons to weaken the stack. Minimal damage. Then I garrisoned two-dozen rifles in the city, with grievous losses. Problem was the city wasn't on a hill. Thank the heavens for my two machine guns! After the assault, I threw almost all the cataphracts in and remaining units into the attacking stack to finished them off.

Then the second wave showed up. My ragtag forces definitely could not hold this time. Destroyers even bombarded my city defenses to zero. Might as well be the attacker so I don't get hit by collateral damage? But then I would lose the city.

Then (cue the music) this happened. Better lucky to be good.

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Bought me so much time to bolster defenses!

Spies continue their work

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The Arabs were rushing to the same tech as me. They will reach it the same turn as me. But, as human player, I go first in the turn. This allowed me to sue for peace.

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Tech paths can be somewhat random. Two turns ago, the Khmer just completed the Apollo Project. I need to race for domination before they launch a spaceship.

I also got a trade deal, haven't had one for centuries. Useless but that's all they were willing to give.

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The good news is I can finally make a unit with the same strength as my opponents.

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The bad news that is my opponents, running the evil state property civic, holding the Kremlin, can, if they so wish, go nukes and paratroopers against me.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Post-mortem of 1860AD domination

As stated, I switched to tank spam after industrialism, and then declared after the 10-turn peace treaty expired. No time to "industrialise" and build factories.

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I had to strike fast because I did not actually have tech parity. My window of opportunity was the time gap between tanks and gunships / mechanised infantry / ICBMs.

This is the tech situation one turn before the game ended.

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In fact I was behind in technology and in GNP up to the very end. Even with more than half the land area and 160+ fully-mature towns, I never closed the gap.

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Most of the excitement came down to draft abuse and defensive tactics. The protective trait would have actually been great here.

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Starting positions from the post-game timeline and some thoughts

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Khmer becoming the dominant power was unexpected but they did well in a war against Greece. I still believe that rushing Mansa Musa, even through skirmishers, early on would have been a better early-game approach. The French lands were separated by a desert and maintenance costs dragged my classical-era tech pace. Killing Mansa Musa early would have also slowed the global tech pace provide me with more tile that I could cottage. Then it would have been sucking up to Du Gualle and keeping Shaka in check.

But I suppose the cataphract play was also interesting. Also more ... "instructive"? As in, if the game was on deity, if some other AI were in the place of Mansa Musa, if strategic resources were not available, then early rushing would have not been possible. So the cataphract play was more ... "generalisable"?

It was a bit unfortunate that I did not manage to show off the powerful hippodrome. I did built a couple but only used it like a standard theatre in big cities. Supposedly it is awesome for small and food-rich kingdoms to draft like crazy. I did draft like crazy but the limitation was food. After infantry my population growth was not sufficient to support draft-abuse anymore.

Final word: Great General 281/420. It was bloody.

 

[konata_LS]

Congrats on your victory , especially with a poor plain cow start

The Demographics info screen is a nice example to show the importance of Production. Holding a tech lead is nice, but can never be neglected. When the player's Production largely surpasses AI's, even if the former is behind in tech, it would still be possible to win the game.