Nobles' Club 314: Justinian I of Byzantium

I think knights are a lot better on immortal than on deity, I guess due to the short window Lain mentions.
 
It amuses me that your forum presence has degenerated to babysitting me and jumping in whenever I say something stupid. :pat: Well, better than nothing!
 
Yeah I had to shame Sampsa for saying knights are good.

It's not surprising because Lain has a bias towards playing the meta and Henrik has a bias towards knights. I love cataphracts, but that's because I have a bias towards using UUs :)
To understand where Lain is coming from... the problem with rushing guilds is you can't bulb. OK technically there are a few bulb options but they have huge tradeoffs and you're at most going to use one - basically not worth considering. This means you're reliant on a strong commerce game to get to guilds earlyish. That's going to be situational, especially with Justinian's traits and starting techs. There's a world of difference between a random fractal map and a NC pangaea map. Lain basically played it like a deity fractal, because that's his comfort: relying on bulbs he knows he can get.

Cataphracts are amazing and can win pangaeas outright. Do NOT use siege, DO use spies. Revolt cities and blow up walls.
 
This means you're reliant on a strong commerce game to get to guilds earlyish. That's going to be situational, especially with Justinian's traits and starting techs.
Or... beeline Engineering and with the right trades Guilds is one tech away. Then a 12 strength unit is amazing to go along with your trebs. They can just take out anything in the field, come back to the stack and heal on the go. This way you also won't have to wait until Guilds to attack, you can start with trebs and a random bunch of units and then deliver the death blow when Guilds comes in. Spies are of course ideal but you need a lot of them and they require a fair bit of investment in spy points.
 
@AcaMetis and @sampsa : the ignoring walls and castles is definitely an important advantage of Cuirs, and one I considered, but they too struggle with high cultural defenses. I feel like the dominant thinking around civ is based on spamming two types of mounted units. Medieval war sounds horrible and siege sounds slow, but there is this snowballing effect that you get to accumulate more and more units while taking out more and more enemy units at an ever lower cost.
 
Engineering + construction + masonry + math is a 2,838:science: detour to add trebs. Maybe masonry/math are otherwise needed or gotten in tech trades, but those are the cheapies of the group. Espionage expenditure doesn't come til AFTER you have guilds, which is a whole different ballgame. Like I said, cataphracts can END pangaeas on their own, and if we're that confident in the game then the espionage expenditure is basically meaningless. Spies aren't free but they're cheaper and you need a lot fewer of them than siege.

Siege does the heavylifting in fights and reduces the rest of your army to mop-up duty. This is great if you've got trash, even archerpult can work in a pinch to help you get metal. But if you already have a strong carry unit, you're just wasting its advantage by adding siege. Cataphracts are 2-movers, a terrific bonus that doesn't matter if we're attached to 1-mover siege. To make matters even worse with cataphracts specifically, unlike normal knights, cataphracts give up their FS immunity. We can grab that back with flanking II, but that includes another 30% withdrawal chance that we'd be throwing away if only taking safe fights following siege. So instead you'd just get combat promotions on your cataphracts, which admittedly isn't bad given their higher strength. In practice though, those promotions seem wasted because the cataphracts were going to have incredibly high odds of success following siege regardless. The other GG option is putting CR on trebs. This normally isn't "bad" in an engineering attack, but is silly given that cataphracts should be the star of the show and that trebs at this point are an "old" unit compared to a normal engineering attack. I point out the inefficient GG use, because it seems like a huge flaw for an IMP leader to have and an entirely avoidable one at that. This is how you run into the trap of thinking that IMP is trash and that supermedics are the best you can do.

Ultimately getting one huge invincible stack is a very simple way to play the game, but not the best. We can do better than the AI. The risk is if you're not aggressively taking cities, you'll be too slow to run away with the game and you fall ages behind. You can have a terrific K/D ratio, but the slower you take cities and the more you heal, the more fights you have to take. Your battles become easier and easier, and then all of a sudden you just lose because you're 2 ages behind. If you're a big Henrik fan you can watch his latest Charlie game and see this exact thing happen.
 
Dare I give this a go? I thought I was ready for Emperor but the newer Justin map kicked my butt on Monarch too.
Is that the sea lapping in 2N of warrior?
 
[...] but they too struggle with high cultural defenses.
They do, but at that point in time an AI will have maybe one or two cities at 80%, and the rest at 60 or 40. This is significant compared to 100% everywhere.

Being immune to first strikes is no small thing, as the toughest defenders will be pikes and longbows. The longbows will be more frequent and have one first strike natively.

you might as well build Cataphracts given they're the same strength but cheaper!
The difference in cost is only 10:hammers:, and consequently I believe a Cuir is more cost effective than a Cataphract. This means that in attacking with Cataphracts is not cheaper than with Cuirs.
 
Ultimately getting one huge invincible stack is a very simple way to play the game, but not the best. We can do better than the AI.
As opposed to always going Cuirs? After one figures out how that works it's pretty simple. We actually do better than the AI even with this strategy, as we can always lure their stacks out and decimate them at equal strength with the understanding that with siege it matters who strikes first. There's tactics involved, just like in a Cuir rush.
If you're a big Henrik fan you can watch his latest Charlie game and see this exact thing happen.
Wouldn't call myself a "big Henrik fan" but I think he brings in new ideas which I believe is a good thing. But I'll check that game out.
The difference in cost is only 10:hammers:, and consequently I believe a Cuir is more cost effective than a Cataphract.
That's indeed a very small difference, I wasn't aware of that. But Cataphracts still come much earlier, which is also a kind of cost.
 
Well I couldn't resist - especially after hearing Lain had posted a vid to watch later and see how it's done. Sounds worth checking out the Henrik Charlie one too.

Turn 75 1000BC
Spoiler :

Civ4ScreenShot0415.JPG


It might not be good practice but I'm often thinking more about where to put second and third cities than first, SIP looked OKish for a city but wasn't on a river which would be nice and seemed short of hammers long term. The whole area there and South said IW and Cal to make the best of it which ain't the earliest tech around so better settled later, I sent my warrior NW and lo! and behold sheep and a FP! That meant the PH to NW looked a decent spot for a Cap with dry hills around for mines and maybe even gold. I thought the warr could quickly check the coast next turn if that was what it was just to make sure I didn't ruin fishes, I wasn't so settled the PH. To reward my instinct gold popped up. Now gold isn't everything but it's sure nice to have the tech boost and +1 happy early on.

Quickly became apparent that the world was a crowded place and I'd have to grab land S and W quickly. N wasn't available as Gilga was in residence and East could be easily sealed off to settle more at leisure. First tech was Ag, thought to farm FP etc until AH got me other food and then pottery let me cottage spam. Build worker then couple of warriors to grow then another worker and then a settler I think. Had farmed the sugar for now so sharing that and the gold plus the river for trade lead me to settle on the stone to the west. Blue circle even recommended it so I had to give it a second thought. I've farmed a lot of the river for food but I think it's worked out and has run up against Darius to the SW.

Once I had pottery it was BW with the thought that third city could secure copper if not in BFC of first two. No copper so Pot and then IW immediately after. Didn't want to do Pot first but my thought was it was better to dev stuff I have than stuff I might not have. As it happened I lucked out with 2nd city cos Iron is in the BFC and if that one is vulnerable there is more to the East. Checking west there seemed not much reason to push out that way and maybe get stuck between Darius and Gilga who are worst enemies. So south it was with a stretch to grab diamonds and land for a back fill city near where my settle was first turn. This would also block Persia from going east. 4th settler has just been completed and will grab rice amd dyes to the South and seal off the marble penisular from Hanni.

Pretty pleased so far. I'm no-one's worse enemy (i think) I have space for at least 5 decent cities. I'm teching AES with a view to trades and unlocking Hippo UB with drama. With the extra 2 happy cos of horses I can avoid Mon for a good while while settling the other X spots. So far so good, but then again it always is until it ain't
 
That's indeed a very small difference, I wasn't aware of that. But Cataphracts still come much earlier, which is also a kind of cost.

do phracts come that much earlier? I struggled to get to guilds in my other game and certainly have had cuirs in other (admittedly easier) games by that date, the whole MC, Mach, and Guilds is kinda expensive and then there's still Med, PH Mon and Feud to be able to build them. I've not managed Guilds in my best try on the other Justin map and took out X with Cats and Phants with a few Trebs for wall busting. Hopefully I'll get to use phracts in this one but the slow pace of a war with siege makes em a lot less desirable than Cuirs to me.
 
@jorissimo No, was talking about cataphracts in this case, but mostly meant as opposed to attacking multiple cities at once. A lot depends on the enemy stack. If it's sitting on your border and this is the only viable target, ok attacking with one big stack to start the war makes a lot of sense. But you don't have to continue to prosecute the war that way, and more often than not the stack isn't sitting on your border. It could be destroyed, could be in an enemy base, could be on the other side of his base, could be bribable into a war, etc. With PRO leaders I do a lot of defending and base racing. Point is if you go with a lazer focus of knocking out as many cities ASAP you will have much better results than if you shoot for the perfect K/D among your non-siege troops. This is a big selling point of 2-movers but is still true with siege armies to some extent.

@sampsa the question is whether knights + trebs is better than maces + trebs. I'm not sure if difficulty level matters, besides that it's a relatively small mistake that you'd expect a deity player to overcome playing down a level.

I feel bad, it's prolly not fair to recommend a Henrik game that he loses when I'm sure he has games he wins with knights. It was very entertaining and he pushed it farther than I had expected, but you did get the feeling that the end result was inevitable a long time before the final DoW. It's just a great recent example of an uber stack feeling stronger and stronger until the rug is suddenly pulled out from underneath.
 
Dare I give this a go? I thought I was ready for Emperor but the newer Justin map kicked my butt on Monarch too.
Is that the sea lapping in 2N of warrior?
Even if you don't trust your foggazing skills, you can tell it's ocean because of the blue circle. Blue circles have a tremendous bias for being coastal at the start, with the game regularly recommending spots that drop a food but pick up coast.
 
Well, I know I wouldn't have said "maces are good"... Of course we can make a decent case for (nearly) every unit I guess.
 
I guess the biggest disadvantage of teching guilds: low trading value, or at least unpredictable if much can be gained by selling Feuda etc.
Most AIs will go that route as well.
So on deity it's prolly do or die with those knights (or phracts) :)

In a standard cuirs game, Philo Edu etc. have a lot of value later.
Even if war success stagnates there are usually pretty obvious ways back into the game.

And maybe the biggest argument against knights (on deity):
..why would you do that when Elepult is so cheap. And only lack of ivory can ruin your plan. Can usually be traded from one AI as well.

So leaving just for fun play aside (very valid to try everything and different stuff ofc), we would need a map without Elepult..with some clear targets for knights..and with solid arguments for putting all your eggs into one basket. Pretty rare ;)
 
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