Nobles' Club 314: Justinian I of Byzantium

[sylvanllewelyn]

Not everyone plays on deity difficulty. Some play "no tech trading" (not me).

The cataphract tech path is militaristic. Along the way are archers, horse archers, and crossbows.

Skip mathematics. Metal casting, forge, great engineer, bulb machinery. Currency (through alphabet), market, great merchant, bulb guilds.

Can someone do the calculations? Cataphracts +2 strength more than make up for losing first strike immunity, even against castles. Since you have feudalism, that's at least combat 2.

 

[skarpa]

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.

Thanks. There is on the screenshot above but not on my opening turn and I forgot to compare the two at the time. Second time this has been the case. I wonder why.

 

[AcaMetis]

Can someone do the calculations? Cataphracts +2 strength more than make up for losing first strike immunity, even against castles. Since you have feudalism, that's at least combat 2.

I don't know calculations, but I do know brute force testing with worldbuilder .

TL;DR: Against a City Garrison II Longbow in a Walls/Castle city on flatlands a Combat II Knight has 10.56% odds to win outright, a Combat II Cataphract has 20.7% to win outright, and a Flanking II Cataphract has 10.56% to win and (separately) 26.83% to retreat for a total of 37.39% to not die. For comparison, assuming the city has 60% cultural defence, a Combat II Cuirassier has 34.06% to win and 9.89% to retreat.

Alternatively, if you wish to compare Knights and Cataphracts, a Combat II Knight has 12 whereas a Flanking II Cataphract has immunity to first strike (plus retreat odds). So in terms of winning their respective battles they're actually on equal footing.

 

[skarpa]

I don't know calculations, but I do know brute force testing with worldbuilder .

TL;DR: Against a City Garrison II Longbow in a Walls/Castle city on flatlands a Combat II Knight has 10.56% odds to win outright, a Combat II Cataphract has 20.7% to win outright, and a Flanking II Cataphract has 10.56% to win and (separately) 26.83% to retreat for a total of 37.39% to not die. For comparison, assuming the city has 60% cultural defence, a Combat II Cuirassier has 34.06% to win and 9.89% to retreat.

Alternatively, if you wish to compare Knights and Cataphracts, a Combat II Knight has 12 whereas a Flanking II Cataphract has immunity to first strike (plus retreat odds). So in terms of winning their respective battles they're actually on equal footing.

Is the general assumption in this discussion that mounted units will have 2 promotions. All the cuirassiers I build do, the odds against LBs etc ain't that good without.

 

[skarpa]

Hmmm just confirmed that Constantinople is stuck at size 7 for some unknown reason. Wasn't 100% sure before but still on size 7 at 1100AD. I've asked question in tech support but have any of you lot seen this before?

 

[Thrasybulos]

You've probably clicked the "Avoid Growth" button.

 

[skarpa]

You've probably clicked the "Avoid Growth" button.

you are right, thanks. I don't use those buttons so didn't think to check. I didn't realise that it could literally stop a city with +4 food from growing though, i thought it could only adjust which tiles were worked and put on specialists etc.

 

[skarpa]

So I gave this a go - I tried settling in place to use the mined PH to get a settler out faster, and compared what I did with what Lain did (he settled 1S on dye). Think I've learned something .

Great post, fantastic to see an actual turn by turn comparison. I settled on PH 2N1W but that was only on Monarch so no comparison would be valid

 

[skarpa]

Turn 175. Monarch level. Going well but how to win quickly from here? Suggestions welcome please! thanks

Spoiler :

Situation.
Taj finishes next turn and I have a 12 turn GAge
I have a GA for another afterwards
I am 9 turns from Gunpowder and Cuirassiers
No one else except Darius has Nat or Edu or Guilds yet
I have built 25 HA but have no cash to upgrade
HC is most backward - no phil or paper
Hanni, Gilga and Darius are all friendly, I;m no one's worst enemy (yet)
Hanni has the AP in our shared religion and the AP throne too
GS in 2 turns
I'm putting 15 CPT onto Gilga's and Darius' cities from Angora - they are 13% and 18% Byz but presumably a long way off from flipping.

Now what to do?

In the GAge I was gonna go into Caste and Pac to try to get some GMs for Trade to get cash to upgrade to Cuir. I was hoping to have some GP points stashed towards GM but I've not built markets quickly enough. Should I wait for the 2nd GAge?

Who to attack?
Usually it would be Gilga first to secure my rear but he's friendly and Pro LBs and high culture defence isn't good for Cuirassiers let alone other attackers. I have 4 cats and Eng for trebs but none built and I'd rather not slow down my attack. I did put all my EPs against him early on but he's still outspent me and I've not enough to revolt any city (if that will counter culture defence - I've no experience in Spy attacks really)

How about Hanni? BUG suggests he'll win AP throne again in the next vote by 7%. 4 turns to next vote. 1 vote to next election. He has AP and ToS and Spiral Min in Carthage - 3 cities away, tempting targets but it'll annoy my other friends and AP votes might reverse conquests etc

That leaves the other 4 but I have no borders with any of em and I can't decide which. Anyone want to make any suggestions? Should I even go to war?

Save attached should anyone want a deeper look. BUFFY 005 installed

 

[skarpa]

This was just one of those games for me. Demigod

Spoiler :

I was concerned about Gilgamesh in this game so i gifted him a city to get him to pleased. I also planted the city next to Darius so he would have border tensions and would hopefully be a land target for war. He started plotting later and i was really hoping it was Darius, but i was still concerned because all of the troops were near my border. I started building some axes and spears and begged for a little bit of gold. The red fist didn't go away and i even got him to Friendly during the 10t of peace, but he attacked me as soon the treaty ended and i just couldn't defend against everything. Other than that, the game was going really well...

I might play it again and do the same thing.

if any consolation Gilga did that to me too. He got Kublai into the act too. He failed to take my cap but I decided I'd failed at the politicking and re-started.

 

[skarpa]

T237 conquest

Spoiler :

Kublai built the UN and won the election against me. Very annoying because he called a vote for environmentalism the turn I attacked Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh voted for environmentalism the same turn he fired five or six nuclear missiles at me which must have caused a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. Capac fired some off at Saladin and Darius while voting the same way.

geez nuke war and then victory before the game is halfway over. I can't even...

 

[skarpa]

@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.

You are so right about Cuirs struggling with high cult defs. I tried slamming 20 combat 2 cuirs into a city with 60% plus protective archers. I lost 10 and didn't take the city that turn. I'd got so complacent throwing Cuirs at stuff and maybe losing a couple at most before cleaning up I'd stopped checking the odds. I will next time

 

[jorissimo]

archers

Archers?!

 

[skarpa]

Archers?!

sorry, I meant Longbows.

 

[skarpa]

Immortal, 1555 conquest
Edit: added screenshots

Spoiler :

Basically did a classic engineering rush followed up with Cataphracts. Settled on the plains hill, which had a wet sugar, a floodplain and a plains sheep. All with all weak food but I managed to work with it, mixing farms with cottages and growing the city to size 19 with decent output. A positive side effect of this was that it boxed Giggles in and gave me more room to expand south. Settled the second city on the stone and gave it the farmed sugar. Initially a weak city it actually became decent after IW.

I went something like Agri - Mining - Bronze - Masonry - Pottery, delaying AH for quite a while until I was ready to settle the peninsular cow city. Then Writing.

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I built the mids for some spiritual mids gaming. I started building them after city 3 was settled on the dye, around 2200 BC I think. I eventually expanded to 7 cities.

View attachment 714552

Darius had been plotting but no stack was visible, then suddenly a bunch of swords showed up. I switched into his religion (Hindu) and got him to pleased, but he still declared somehow? Maybe because he started plotting at Cautious? Anyway, his stack was pathetic and couldn't do much. I eventually managed to take Gordium off him, but had to let him recapture. Then he accepted peace.

My economy was a disaster around the 5-city mark, as none of my cities had much commerce potential at that point (before IW). But when I got libraries up and started running rep dudes, things started picking up and I was doing well over 100 bpt at t100. Got a GS which I used for Philo, then another one to start a golden age while teching CS. Doing it after CS would have given me more output but I was lagging behind in tech and really needed to get to CS asap. Later I got an engineer and a scientist which I used to bulb Gunpowder and Chemistry. After that an artist from Persepolis and another scientist from either the capital or the cow city for a final golden age while teching Rifling.

View attachment 714564

I DOWed Darius in the 700s, and he still didn't have Feudalism at this point. My trebs supported by ancient and classical units (including elephants, which Saladin kindly traded to me in exchange for 2 luxury resources) had great odds even without bombarding. He got rekt and capped after I took 4 of his cities.

View attachment 714558

Darius had been the big guy up to that point so from then on everything was basically a cakewalk. I was over 1.5 times Hannibal's strength and my stack was already in position in a southwestern Persian city I had just conquered, so I went for him straight and he already capped after I took two cities. At this point I had loads of cataphracts that could often simply snipe the smaller cities.

View attachment 714559

After Hannibal I moved on to Giggles. He had cuirs but only 6 cities and capped after I took one city. Same for Saladin. By this time I had cannons. Then Kublai who was really weak but in a DP with HC which I hadn't noticed. It didn't matter because both were pretty weak, even though HC had Grenadiers. I quickly capped Kublai and then went for HC, who was a bit more stubborn and capped after 4 cities.

View attachment 714560
View attachment 714561
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1555 Conquest, my third or fourth highest score on Immortal. Engineering rushes end the game so much earlier than Cuirs do.

View attachment 714563

Glad your strategy worked well. I wasn't ready to read any AAR until I was thinking about the endgame myself cos spoilers. I haven't done this but I'll certainly go back to the beginning or an earlier save and give it a go

 

[jorissimo]

sorry, I meant Longbows.

Phew, otherwise that would have been some diabolical RNG

 

[skarpa]

Phew, otherwise that would have been some diabolical RNG

Ha, I think there was some cos I lost a couple cuirs mid attack to non-LBs just to add insult to injury

 

[jorissimo]

If you're a big Henrik fan you can watch his latest Charlie game and see this exact thing happen.

I just finished watching Charlemagne Deity 79, which I'm pretty sure is the most recent Charly one. It ends in victory though so I don't think it's the one you're talking about? I'm just genuinely interested in watching this game.

 

[drewisfat]

Game wasn't titled Charlemagne but Christmas stream.

Spoiler :

 

[azatol]

Haven't played Civ 4 in a while. I've only played a couple of games on Noble before, but this one is going well enough turn 149.

Spoiler :

Made a dumb move, deciding to go for Alphabet and then chariot rushing. I tanked my economy good by getting all those cities from Persia. I was at 0 percent manually tweaking all my city tiles to get a few more commerce. Managed to put a bunch of cities into Research to get Currency up, and then my econ started to recover. I'm still behind most of the civs in tech, but my score shows I'm way ahead, so I don't know what to think.

It's funny how people describe the religions the civs had in their play through. Christianity and Buddhism spread into my borders, but I chose Christian because I've been buddies with Gilgamesh for most of the game. No one else has the same religion. Mongols are Confucian, Hannibal is Jewish, Inca is Buddhist and Arabia is Hinduist.

I need more practice at the mid-game / recovering your economy. I could fill in some city sites and expand a bit in the south, but I don't know if it makes since to do that when I already have 10 cities. I need to decide if I want to beeline for another conquering tech, or try to push towards space.