Nobles' Club 366: Justinian I of Byzantium

[AcaMetis]

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 314. The Byzantines start with Mysticism and The Wheel.

• Traits: Justinian I is Imperialistic and Spiritual. Imperialistic adds +100% to Great General generation and +50% bonus to Settler production (note that the settler bonus doesn't apply to excess directly converted to ). Spiritual allows you to swap state religion/civics without suffering Anarchy, and gives a +100% bonus to all Temples.
• The UB: The Hippodrome, a Theatre with +1 and double the happiness bonus from running your slider, but it gets +1 from access to Horses rather than Dye and it doesn't add two Artist specialist slots. Overall not a bad building, but it makes Horses that much more important for Justinian I when they already are very important. Why? Well...
• The UU: The Cataphract, a Knight with base 12 instead of 10, although it loses it's innate immunity to First Strike. These guys hit as hard as a Cuirassier, and while they don't innately ignore Walls and Castles they can still wreak an awful lot of havoc on the battlefield. Combine with siege for a slow and steady approach to warfare, or run the espionage slider and use spies to instigate revolts/sabotage Walls at key moments for a more fast and loose, high risk but high reward style of play.

And the start:

Spoiler map details :

Fractal, Tropical climate, Medium sealevel.

Spoiler edits :

Standard strategic resource swaps and moving of unworkable seafood resources.

Spoiler isolated? :

Not isolated.

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 366 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.

Spoiler what is demigod :

The difference between Immortal and Deity difficulty is akin to the difference between Noble and Immortal. Players eventually reached a point where Immortal was too easy, but Deity was still out of reach, and so neither difficulty provided a fun experience. "Demigod" is an otherwise standard Deity game where the AIs are only given their Immortal level starting units, in an attempt to bridge the gap.

Spoiler 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.

 

[AcaMetis]

Tempting to move 1S or maybe 1E to grab more river/grassland tiles, but that water 1NW of corn makes me worried this spot is close to a coastline, and settling the wrong spot could ruin seafood. If the northern corn reports Fresh Water than that water tile must be a Lake and all bets are off. If not...less obvious. The Warrior should probably move 1SE to scout out that river better. Alternatively 1NW to scout the northern river, but that doesn't seem to be of immediate concern on T0.

That's my read on the situation, what do the experts think ?

 

[a pen-dragon]

I tend towards settling somewhere in the southeast (currently 1SE seems nice, depends on what will be found, at least that keeps both corn and probably gets more river.). In this case if the settler moves only one tile we can come back and SIP on turn 1 if we do not like what we find. Thus I would move the Warrior 1SW and the Settler 1SE, unless the Warroir discovers something great, especially an early commerce resource would be nice.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Hippodrome, a Theatre.... it doesn't add two Artist specialist slots

You mean I can build it without the City Governor running Artists, great!!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

SIP or 1S, likely a second city on the PH north of the warrior. I like the idea of climbing the Grassland Hill and settling on t1 having seen the lie of the land.

 

[chinemol]

at first glance: Imperialistic seems wasted without a heavy hammer couple of tiles. spiritual won't do much with this start.
after looking at the map spoiler

Spoiler :

tempted to go inland and settle a more production heavy spot. alternatively, go on the coast and beeline TGL and go from there. game will likely be lost if the second option doesn't pan out. first option might give a crappy capital, but room to expand

 

[sampsa]

at first glance: Imperialistic seems wasted without a heavy hammer couple of tiles. spiritual won't do much with this start.

I think SPI/IMP is a pretty nice combo early, especially with double corn. You can whip settlers.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Played a couple of turns. This is a very interesting map!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T72 :

Agriculture, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Mining, Bronze working, Writing, Fishing.

In retrospect, bronze working was not valuable, although I had hoped to get a metal after a harrowing rush to hook up the horse.

Worker, Warrior --> Size 4 --> Worker, Warrior --> Size 5 --> Settler (5 turns).

I had an idea where I would wall off Willem from the land in the southeast with closed borders. Land looks huge, although somewhat crappy for now. I've gotten all the future river tiles I can get in this start, even if they're covered in jungle.

Then I realized I still really do need the 5 GPT from trade routes at the moment. Maybe there's something in the AI code where if the city destination is far enough, they won't bother until a certain era. By any rate, he's spamming all the wrong missionaries, which kind of sucks.

Other improvement idea: if I had known he would still consider Maastricht as an eligible settling spot, I would've double planted for the cow in the north.

 

[chinemol]

Spoiler T72 :

Agriculture, Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Mining, Bronze working, Writing, Fishing.

In retrospect, bronze working was not valuable, although I had hoped to get a metal after a harrowing rush to hook up the horse.

Worker, Warrior --> Size 4 --> Worker, Warrior --> Size 5 --> Settler (5 turns).
View attachment 707826


I had an idea where I would wall off Willem from the land in the southeast with closed borders. Land looks huge, although somewhat crappy for now. I've gotten all the future river tiles I can get in this start, even if they're covered in jungle.

Then I realized I still really do need the 5 GPT from trade routes at the moment. Maybe there's something in the AI code where if the city destination is far enough, they won't bother until a certain era. By any rate, he's spamming all the wrong missionaries, which kind of sucks.

Other improvement idea: if I had known he would still consider Maastricht as an eligible settling spot, I would've double planted for the cow in the north.

if you open borders he won't settle past your borders. he might capture a barb city or settle an island past your borders via galley

 

[zeeeend]

Good to see the Noble's Club still in good standing.
Haven't played for almost a decade but found a fresh install on steam for $5 and will give this one a try on immortal.

 

[zeeeend]

1000BC - T75

Spoiler :

Trying to cut off Willem from my rightful belongings. Detoured for Archery to fence off the barbs. Now iron working to get some juice out of horrible horse city. It's on a hill int the hope to get to the rice but W. is beating me to it.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

if you open borders he won't settle past your borders. he might capture a barb city or settle an island past your borders via galley

This is interesting; what's the game logic behind that?

 

[sampsa]

what's the game logic behind that?

Hard to say, but somehow that's the way AI settlers behave. At least that has been my experience as well.

 

[Fish Man]

This is interesting; what's the game logic behind that?

Probably an anti-frustration feature, same with AIs not declaring on friendly/some at pleased. In fact, if you pop borders to completely "cut off" a piece of land they want to settle while their settler is en route, they will very likely turn their settler party around. This is why creative is so good; it lets you get good tiles, keep good tiles, and secure however many guaranteed city spots as the screwed-up fractal map gen allows if you block a portion of land off, to settle as late as you please.

 

[0urBall]

Monarch to 1AD, how am I doing? All advice gratefully received

Spoiler :

Didn't have a great start when I lost out on Myst by 1 turn but have managed to block WVO off and keep him to 6 cities.
I'm torn between using IMP to spam settlers and fill out the available land without crashing the economy
WVO isn't a good man for trading monoploy Techs, is he?

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

WVO isn't a good man for trading monoploy Techs, is he?

Per Willem's page in Know Thy Enemy, WIllem is willing to trade techs that at least 15% of the board knows. If you trade him a tech than at least 2/7 or ~28.5% of the board knows the tech, meaning Willem is more than willing to trade it to others. In addition Willem has one of the highest limits for tech trading before WFYABTA kicks in, and is willing to trade techs as low as Annoyed, so all told you can expect him to trade techs often and continue to do so for a while.

That all said Willem is no stranger to espionage, so that monopoly tech might end up in his hands regardless. If Willem is investing his espionage points into you you might want to either take measures against tech stealing, or if he's willing to hand over a king's ransom for a monopoly tech, consider taking the offer.

 

[Fippy]

Not settling beyond your borders was changed in BTS (or maybe warlords already? cannot remember).
Vanilla deity was harder in that regard..they didn't care and settled everywhere
Now they only can (and will) attempt that via galleys.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler 1 AD :

Played to the 1st century, self-teching Alphabet and only getting Sailing for it. Confirming what the others said - the AI does not settle across your borders, even with open borders.

The rest of this game is just a semi-iso with reasonable timing to Optics + double bulb for Astronomy -- with a whole lot of room to slowly build a big empire. Less surprising than I thought.

 

[0urBall]

Monarch to 1AD, how am I doing? All advice gratefully received

Spoiler :

Didn't have a great start when I lost out on Myst by 1 turn but have managed to block WVO off and keep him to 6 cities.
I'm torn between using IMP to spam settlers and fill out the available land without crashing the economy
WVO isn't a good man for trading monoploy Techs, is he?

Well, that didn't go well, I lost when EVERYONE declared war on me around Turn 300 or so. And when they started to land with Rifles (and Infantry!! ) against my muskets, I knew I was doomed. I must have not timed the invasion of WVO right, as he vassaled himself to Shaka while I was also taking his land. Which also then cut off my army from helping to defend againsy Sury, who attacked from the west. I find with IMP leaders with a good bit of land it's difficult to avoid crashing your economy by over expanding