[BTS] Very awkward Justinian start

reflec

Chieftain
Joined
May 17, 2020
Messages
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Hi, tried my hand at emperor for the first time. This isn't a shadow game or anything, I was fully expecting this game to not go anywhere, which it didn't. I just had a really awkward start and was wondering what the experts would do.

I didn't make a save at the start of the game, had to recreate it from memory in wb :/
Start:
Spoiler :

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For reference, Justinian starts with Wheel + Mysticism

Surrounding area without fog:
Spoiler :

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Red x is where my cities were


What I tried doing:
Spoiler :

I see cows and think it's a great IMP tile. I SIP since I don't see anything that would warrant moving. There's not any more food in BFC and theres 1 FP. I decide to slow build a settler then worker, and go Agriculture->AH.

Then I go mining->BW since there's so many forests but by that point I was so far behind in tech and I had almost no commerce so going pottery after that hardly helped.

I all-in axe rush charlie with 6 cities and almost take him out, but by that point I'm -20:gold: at 0% and Genghis DOWS on me so the game's over.



I sadly don't have a turn 0 save
Attaching a ~t100 save so you can sorta see how the game played out, don't know how useful it will be
 

Attachments

Assuming this save is from a turn or two before DoW. This is pretty messy TBH, granted not a great start with only cow and one FP for food but there are a lot of problems.
Some comments on strategy:
An "all-in" axe rush generally should probably have two self-founded cities (including captial), maybe three if you're IMP, and war should be declared sometime between 2000-1000 BC. Generally a true all-in axe rush only makes sense if you're very boxed in, have very poor land and know a neighbor has much better land, or to kill an AI likely to be a pain in the rear like a hard to please warmonger; it really does not make sense when you are in a central location on a Pangaea. I don't know why you're attacking Charlie here, he's not particularly close and you can only see one of his cities so you don't even know what you're conquering really.
Surely you can see that if you're at breakeven at 0% science before declaring, you probably aren't going be able to afford to keep another AI's cities?

Empire building comments:
Too few workers leading to unimproved tiles. You have a size 3 city with furs in the first ring,angry citizens from slavery, and no progress towards roading/camping the happy resource. Also you haven't camped the ivory (you can do this w/o IW, camps do not require removing the jungle).
Tech is very poor with no classical techs or even Writing at turn 100. You have a ton of warriors costing money (even without Writing, the AI's should have it by now and some of the surplus warriors should be mapping out AI territory), and suspect you assembled your axe stack slowly so you were paying maintenance on some of them for far too long.
 
On top of what's been said above i would have definitely rushed the Mongols here if I went that route. Ghengis is a horrible neighbour and a warmonger so he's the guy you want to get rid off. That said you have room for lots of quality cities. Rush may not have been the best play here. AI capitals are >10 tiles away. if you can leverage that IMP trait well and plant 6-7 good cities, it's all you need to break out later.

Justinian's starting techs do suck though. Needing two techs to improve your only (mediocre) source of food hurts! Worker first then farming a FP would be my first move while I wait for AH. Since your worker is gonna be idle maybe build some useful roads while you wait for AH and then Mining/BW after.
 
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Not an expert and no prizes for settling perfect spot in hindsight but I wouldn't SIP with just plains cow. Can see coast 2S1W of warrior which generally isn't great. Forests 2N, 2N1E and 2 N1W of warrior so move NE which reveals one FP and one desert tile - no substantial improvement. Move 1S with settler. Unsure at this point if I'd settle for a whole load of forest for an imperial leader plus FP and river tiles or move onto the PH aluminium at the expense of the cow but not yet aware of pigs or rice. With map knowledge the latter would be vastly superior and think I'd probably gamble on this - grassland pigs and wet rice FTW.
 
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