Up until about 5 minutes ago, I was convinced that Shaka's UB was worthless. After all, 20% off of the maintenance fee for Barracks would be like, what, 0.2 gold? Now, in reading another post, I see no buildings at all contribute to the maintenance cost. Only cities themselves. I go back, reread the unit description, and it clearly says "-20% maintenance"...

Does that mean -20% maintenance for the entire city??? Is it really THAT cool? With a courthouse I'd only be paying 30% of the maintenance costs? Good lord! Imagine if an Organized leader had that building! What'd that be... 15%?!?!

Someone want to clarify this? That building almost gives Shaka a third trait (Organized) it seems. What would an organized leader with a courthouse have for the percent of paid maintenance versus Shaka with a Courthouse and an Ikhanda?

Yes, it is really a good UB (looks great, too). I had totally overlooked Shaka but I was doing random maps and leaders a few weeks ago and drew him and ended up with a great economy and defensive army that kept my neighbors docile, and ultimately a space race victory!

Yes it is that cool, but it has nothing to do with organized, which lowers civics cost, not city cost.

But it's not as cool as Holy Roman Empire, which gets 75% of city cost with their special courthouse.

Very good for keeping Corperation costs down, second only to the rathaus

And Shaka's Aggressive - double production when building Ikhandas, to boot :)

Ikhanda costs 10 more hammers than barracks, so Shaka pays 30H for his building vs the normal 50H. A royal bargain in my book!:goodjob:

I had no idea!!! This changes everything.

I must now go play Shaka.

I'll see y'all tomorrow with my findings!

Jeepers...!

Hence why shaka was the number 1 leader in Warlord MP. Combine that with traits and a UU which are designed for an early rush and you have a leader that can outfight almost anything.

Shaka is the king of early expansion.

Aggressive + extremely mobile UU for fast and strong armies, Ikhandas and Expansive to sustain your empire early in the game.

After all, 20% off of the maintenance fee for Barracks would be like, what, 0.2 gold?

Every building increases the maintenance fee? I didn't know that.

Shaka is probably my pick for the best leader in the game, and yes, I would rate the Ikhanda as the best UB. I'd put it ahead of the rathaus as well, purely on its own merits. That sort of maintenance reduction is fantastic, and getting it right from the start with a cheap building really allows a stronger early game that more than beats out the rathaus' extra 5%.

What really pushes it over the edge is Shaka's absolutely perfect synergy. For starters, he's one of only about 3 leaders who gets a production bonus on their UB, and 30 hammers for that sort of bonus is an incredible steal. Plus you're getting a barracks out of it too!
It works great with expansive, because Expansive favours more spread out REXing, and also because Ikhanda+Granary is only 60 hammers and gets a new city up to speed at lightning pace.
It works great with the Impi (the best UU in the game!), who start getting produced at a time when multiple barracks are otherwise a luxury. And ikhanda+cheap granaries+extra workers for chopping=a powerful elite army whipped out in record time with minimal detriment to the empire.
It also means you can go further afield to grab all-important copper for Impis, without the maintenance being quite such a drag. And the impi itself is perfect for a big, sprawling empire.
And now that the bug is fixed, it works beautifully with Nationhood, Shaka's perfect civic.

Shaka is so good it's almost criminal :D

Shaka is so good it's almost criminal :D

Shhhh... keep it down... Faraxis might hear and nerf him... :P...

The Ikhanda's nice, but IMO it doesn't compare to the civs with specialized courthouses.

Courthouses reduce maintenance AND provide +2spy points (hrm, no smiley yet for the spy points) AND the specialized ones are cheaper or also provide happiniess or ....

Those buildings are great and my new favorites. The Ikhanda's certainly nice and fits well with a warmongering strategy for Shaka, though.

Every building increases the maintenance fee? I didn't know that.

It did in Civ I, II, and III. Not in IV.

Yeah. Shaka really is super good. I think he's the best leader in the game. (Although Idk anything about the BTS leaders because I don't own it yet:( :mad: :mad: :mad: :()

Shhhh... keep it down... Faraxis might hear and nerf him... :P...

I reckon the Expansive nerf in bts was probably primarily because of Shaka :D
But they just ended up making him even stronger with the ikhanda bugfix, woodsman III, better muskets, extra foresty starts, and corporations.
You can't keep Shaka down!

I reckon the Expansive nerf in bts was probably primarily because of Shaka :D
But they just ended up making him even stronger with the ikhanda bugfix, woodsman III, better muskets, extra foresty starts, and corporations.
You can't keep Shaka down!

I reckon if they do make another expansion they may change his traits... I'm not sure what though but they'll definitely not give him Aggressive, Expansive is questionable...

I wonder how he'd play with Napoleon's Traits (Cha/Org)... *goes checks unrestricted Leaders* :P lol

The Ikhanda's nice, but IMO it doesn't compare to the civs with specialized courthouses.

Oh yes it does, IMO. :) The three Courthouse UBs are the Sacrificial Altar, Ziggurat, and Rathaus. The Sac Altar comes long after all the important whipping is done, and its cost decrease isn't much. The Ziggurat comes earlier, which is a decent benefit, but its cost decrease is again not important. The Rathaus is an excellent long-term building, but the Ikhanda does have one thing going for it - it is available an age and a half earlier. You can afford to expand faster and capture cities instead of razing them. This has a massive knock-on effect on the rest of the game.

To sum up, the Rathaus is very good, but the Ikhanda is incredible. You can get bigger much earlier, and -70% maintenance isn't much worse than -75%. It's an awesome building for every game except OCC.

And now that the bug is fixed, it works beautifully with Nationhood, Shaka's perfect civic.

*giggle* yup, nationhood is good with shaka. but i just love games where you've met him, but not scouted out his territory. because then you know what's coming ... "the pyramids have been built in a distant land" ... "shaka zulu has adopted police state" :lol:

the first time i ever used police state it was after capturing the mids nappy had so sweetly built for me. i was spiritual so i figured i'd see what it's like. i was zillions of techs away from fascism, and i thought of it as "pulling a shaka".

i'm really bad at early wars but shaka is really cool. impis are fantastic, and the mobility promo stays when you upgrade them. they don't go obsolete for a while if you plan it right, and with ikhandas i can sometimes afford to keep a stack of impis sitting around doing nothing, just waiting (and waiting, and waiting) to grow up to be mech infantry ;).

i really do think the expansive nerf was due to shaka in MP. makes me sad, since i only play SP, so why nerf me? *pout* he's still worth it tho, because the impis love to fight. they have the best dance in the game!

isnt this the guy who said huayana cupac was bad?

Shaka's synergy is incredible. He has a trait which gives him stronger troops, a blazingly fast-moving UU that's affected by it, a building that helps pay for the cities he conquers, and a second trait that helps him grow and improve them!

...pity the boost to troop strength is one measly, fixed promotion that only works on 2 unit classes, the UU can't actually kill any city defenders even with the aggressive boost and has its movement wasted on its role as a stack protector, the building's savings are 40% of what you'd get from a courthouse, and the expansive trait's worker production bonus got ruined.

Shaka is a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, but the parts being such utter junk that it doesn't matter. The whole's still trashy, just slightly less so.

At least the health bonus is a lot more useful in BtS.

Pre-emptive answer to inevitable question: No I do not write for IGN, no I do not think Inca sucks.

I haven't even played Shaka yet, but I can already tell that you aren't thinking all of your points through very well. =/

Free Combat I promotion: Only a measily 10% bonus, right? Wrong. It is a free promotion that you don't have to buy, and is the prereq for a lot of useful traits like Medic and most of the anti-specific unit type traits. Think of it this way: with a free Combat I promotion, every time you upgrade your troops, you are one upgrade ahead of what you would normally be, plus you didn't have to accumulate the higher cost of the next level of experience. You also get cheaper barracks.

Can't say anything about the performance of the Impi since like I said I haven't even played Shaka yet.

Building's savings are 40% of what you would get from a Courthouse....your point being? The Barracks doesn't normally do that, and is CUMULATIVE with the Courthouse. Who cares if it provides a separate bonus that is "only" 40% of what another building made to provide that specific function gives? That has nothing to do with how useful the Ikhanda is.

Certain units are ahead of the promotion curve with aggressive, not all of them. Charismatic is really superior, affecting all units albeit slightly less profoundly, and it grants a builder bonus to boot. That trait existing really hurts aggressive's relative value.

Money saved by courthouses is great. Cut it by 2/5ths, and it's a lot less so. The Ikhanda is still an improvement over its regular counterpart, mind, it's certainly better than having no UB at all... but the same is true with all UBs. There are so many UB benefits that are just BETTER than 2/5th's of a courthouse worth of saved gold. You need to keep in mind how good other UBs are when comparing them.

REPLIES TO BHURIC, TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME!!!!!

More like mounted units, helicopter units and tank units do plenty of fighting too and aggressive doesn't do jack for them

Thanks for reinforcing my stance. In the off chance you are in a position where an opponent is weak enough to be knocked over by fast moving 4 strength units, the cheaper Chariots exist. Costing 10 hammers less and being allowed by a better tech than Bronze Working >>>>>> benefitting from Aggressive's weak dick boost.

I concede your third point, I should have thought of that.

Deagle already made your fourth and I shot it to pieces.

The worker boost was never impressive to begin with due to that horrible "only hammers work, not food" provision. Now it's just crap.

pity the boost to troop strength is one measly, fixed promotion that only works on 2 unit classes

2 unit classes that happen to make up the majority of your attacking units throughout the game?

the UU can't actually kill any city defenders even with the aggressive boost

The UU can actually do a decent job of attacking in an early rush capacity. People do Chariot rushes, which is a unit with the same strength/moves. Except the Chariot won't have the free Combat I promotion, or the ability to use the CR promotion line.

and has its movement wasted on its role as a stack protector

Depends what it's protecting. If you use them to defend a Chariot/Horse Archer stack, they can both move quite quickly.

the building's savings are 40% of what you'd get from a courthouse

Yes, but you can still build the courthouse. Getting the 20% early decreases your upkeep in the early game - you then add on to that with courthouses, giving you a 70% total - better than any Civ except the HRE.

and the expansive trait's worker production bonus got ruined.

It didn't get "ruined", it's just less impressive than it was.

Bh

"Certain units are ahead of the promotion curve with aggressive, not all of them. Charismatic is really superior, affecting all units albeit slightly less profoundly, and it grants a builder bonus to boot. That trait existing really hurts aggressive's relative value."

Cheap barracks, and a free promotion. Aggressive melee and gunpowder start off stronger, and are more likely to survive to be promoted vs Charismatic's. As with many things in this game, the earlier advantage to give you the edge in a fight can end up making an overall more profound difference than a *possible* bigger advantage (there comes a time in experience accumulation where an aggressive unit will eventually have less promotion than a charismatic one...eventually, assuming the charismatic didn't die before) Aggressive is about now, NOW! and Charismatic is about later, LATER! Problem is that later is often too late, because by then your enemy may have either destroyed or nullified the advantage you were waiting for. It is along the same lines as why people have relatively recently started liking the idea of Lightbulbing great people.

"Money saved by courthouses is great. Cut it by 2/5ths, and it's a lot less so."


....Is it? If I have a Ikhanda in every one of my cities (not farfetched as they are half price) that can mean that much earlier in the game (much more so than the Courthouse comes, mind you) I can afford to keep my empire approximently 2/5's bigger than what it would have been otherwise. Approximently, because there are other miscellaneous expenses. Even so if I were extremely generous and only counted it as a 1/5 bonus, that means my empire is 20% larger.


Don't declare a premature win, that is shortsighted.

has its movement wasted on its role as a stack protector,

no way! have you ever played as shaka? if you're not using them as pillagers, if you're actually having them wait after moving one tile to protect the stack, that's still not a waste. they have the cutest dance! they're all excited about the chance to go beat somebody up. really, impis are adorable and that extra move isn't wasted, it gives them time to practice.

i dunno, i guess you have other priorities, like "atomizing the new invading army" ;) rather than giggling at the animations.

no, i don't work for IGN, but i do admit i'm an oddball.

Oh yes it does, IMO. :) The three Courthouse UBs are the Sacrificial Altar, Ziggurat, and Rathaus. The Sac Altar comes long after all the important whipping is done, and its cost decrease isn't much.

Are you serious? How long do you postpone CoL (i use slavery many times at least till 1500-1600's).

It's quite good strategy for Monty to get CoL from Oracle, try to get HR rule asap and whip yourself (SA's) and a huge army quickly. After that it's nice to roleplay AI Monty :P.

Julian i definitely agree with you about the whipping. today i even used espionage to get the AIs out of emancipation so i could keep whipping. i was researching industrialism at the time, so it was pretty late in the game *giggle*. that was one of the lucky games where the slave revolt event never happened :).

Someone is ragging on my beloved impis?

In my current game (emperor aggressive ai raging barbs), it's 600BC, and I've brought the three most powerful empires on my continent (two of them very distant) to their knees with a grand total of about 5 impis, while I was simultaneously fighting off more barbs than I've ever seen before. And those empires are never getting back up. My impis have also stolen about ten workers and escorted them home through miles of barb-infested jungle, killed a couple of settlers, killed a bunch of archers in the field that were moving to reinforce endangered cities, forced those empires to keep their units sitting at home rather than trying to attack my territory, kept my huge sprawling empire safe from immense hordes of barbarians, provided me lots of money from pillaged improvements, scouted out masses of territory, acted as healers, and a few more are about to help out as mobile happiness stations when I get monarchy. They even took out two border cities, which I thought was quite nice. The only downside is that three big wars (including the subsequent capture of a protective hilltop holy city capital with a couple of axes who came along later) have only netted me just over 20 great general points. Saves on the war weariness though :D

Game before that, a guy on the other side of the continent was about twice the score and power graph of everyone else at about 1AD, with a couple of archers and about 3 axes/swords per city (and he had a lot of cities), and was threatening to run away with the game. Sent about 5 impis at him, lost one, but his score flatlined after that and he was never really a serious threat again. Five axes or swords might have gotten me one crappy border city for a couple of turns until he captured it back and barely harmed him in the slightest.

If you're bashing impis up against decently-defended cities, then you deserve to get crap results out of them. That's what swordsmen are for. If you're just using them as escorts, you're wasting their potential. If you're using them to utterly destroy an empire's ability to function, while tying up their entire war machine with only a handful of units, then you'll find that there's no sweeter unit in the game. Its housekeeping and escort abilities are just a beautiful bonus.

Harassment and pillaging strategy any mounted unit can ruin the AI with

That's nice.

Monkeyfinger is wrong.

Julian i definitely agree with you about the whipping. today i even used espionage to get the AIs out of emancipation so i could keep whipping. i was researching industrialism at the time, so it was pretty late in the game *giggle*. that was one of the lucky games where the slave revolt event never happened :).

Christo Redentor is also great for quick 1-turn whipping sprees during late-game, then emacnipnation penalty doesn't really matter.

(And Ikhandas are cool ;)).

That's nice.

Yes yes, very clever, but have you tried early pillaging/harassment with a bunch of chariots lately? Against an aggressive AI with good road networks and a whole bunch of copper/horse/iron units? Send a whole bunch of chariots into the heart of enemy territory these days, and you'll be lucky to pillage more than a square or two before they're all chomped out. The AI is much better at stopping pillaging now than back in the vanilla days of two archers per city that never stepped outside for a second. You can pillage a bit of their periphery, sure, maybe take a worker or two, but aggressive pillaging of massive areas of the heartland is guaranteed to cost a hell of a lot of your units, and you'll probably spend more time running away than actually pillaging anyway. Even Immortals and War Chariots are pretty fragile. Equally, you can't really just keep them patrolling through or bunkering down safely in enemy heartland to ensure that it all stays pillaged.
On the other hand, you only really need a few impis even for a big empire, and if you're sensible with them, they're fairly invulnerable. The terrain movement thing is extremely valuable too.