The situation around Shaka land looks good. See if you can get around to the west and see inside his borders.
Keep up the good work!!
SGOTM 08 - XTeam
- Thread starter AlanH
- Start date
The situation around Shaka land looks good. See if you can get around to the west and see inside his borders.
Keep up the good work!!
killercane
Deity
Game is here.
Bronze pops on the mined grassland hill south of the capital. Some more tiles around Shaka revealed. Workboat to the fish!
I moved the worker to the grassland hill and all units have movement for the next player. Are there any changes to the strategy at this time? Nothing really strikes me at the moment.
The workboat is on Go To to the fish. Shaka has not adopted slavery.
Bronze pops on the mined grassland hill south of the capital. Some more tiles around Shaka revealed. Workboat to the fish!
I moved the worker to the grassland hill and all units have movement for the next player. Are there any changes to the strategy at this time? Nothing really strikes me at the moment.
The workboat is on Go To to the fish. Shaka has not adopted slavery.
Attachments
Nice work Killer! 
Nice to have a look at Shaka's home turf, to bad we can't get around the capital a bit more? The water near the Scout tastes salty, so it doesn't seem like he could get around that body of water and come back again?
Roster:
Frederiksberg - UP
rrau - On Deck
Jimmy Thunder
Cactus Pete
Gator
leif
ShannonCT
Killercane - just played! Checking Shaka out!
Mad Professor -
Need to hook up Cu and get a Settler out!
Good show, kc.
Agree that there's no need to strain to avoid a GrtM and that a second worker still preceeds a settler.
Are we going to research Writing next? The Wheel, maybe?
Since we don't need a second city to acquire copper, let's at least consider producing an axe quickly and sending him to frustrate Zulu development. (With all the forests, the axe should be able to go just about anywhere he wants in Shaka's territory.) If we don't do this, it will be awhile before the rest of our continent (and any other AIs on it) will be known to us. I'm wondering if this is what the other teams have done.
Agree that there's no need to strain to avoid a GrtM and that a second worker still preceeds a settler.
Are we going to research Writing next? The Wheel, maybe?
Since we don't need a second city to acquire copper, let's at least consider producing an axe quickly and sending him to frustrate Zulu development. (With all the forests, the axe should be able to go just about anywhere he wants in Shaka's territory.) If we don't do this, it will be awhile before the rest of our continent (and any other AIs on it) will be known to us. I'm wondering if this is what the other teams have done.
ShannonCT
Deity
Nice to have copper in the capital's FC. It's going to be a production monster with Bureaucracy. In my practice games, I had been hiring two scientists at Pop5 and working cows, fish, and gold. But with a fourth super tile, I'd like to figure out the best way to get to Pop6 quickly. Maybe some queue swapping while building the settler to keep population growing.
For testing, updated through Killer's turn set.
ShannonCT
Deity
Playing around with Leif's new practice game today, I tried a Wheel-Writing tech order. The extra turns before being able to build a library would allow us to fit in a second workboat for the clams, so that we can work fish, clams, cow, copper, and gold at Pop5, and get to Pop6 around the same turn as building the library. This delays the Great Scientist by 2 turns and the Oracle by 1, but working the copper while growing a GS at Pop6 doubles hammers vs. not working it while growing a GS at Pop5. Extra hammers could go to extra axemen or Stonehenge (either really trying to build it or for the gold).
Fog gazing around Zululand, I notice a river delta next to Shaka's capital. Looks like he has coastline to the north. Maybe he went for Fishing, which is why we haven't seen a switch to slavery yet. This should slow him down in hooking any copper. As soon as we get Writing, we should get open borders with Shaka and send in our warrior and scout. If we find copper, they can be ready to pounce, while our first axeman moves in to intercept any worker trying to hook the horses.
Fog gazing around Zululand, I notice a river delta next to Shaka's capital. Looks like he has coastline to the north. Maybe he went for Fishing, which is why we haven't seen a switch to slavery yet. This should slow him down in hooking any copper. As soon as we get Writing, we should get open borders with Shaka and send in our warrior and scout. If we find copper, they can be ready to pounce, while our first axeman moves in to intercept any worker trying to hook the horses.
killercane
Deity
I have also been thinking of building axes. If we build the PH city, and only concentrate on those two, can we build 8 axes in lieu of another settler, and still accomplish our academy-Oracle-Lighthouse goals? We can then add 3 Zulu cities to the fold, hopefully with relatively neutral maintenance from Lighthouse. Shaka is certainly not a viable trade partner, and our alternatives for city sites are relatively weak. There is only the pig city and the marble city, which are both serviceable, but dont really have any uber potential. If we capture Ulundi(?), we can perhaps chop out the Pyramids 
.
I dont think Stonehenge is worth anything. We can get priest points elsewhere and we are already creative, not to mention we dont get a favorable gold conversion w/ no stone.
.I dont think Stonehenge is worth anything. We can get priest points elsewhere and we are already creative, not to mention we dont get a favorable gold conversion w/ no stone.
Of all things, I have to give a presentation early this afternoon, so I'll try to test some more later this afternoon. Fitting in another Work Boat would be good. I wonder if we can knock out two axes through chopping to send to Shaka? It would be nice to watch and see when he sends out a Settler so that he may have only one Archer in his capital, perhaps we'll have a shot at him?
Yes to Open Borders, we need to check him out! If we find Copper, we may need that second Axe.
EDIT:
You have my attention! I'm liking this idea!If we capture Ulundi(?), we can perhaps chop out the Pyramids
I concur, unless a really good argument pops up. I would rather spend the hammers on Axes. :hammer;
ShannonCT
Deity
The unit upkeep plus unit supply for that many units will definitely dig into our tech rate. If we could capture the Zulu capital fast enough, perhaps the gold from the capture would help us recover the tech rate and not push back Oracle too much. If we tried it, we should capture capital as soon as we had enough axes. I guess one way to save money, especially if we worker steal from Shaka, is to build as long a road as we have time for from Zululand to our territory, and keep our main force in our borders until we had accumulated enough to take the capital.
If we play slowly, we might be able to figure out when other teams are completing Oracle and have a better grip on how late we can push it.
Of all things, I have to give a presentation early this afternoon, so I'll try to test some more later this afternoon. Fitting in another Work Boat would be good. I wonder if we can knock out two axes through chopping to send to Shaka? It would be nice to watch and see when he sends out a Settler so that he may have only one Archer in his capital, perhaps we'll have a shot at him?
After Writing comes in and we explore the rest of Shaka's territory, one of us can re-edit the test map and run it again from Turn 0, to see what Shaka does. If we can figure out when he should finish his second settler, we may have a shot at a lightly defended capital.
Delaying Oracle much more may mean losing it.
We need to be careful.
Taking our time shouldn't be a problem. We have shown that we can move right along if we need to. I would like to get another set in that reveals Shaka's homeland, as you suggest below.
I agree. He is all screwed up now! I changed over half his tiles in the revision, and after 29 turns.
That'll teach him to mess with us!
Agree that we should take our time and pursue the several lines of discussion opened above. Game could easily be won or lost by decisions made at this point.
"But with a fourth super tile, I'd like to figure out the best way to get to Pop6 quickly. Maybe some queue swapping while building the settler to keep population growing." Perhaps it's obvious, but part of the approach will certainly be to chop the settler while continuing to grow pop.
"But with a fourth super tile, I'd like to figure out the best way to get to Pop6 quickly. Maybe some queue swapping while building the settler to keep population growing." Perhaps it's obvious, but part of the approach will certainly be to chop the settler while continuing to grow pop.
ShannonCT
Deity
Playing around with an axe rush on the newest practice game:
Built 1 axe early in capital and sent him toward Zululand.
Stole 2 workers trying to hook copper and got them safely out of Zulu territory with the help of the scout.
Used the workers to build road back home.
Built 5 more axemen and sent them to attack around turn 55.
Got a cease fire with Shaka around the same time as sending the axes.
Declared and moved on to the capital, only to find 5 archers there.
Attacked with 6 axemen, and all but 1 died, leaving 4 archers.
I tried Worldbuildering myself 2 more axemen (for 8 total) and both of those dies too.
I then Worldbuildered myself enough axemen to take the city. Cash from the conquest was 114.
I ran research at 100% (up from 70%) and got CoL and Oracle on turn 74, 4 turns later than with no axe rush.
Morals of the story:
1) We can't beat 5 archers in the capital. Maybe 3 max. If we can't find a way to engineer fewer archer defenders, axe rush is a waste.
2) Even a successful axe rush will delay Oracle, unless we use the whip/chop/overflow trick to get ~50 gold.
Built 1 axe early in capital and sent him toward Zululand.
Stole 2 workers trying to hook copper and got them safely out of Zulu territory with the help of the scout.
Used the workers to build road back home.
Built 5 more axemen and sent them to attack around turn 55.
Got a cease fire with Shaka around the same time as sending the axes.
Declared and moved on to the capital, only to find 5 archers there.
Attacked with 6 axemen, and all but 1 died, leaving 4 archers.
I tried Worldbuildering myself 2 more axemen (for 8 total) and both of those dies too.
I then Worldbuildered myself enough axemen to take the city. Cash from the conquest was 114.
I ran research at 100% (up from 70%) and got CoL and Oracle on turn 74, 4 turns later than with no axe rush.
Morals of the story:
1) We can't beat 5 archers in the capital. Maybe 3 max. If we can't find a way to engineer fewer archer defenders, axe rush is a waste.
2) Even a successful axe rush will delay Oracle, unless we use the whip/chop/overflow trick to get ~50 gold.
What about building just one axe (or two, to gain two workers)?
ShannonCT
Deity
I got the two workers in one shot with the warrior. The axe came later, and could have picked off any worker trying to hook the horses. I noticed that workers were unguarded til around turn 60.
Mad Professor
Deity
Nice going killer. I just love the copper in th BFC of the capital. Bring on bureacracy!
That CS sligshot is looking even better. Making sure we get it should remain a high priority.
It seems to me from discussion above that trying take out Zulu cities is something that will slow the oracle a bit much, but if we can get a worker or two for the price of an axe or less, that would be nice. The bottom line on that I guess is we need more info. We need to know how many defenders Shaka has! So bring on writing and open borders... Then we'll know a lot more about how deep to try sticking Shaka.
That CS sligshot is looking even better. Making sure we get it should remain a high priority.It seems to me from discussion above that trying take out Zulu cities is something that will slow the oracle a bit much, but if we can get a worker or two for the price of an axe or less, that would be nice. The bottom line on that I guess is we need more info. We need to know how many defenders Shaka has! So bring on writing and open borders... Then we'll know a lot more about how deep to try sticking Shaka.
The problem with knowing what he has is that in
the AI will pop-rush defenders as long as he has the pop to do so. We may see one defender, but if the city is size 3 or 4, that means at least 2, perhaps 3, defenders will appear by the time we reach his city through the culture.Knowing when he may pop a settler, through testing, may provide us an opportunity to catch him. Risky business...
Mad Professor
Deity
The problem with knowing what he has is that in
Knowing when he may pop a settler, through testing, may provide us an opportunity to catch him. Risky business...
That certainly makes it trickier. The AI is saying therefore that they'd rather remove nearly all the pop from a city in order to keep it rather than lose it and try recapturing. Sensible if you don't have any other army I suppose. I'd do the same.
I believe we also get a very unhappy city!
Then it would seem foolish not to try this. Whether we want to build axe(s) ASAP may depend on availability of copper to Shaka and perhaps how successfully we can learn what lies beyond Zululand after Open Borders.
Similar threads
