ALC Game 21: Zulus/Shaka

The best course of action seems to be a massive city expansion, aided by the Zulu UB, the Ikhanda.

First, go for the Sheep-Horse-Corn city (1NE of the Western sheep) to gain access to the Horse.

Then, set your sights toward the Stone and all of the rich resources to the NE.

Since Horse is the only surefile strategic resource you can gain, be prepared to research Horseback Riding, if both Copper and Iron become unavailable.

If all else fails, use a surplus of resources to trade for strategic resources in the medieval age. Gain the surplus resources by building more cities than any of your neighbors.


Also...

You might want to consider building 2 cities to the west, to block off HC. The wine city looks like a good 2nd city to the West. Wine will become available after you get Monarchy.

1SW of the western Cow looks like a good place to build the wine city. It misses the 3rd wine resource, but grabs the coastline and has a Cow in the 1st ring.

The big question is...where should you settle the Stone city? I'm thinking it should be at 1SW of the Elephant, so that it grabs the Gold, Stone, and Elephant, along with many flood plains for growth.

The 2 Corn and 2 Cow resources to the East and North also should be a priority.

Horseback riding might be a good idea once we have elephants as well....

madscientist said:

Also the final screenshot of the maps seams to have an unusual amount of ice not shown in teh earlier screenshots.

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It's superimposed on the map in globe view and, rather irritatingly, obscures the bottom row of tiles.

madscientist said:

Not sure if it has been emntioned before. To the east there are some desert river tiles, not floodplains, desert. In my experience those always end up being a resoruce, in this case likely iron. Something to keep in mind especially IF Hammarabi starts crowding in that direction.

Also the final screenshot of the maps seams to have an unusual amount of ice not shown in teh earlier screenshots.

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I'm pretty sure the ice marks the edges of the map.

Scarredroman said:

Can't see the point playing a game where you can't showcase the UU.

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Shaka does have a great UB, too!

Winston Hughes said:

As much as the gambler in me says that Archery is for wusses, I think it's probably the right option in this case.

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Fear and Intelligence are interchangeable.

Especially if a peaceful REX is in order, decent defense is needed ASAP -- and Archery offers just that.

Winston Hughes said:

He's already founded Confucianism.

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All the more reason, to hold off against HC, IMO. Wait until he's built the shrine for you -- then go take it.


-- my 2

OTAKUjbski said:

Shaka does have a great UB, too!
:decent defense is needed ASAP -- and Archery offers just that.

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The ALC showcases the UU and UB not one or the other. Archery a defence against HC and his quechas - nope. Archers are the last defenders you want against a quecha rush. This map, that's almost guaranteed. from HC.

I don't think we have to worry about a Quesha rush from an AI HC, it's the less civilized people that might cause trouble.

I'm not against starting over to get more impi-friendly circumstances, but then again the horse archer / impi army could still work just fine, and the UU didn't exactly feature prominently in the Hannibal game either, for example.

Not to be overly cynical, but I'm not seeing a very clean victory in this game. Surrounded by two aggressive and one financial leader using a civ built for rushing but with no copper?

LuckyAC said:

I don't understand your food calculations... don't you have 8 surplus, rather than 5 (meaning 4 farms) - 2 from the city square, 3 from the wheat and 3 from the flood plains?

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This is why I, when I was a high school teacher, I taught English and not Math.

madscientist said:

You probably will not listen but I say tech archery next.

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Not necessarily; the more people recommend a particular course of action, the more likely I am to heed and follow it, and several of you are recommending Archery right now. Nor is it a "dead end tech". It would be instrumental in later aggressive actions, since even in the pre-game thread we talked about teaming Impis with Horse Archers--for which you need Archery. Furthermore, for any civ that starts with Hunting and doesn't have a strategic resource in its capital's BFC, Archery is a sensible tech to pursue.

I am leaning towards expansion now followed by aggression once IW and possibly HBR are both in place later. I like the city sites specified by Shoot the Moon. Beerbarian's dot map is very interesting, but I really think Huayna is going to beat me to that NW wine city, which to my mind is its main feature and would mess it up.

I'll play and post the round either tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

madscientist said:

Not sure if it has been emntioned before. To the east there are some desert river tiles, not floodplains, desert. In my experience those always end up being a resoruce, in this case likely iron.

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Hmm - I think it better indicates that the original start position had no fresh water, thus the second branch of the river was added after the initial resources (and flood plains) were distributed. From what I've seen in the code, there is no logic that says "make the desert a floodplains UNLESS it is adjacent to iron".

Which doesn't, of course, preclude the idea that there is iron there.

Sisiutil said:

Nor is it a "dead end tech".

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As I understand it, the term refers to the fact that no other tech has the tech in question as a prerequisite, optional or otherwise.

HBR, Military Tradition, Military Science, Democracy, Fascism, Communism, Mass Media, Ecology, Stealth, Robotics and Fusion are the other 'dead end' techs, iirc.

They are the opposite of 'bottleneck' techs (such as Writing, Paper and Scientific Method), without which progression through the tech-tree is heavily restricted.

Edit: Just checked, and Stealth is actually required for Future Tech. hehe, I knew I'd made at least one mistake...

Ah, yes, this is all sounding and looking very familiar: neighbors close enough to rush, but without the key resource to do so; several good city sites available, with serious implications behind each one; and tons and tons of land for early Barbs to spawn in, with fog-busting being a bit harder. Reading the discussion about how to proceed will be very, very handy in the future.

I'd recommend settling to the north first, if at all possible, because there's most likely Iron that direction, as well as good free space, and you won't give HC any tempting targets. Does the Agg AI also change choices in city placement? Because if not, chances are very good HC has a better second city spot to his west-- heck, with him detouring for religious techs, chances are good he won't know those Horses are there for quite a while. Emperor will obviously be harder, but in my experience you usually get your pick of up to four good cities (on most land heavy maps, not just Inland Sea) before free land gets tight and war becomes inevitable. This is where the Ikhanda could really shine, even if Impis don't get much of a shot this game.

Will be interesting to see who else is out there. I'd say the chances are pretty good we'll know by the end of the next session.

Round 2: 2750 BC to 1200 BC (62 turns)

I started by heeding the cautionary advice about barbs and the need for a good defensive unit.



This was excellent advice, so thanks to those of you who gave it. The barbs started showing up soon afterwards, proving I was on the right path.



Meanwhile, my Scouts kept boldly going to meet new civilizations.



I soon founded my second city, but not the one you may have been expecting.



Why this city, with the unpronounceable name? (I'll have to change it in the next round--how does "Golden Calf" grab ya?) Two main reasons. First off, since I was researching Archery, that made obtaining a strategic resource less of a priority. Second, the gold would greatly help me research my way through several other techs I needed.

I finished researching Archery...



And started in on Mysticism. Shortly after this, the barbs started making incursions into my territory--only Warriors and Archers so far--and the Archers were able to fend them off. Good call, gang.

I soon met another neighbour.



George, it turns out, is the one who's due east of me. Hammurabi must be elsewhere, probably further north.

I kept progressing through techs, a task in which I was soon aided by that gold mine.





Once I had the Wheel, I decided to research Iron Working. With most other civs I'd be going after a different tech, but we all want to see Impis in action, don't we?

Nevertheless, I thought it would be prudent to claim the one strategic resource I know is available nearby. So I founded my third city to claim the horses.



Para bailar Nobamba
Para bailar Nobamba
Se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia pa'mí y pa' ti
Ay Arriba y arriba...

Oops, totally wrong culture, I guess.

I located it in the origina spot I'd spec'ed out rather than 1W of there as some of you recommended. Why? The desire to avoid too much conflict with the borders of Huayna's holy city, it's closer to the capital and therefore might be ever-so-slightly cheaper on maintenance, and an intermediate city to work the sheep and furs would probably be delayed a long, long time. Ulundi will probably go through its third border pop before I would have built the sheep/fur city. Also, the number of barbs floating around were making me paranoid about having a longer road outside my borders cut off by the little buggers.

I got some interesting news from Pliny. The bad news? I'm a wimp. The good news? Huayna's an even bigger wimp. And he has a holy city... mwah hah hah...



I founded my fourth and final city of the round, also in the recommended spot.



And then, on the last turn of the round, I finished Iron Working.



And it turns out I do have iron within my borders... barely.



Yeah, the map generator was really screwin' with me this time.

Here's a look at the map:



It is indeed irritating how the ice appears 1 tile further north than it should. I think it will make sense to found another city 2N of the sheep, just SE of the iron.

I've lost both my Scouts to barbarians, so I now have two slower-moving Warriors taking over Scouting duty. With a little luck, at least one of them will survive enough fights to become a Woodsman II unit--which are always handy to upgrade and defend offensive stacks.

And here's a look at the domestic advisor:



Nobamba's borders will pop in about 4 turns, and I have a Worker building a road on the horse tile. Meanwhile, I need to get one of my Workers to high-tail it back and mine that iron so I can build Impis.

I haven't seen Huayna produce any Spearmen or Axemen yet, so I don't think he's hooked up that copper resource to his west. Bizarre. I really think I should hook up the iron and start pumping Impis. One or two should head over to that copper tile to make sure Huayna can't connect to it. He has iron in his territory, too--I just don't know if he knows it yet.

The saved game file is below.

Ya get a pair of Impi's out asap to keep an eye on his copper area. The minute you see workers about to finish mining it I'd declare and make sure it doesn't get hooked up. 8 Swords to his Capital (paired with the 2 Impi's) will be more than enough if you're fast, slave them as many of them as you can to get them out faster. Which IMHO you should be since he has 2 sources of metal kicking around and you won't keep him off them forever.

Tech-wise I'd start preparing for the oracle. Despite the fact you have stone I'm sure it's too late for the GW, and 'Mids take too long to build this early. I'd Slingshot CoL over since Colussus is useless, and you plan on waging war so the courthouses are gonna be handy. Having a 2nd shrine city after you take out the Inca won't hurt either. Also the GP points will come in handy for shrining the 2nd Holy City.

Good call on the second city claiming gold, I was afraid you'd miss that in your mental desperation to claim horses, which frankly won't give you much of a rush option with improved BTS AI. Chariots don't even dislodge barbarian archers in forests or hills.

I'm not sure if it's too late to warmonger or not, but even if it's not, there are two reasons why Oracle--> COL may not be the best choice:
- You won't be able to take that many cities. It's late.
- you got the Ikanda, build it in every city. The whole point is so you don't need COL too early.

Grab something else with the Oracle instead, if you want to. But I'm not sure if the hammers are best spent in more troops or not. Too bad it's too late for the great wall, it would help if you're next to the arctics. You could use the great spy too since I don't see any good GP farm for great scientists.

Oh and one more thing: do you have pottery yet? You're expansive and there are flood plains around.

The gold city was a good idea (except you're paying quite a penny for its maintenance at the moment, hook up a UB in there eventually).

Barbeerian's plan of attack sounds pretty good, and sylvanllewelyn's idea for pottery isn't a bad idea for expansive so you can hook up your new cities with granaries for whipping or working tiles.

Also hook up Ikhandas in all of your cities! It's a little depressing to me when I see the science slider at 40% this early in the game.

Sisiutil said:

Yeah, the map generator was really screwin' with me this time.

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It sure was.

Once you got pottery and start putting cottages on those floodplains, the economy should look really good. Time to build an army. I wouldn't bother with the Oracle ("Wonder madness? This is Spar-, er, Zululaaaaand!"), you're neither industrious nor possessing marble, and you have no real use for those religious techs just yet. Those hammers should go into units that take out HC.

I'd go with HBR next with the aim of a horse archer / impi stack. One or two chariots first to help with axes might not be bad. Oh, and I'd get one impi out exploring, for those woodsman promotions and hopefully a career as great general healer in the long run. Unless one of those warriors does well and can be upgraded, of course. If it can be done, try to get all possible 10 XP from barbs , that's woodsman III right there.

Hey. About the map.... it sucks not to have copper, but you have great lands.... maybe settle a city as shown on the map(red dot).

Cottages spam it and it will help deffinitly help with research.. + if needed it might as well be a production powerhouse with those rivers for watermills and grassland for workshops later in the game.

Don't you dare rename uMgungdolovu!

How do you actually pronounce it, anyway? I have been reading it oom-gun-daw-loh-voo.

Eziqwakweni and Mlambongwenya might give us some trouble. Infact, I propose you settle every Zulu city name and someone who actually knows tells us how to pronounce them all.

Quotey said:

Don't you dare rename uMgungdolovu!

How do you actually pronounce it, anyway? I have been reading it oom-gun-daw-loh-voo.

Eziqwakweni and Mlambongwenya might give us some trouble. Infact, I propose you settle every Zulu city name and someone who actually knows tells us how to pronounce them all.

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umGungundlovu n. 3/- (-Gungundlovu) [umguŋunˈɮo:vu]
← gungu + indlovu: surrounded by elephants

See? Easy.



Edit:
Oh, and:
uMlambongwenya n. 3/- (-lambongwenya) [umlambɔŋˈgwɛ:ɲa]
Krokodilrivier; Crocodile River