ALC Game #21 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Shaka

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Shaka, leader of the Zulus. The purpose of this thread is to discuss, before the game, how to best exploit that particular leader's characteristics, which is the main feature and purpose of the ALC series. Just so we're clear, I'm playing with the Beyond the Sword expansion pack with its most recent official patch (3.13) and with Bhruic's unofficial patches as well. The difficulty level will be Emperor and the speed is Epic. Here's the fact sheet:

• Traits: Expansive (+2 health per city. Double production speed of granary, harbor, and +25% production speed for Workers.) and Aggressive (Free Combat I promotion of melee and gunpowder units. Double production speed of Barracks and Drydock.).
• Starting Techs: Hunting and Agriculture
• Unique Unit: Impi (Replaces Spearman; Strength: 4, Movement: 2, Cost: 35; Unique Characteristics: Starts with the Mobility promotion)
• Unique Building: Ikhanda (Replaces Barracks; Cost: 40(?); Unique Characteristics: -20% city maintenance cost, costs 10 more hammers to build than baracks)

Before I discuss these characteristics, let's talk about the game settings. I'm going to play this time with the following custom game options turned on:

• No Tech Brokering
• Aggressive AI
• Choose Religions

Choose Religions is just for flavour, mostly, though it also serves the purpose of hiding, to a certain extent, the AI's early tech progress. Aggressive AI will be chosen because I'm expecting to fully take advantage of Shaka's warmongering characteristics and I want to ensure the AI is anticipating this. No Tech Brokering has been suggested for awhile. I've played a couple of off-line games with it and I've noticed that overall, it makes the AI a little smarter about tech researching and trading. In particular, the AI stops buying techs when it's a turn or two away from completion, which I've been taking advantage of and some of you pointed out that it borders on being an exploit. I don't feel quite ready to move up a level to Immortal yet, so hopefully these settings will provide a more incremental increase in difficulty.

As for the map, I'm thinking of going with Big & Small, but I'm open to other suggestions. I'd rather not go with Pangaea or anything like it; I think that for Shaka, that would be stacking the deck, and we saw how unfair a map tailored to the leader/civ can be in the Ragnar game. At the same time, I'd rather not end up isolated, since I want to have some fun with the Impis. I may have the map checked to ensure I'm not isolated, but only for that.

So on to Shaka's characteristics.

Shaka is clearly designed to be a warmonger. He's Aggressive, after all, so free Combat I promotions all around (well, to melee and gunpowder units, anyway) and cheap barracks and drydocks to boot. Speaking of barracks--the UB, the Ikhanda, also reduces city maintenance, which makes early conquests cheaper and therefore more attractive. BTW, I wasn't sure about the hammer cost for Shaka's UB--it's 10 hammers more than barracks, but barracks are built at double speed for an Aggressive leader; is the +10 cost also subject to that discount or not? It's only 5 hammers difference either way, but we Civvers have nit-pickiness in our blood.

Expansive doesn't lend itself to warmongering as clearly as Aggressive does, unless you remember that cheap Granaries make whipping units easier. I don't think I'll take too much advantage of the cheap Workers--I expect to capture more of them than I'll build--but it's nice nevertheless, as is the extra health, though that's not an issue until later in the game.

Having Agriculture to start is also useful for whipping and to fill the cheap granaries so I can whip again. Hunting means I have one of two techs required for the UU; I can also use the Scouts to reveal more territory and maybe pop more goody huts. All of this, I think, points to Mining and Bronze Working as the first techs to research (to find copper for the UU and for the Slavery civic), and Pottery will be another early priority. I'll cross my fingers and hope for both a grain resource in the BFC and if the RNG gods are really nice, a camp resource there too, or at least nearby. Pretty please?

Once I've got a source of copper or, if I'm less fortunate, iron, it's time to spawn Impis. They're weaker than Axemen or Swordsmen, but they have that wonderful Mobility promotion, so they can swoop in on an unsuspecting nearby civ before they know what's happening. I'll just have to build more of them. They also have that automatic Combat I, and they can earn City Raider promotions, too.

As with Berserkers, the veteran Impis will carry with them a terrific promotion that's not usually available that easily to later-era units. As I recall, Spearmen upgrade to Pikemen, then to Riflemen, then to Infantry. (can they upgrade to Grenadiers or not? I can't remember.) I may skip most of the Pikemen upgrades--they're a good unit for "active defense" against mounted pillagers, but weak otherwise. Mobility Riflemen, though, would totally rock. (EDIT: No they won't; other posters have corrected my erroneous understanding of the Mobility promotion, below.)

Having 2-move Infantry, by the way, makes late-game wars a blast (the Canada mod has a 2-move Infantry UU, which is where I've acquired experience with them). They can keep up with Tanks, and once you get Flight and Radio for Fighters and Bombers, you can blitzkrieg your ever-lovin' heart out.

In summary, Shaka strikes me as a top-notch warmonger; practically off his unique characteristics have synergy in that regard. He starts off strong and stays that way, with a UB that keeps paying dividends all game and a UU that brings its inherent advantage into upgrades. I anticipate winning by either domination or conquest. Maybe the latter--it's been ages since I had a conquest win. Not since the Alexander game!

What do you think?

I am hoping for an all out conquest game with a lot of razing and vassalizing. Lets see how fast you can do that with Shaka as your gameplay level is going up very fast. Subscribed.

Quick correction: Expansive gives +25% hammer production towards workers, not +50%.

Can't wait to see this one! Shaka has pretty much the fastest, most explosive start of any leader, if it is somewhat narrow. The early game can be fairly rote but I look forward to seeing how you handle anything past the early stages.

I think:

Map: Big and Small...you are right about not choosing a pangea map. This way, the map won't be stacked in your favor. (As much.)

The options you chose (choose religions, etc) are fine with me.

The game play should go something like this: mining, bronze working, then something like the wheel or animal husbandry. You should also rush the nearest neighbors, but I'm not sure that making tons of impis would be good. They have only four strength and axemen are much better at taking out the city defenders. I would suggest a 1 : 3 ratio of impis to axemen in the early game, or even 1 : 2 for your game (since impis should definitely have a large part in this game).

Then there's the usual...cottage capital (if possible, if not, then the capital should be a good production center), and try and utilize production more in the early stages (maybe do a food economy game?).

Good luck.

Impi's also make excellent medic units.

Keen to see a large force of Impi's advancing through the ages.

Sisiutil said:

As with Berserkers, the veteran Impis will carry with them a terrific promotion that's not usually available that easily to later-era units. As I recall, Spearmen upgrade to Pikemen, then to Riflemen, then to Infantry. (can they upgrade to Grenadiers or not? I can't remember.) I may skip most of the Pikemen upgrades--they're a good unit for "active defense" against mounted pillagers, but weak otherwise. Mobility Riflemen, though, would totally rock.

Click to expand...

Although your Impis will keep the mobility promotion after upgrading, they won't keep the extra movement AFAIK, so the mobility promotion is wasted until Mech Infantry.

Shaka is awesome. It's a pity the AI plays him so poorly.

Oracle>CoL>whip courthouses leads to limitless warfare and expansion coupled with the barracks.

The Impis are cheap and they couple with chariots nicely early in the game. They can be put to great use behind enemy lines.

Impi's makes wonderful great general medics. Movement of 2 plus mobility!

Have fun rampaging. Shaka rocks.

A few notes:

Mobility does not provide move 2 Infantry - It provides no benefit to any move 1 unit. It does become useful again when upgrading to Mobile Infantry. . . Mobility effectively makes all terrain costs = 1.

The Ikhanda costs 40 hammers to build, but all hammers put towards it are doubled. read that how you will.

I agree with the No brokering and Aggressive AI settings. As for Choose religion hiding the tech progress - there is a little icon that shows up in the techs when the religion has NOT YET been founded. When the religion is founded, the icon disappears (this is true for tech icons displayed when clicking on the research bar, at least - not sure about when looking at the tech tree).

Shaka is the king of early conquest. Aggressive and double-movement UU, Expansive and a UB that reduces maintenance. So I would recommend a map regeneration if there are no close neighbors on the map.

I think that with shaka you have 2 options, depending of the surroundings:

- Impi rush ( maybe with some axes to finish the job ) if you have a tasty capital nearby and/or lack of good land

- REX if you don't have a nearby neighbour

Both options can lead to a strong opening and can be a showcase of the superb UB of the zulu

Thyrwyn said:

A few notes:

Mobility does not provide move 2 Infantry - It provides no benefit to any move 1 unit. It does become useful again when upgrading to Mobile Infantry. . . Mobility effectively makes all terrain costs = 1.

Click to expand...

Not entirely correct. Mobility provides -1 terrain movement costs. The Impis should still be stuck on forested hills. Note the Keshik in contrast, that has no mobility promotion, but an inherent ability that enables it to cross unhindered even over forested hills.

Sisiutil said:

Shaka is clearly designed to be a warmonger. He's Aggressive, after all, so free Combat I promotions all around (well, to melee and gunpowder units, anyway) and cheap barracks and drydocks to boot. Speaking of barracks--the UB, the Ikhanda, also reduces city maintenance, which makes early conquests cheaper and therefore more attractive. BTW, I wasn't sure about the hammer cost for Shaka's UB--it's 10 hammers more than barracks, but barracks are built at double speed for an Aggressive leader; is the +10 cost also subject to that discount or not? It's only 5 hammers difference either way, but we Civvers have nit-pickiness in our blood.

As with Berserkers, the veteran Impis will carry with them a terrific promotion that's not usually available that easily to later-era units.

Click to expand...

A few points
1. as mentioned before, the "mobility" promotion is worthless on Move 1 units (it does not give you an additional movement point, just allows you to ignore terrain)

2. Technically, Aggressive does NOT give cheap Barracks, instead Aggressive gives a 100% Bonus to production when building them. Nothing ever changes the COST of a building (except Game speed or being an AI with bonuses), only the production bonuses change)

so Barracks=30 (if Aggressive then 15 Base Hammers are needed, if Aggressive and a Fully Powered Factory Forge then 10 Base Hammers are needed)
Inkhanda= 40 (if Aggressive then 20 Base Hammers are needed)

So basically 20

I'd go Fractal for map, and have someone check that you are not Isolated.

And I would focus on Impis only for the First Kill (rush Bronze Working, kill someone with a fast move-2 army, and then build Axes to kill the next Target)

Due to their Aggressive Nature, Impis can be used in all early conquests:

Cover gives a 20% bonus against Archery Units. City Raider I gives a 15% bonus when attacking cities. Since Impis get Combat I out of the box, with an Ikhanda, give them Cover. This will give them a 30% (?) bonus against Archers (Combat I + Cover). Plus, they get Mobility. Which I think is pretty sweet. I'll show you why in a screenshot coming later...


I created an island, with Impis and Spearmen. On the two left columns, you can see forests. On the two right columns, you can see hills. In both cases, the Impi could finish the move in one turn, while the Spearman took two. I also ran tests with both tiles occupied by Forest/Hills. In that case, since the Mobility promotion only removed one of two movement costs, both the Spearman and the Impi took two turns to cross the area.

A suggestion from my current RPC game. If you have horses and copper already, consider teching horsebackriding before iron working. A mixed stack of horse archers an shock promoted Impi can move arround the map very fast a pillage behind enemy lines. You will also need archery.

The Impi have two bonus, the have 2 MP which is not carried over upon promotion and they start with mobility which allows you -1 terrain movement.

Whatever the starting conditions, Shaka has great opening techs so build a worker (hopefully you have a forrested plains hill in the BFC to speed it along) first. Opening tech should be AH or Fishing depending on the map.

Gooblah said:

Cover gives a 20% bonus against Archery Units. City Raider I gives a 15% bonus when attacking cities.

Click to expand...

I haven't looked, but I'm pretty sure Cover gives 25%, and CR I gives 20%, no?

Bh

Looks like you have a good game plan with Shaka. As for Big and Small, it can be sometimes unpredictable in terms of the type of map you get. Sometimes I've had several small continents close together with islands mixed in, but I've also had a big continent with five neighbors, with a small continent somewhere that left one person isolated.

And yes, let's go for a conquest victory. No vassals, just keep the best cities and raze the rest.

You're probably right. Either way, though, since Impis have access to Cover, I suggest Sisutil takes that. However nice City Raider Rifles are, those can be from upgraded Maces or something, not the Impis that we can use to take over zeh world!

Cover 25% against Archery
CR I 20% against City
(CR II 25% against City)
(CR III 30% against City
10% against Gunpowder)

CR is more versatile than cover and with a bigger lifespan ( like Gooblah pointed ).... and there isn't any cover II or III .

To summarize my main points:

1) Mobility is not worthless at all. As seen in the image, you can outrace any normal unit, including Scouts and Chariots (which Impis get bonuses against).

2) Cover should go to the starting Impis. To claim my right to a Deity Win, I was Shaka against Tokugawa. Built 15 Impis and took him and his Protective CG2 Archers DOWN!!!

3) Maces and other such units should receive City Raider, or the Impis after the first campaigns. Then use money from city razing or Great Merchants to upgrade them to CR Riflemen.