Is Tradition not viable on Immortal with Shaka next door?

So I am trying to learn the Tradition start with Quick/Small/Continents/Immortal and I rolled China with a pretty nice start. I got Spice/Sugar/Bananas/Horse/Iron for my capitol city and Sugar/Sugar/Salt/Bananas/Bananas/Horse/Cow for my second city and Wheat/Fish/Fish/Fish/Iron/Iron/Deer for my third city.

My first play through I made a number of mistakes, not being familiar with it, but even so I was almost done with NC before turn 100 and had three cities at almost size 10. Then the Shaka wall of units hit my second city and my two CB's where no match so ALT-F4. I tried again this morning, doing better with a few tweaks and this time he hits me at turn 60. I figured I had more time to be ready for him.

In both games I went with Oral Tradition as all those plantations are making for some sweet culture. I plan on a third attempt tonight but I clearly need to do less booming and slow my growth roll to build some more units but am I just destined to fail with Tradition? I can see how powerful it is, but I also greatly miss the Honor bonus and Citizenship.

Maybe I need to skip that third city and spend those resources on defense prep? Related question, if you build NC on a two city base, do you lose the bonus upon adding a third city? Do you need to build it again?

wayneb64 said:

Related question, if you build NC on a two city base, so you lose the bonus upon adding a third city? Do you need to build it again?

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No. Once you have it, you have it. Same with any of the other National Wonders that have building requirements.

If you neighbor is Shaka you have to remove him before he get Impis. Oh God, what kind of monsters are those guys!? They good against ranged attack, bonus vs gunpowder units, 3 movement and more...

I was playing a peaceful game on Immortal, then Sweden brought his entire army to my border but didn't attack then suddenly he build Terracotta Army and I was like "The hell" That was very clear that he was going to attack me. So, immediately bribed Shaka to attack Sweden but I think that was a huuuuuuge mistake cuz Shaka literally rolled Sweden and became my neighbor. And couple turns later he brought more then 10 Impis but I had Great Wall so I was able to stop him with fewer units but I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't built the Great Wall, Shaka would roll me as well, just like Sweden. I don't even remember how many Impis I've killed, cuz I've got 3 Great Generals in very short time. He keeps sending Impis until they destroy you.

So, the point is, destroy him before he sends his Impis. If you don't have The Great Wall and try to defend your cities against Impi armies there is probably no chance.


Btw, if you think you can't handle the civ by your own or you don't want to spend time with building units etc. Brime some other factions to attack your target. Even if you have to give your last copy of luxury, give it and get rid of the danger.

These AI's you describe seem very aggressive. Rarely has an AI ever declared war on me (in immortal), even Shaka or the Huns, and i often have a tiny army. Its so strange, because everyone else seems to get DOW'd with a decent military, while I dont with a non-existant military.

Tradition is ALWAYS viable. In this case, it's even more viable than normal since you would have a shot of actually using the filler policy that increase city bombard strength you have to go thru to reach the best part of Tradition.

It's liberty that's a terrible pick with Zulu right next to you as both planting the same number of cities faster and planting more cities than normal would both move up the timing of when they'd DOW you.

Khagan Bek said:

Btw, if you think you can't handle the civ by your own or you don't want to spend time with building units etc. Brime some other factions to attack your target. Even if you have to give your last copy of luxury, give it and get rid of the danger.

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I see this tactic mentioned often, but every time I try to get an AI to attack someone, no amount of what I have has them interested. What am I missing?

wayneb64 said:

I see this tactic mentioned often, but every time I try to get an AI to attack someone, no amount of what I have has them interested. What am I missing?

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They're not always interested anyways. They need to have a capable enough army for example. So getting someone like Brazil (who's usually friendly enough) to attack Shaka can often be very hard.

But as people have mentioned: You can usually try to get Shaka to attack someone else.

wayneb64 said:

I see this tactic mentioned often, but every time I try to get an AI to attack someone, no amount of what I have has them interested. What am I missing?

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Generally speaking, they should be close enough (geographically) that they would be:

a) Have an existing land dispute with your target, and
b) Actually able to engage in combat with your target.

Not entirely sure if leader flavours/biases are a factor (spaghetti diplomacy code ftw) - has anyone bribed Gandhi or other "peaceful" leaders into wars?

The situations in which the Zulus won't take payment to go kill someone else are rare. If you see the carpet of doom in the distance and he is not interested in attacking anyone else, well that just means you missed the opportunity of bribing him when he was interested and you should buckle down and try to survive. The length of early wars is fairly inconsistent, sometimes you will be swarmed with little hope of surviving and the invader will simply accept a straight up peace deal, which is beyond ridiculous, other times the invader will not accept any kind of peace despite a cease-fire that's been going on for 20+ turns.

So, getting invaded early on is not (like I originally thought) the end of the world. If you can defend reasonably efficiently, with the city tanking most of the punch, and use your turns to pick off individual units, then if you can kill one unit per turn and he smashes his melees against the city, you could be in a good shape to escape with just your tiles pillages, your growth borked but with the skin on your back which at the end of the day is the most important. Walls are certainly underrated in this aspect.

That being said, I'm yet to CB rush a warmonger, if it's a peaceful guy with little interest in early military, then I tend to roll him fairly easily, I have so far had the biggest issues with Shaka/Dido/Alex, who seem to be able to spam units much faster than I can eliminate them, forcing a stalemate pretty quickly, and I'm hoping to finally get a leg up on that

I just got done winning my first immortal game with Shaka and another civ nearby to the north. I used a slightly modified tradition start. Maps were continents and I was able to get a choke point on the southwest corner of the map.
As I was scouting north I saw a ton of Zulu units headed my way that were probably five turns out for a sneak attack. I started building archers/walls and planning my demise and also trying to block his path with my scout. He turned and took out my neighbor and at least one of the city states nearby.
I noticed there was just enough space to plant another city to the north with city states on both sides. Shaka and I both started trying to make allies of the nearby city states a lot sooner than I wanted to, and I built forts and an army I could barely afford to the northern wall. With units stacked on both sides of the border, Shaka asked me to declare war on Catherine, who was about as powerful as he was. Knowing there is a 100% chance you will go to war with the AI, I betrayed my DoF to Catherine, killed one ship she had in my territory, and waited things out.
Shaka eventually used two generals to claim the land all the way up to my city but never attacked.
When voting started I joined elected the weakest guy host (Harold I think) because I didn't want Shaka to get the diplomatic lead, then I managed to take leadership and hold it from the second vote. I followed Shaka's autonomy ideology and pushed it through congress, but knew I couldn't outdo him on religion even enough to convert my own cities. Voting for Shaka's religion led him to DoF me at that point and for the first time I thought maybe I could pull off the win.
I had five cities with 2 following Shaka's religion, one following mine, and two with no major religion. Five turns out from the vote (which was way too soon) I made the desperate move of gifting the two neutral cities to Shaka to get the religion votes I needed, but then Catherine gained 4 of the city states and I've lost a good chunk of my income. I sold military units, rebuilt cargo ships that had been lost in the sale, and completed a couple of quests.
Two turns out I had all city states allied so I declared war on Catherine because I knew she could buy back two of them unless they were all at war with her. 1 turn from the win I ended turn and Shaka managed to gain one city state to block the win. I loaded autosave to go back that one turn, sold units to bribe that city state, crossed my fingers and got the 38 votes for the diplomatic win with a lowly 850 civ score along with the steam badge.

Most people recommend composite bowmen to beat the AIs in early war. However I think with Shaka you need either Swordsmen or Pikemen.

With Immortal you can afford to beeline IronWorking as Tradition will keep your cities growing so delaying your National College isn't the end of the world. Try and get a Heroic Epic and train some swordsmen. Swordsmen have a lower strength value than Impis but with the Morale promotion it will be pretty evenly balanced.

Sit them facing Shaka on rough terrain, with drill promotions and with a fort and they'll do fine. If you have composite bowmen behind you shouldn't have too many issues. Once you get a General plant a Citadel and you'll be sweet for the rest of the game.

I would be more wary of paying Shaka to attack someone else because if he wins then what? He'll just come for you next.

You can try to become friends with him, Shaka has a pretty high loyalty trait so if you don't do stuff to upset him he can be friendly the entire game. Don't settle cities towards him, have your cities closest to him in good defensive positions just in case, give him stuff for free (one horse should do it), DoW to a third party if he proposes (usually some AI that will never get in your way because he is too far), spread your religion to him if he does not have any. If you are not in his way, you may get a DoF.
If you want a DomV he can really pave the road to your victory when fighting together, and later when his bonuses start to fade, you can declare war on him and get his capitals.
For other VC he should take care of other pesky AI's for a small fee, and if you are careful not to upset him he will probably not attack you. And you can peacefully mind your own business.

I tried a third attempt on this first turn save, giving up on three starting cities, instead just two with 4 CBs and two swords ready for the horde. Unfortunately Shaka had still not put out his second city and there was no horde. I ended up killing his very late settler with my idle forces and a handful of his units so he is pretty well subdued now. Of course Austria back stabs me while I am fully engaged with Shaka, but my Triple upgraded Chu-ko-nu shredded her forces and she ended up begging for peace after giving me some more experience.

My third city got a very late start and I am not sure if I should popup a fourth. I did get a few Liberty polices and Pyramids so I have workers that need something to do. What I don't understand is why in game one I get a horde at about turn 90 something, in game two I get a horde at 60 something, and then in game three I stifle my boom and get no horde. How am I supposed to gauge how far to commit to an initial boom?

But back to the original post I'd argue that Tradition is probably your best bet with Shaka next door. Oligarchy is a very strong policy and will give you some nice defense.

I think from there you have to look for religious pantheons like Faith Healers or Defender of the Faith.

wayneb64 said:

I tried a third attempt on this first turn save, giving up on three starting cities, instead just two with 4 CBs and two swords ready for the horde. Unfortunately Shaka had still not put out his second city and there was no horde. I ended up killing his very late settler with my idle forces and a handful of his units so he is pretty well subdued now. Of course Austria back stabs me while I am fully engaged with Shaka, but my Triple upgraded Chu-ko-nu shredded her forces and she ended up begging for peace after giving me some more experience.

My third city got a very late start and I am not sure if I should popup a fourth. I did get a few Liberty polices and Pyramids so I have workers that need something to do. What I don't understand is why in game one I get a horde at about turn 90 something, in game two I get a horde at 60 something, and then in game three I stifle my boom and get no horde. How am I supposed to gauge how far to commit to an initial boom?

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Interesting. Shaka could have been busy with another neighbor or he may have lost a Settler of two to Barbs. Early game, I usually stay with only two cities when Shaka or Odo is next door. That number doesn't seem as prone to provoke an overwhelming early rush and it's easier for me to have walls up and sufficient defenders on hand when the inevitable happens.

What I've seen could really man up to mass AI impies are crossbowmen and sometimes barely. Composite bowmen not really that much.

reddishrecue said:

What I've seen could really man up to mass AI impies are crossbowmen and sometimes barely. Composite bowmen not really that much.

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Crossbowmen come too late though for Impis especially on the higher difficulties. I note that often the AI will stack cover promotion so composite bowmen may be even less useful.

wayneb64 said:

What I don't understand is why in game one I get a horde at about turn 90 something, in game two I get a horde at 60 something, and then in game three I stifle my boom and get no horde. How am I supposed to gauge how far to commit to an initial boom?

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Did you restart the second two games from the initial save? I have noticed very significantly different AI behavior from an initial save. Whereas if I reload from say turn 22, when I unlock my first policy, the early games progresses more consistently. In any case, the closer you can reload to turn 60 to try different tactics, the more you can learn. Maybe the game generates the +/- flavor rolls after the initial save but before turn 0?

Redaxe said:

Crossbowmen come too late though for Impis especially on the higher difficulties. I note that often the AI will stack cover promotion so composite bowmen may be even less useful.

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I agree that CBs are not enough to stop Impis, but Shaka's first rush will often be before he has Civil Service. If I am willing to postpone Education for Machinery, it seems to me that I can have XB in time for the Impi rush.

joncnunn said:

It's liberty that's a terrible pick with Zulu right next to you as both planting the same number of cities faster and planting more cities than normal would both move up the timing of when they'd DOW you.

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Disagree.

He will attack no matter what, best to deal with him as early as you can and on your terms.

Use liberty to settle strategically and right in his grill. Hammer savings from settler/worker production (assuming no theft) to focus on units and you have a slight window to actually go on the offensive.

I have been replaying with the initial save at the end of turn zero. I went straight for Machinery to get my Chu-ko-nu. I love them in any game, and they where very nice here as both of my Scouts got the archer upgrade in this third attempt. I am at about turn 125 (fast) now and my 4 ranged Cho-ko-nu are shredding poor Shaka.

My only issue is his Impi and seemingly other units are either ignoring the jungle movement costs or getting 3 moves. Is there any way to figure out what random upgrade his units are getting?