The Oz-Man
Enter: The VAIKE!
Chapter 2
Into the Wastelands
Into the Wastelands
(In this round, we start to seriously question whether or not an early rush is worth it!)
The new generation of Shaka's proud warrior-miners were sent from their warrior-wives and warrior-children to mine this new metal--which Shaka had named "Copper" after his old bloodhound--from the earth. It was strong and viable, and the warlord knew that great weapons could be crafted from it.
By the time Ulundi's scholars had finished inventing The Wheel, presumably by experimenting by rolling various pentagons down the city's many hills, the mines were ready to ship this new metal to the settlement:
(A little glimpse of our micro here, which is an area where I'm sure you guys will have good advice. Ulundi was near its happy cap here, but I could get the Ikhanda out quickly enough just by switching off of the food. By the time it was online, I whipped out the city's first promoted unit: an Axeman for city protection because, well...)
Ulundi was a proud city, but Shaka knew that more settlements would be needed. Intrepid warrior-chiefs, eager to make their way out in the world, begged Shaka to allow them to establish a satellite state in the north. The warlord thought about this and relented, and the chief founded a new village high on the cliffs north of Ulundi. He named this settlement "uMgungundlovu," which in the Zulu tongue meant "we have tremendous contempt for our tourism industry:"
(uMgungagungungameeyamacarena went Worker first while we looked into what to do with all of those fish up there.)
And with the honor-guard of Ulundi setting off for this new settlement, Shaka sought to recruit new guards... by force.
(First use of the whip! As you can see, we've got lots of food in this town and can regrow our population without much trouble, so I put Pottery on the backburner this round. This will probably end up being a stupid decision that will get me killed, but--as you can see--we don't have many places to put cottages, we're building to war, and the tech will coincide nicely with our first commerce city... whatever it ends up being.)
By the time the warrior-fishermen of uMgungundlovu had determined how to properly use their battle-spears to murder the cowardly fish of the sea, Zululand had transformed from a hearty settlement to a thriving little empire:
By far Shaka's proudest warriors were the Impis. Equipped with dreaded battle-spears, the Impi's experience dwelling in the hilly woodlands made them fleet of foot. When Shaka's Scout met his end at the hands (and club) of a wild hermit of the jungle, one of these Impis set off to the south to find what bounty he could.
He traveled and traveled, eager to find the chief of the madman who had butchered his countryman, but--as Shaka was soon to learn--no such chief would be found.
When the Zulu language was codified with a series of glyphs, the vainglorious Willem came to Ulundi with a proposition:
Shaka refused for now. He would wait until a time that such an arrangement would be strategically beneficial. Best to keep Willem in the dark for now...
(OB came right as we finished Writing, so we beat Willem to it, presumably. Probably for the best--Libraries will only help him multiply that troublesome Financial trait of his.)
And as the Zulu people finished a brief foray into the way of the Spirits of the Mountains (a quick dip to grab Mysticism for cheap border pops!), Shaka turned to his advisers with a new conundrum...
The warlord was vexed. The warrior in him yearned to harness still more powerful metals with Iron Working; however, they would likely not be necessary. Pottery, it seemed, was the secret of civilization, with its ability to store the grains of the field and establish smaller satellite villages on the shores of the Bloodkilldeath.
(I think I may have put off Pottery for too long; on the other hand, we have two cities more than capable of regenerating their population after the whip, so Granaries haven't really been necessary. With our first commerce city likely the next settlement, I think we're ready for it now.)
Shaka welcomed his advisers to his nascent empire...
...and showed them the production of his two cities.
(Growth is slowed a little bit in uMtown while we work off some whip angst. As you can see, it's kind of a production monster even in this mode. Willem's got two cities now, and I'd like to beat him to three, and--as you'll see--it may be necessary to cut him off just so we don't have to chase him all over the place.)
Shaka reviewed his nation's military...
(Lots of Impis! I'm thinking we choke Willem off while we build some Axes and maybe Chariots to go in for the kill, and, as you can see, it won't take long to put together a second wave.)
And while his bloodlust led him to a desire to smash Willem's head into the ground, Shaka laid out his maps, which revealed that future military targets were... tragically lacking.
(That's a lot of easy land to settle! We could play peaceful builder for a little while, try to get Willem up to Friendly, and then smash him with Maces and Catapults once we've gotten to Optics and found other neighbors across the ocean. That seems like a waste of our early production, though. We've got a definite military edge at the moment, and that might not last. We don't know what's on the other side of Willem's land; if he's boxed in, we can easily keep him confined, but I really hate having Creative neighbors breathing down my neck that way.
So the Settler's almost ready to go in Ulundi. I've got a villager building a road toward the Silk; I'm thinking that's our next city to get some commerce up in this piece. Another advantage is that we're building toward Willem; having a network of roads in place will make the invasion go much more quickly and will allow our second wave to shuttle itself to the front in no time. Of course, I'm willing to be shouted down about that second site because--as you can see--we've got some pretty nice land that we can basically settle for free.
Going to slow it down a while to let everyone pontificate since we've got a few options. I sort of rushed this round out, but the next city seemed pretty obvious, and my early goal--get a second city and start growing enough muscle to do some damage--wasn't too hard to do given what we had on hand. For the first time, I'd say we're really at a tricky crossroads, so I'm going to let it simmer for a little bit.
Here's the save. As I said, we've got a really interesting scenario on our hands, and I'm eager to see which direction you guys think we should take it!)