The Community Deity Game #6 - The Zulu

My main complaint is that, except for the extra move which is a huge deal, I cannot really tell if the Ikanda promotions are doing much.

Blatc said:

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts regarding social policies. I can see both sides of argument for: UA stacks well with Honour vs. UA makes Honour less necessary

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With my previous Honor games, the XP boost was hardly noticeably. I am of the opinion that the effects feel multiplicative rather than additive, so I think all my future Zulu games will start with full honor.

adcarrymaokai said:

Honor is weird: it's supposed to help you with war, but it doesn't actually help you start wars. Liberty gives hammers, culture, free settler, which is really good to start snowballing. This start looks like it has good production, so I might give Honor another attempt, and I am supposedly better at domination now, since all of my recent games were domination.

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My understanding is that Honor is suppose to be better for warring Renaissance or later, is that incorrect? Also that Liberty is tuned for CB rush, and Tradition best if you plan to start w/ XBs.

adcarrymaokai said:

I think I am simply incapable of playing Honor. Here are two saves from around t100.

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Thanks for the side-by-side comparison. I suspect my results would be similar -- I never have been able to make Honor work well. But I am having great fun with this map, HCA all the way!

I am having a much better run this time, balancing melee w/ ranged. Lots of war with half dozen spearmen and CBs, then started taking cities and a cap with Impi + XB.

Industrialization will be online soon, but I will delay Rifling to get my Impi count up. Longswords upgraded to muskets fill in the gap nicely enough, and also get the Ikanda promotions.

I hope to clear the map with Rifles this time, obviously not by T200, but anything under T300 would be fantastic for me. I will need something to soften up the cities though, so it will probably end with GWI and GWB. I am not totally neglecting my tech.

I played this map with Tradition and Liberty and won on turn 168

enslingkorp said:

I played this map with Tradition and Liberty and won on turn 168

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After reading this, I tried out a Tradition start, and everybody was DoFing - it was a big hugfest! Quit due to being on pace for 7 DoFs sub-T200

Curious which policies you took and how game played out.

I should stick with Liberty, even though I'm barely using Collective Rule.

So, why is this start so strong? I am having an easy enough time, but the starting screen shot does not look that OP to me. What am I missing?

adcarrymaokai said:

After I build everything in my cities, I will start with Ikandas to pump out Impis. The plan is to start with artillery and upgraded into riflemen impis (they still get some bonuses from Ikanda).

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This seems pretty fool proof. If you get armories, then your Rifles can start with the full Ikanda suite.

Landsknecht are melee, so they can be born with Ikanda promotions. Upgraded to helicopters though, the features list is so long they do not show. How can I tell if the effects are there? Of course, I don’t want my game to got that long this time! The no-cost-to-pillage lancers are fun even w/o Ikanda -- and maybe I can even make use of Anti-Tank Guns as mainstream melee units?

The extra movement with Buffalo Horns is soooo sweet! I think that's part of why AI Shaka is tough, he actually gets his melee to your city walls ahead of his range units. Plus it takes 4-5 XB to kill just one.

I am tempted to play this one, even though I am behind on the Immortal Alphabetical Games.

Blatc said:

After reading this, I tried out a Tradition start, and everybody was DoFing - it was a big hugfest! Quit due to being on pace for 7 DoFs sub-T200

Curious which policies you took and how game played out.

I should stick with Liberty, even though I'm barely using Collective Rule.

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Liberty right side first then left side then Tradition. I thought I'd finish before Commerce was filed and I was right

beetle said:

So, why is this start so strong? I am having an easy enough time, but the starting screen shot does not look that OP to me. What am I missing?

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The start is pretty decent, but the really op part was:

enslingkorp said:

I played this map with Tradition and Liberty and won on turn 168

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Not that I'm unappreciative about newcomers joining in but as this isn't a competition as such the end turn is less interesting than the turns before that so even a slightly more elaborative storytelling would be highly welcomed.

claudiupb said:

The start is pretty decent, but the really op part was:

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I picked up neither of those and still feel like I am having an easy time.

Grendeldef said:

Not that I'm unappreciative about newcomers joining in but as this isn't a competition as such the end turn is less interesting than the turns before that so even a slightly more elaborative storytelling would be highly welcomed.

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Not much to say that wouldn't spoil it for others. I built a lot of units and went and killed the AI. I built about 30 melee and 15-18 ranged units. Towards the end, everything was geared towards keeping the ranged units alive. I used workers as blockers and bait to empty the city, pick off the units, and then pushed forwards to take the cities. All gold was funnelled into bribes and CS gifts.

enslingkorp said:

Not much to say that wouldn't spoil it for others.

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That's why we use spoilers for the ingame details. People can then decide at which point to check out what others have been doing - some do it right away, some after they've finished their own game, some somewhere between those points but the point of these games is to share the experience not just play them through.
In case you are unsure what to write you can check out the variable ways from previous challenges - the style is free as is the depth of details but to a degree something more than I came, I saw & I conquered would be cool.

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For my own game I went for a different route started with full tradition without much of further plans.

A - Win before T200 - 2 points
Failed by 12 turns, I was attacking last 2 capitals on 200 but they were too far ahead. One of them has a lot of frigates and already modern era, and the other was spamming UU nonstop with GW and Red Fort as protection.

B - Win without using Artillery (or later units) - another 2 points
C - Win without using Cannons (or later units) - another 2 points
No siege units used, range+logistics gatlings were enough to do the final push.

D - Train, upgrade or buy at least 20 Impis - another 2 points
Easily, I actually lost 38 impis and still had 12 upgraded riflemans at the end.

E - Keep 10 Impis in battle and alive until victory - another 2 points
Not sure what's the point of this achievement if it doesn't say upgraded impis since they were obsolete pretty early in my game, I was mainly using them as cannon fodder so that my XB wouldn't get destroyed. If it counts upgraded ones, I still have 12.

Sclb said:

B - Win without using Artillery (or later units) - another 2 points
C - Win without using Cannons (or later units) - another 2 points
No siege units used, range+logistics gatlings were enough to do the final push.

D - Train, upgrade or buy at least 20 Impis - another 2 points
Easily, I actually lost 38 impis and still had 12 upgraded riflemans at the end.

E - Keep 10 Impis in battle and alive until victory - another 2 points
Not sure what's the point of this achievement if it doesn't say upgraded impis since they were obsolete pretty early in my game, I was mainly using them as cannon fodder so that my XB wouldn't get destroyed. If it counts upgraded ones, I still have 12.]

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In the absence of Consentient the achi overlord stepping in.



C - nope. Cannons are renaissance unit while Gatlings are industrial so you used later unit.

E - no upgrades, only Impis count.

It seems like cannon or later simply meant cannon, artillery, rocket artillery, all siege units. I don't see how it implies any other units especially the ranged line of units. Later usually have a hierarchical relationship.

If the original intention was to disallow industrial era units, then a much clearer way of saying it would be to finish without using any industrial era or later units.

Actually achievement E is pretty ambiguous, concerning what does it mean to be in battle, since civ doesn't have a system of determining whether a unit is in a state of combat. On player's turn, the unit can choose to attack or not. In between turn, it can also receive attacks. The narrowest sense of the battle would be to attack each turn, which makes little sense. The widest sense of the achievement would be to simply DoW a civ, but that doesn't achieve anything. Middle ground would be within certain hexes of enemy and that makes the most sense, but difficult to define.

I read that the same as Gendeldef, which is why I am playing with the view that Machinery and Civil Service are essentially the end points for tech.

This game and achievements very much skew towards the DomV (and early DomV) players. At the same time, it's only worth ~half the points of the first 5 CDG games (not that the total series points has been a big discussion point).

enslingkorp has set the bar pretty high at T168. I'm following a similar plan of build a lot of units and kill the AI

Blatc said:

I read that the same as Gendeldef, which is why I am playing with the view that Machinery and Civil Service are essentially the end points for tech.

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That reading makes perfect sense. It could have been listed thus:
Win before Arty: 2 points.
Win before Cannons: 4 points.
Win before T200: +2 to the above.

Unfortunately, I read it as Sclb did -- so I never built seize even though I knew I would be going past T300!

Sclb said:

It seems like cannon or later simply meant cannon, artillery, rocket artillery, all siege units. I don't see how it implies any other units especially the ranged line of units. Later usually have a hierarchical relationship.

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This would be more likely true if there was reference to siege units but there isn't. It's just that the units specifically forbidden happen to be siege units.
Technically it could be argued that unit B is later than unit A only if A is a prerequisite to B but in the context of previous challenges/series this doesn't work as well in this case.

Sclb said:

If the original intention was to disallow industrial era units, then a much clearer way of saying it would be to finish without using any industrial era or later units.

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I think here lies the problem - trying to interpret the intention of the OP. Don't As Consentient is not present to clarify what was the intention rather than everyone trying to figure it out from their own pov we will/should take the literal view as much as possible - at least everyone is reading the same text.

Sclb said:

Actually achievement E is pretty ambiguous, concerning what does it mean to be in battle, since civ doesn't have a system of determining whether a unit is in a state of combat. On player's turn, the unit can choose to attack or not. In between turn, it can also receive attacks. The narrowest sense of the battle would be to attack each turn, which makes little sense. The widest sense of the achievement would be to simply DoW a civ, but that doesn't achieve anything. Middle ground would be within certain hexes of enemy and that makes the most sense, but difficult to define.

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Yes and no. I still feel you're thinking too much of this. There really is no such thing as 'out of battle' - even for civilian units unless warfare is forbidden altogether. Any unit can be attacked any given time so whether a single unit attacks/defends/flanks/guards/boosts city def/whatever on a particular turn is irrelevant so I feel safe to rule that 'battle' in this case is synonymous to 'alive' - just an unfortunately repetitive wording.

Almost done and double checking achievements and # of impi just to be safe. My last few turns have been suicide runs, so losing lots of units.

Simplest way to look at E is to have 10 impi not garrisoned in city, which you can verify by calling up your Unit List and checking the status. Whether you kept any in your cities and moved them out on your final turn is where the honour system comes into play.

For my game, I hovered around 10 the last few turns, building/buying several each turn, and losing several each turn. I will make sure there are 10+ impi when I conquer the final capital; none were being garrisoned for safety, all were in or heading to battle.

Edit: actually, that doesn't quite work, as impi that you use to conquer cities on the final turn will be listed as garrisoned. I captured 2 my final turn; will post brief recap later in the weekend when I have time.

I think in the future, the achievement posted should be unambiguous and easily verifiable. E is neither in my opinion.

Blatc said:

Simplest way to look at E is to have 10 impi not garrisoned in city, which you can verify by calling up your Unit List and checking the status. Whether you kept any in your cities and moved them out on your final turn is where the honour system comes into play.

Edit: actually, that doesn't quite work, as impi that you use to conquer cities on the final turn will be listed as garrisoned.

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I was thinking that option as well but a garrisoned unit can be damaged via nukes, it can be killed if the city is lost and its mere presence boosts city def so it surely is not a non-existent unit militarywise and it's next to impossible to draw a satisfactory demarcation line anywhere else but where they're always a battle unit.

And it's extremely easy to agree with Sclb that the goal of wording of achievements is unambiguity. The less interpretations are required the better.

One tiny solution could be that the save file would not be included in the OP in first 24/48h or so. Let there be an achi proofing period before people start playing where possible disagreements could be resolved before the individual interpretations kick in in various forms.