Starting next to Shaka on Deity

Thanks to you guys within a few weeks I went from a player barely winning on Noble to totally dominate Monarch so even though I'm not ready for it yet I've started to play all my games on Deity, very challenging and fun!

A typical game would be the classic Pangaea map on normal speed, no huts and no random events. I'm still seeking my first win, I usually can last until very late in the game where I lost to a space race or diplomatic victory. That is unless I start next to Shaka...

I got owned twice by him on 2 different games, he rushes very very early with a stack of Impis way before I have something to gift him. Because of Impis you can't use chariots so you either have to gamble on bronze working, where you have to be lucky or go straight to archery.

I know there's a similar thread for CIV V where the discussed approach would by to go for archery, DoW as soon as you meet him, pump archers and harrass/pillage him until he agrees to make peace. Any thoughts on that?

mdesy said:

I know there's a similar thread for CIV V where the discussed approach would by to go for archery, DoW as soon as you meet him, pump archers and harrass/pillage him until he agrees to make peace. Any thoughts on that?

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You slow yourself down way too much if you pump archers right away, at least on deity. In my (limited) deity experience, it is difficult to deal with such an early rush consistently. It might help to settle your closest (to Shaka) city on a hill and put a few archers in there, but not as early as possible, because you really need settlers and workers in the very early game.

If I were you, I would try immortal first, because you can learn a lot on that difficulty as well, while still having a chance to win.

Yes having to build defensive units instead of settlers is a huge waste of hammers but in that specific case it's either that or die a horrible death. I'm just curious how experienced Deity players would handle a scenario like that.

Suppose one way is to gift him a crappy city and hope he hates somebody else more. Then hope to find copper or horses close so you can deal with him. Nasty neighbour for sure.

"Living next door to Alice Shaka"

I'm not sure how much this might help in this particular situation, but...

A trick I've used before to boost positive diplo for dangerous neighbor AIs that declare at pleased is to gift them a crap city I settle for them. And then do whatever I can (open borders, shared religion, resource trades) to get AI to friendly ASAP. Bribing troublesome AIs into war also possible.

These options require some time though. Is hard to counter a warlike neighbor that targets you so early that you don't have a chance to build diplo. In that case I suppose hill-archers in walled cities would be best defense until you have units to go on offensive.

Edit Beat to the punch by Pangaea!

You guys are right building a settler and gifting the city sounds like a better option. Would that be suicidal to gift a city very close to a capital hoping to get it back eventually from culture, or stick to creating it in the crappiest location you can find?

You cannot get back cities by culture flips if you gifted them, not mattering how often they revolt. They first must be owned by a 3rd party, before a culture-revolt can happen, so you'd need to take it back by war. Better go with the crappiest city-location you can find, and should he (for whatever reasons be at 3 cities or less) , settle it as far away as you can, so he has to pay high maintenance for it. If you settle it on the other side of your empire and open Borders, he'll even build roads through your empire to it for you.

If you get Shaka to pleased btw., the chances of him declaring war are relatively small (warprobs on pleased is 90) . If you make sure, that border-pressure is not too great and shared borders not above 7 tiles, it's almost impossible that he'll declare war against you, and not someone else.

Hth.

Once again Seraiel I learn something new from you, I didn't know gifted cities could not be gained back from culture, CIV developers thought of everything!

I have a save of this game where I was playing Kublai Khan so I will give it a try. Also lesson learned about not scouting aggressive neighbours to find out if they have a stack coming your way.

He he I started a new game last night with a random leader and coinciently I am Shaka this time.

Very lucky start as well with 2 gold mines + corn, I had enough time to research basic techs + bronze working (of course no copper for me) and I was still the first to get writing, even got aesthetics before anybody could get alpha.

I like to put Shaka in every game. He makes a great friend or foe.

I consider him the best Ally in a war. He's always ready and willing to fight. Not like most of these guys who invite you to a war and only have a token invasion force, or invite you to a war and then suddenly fold and flip against you. Is he too backward and savage? Gift him tech and resources, and he'll eagerly put it to use! Warring on another continent? Gift him ships and he's good to go!

Seraiel said:

Better go with the crappiest city-location you can find...settle it as far away as you can, so he has to pay high maintenance for it. If you settle it on the other side of your empire and open Borders, he'll even build roads through your empire to it for you.

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This is astonishingly sneaky. Though I see the AI fill the map so often, I struggle to get my head around the notion of gifting them a load of hammers and it actually penalising them. Knowing my luck, it'd turn out the crappy location has iron XD

Hmm. Can you burn a city you gifted and conquered back?

lindsay40k said:

This is astonishingly sneaky. Though I see the AI fill the map so often, I struggle to get my head around the notion of gifting them a load of hammers and it actually penalising them. Knowing my luck, it'd turn out the crappy location has iron XD

Hmm. Can you burn a city you gifted and conquered back?

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The penalty is the cost of them building up the city and maintainence, even if they eventually gain, th3 diplo help is a (hopefully) quicker return for you

And, no, I believe you are unable to raze any city you once owned

To me it has been equal because starting next to Shaka on deity was like starting next to any other civilization.