From now on, same continent as Shaka = Reroll for me.

Just can't deal with being next to him. Last game I thought I was okay, but no he just spams great generals. Most broken thing ever.

If I'm on the same continent as Shaka, I'm rerolling. Just not worth dealing with his annoying AI.

Sounds like you're just being whiny. The AI can't just "Spam" great generals like the way they do with prophets. Although Shaka is a tough opponent, you should be able to easily defend if you have a military of bows that are around the same size as his army.

You wimp!
Build an army next time.

oh come on, man!

that is the game! he is an aggressive AI with a heavy military. so what do you do? you change you strategy, which is what CIV is about. you build a darn military, and you take a capital. you hope he has gone and grabbed a CS and you liberate it, or even another neighbor he has taken, usually works well to let him attack someone then you build your military and take him out. you can liberate the other civ, making a great new friend, and remove all the warmonger BS you got from taking Shaka's Capital. and now instead of wasting gold or wasting hammers and growth on a settler you have multiple cities.

I don't see why this is a problem. I get excited.

Is there some sort of price to be won for 'most troll/whiney topics on a forum', because if so, I think OP should be nominated for it.

I kinda like having him close it gives a challenge as long as he isn't your direct neighbour that's like 7 tiles away. And you can usually outclass him in science to get better military units.

As long as you kill him before he gets Impi's (Civil Service) you will be fine. But as soon as it says "Shaka has entered Medieval Era" you are screwed, especially if you have cavalry. One Impi > 6 cavalry.

dvandyke said:

You wimp!
Build an army next time.

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Well the issue is I'm already in debt with the few units I have.

What's funny is Shaka is embargoed and has a huge army to throw at me.

I've been at war a couple times with him, but then he starts spamming great generals and I'm like "Screw this".

I can deal with being next to Shaka. Afterall, my cities are behind mountains. But not this great general land steal spam crap.

But maybe next time I'll pick a Civ where I get lots of money for military.

In previous iterations of Civ you could choose your opponents. Is that awesome feature no longer considered de rigueur?

You can still choose your opponents but many folks let the computer pic the opp.
I fell like the obvious answer is like the scene in Glengarry Glenross.
A Always
K Kill
S Shaka
Always kill Shaka
ALWAYS KILL SHAKA!

CivAddict 2013: The Movie

CivAddict2013 said:

If I'm on the same continent as Shaka, I'm rerolling. Just not worth dealing with his annoying AI.

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CivAddict2013 said:

I love a good challenge. I don't want a game where the AI is a pushover. But this is too much. Japan is broken.

[...]

Next time, I'm just going to retire at the start of the game and if I see Oda on the map, I'm rerolling.

You are FORCED to reroll if you're next to him. Can't do anything about it.

This is BS.

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CivAddict2013 said:

The little Aztec Warrior rush is too powerful. Please nerf it. There's just little to no way to defend against it in the early game. You can have walls, a bunch of archers and still struggle against this tactic.

Nerf the Aztecs please.

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CivAddict2013 said:

Hi, CivAddict2013. Are there any mods that exist to tell you what Civs you're against in a random game? Why? Because I'm tired of getting started by Shaka or the Aztecs. It seems every good game I get; I'm next to Shaka. Tired of starting a good game only to know that I'm next to super early aggressive Shaka and his OP Impi's.

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CivAddict2013 said:

I think the AI just cheats. I mean Napoleon hit the modern era in like 1867.

Wide is too hard because you'll never be able to keep up with the ridiculous AI bonuses.

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CivAddict2013 said:

It seems no matter what I do in this game, I get spawned the aggressive warmonger of the game.

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CivAddict2013 said:

Is the game programmed to start you next to aggressive Civs? It seems so.

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CivAddict2013 said:

Worse is when you get started by a super aggressive Civ like Montezuma or Genghis Khan. You just cannot build early wonders. You just can't build early wonders and fight off their large swarms on units.

Rarely do I get spawned somewhere where I have space to expand.

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Is Civ supposed to be fun? Because I'm just not getting it anymore. For me, the game has lost whatever fun it had. There's just nothing fun about playing the game when the AI gets so many advantages. There's just zero fun about it.

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Hey, CivAddict2013 here. I used to really like this game. You know, the idea of building your own civilization intrigued me. But the more I play it, the more that I realize it's just boring as heck.

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CivAddict2013 said:

Okay, here's my situation. I'm playing for a peaceful victory. Out of nowhere the Shoshone and Ethiopia declare war on me for no reason. And guess what? Everybody is on the warmongers side! And I get denounced, even though I've attacked nobody? The AI in this game needs to be fixed.

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CivAddict2013 said:

I mean seriously, it's just frustrating. On higher difficulties the game is NOT only challenging, it's downright BULLCRAP. I mean look I could understand if there was something I could do about it, but man, I honestly think this game just sucks and is a bad game.

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CivAddict2013 said:

Does this game just suck? Is it just impossible to dominate and keep up with the AI in the early game?

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You've been posting about Civ for over a year. It is almost always the exact same situation every single thread. At no point after hundreds of replies have you appear to make any effort to get better, and continue to complain about the exact same situations while calling the game awful, unfair, boring, cheating, whatever.

Why in the names of the twelve gods of the oceans do you continue to play this game? Do you even have fun playing it?

On the one hand, tsk tsk to the posters calling you a weenie or a coward or whatever. It's your game, you paid for it, if having to worry about hyper-annoying military jerks isn't your cup of tea, then reroll! Different strokes and all that.

On the other hand ... you do tend to complain an awful lot ... I'm not sure that creating a new thread every time you play a game against an aggressive civ is necessarily productive.

What is the purpose of this thread? Do you actually want help to improve (I know the answer to this is no) or do you just want an audience to complain to in hopes of receiving pity? I've said many times that these threads are completely useless without a save file for others to play to show you what you're doing wrong and help you improve. Instead, this is nothing more than spam that all of us should simply ignore.

CivAddict2013 said:

Just can't deal with being next to him. Last game I thought I was okay, but no he just spams great generals. Most broken thing ever.

If I'm on the same continent as Shaka, I'm rerolling. Just not worth dealing with his annoying AI.

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Personally, I almost always play random Civ. No matter what I get, I assume there will be 1 or more strong warmonger Civs. I WANT that warmonger right freakin next to me. I'll forward settle on the strong warmonger every single time.

Why do I want the warmonger next to me? Because I'm pretty sure I'm more capable of preventing him from getting to "steamroll strength" (my own term) than anyone else.

Why do I forward settle on him/her? Because I know I can provoke him/her to war early and watch all of their wonderful UU's suicide against a city I prepare just for that scenario.

It doesn't matter what Civ I am, or what Civ I'm against. The second I see a Civ that is worth fearing near me, I forward settle a city in a location where they can only hit me with 1 or 2 front units at a time (mountains are handy here).

If I'm not ready to repel them when they come for me (they will), I pay any freakin price it takes to bribe them to attack someone else. They'll come again soon enough, but I should be ready by then. Let them come….I'll just rack up XP while the stupid AI suicides all of their wonderful UU's. They'll keep spamming units instead of building any infrastructure, and I can fight off every single attack, IF I chose a good defensible location to forward settle on them. In the meantime, I'm just building infrastructure and tech……and no warmonger penalties, because I'm just defending.

Added bonus is that they lose a good spot to settle cities. A 2-3 city Shaka is much easier to deal with than Shaka with more cities to spawn with.

Added bonus #2 is that they'll sue for peace after each failed assault, giving me tons of free gold/luxes. Don't worry, they'll break the peace soon enough and you get to do it all over again. More XP and more free GP/Lux.

Again, I WANT the good warmongers near me. I play peacefully and still get all of the benefits of being a warmonger. The second you discover them, settle right in their face. You can counterattack and takel their capital whenever you are ready. Just make sure you survive the first rush and you can totally render them ineffective.

Shaka becomes useless when you are lucky enough to find him early and you get to dictate the time and place of the battle.

LOL with the list of whining topics by CivAddict2013

On any level up to Deity you can manage Shaka or any warmonger for that matter.

Here's a tip how: DEFENSE. Build a defensive formation, situate them strategically and let him hit the wall. Then don't stop the war and you roll forward. I've managed to take on Korea like that, that had overrun 2 other Civs and was consistently 1.5 Eras ahead of me. That's Trebuchets vs. Cannons, Cannons vs. Artillery until I got Artillery. Never stop the war till you achieve your objective. Which should be to evaporate the bugger.

It really seems you are not flexible in your tactics when you play the game and you need to be. And always, always build military if you're next to a warmonger. He/she WILL attack you. Forget about building every aqueduct/granary/monument, build a defensive military. If you are playing anything below Immortal for that long and the same thing keeps happening you're missing something basic in the game.

If you really don't want to focus on training units then just pay Shaka to attack someone else he will usually do it for not much if he's in a good spot. Or have someone else attack Shaka. In my recent game as Russia I got the Mongols to declare war on all other 6 civs in the game on Pangea map he has the largest army and is keeping a lot busy I also got America to backstab 3 people. So now I'm doing really well while my Mongol friends attak America, Byzantium, Poland, England, Zulu, Sweden and while America also attacks Zulu, England, Sweden, Mongolia. The 2 largest armies are going full warmongerer which is good for me. Poland is also attacking Byzatium and Poland has the 3rd strongest army.

Chum said:

Post a game, and stop posting this drivel, CivAddict. You've already been told this multiple times, over and over again.

They don't need to be nerfed, you need to learn how to play.

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I think I'm just going to start posting the same thing in every thread too, since that's apparently okay.

This problem can be solved by selecting a low difficulty level and your own opponents when you set up in advanced start, I think.

I have only had problems with Shaka once, but my entire strategy was weak, so of course he won easily.

The main strengths of his military are the cheap maintenance and the Buffalo promotions, the main bonuses of which come from Flanking, which accumulate evermore the greater number of melee units he has surrounding one of your units.

I think at the height of his Flanking bonuses he can get a 87% attack bonus from Flanking.

Never let him surround you.