Help Me Not Suck: Professor Shaka's War Academy

So if near a civ, rush them. can-do! :p

Rushing is certainly one possibility, but it’s not always optimal. The reason I think this is a great map for nobles is that it presents you with a number of options – RExxing with the help of the ikhanda (which is cheap thanks to Shaka’s AGG trait) being another.

also, I was wondering what wonders are best for noble

Try asking a different question: what wonders are appropriate given the map, your leader and the type of game you want to play – as well as the difficulty level you’re on? EDIT: Just to clarify: the difficulty level only changes the time frame in which you have to complete a chosen wonder. At noble, the other three factors mentioned are far more relevant IMHO.
 
I think on Noble building lots of wonders does not teach you the game. On higher levels you would not be able to get every wonder. Relying on wonders teaches you nothing.

On higher levels you aim just for the wonders you need to win the game. Agree on playing the map!
 
Chapter 5
Shaka Enlightened

(The big question of this round: did I switch to Caste System too early? As you'll see, it's powered up our GP farm big-time, but I might crack the whip again if that's the consensus.

I did a bit of it early in the round, though!)




Shaka was pleased with his people's expansion so far, but it was not enough. Barbarians still loomed deep in the southern subcontinent, while abundant resources at the borders of the kingdom lay unexploited. Shaka's lands were the most vast in the world, but they were not yet, he felt, the most grand. His people would need to be sated. War was to come, and he would not allow the people of the East to look down their noses at the Zulu. They had recovered from their economic hardships; the time had come to expand again.

But first, Shaka's Impi scout traveled to Byzantium and found Justinian's capital even as the warlord Montezuma marched his armies into Holy Roman lands:



While war waged in the East, in Shaka's western empire, an age of enlightenment had begun. From among the warrior-scholars of Ulundi's library, a mathematician had emerged and achieved prominence teaching young Zulu long division. His name was Carl Friedrich Gauss.



Shaka honored this wise man and sent him to Amsterdam to found the Gauss Academy. (He'd bulb Compass for us right now, which is sort of a waste, and as you can see, our next GP wasn't too far off.) Even today, the Gauss Academy distributes small educational pamphlets written on strips of paper to help inform young students. These pamphlets, called "Gauss Strips," are the foundation of Zulu learning.

Gauss's study helped Zulu scientists finish their next breakthrough:



(Our tech path this round was Calendar -> CoL -> Metal Casting -> CS -> Machinery. That was what we researched without help. As you'll see, we got a lot of help.)

50 years later, the petulant Chuck himself arrived at Ulundi to make an offer to the Zulu warlord.



He barely escaped with his head.

However, when Montezuma did the same twenty short years later...



...we pledged our support. The sole consequence of the declaration was that the Impi scout, wandering too close to the Holy Roman border, was torn apart by an Axeman early in the war. However, the action improved relations with the mercurial Aztec chief, as did the Zulu warrior-scholars' sale of old Spanish lore:



(Monty's backwards, so per advice, I sold him a tech that he can't use to hurt me. Cash in the kitty, of course, was also helpful.)

While Zululand turned to its finest minds for new insights, in uMgungundlovu, the hearty warrior-fisherman saw from their hilly promontory that great things could be achieved. The city's lighthouse was already a boon, but for the old fortress-city, bigger was always considered better:



(I figured we'd started the Great Lighthouse too late to get it, but sure enough, there it is! Wonders were going slowly, which netted us a few, but I think I was a bit too ambitious in at least one instance, as you'll see.)

That same year, the tribes of Ndondakusuka joined the Zulu Empire to bring delicious spiced venison to discerning diners across the empire.



Meanwhile, in the halls of governance, Justinian was disappointed in Shaka for throwing in with the wildcard Montezuma. Charlemagne and Justinian were old friends and frequent hunting partners, and the Zulu declaration of war--even if it was merely symbolic--disappointed the Byzantine king. Shaka did what he could to make amends:



(That's definitely in Justin's favor, but we've got more fish than we know what to do with at this point. We can always renegotiate later.)

40 years later, in Amsterdam, a student of the Gauss Academy--a mathematician named Zu Chongzhi--had studied the old Dutch ways and saw wisdom in them. While the Zulu were a warrior people, Shaka knew that the Dutch tradition of peace was fueling scholarship in the old Netherlands. The scholar unlocked the secret of Philosophy.



The scholars of Amsterdam studied this new philosophy and saw within it the whisperings of the spirits of the East. A new religion--one born of scientific reasoning rather than the old gods of vengeance--was established.



Shaka allowed this new, uniquely Zulu faith to stand. The land's devotion to Hinduism remained strong, but the Tao found popularity among the land's warrior-scholar class.

(That's why I researched CoL: to get our bulbs in order. ;) )

The manufacturing city of Babanago was established to submit the Near South as Zulu territory and to establish a strong production base at the empire's center.



(Farms and workshops are going here, along with mining those plains hills. It's working the cows full-time now.)

And at the top of the Zulu government, a reorganization was set into motion, plunging the land into chaos.



The new devotion to science called for a Caste System that could establish clear warrior-scholar and warrior-merchant classes, bringing science and gold to the empire. Shaka also brought the empire into a more Organized establishment of the Spanish Religion, and the church's warrior-monks were allowed to contribute to the creation of infrastructure throughout the empire.

(Caste System might have been a mistake. We may yet go back to Slavery later on, but getting a lot of scientists running had some real benefits, as you'll see.)

At the end of the period of anarchy, Settlers from the west succeeded in pacifying the land west of Amsterdam, establishing Khangela in the rocky hills:



Shaka envisioned using the Stone of this town to assist with another grand project in Ulundi: the creation of a new Pyramid-shaped palace wherein new experiments in governance could be tested. Somehow, Shaka knew that only Pyramid-shaped structures with a square as a base could be used to allow him to gain a broader range of government options. Because, you know, that.

Speaking of things that are kind of weird, Shaka paid Chuck for peace!



Montezuma had ended hostilities long ago, so the war served no purpose. The costs Chuck demanded were offset by the price Montezuma had paid for the secrets of Monotheism centuries earlier, so Shaka considered it a net gain.

Twenty years later, Shaka's brother-in-law Maussollos died, and, yeah, I think you know where this is going.



The town of kwaHlumendlini (which, in the Zulu tongue, meant "you will buy a book on Zulu pronunciation or we will impale you on a spear") was established south of the jungles to bring in valuable gems and to keep tabs on the Barbarians of the south.



Barbarian warrior-warriors and, later, Swordsmen harried the city, but Chariots and Axemen from the north kept the peace, and the city kept the peace seemingly in spite of itself.

Justinian demanded that Shaka dress as a bunch of grapes when he invited the Zulu warlord to his palace for his favorite game show...



Shaka did not appreciate the degradation, but accepted Justinian's trade nonetheless. Currency was a valuable trade chip, but Justinian was also willing to throw in some raw cash, which sweetened the deal considerably.

Hlobane in the Northwest cemented Zululand's northern border and promised to bring exquisite Furs into the empire.



And umGungundlovu, where bigger was better, saw the Temples rising across the empire and decided to show the world how it was done.



The chemist John Dalton arrived several centuries before Chemistry was discovered.



He was allowed to cool his heels in the Gauss Academy for a few years, and his experimentation with the wood of the empire later allowed him to invent Paper.

Isabella, seeing the riches of the West, found herself jealous of Shaka's peaceful Philosophy. As tensions continued to mount with the petulant Charlemagne, she begged to be taught of this new means of practicing the faith.



Shaka agreed--relations with Isabella were more important than horded knowledge. Grateful at the exchange, Isabella made her own contribution to the Zulu body of knowledge:



(I figured we've got enough of a leg up on the Lib race to cut Izzy some slack. I'm not interested in Angkor Wat at all, so if that's how she wants to spend her hammers, fine.)

In Ulundi, Shaka's dreams of polyhedron-based governance were, sadly, not to be.



(Yeah, I took too long getting to the 'mids. Oh, well! The failgold helped. Our as-yet-undiscovered isolated rival ended up building them, so we might not get them at all this game.)

Herodotous (who was still alive after issuing report centuries earlier!) completed his studies and concluded that Zululand had blown his mind. Hey, Zululand! Hey, Zululand!



Isabella offered another trade...



...which Shaka turned down at this juncture. He had already helped Isabella enough; let her seek the secrets of Civil Service on her own.

(Yeah, I wasn't THAT confident in my Lib race lead.)

The secrets of Machinery--unlocked shortly thereafter--inspired yet another of Amsterdam's warrior-philosopher-mathematicians. He had devised a method of spreading the practices of the Gauss Academy throughout the empire, and the methods, though raw, were welcome:



And with Education discovered, Shaka made one more trade with the dangerous Aztecs:



And that's where we wrapped it up. Where do we stand? Right here we stand! State of the World to follow.
 
State of the World at 1000 AD:

First, here's what we can research:



As you'll see, I think we're a lock for Liberalism now, and we can basically take it whenever we want. I'm inclined to hold off and get something nice for it--maybe Chemistry, Steel, or even Rifling if we can swing it. It's definitely not our next tech, though. I'm thinking Engineering. We've got a monster of an empire, and anything to make the run less significant will help, especially as we settle the last bits of the southern subcontinent. Of course, we've got a lot of options, and most of them would be a monopoly. I'm inclined to hold off on Feudalism for now since the AI seems to beeline it, but it's got some nice techs behind it, so if you guys think we should go that way next, we could.

Here's the new and improved Netherlands:



Old Zululand, which probably needs one more city to grab that Wheat and finish off the borders:



The Near South:



Jute has a pretty big food overflow right now, so it's running Merchants. Jute is one of the reasons why I think going back to Slavery might be a good idea: it could be a pretty great city, but it's going to take forever to get the infrastructure up, and it's got enough food to recover its population quickly (the Corn is being worked by Nongama to get its population up right now, but Jute can take it back if we need it to).

The Deep South:



1NE may be better for Cowtown, but the current site gets the flood plains for some more food to keep the rest of the land productive. There needs to be a city there, but I'm not sure where it goes.

Here's a look at our new and improved happy cap in action!



Happiness isn't a problem anymore, and it can be even less of one if we want it to be now that we have Monarchy.

A glimpse at what I could divine of the East:



Things seem pretty cramped over there. I think Monty's to the southwest, but I haven't found his borders yet. In any case, what this means is that Chuck is further from us than anyone on the continent, which means supply lines are going to suck when that war happens. And it WILL happen.

The Tech Sitch:



We're doing well, and when we hit Liberalism, we're going to be doing even better. I'd like to get Theology soon for a big civics change, and Isabella's offering the best deal for it:



We can sub out Horseback Riding for Drama and still get the same amount of gold, or we can get Theology and one of those two techs, 20 gold, and her map. Justin wants Civil Service for his map, and Monty won't trade me his at all yet, so if we want a map, that's our best opportunity. I'm thinking of taking the map deal and selling Monty an old tech (Aesthetics, maybe?) for his gold.

You can see how things are going regarding relations so far (Izzy and Justin love us, and Monty thinks we're pretty cool, but Chuck wishes we'd turn down the rock 'n roll), so let's see how everyone regards our Buddha buddy:



Not well... except Justin. Declaring would give us another diplomatic penalty with him, but we've got a pretty nice tech lead over Chuck, so unless you guys still think he's better as a chew toy, we could take him on and get at least the Great Wall.

Munnies Advisor:



Peoples Advisor:



Yes, I know. More Workers!

Demographics:



We're in great shape here.

So where do we go from here? We could easily play nice for the rest of the game and could probably win diplomatically, but we're also Shaka and we have a whole lot of killin' potential. We already have 25% of the world's land, and we'll probably be close to 32% when we settle the South, so Domination won't be too hard, either. If we do that, we'll likely hit Chuck first, then Monty, then Justin and Izzy in whatever order we want. Monty's about to declare on Chuck again, so we might be able to put together an army and help out.

Regarding GPs: we've gotten the good early stuff from them. Our next GP will likely be another Scientist, who I think will bulb Printing Press for us. I'm thinking we use him for a Golden Age, switch into Theocracy, and start pumping out units. We can also go into HR and Bureaucracy if you guys think that's wise.

Speaking of Bureaucracy, what about the capital? Jute has some great commerce potential, so I'm inclined to build the palace there. Ulundi's in the process of getting watermills up along the river, so it's going to be the Ironworks city for sure. It's been an effective Everything Pump for some time anyway. It'll be a real monster if we run SP later on, which I usually do when I plan to war a lot.

So go ahead, chide me for the Pyramids and too few workers and other stuff; I'm ready for it! Save is attached.
 
I'm thinking Engineering.

Notre Dame is shiny.

Speaking of Bureaucracy, what about the capital? Jute has some great commerce potential, so I'm inclined to build the palace there. Ulundi's in the process of getting watermills up along the river, so it's going to be the Ironworks city for sure. It's been an effective Everything Pump for some time anyway. It'll be a real monster if we run SP later on, which I usually do when I plan to war a lot.

I don't like moving it at all - Bureaucrasy also gives you a huge hammer boost, which is just what Ulundi needs. And didn't you just says something about producing a bunch of troops? :hammer:

Two other small thoughts

1) If you were in caste system for most of that turn set, you probably shouldn't have been building monuments - just run an artist to pop the borders. Had you been up to music, just build the culture you need, then stop.

2) Unless you are deliberately encouraging barbarians to spawn on the lower peninsula, you should have a couple cheap units down there keeping an eye on things. There's no point in letting the barbarians spawn a boat. (As best I can tell, you are ok, or almost ok now, but it looks as though the coverage was late in arriving).
 
If you skip gunpowder. Tech all the way to lib but don't finish it there is a chance to bulb to mass media and built UN quite quickly. Use lib for Radio! You can bulb using scientists all the way mostly. Be careful with teching engineering as this may mess up astronomy.

I doubt the AI will reach edu quickly unless you trade too much with them.

Your tech rate for 620ad is a bit low. This could be because you keep building more cities. Not sure you even needed all the 15 cities. 7-8 and you could of just teched to MT (curs) and wiped out the Ai using galleys to transport them.
 
I think you are too focused on killing Charly. Izzy is a much nicer target - you just had the report that she's low on soldiers, she has the Hindu holy city in an extremely nice location, very likely with the shrine (which will provide roughly 30-40 gold), etc.
Yeah, it will mess up your diplo. However, you do not need any Diplo anymore.
Get 20-30 Cuirs, ship them around that mountain with a couple of galleys, declare on Izzy, clean house.

Things to do on the way:
*Check if Music has already been researched. Music GA makes for a nice Golden Age.
*Speaking of which, what did you build the MoM for, if you don't do golden ages? To lengthen the GA from Taj Mahal? Not that optimal play...
*AP should be built somewhat soon. You could (it's noble, after all) probably try for it - hammer boost is quite nice, and you don't want Izzy to have it if you go for her.
*Use (possibly Music) GA for switch to slavery, whip 5 turns (should be enough for two buildings in a city with enough pop), switch back to caste.

Tech all the way to lib but don't finish it there is a chance to bulb to mass media and built UN quite quickly.
What is the advantage of an early UN (except of earlier finish date when aiming for diplomatic victory)?
 
*Check if Music has already been researched. Music GA makes for a nice Golden Age.

Isabella has it, so that's out.

*Speaking of which, what did you build the MoM for, if you don't do golden ages?

I didn't say I don't do golden ages; I haven't done one yet. I've gotten four GP so far, and they've been used for an Academy and for three useful bulbs. That's not an aversion to golden ages at all.

*AP should be built somewhat soon. You could (it's noble, after all) probably try for it - hammer boost is quite nice, and you don't want Izzy to have it if you go for her.

I doubt it. Izzy and Justin have had Theology forever. The thing is, though, that I've got twice the number of cities of anyone else on the map, and I'm sure my populations are higher--plus I've got another 4-5 cities I can build in my territory. Given the current diplomatic relations (one of the reasons I haven't attacked a teammate yet), I shouldn't have any problem winning residency and keeping it. Even if I go for, say, Monty or Izzy after Chuck, I'll be rolling up new Hindu cities (and converting Chuck's), so the numbers alone should allow me to retain my residency.

What is the advantage of an early UN (except of earlier finish date when aiming for diplomatic victory)?

I think he was suggesting that as a likely victory condition, given how many cities I have, how well I'm doing at getting along with the neighbors, and how little declaring on Chuck again will affect diplomacy. If Chuck doesn't have Hinduism in his cities, I might even be able to call for a Hindu holy war (which Monty would certainly back), which would spoil his relations with Justin PDQ.
 
If everyone else loves Izzy (which probably is the case), she will still win the election. Although she may be second in population anyway...

A GA instead of the Paper bulb would have cost you 600 beakers (paper). However, you would have gained roughly 50 commerce (=62.5 beakers) per turn over 12 turns = 750 beakers, greatly boosted production, probably another Great Person from the increased GPP, etc.
 
If everyone else loves Izzy (which probably is the case), she will still win the election. Although she may be second in population anyway...

A GA instead of the Paper bulb would have cost you 600 beakers (paper). However, you would have gained roughly 50 commerce (=62.5 beakers) per turn over 12 turns = 750 beakers, greatly boosted production, probably another Great Person from the increased GPP, etc.

This might be close if Izzy had second highest pop but Monty does. As Monty would be the other contender most would vote for Shaka. Of course Monty would vote for himself.

Even if Izzy was second highest pop you could still gift techs, switch civics and abuse other game features to get the vote.

AP cheese could even be possible. The Ai have been soo slow on this.

My concern is this game being dragged out for the sake of it. Decide how you want to win and go for it. 20-30 curs would take out 2-3 Ai quite easily. A conquest/domination victory is good for practice. Galleons and curs or even mace/trebs would do the trick.

Diplomatic is just a quick and easy way to finish this is you abuse GS bulb paths.
 
Well done once again on a great write up! :goodjob:

Re: the game itself, Gumbolt’s right IMHO: given how far you are ahead of the AI tech wise, your next step in the game is to simply pick a victory condition and commit to it. IMHO, a diplomatic or AP victory is probably the easiest (perhaps aside from space). The concern I have about going the military route here meanwhile is that I don’t readily see where the raw hammers to produce units are going to come from. Granted you could use slavery or maybe even the draft, but I didn’t see nationhood mentioned in a possible future tech path.

Now it’s almost certain that I’m over-estimating the threat posed by the noble AI in making this point re: hammers – a bunch of cuirassiers would do the job as has been mentioned – but I say it because, IMHO, it reflects the central issue that I think the save presents: a lack of growth, both vertical and horizontal, in your empire. In short, you have some great land down south and a wheat site in the interior which have still not been settled at 1000 AD. With the ikhanda, Shaka’s AGG trait and The Great Lighthouse at your disposal, your continent should really be completely settled by now. What’s more, none of your cities are what I’d describe as “big” (meaning well into double digit pops) for this stage of the game.

The reason I mention all this, at the risk of sounding harsh, is that both types of expansion are really key to getting your war machine going. Horizontal expansion (ie. settling your continent) is relevant to your capacity to wage conflict because, the earlier you settle your cities, the more chance you have that they will all be able to contribute to the war effort. Vertical growth (ie. growing your cities) is relevant meanwhile because it gives you (i) access to more hammers to produce units faster and (ii) more commerce to help pay for the maintenance costs of your army. As it stands, the lack of both of these in your current game is actually denying you the tools to put together the all-conquering army that I’m sure Shaka dreams of - although, as mentioned above, I suspect that you’ll still triumph.

To date, it rather looks as if you’ve been able to by-pass this lack of growth because you’ve been able to bulb your way through the tech tree. (FWIW though, I would’ve settled the great scientist that bulbed paper.) However, I suspect that the lack of city growth will become a little more apparent (and the extent of your research advantage over the AI lessened) when you opt out of caste system. Remedying this of course requires - as you mentioned - that you need many more workers IMHO to get your cities up and running – and then a few more settlers to fill out the rest of your continent. IMHO, it’s only when you’ve done this that we’ll all get to see Shaka’s war machine (if that’s the VC you want to pursue) in all its glory.

As an aside BTW, I see forges and libraries before granaries????
 
Okay, I hear ya.

A few priorities this round:

-I'll settle quickly. I've got a Settler in the works right now and five sites I've got in mind:
1. Interior wheat city
2. Utrecht replacement
3. Southernmost cow city (1NE of my dotmapped location
4. The southern horse/seafood city
5. A city 1E of the 1-tile lake east of Jute to work those green tiles/complete the canal

-Loads more workers. With those sites I mentioned, I'll have 20 cities, so I'll need around 30 workers to fully take advantage. I've tried to set up my cities right now to emphasize growth, and I'll prioritize getting granaries up to make that go more quickly.

-I think that, regarding the hammers issue, I see why people stick with Slavery for so long. For this game, I basically switched into Caste to run merchants (to keep the economy afloat) and to run more scientists in Amsterdam. I think I'll stick with it through the upcoming Golden Age (7 turns off), take advantage of the GA's GP-boosting powers, and then switch to Slavery at the end and whip like the madman that Shaka should be.

-I think we can war with Chuck fairly quickly with Trebs and Maces. I'd like to get Cuirs onto the field, but we need Nationalism, Gunpowder, Music, and MT for it, and we can trade for exactly one of those right now due to our lead. That's why Engineering's next, then we'll see where we stand; I'm inclined to go for Cuirs (and Cavalry if we get that far) to get this thing wrapped up quickly, though.

-At this point, Domination is the way I'm going to try to go, so next round, I'm going to do what I can to grease the gears of the war machine. We'll see how that goes.

-I think my issues with horizontal growth is that I tend to take my time if I feel like I can settle land at my leisure, which is probably bad practice. I've definitely gotten lazy in this game, especially compared to a few offline games I've played in the past week where I've had to actually work for the win. Then again, in those games, I was in a cramped space with neighbors like Monty or Tokugawa. :p

-As for vertical growth... I guess it's not something I've ever thought about. See, this is why we're here: so you guys can harp on things that I never knew needed harped on! I've set up my cities' tiles to emphasize this now, but I can see I'm going to do some things I don't normally do like farming tiles and then converting the farms to more productive tiles in cities where I don't intend to run a lot of specialists.

-Tech path: Engineering -> Gunpowder -> Nationalism (trade for Music) -> MT. I'm also hoping to trade for Feudalism in that time to get Guilds, but the AI is proving a massive disappointment in the trading department right now. Once I get MT, I'll get Feudalism in any way I can, then go Guilds -> Banking -> Printing Press (probably bulbed) -> Replaceable Parts -> Rifling. If Cuirs can't win us this game, then Cavalry definitely will.

In short, I do appreciate all of the help, and I do read all of it. If it seems like I'm a little dense, it's because I've gotten lazy in this game. No more. Shaka's too fat and happy. Time to get mad.

Thanks!
 
Harping on, who’s harping on? :lol: More seriously, hope we’re helping. :)

Just a couple of quick points in response to the last post:

(i) Unless the landlocked city is stellar, look to settle the coastal sites first to benefit from The GLH.
(ii) If you’re going cuirassiers, just be aware that you’ll probably have to rely on the whip – because the map is rather hammer poor. Another option you have if going conquest is to draft a bunch of rifles.

Shaka's too fat

I think you missed the point here. Shaka’s empire has been too thin to date...we want him to grow big and fat – to get the hammers to build units and / or the pop to whip and / or draft from. :D
 
Why don't you just let the Ai tech feudalism.

Engineering for faster units and trebs makes a sensible idea. With mace and trebs the idea is to reach the tech before the Ai gets LB and castles. As this is noble you may still be in that window. Overall right now I might of skipped them and just pushed for MT as you can spare lib for MT.

Before engineering you should be thinking about building some mace and galleys to prep for the war. you lack production but you should be able to use slavery to 3 pop whip mace. Again the issue here is you are now building workers/settlers instead of this. Theres a part of you that is an empire builder when perhaps at times you should just whip away your empire and destroy the world.

The main issue I have with what you have done is you over expanded to 20 cities when 7-8 strong cities could of spammed mace and treb much earlier. The advantage of a smaller empire is lower costs so you reach military techs sooner.

We'll see how you do. All i can see is set yourself a goal and stick to it!! Oh galleons would help here but I think perhaps this is an after thought. Hopefully you can chain vassel most of the AI.
 
Spoiler alert for you AP hawks for the next round!

Spoiler :
We have the votes to elect ourselves AP resident all by ourselves--even before we build any new cities. Monty voted for us, but his votes weren't necessary. Probably one of the consequences of our overzealous expansion, but still, we're not going to have Isabella trying to call the war off when we rain down gun-death on her head.


For the record, let me say that I think a big problem for me has been that this is a really crappy map. I know part of it is the lazy play in the early game, but building a ton of galleys of all things just to shuttle all of these troops to the other side of the continent is not something I'm looking forward to. When I start up the next game (where I'm going to give Prince a shot), I may not run Fractal again. I usually like the maps I get on Fractal, but every once in a while I'll run into a situation like this where one little thing is making the map a living hell to play. If that mountain was a plains hill, we'd have killed it by now.

...on the other hand, maybe that's a sign that I should shoot for diplomacy--beeline Mass Media for the UN? I haven't played a whole lot of the round, so I feel pretty comfortable replaying what's done. If our isolated civ ends up being my opponent (and I think he should have Confucianism given that I didn't see it in Izzy's cities), then I can count on my three Hindu buddies to vote for me at least, and my large population should carry me the rest of the way.

I want to go military just because I'm Shaka, but this map doesn't seem to favor that direction. Thoughts?
 
I would go after the HRE just so you could get extra land and if need be make it a colony. He's the lowest there, and usually the lowest does NOT have the best military. If you could post a pic of the power graph for the last 50 turns, that would be great.
 
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