Nobles' Club CLXXVII: Shaka of the Zulu

[Gumbolt]

Still playing on here.

620ad.

Spoiler :

Been fighting a few wars. First against Khmer. Reducing him back to 7-8 cities. Took 4 cities.

I then dogpiled in Justinian's war with Arabs. Just taken the Arab's capital. Arabs have 7 cities now. The arabs did manage to take one of Justinian's cities before taking peace with him. Considering if I should continue my Arab war. 1 more city I would like to take.

My diplo has been shocking this game. Most Ai seems to hate me.

Khmer are back in war mode and even with a 1.3 power rating I seem to be the target.
Mongolians look dangerous too.

None of the Ai have more than 8 cities. I currently have 17 cities.

 

[Gumbolt]

1070ad.

Spoiler :

Took the city south of Arabian capital as it was swallowing up the city in culture. Then took peace. Sury was plotting war against someone so I demanded gold and his fist vanished after 10 turns.

Got a string of techs around 660/680ad. Med/poly/mono/aesth. Took monarchy and COl from Sal for peace. Got lit the same turn.

I took a golden age with my 2nd Gspy. Grabbed Music first in 780ad. Stole Engineering and feud from Justin. Traded him music for machinery. Switched to slavery and vassalage civic.

Then I started to rebuild my army. Trebs/Knights/phants/axes/impi. Loving the impi. I have just wiped out Arabia and I have 27% of land/Pop.

Largest Ai is Mongolians with 12 cities. My power ratiing to him is 1.6. He is the strongest Ai on map. Justin has 7 cities but is pleased. We have a shared religion so I should be able to ignore him completely.

Next war will be Mongolians or Khmer. Fingers crossed med troops can finish this game. Mongolians lack MC.

Up to 1160.

Spoiler :

Declared on Mongols. He lost his stack in first 2 turns. From then on he lost 4 cities. He should vassel next turn. I won most of the combats. Even as a vassel he is close to the remaining AI power.

Hannibal, Sury and Rammy should take me across the line. They have 6-9 cities each. Justin hopefully stay at pleased. I doubt he would attack me with a 1.9 power rating.

Just need to play this out now.

Up to 1190 ad.

Spoiler :

Mongols became my vassel as expected the next turn. I quickly turned on Sury. 2 turns into the war he also became my vassel.

3 Ai left and 20% of land needed.

Hopefully I can do it with 2 Ai and lots of wasteland cities. Hannibal has castles.

 

[Gumbolt]

1270ad and a domination win. Could of shaved 2-3 turns off this really if I had built a few more settlers sooner. Score 272900. Ended in strike but could of used wealth. Plus deleted many units.

Spoiler :

Attacked Rammy and Hannibal at same time. Ram fell after 1 city was lost. Hannibal waited for 3 cities to fall.

Med units win the day. I think a pre 1200ad date is more than possible here with some better planning and management. Maybe even earlier??

@ Imploding -

Spoiler :

Could you of won without attacking Sal??? Few settlers here and there. Raze the final few cities and resettle. Etc.

 

[Gumbolt]

@ Elite

Spoiler :

Your not gonna fight Cataphracts.

Simplified your earlier quote.

 

[hankinsohl]

Only one to ever declare a war in the entire game was me...

Shaka is proud of you!

Spoiler :

Congratulations on the victory.

I'm pursing a similar strategy in my Emperor-level game, and have a question. If you have the Pyramids, would you consider going Police State somewhere along the line, or would you stick with Monarchy?

 

[Gumbolt]

Interesting about Mids. I forgot to switch to police state. I used rep. The big issue I had was due more to 2 turns anarchy in doing the switch. In hind sight I should of. My play was far from perfect.

 

[elitetroops]

Inspired by the successful space race in this game, I made an attempt to play same leader on same map settings for HoF. Result: exactly same finish date...

Spoiler some comparison :

Interesting that my selected HoF-settings turned out to make the game harder. Start was of course awesome, it was a HoF game after all, but packing the map with more AI was a huge mistake. First of all it lowered domination limit, and it makes the AI build more units when they cannot expand anymore. Over all, in the second game I killed 100 more units to capture 10 less cities. I ended up with only 37 cities, compared to 47 in this NC game, which meant about 1500/turn less in the end game. This was in part a result of the tough wars, a worse map layout for warfare, and me not expanding enough early on. Instead I focused on economy and Oracle->CS, which might not have been the best idea.

So while I was very far ahead in tech in the early game (had 625bc maces), 15 turns earlier to Oxford and still a few turns ahead with Apollo built and only 9 techs to go, this could not keep up with the larger empire I got in the NC game. I was done teching one turn later than in the NC game, and by then my chain of 6 golden ages was over, which screwed up my space part build calculations. So once again I failed to launch in one turn. It would have worked this time though, if I could have completed teching while still in a golden age.

Any way, lesson learned. In space games, more cities = faster finish date. It's really that simple.

@ Elite

Spoiler :

Your not gonna fight Cataphracts.

Simplified your earlier quote.

Spoiler :

In the second game I did run into a stack of 10 Cataphracts. It was a great way to farm XP with my drafted rifles.

 

[MegaLurker]

Gumbolt, is that on Immortal? Very nice date. The Aggressive trait doesn't seem so weak when you can win the map with melee units.

 

[Gumbolt]

Gumbolt, is that on Immortal? Very nice date. The Aggressive trait doesn't seem so weak when you can win the map with melee units.

Yep on immortal.

Spoiler :

Used quite a few knights/phants near the end. Otherwise a mix of phants/sword/axes and impi early on. I think pre 1200ad dates should be more than possible on pangea maps with med units. Esp if the AI are struggling. This map had a lot of jungle and this crippled the Ai in places. We all remember Elite's Korean game where he finished super early.

Overall my power rating was strongest on map for most of game.

@ Elite

Spoiler :

Same happened to me. Rammy suicided 7-8 war chariots into my phants/knights/impi late game. No idea why he would be lacking Guilds by 1200ad on immortal.

 

[GKey]

In case some of you did not know, AbsoluteZero played this map on YouTube. Fun as always!

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Inspired by the successful space race in this game, I made an attempt to play same leader on same map settings for HoF. Result: exactly same finish date...

Yes, there are pros and cons to cramping the map with AIs.
Interesting point you bring up with the unit count.
More AIs also means lesser trade partners in the mid to late game.


Very nice game you played, btw