ALC Game #21 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Shaka

[Morgawr]

Finally a game with No Tech Brokering, yay! This game will be a lot of fun

 

[Tyrant Roger]

I vote for a new map type. I never play Archipelago and so learned a lot watching the Ragnar game.

For the Zulus you could play Lake map with high sea levels. It will allow the Impi to shine and war to reign.

 

[Daedal]

Lakes or an inland sea on a standard sized map sounds good. I wouldn't put extra AIs in though, it'll just give you a juicier rush target (probably) and make the game easier. First there were 10 page discussions on whether to settle in place or not... now we'll have 10 pages on what type of map to have! No wonder the games take months. Oh by the way, I'd stay away from multi-landmass maps because the AIs that start there will effectively be gimped and it'll just make for a more drawn out war in the end.

An impi spam strategy sounds good here. Between the UU and the UB you'll have an unstoppably huge empire in no time at all. I wouldn't complicate matters by including other units until those become obsolete.

 

[TriPp]

• No Tech Brokering
• Aggressive AI
• Choose Religions

Great! All the setting i play with.

I vote yes to Lakes and yes to Large.

Also wanna say that choose religions adds a little more than just slightly hiding the AI tech path. It also prevents everyone from adopting one religion, keepin the diplo and war side of the game a bit more fresh.

 

[Melon Head]

Congrats on getting to Shaka; this should be exciting. As far as a strategy goes, an Impi rush seems a foregone conclusion (I hope). Just remember you'll need a few more of them than with axes, as they're strength 4 not 5. Also you might want an axe or two for backup if it takes a while to rush, just to take care of enemy melee units. On the other hand the impis are perfectly suited to pillaging to destroy enemy metal resources. DENY DENY DENY. Also rush rush rush.

I also think Horse Archers provide excellent synergy with Impis. Both are 2-move units, and with a couple shock impis your HAs are relatively unkillable when rampaging through an enemy civ. You can just pillage your heart out, and as we saw in the Genghis ALC, that will cripple a civ.

What I'd recommend is this. First, use Impis to conquer a nearby civ in an ultra early rush. Second, tech HBR for some Horse Archers. Use those plus the extra Impis to pillage a second civ (do not conquer them). While doing this, stabilize your economy using the pillage gold and Ikhandas, and finish teching Currency/CoL. Once you finish teching to maces/cats, either kill the crippled civ or leave it alone, and take out a third civ. Restabalize economy with courthouses, currency, and Ikhandas, and then take out that crippled civ with muskets and cuirassiers, or later with rifles. Ideally having weakened that civ so much early on will delay them that you can get the tech advantage necessary to use the cavalry units like Cuirassiers and Knights effectively; normally I find these units less effective because I'd rather have more infantry than a limited number of cav, but against last epoch's units...they're great.

It's a pretty basic warmonger strategy; expand, stabilize, expand, stabilize, repeat, but works even better due to the Ikhanda and the Impi's synergy with HA's in pillaging. Remember to focus on strategic resources in pillaging, even going so far as to send a small stack behind the conflict's lines to destroy mines. Also remember that if you just pillage all the roads to a city that city loses the resource, and your Impis don't notice the loss of movement.

My recommended tech beeline:
Mining/BW.
Pottery (get some cottages in the capitol?)
HBR
Currency/CoL
Literature (because you always like GL, and the AI in BTS doesn't prioritize it as much)
Guilds/Gunpowder

Obviously, you can swap Guilds/Gunpowder for a Paper/Gunpowder route to go strait to Muskets instead of Cuirassiers (do Cuirassiers require Guilds? If not, then go through Education to Gunpowder because it's cheaper beaker-wise, I think), which will also preserve the liberalism race as an option.

 

[TM Moot]

I was going to back the 'Big and Small' suggestion, as currently enjoying this with Darius. But there is a danger of having a starting location on the 'Small' part (i.e. lots of little islands, max 2-3 cities each). Even if these are adjacent to the 'Big' then it'll negate the Impi spawn.

Therefore I reckon 'Lakes' or 'Inland Sea' should do us this time, which I guess will be a different map for lots of us.

Also 'no tech brokering' - woohoo .

 

[Pe Ell]

I think the best part of playing as Shaka hasn't been mention: You don't have to face him!

Build Ikhandas->Build Impis->Kill!

 

[Gooblah]

Lakes? Interesting. I'm a fan of the Amphibious assaulting meself, which (as far as I know) you don't see much of in Lakes maps. I'll shadow (-ish) this game with my own Shaka/Lakes/NTB/Agg. AI/Choose Religions game on Prince or Monarch- I'm not even close to Sisutil's skill level....

 

[Sisiutil]

Playing a Lakes map came up as an earlier suggestion for the Shaka game, so I'll consider it. I understand the objection to large maps by those on older/slower computers wanting to shadow the game, so I'll stick to standard size.

Also wanna say that choose religions adds a little more than just slightly hiding the AI tech path. It also prevents everyone from adopting one religion, keepin the diplo and war side of the game a bit more fresh.

That hasn't been my experience. The setting just allows the 1st civ to finish researching a religion-founding civ to choose which religion is founded. It adds a little flavour to the game and prevents Buddhism or Hinduism from being the dominant religions all the time.

In the last couple of off-line games I've played with this setting (and tech brokering) turned on, one religion has become dominant pretty quickly--in one game it was Judaism, in the next it was Christianity.

EDIT: Based on a suggestion in the bullpen, I'm also considering disabling goody huts (but leaving random events on). Thoughts?

 

[mystyfly]

Playing a Lakes map came up as an earlier suggestion for the Shaka game, so I'll consider it. I understand the objection to large maps by those on older/slower computers wanting to shadow the game, so I'll stick to standard size.

Thank you VERY much.

That hasn't been my experience. The setting just allows the 1st civ to finish researching a religion-founding civ to choose which religion is founded. It adds a little flavour to the game and prevents Buddhism or Hinduism from being the dominant religions all the time.

Definitely agree. Choose religion just makes games more different. Has Islam ever been the biggest religion, with no Choose religion? (In fact I remember seing a game where all religions but Islam were founded in one city which wasn't connected to TeH world. Islam was the ONLY religion. DaveMcW or someone much better than the average civver did this... But this is definitely off-topic). I love Choose religion but it doesn't really hide tech progress. Usually it is obvious which tech has just been researched.

 

[TRJS]

Disabling the huts will most definately make things less random. I agree with the point made in the bullpen that these have no input into the educational value of the game.

Just soo damn hard not to have those exciting little things lying around.

 

[uncarved block]

One of my personal favorites when it comes to maps is Inland Sea with world wrap on. You basically end up with an inverse Pangaea (which is good for the you) without the protection of only having neighbors in two directions (which is bad for the you.)

Here's a sales pitch, just for the heck of it. The mainly land map will allow for an early Impi rush, but still leave several tough competitors for the later game. The terrain and resources are fairly balanced, so each of the AIs (except, maybe, Willem) will have something they can use, if they live long enough. AI vs AI war is far more likely, because they all have a couple borders to launch from-- which also makes diplomacy a little trickier, because you can't just blow off an AI because they can't reach you. Best of all, IMO, is that you can't just leave a border lightly defended by relying on the ocean as a buffer. With the extra units from Agg AI, this is nothing to sneeze at.

Lakes maps give you a lot of the same setup, with the one major change-- the string of Tundra and Ice to the north and south are Barb heaven, and usually more annoying than challenging. But it would be a welcome change, and it would be great to hear some discussion and analysis on a map closer to what I usually play.

 

[Munch]

Playing a Lakes map came up as an earlier suggestion for the Shaka game, so I'll consider it. I understand the objection to large maps by those on older/slower computers wanting to shadow the game, so I'll stick to standard size.

...

EDIT: Based on a suggestion in the bullpen, I'm also considering disabling goody huts (but leaving random events on). Thoughts?

Good decisions. I enjoy goody huts but can see why you might want to remove them.

One of my personal favorites when it comes to maps is Inland Sea with world wrap on. You basically end up with an inverse Pangaea (which is good for the you) without the protection of only having neighbors in two directions (which is bad for the you.)

Here's a sales pitch, just for the heck of it. The mainly land map will allow for an early Impi rush, but still leave several tough competitors for the later game. The terrain and resources are fairly balanced, so each of the AIs (except, maybe, Willem) will have something they can use, if they live long enough. AI vs AI war is far more likely, because they all have a couple borders to launch from-- which also makes diplomacy a little trickier, because you can't just blow off an AI because they can't reach you. Best of all, IMO, is that you can't just leave a border lightly defended by relying on the ocean as a buffer. With the extra units from Agg AI, this is nothing to sneeze at.

Lakes maps give you a lot of the same setup, with the one major change-- the string of Tundra and Ice to the north and south are Barb heaven, and usually more annoying than challenging. But it would be a welcome change, and it would be great to hear some discussion and analysis on a map closer to what I usually play.

All great points. The tundra regions tend to remain uncivilised for a long time in all-land maps, and a few barb macemen aren't unheard of.

I was always put off "Inland sea" because of the no-world-wrap, and never thought about that as an optional thing; I'll have to try it now! I believe Lakes allows you to walk all the way around by default - but this doesn't get you the circumnavigation bonus as far as I can see.

 

[TriPp]

That hasn't been my experience. The setting just allows the 1st civ to finish researching a religion-founding civ to choose which religion is founded. It adds a little flavour to the game and prevents Buddhism or Hinduism from being the dominant religions all the time.

In the last couple of off-line games I've played with this setting (and tech brokering) turned on, one religion has become dominant pretty quickly--in one game it was Judaism, in the next it was Christianity.

Really? Ive noticed that in only 2 or 3 games out of the last 15. Theres ussually 3 or 4 dominant religions in my games and i play with a max of 8 AI normally. I guess it depends on the AIs wether they focus on religion or not + fav religions still play a bigger role since they are more easily founded, so i see alot of AI going for thier own religion rather than just adopting the 1st one found like normal games.

 

[kniteowl]

I reckon the cheap workers in the early game for Shaka are useful, you can easily whip your 2nd or 3rd worker since you have cheap ganaries and use them to chop rush an army of Impis to quickly rush any nearby AIs.

 

[oynaz]

I think I will join this thread. I have lurked the ALC for a time, and they seem interesting.

My thoughts on the Goody Huts: Leave them on, for one simple reason: They are great fun.

 

[Scarredroman]

Playing Shaka on an all land map is as balanced as Ragnar on an Archipelago. No goody huts will slow teching down and the rate at which Shaka can expand - not by much though with cheap granaries, cheap UB barracks and a 2-move infantry unit andextra health, Shaka can whip out impis to his heart;s content. Unless there's another early unit aggressor near by this ALC's goingto be a cake walk. And if Shaka has happinesss resources to exploit his cities will get big rather quickly.

 

[Mesousa]

Just to clarify, my suggestion in the bullpen thread to play without Tribal Villages was a general one, not specific to the Shaka game.

About the map, I looked at some Lakes maps, and my impression was that even with high sea level, it's A LOT of land, and the lakes aren't big or numerous enough to create anything resembling choke points. That should help AIs that are good at rexing, but also be a big help to Shaka who not only can rex very well thanks to the Ikhandas, but who can also just keep rolling over one opponent after the other. I think I'd really prefer two to four continents with at least one opponent on the same starting land mass so there can be an early rush but it won't become too straightforward.

 

[ConanKND]

I vote Inland Sea.

At first I thought that Lakes would be OK, until someone mentioned the tundra strip. Yes, that's bad and will force you to go for conquest, unless you want to settle those frigid lands. (I almost did that in a Highlands Map game before I retired). Maybe you can build those cities then gift them to your vassal, because vassals do not stop a conquest victory IIRC.

 

[mystyfly]

I prefer inland sea and no goodie huts. I turned them off too. They can make a start very unbalanced.