Beating Shaka... is it possible?

[digitCruncher]

Out gunned... out produced... out populated... and against Shaka, of all people. This is not good.

Anyway, I am playing as the Vikings, and going quite nicely for my first EVER domination win. In addition, I plan to have it done by the Modern age (my old version of this game was deemed a lost cause, partially due to the fact that I had no production whatsoever...

Anyway... back on topic. I have managed FINALLY to rid Giglamesh off my continent, giving me a continent to my own Most of my economy during this period was based on this war, and thus after winning the war, I looked at the other continent to try and pillage THIER terrain. Playing as the Vikings, and amphibious rush should be easy... yes?

I knew that there was a war on on the other side of the continent, and as a result, I was expecting two (highly religious... there was only 1 religion on our continent, and 4 on the other one, with Islam and Taoism still to go) civilisations both tired after a long-drawn out holy war.

Instead, I find Shaka and Asoka, in peace, on the other continent... and, as you can expect, Shaka owns all but 2 cities on that continent, and his barrack UB is allowing him to fair with a decent tech rate!

I NEED a domination win, preferably early one, but its gonna take a LONG time to overwhelm this guy...

I have a plan, but I am not 100% sure if it will work, and I want to see how you guys defeat Shaka, and where his weaknesses lie... as I haven't run into him often (and considering that he is so powerful, I am glad of it )

Step 1: Turtle up. Build Galleons, and Berzerks... At least 30 Berzerks (10 for each of his 3 strongest coastal cities) should do...

Step 2: Launch the attack. As soon as the Bezerks hold the 3 best coastal cities, get them to fortify as much as possible, and hold off until reinforcements arrive. HOPEFULLY, the multiple attacks will confuse Shaka, and his massive army won't be able to hurt me in any way.

Step 3: Reinforcements: Knights, Siege, and Archers (LOTS of archers...) Each city should have at least 2 Archers, 5 Seige, 5 Knights, and whatever Bezerks have survived until now...

Ideally, this should get me a hand-hold of 6 Zulu cities (out of 12 or something)... but it is so EXPENSIVE... and requires a military force larger than I have ever built... and it may be for nothing!! 90 military units... thats huge (but luckily I have 5 very good military production cities )

Stats about our two great empires... its a very close race for everything EXCEPT GNP (I win), Soldiers, and Population (He wins). I don't know if Shaka will get MORE stronger as time goes on, or MUCH weaker... his population SURELY will allow him to become stronger... but his soldiers surely are hampering his gold (my espionage shows that he is hovering around 30-40% Science... but with massive multipliers. I am at 50% science, but with much less multipliers (production is focused on gold ATM )

 

[KaytieKat]

Hi

Good scouting/intelligence will be very helpful to you. The Ai will keep minimum garrisons in most of their cities then concentrate all the rest in huges stacks in one or two or in shakas case more cities. Find those cities and kill theose stacks first and after that it will be MUCH easier. So ramp your espionage sliding on him BIG time and send in spies to get lay of land. Plus once you get enough points to get line of sight on his cities and have game settings with show enemy moves enabled it is a LOT easier to see his troop movements and get idea where they are massing and where to expect counter attacks from.

Since he is on a diff contient it also good to see if those rally cities are on a coastal city and most likely at least one is and take that one first nearby to sink anything that comes out of it since most likely that will be launching point for navy attack especially if LOTS of ships anchored there. Taking a city like that can REALLY hurt him it will cut out big chunk of his army and sink all the ships anchored there so it will hurt his ability to take fight over to your continent.

Once you start taking cities on his continent most of fighting will be focused there but still watch your coasts have some ships to sink anything you see coming your way and keep you coastal cities nicely garrisoned to handle anything that slips through.

And yeah multi pronged attacks is always handy against AI's. It can definitely confuse em and make split up there units instead of making big SoD's.

So its not key to attack his three best cities right off bat but attack cities where his biggest stack is right off the bat. Maybe something like instead of 3 pronged attack on 3 biggest cities. Find city with largest stack and attack with like 80% of units fortify everything to absorb any big counter attack if there is big stack in an interior city you cant get to. Meanwhile have smaller diversion stack attack a city on other side of his empire. Dont even need to take the city just fortify em on a hill or something so shaka will send troops to beat his head against that. Or send em to pillage as much of his stategic resources like copper iron and horses as you can.

Then when you think main stack has secured beachhead city and you feel you absorbed any big counter attacks that may come in take then and then if you feel they can handle split that stack and send em off to start taking cities.

And yeah keep making and sending in reinforcements. Ideally if everything going your way what will hapen is seige or spies lower defenses then you suicide a few seige until your attacks get 99.9% odds and they never die so mostly you will need to just bring in more seige to replace the suicides and garriosns for captured cities.

Witch good intelligence you really wont need HUGE garrisons for every city you take. Just the frontline cities. As battle lines move forward you can keep fewer troops in the back and move the rest to new forward cities.

But biggest key is finding where his huge stacks are and taking em out asap. once you do that and keep pressure on he wont really be able to make another huge stack again as long as you dont give him the time so make sure keep tempo as fast as you can. Like if you take a lightly garrisoned city with only a few units dont pause and wait for wounded to heal. leave a few to garrison the city and to protect any woulned who will be stuck for one turn outside the city and then move rest of unwounded units on to another city and units left behind can catch up after they all healed.

Not really a specific strategy as much as just a couple of general tips but I hope it helps good luck and have fun

Kaytie

 

[CivCorpse]

If you have 3.17 installed then an amphibious attack vs a coastal city with a major stack in it is not advisable. You will be facing many defenders without the ability to weaken them with collateral. I would suggest wiping out Asoka first. That will slow down shaka's tech speed without his techwhore trading partner. It will also give you a beachhead to load with troops prior to a major war with Shaka. Teching chemistry for privateers while killing asoka means you can choke his coastal cities.
When attacking shaka I would find his largest and least defended coastal cities for quick amphibious attacks. Making sure you kill the last defender with only one attacker selected. Then raze the city. Raze any shrined cities as well. Thisa war of attrition will slow his research to the point you can move in with tech superior troops

 

[Laurwin]

ugh, I remember fighting shaka tete-a-tete on this continents game of mine. It involved no naval combat though, purely a land war. On noble I think. Only me and shaka left there

I had to produce lots of 'zerks. I had trebs at that point as well, its important though that you upgrade your trebs to city raiders though. This will enable you to pretty much attack the huge stacks with all your trebs doing collateral dmg, but on averige you will still lose about 1 treb per attack. Beelining to nationalism would also help, in drafting those 'zerkers . Maybe rifles?

knights could prove useful anti-archery units I think? He might use crossbows? Impis wont fold easily to the knights as shock units. hmm I cant even remember how I used my knights there franklly I used some together with some pikemen to kill war elephant and stuff. Some longbowmen here and there for hills defence.

Now in my current inca game on noble, continents map, with peter the great and shaka being the only remaining civs. Neither of them have a chance anymore . I rushed and destroyed all the civs on my continent with pure luck and promotions I got on my quachua from goody huts, all were gone by 2000BC. Then I teched to tanks and infantry and shaka dowed my while he was still in the middle ages being already busy fighting with peter

 

[Belisar]

My advice for intercontinental warfare is not to begin it until you have draftable units, giving you the ability to churn out a sizeable army.
Even if you manage a tech advantage, you will need a lot of troops against someone like Shaka practically owning his continent.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Shaka's one weakness is that he is a HORRIBLE techer. You're most likely safe from interconinetal invasion, unless he shaka has astronomy. You're goals are:
1) Protect your coast!
-This is more important when you reach galleons at astronomy, but make sure that none of shaka's ships come snooping around. if necessary, switch to mercantilism and cancel open borders.

2)Increase espionage!
-Learn what the AI is doing. Ussually when the AI decides to attack you, they spend 15-20 turns preparing. Look for patterns, like massive stacks of units or ships on the coast.

3) gain a tech advantage!
-If you gain a critical tech that shaka doesn't have and use it effectivily, the game is in the bag.Also, do anything in your power to slow down his tech speed short of attacking him until your ready.

 

[Gumbolt]

For 1605ad I dont think 600,000 is a huge amount of units. From the background of the pic i can still see a lot of archers in your cities. Theres still quite a bit of jungle too. 11 cities by 1605 ad isnt a huge amount. (Pending mapsize)

Could you not have built more cities on the east coast?

Did you set up a few cities just for production? The tip for game play is to watch the power graph early on. If your falling behind you can switch cities to produce more unit.

If your trapped on an island alone you may want to hold back to improve your science so you can use ships to reach new lands and explore much earlier.

Even so being slightly behind on the power graph may not be a big issue as the Ai is not great when it comes to attacking. They normally attack with a large stack. You let the stack take a small city. Then attack city with your stack of cats and trebs and soon the Ai stack is looking rather battered and bruised.

 

[digitCruncher]

The reason why I have so few cities is that on the entire continent, there are 8, thats right, 8 food resources. (2 bananas, 3 cows, 2 sheep and a pig) There are 2 fish, and 2 clam resources nearby too... There are no grains, its a barren, dry wasteland!!



I have had food problems all over, and those were the only cities in which I could even survive. I will build 3 more cities, coastal, to work on my financial advantage, however I have held off because of the ever increasing costs of ruling a continent... I wanted to wait until my courthouses were finished.

And I have only just seen Shaka.. so I had no idea how powerful he was... thus why I didn't know about the power graph till now

Espionage is easy. Simply because Shakas barracks are acting as his courthouses. As a result, he has a grand total of around 7 espionage per turn. I have already gained visibility to ALL his cities (thus how I know he has 30% science, 70% tax )

I may go for India first, however India is Shakas vassal, and surprisingly, the AI DEFENDS thier vassal... so its not going to be significantly easier... however, if it is better to attack India first, then I will

Finally, I don't like drafting... in that it seems MUCH worse than whipping (which I like)... what am I doing wrong?

Drafting gives 3 . Whipping gives 1
The population drop is only 1 for drafting, but the population drop for most gunpowder / macemen units is 4 for whipping.
Drafting unhappiness lasts for just as long as whipping unhappyness, but also stacks...
Drafting requires a cultural presence, a largeish population, and a later tech. Slavery requires none of these things...
There is a global limit to drafting. There is no global limit for whipping
Drafting is units only. Whipping can be used anywhere.

So... why draft when you can whip? Surely that extra 3 population isn't worth all the other negative factors... Of course, I can understand it with the Globe Theatre, however I am without a decent GP Farm (relying on a wonder-producing city I stole from the Babylonians )

 

[harusame]

your starting position sucks alot
so few resources

no food = fatal failure

also you got no copper, stone or marble....

 

[digitCruncher]

Not really... I managed to overwhelm two other empires, and capture thier land. Also, the benifits of having a huge amount of desert, means that I have a huge band of floodplains (or rather, the Sumerians had that, but I took it off them)

I am only slightly behind the Zulu in score, and tech-wise, I am significantly more advanced (I am meandering around Liberalism, so I can gain Representation and Jails with Lib... also so I can trade economic techs for military techs with the Indians )

The indians have 4 cities, and they seem to be under very little cultural pressure from the Zulu... and they have very little garrisons. Taking those 4 cities in my first wave (maybe even first turn!! If I can get some spies to cause massive disruptions...) should make me have a significant foot-hold on the continent...

However, my tech rate leaves ALOT to be desired... I am awaiting some of my commerce sites to run at 100% capability, but that will take a while, and it will still only allow me to run 50/10/40 Sci / Esp / Gold.

Who needs copper? I have iron, and I have 1 source of marble (if it was displayed, it would be in the center of the screen, but I am showing food resources only). Finally, I have a LOT of luxury resources, so with farms (and lots of them) I can get to some very nice sized production cities I even have 2 silver in one city (my main SCIENCE city ) and 2 Holy Cities (Confusism, thanks the Babylonians, and Taoism )

[Edit]Actually... I think I *might* have copper. I definitely have 4 sources of iron, so there )[/Edit]

 

[vicawoo]

Drafting is much more hammer efficient. With enough cities and some use of the culture slider (2 with theatre per 10%, 2.5 with colliseum), the happiness shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Xhaine]

India is the key to this problem, the fact is, they are generally weaker then the zulu, so take the same amount of berserker's and wipe Asoka off the face of the earth. Then you will have taken significantly less casualties and keeps your military intact.
I also noticed that you posses the statue of Zeus. With this I feel that with your more intact military you can fortify in former India, and with more units you can easily survive that massive counter attack, while letting him suffer from high war weariness.
Continue the second phase of your plan, except divide your force and lad in Ulundi (it's coastal so don't hesitate, besides Shaka's military will be beaten because of their counterattack) from these cities (and any others you captured along the way) you could negotiate a temporary peace, but without his capital and his military soundly defeated when you re initiate war you will be on more equal footing(amphibious invasions will no longer be unnecessary and therefore the war can be fought in a similar manner to a land war.
As far as the food situation goes, the floodplains you won from Gilgamesh could be an ample source of food, for cities, remember they don't need to be cottaged.
Also remember that any techs you trade to Asoka might also be traded to Shaka, it's in his nature to do so, so it's best to eliminate the Indians.

 

[digitCruncher]

Done and done.

Just a quick update...

On the first turn of the war, I launched a three-pronged attack on India. I had 'plenty' of troops, and I expected to hold one city at least. Anyway, all three cities fell without any bezerk causualties (I LOVE THE REVOLT CITY EXPLOIT/FEATURE!), and I focused on the central one (with Ankor Wat)

I forgot to raze the southern-most city, but thankfully, that saved me Because, within 2 turns, the Zulu attacked the Indian cities. I knew it was a lost cause, so I moved my berzerks that could move back into the transport, and the city fell with few Zulu losses. Then they moved south (while I reinforced up north. it was a prime defencive position, the only route in was around a mountain, and over plains ). 1 turn later, the city was defended with 4 Horse Archers. A few of the withdrawn bezerks (and one anti-siege spearman) managed to raze that city, and Ankor Wat (a wonder I like quite a bit, if I had a few more religions)

Up north, I had a sizable army. 5 catapults, 4 pikes, 4 Xbows, and 10 zerks. The catapults collateral damaged the invaders, and held off the first wave, but the second wave came a turn too early, and the northern-most city (the Xtian holy city, without a shrine) fell to the Zulu.

Now I had a large number of longbows, Knights, and pikes, and no-where to put them. Then I saw a forested hill! I moved in, took down the worker that was cutting it down (1 turn left), and fortified on it.

Reinforcements were still 1 turn away when the first wave of Zulu attackers invaded... a good 20% of thier entire military force. The battle took 10 minutes, and both of us got a GG from it. Eventually, the smoke cleared, and I was deemed the winner (almost entirely. I lost 2 longbows, 2 pikes, and a knight). More reinforcements arrived, and I held that hill like anything.

I then built up a huge zerk army, and looked for the most devastating location the Zulu could have... I chose the capital. It was the largest gold producer in the nation, and had the collosus. But this wasn't worth anything for me, so I planned to raze it.

I got an army of 18 zerks, and 2 spies (and a musket >.<). I promoted 10 of them to rifles, and now I had amphibious rifles . I sent them off, escorted by 2 caravels, but they were destroyed in 2 unlucky fights. I fled, the caravels in hot pursuit, but navigation 1, galleons, with circumnavigation move twice as fast as caravels, and the chase was short. Rotating around I moved towards the capital.

1 spy had already been caught, and the chance of victory defined entirely on the final spy supporting a city revolt. 79% odds.

Meanwhile, the Zulu had got Grenadiers (who said they were bad techers? They are really fast, considering the size of thier military), and assaulted the forest again. The defences held a second wave, but with MUCH more damage than before. Again, this was 10% of thier entire military, against a rather small (but heavily defencive) defence force.

Finally, the spy arrived at the city. There was a 79% chance of victory... a 21% chance of failure... and ... it payed off!! The city was in revolt, and the pinch / amphibious rifles took out the entire garrison, and the musket took the last blow, razing the capital, and knocking 150 points of the Zulu score. The price for peace dropped from 320 gold, to 50 gold. I am planning 2 more (quick) amphibious assaults, before the defences get too much for me.

Question: I have the AP. The Zulu have 1 Confusist City... how come I can't stop the war? Surely the 'stop the fighting between brothers of the faith' should be kicking in any time soon...

And the Zulu still don't have Astronomy... why not!?

 

[Laurwin]

It also happened in my inca game, with similar setting of yours.
Peter + shaka were on the other continent. Shaka dowed me for no reason really. He tried to demand some techs from me and got annoyed

He was pre-galleon I think, he had lots of caravels though . I had battleships and destroyers I think. He had something like galleys and triremes in 1800s on epic speed

 

[Elrohir]

Digit Cruncher, why do you seek to conquer him right away?

I say follow through with your original plan - but burn the cities instead. Target the most productive and largest coastal cities, so that he'll have a harder time building a navy. Burn as many coastal cities as possible, and drop a few stacks (During the middle ages, a longbowman, crossbowman, pikeman, knight) on heavily defensible tiles near the coast, for Shaka to throw units against. (A wooded hill is preferred, but don't upgrade your units to the best possible promotions until you decide where they're being landed)

When WW becomes too bad, or your run out of defenders and means to continue to attack (Or Shaka has no more sea cities ) declare peace, and then come back later with Riflemen or Infantry, and sweep through.

Just an interesting idea, and a little bit different from what everyone else is suggesting. Food for thought.