It's no use -epic fail II - this time, it's really bad.

[Yooka]

Hey all. Named the thread after joe6778's thread (close enough, right?) because I know exactly how he feels. The thing is, I'm in a similar position, but I can't even get consistent wins at warlord. And I've been playing this game and reading these forums (on and off) since roughly 1 year after civ iv came out. Never been good, sometimes I can win 80% of the warlord games I play, but this map has me stumped, as I'm far from an aggressive player, and I'm locked on a continent with Shaka. I admit, even though I've read alot here, and grown alot, there are obviously fundamental aspects of this game that might be alluding me.

The save file is (obviously) first turn. I've replayed it four times, and each time, while I wasnt totally out of it, I saw I had a major uphill battle, and no infrastructure to support the troops once Shaka got ready to go.

• If I focus on using closed borders to keep Shaka out of the western bottleneck, my economy is stretched too thin, and northern barbarians keep me from expanding.

• If I focus on developing what I have (cottage, growth, light on tech, heavy on power), Shaka develops much faster, and sends a stack 2x bigger than what I have within 80 turns.

• If I focus on my stone quarry, and early world wonders, Shaka develops much faster, and sends a stack 2x bigger than what I have within 40 turns. I notice his cities are spread much further when I tried this.

I dunno, from what I can tell, even though Shaka has less space than I do, that almost seems like an advantage given his traits. He arms up fast, expands fast and sees the entirety of his subcontinent early, while I have more mid and late game potential, but I have constant barbarians (with no city) coming down towards me, and I cant shut them down until I settle all of the north - and by then, Shaka has a giant tech and manpower adv over me. I see potential for cultural victory, by being his religious source, and virtual vassal.... but honestly, I do that too often when foes are uncertain - this is cut and dry and at this difficulty level, I really should be able to figure this out.

Thanks guys.

 

[Robert FIN]

I don't understand. Your savefile is named 4000BC (t0) but you're talking like you know there's Shaka next to you.. Just post here a new game, give us screenshots (lymond told Joe how to do it in the other thread), let us know what you're thinking and play small turnsets. Like Joe did in his current thread. This helps you to win warlord all all the further levels.

 

[TheMadFiddler]

He does know Shaka is there. He said he has played this map multiple times- I think that is why he has chosen it as this map [more than the level per se] has stymied him.
Since you have Stone- what about the Great Wall? Now you do not have to settle the north to remove the barbarian threat and can focus on sealing off Shaka.

Note- Robert FIN' s advice will be more useful overall than looking for a solution for this map.

 

[lymond]

Granted, Warlords is a ridiculously easy difficulty level, but playing Quick Speed/Large mods as a bit of difficulty to the equation. Just play Normal settings.

Start a new game, normal settings, post it here, and start playing it based on advice. Not much we can do otherwise until you do that.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

A scattering of thoughts...

Look up "fog busting"; a few carefully placed warriors will take care of the north.

You are isolated with Shaka. That means he's not particularly useful to you -- he's not going to be effective attacking anyone for you, because he doesn't have a land route. Since he's not useful to you, he's a target. So the first order of business is to decide when you want to kill him.

The good news is that you are protective (free promotions for archery units), you have access to the totem pole (free xp for archery units) and you have access to stone (production bonus for walls). Shaka can't do anything to you, so long as you make a minimal investment in defense prior to killing him.

The straight forward approach is going to be to play the Land strategy -- concentrate your early efforts on cities, workers, and units to protect them. You've got a number of good locations in the south and to the west. Once you've gobbled up all the good spots, you can begin war prep -- or scale up your cities first, then begin war prep. The advantage of playing on Warlord is that you have time to screw around; the remote AIs can't win very quickly.

Your starting area doesn't include convenient happiness resources, so after the opening, Monarchy is probably an early tech goal.

Your land includes a number of good coastal locations, and just off shore you've got islands with excellent food resources. This combination plays well with the Great Lighthouse - coastal cities get extra trade routes, and the off shore cities mean more valuable trade routes. So you might also consider that route - it's an option.

Remember: Writing is a WAR tech -- you use it to scout out your target's land early, so that you can plan when and how you want to attack. Train a chariot and go to work.

Finally - settling on the stone accelerates your opening, because of the extra production you get every turn.

 

[bernds]

HThe save file is (obviously) first turn. I've replayed it four times, and each time, while I wasnt totally out of it, I saw I had a major uphill battle, and no infrastructure to support the troops once Shaka got ready to go.

• If I focus on using closed borders to keep Shaka out of the western bottleneck, my economy is stretched too thin, and northern barbarians keep me from expanding.

• If I focus on developing what I have (cottage, growth, light on tech, heavy on power), Shaka develops much faster, and sends a stack 2x bigger than what I have within 80 turns.

• If I focus on my stone quarry, and early world wonders, Shaka develops much faster, and sends a stack 2x bigger than what I have within 40 turns. I notice his cities are spread much further when I tried this.

So I've played this for a bit; probably for longer than I should have but the Quick speed caught me out, also in terms of tech pace. How does the save below compare against your games? It's 650AD and I've expanded relatively slowly (as it turns out - it felt normal since I usually play at slower speeds). I got all the good spots around the starting location (and the land is really nice), and now I'm beginning to see the first signs of Shaka expanding towards me. I don't see how Shaka would be a problem from here on; I could just research Feudalism and Archery and that would be that. More likely I'd want to take him out by getting Macemen against his Archers.

Maybe you could post some of your saves and screenshots, around 1500BC and/or 0AD. Do you have fewer cities? Poor locations? No cottages? Resources not improved? These are some reasons I could think of for falling behind.

 

[Yooka]

Since you have Stone- what about the Great Wall? Now you do not have to settle the north to remove the barbarian threat and can focus on sealing off Shaka.

Note- Robert FIN' s advice will be more useful overall than looking for a solution for this map.

*facepalm* I can't believe I didn't think of that. I think in 2/4 tries, I built up Stonehedge and the Pyramids, but felt it left my early military way behind, inviting Shaka in. I'll try it with all three.

Maybe you could post some of your saves and screenshots, around 1500BC and/or 0AD. Do you have fewer cities? Poor locations? No cottages? Resources not improved? These are some reasons I could think of for falling behind.

No, I ragequit each of them before saving, hehe. I'll keep it in mind for the future. I'm sure those are a few of my assorted mistakes on various attempts.

Thanks all. Alot of good new ideas for me to try. I'll keep ya posted.

 

[pigswill]

Had a go at this up to 1ad.

Quick is seriously weird. Workers take same time to improve as on normal but rest of game moves twice as fast.

Got five cities, about to plant my sixth to block Shaka from expanding east. Built early Gwall, got Oracle>CS recently, founded Confu. Research is all over the place but economy is holding up (cottaged FPs). Got early Gspy who's wandering around, got GS for academy in capital.

 

[strijder20]

I'd like to play this game, but Quick is annoying me (no insults intended ).

If you really want to hit Shaka before he hits you (Yes, he'll hit you. That's the one certainty of this game), get some Dogs out and hit him quickly.

Spoiler :

If this weren't quick, they'd arrived there much earlier and could have done much more damage. In this case I razed a city with 3 dogs, but you can also sit around on the forests, pillage and chase his workers away (which is called choking).

If you don't want to hit Shaka (which is by far the preferred path, as you have top-tier land), just settle your third city on the plains hill for defense. Warlord allows for far-away settling without huge maintenance penalties.

Spoiler :

In either case, beeline bronze working and chop those forests converting them into Dog Soldiers (which are a great unit as they don't require copper), settlers and workers. This will allow you to beat Shaka to the spot.

Cottage up your capital. This is a great Bureaucracy start, with 9 cottageable tiles and two plantations. Cottage all the grasslands and floodplains.

After researching Masonry, build a wall in the choke point city, which will be 13 turns max (as you are protective).

After researching Archery and Mysticism, you can churn out City Garrison 3 Drill 1 Archers with your UB, which I ensure will completely annihilate all units which dare to attack your hill city until catapults. He's a slowish techer, so by the point he has catapults, you can already have horse archers, your own catapults or longbows, all of which will beat his stacks if used properly.

Lastly, you have more land than him, so on the long term he'll fall behind. Win the first battles and you've won (your continent for yourself ).

Oh, and don't waste hammers on stonehenge. It's a good wonder, but the issues you have are mainly because of not putting enough hammers in troops (which will hold off both Shaka and the barbarians), settlers (cities are great fog-busters, stopping barb spawns) and workers.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Native American dog soldiers is one of the best choker units in the game. You don't need bronze, and if you can cut off Shaka's horse, he'll NEVER get rid of 3-4 dog soldiers until Construction and catapults.

Just sit two dog soldiers on a hill next to each of Shaka's cities, and pillage his improvements and laugh. Like this: hahahahahahaha.