Nobles' Club 251: Shaka of the Zulu

[lymond]

Might have to play this one. Interesting start. SIP unless scout reveals something nice to the N.

 

[AcaMetis]

I've updated the OP with fixed scenario files. Good job spotting that extra 0 .

 

[scheines]

Spoiler NHNE, Immortal, 1210 AD :

Alright, want some opinions on the position. To summarize,

• REXed to 7 cities, took a few barb cities to reach 9. Abstained from a religion because diplomacy is a mess. There are 3 relatively competitive religions. I got Judaism in most cities for free, but don't want to convert until wartime because Alexander is in Buddhism next to me. In the meantime, I libbed MT around 600 - 700 AD then started amassing cuirassiers.
  
• Ramesses II has the AP - he passed a holy vote to declare on Alex, so I wiped him out. He is too much of a warmonger to leave around, so I likely would have gone for him anyways.
• After eliminating Alex, city maintenance is killing me, but I am working on getting courthouses / forbidden palace / ikhandas set up to stay afloat.
• After this is nearly done, I plan to initiate another war, but don't know the best way to approach the position (i.e. who to target). Huayna Capac is the only non-Judaism civ near me, and his culture is sort of infringing on me. However, I am currently in another holy war with Brennus. I also considered backstabbing Ramesses to get the AP votes out of the picture, for when I (presumably) have to start warring in my religion if I am going for domination / conquest. Lastly, Mansa is someone I like to eliminate early to prevent him from running away with a tech lead.

Who would you declare on? I am torn between Brennus and HC, but leaning towards Brennus. Brennus is on the way out due to the holy war, so I could see that being the right move before someone else capitulates him. However, his land is far from Ulundi, and until I reach state property, my economy might struggle a lot. In a similar vein, HC is closer and grabbing his cities would fix some culture pressure, and "round out" my empire, and avoid the large maintenance altogether.

Save is attached if you want to look into it more - it's got BUG + BULL loaded in multiplayer mods though, so let me know if there are issues opening it.

 

[Pangaea]

For the record, I started on this map and played 30-40 turns or something like that.

Spoiler :

Got out the first settler and had decided to settle east where there was a pig, and had teched AH. With the settler active, I suddenly noticed that the pig had been overgrown with jungle. Yuck, screw that. And I went back to some other games I have instead.

Settled in place btw, despite seeing that food up north.

 

[MasterofDisasta]

Played up to Turn 57 (1720 BC)
Immortal No Huts, No Events

Spoiler :

I liked the start so settled in place. 12 turn worker (sped up by 1 turn once I could work the stone) was very nice.

Initial build was worker, grow to size 3 on warriors, then a settler.

Initial tech path was Mining -> BW -> AH -> Wheel. I've recently become reluctant to get 2 expensive techs (like BW & AH) before pottery because it has slowed my economy to a crawl in the past. In this game, consistently working the gold mine made it work out fine.

AH was hard to pass up since the sheep & cow both provided very strong and close city spots. I settled the sheep first (river connection) and shortly after the cow.

I decided with this setup to go for Mids. I figured there was no need to compete for early land; I have plenty available. I also have good production in capital and lots of forests to chop. Teched Masonry -> Pottery -> Myst -> Writing.

I stopped with Mids about to complete (no AI has beat me to it). I have 3 solid cities that can fuel further expansion. I'm eyeing the Pig spot and Banana spot and will need to scout for other locations. There is also a barb city in the SE to check out.

I would also like to get a library up and running to start taking advantage of Rep scientists. I'm thinking about the sheep city since it doesn't have many good tiles to work otherwise. But for now settlers and workers probably need to be the priority.

My tech rate is good (thanks gold!) so I am thinking to go Alpha -> Currency -> Caste. No one else has Alpha so I plan to use it to trade it to scoop up the initial techs I'm missing.

Long term plans are still up in the air. I've met a lot of AI on my landmass so I do think some conquest is in order.

State of the Empire as of 1720 BC

Spoiler :

 

[MasterofDisasta]

Continued playing to Turn 115 (1 AD)

Spoiler :

At the end of the last play session I was planning to peacefully expand to 6 cities. However, Mansa immediately grabbed the Banana spot and together with Ramses quickly hemmed me in. I decided it was time for expansion by other means.

Through my espionage points on Mansa I was able to see he was finishing Alpha so I went Math -> Construction and traded Math to get alpha. This prepared me for a war of conquest with Catapult, Axemen, & Impis.

The question was who to conquer, Mansa or Ramses? Both had pretty good land. Mansa was pushing my borders harder (and had just stolen a city spot from me!). However, I really didn't want to deal with the increased of his Skirmishers. Mansa also seems like a very valuable trading partner in my game. He has put himself along in a hated religion (Hindu) so I suspect the AI's will be more hesitant to trade with him and I can hoard his discoveries for myself.

With that decided it was time to move on Ramses

Spoiler :

Impis 2 move came in very handy during the war. By 1 AD Ramses was reduced to 1 city and I am up to 11 cities which is the most of all players.

During the war I was able to make some economic progress as well. I won the race to Music and built the Great Library in the Northern sheep city. Also added an academy to the capital and got villages set up for a nice bureau capital.

Speaking of bureaucracy, Mansa is just about done teching it. I will partially tech and then trade Music for it. Then I can use my artist for a GA, switch to caste & pacifism and run a ton of Rep scientists to bail out my faltering economy.

Mansa and I have kept up a great tech pace and thankfully the rest of the leaders are lagging far behind.

Spoiler :

The general plan is to stay peaceful until Lib (it looks like I will have to race Mansa for it) and then run over the world with Cuirs.


State of the Empire as of 1 AD

Spoiler :

My Lands

Ramses Former Territory Part 1

And Part 2

 

[prettification]

First attempt on Monarch ever - T129 350AD

Im sick and Im going to try hard so the game will be long ....

Playing Shaka the game will be a warring one (yes Im roleplaying but its Monarch anyway).

Spoiler :

NIfty hills all around Ulundi ( 4 pop 12 H for every city) so I prioritized production for the city placement, in accordance with my impending military adventures (Im not a big fan of the whip if I can avoid it, beacuse of the cool down). I whipped several of the 2 movements impis to pillage ramses and brennus (found brennus before alexander) to stall their progress as long as i could while I developped my 5 cities empire enough to launch a sword based attack on ramses (with 2 cats)..

Got to thebes one turn before alexander (though his phalanx stack might have succumbed to the fortified archers on a hill). Thebes being a highly productive site, I settled Nongoma 3 W to develop a cottage city (still no cottage yet). Razed the 2 northern cities and settled 5N 3W and 5N 2E of Thebes for two more cottage domains.

---

AI is teching pretty slow (not to say at a catastrophic rate; though I was really afraid of the tech rate when stepping up), so my current goal is to rush machinery with forges (12x1.25 H equals 4 turns crossbowmen, plus 2 happinees from the gold ans silver for the WW) to conquer Alexander; all the while squeezing cottages where I can.(in addition to my 3 newly settled cottages-cities)

I could have taken on MM (after the Ramses gutting), and probably should do so at higher level, but Im pretty fond of this western pacifist border, and I prefer to wipe out the warring rival asap (he snatched a city from Rmases SE of Thebes)
I guess the wisest way at higher levels would be to swallow MM and outech everybody (including Alexander, who seems only meaningful with his phalanx rushes), but playing optimally is boring and I want to play a military game so ...

The first five (Nulwangu just got founded and uMgungundlavyu just whipped a setller)

The Egyptian connection

 

[Fish Man]

(@dankok8 , I'm using this as the second of my three example games on how to win deity space pre-t250.)

Chadwick Boseman has died.

I dedicate this game in honor of the Black Panther. May he rest in peace, as we now play towards laying his ashes among the stars.

Yibambe!!!

Spoiler :

Impi-rushed our African neighbor Egypt, which went splendidly well considering they only had flatland archers and a couple of war chariots. 2 move impis meant I could take a city on the first turn, and then attack and take their capital just 2 turns later. Impis are just superior chariots against AIs without metal - with the same strength, they also start with mobility and combat I, can get city raider promotions, and act as their own mounted defense, here basically nullifying war chariots.

Spoiler :

Afterwards, the economy was super dicey for a bit, but I did manage to barely limp my way to aesthetics, and then traded for alphabet, only suffering a single turn of strike.

Spoiler :

Soon, things really started picking up speed and by t95 or so Mansa and I had emerged as the clear tech leaders (conveniently, he got CoL which I could instantly trade for, Mansa being Mansa). I have enough forests to chop Great Library in uMg even without marble.

Spoiler :

Should be no problems now rolling over people with cuirs and then getting communism and workshopping everything to a fairly fast win. I'm far more ahead here than I was in the last noble's club. And most people are really struggling to tech for some reason, except for HC and Mansa, the only financially competent leaders on this map.

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ So you settled the inferior location to get BFC copper and Impi rush from 1 city. Then proceeded to capture 5 cities (and 5 workers) while losing only 3 Impis.
How many sessions are there in this game ? I ask for learning purposes.
I feel I'm reload-friendly but you take this to a whole other level. What is it you want to teach ?

 

[Fish Man]

^ So you settled the inferior location to get BFC copper and Impi rush from 1 city. Then proceeded to capture 5 cities (and 5 workers) while losing only 3 Impis.
How many sessions are there in this game ? I ask for learning purposes.
I feel I'm reload-friendly but you take this to a whole other level. What is it you want to teach ?

Quite a few, but I doubt there would’ve been a difference in outcome had I not reloaded. I would’ve just had to whip and chop a little bit more to get the results desired. In a reload-free game I suppose you should build about 1.5-2x as many impis as I did to ensure the win, and take a ceasefire before marching on Thebes to ensure success. I, however, am obsessively perfectionistic to the point where I want to find the “optimal possible outcome” to any game. So I’m playing this similar to a speedrun where I have knowledge of certain things that I shouldn’t know in, say, a HoF game (also why I stay away from HoF). Think of this as a Minecraft set-seed glitchless speedrun where you know where everything is, compared to a random seed.

That being said, I should clarify some things.

Even without any rerolling, this rush should be very possible. If you settle on the stone, settle copper for your second city, and then spam impis, there is little reason you should not be able to overwhelm Egypt (scout his lands before attacking to know he doesn’t have copper). Also, on flatland without any bonuses, a CRIII impi gets 86% odds against an archer. So once your impis are sufficiently promoted, you’ll get winning odds even against archers in cities.

Finally, since reroll new random seed is turned OFF, there was only so much I could game the system (i.e. every combat is somewhat predetermined so no matter how many times I reload I can’t turn a loss into a win). I got lucky with 2 20%-ish fights but other than that, all my wins against Ramses’ archers were above 50% odds. Of the barb cities, I only got losing odds against the one on a hill, so I would’ve been able to take that one handily even without reloads had I just built 3-4 more impis.

Still, for an early war, yes you should definitely build more units that I did without using reloads. I would say about double the number of impis as city defenders, maybe throw in 1-2 more to compensate for possible bad luck. So march on Thebes with 8-9 instead of 6, and attack the barb city on the hill with a handful of lesser-promoted fodder first. This may seem like a lot, but keep in mind that I already had almost that much when I attacked Thebes; just that they were scattered and injured. Getting a "safe" amount would've been merely a matter of 2-pop whipping once more, or chopping an extra forest, and then healing some.

Also, even ignoring the combat reloads, there’s a lot to learn, including tech order and trading, diplo, worker management, and city micro. None of that is affected by gaming the RNG some.

 

[prettification]

Monarch T-261

Spoiler :

So I totally did the opposite of what I was going for.

Invading the jungle ridden territory of Alexander would have been a poor idea, all the more with Mansa running ahead in techs.

I thus beheaded the Einstein wannabe, bulbed chemistry, researched steel and military science with caste workhops (higher science short term yield and war production), and steamrolled on Stalin, who was the bigger and badder of the lot.

I took as many cities as I could before he offered to capitulate (could not putting off the deal since he could capitulate to Alex who had already vassalized Brennus), and then turned on HC, to vassalize him before Alex does and to speed up my access to rifling (got some turns on PP and was able to trade RP for military science, more cities, a shrine and some gold).

This game was all about manageing the warmongers, who sere ruling the map. Had to find a way to befriend Alex, to destroy Stalin, and to get ahead of them in techs to be able to crush them.

Alex and I are the 2 superpowers now. I have more cities, steel, MS, and will get to rifling way before him, rifling being the tech which will enable me to submit him with the might and magic of the 14 strength riflemen.

The game seems highly winnable now, so let us hope for the best.

 

[dankok8]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

I find Impi to be a terrific UU for rushing. Very underrated. I completely crippled two AI's on Emperor with those and that was when I was a much worse player.

In MP they are incredibly OP... maybe best UU no joke.

 

[Fish Man]

@dankok8 t167 update:

Spoiler :

Capped 3 civs, and eyeing Alex as my next target. The Black Panther is determined to prove himself in single combat against the strongest AI on the map.

Alex has a 70-unit or so stack, none of which will hold up against my upcoming cavs. I'm first to communism, traded for constitution with Mansa recently. That guy doesn't even seem to have a WFYBTA...even before capping, he gave machinery, guilds, banking, and economics, long after everyone else had hit their respective limits.

Spoiler :

I will say that this is the most pathetic tech pace I've ever seen among a field of rivals. These AIs on deity are teching slower than I've seen most AIs fare on immortal (except for Mansa, of course).

Spoiler :

I just swapped to state property, rep, and free religion as my final civic switch in the game. After rifles I will go assembly line, as Mansa conveniently feeds me corporation. I'll probably even be first to physics as well. Nobody except for Mansa had nationalism which means I got Taj, after 1000AD, on deity. For whatever reason, the other leaders seem to be particularly useless on this map...

Despite a late communism (this always happens on deity; teching post-cuir breakout when you're whipping everywhere to the ground is especially painful), a sub-t250 space win is all but certain.

@BornInCantaloup If you look in the stats, you will see I've lost about 26% of the cuirs I've built. This makes sense considering, against longbows and maces in cities, and elephants I have about 65% odds most of the time, against pikes I have 35%, against knights I have 77%, and against anything else, I am virtually guaranteed wins. Cuirs also get mostly 95% odds or better against anything that isn't their counter in the field. And when I attacked Brennus, he didn't even have maces or pikes, meaning it was cuirs against Gallics, axes, and spears...a one-sided slaughter. And considering how I positioned my forces to take 2 cities the first turn of the war and his capital the second (IIRC)...he was crippled before he ever had a chance to so much as fight back (I believe I still have these places marked "ATTACK HERE" on the save).

Spoiler :

I guess the point I'm trying to make is, even though I do reload, I can't really game the combat to where I can pull off insane midgame strategies that wouldn't be possible without reloading. So it's not like I'm playing a completely different game just by doing so; in fact, again, random seed is off specifically to limit the effectiveness of such "tactics". You can maybe attack sooner with riskier odds when you otherwise would've waited a bit longer for reinforcements (and also be more proactive in leveling up your medic instead of constantly being scared for their life). But it's really not possible to, say, beat down rifles with cuirs or longbows with swords, because the combat result will always be the same no matter how many times you load your game again. So barely anything about the actual strategy changes; hence, the gist of how you win fast space still carries over to non-reload games.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

^ Hi, sorry for singling you out. It's bad manners.
I understand the speedrunning mentality, no worries.
I found it quite shocking to settle for BFC copper but that's on me. Have fun, peace
(And I do agree with the decision to send metal to the east, by the way.)

 

[Fish Man]

^ Hi, sorry for singling you out. It's bad manners.
I understand the speedrunning mentality, no worries.
I found it quite shocking to settle for BFC copper but that's on me. Have fun, peace
(And I do agree with the decision to send metal to the east, by the way.)

Spoiler :

Oh, no worries. I just kinda feel the need to reflexively defend myself a lot of times. Bad habits from a bunch of life experiences...

If you have map knowledge, settling where I did makes perfect sense. You keep BFC gold and double food but get your impi resource in your first ring too. Having 4 power tiles right off the bat means you can amass many units from 1 city in an extremely short time, with the help of forests - and recover after your initial conquest. I actually settled on stone on my first run, but played until BW until I saw I moved away from my strategic resource, so restarted just to get an optimal impi rush.

Thanks for understanding .

"And I do agree with the decision to send metal to the east, by the way." <-- what do you mean by this, though?

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I meant making use of Bronze units (could be a choke, could be axemen, could be a mix, not necessarily a straight Impi rush). I think it's the right choice whether you get copper with your first or your second city.
Funny enough, you might have an easier time fighting against the Strike if you go from a 2-3 cities base.

 

[Fish Man]

I meant making use of Bronze units (could be a choke, could be axemen, could be a mix, not necessarily a straight Impi rush). I think it's the right choice whether you get copper with your first or your second city.
Funny enough, you might have an easier time fighting against the Strike if you go from a 2-3 cities base.

I did found 2 cities immediately after I built enough impis. However, because there weren't that many rivers, the commerce gain from those was minimal at best; or possibly even a net negative (though I had to settle them ASAP to deny them to Mansa). I really don't think there's a good way here to prevent from tanking the economy for quite a bit on this map, if you do an ancient-era rush, except for perhaps razing a few of your conquests (but that in turn will let the AI get some spots that are in all fairness really good, as well as entail essentially throwing away the units lost in taking those cities and even wasting the potential of those which were built but survived).

Now, onto the rest of the game - t185 update, @dankok8

Spoiler :

Everyone except for Stalin is either capped or dead. I finished off Huayna because otherwise the vassal lands would've put me over domination. Mainly wanted to take him on because he had Notre Dame and the Hindu shrine; kept 2 cities and burnt the rest (which were honestly pretty trash).

Spoiler :

One pretty cool effect of reloading consistently: I made an ultramedic by leveling up my GG impi->rifle->infantry to medic AND woodsman 3, through getting leadership and then farming 8-10 XP at a time from taking on "risky" fights, risk-free. The extra 15% healing on same tile for ONE of my 4 or so medics at this point really doesn't make a difference at this point in terms of whether or even how fast I'll win, but it was fun to have, I suppose. Not that reloading makes a difference at this point; combat 3 cavs slaughter anything medieval in their path, muskets and pikes included.

Spoiler :

Anyways - first to physics, first to communism, Stalin is more behind than some AIs I've seen on emperor at this date. I got astro from Sally, and will get steel, biology, and medicine from Mansa while going for electricity, industrialism, and plastics myself. I'm ready to pop a golden age for factories; after this, I'll follow the standard tech path for a science win to cruise to a super early space. I could just take on Stalin's longbows with tanks and then win in that hilariously one-sided fashion, but after centuries of bloodshed, the Black Panther is ready for peaceful technological development that will usher in a golden age of prosperity for all. And I MEAN golden age when I say it - soon I'll start my first great person-fueled non-Taj golden age and chain 3 in a row until the end of the game.

Spoiler :

 

[Fish Man]

@dankok8 , t233 space race victory. Wakanda forever!

Spoiler :

I followed the plan I laid out (and wrote about a while ago), and won just 68 turns after finishing communism. Some major aspects of my strategy that shaved off a few more turns near the end:

-Followed tech path of AL -> electricity -> railroad -> indust -> plastics -> superconductors -> fusion -> rocketry -> composites -> genetics -> ecology
-Stacked production modifiers, including Ironworks and a temporary coal plant in Bibracte, my highest hammer city, to 6-turn Three Gorges Dam and 4-turn the stasis chamber
-Prebuilt observatories and labs.
-Made sure to generate just enough GP to get that 4th and final golden age after fusion.
-Maximized overflow for 2-turn SS life support in another high production city.
-Built Broadway so I could counter the motherland anger + losing fur/ivory.
-Got biology from Sally, steel/artillery/medicine from Mansa.
-Built Wall Street in the city with the Buddhist shrone and Oxford in the most heavily-cottaged city (which happened to be the Buddhist holy city too).
-To avoid tripping the domination limit, has to liberate some of my conquests. Also gave most of the conquered Incan lands to Stalin. Think of it as a loan; someday after the game ends, I'll be taking those back....

All this culminated in an extremely speedy victory, even for such relatively good of a map as this.

Spoiler :

The former Celtic lands contributing my biggest research and production cities (Vienne and Bibracte, respectively):

Spoiler :

HE city, crucial for pumping out cuirs/cavs during the era of conquest

Spoiler :

The other former capitals were no slouches either, as was my own (hilariously Ulundi popped a second copper on a PH mine...a few turns before I won, hence the strange double-copper; it was ultimately inconsequential but aesthetically pleasant and thematically appropriate, considering my capital had a total of 5 strong mining/masonry resources after that.

Spoiler :

Then as promised I completely trashed Stalin with modern armor, took back the cities I "liberated", and beat him to within an inch of his life before accepting peace in return for a snow village I planted as a gift, as well as democracy (oh, the irony, especially seeing as I gave Stalin communism quite a bit ago).

Spoiler :

And with that, the Black Panther finally finds peace in the green veld. as his ashes lay among the stars. Rest in power, Chadwick Boseman.

 

[Fish Man]

Btw, here are the saves after the win and after capping Stalin, in case anyone's interested or wants to take a more detailed look.

 

[prettification]

Domination victory T 325 for my first Monarch game

Spoiler :

Ending the game was a chore after I destroyed Alex huge cuir stacks.

The preposterous way the AI manages its troops made me feel like cheating. No merit in anihilating its forces because of its lame and reckless placements.

Bulbing chemistry also felt like cheating...

Instructing game nonetheless ...