2) OK, OK...I won't tech IW again...
. I guess I felt that since Shaka didn't like me much I needed to have that to have more military options. Your point about teching Alpha first being neutralized is good and I haven't thought about it in that way.
The thing to really take from this, and it applies even more to higher levels of difficulty, is to be more focused with tech decisions. I've mentioned this before, but there are certain techs that AIs always tech. IW is one of those techs....in fact most military related techs the AIs will prioritize. One common approach on highest levels is to go the Aesths route to use that tech to get Alpha, Maths, IW, etc. But on a level like Prince, I usually go straight alpha and trade for techs like IW when needed..not necessarily immediately.
With that said, there may be some cases where you go IW ..like for a UU, isolation, or just tons of jungle. But generally it is avoided. It is an expensive early tech that you really can't buy anything with because the AIs always tech it.
3) Targeting Giggles - overall I think I need to be more aggressive, and earlier. I tend to not DOW on anybody unless I KNOW I have enough military already standing ready. Also, in this particular game I knew Shaka would declare and I felt I needed to keep my military on my eastern borders. Anyway, I think being a bit more aggressive might be in order?
Well, first off, this is Prince level Pangaea game, so there is always bound to be a nearby juicy target to exploit. Second, what you describe above is reactionary or passive. Now you can play that way, but what I'm trying to show is taking advantage of some early gains.
Yeah, a neighboring Shaka is not good in any game, and can lead to a loss, especially on higher levels. However, I don't really want you to play this out the whole time trying to react to what Shaka may or may not do. Try to handle him diplomatically as best as possible, and with Alpha you can always bribe him into wars to get him off your back. (In my game, he DOW'd Hammy rather early and asked me in, so that helped)
In this case we have Gigs nearby and have stolen workers from him. He is never going to be our friend and is already nerfed a bit due to the worker stealing and choking (well I did some of that..ha). So, I made a decision after Alpha to get HAs online and destroy him...gaining some pretty good cities in the process, and actually some tech as well...two wars.
All this gets much harder as you move up difficulty, but it is not out of the question to do this to at least one AI even on deity. Just takes practice.
4) I only declared once on him when I stole that one worker. At the time Shaka was worst enemies with somebody else but within a few turns I was suddenly his worst enemy. I did sue for peace a bit later but maybe I shouldn't have.
Not sure how Shaka's attitude decline with you more dramatically than in my game, as I dow'd Gigs at least a couple of times. I did trade resources to Shaka and eventually joined his war. But he was never less than "Cautious" with me.
edit: Point is, I don't have the full picture here. Shaka is bad in most cases, but can be good if you play him right. Either way, as I alluded to above, you either use him, diplo him, or eliminate him. The latter being difficult early here since he has metals and Impis, which are bane to horse unis.
Do you typically whip out your military as much as you can?
For the most part. Once HAs were online, I build them in all cities. 2-popping them when I could and putting in chops as well. For instance, a well time 2pop of an HA in one city with an incoming chop should get you another in 1 turn, or something of the sort. I got out 6 to 8 initially, and then turned to slow building them for a bit to let whip anger wear off some. But for the most part had no unhappy citizens during this process. It takes practice to get a feel for this, but it is something you should start doing.
Note, that in my case I got out a small army of HAs that were plenty to take down Gigs. Then I continued to slow build them in most cities, while some cities did other things like settlers or workers, whatever needed doing. Anyway, gradually sending them through Zululand to Babylon and beating Shaka to all those cities.
The point is, when at war and with a specific goal in mind, you set your empire toward that goal. My goal was Sumer. Babylon was secondary and I was patient with that. Get out what you need for the target and take the goal. Then adjust as needs change. Whipping can be done judiciously so as not to mortgage your empire, but generally I will do less whipping in my capital so I maintain my research rate. (I whipped ..I think ..I couple of HAs in Tim...can't remember exactly, but Tim was also focused on Scientists for the GS at some point)
In looking at your progress at both saves, it brought up a question in my mind. My habit is to plan out the tiles in my BFC so that I have enough food for a full population of citizens, maximizing hammers and commerce as much as I can. Obviously in some cities that's not possible but I wanted to ask, when you settle a city what is your strategy for developing it? I know the available resources make a difference but do you plan for full population? Another poster had said his strategy is to continuously whip because it's a waste to have more than 4 citizens. I guess there is more than one way to skin the cat but I wanted to get your take on it.
This is actually a good question, and plays a big part into early success - along with all the other stuff like worker management. I recall the post in question, and I think what he was saying is that outside of your capital, most cities are expendable. (this kinda follows on what I was explaining just above)
Your cap, generally, is going to be your primary source of beakers...cottages, scientists, etc. yeah, you whip it early during the initial expansion phases, but at some point you get that library and start running scientists. You also start putting down cottages for the cap to grow...helper cities help with that too. (Note: not all caps are suited to cottages or Bureacracy, but it is the general idea)
Once you get 2 or 3 good cities out with food, then those cities can take on the brunt of production needs..settlers, workers, or units. These cities are more expendable in terms of population. They likely have a good food resource or two, if you have settled appropriately. When time for war prep, you have no problem whipping more in these cities for war. The cap may or may not get some whipped units...all depends on needs and improvements, but the idea is the cap will keep that research going.
So, I think what is best to keep in mind is the following: A city is settled generally for food - that is food specials. Sometimes it may even have something like a copper, horse or iron tile..in other words strong production tiles. Or it just may have more than one food special. The key here is you don't whip off your strong tiles - anything else is fine to whip off off...even cottages.
Also, think about specialists as well. You are going to run them in the cap early to get first GS, but you will try to run them whenever feasible in other cities. This keeps the GPP going in multiple cities so that you can produce more later in a Golden Age. Point here is that you don't always need to just improve every tile with something early, especially mines, cause a scientist is better than a mine.
Ultimately, it can be a balancing act. You want to grow cottages, especially for a Bureau cap, and you try to keep those working as much as possible. But when planning a war, you go all in, and that means using the whip a bit more. Still, if a longer game is planned, like a Space game, then you will tailor your empire toward that goal and eventually grow cities quite a bit - likely with a later whip cycle of advanced units for mid-game wars.
But for much of the early game(BCs, maybe early ADs), outside the cap, most cities will likely not be much higher than 4-6 pop...depending quite a bit on overall happiness you have and how much fighting you do.
Lastly, when planning that mid-game golden age, you generally want to be a peace and grow cities as much as possible, so you can run as many specialists as possible.
