Shaka is the 1st to discover liberalism??!

I played my 1st game of Civ in 6+ months last night on monarch level with the new patch ( well new to me ). I was playing as Cyrus & shared a large continent with Bismark, Shaka, Ragnar & Suli. We all shared the same religion & there wasnt 1 DOW the entire game . Everyone on the continent had 6 cities & amazingly Shaka discovered liberalism 1 turn before I did? I was so used to Shaka not being a tech threat I wasnt even paying attention to him & was focused on beating Suli.

What did this patch do to the Shaka I know & love? Anyone else ever see Shaka win the Lib race? ( keep him mind he had the same size empire as everyone else )

 

I would like to see the save for that. (I've never seen Shaka even competing for liberalism.)

 

I have never seen zedong discover liberalism, the leader you choose (or the leader the computer choose) doesn't affect the tech research

 

That's wrong.

 

Huh?

I didn't know that! But what determines the speed of the tech search?

 

I think what they mean is that since Shaka prioritises military units that he normally researches more slowly, since he spends more on his army.

 

In addition to Shaka tending to build many units, he prioritizes techs with the Military flavor. That tends to cause him to bypass techs whose primary benefits are economic/scientific, which further limits his tech potential.

 

I had a game where Shaka built the mids, bulbed Philo and founded tao Only happened once, though... like said above, shaka loves military techs. But dealing with a shaka with early Police state can be interesting....

 

ive seen shaka tech really high up with other civs because his empire is sooooooo humongous. but ive never seen him be the first to get any tech, liberalism especially.
I have been surprised to fight a neighbor that was protecting his cities wit longbowmen then have shaka show up wit riflemen on the other side. Shaka is dangerous if he wins the wars he fights, which he really actually doesnt do too often though he does cause some nasty damage to whoever he fights.
and shaka is always my bulldog in my games. I will be teching like physics and ill give him a super old technology like philosophy and machinery and hell go to war with anyone. And the sheer size of his army just causes such chaos.
i love shaka. i hate monty.

 

I've played enough games to see Shaka, Genghis Khan, Monty, and toku all win liberalism...it's just rare and in several of those cases it's because I struck down someone who would have won it.

 

No. That's embarrassing.

 

But, there's no bonus that detemines the tech research speed?

 

The majority of the traits directly or indirectly influence it, but the AI variance is more to its behavior than traits.

 

Shaka has gotten close to Liberalism in many of my games and could have won them many times. He doesn't often make it a priority (in my deity Gandhi game, Shaka delayed Liberalism to 1500 AD which was the same time that he finished Fusion) though.

 

Might be a spoiler, but by this point, probably not that he did it in my current play through of Mad's Atlantis RPC.

It is rare, but of the military AI, Shaka is the one that does tend to keep up in techs the most. Monty and the rest always seem so backwards. I mean, in that RPC, Toku was researching education when I was researching Assembly line.

 

Remember, Shaka pays 40% less maintenance than everyone else once Courthouses are built because the AI will also (rightly) spam Ikhandas. So he can have a bigger army and still tech faster than non PHI, ORG or FIN civs once those buildings are in place. Not a tech powerhouse, but still can be better than average if he never has to prepare for war.

 

IF!

Random personalities must be the only thing that can cause this

 

I make it one third, not 40%, have I missed something?

 

Well could be worse, imagine my surprise when I am 3 turns from liberalism when this message pops up

"Barbarian is first to discover liberalism"

It was a dual game, me against Saladin. I was far ahead of Saladin and was practicing other things when BAM!

 

Haha, I've never seen that! Wierd