Standard deity playthrough (3) - Shaka

[Pedro78]

Hey everyone!

I'm continuing my series of deity "playthroughs" (or whatever I'm supposed to call them), as it's an amazing way to improve my game, and a lot of fun to share .

The settings

Spoiler :

Deity, fractal, no huts no events, standard size, normal speed, everything else standard.

The leader

Spoiler :

Who doesen't love Shaka?

What I think of Shaka :

Spoiler :

Trait combo is on the weak side. Starting with Agriculture is great, Hunting is not. Impis are very situational and hard to use on deity. However the Ikhanda is a top notch unique building (-20% maintenance-barracks).

The thing is Shaka's UU/UB synergise well with the Agg trait, (almost) making it OK.

Overall, I think Shaka is an average leader (maybe even a little above average). He is one of my favorites to play with (not too strong, not too weak, and I just like the character ).

I wanted to play the first random roll, but it was Hannibal (FIN) with double wet corn + rivers... I hate this OP kind of starts, especially when I lose
So this is the second random roll

The start

Spoiler :

Starting thoughts :

Spoiler :

Still looks like a pretty good start to me. Love rivers, love corn, love forests. I also like starting with a scout on Fractal maps (though I don't like to start with Hunting - who does anyways?).

Looks like there is coast to the West and more rivers to the East. I'm thinking about moving the Scout 2N2E to see if there is anything valuable up there. Else probably settle 1W for more rivers (might not be wise to waste a turn but I really love rivers in my capital ), and maybe a FPH tile to get a 12 turn worker.

Any advice/suggestions is/are always appreciated even if you don't play on deity yourself

Oh and if you wanna play along with me, you are (VERY) welcome!!

Attached the starting save. Haven't even moved the scout yet, but will begin soon.

 

[Major Tom]

Shaka perhaps not well liked to play with, but I usually do fine with him. Those 2 moving Impis are great to have in an army. Upgrading to 2 moving Pikes not bad either

 

[DrCron]

I don't like Shaka's traits but Ikandas are IMO the 2nd strongest UB in the game (which also makes AGG better in this case). I agree with your scout movement, mostly because I'd consider settling either 1 NE or 1 SE for the plains hills, and that movement can tell if 1NE is ok or not.

 

[Pedro78]

@Major Tom
Wow I didn't know that the pikes kept the 2 movement when you upgraded Impi's

@DrCron
Yeah, the Ikhanda really rocks. The best UB in the game would be the Terrace then?
Btw 1SE is grassland hills

Update #1 - Turns 0-28 (4000BC - 2880BC) :

Spoiler :

T0 (4000BC) -

Moved the scout as planned, reveals river gold

I decided to settle 1NW rather than 1N, for more rivers...

Wasn't nearly as many rivers as expected, but it is still very similar to 1N. Anyways, we got gold, so who cares?
Right now Mining -> Bronze Working looks like the obvious tech path. Will probably go Archery if I don't find any copper. Having gold allows all kinds of craziness ...

T7 (3720BC) -

Hey, I'm not isolated this time! Hello there

Justinian is not my favorite leader to play against, though. He has been quite solid in most of my games.

T9 (3640BC) -

He's pretty close, however...

T19 (3240BC) -

I'm not even semi-isolated, AND I have a good teching partner

That's a familiar face, and I'd rather have this one on my continent, especially if he decides to go full AP cheese

T22 (3120BC) -

Asoka recently founded Hinduism, which is a good thing as well as a bad thing. Means that if I'm alone with him and Justy, they will hate each other so I'll be able to keep up with them in tech. However it means I won't be able to get a religion for a good while, unless of course one of them turns out to be a pushover.

Definitely not the fastest kind of start, though...

Soo many worker turns are gonna be "waisted" here...

T23 (3080BC) -

Another guy (girl this time) I don't like very much, anyways we'll see how it turns out

On the same turn I begin moving my scout 1 tile per turn, and only on full-movement tiles, "catch me if you can, Mr Archer "... Tired of losing scouts every single game.

T27 (2920BC) -

Done with BW, no Copper around (haven't scouted the tundra, I don't plan on settling there anyways).
Revolt to slavery while the worker finishes the mine.

T28 (2880BC) -

When gold changes everything

Going to chop a settler at size 3, and settle on the mark on the river. That's a bit far away, but I didn't feel like losing one fish only to get a better helper city.

The world (that's why I like starting with a scout) :

Next cities will probably be in the floodplains to help growing cottages and block Justy off, and will definitely grab the stone and take a shot at the Mids. If I don't get them it still will be great for failgold.
From now it looks rather good, plenty of land, great capital, stone. I don't like that desert and tundra very much though. But should get at least 6 strong cities easily, plus some tundra "fishing villages" hopefully.

 

[sampsa]

@Pedro78

Spoiler :

I like your choice to settle 1NE. Note that it's nearly guaranteed that there is a strategic resource 2W of cap, and probably 1E, too.

 

[Pedro78]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

Yeah, there is rarely (or never?) a unique resource in the capital BFC. On the river it will most likely be horses (it's not copper and river-grassland iron is pretty rare, right?). Won't see either for a long time, though.
With this little crowd on the continent, I will probably wait for Alpha before I get AH, then hopefully go for maths and chop the mids in the capital. Probably build a little more workers than usual, pre-chop everything while slowly building the Mids. When I get maths, finish all the chops and boom. Then even if I fail to get the Mids, some fail gold + extra workers won't harm. Might be some marble in that tundra land also. If I can get marble + stone the game will be so easy .

I'm not sure if in this kind of setup it is better to lib cuirs, or just lib Astro, build Oxford and tech to Steel... depends on whether the 3 other guys are reachable pre-Astro I guess.

 

[DrCron]

The best UB in the game would be the Terrace then?

Yup, I think we can all agree on that.

Regarding the game:

Spoiler :

I'm not sure if in this kind of setup it is better to lib cuirs, or just lib Astro, build Oxford and tech to Steel... depends on whether the 3 other guys are reachable pre-Astro I guess

With these guys in your continent I wouldn't worry about the rest of them. Justy tends to be the strongest AI if he gets half-decent land. And Asoka is a great trading partner early game and maybe a good vassal later on. I haven't played against Vicky in a while so I don't remember much about that one though, but I think she's usually fairly decent, isn't she? I don't think there's going to be anyone much stronger than these guys in another continent.

 

[Pedro78]

@DrCron

Spoiler :

Victoria can be a PITA in the late game, she is the strong english leader (as an AI ofc). Justy is very solid, he might be dangerous if he has too much land down south. Will definitely need to block him off, else he will grab my land. As the religions got founded on my continent, there is indeed not much chance of there being a strong techer on the other side of the world. Then I think the cuirs vs cannons question will be decided on depending upon the tech pace of the game. Sometimes Asoka the AI will get rifles very early and it's not worth attacking with cuirs.

 

[Lain]

I started, currently Turn 10 or so. Will play to your date at 2880 BC. My tech:

Spoiler :

Archery first 100%

 

[Lain]

So I won't really check any spoilers until later, I probably scouted differently etc. But little update to 2880 BC

Spoiler :

Moved the scout and found gold, settled on the grass hill. There is enough production anyway and I was hoping for more resources in the east. + more river tiles is nice.



No idea if this is isolation or whatever but with gold in BFC I'm not taking any chances and going straight for Archery.



Met Justi on Turn 7 and Victoria on Turn 24. Tech: Archery -> Mining -> BW. Seems like lots of land to settle, even though it's a lot of tundra in the north. Working Corn + Gold already, first archer done. Will probably get a 2nd and then go for a settler. Didn't scout the south at all so the first archer will go there, will try to settle towards Justi first. Floodplains south, will see what I can find.



Actually, two more archers first might be needed. Want to protect that gold mine no matter what.

 

[Pedro78]

@Lain
Nice to play along once again
Good idea not to look at each other's spoilers for a little while. I only looked at your first 2 screenshots to see what you're up to . My first 4 screenshots won't spoil you anything, the rest might actually spoil you, especially as I went BW first.

About your tech path :

Spoiler :

With gold in the BFC, I think it's better to go BW first, though. I could (or will ) have Archery at turn 32, barbs only begin entering borders in the early 40s. The only benefit I can see in going Archery first is that your second build will be an Archer, but BW is mandatory here anyways with that much forests. Again maybe there's something else I didn't take into account, just like with the philo bulb

Will play some more tomorrow. How much more will depend on how hard the game turns out to be ^^

 

[Lain]

I hope you put in Asoka, because when I see him I am building 8 Impis and running across the map :shaka:

Spoiler :

Well I figured I want to build a mine before chopping anyway, so BW a bit earlier wouldn't do me much good. But archer on T29 does help a bit I think. Especially as I will build 1-2 more by T35 and have no worries about barbs. I have seen them enter on T34 already so I don't know.

I just assumed I wouldn't have copper by the way. It's just my life. With many leaders I go Archery before BW or AH because I won't have the resource anyway in distance of 100 tiles. Feels bad man.

Also playing a Willem Isolation game at the moment. Fun.

 

[Pedro78]

Well...

Spoiler :

One could understand that Asoka isn't your BFF at the moment .
But in some (most) games you will probably be better off not Impi-rushing him lol. Especially as you're the unlucky guy who never gets copper.

I only saw barbs enter before T40 (2600BC) once, was on turn 35ish, but I had a worker on my border so I can't blame the barb Archer for taking the bait. At the time I was certain that the barb wouldn't enter... ended up losing one worker and my second city . (I thought it was scripted like when there is 2 Archers defending an AI city you can safely move your warrior/stolen worker around)

If you share this Willem save I'd be happy to take a shot at it.

 

[Lain]

I find it a bit hard to gather information on Isolation games. There is that "Lonely Hearts Club" Series with some Deity saves, but you have to click through many threads and it's like Noble Club so people played all kinds of difficulties and settings.

Thinking about making a "mega-thread" where I (or others) basically post every Isolation game I meet when I play random fractal maps. Like every few pages a new game with set checkpoints (i.e: 1 AD, Astro, first attack). With a good organization in the first post (like with Civ Illustrated, you just click on the leader name and get to the information) maybe that's better than making a new thread for every map. Just have to make sure that people play one map at a time lol and not post new games all the time. If I wanted to learn Isolation (I still do, my winrate is not good enough yet) I would love ONE big thread and not search 1000 threads for info.

So with that in mind I will make a thread like that I think. But enough off-topic for this. Looking forward to continue with Shaka here . I didn't continue yet.

 

[Pedro78]

@Lain
Creating that kind of thread would definitely be nice.
I was a bit curious and ended up looking at your spoiler . Didn't spoil me anything (I might be a little careless scouting...). You haven't found the funniest part about this game yet .
Edit: Oh and don't look at Monkybone's spoiler ^^

@monkybone
I am running BUG+BULL. I tried to install Buffy but it didn't work out.
Could you just put some kind of warning when you post some real "spoiling" information (kinda like Lain did in his 640AD update from the Mehmed game). This one kinda killed the suspense lol.

 

[Pedro78]

Anything in spoilers can be assumed to be potentially "spoiling"

Can't really argue about that. If you would like to discuss your game and strategies with others who are playing the game, it would still be better if you said something like "XXXX you shouldn't look at this spoiler" when you have extra information that XXXX doesen't have, though . If you don't like this system, no biggie, I'll look at your spoilers later when I'm at 1000AD or something

 

[Imploding]

Love Shaka, agree on the synergy with traits UU/UB thing. Great leader design
Is it possible to make a WB save? I like using buffy when I play

 

[Pedro78]

Attached the WB save to the first post

 

[Pedro78]

RL forces me to take a break. Will come back to this game later.

 

[Lain]

Hope all is fine . More important to deal with that stuff first, yup. Looking forward to continuing later .