The Immortal Challenge 4: Flight of the Phoenix

[Sisiutil]

Welcome back, aelf! I don't know how I've missed this thread for so long. Good to see you're giving Mehmed a chance after his ignoble fate at my hands.

Shaka would be a lousy tech partner, but a formidable war ally, so wiping him out completely or making him a vassal depends on what you want to do about Genghis. If you plan on conquering the Mongols soon after finishing the Zulus, you may want Shaka as a vassal; he should be able to distract Genghis at the very least. That being said, I'd be tempted to wipe the Zulus out completely. That way you don't get an automatic -1 diplo hit when you meet the other civs. And he has some very nice land.

As for the next tech after CS, it seems kind of obvious to me: go after Machinery, Engineering, and Guilds to amass the techs needed for a medieval army. Meanwhile, tech towards Liberalism using Great Library-generated Great Scientists. I wouldn't take Gunpowder from Liberalism--it's too cheap--but you'll want to bee-line to it sometime in there. I'd be tempted to forgo Optics and the circumnav bonus in favour of it since it unlocks the UU.

 

[aelf]

The good thing about vassalising is it cuts short a war while ensuring that the same AI would not rise up and become a thorn in your side again. On Immortal, you can feel the pain each turn the war drags on for longer than is necessary, since all the other AIs are still on steroids. Besides, I think the vassal penalty only applies when your vassal is quite a significant one, which I don't think Shaka would be when we are done with him.

The question now is should we fight another war with Shaka and end this one soon or go for vassalization now, which probably means we should take all his southern cities? The advantage of the first option is we get to recover soon so that we don't fall too far behind, and that of the second option is we don't get a further diplomatic hit from Genghis.

I hope there will be more discussion on this and the other issue(s).

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Have either of you got feudalism tech? That might help if you want to vassalise him immediately

I think you get the -1 diplo regarless of the state of the vassal.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

genghis will declare you anyway sooner or later, so I'd say take your time and finish shaka in a 2nd war

and meditation should allow you to bulb philo? I think, don't remember how it was in warlords, in bts for sure philo > compass.

 

[aelf]

Have either of you got feudalism tech? That might help if you want to vassalise him immediately

Yes. Shaka has longbowmen, remember?

I think you get the -1 diplo regarless of the state of the vassal.

I don't always get it, I'm sure of it. Not certain about BTS, though. Might be different.

 

[Sisiutil]

Don't be too short-sighted about the cost of war. It can be quite discouraging to see how your economy is suffering when you're embroiled in the conflict, but all that extra land and population enables you to bounce back within a few turns once you're done.

Remember that you'll be dealing with "rejoin our motherland" unhappiness and city revolts for some time if you let Shaka live.

 

[patagonia]

I think the main danger in easing up on Shaka now is that he may voluntarily vassalise to Genghis before you get round to finishing him off, which could leave you fighting a two-front war in the future.

I'd be inclined to press on to Nogoma at the very least, relying on lightbulbing to get you to Liberalism in the meantime (you'll be able to bulb philosophy if you research meditation before you finish CS, which shouldn't take very long at this stage of the game).

 

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

If I'm right, isn't there a problem in warlords, that the AI, will vassalize to another AI, even if they haven't done any damage.

This would happen if you made peace with Shaka, if you continue the war to the point of Elimination, you could drag Ghengis into on your side, for a good ole fashioned dog pile, once you have the cities you want.

You could then make peace with Shaka, gift him a few 'out dated troops' to help in his defence, along with some resources, and hit Ghengis,once he has committed his troops.

this proberly sounds unrealistic...and I've really no idea of how it could actually work out, it might get both against you, but some sought of variance on this theme?? your much better at AI diplomancy then I am, mine is submit or die...

Ghengis, doesn't tech that well, so continued war won't hurt you, and what about the other continent?? any reports of GG's being born , Religions being founded ? Civ's being Eliminated???

 

[IagoAlberto]

I agree that Genghis won't be a big tech pig so continuing the war seems sensible to a get those two southern cities from Shaka. The big advantage I see to getting those cities, is that it gives you a nice contiguous empire that will be well postitioned to take genghis on once you get the medieval war techs online. It will also increase you production and eventually science output. The other advantage to continuing the war will be no second war with Shaka and thus fewer turns before you can consolidate your position on this continent in preparation for dealing with whatever the other AI's may throw at you.

Just the 2cents of a monarch player

 

[CivSetä]

Do not vassalize Shaka! You want to own the whole continent eventually, right? Just take one more city (maybe two?), and make peace.

 

[elmerrietveld]

Another long time lurker finally posting on this great threads. Thanks all (Aelf, Sisiutil etc.) for improving my game.

I recently had an emperor game where I let Shaka keep one city (outrageous WW & neither of us had Feudalism) After vassalizing to my other neighbor Saladin, even a 1-city Shaka was a real nuisance during my later war against Saladin. I wished I had bitten the WW bullet earlier and killed him.

Good luck and keep going!

 

[kazapp]

I'm amazed with the ease which you (seemingly?) run over the not-so-Immortal Shaka! Especially considering his fat prize cities.

 

[aelf]

Sorry for the seeming neglect. The past two weeks are the crunch time of the term, so I can't play and post an update. I'll do so early next week.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

If you Vassalize Shaka he's only going to be useful in a war against Genghis, after that he'll be rather useless in an intercontinental war IMO and not worth the diplo negative. Better to eliminate him.

Looking forward to the next update.

 

[cabert]

If you Vassalize Shaka he's only going to be useful in a war against Genghis, after that he'll be rather useless in an intercontinental war IMO and not worth the diplo negative. Better to eliminate him.

Looking forward to the next update.

give him galleys and astro, and he'll update to galleons
not useless at all

 

[Nares]

I take it that because this is Warlords, you don't have the luxury of a solo-GP GA.

It definatly seems like you should take those last two cities being disucssed.

How bad exactly is the war weariness getting?

At the very least, take the inner city before calling it a day.

 

[kcmarkwell]

One of my favorite things to do is to accept a cease fire. Yes i know you dont get gold or a tech (both of which he is offering you really dont need now anyway), but what it does is it gives you a couple turns to heal, and he moves his units out of his cities. When you see them out, pick them off and declare war again in like 1 / 2 turns. Easy way to lose even fewer units and finish him off before the 10 turn peace treaty is expired.

 

[aelf]

How bad exactly is the war weariness getting?

It wasn't that bad yet, but our invading army is also a drain on our coffers.

One of my favorite things to do is to accept a cease fire. Yes i know you dont get gold or a tech (both of which he is offering you really dont need now anyway), but what it does is it gives you a couple turns to heal, and he moves his units out of his cities. When you see them out, pick them off and declare war again in like 1 / 2 turns. Easy way to lose even fewer units and finish him off before the 10 turn peace treaty is expired.

The problem we have is not so much Shaka rebuilding but incurring the wrath of Khan at the same time. Cease fire doesn't help with that.

I've played the next round. I'll post the update in the next few days.

 

[aelf]

Round 6: 650AD - 950AD

Another short round focusing on the war.

As discussed, we researched Meditation so that we could lightbulb Philosophy with our Great Scientist. It took only two turns, after which the GS did his thing:



I was thinking of whether we should found Taoism or let some civ on the other continent found it first before lightbulbing Philosophy, thereby increasing the likelihood of religious conflict on the other side of the world. But such concerns were moot when some civ did found Taoism just before we could lightbulb the tech.

We researched the rest of CS next, followed by Paper, which leads to Education, further down the path to Liberalism.

And the war plodded along on its WW-inducing path. It wasn't too serious yet, but in order to capture the two more important Zulu cities, we would have had to endure quite a few more turns of war.

We slow-built a few more catapults while our invasion stack rested. Most of our cities were suffering from whip-weariness, so couldn't really crack the whip. Fortunately, our friend Khan came by to alleviate the situation a little:



Good Khan. Any boost to happiness is certainly welcome.

After a while, we captured one of the two cities:



By then, Shaka had begun to put up more resistance, sending quite a few horse archers to our land, even landing a stack of them next to Edirne. As you would expect, all they managed to do was pillage a few tiles, but destroying them cost us a number of units.

Then Khan came again, offering to trade (IIRC) Calendar, Compass and some gold for Philosophy. It hadn't occurred to me to trade Philosophy to him, since you generally don't want to trade Philosophy away early when gunning for Liberalism. But if anyone is in competition with us, it's more likely to be the civ that founded Taoism than Mongolia. I decided to use the opportunity to backfill on some techs:



Metal Casting is useful for forges and, later, Machinery to get macemen. Monarchy is just there as a filler tech, since he refused to give Compass or Calendar with MC. The gold would help keep our research afloat for a while.

Next, we finally captured the other city we were aiming for:



At last the war can come to an end. And not before we got our next GG:



What should we use him for? The usual GMI or a military academy in anticipation of mass-producing Janissaries?

I knocked on Shaka's door to see what he was willing to offer for peace:



Not bad. It's rare to see an AI offer a city. He must be quite desperate. Should we accept this offer? Or should we ask for techs? Capitulation is not currently on the table. I suppose we need to have Feudalism ourselves to get the option, I can't really remember now.

This is where I stopped, since we have a few decisions to make already.

Here's the tech situation:



We only have Paper on Genghis. The other two techs we have on Shaka.

The power graph:



Evidently, we have brought Shaka a few notches down. Now Genghis is stronger.

The GNP graph:



Genghis is running away in this, but that is to be expected.

And we are one turn away from our next GS in Edirne, where we have built the National Epic:



I guess he would lightbulb Education. But it's 950 AD, and another civ got Philosophy earlier than us, so I'm beginning to doubt our chances of winning the Liberalism race. What if we don't? In that case, it would have been better to get to Gunpowder from Guilds, since we won't be able to get Nationalism so soon. But we don't know that yet, and I guess Education would be good for a few universities anyway. Unfortunately, we would have to slow build our Janissaries in that case. Any other thoughts on this? And what should we research towards next, should that other civ get Liberalism soon?

And, finally, the map of our half of the continent:



As you can see, the city Shaka offered is north of us. Not a great city, but decent. At the very least it's not in tundra. IMO it's a good idea to take it for free.

So, any comments?

PS: Oh, yes. I think we have not revolted to Bureaucracy. At first, concerns over halting production in the middle of a war stopped me, but after that I forgot to do it at a suitable opportunity Well, I guess now that the war is ended we can certainly afford it.

 

[dutchfire]

Will Khan trade Paper for Feudalism so you can vassalize Shaka?

Otherwise, just take the peace offer.

If you get Machinery, I think the GS will lightbulb Printing Press. Since you don't seem to have many cottages, it seems best to avoid that.

Is Shaka not willing to give you techs too?