Ultimate War Deity Challenge #2 - Zulu

[klaskeren]

I thought that i would post a really nice starting location for a really awesome leader, the Zulu! Here is a screenshot of the starting location:


Some start, huh?

Settings for this game is:

Deity
Standard speed
Standard size
Pangaea
Policy saving allowed

you play as Shaka and you posses the unique ability Iklwa:

Melee units cost 50% less maintenance. All units require 25% less experience to earn their next promotion.

good luck out there

 

[kb27787]

Oh? t1 mountain river with 2 river wheat?

Is peaceful CV allowed?

 

[klaskeren]

Oh? t1 mountain river with 2 river wheat?

Is peaceful CV allowed?

yes of course post some updates of your game!

 

[_megafone_]

My only ever Deity win with Shaka was an OCC SV at a deity challenge posted months ago... this'll be my second, and I also don't think I'll be building many Impis =P

 

[Tabarnak]

Fun map. Stole a worker from Maria. Made peace some turns later and even offered a DoF

Did a 2 cities fast NC(71) then added 2 more cities boosted with caravans. I completed Tradition and i built some CBs and impis, ready to hit Maria again. Some extra DoF from Germany and Byzantines helped in the run.

Spoiler :

It was litterally a massacre. I captured Lisbon, Porto and Braga in that order. Then i made peace in exchange of Funcal. I lost 1 CB and that's because i took a risk. I built more CBs and got Machinery. Time to knock off Pocatello!

Spoiler :

Some strong move : Get huge peace deal favor. Don't ask money, ask for cities. If you can sell 2 puppets, the 2nd one will be very very valuable. The 1st city that i sold to Germany worth 3gpt and 10 gold. The 2nd one worth...66gpt(max i could get), a unique lux and some gold!!!

That's because the AI grantly favourise a close city from his empire...and his empire can also be a lone city

 

[Tabarnak]

Little update :

DoWed Pocatello as wanted. He allied both Malacca and Ife who are pretty close from fight so i had to stay more ''linear'' and safe to not be bombarded. So it took a bit more time than wanted.

But only lost 1 or 2 units so thats not bad. I stopped building units in main cities for workshops then started universities in some cities. Captured city of Shoshones dangerously put me into the red happiness so after repearing all tiles of Braga i sold that city(who had only duplicate luxs) to the Germans for a whooping deal of 117 gpt and 410 gold .

And he's buring that city!!

Ahhhhhhh stupid AI....anyways they still tech fast and i'm already facing some gunpowdermen since a dozen of turns so i need to be more cautious. I built Machu Picchu in capital for more gold income. After universities i wil build units again and aim for Dynamite.

I'm going down honor to boost impis attributes. With some great generals i will advance through the rest of Shoshones territory with no angry cs around and less units to face.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[Cromagnus]

Never been so tempted to go tall with Shaka...

20+ river tiles... so. many. farms.

 

[budweiser]

I won a science victory in 319. Purchased all but one piece. I am always slow.

Germany was going to win a cultural victory any second and Maria was getting ready to attack.

 

[klaskeren]

Little update :

DoWed Pocatello as wanted. He allied both Malacca and Ife who are pretty close from fight so i had to stay more ''linear'' and safe to not be bombarded. So it took a bit more time than wanted.

But only lost 1 or 2 units so thats not bad. I stopped building units in main cities for workshops then started universities in some cities. Captured city of Shoshones dangerously put me into the red happiness so after repearing all tiles of Braga i sold that city(who had only duplicate luxs) to the Germans for a whooping deal of 117 gpt and 410 gold .

And he's buring that city!!

Ahhhhhhh stupid AI....anyways they still tech fast and i'm already facing some gunpowdermen since a dozen of turns so i need to be more cautious. I built Machu Picchu in capital for more gold income. After universities i wil build units again and aim for Dynamite.

I'm going down honor to boost impis attributes. With some great generals i will advance through the rest of Shoshones territory with no angry cs around and less units to face.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Very interresting game! That GPT is pretty huge though you need more science fast it seems! GL , edit: why not spend som gold on university in capital?

 

[Grendeldef]

For a change a challenge without the need of map packs so I played few turns. Couldn't find the challenge #1 for this and since it's a Shaka with hill, river & mountain start I thought I'll do something different.
Tradition opening but Liberty otherwise, no Rationalism, no Honor, no razing, no selling/giving, no annexing nor a religion - the last was very easy to avoid.

No luck catching an early worker so I DoWed Maria eventually, took Lisbon T70 and it had nothing like the other city which I got from a peace deal ~T100. 30 turns occasionally hitting something to gather XP as I needed a passage towards Pocatello but she wasn't gonna give anything out of her much of nothing. If she'd given 2 cities I would have made peace 30 turns earlier.

With slower tech pace than ever I think I had 3 city NC T95, CiSe few turns later. Very late Pyramids ~80, Oracle T98 - both on my 3rd city - and Lib completed also on T98. Settled 4th city after that started building a road to Poca.
Took his lvl 7 city without a single building and 2 tiles improved including a spice. Moson Kahni fell T130 without anything even remotely useful while having 2 luxes undone. Few turns later Agadaika with a Uni - I was ecstatic and made white peace as he had but one city which, not surprisingly had 4 unimproved luxes.

Theo asked me to denounce Attila which I did and the she denounced me a turn later so I considered our friendship terminated. Friends with Bismarck for few more turns after which there'll be a war though he's leading in everything. Monte hates me & the others are not too keen on either.

Generally I've been lacking money and happiness the whole time as CSs doesn't seem to bothered at all by barbs which is weird but on the other hand the CSs are far away from me. AI is gloriously incompetent as ever and I'm just cruising - first GW probably wrote quite a few novels in those 20 turns I forgot to build a place for him to sit in amongst other things.
Some sort of religion would be nice and despite of being the stone age man in tech race Maria, Monty & Rammy are stealing from me - my 007 has managed 3 techs so far so I'm not gonna sack him yet.

T158 atm and building WF after which I might actually get a GA which will hopefully help to fund the forthcoming war(s). Bismarck went industrial on PSchools so I might be able to avoid riflemen for few turns which is nice as I don't have much of an army either.
Amongst other oddities are that both Monty went full Piety while Rammy didn't at all.

Might finish the game tomorrow which if not highly interesting is at least slightly different from the usual games.

----

Minor update. Also a couple pics to illustrate the matter.

DoWed Bismarck T167 & took Berlin T184 & made white peace - it wasn't pretty but waited few turns for my spy to finish his Martini. Bismarck also in on Modern which is a worry if he has oil otherwise I think I'll just wait few turn for artillery and visit the next neighbour.

Spoiler :

 

[Grendeldef]

Mostly boring end game finished @ T251 dom.

Few turns after capturing Berlin bribed Bismarck to DoW Monte while building roads on every tile on German border. Dynamite T200 and DoWed Germany T201 luckily the Luftwaffe no was crap I left him with one city & made white peace T210.

DoWed Monte T212, took the closest city few turns later & started building road towards Egypt which I DoWed T220. T226 white peace with Monte without too much of resistance. Rammy was hiding behind GW so I grabbed the land with GGs, lost few meat shields but he didn't manage to kill a single artillery but 152 city defense wasn't really melee friendly. Thebes down T234 with white peace on same turn.

The following last 6 turns of my DoF with Attila I spent healing up positioning the troops. Easy AC capture but after that he bought quite a few planes so my artillery became instantly obsolete. Few logistics, range & cover II machine guns where more than enough to take the last two cities.

I had planes but those were on the other side of the land defending as I was on double digit negative for a while and due to limited range I couldn't be bothered to fly nearer to the action. Settling a 5th city would have eased the troop movement quite a bit but I passed that, too. I just wanted to end the game with as little of units as possible - when game has been practically won for ages it becomes more convenient to do as little as possible nevermind few extra turns.

Dom VC T254 without much of an effort apart from early happiness & money troubles. As usually the upgraded impis are insane - for minimum they should lose the movement bonus upon upgrading.
4 own cities & 14 puppets made the tech pace nearly non-existent but it didn't really matter that much. Happiness was more of an issue until I built Neuschwanstein.
Pillage & repair would've eased the money troubles but it's so moronic as a concept that I just can't involve myself with it; while attacking Thebes it would have also save a couple units but the game wasn't delayed by the lack of doing so.

Trad opener, full Liberty, full Patronage, Commerce opener & rest in Order mainly pursuing the happiness policies. CSs gave me an Admiral & a very late Merchant so those were useless

Spoiler :

 

[_megafone_]

Turn 291 SV.

Spoiler :

That was a fun one. Here I was, taking it easy on my corner, doing as I always do swinging Attila around, as if I was playing Babylon or something. Then, out of the blue, Pocatello decides that a self-respecting Shaka should not be sitting on his butt for a full game, so he started to get all angry at me and moved his units to my borders.

I had pre-built the military buildings in my big production city (Nobamba, to the south of the mountain range, with all that Iron and Aluminum) since that one had like a billion hammers anyway, so I produced my first Bomber in it (I was already up to Radio), and much to my surprise... the Bomber already came out with Air Repair!!!!! I didn't know Shaka's UA applied to aircraft (it actually does to every single unit). So I changed plans for a little bit and decided to wipe poor Pocatello's face off the planet.

I could've finished the game a lot faster, but I was having fun with my Bombers, so I went south and resurrected poor Theodora and beat Attila a little bit before finally building my ship.

Bombers seem to be a good fall-back when you're playing Zulu and fail to dominate the map with Impis; true warmongers will never have that "problem", but mere mortals like myself should consider slingshotting for Radio whenever a game goes badly with Shaka. A fleet fully upgraded with Air Repair is a very good way to faceroll through a map.

 

[Cromagnus]

I've never seen any units but melee get extra promotions. Not even riflemen. It stops at landsknecht. Maybe aircraft are bugged in this way?

 

[Grendeldef]

I've never seen any units but melee get extra promotions. Not even riflemen. It stops at landsknecht. Maybe aircraft are bugged in this way?

They don't get extra promotions after Impis nor do I think that _megafone_ is even meaning that but speaking in more general terms - Shaka or not, bombers are just a failsafe option for any late(r) game warmongering.

 

[direblade99]

I've never seen any units but melee get extra promotions. Not even riflemen. It stops at landsknecht. Maybe aircraft are bugged in this way?

I think he was talking about the Zulu's reduced xp costs getting him more promotions from barracks

 

[_megafone_]

Yeah, the reduced XP cost for promotions makes your units come out with an extra one right off the bat if you've built up to Military Academy. Not a special promotion or anything.

 

[Johan^^]

Hi there

Long time since i´ve done a Deity challenge, so ill join in on this one. The Capital looks very nice and after scouting the surroundings i find myself thinking about Shaka on the moon

Well i´ve put my update in spoilers, first 50 turns:

Spoiler :

So after meeting Portugal i declear war and burn down a farm, these leads to a couple of easy worker steals. Take another one from a city state, to bring my worker Count up to 3.
After Building ganary and some scouts, i go into settler mode, as there is just so many great spots

A barb manages to take one of Portugals settlers. Ofcause i am happy to help her with the barb problem which grants me another worker

Shortly afterwards she can really see how much i help her in the early game, that she askes for friendship. Atm it seems fine, so the deal is done turn 32.

Finally, turn 50 comes around and i have my 5 cities ready. They will start Work on libraries asap, so the NC can be finished is due time. (Hopefully before turn 90)

I have made a few deals with the AIs, selling horses and exchanging cotton for truffles. A lux i might get myself later in the game, but enough about the future

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, the reduced XP cost for promotions makes your units come out with an extra one right off the bat if you've built up to Military Academy. Not a special promotion or anything.

Oh, right right.

 

[Johan^^]

Second update, Shaka on the Moon seems more and more likely

So full glasscanon mode, few units going straight for science and impi for protection, with a couple of bows to protect if the AI gets stupid.

Libraries finished turn 74, NC finished turn 84, not bad for a 5 city start. Banking gold atm in order to buy universities. turn 90 tradition finishes with 27 turns to the next policy, which probably means i´ll have to go straight into acoustics to open Rationalisme in time. This will delay the plan of getting 5 observatories asap, though it should prove the better choice science wise.

Pictures tell the story. Those truffles i was deaming about, well Portugal settled my city spot, so think ill stay on 5 cities and keep Peace for now.

 

[budweiser]

Johan, dont limit yourself to the moon. Go for the stars.