Announcement

**draethor** · November 4, 2007, 02:07

Well, I had a lot of fun with this game.

I've actually never played as Shaka, but after reading about the Impi, I thought the beginning few turns of my game would be very straightforward. Check out my neighbors, find out who doesn't have metal, and rush them.

After playing for 40 or 50 turns, I really wanted to come here and post "I see what you guys did here...." Monty, Genghis Khan... a swarm of aggressive leaders. Ack.

Anyway, I noticed pretty immediately that Monty didn't have any copper. Genghis Khan did, and was already mining it

So Monty was my first target.

I first made it a priority to found a second town. There's gold south of the start location, and the research boost it provides in the early game is a massive advantage, so I hooked that up as soon as possible. I then used both towns to crank out Impi, and declared war on Monty early (even though I only had a couple of Impi in the area, he couldn't challenge them with archers and I was able to prevent him from expanding or improving his tiles).

I killed Monty around 800 BC, by which time he had been nice enough to found judaism and hinduism. So at this point, I seriously considered going for a cultural victory. I reasoned it would be difficult given the choices of AIs, but with two founding religions it's a pretty strong thing to shoot for.

My game was pretty uneventful until around 1000 AD. I maintained a decent tech lead, and warred several times with genghis khan (neither of us made much progress though - I took a couple of his towns but the RNG was against me and I always lost a lot more units than I normally should've).

At 1000 AD I invaded Catherine. She had founded Buddhism and spread it all over the world, which irritated me because I forgot to open borders with everyone immediately and so couldn't spread my religion everywhere for an early diplo win (everyone was now a different religion from me so they wouldn't open borders). I also figured her holy city which had built the Buddhist holy building would generate a ton of gold for me.

This is where things went horribly wrong. I didn't intend to kill Catherine (only to take her most productive cities), and so had what I figured would be enough units to take 3 or 4 towns. I attacked one of her cities though, and lost 3 macemen - at an 89% chance to win, then a 91% chance, then a 96% chance - against the only defender left in the town. The town was reinforced the next turn, so I had to back off.

I had decided around this time that a cultural victory would be the most viable, however, I counted on Catherine's holy city and the other one I couldn't capture in my 9-town tally. I sued for peace and got it, but I ended up getting screwed.

This occurred because I razed one of Catherine's towns that I didn't think was worth keeping (tons of tiles overlapping her capital/holy city). What I didn't realize, is how slowly cultural population decreases in neutral territory, or in enemy territory. After suing for peace, Catherine rebuilt that town, as a level one town. However, within about 100 turns, its cultural borders had completely choked out her capital/holy city, and even with the capital/holy city generating over 40 culture/turn by the end of the game, I kept losing territory (and my population even 1 tile away from that city was only 33% over 200 turns later). So when I first captured the city, I had the standard cross, which was eventually reduced to just a single tile, even though it generated at least 12 culture per turn from the second I captured it.

This was a huge problem for me because I wasn't able to open borders with Catherine for the rest of the game. I had planned on using that city to spam a bunch of temples in, but instead had to squeeze in another town at the last minute. All told, this probably shaved 50 turns off of my win (it took far longer to spread Buddhism, and even though I made sure my lower culture towns got the cathedrals first, it was way slower).

If I had simply taken my war with Catherine a little further and hadn't razed any towns, not only would my victory have been at least 50 turns earlier, but my ending score would've been higher. Well, guess I've learned my lesson!

In any case, great game, thanks you guys for making it

**MikeH** · November 4, 2007, 04:56

More later when I have more time. I lost, but only barely. I had a horrible time early on and got involved in some stupid wars, especially against that psycho Monty. I was barely at peace at any point in the game. Once we got to Cavalry I started to do better, vasselised Genghis, Monty, Tokagowa, Mehmet II, and Huyana Cuypac. By this time it was modern armour combat and I was involved in a brutal war of attrition against the technologically superior Gilgamesh. I think I'd have won that with the help of my 5 vassals, and his territory would have just about given me the win but then Catherine's space ship arrived. Ok, it wasn't that close, but considering the start it ended up closer than I thought it would. I was never realistically in a position to fight my buddy Catherine.

**Nugog** · November 4, 2007, 05:17

Originally posted by draethor
After playing for 40 or 50 turns, I really wanted to come here and post "I see what you guys did here...." Monty, Genghis Khan... a swarm of aggressive leaders. Ack.

Originally posted by draethor
This is where things went horribly wrong. *snip*

It sounds as though it did.

Originally posted by draethor
In any case, great game, thanks you guys for making it

Thanks - glad you enjoyed it even though it did not turn out so well for you.

**EPW** · November 4, 2007, 05:46

Things went horribly wrong in my cultural victory as well...more on that later...

**MikeH** · November 4, 2007, 07:36

Originally posted by draethor
After playing for 40 or 50 turns, I really wanted to come here and post "I see what you guys did here...." Monty, Genghis Khan... a swarm of aggressive leaders. Ack.

Haha, me too. In fact I sent Rob a PM along those lines.

Looking back at my notes from the beginning (I stopped making them due to laziness/time pressure) I remembered that I moved on the first turn to the hill to the south of where the settler started. I moved for the defensive bonus because I was worried about the raging barbs. Turned out that hill had the copper in it which was a massive bonus.

I decided early on to go for a domination victory, or if possible to vasselise everyone and get a conquest victory. It seemed like I'd have to go heavily military with the opposition I was facing and the raging barbs, plus that's my natural style anyway. I was worried about Huyana, often he ends up quietly teching away in very aggressive games, so I very stupidly rushed him, eventually captured his first expansion but failed to get his capital. In the end a very bad first war that had me on the back foot for the rest of the game. With hindsight, this lost me the game.

Eventually after a couple of skirmishes with Monty I turned west and crushed Genghis just enough for him to let Monty Vasselise him. This led me into a series of huge wars against Monty which I thought were going to destroy me. Every time I had a slight tech lead and he had a massive numerical advantage which threatened to overwhelm me. Eventually I got him to waste two huge attacking stacks on two hastily assembled defensive stacks of riflemen and the tide turned. I rolled him over quickly and vasselised him and Ghengis. The next target was tricky. Catherine had a massive lead in tech and military. Cyrus, Huyana and Gilgamesh had tech leads. Tokugawa was the next largest civ after me, was already at war with me (although I'd seen none of his units), was technologically backward so he seemed the obvious choice. But he'd just vasselised Mehmet II and had one of the largest militaries in the game. Huyana it was. He had good tech, but just not enough units. Once I'd seen him off I marched east to take out Toku and Mehmet taking both on at the same time at reckless speed because Catherine was building spaceship parts. Once I vasselised those two I had Cyrus, Gilgamesh and Catherine left, they all had big armies and better tech than me.

Gilgamesh looked weakest so I went for him.
Ideally I'd have licked my wounds and built up an overwhelming force to attack him with but at that point Catherine launched (it'd been coming) I knew speed was of the essence and hoped that if I rushed in and grabbed a couple of cities fast I could get Gilgamesh to surrender and it might just tip me over into a domination win (it'd have been close). I grabbed the cities, but he didn't give in, knowing wisely that he had a huge force to counterattack with.

The game ended with me embroiled in a war of attrition with Gilgamesh that I probably would have won eventually through weight of numbers but was by no means a sure thing.

I probably needed to risk taking on Catherine earlier in the game but I was too busy butting heads with Monty (I was much too stubborn to let him beat me...) who was at that time the major power in the game. I also knew I could keep Catherine sweet as long as I kept the same religion as her, something you just can't do with Mad Monty.

Also it turns out that a domination win at normal speed on a large map is a very difficult prospect. I have a feeling that on Epic speed the slight military edge might have let me sneak in with a win... we'll never know.

This was my first time on a large map, and with raging barbs and I haven't played normal speed since Vanilla so it was great to get outside my comford zone. Great game guys, thanks for setting it up.

**Solver** · November 4, 2007, 08:06

Okay, what do I remember...

The opponents didn't quite make it easy. However, the map was very good IMO. You have some immediately accessible happiness resources near the start - Gold and Furs. And with some expansion to the west, you can decrease Genghis's land area.

I played the religion game absolutely wrong. Catherine got Buddhism and spread it to me but I didn't adopt so as not to piss the rest off. But then I founded Confucianism and later adopted it even though only Genghis had it - that was a bad move. In the end, no long-term friendships for me.

Given that I was Shaka, I was planning to play aggressively, but actually delayed that a bit. I had an early skirmish with Montezuma when he took a city spot I wanted - and it helped keep him in check. After getting Iron, I built up an army and conquered him, that was the easy part. Earlier, I had built the Great Wall to counter those raging barbs. Turned out to be a good idea. When I got the Great Spy, I infiltrated Russia, as Catherine seemed to be the most advanced AI civ. So that gave me about 4 stolen techs in the first half of the game - early Great Spies, particularly from the Great Wall, are indeed very powerful.

I didn't handle the Mongols correctly, either. When I attacked Montezuma for the second time, to eliminate him, Genghis declared war on me for whatever reason. All I did in response was take a border city, but I left taking him out for later without actually having a good reason to do so.

And the post-Guilds time was when it all started. I took Mongols out, vassalizing them, rather quickly. At that point, I was doing quite well in research, thanks to some Wonders, and was continuously pumping out units. Huayna Capac and Catherine were clearly the two big threats - the only civs I had to really worry about. Tokugawa was remote and, as usually, backwards, Suleiman seemed content to sit there and research, while Cyrus just didn't worry me much.

So I was thinking about invading Russia but, despite my large army, wasn't sure I could win the war without losing the bulk of my forces. Then I got lucky. Catherine declared war on the Incans. Yay! I waited on the Russian border for some 5 turns, while the initial fighting took place, going slightly in Capac's favor. Then I declared war on Catherine myself and conquered her. Another vassal. Got my first few Grenadiers during this war (if the game had been on Epic, it'd be completely awesome).

Russia had built up some good stuff. After some rebuilding, it turned out that Moscow was a nice cashcow (Buddhist holy city and all), with a few good hammer cities as well. So I started preparing for an attack on the Incans. The good thing here was, the culture from some of my cities was really pushing up against them. So when I attacked, I did so with a huge force, and I struck from three directions. One stack attacked the western part of their lands, coming from former Russia, two more entered at different points from the north. Thanks to the element of surprise, I took a city on the first turn of the war as well. Yay!

It was a good war, decided by me having a few high-production and high-XP cities. I had the West Point and the Heroic Epic at that point, as well as a few (3 or 4) settled Generals. So some of my cities were really cranking out well-promoted units. I just had too much total production capacity, so took the Incans, by the end of that war Infantry started to form the bulk of my force.

In the meanwhile, I had experienced a good Persian attack that caught me off-guard and took two cities, but I was able to retake them and decided to sign peace with no further action.

After conquering the Incans, I was almost at the Domination threshold. I ended up attacking an Ottoman city that was close to me for that extra land. That worked, and interestingly Suleiman countered by moving a stack of 40-50 units into my land. Thanks to rails, I took em all out on a single turn. That was a bloody turn. There, it didn't take long to reach Domination, just needed those 2% or so more of land.

Good game

**Solver** · November 4, 2007, 18:34

Re: Intermediate Game 2 Discussion Thread

Originally posted by Nugog
1st: jbp26 : Won Domination Victory - 1890AD - 6086 points / 66935 points

2nd: Solver : Won Domination Victory - 1919AD - 6477 points / 53498 points
3rd: Theseus : Won Domination Victory - 1931AD - 6271 points / 41622 points

4th: Saygame : Won Domination Victory - 1964AD - 6938 points / 32442 points

Okay, I guess Shaka really is better for warmongering

**Nugog** · November 4, 2007, 19:43

He sure is.

**EPW** · November 4, 2007, 20:56

Whats the prize for getting the worst winning score?

Edit: never mind, you're using normalized points now which bumps me up a bit...

**SpencerH** · November 4, 2007, 23:51

I didnt get a chance to finish this one but I wouldnt have won anyway I was so far behind in techs since I had been at war since virtually the begining of the game. I dislike civ4's combat system and never play as a warmonger. That being said the impis were great.

Ghengis attacked me fairly early on so I used scorched earth by impis and horse archers to obliterate his ability to wage war. After taking 3 of his cities, the war was halted by my religious brethren. No prob it'll give me a chance to catch up science-wise. Hmm, Ghengis is ahead of me in science with his 5 decimated cities!!! So of course he attacks again. Now I take his capital and leave him with 2 cities before my brethren step in again. Hmm, a short time later Ghengis is ahead of me in science with his 2 decimated cities!!! Something stinks!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course Monte now attacks and after losing 1 small city I can hold my own against HIS MORE ADVANCED TROOPS but not attack since I still have rock wielding urchins to defend my empire against his curiaraseurs (forget the spelling, its French). Strangely he declares war on Catherine who virtually has modern inf and she kicks his butt. Monte becomes her slave but Mehmed who was Monte's vassal stays at war with me and will NEVER sue for peace. Strangely, his science rockets ahead so the last turn I recall he had modern units while I had muskets.

All in all, it's an example of why I didnt buy the warmonger XP that came out before BtS.

**jbp26** · November 5, 2007, 11:42

i have never played shaka before so i was a little nervous. i started off with quick expansion, of course. i also took that coastal spot around gold as my second city, which contributed a lot of research. with shaka two bonuses are immedietly apparent- 1, the impi move quickly so i needed less of them to defend a large empire (ie, more money for expansion), and 2, barracks also reduced maintenance and made stronger impi, while taking virtually no time to build. so i whipped barracks in every new city and kept on producing settles, impi, and axemen. since i had stone and my capitol was a real production powerhouse, i managed to score stonehenge as well, which helped my expansion immensely.

initial exploration yielded mongols to the west, aztecs to the east, and russians to the south. initially i was going to try and put a few cities to the south to block the russian expansion into my territory, but i decided against it. that land was all jungles, and id rather let htem clean it up for me. also since i had stonehenge and neither of my neighbors were creative, i knew i'd win border wars. so i aggresively expanded as deeply into their territory as i could. this was very effective in forcing montezuma and ghengis into sub-optimal territory. once there was no more room for expansion i just built granaries, courthouses, impi and axemen. i think hinduism, which was the dominant religion of the land, spread to me at some point around here.

i was out of expansion room and my economy was still ok, so it was time for war. i had been spying on my neighbors, montezuma and ghengis khan, so i checked their power graphs. khan was way behind in tech but way ahead in power, and monty was below in both, so i sent in the troops. they rolled over him in no time- he had kind of been forced to expand into the jungle, and virtually none of it was removed. jungle terrain really seemd to give the AI trouble in this game. Anyway I wiped him out, and the real prize here was his second city, which was a double holy city for the two major religions of the game. this was a huge stroke of luck.

and in an even better turn of events the turn before i took that precious city, it generated a great prophet, which went to founding the second holy city (they already had the first). so not only did i capture a double holy city, icaptured it with both shrines intact.

that decided the rest of the game. with the income from the double holy city and the spoils of war, i could expand at will while saying #1 in tech. i rotated cities to pumping out missionaries, units and infrastructures. ghengis declared war on me next with his huge army of keshiks- unfortunately for him i had been building impi the whole time in anticipation of this. he was smashed. actually that was the only interesting part of the rest of the game. i conquered russia and the incas without incident, and won a domination victory.

**RobWorham** · November 5, 2007, 13:02

Congratulations jbp26!!!

**Solver** · November 5, 2007, 13:08

Ow, you really got lucky there with the double holy city. If I had that happen to me, I'd beat ya

**MikeH** · November 5, 2007, 13:25

This is probably a really dumb question... but how exactly is the score calculated? (I did look in the FAQ first...)

Announcement

Intermediate Game 2 Discussion Thread

Intermediate Game 2 Discussion Thread

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment