He saw the settler she built on turn 12. He saw the two Bonus Grassland tiles she irrigated. He saw the exact tile where she’d founded her second city, Adrianople, on the river next to the Ivory.
She clicked on the Frigate. The Diplomatic screen opened. Shaka’s face was no longer frozen. He was smiling. A real smile. The smile of a player who had finally found the one exploit the developers never patched.
In the Zulu capital of Zimbabwe (razed by Byzantine artillery in 1892), Shaka sat up. His health bar was empty. His civilization was a phantom. But he remembered. He remembered Theodora’s betrayal: the RoP rape in 1850, when her cavalry used a Right of Passage to swarm his undefended saltpeter mines. He remembered the Culture Flip of 1876, when his border city of Hlobane converted to Byzantium simply because she had built the Sistine Chapel. Sid Meiers Civilization 3 Complete
And in the corner of her monitor, just for a frame, a single line of green text would flash:
He clicked “Accept.”
The game engine, desperate to resolve the corruption, accepted. Theodora watched in horror as a notification she’d never seen appeared: ZULU EMPIRE HAS ESTABLISHED AN EMBASSY IN YOUR CAPITAL (4044 BC). Her capital was Constantinople. In 4044 BC, Constantinople was a forest tile where a warrior named “Scout” had just popped a hut and discovered Ceremonial Burial. The Zulu Frigate— The Isandlwana —did not move. But suddenly, the fog of war over Byzantium’s ancient starting location dissolved. Shaka could see it all.
The advisor screen flickered. It wasn't the usual quartet of sycophantic ministers. Instead, a single line of green terminal text appeared over the fog of war: She had never seen that before. She clicked “Yes.” He saw the settler she built on turn 12
The corruption had collapsed her entire tech tree. Without the Zulu peace deal of 1730 AD (which Shaka had just nullified), she had never diverted research to Printing Press. Without Printing Press, no Democracy. Without Democracy, no Theory of Gravity. Without Gravity… no spaceflight.