Zulu Kingdom Virus

[toontaco]

Huge
Continent Map
No City-states
Arid and Flat

Zulu kingdom destroyed The Mayans and Ghandi, now they're after my greatest aly Germany (seriously, how great are they?).
Bunch of Impi.
Normally, I'd have no problem pushing them back, but they have somewhere near 15 zulu-made cities and like 5 captured cities, and are still spamming settlers, although that's stopped as I've assaulted the former Mayan capital and they are now spamming troops
How do I defend my ally Germany? Everyone else spawned on seperate continents, and it's like 8 cities combined vs like 20.

I couldn't even hit the Mayan city, and I had like 20 units but they were destroyed.

[ajhartman65]

Good luck with that. Impi on nice flat terrain are going to be hell to stop until you have much superior units...

[biogoo]

The problem are not just the Impi, it is also the cost per turn reduction. Zulu AI spawns twice so many units:)

[ajhartman65]

The other fun fact with AI Impi is that they get to cycle through the little spear toss first for all units around yours before they do the bigger attack, so usually take you down or out completely with little to no damage to themselves. Sure wish i could split my attacks like that when i play as the Zulus, lol.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

The other fun fact with AI Impi is that they get to cycle through the little spear toss first for all units around yours before they do the bigger attack, so usually take you down or out completely with little to no damage to themselves. Sure wish i could split my attacks like that when i play as the Zulus, lol.

I'm pretty sure the AI can't do that either, as it's an effect that triggers when the attack is started (and the AI uses the same combat system). It may just be a graphical glitch that occurs, because the AI queues its attacks so closely after another.

But either way, a good strategy to defend an allied AI is to just block the attacker with your own units as long as you're not at war (if it's an in-game ally, not a game-setup-ally). It's a bit annoying, but you can pretty much block the attacker from doing anything "forever" as long as they don't turn on you (which they won't do because you block them, but may be caused by other actions).

Other than that you can also bribe them into war with other Civs to delay them further and try to either get ahead in tech, or just win before you become their target.

[AtomicCaleb]

There is also a bribe to make peace but that usaully never works

[Grumpy]

Actually it is a bug but AI can use Impi ranged attack without going into melee. It seems to occour when you are on a hill and they are on flat, or if a river is between the two of you.

It is hurrendously annoying but it is super rare to happen so you have to be quick to see it in the combat log. (wish there was a combat log we the player could check as well).

If you want to see it in action, weaken an Impi but don't kill it. If it would otherwise suicide on your unit and the terrain mismatch exists, it will just throw spears at you and make rude gestures instead.

[ajhartman65]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Originally posted by ajhartman65:

The other fun fact with AI Impi is that they get to cycle through the little spear toss first for all units around yours before they do the bigger attack, so usually take you down or out completely with little to no damage to themselves. Sure wish i could split my attacks like that when i play as the Zulus, lol.

I'm pretty sure the AI can't do that either, as it's an effect that triggers when the attack is started (and the AI uses the same combat system). It may just be a graphical glitch that occurs, because the AI queues its attacks so closely after another.

But either way, a good strategy to defend an allied AI is to just block the attacker with your own units as long as you're not at war (if it's an in-game ally, not a game-setup-ally). It's a bit annoying, but you can pretty much block the attacker from doing anything "forever" as long as they don't turn on you (which they won't do because you block them, but may be caused by other actions).

Other than that you can also bribe them into war with other Civs to delay them further and try to either get ahead in tech, or just win before you become their target.

So, when i had a minuteman with 3 rough terrain promotions on a hill get attacked by 4 impi and get destroyed and then the next turn went to retaliate with other units and not one of the impi had taken any damage I guess that was just a "graphical glitch?"

[Rei'No Otoko]

No the issue is that there are no city-states. Civ5's AI is designed to play with them in the game, if you take them out You actually bork the AI game. What happens is what your seeing, because you've neutered the other civ's at having any chance of seeing the Zulu's are the evil kingdom and they are coming to eat them. It would be great if the AI was made smarter but after all these years, there's been very little attempt to do that once it was passable, and that's all it is, todays AI's are much smarter but those are not in any game, they are being improved for other things.

What difficutly are you playing on? My answer above is why the Zulu steam rolled the other AI's but I can't answer your issue, with no info on your Civ.
As too your minutemen they should have one or 2 levels of cover on them, that would really help when a bunch of spears are being thrown at them!

[gia]

well you chose a huge map, thats bad news with shaka as enemy because he will settle all of it

focus on not losing a single one of your troops, and keep building troops until you got enough to wall the carpet of doom from moving into your cities, and wait until they level up enough to two shot any enemy unit, also focus on science, shaka cant do science, you can resurrect germany later

If you can reach riflemen, and then later great war infantry and infantry, shaka wont be able to put a dent on them, then you complement your walls with machine guns, artillery and AA guns and shaka is done

In the meantime you can place a citadel at the correct spot and place your best melee there with a medic behind so he can outheal the damage he gets

[Actionhanz]

Just give them Chickenwingz and pimped cars to distract them lol.

[toontaco]

Originally posted by Actionhanz:

Just give them Chickenwingz and pimped cars to distract them lol.

Attila the Hun banned them for being immoral :(