Is Tradition not viable on Immortal with Shaka next door?

wayneb64 said:

I have been replaying with the initial save at the end of turn zero.

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Those are two different files, only one of which has “Initial” as part of the file name. Both files have the terrain and civs set. My unsubstantiated theory is that is the one with Initial as part of the file name has not set the +/- values for bias.

Is there any way to figure out what random upgrade his units are getting?

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From one of your ranged units, you can see the promotions after targeting but before firing, and not just as part of the odds calculation as you will also see his unit icons. Otherwise, I think selecting AI units is problematic. My observation is that the AIs especially favor medic and cover, but Shaka probably does not fit this pattern.

I could see the promotion icons when I moused over his units, but you cannot then mouse over those icons to see what they mean. I remember one had 4 of those impi icons, and in general there are triangle icons but neither of which tell you anything. If they affect the combat, then you can see that spelled out in the 'math' section, but extra moves and terrain movement bonuses I don't think have a unique icon.

The net is it's not very fair when his units where coming through two tiles of Jungle to hit units I thought where safe. Also I swear the first city of his I razed caused three impi to popup around it out of nowhere.

wayneb64 said:

I could see the promotion icons when I moused over his units, but you cannot then mouse over those icons to see what they mean.

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Sorry, I get what you are saying now. That triangle promotion icon is so overused that it is meaningless. It is very frustrating and one of my pet peeves. Why can’t every promotion get a unique icon? There are not that many of them! But I think you should assume every Impi gets 3 movement!

The net is it's not very fair when his units where coming through two tiles of Jungle to hit units I thought where safe. Also I swear the first city of his I razed caused three impi to popup around it out of nowhere.

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Some of this is the visual effect. Units moving into your line of sight seem to pop into existence. You can mitigate this somewhat by turning quick combat off and keeping the option for movement animation to complete. Some argue that the AI can rush buy in occupied cities, so this might be an effect as well. Later game, the AI will use airports pretty effectively if you let them. The AI combat tactics seems to favor re-capturing cities over letting the city fall in the first place, so you should expect units behind the city.

The coast was clear as the city was burning, I literally saw them popup just after the city disappeared, three of them. I leave animations on all the time and I think I would have seen them zip in. Maybe they where cloaked.

I am very careful lately to not take a city until I have cleared all melee out of the area as having the AI take back the city (and kill your melee that took it) is very expensive as half the pop and buildings are wiped again.