[SPOILERS] Lurkerloos and map discussion

[Mardoc]

So we need to hold on to McD for 7 turns to get 10 turns out of LJS.

Or gift McD and use the enforced 10 turns. But I'm against that just out of principle

Ah, ok, he's not quite as crazy as I thought. He's trying to delay Commodore instead of peace, not in addition to. May not strictly be the best move, but given the constraint of no peace, it makes sense.

[Sareln]

With all the whinging Serdoa just got done doing about his Iron location, he really needs to give a stitch/map/overview...

[Gaspar]

I think everyone's being a little harsh on Zulu's India plan here. Not to be a jerk, but Nakor's not very good at fending off attacks and I'm sure that factors into the consideration. But the bottom line is these random-map-RB-mod-random-pick games are supposed to be about having fun and to me, swinging for the fences and trying to take India sounds like a whole lot more fun than waiting 50t for Commodore to finish killing them off.

In a normal, balanced map game, I'd frown on this kind of hopeless play that will shift the balance of the game. In this environment, more power to them.

And regardless of what happens in Zululand/India, this game is Serdoa's to lose and plako is the only other real threat. Relative skill levels matter.

[Ceiliazul]

I agree with Gaspar about the free-for-all nature of the game. Whether Zulu's gambit fails or succeeds, it'll be fun... for everyone except Nakor. I still think India easily beats off the attack, but it'll push them off the finishing podium.



As for Commodore keeping a city in a peace treaty, it'd be a huge benefit to keep it. Cities taken in war must pacify riots, and fight opponent culture (from the nearby cap). Cities gifted have the culture counter reset in the starting 9 tiles, and face no riots. (Still motherland unhappiness, but at that point you figure it's a short term downside)

[Sullla]

I like all the players on the India team in this game, really nice group of people, and they've had some bad luck go against them. That said, they've played a very unfocused game with some poor decision-making, and this is only the latest and worst idea that they've come up with. (Did you know that they built one granary in their whole territory over the first 100 turns? It's true. If anyone wonders how Commodore beat them, look no further.) A bad decision is still a bad decision no matter how the person in question tries to spin it. And this is a real whopper of a bad idea.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

(You probably mean Zulu team)

[Ceiliazul]

Sulla, I'm curious how would you have approached the game strategically in their position. They asked for feedback in the lurker forum, other than more/sooner granaries, what would you have done differently? How would you have reacted to Comm's initial reach city?

[Sullla]

I'm not sure that I would have done any better than they did, to be honest. I probably would have made the same moves or done even worse. Believe me, I've been in the position of playing a tough game while omniscent lurkers sit on the sidelines and tell you what you should have been doing, and that's always pretty obnoxious.

But as an academic exercise and to answer your question, I think that the Zulu team's biggest issue throughout this game has been a lack of focus. Their players have never been able to decide on one strategic goal, and have been bouncing back and forth between a bunch of different objectives throughout the game. I even understand why they did this - they didn't want to get locked into a deathmatch with Commodore, and I can't blame them for that. But that's been the difference in this long running conflict. Commodore has been completely focused on one goal the whole game: grinding down his neighbor through protracted combat. The Zulu team has been all over the place. Add in some lucky dice rolls for Commodore and that's been enough to swing this battle.

There's also been some weird higher-level decisions in the Zulu game. I mentioned the lack of granaries; here's their capital for example:



Not even a single building in here after almost 100 turns? Seriously, what? No granary, no library, no barracks (despite fighting war for 30+ turns and having UU ikhanda). It's a strong capital too, triple food bonuses, on a river, hills, forests for chopping, etc. As I said, I like all of the Zulu players, I'm just at a loss at to what they were thinking to mismanage their capital this badly.

Then there's the bizarre research path that they took through the tree. They rushed Alphabet for overseas trade routes over all of these other options. Look at the top of this screenshot:



Alphabet is an expensive tech and I don't think that going from a 1 commerce domestic route to a 2 commerce international route in Zulu's five cities was all that useful. I could definitely see it if they were in peaceful builder mode, hard to understand the decision in this game's circumstances though. They could have had Horseback Riding tech instead (it's about 20% cheaper) and HAs surely would have been useful. Or they could have simply gone for Construction and had it available 10 turns sooner. That might have made a difference. Or just get Masonry and stick walls in Subway, which would have made it far harder to capture. There were a lot of alternate paths here.



Power graph; Commodore was always really far ahead, but the Zulu team never seemed to be unduly concerned about this. (They were 9th in Power while Commodore was first.) I noticed this same issue in the PBEM duel between scooter and Commodore. Too often in that game, scooter seemed to be in the midset that because he had a UU that beat Commodore (Cho-Ko-Nus vs no horses in that game, Impi vs no metal in this game) he didn't need to prioritize military techs and could go for economic stuff instead. Same deal here. Commodore chased one goal ("I will beat my neighbor in 1 vs 1 war no matter what") and ended up being successful. I felt that the Zulu team here was way too complacent once they saw that it was impis vs chariots early on. They treated the situation like it was an auto win when it wasn't. Impis get poor odds against archers, and they didn't adjust very well.



Going back even earlier, this is at the start of the war. Zulu team had just killed two Commodore units on the border to kick things off. I thought their decision was completely justified, due to the ridiculous overreach that Commodore was trying. But then instead of taking advantage of the situation, Zulu went and settled this city over in the east, off in the opposite direction. If you're going to make the decision for war, then be ready to fight a war! This settler could have established control of the crabs region 15 turns earlier, giving enough time to expand borders and chop forests. It would have put them in a much stronger position, back at a time when Commodore didn't have metals yet.

Now that's not really fair because all of this is backwards-looking analysis. It's easy to say what someone should have done after the fact. As I said, I don't think I would have necessarily done any better. I'm sympathetic towards their team, since I wouldn't want to start near Commodore either. (The less I say about their "invade India" plan the better - that is a truly terrible idea.) Still, you guys did ask, so I might as well give you my thoughts.

[zakalwe]

The capital is actually building a granary in that last screenshot. Did they really shelve it, or did they lose it to an event?

[novice]

The capital is actually building a granary in that last screenshot. Did they really shelve it, or did they lose it to an event?

They've kept postponing it... You can see it in the build queue behind the Ikhanda in the t94 screenshot.