Okay, so I started a game as Zara Yaqob. I have to say, I underestimated him a lot at first, and can't believe I hadn't played him yet. This was my second game @ Noble, BTW.

To start off, I got a production rich capital, and then REXed to claim 3 more cities while the AIs still had two. Thanks to his Creative trait and the Stele UB, I was able to grab four gem tiles from Boudica's second city to my fourth city. This gave me a pretty good research rate, and I managed to get a small lead on Gandhi, MM, and Pacal II.

Meanwhile, Gandhi founded Confucianism in Delhi (choose religions game), and started building nothing but missionaries. Of course, this left his capital with one archer and a wall, and three fast workers doing nothing but chopping more missionaries. He even built the Kong Miao for me. So, I attacked him in 400 BC-ish with 8 swordsmen, losing only two and killing both of his archers in Delhi, and Boudica conquered Bombay (Gandhi had just conquered a barb city with his exploring warrior, and he later became Sitting Bull's vassal).

After building up some infrastructure with slavery (really started to see how good it can be in this game), I beelined to Machinery and Construction and started constructing a Xbow/Cat army to take down Boudica. After this, I teched to Music to get the GA. I sent him down to Delhi, where he created a Great Work, culturally conquering Bombay (MM traded me Feudalism, so it got a longbow). Because of the holy city income + market (and 5 libraries), I managed to get CS just before I attacked Boudica. I conquered Vienne, and with the money I gained from that I upgraded 3 CR2 swords to maces, and used that combined force to capture her capital, Bibracte, splitting her in two and eliminating that threat. While I was conquering her, I killed the maintenance costs in my cities by whipping Courthouses.

I then went got engineering and gunpowder and built 15 Oromos and 4 trebs to combine with my previous army to annihilate Pacal. He has two cities left atm, but I have only lost one oromo and am way ahead in the tech race, only Pacal has nationalism on me and he doesn't even have gunpowder.

Zara was, I think, the perfect leader for this kind of game. His creativity and steles allowed me to get 4 gem tiles early one, his organized trait allowed me to beat maintenance costs with courthouses as well as grow 3 size 18-20 cities along the coast (Lalibela, Delhi, and Aksum) with cheap lighthouses. And, most of all, his amazing oromos are obliterating Pacal's army, and once I promote them to rifles (I have a huge treasury and a GM from economics), well, the rest won't stand a chance.

I got my first win ever in Civ IV with him. It was on Prince.

Edit: Nevermind I got him confused with Shaka (the one with the Impis)

Okay, here's a tiny analysis of Zara Yaqob's starting position:
Traits: Creative (+2 culture per city), and Organized (-50% Civic Upkeep).
Starting Techs: Hunting (enables Scout, Spearmen, Camp), Mining (enables Mine)
Unique Unit: Oromo Warrior (Musketman): Immune to First Strikes, Starts with Drill I/II
Unique Bulding: Stele (Monument): +1 Culture, +25% Culture
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Zara Yaqob starts with Mining and Hunting. This means high-commerce resources (Fur, Ivory, Gold, Silver, Gems) are available from the onset. He also starts with a Scout. Let the Scout explore, while the Settler tries to find some of these resources (at least in the fat cross). A Worker build at first will hook up the high-commerce resource (w/ or w/o a road), giving a huge boost to research. This boost will grab Mysticism, then The Wheel. As the next Settler is popped, the Capital can work on Stonehenge. Stonehenge not only gives a nice culture boost to the capital, it also gives free Steles everywhere. Even if Stonehenge is not an option, the Settler still goes with a Warrior (and/or Worker) to occupy a nice city site. Settle City 2, and begin work on a Stele. On Normal Speed, thanks to the Cultural Trait, City 2's borders will pop in 5 turns. Assuming the Stele gets done within 5 turns of the border pop (at 20 culture), from 20 culture onwards, City 2 will produce 3.75 culture per turn. Rounding up, this is 4. The 2nd border pop occurs at 100 culture. Thus, within 30 turns, City 2 can achieve 100 culture.

*NOTE* This analysis assumes that the Stele/Monument can be finished within 5 turns of the 1st border pop (10 culture on normal speed)

In the final analysis:
Turns it takes for a Non-Capital City to reach 2nd Border Pop (Normal Speed=100 Culture)
Cultural Leader: 50
Non-Cultural Leader: Depends on when Monument can be finished. After that, 100 turns.
Cultural Leader with Monument: 47
Zara Yaqob and Stele: 30

I havn't really tried him. Creative and a monument UU seem to be a little counter intuitive, since one of creatives advantages is being able to not have to build monuments to get border pops.

Creative/Organized is a very strong combination since all those cheap buildings stacked on top of each other gives a tangible production advantage.
That it's good for rexing goes wo saying.

Zara is a monster techer when you combine the cheap libraries/courthouses with CE.

I usually do the Stonehenge for Steles and chop the Oracle for CoL and then it's a pure pleasure to see the empire grow at an incredible race.

One of the best leaders in the game when it comes to large landmasses IMHO.

I miss cre/org Augustus :cry:

Well, he was practically OP'd with praets anyway.

And don't forget that Barracks + settled general yields Drill IV Oromos out of the gate.

I miss cre/org Augustus :cry:

Well, he was practically OP'd with praets anyway.

Nothing wrong with Industrious Agustus who has a UB that gives +25% GPPs. Wonderspammer extrodinare.

I know.. he just feels bland compared to old one.

Zara Yaqob is great for early domination. Creative+Stele pushes back enemy borders that have been accumulating culture for thousands of years, and Oromo Warriors are a great UU for conquering cities. They get even better when you upgrade to Riflemen. I was running about with a whole bunch of Drill IV Riflemen vassalising all my enemies.

He's one of my favs. I'm not a big fan of the UB, but it helps grab GOOD land fast if you chop Stonehenge. I usually recall having better starts with Zara just because I could grab land and do land locks easier with huge borders and manageable costs, which usually led to Conquest/Domination victories with Drill IV Gunpowder armies.

hi,
i'm new to this forum, as well as to civ 4 (played a couple of games... no the basics). I have the regular Civ 4 game, and you are talking about Zara Yaqob. I guess it's a leader from an expansion..?
I used to play civ2, and being in the city screen you 'view the city' like, all it's buildins etc from a closer look. I havn't seen this feature in civ 4, or am i missing something? :)

hi,
i'm new to this forum, as well as to civ 4 (played a couple of games... no the basics). I have the regular Civ 4 game, and you are talking about Zara Yaqob. I guess it's a leader from an expansion..?
I used to play civ2, and being in the city screen you 'view the city' like, all it's buildins etc from a closer look. I havn't seen this feature in civ 4, or am i missing something? :)

They ar ereferring to Zara Yaqob who is a new leader in the Beyond the Sword Expansion pack. The two expansion packs have Unique Buildings as well as Unique Units.

Zara UB is the Stele which is a Monument (renamed from the Civ IV Vanilla Obelisk) which provides +25% culture and goes obsolete with Astronomy (as opposed to Calender from vanilla CIV IV). His UU is a replacement for the Musket and starts with Drill I and II which are retained during u grades.

Welcome and enjoy!

ok, thanks for the quick answer. I will look for the two expansion packs as well, sound interesting.. :)

I believe Beyond the Sword has the Warlords additions so you need to buy just one unless you want the scenarios specific to warlords.

Zara's UU is also very effective. With all those first strikes, it doesn't take much to take down Longbowmen. I've had games in which I've been able to use the Oromo Warrior to take down a Longbowman without having to use a Cat to cause collateral damage first.

Sigh, looks like another leader to add to my growing list of things I want to try out soon.

Sheesh.

I played on in that game, eventually just started conquering anyone with my Artillery/Infantry stack while they still had LBows/Maces...what surprised me the most was how fast I was able to run away with the tech lead, I beat out Pacal and Mansa at the beginning of the Middle Ages with cheap libraries and courthouses, don't forget about cheap lighthouses, as if he wasn't good enough already.:rolleyes: I used to think that Churchill, Toku or Boudicca was best for the Ethiopians, but Zara's definitely better...90% research w/ cheap libraries is scary...

Hmm, nice, maybe I should try Zara for my first Monarch game in BTS...

I just used him for the first time. Huge/hemispheres/immortal 18 civs. The organized trait, and drill 4 oromos really shone. It took me a couple weeks and 23 hours of constant warfare, but i finally defeated a 5 vassal superpower to pull off the domination. I had a single oromo, promoted to a rifle men hold off the invasion forces of 2 nations singlehandedly. Drill 4 combat 4 on a regular unit is simply nice to have, and the AI must have really wanted that 3 population city he was defending. The only weakness of the oromo is that it is a musket, and axes/maces cant be promoted to muskets.
This was the hardest victory I've ever won, and most likely it all comes down to the use of nuclear weapons and defying . There may be no other way to simultaneously defeat the armies/navies of 12 immortal AI, but at least now I know that it is possible.
A good rule of thumb that I failed to follow due to a rude interuption and destruction of montezuma, is do not let Huyana capac take 5 vassals, and then attempt to raise each and every one of his cities to legendary culture.
By the end I ruled a desert but it was my desert, and my 8 1-2 city vassals were luckier than the 5 others i left with no cities.

If you want an impossible scenario try to win this war in less than 300 years without the use of your massive nuclear aresenal. One thing is certain huyana capac must die.
Or you could go the route I went and create a beautiful peaceful world 85 years later.

Oromos are awesome. Makes it well worth delaying certain techs so that you can build a mountain of them for upgrading!

Zara is a monster, whether controlled by me or the AI he always ends up good.

Maybe someone can clear this up for me because I just don't get it: What do the drill promotions do? What are first strikes?

I've found oromos to be only so-so. Maybe I'm not using them right, but I didn't find drill 4 oromos to be that amazing relative to some of the other UUs that are out there. They make good city defenders I'm sure, but I'm usually the aggressor in war-situations and muskets just don't make the best city raiders imo.

EDIT: I think Zara is quite good however. His traits and starting techs are all good/good enough. His UB is only so-so imo relative to the fact that he is already creative and his UU while not stellar is certainly not bad/terrible. He plays well by the AI and I usually have good games with him as well. His traits alone are solid as Augustus used to be great as well.

For the last time: organized halves the CIVIC manteinance, not the single city's one. Do you know, the one that the change civic screen says on the bottom? It halves that.

However, he IS awesome. And the Oromos, used as highly promoted defense units, can destroy infantries (real-life experience. CG I-II-III, Drill III-IV, on an hill. Slaughterhouse assured!).