Zulu Domination Guide (Deity, standard, Pangea)

Sequm said:

So I tried this haha. Eventually Brasil got 10 units (compbows/spears) inside my borders, and overwhelmed my 4 CBs. I had a melee unit also. I never seem to get a weak city near me, Brasil's city was 2x my pop and bordering my cap. I'm looking for a good start for this strategy haha. What turn should I have range? And how would this strategy change for England/China? They both get UU's at machinery though....

Click to expand...

For england/china, I think you can just do similar before Xbows - your upgrades will be slower but you have critical upgrade within your UU so no problem.

Compared to Zulu, you do not have impi so you might need more meat shield or units. But general gameplay won't change much.

If you allow 10 CB/spears to attack you, while you only have 4 CBs, something is wrong. Point of early war is to cut off enemy units one by one. AI will "deliver" units to you, so all you need to do is kill them. When needed, place a good front city.

So I was browsing the GOTM section, and there is a current Shaka Emperor game up. Never having played Shaka before, I decided to make a few practice Emperor games following this guide. It's a bit dicey on Emperor to get going. The economy is so bad, and the AI expands so slowly that getting enough GPT going to support even 3 archers and 4 spears is nearly impossible with Liberty. In every 100 turn play through, I found I had to bully CS's to get the gold for upgrades.

Also, because the AI is so bad at this level, no cities are worth keeping, making roads a useless endeavor to connect puppets. I also found I had a surplus of workers really early, so I am thinking that tradition might be a better way to go on lower difficulties because roads are not worth building, gpt very early is an issue, more happiness, and more early growth so hitting the unit supply limit is harder to do very early.

I do have to say though that Shaka needs to be brutally hit with the nerf stick. Even Babs in vanilla was not this OP.

i finally got bnw ($9.99 on gamefly and then 7.99 with coupon! woot!) and won my first game with indonesia last night. started a zulu game this morning and in my first couple tries got horrible starts and never could catch up. started another one this afternoon and am doing pretty well so far like 90 turns in.

glory7 said:

I do feel like an exploit too when I piliage heal/repair. I guess that introducing 25hp healing was a good idea, but they should have not allowed enemy workers to repair the tiles.

However, there are so many other "exploits" too - people cried over "lump sum exploit" before BNW, but I think you can do something like that in BNW too. For example, you can just get all the gold (now you get 30 gold for 1gpt, full price in standard speed, which is ridiculous.... this one basically denies the very simple economic principle that today's one dollar is worth more than tomorrow's one dollar) right before the DoF expires.

Also, artillery rush (as AIs don't use artys early and they just get killed) and air repair bombers seem to be exploits (at least to me). If I expand the horizon, I consider RA is kinda cheap and could be an exploit as AIs don't make full use of it.

So when I play games, I just use most stuff (except self-pilliaging) unless it is clearly agreed/stated.

For the strategy itself, I believe that it could work without pilliage&repair, but it would be more difficult.

Click to expand...

It appears to me that the AI is programmed to think of the break-even point as 36g for 1g/turn, so they only offer you 30 (-6) and they ask 42 (+6), which is a 16% markup/markdown. Or, alternatively, they offer you roughly 75% of what they ask. If you think of it that way, it's less broken. But this is not applied consistently. Cash purchasing of luxuries gets you an even trade. (They ask 240, and offer 240, but ask 8/turn and only offer 6/turn)

So, basically it's a bug that they only charge 240 for a lux.

There is another money bug I've noticed since BNW came out where the AI doesn't think your open borders are worth anything. If you ask for open borders, and they ask for open borders and 1g in return, you can remove your open borders from the trade and they'll still take it. This is just borked. The AI should charge way more for a one-way open-borders trade. And should *want* open borders with you.

I think that was the intent. They ask for open borders because they want open borders, but they've also been programmed to think (perhaps) accidentally that the cash value of your open borders is zero.

Its not true that the AI values your open borders at zero. What actually sometimes happens when you say 'what do you want for this' when trying to make a trade is that they will add cheeky little items on top of what they really regard as an even deal.

Commonly this is open borders from your side, an additional 10g lump sum and strategic resources like your 4 horses that they wouldnt actually buy anyway. You should delete these from the deal before accepting,

You can see they do value your open borders when making lux trades. You can make some deals for 6gpt and open borders or you have to pay 8gpt without the open borders.

Having said that Ive never actually sold my open borders for gpt, because I rarely see any value in giving the AI open borders.

Don't even try to get a city and just stack XP & kill his units. If you take a city too early, it's likely that you suffer happiness problem and warmonger penalty hit. Usually you can get 1-2 DoF if you have not taken any city yet. Moreover, when you attack city you get 3 XP - this is a huge difference. This city is your "bootcamp", or training ground

Click to expand...

This is beautiful

Edit: 2 attempts on Immortal, extremely overpowering: I quickly run out of targets and am compelled to move onwards by turn 100. Great build

Hi, i decided to give it a try but... it's not going very well, i tryed 3 or 4 times on the same map, becouse i hate the idea that a map is impossibile.. It's just me, i'm probably not good enough for this map.. Btw, can you show me guys how to do this start on this map?

I also took a screenshot of a typical situation during my last try..
Monty is simply too fast expanding and he's not used to work his tiles..
So, what am i supposed to pillage? T_T
Defending is also impossible for me.. Ok, at turn 70 or so is still possible, my archers are level 3, but i'm totally stucked.. I only have ONE trade route.. 1 gold.. is it really worth? 1 gold trade route, maybe it's better not to waste 10 turns building a caravan..
I can't commerce becouse i can't leave the island to meet other civs..
Better saying, i don't know if i'm on an island, becouse monty is too fast to expand and i can't cross his borders to check...
So, how long am I supposed to handle his attacks?
Surely it's just me, as i told you, i'm still not a good player, but i'd really like to see someone of you beating him with this start, you know, to learn something..

i tried this once and i dominated two neighbours, the map type had a really crap 1 tile choke point cutting off the 2nd half of pangea tho so i gave up.

i also think i overextended early war and needed to back off for a bit

Overall the strategy worked great at immortal

Grasp said:

Hi, i decided to give it a try but... it's not going very well, i tryed 3 or 4 times on the same map, becouse i hate the idea that a map is impossibile.. It's just me, i'm probably not good enough for this map.. Btw, can you show me guys how to do this start on this map?

I also took a screenshot of a typical situation during my last try..
Monty is simply too fast expanding and he's not used to work his tiles..
So, what am i supposed to pillage? T_T
Defending is also impossible for me.. Ok, at turn 70 or so is still possible, my archers are level 3, but i'm totally stucked.. I only have ONE trade route.. 1 gold.. is it really worth? 1 gold trade route, maybe it's better not to waste 10 turns building a caravan..
I can't commerce becouse i can't leave the island to meet other civs..
Better saying, i don't know if i'm on an island, becouse monty is too fast to expand and i can't cross his borders to check...
So, how long am I supposed to handle his attacks?
Surely it's just me, as i told you, i'm still not a good player, but i'd really like to see someone of you beating him with this start, you know, to learn something..

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

First things first, you should *definitely* have upgraded all your archers to composite bows by before turn 85. Try for turn 55. That will make all of this much easier. I'm guessing that you rush-bought something other than an archer upgrade. Try saving your money for those upgrades instead.

Secondly, a trade route to a CS just isn't worth it. You need to try to find a trade route to a friendly civ for *tech*. If you can't find one during initial scouting, and can't forward settle within ten tiles of an AI, don't bother making caravans.

Thirdly, Montezuma changes some things. He most likely will *never* sue for peace if you DoW him early. You'll have to take one of his cities or at least be very close to doing so. And he usually is surrounded by jungle, which makes attacking him difficult. I'm not saying this map is impossible, but you have to plan your attack and defense around the geography you reveal with your early scouting.

I'll give it a shot. No promises. ;-)

Cromagnus said:

First things first, you should *definitely* have upgraded all your archers to composite bows by before turn 85. Try for turn 55. That will make all of this much easier. I'm guessing that you rush-bought something other than an archer upgrade. Try saving your money for those upgrades instead.

Secondly, a trade route to a CS just isn't worth it. You need to try to find a trade route to a friendly civ for *tech*. If you can't find one during initial scouting, and can't forward settle within ten tiles of an AI, don't bother making caravans.

Thirdly, Montezuma changes some things. He most likely will *never* sue for peace if you DoW him early. You'll have to take one of his cities or at least be very close to doing so. And he usually is surrounded by jungle, which makes attacking him difficult. I'm not saying this map is impossible, but you have to plan your attack and defense around the geography you reveal with your early scouting.

I'll give it a shot. No promises. ;-)

Click to expand...

Thx for the tips, btw:

1) I didn't have the money.. I don't remember in that particular game (I tryed a few times..), but i think i didn't bought anything at all.. I simply had no money..

2) Yea, my trade route was totally useless.. 1 gold lol

3) Ty for giving it a shot

Ok, not having a whole lot more success than you were. I attacked Montezuma around T68. Things were very much not ideal at the time, but I had no choice. If I waited any longer my CBs would have become useless.

I actually had to set up trade routes with Cape Town just to keep my economy afloat. I was that poor.

I eventually sneaked through with my scout during war and found the rest of the continent, but with only one scout, and it being so late, I've only met 4 civs.

First of all, if you can't tell from my mini-map, the patch has REALLY changed things. Monte had like 10 cities at turn 70. He built the pyramids on t44 I think? So that screwed up my plans to pillage heal. That's the third game in a row I've lost the pyramids since the patch.

Anyway, I was really aggressive. I stole a worker from Capetown before anyone had met Capetown, so I got no warmonger hit from that. I stole 2 workers from Monte as soon as I had the chance. He sued for peace so I took it until I had CBs. (5 upgraded at t60)

I actually *sold a worker* to afford that last CB upgrade...

For a while, I was so negative on funds that I was using my undefended workers as bait, to try to trick him into putting units into the open field.

I re-DoW'd by attacking Xochicalco, which I had surrounded. This gave me a nasty rep hit that may eventually ruin the game. (I promised to remove my troops and didn't)

But, it was really necessary to ensure the attack went smoothly. He had surrounded me so fast I never had time to get a third city up.

Because I had no trading partners, I went for Writing and Philosophy as soon as I got Construction, so that delayed getting Ikandas, but I had negative gpt, so any more buildings and units would have hosed me. I had to start winning the war with just my 5 CBs and a Warrior.

After I took his first city, he came after Umgundlovu and had it at zero health. I focused fire on melee units so he couldn't capture, and that bought me time to finish the Ikanda. I started building the Oracle because I was at -7 gpt and losing units, but sometimes you have to deviate from the script, and that GE will really help, assuming Machu Picchu is still there... (Oracle will get me the finisher in 6 turns, culture would take 30+...)

Anyway, most of his units are gone and I'm trying to steamroll as many of his cities as I can before he recovers. Since I only had two of my own I'll keep 2 of his and sell the rest. Assuming I get that far. This game is very far from being won. In fact, the killer may have been lying about removing troops from his borders. That might in the end be my downfall. But I'd only met Genghis Khan by then, and he's next anyway. ;-)

Here's where I'm at. As you can see, barely hanging on. What absolutely saved my life was having built both my cities close together on hills with the river between me and him. He also sent units into the water that were easy pickings. (Although he still almost capped the city with amphibious assault... I think the city had zero hps for like 4 turns in a row while I focused fire into his melee units)

Update: T110, I've taken two more of Monte's cities, but I have no happiness so I had to sell them both to Genghis. (He was the weakest AI player)

I've got Civil Service and I've got Impi now, with Machinery only a few turns away, but Egypt surprise attacked my flank (by sea!) while I was dealing with Monte. I can fight him off, because he only brought like 3 units, but it's indicative of the problem. Every AI hates me (red text) for not moving away from Monte's borders like I promised that one time. I'm pretty sure that this one mistake has cost me the game. I'm not going to keep playing this one out.

I will say though, this is a particularly tough start position. With no trading partners unless you get lucky, and Monte cutting you off from habitable city spots, this map is rough. (My scout somehow survived running through enemy territory during war, or I wouldn't have met anyone at all)

Honestly though, I think the only reason I struggled is that not *one* of the 8, count them, 8 ruins I found had culture. Getting a free settler many turns earlier is *huge*. Without a ruin, you're at 1cpt until you build a monument, and then you're at three. I build after 2 scouts, so I finished the momument around turn 16, and opened Liberty at turn 20. 30pts at 4/turn = t28 for the next one. 60pts at 4/turn = turn 44 for the next one. Whereas, if you find a culture ruin by turn 5, it shaves *15* turns off getting that free settler, which changes the game. I know I shouldn't rely on it, but there's a reason I get two scouts, and that's part of it!

Anyway, it would have allowed me to get a third city to block Monte on his side of the mountains, and a fourth one to snag KSM + another lux before the CS expanded to take it. That would have made attacking him much easier.

Of course, I could have gotten a monument 4 turns earlier, but as I said, I built a second scout before the monument. (And always do on Pangaea unless I'm on a narrow peninsula)

I also wasted time building a shrine and granary when I should have been building archers, so I had to delay my attack on Monte until I had Construction. I didn't really need the Granary (no wheat) and I wasn't close enough to the wine to benefit from a pantheon really. (And the quarry one was taken)

Anyway. This map is winnable. I shouldn't have sued for peace with Monte. That hurt my reputation because I had to re-DoW. You can and should be able to steamroll him, and with no other neighbors until you steamroll Genghis Khan, it's conceivable to get no DoW penalty for either of them. :-D

Cromagnus said:

Update: T110, I've taken two more of Monte's cities, but I have no happiness so I had to sell them both to Genghis. (He was the weakest AI player)

I've got Civil Service and I've got Impi now, with Machinery only a few turns away, but Egypt surprise attacked my flank (by sea!) while I was dealing with Monte. I can fight him off, because he only brought like 3 units, but it's indicative of the problem. Every AI hates me (red text) for not moving away from Monte's borders like I promised that one time. I'm pretty sure that this one mistake has cost me the game. I'm not going to keep playing this one out.

I will say though, this is a particularly tough start position. With no trading partners unless you get lucky, and Monte cutting you off from habitable city spots, this map is rough. (My scout somehow survived running through enemy territory during war, or I wouldn't have met anyone at all)

Honestly though, I think the only reason I struggled is that not *one* of the 8, count them, 8 ruins I found had culture. Getting a free settler many turns earlier is *huge*. Without a ruin, you're at 1cpt until you build a monument, and then you're at three. I build after 2 scouts, so I finished the momument around turn 16, and opened Liberty at turn 20. 30pts at 4/turn = t28 for the next one. 60pts at 4/turn = turn 44 for the next one. Whereas, if you find a culture ruin by turn 5, it shaves *15* turns off getting that free settler, which changes the game. I know I shouldn't rely on it, but there's a reason I get two scouts, and that's part of it!

Anyway, it would have allowed me to get a third city to block Monte on his side of the mountains, and a fourth one to snag KSM + another lux before the CS expanded to take it. That would have made attacking him much easier.

Of course, I could have gotten a monument 4 turns earlier, but as I said, I built a second scout before the monument. (And always do on Pangaea unless I'm on a narrow peninsula)

I also wasted time building a shrine and granary when I should have been building archers, so I had to delay my attack on Monte until I had Construction. I didn't really need the Granary (no wheat) and I wasn't close enough to the wine to benefit from a pantheon really. (And the quarry one was taken)

Anyway. This map is winnable. I shouldn't have sued for peace with Monte. That hurt my reputation because I had to re-DoW. You can and should be able to steamroll him, and with no other neighbors until you steamroll Genghis Khan, it's conceivable to get no DoW penalty for either of them. :-D

Click to expand...

As expected i still have so much to learn
Btw, it's somewhat comforting that you say "it is a particulary tough start position".. eheh i mean, ok it's me the problem ok, but the start didn't help. So it would be better for me, trying something easier for now..
Btw, thx for giving a shot

No worries, I always learn something from playing a map that others are trying.

Also, I think the patch has made Pyramids much more difficult to get, and glory7 might disagree, but this strategy is 100% reliant on pillage-stealing and trading partners. Pillage stealing is the most important. It keeps your economy alive and your attack momentum going. It can easily generate 50-100 gpt. Without the pyramids, pillage-stealing is much less effective. (Although still possible...)

Without the pyramids, and with no trading partners, I believe you're better off building libraries and going for Philosophy right after Construction, and probably, dare I say it, going Tradition.

@Grasp

It seems that the file is pre-patch so not sure I can play it, but I will give a shot.

From the screenshot, I would say:

1. 4th city should have not been built. You run big negative happiness... slow/no growth and production reduction from unhappy are critical.

2. For immortal level, science caravan is pretty weak so you can skip trade routes for a while.-> fix: hm I guess I read it wrong - the file was deity, so I guess your problem was that you could not connect it to other civs? I will get back to you after playing this map.

Cromagnus said:

No worries, I always learn something from playing a map that others are trying.

Also, I think the patch has made Pyramids much more difficult to get, and glory7 might disagree, but this strategy is 100% reliant on pillage-stealing and trading partners. Pillage stealing is the most important. It keeps your economy alive and your attack momentum going. It can easily generate 50-100 gpt. Without the pyramids, pillage-stealing is much less effective. (Although still possible...)

Without the pyramids, and with no trading partners, I believe you're better off building libraries and going for Philosophy right after Construction, and probably, dare I say it, going Tradition.

Click to expand...

going tradition 2-4 cities fast artillery is the most effective strategy in many cases, imo. Liberty is a good choice 1. if you don't have good city spots, 2. You get hostile neighbors and have to war anyway.

And I am not sure that it's 100% reliant, I agree that it is an important factor. Without it, real gpt would be lower and units heal slower and you advance slower so you face more resistance. I will try this map now and see what happens.

Grasp said:

Hi, i decided to give it a try but... it's not going very well, i tryed 3 or 4 times on the same map, becouse i hate the idea that a map is impossibile.. It's just me, i'm probably not good enough for this map.. Btw, can you show me guys how to do this start on this map?

I also took a screenshot of a typical situation during my last try..
Monty is simply too fast expanding and he's not used to work his tiles..
So, what am i supposed to pillage? T_T
Defending is also impossible for me.. Ok, at turn 70 or so is still possible, my archers are level 3, but i'm totally stucked.. I only have ONE trade route.. 1 gold.. is it really worth? 1 gold trade route, maybe it's better not to waste 10 turns building a caravan..
I can't commerce becouse i can't leave the island to meet other civs..

Spoiler :

Click to expand...

I played till about ~t90. It seems that you changed to setting so that the map does not have usual # of CS - my scouting went bad but I am pretty sure that I should find more than 3 CS. This lack of CS changes the game a lot, as 1. you cannot do CS quests, 2. You don't get CS meeting money which is non-negligible at the beginning.

To start, your scout should have passed Aztec before he blocks you. East is the only available scouting path (well, your initial warrior can tell you that other directions are toward ocean) and it's not 1-tile path.

And your terrain is not realy good, as you have lots of wines and 2 marbles around but no more unique lux, except whale at the bottom. It means that
1. You really need to meet lots of civs fast to sell/exchange lux
2. going early shrine is worth it, as you can aim for goddess of festivals or quarry +2 faith
3. your gpt won't be a serious problem (as your lux are calendar ones) but hammer will be. If you get mining lux, usually you don't have hammer problem.

I did not steal worker from Aztec to show that you can do this strategy without it. I took first CS worker around t30 and second one a lot later.

My start was as usual: scout - monument - archer - worker - shrine - archer - archer/settler - ikanda - archers/1 spear. I settled only 3 cities as there are not that many unique lux.

I delayed construction so that I could get enough archers. Selling wines gave me lots of gold so upgrade gold was not an issue. I decided to DoW when I got 6-7 CBs (t68). Aztec sent 2 caravans a few turns ago and it certainly helps a lot for science, but I should start stacking XPs and reduce his units.




Due to supply problem, I had to keep one city. I DoFed with bab and egypt. As Egpyt was the tech leader, I gave one city to him and rush bought 2 caravans (yes, lots of gold but my production is not great). Each caravan provides 5 spt! I can rush NC 4 turns later with liberty GE. My units are just standing at the border and stacking XPs - you can lure his units out by using workers.



Once Aztec units are not coming, you can move in and take his cities. I would sell/give crappy cities to manage gpt and happiness. If needed, don't make peace and use one or two of his cities as training grounds. By the time you get impis and Xbows (around t115-125), at least 5-6 CBs will have range/logistics upgrades and all you need to do is steamroll.

I don't know how you expect to get a pantheon building a shrine that late. Someone will almost assuredly enhance first, and post-patch that's a killer. I find that even going scout-monument-shrine I fail to get a pantheon more than half the time.

How cant u guys figure that the MAIN reason why Grasp stuggled so hard is cause he didnt work/plant the luxaries available ...

all the other problems are just a follow up...

tommynt said:

he didnt work/plant the luxaries

Click to expand...

Follow-up question here: of course, you want to improve luxes, but do you mean work luxes (like wine) as in put a citizen there, over a better food/hammer tile? I usually get the most food available (like irrigated plains, so here, it'd be +1 food at the cost of 3 plantation gold), then hammers. So that left me to wonder whether it's a mistake and I should go for more lux tiles as a habit, even at 1-1-3 like wine and ivory for instance.