[R&F] Civ of the Week: Zulu

acluewithout

Deity
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Dec 1, 2017
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  • Leader (1) Shaka and (2) Shakira.
  • Leader Ability (Shaka): Amabutho. May form Corps with Mercenaries (instead of Nationalism) and Armies with Nationalism (instead of Mobilization). Corps and Armies receive +5 Combat Strength.
  • Leader Ability (Shakira): Whenever, Whenever. All units ignore mountains, which are treated as small and humble. Also gains +2 Diplomatic Visibility, because she knows Hips Don't Lie.

  • Civ Ability: Isibongo. Units capturing a City upgrade to Corps or Armies (or Fleets and Armadas if Naval) once the relevant civics are unlocked. Garrisoned units provide +3 Loyalty, and +5 Loyalty if they are a Corps or Army.

  • Unique Unit (Civ): Impi. Unique Anti-Cav, replacing the Pikeman (unlocks at Military Tactics, everyone's favourite Tech). Melee Strength 41, Movement 2, Cost 124 (vs 200 for Pikes), Maintenance 1 (vs 3 for Pike). Also gets improved flanking and earns experience faster. [Does anyone know what the precise amounts for these are?]

  • Unique Infrastructure: Ikanda. Unique District, which replaces the Encampment. Lower Cost (27 v 54), +1 Great General Point, +1 Housing, you can build Corps and Armies right away, and also gets all the other Encampment Stuff.
  • Leader Agenda (Shaka): Horn, Chest, Loins. Sorry, my mistake. This is another Shakira song reference. Now, let's see, the actual Agenda for Shaka is called... hmm ... let me look at that again. ... Right. ... Riiiiight.... I see. Well, yes, I guess Robert is my Mother's Brother, and my Sister's first child was a Chimpanzee. ... Forms Corps and Armies as soon as possible, and likes people that do the same. Dislikes Civs with few Corps or Armies.

  • Leader Agenda (Shakira): She Wolf. Tries to take over Spanish and English speaking world through sheer of personality, and is totally going to capture all your Broadcast Towers.
Notes:
 
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From your link

Zulu's get free fleets and armadas and earlier

Did this change? I haven't played recently but I could have sworn that when the Zulu capture a city with a melee ship it can get upgraded for free but you don't get fleets/armadas faster than anyone else. Fleets/armadas are unlocked with nationalism/mobilization whereas regiments/armies are unlocked with mercenaries/nationalism.
 
Yeah I played the Zulus recently. They do NOT get early fleets and armadas
 
As I'm sure most people have guessed, I get most of my details from the wiki (plus what I've read here). Pretty sure they get Corps and Armies earlier and wiki agrees with me. I didn't know about Fleets or Armadas until @Victoria mentioned it, and I'm happy to trust her.
 
Well just try it then because in this case Victoria and Wiki are not correct

Truth is still verifiable, I trust even in the times we live
 
Heh heh. Well, while I'm a big fan of truth, I sometimes have to make do with its half witted second cousins "expedience" and "guesswork", particularly when I don't have a PC at hand. Happy for more knowledgeable people to confirm.
 
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No they don't get fleets faster. They don't hate Spain that much.

Anyhow, Zulu are pretty generic until they get Mercenaries, as they get no early bonuses besides the increased loyalty for garrisons but that's more of a stopgap. The early Ikanda is okay but it's not that special since Great Generals take a while to come up but it does have great synergy when they finally get corps. And Impis are alright; have synergy with GGs when no resources

Focusing culture and getting horse/swordsman corps can keep you ahead even if their tech is superior so there's that.

Early-late game, they're at the strongest with super armies and being able to upgrade to corps/armies upon captures but they fall behind the likes of Aztecs/Mongols so better get that stuff done.

The corps mechanics are pretty fun, but I'd put them as low/low-mid tier, maybe.Certainly much above the weaker civs but nowhere near the solid ones and there's a lot.
 
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Certainly much above the weaker civs but nowhere near the solid ones and there's a lot.

I'm finding them quite powerful. Nothing has come even close to stopping me in my game. I played a little bit, and I took out 2 civs already, though about to go after a more powerful one. The cheap Impi are quite nice as well. Yeah the promotion line sucks, which is what really limits them along with the limited movement of a 2 move uu (compared to say Macedon or Mongols).

I haven't tired the Naval thing yet, I will try it when I get a chance. For the moment, I have no reason to build naval units. I'm trying to play in character so to speak, and not using things like horsemen. It's Impis all the way, well now pike and shot. It's anti-cav units or bust.

Here's my start. Okay so I did make a noob move and forgot that plains hill didn't have fresh water, still it seems like the better choice in the long run. I have no complaints, just took a while to get it a decent size city. I built plenty of farms to help out. In the long run, that plains hill is better, and less crappy sea squares. It's not like I was building naval units anyways.

P.S. the Music alone makes this a top notch civ. Perhaps the music is too happy for a warlike civ, but I find annihilating my enemies even more fun with happy music.


Spoiler :


ha, Zulu fleets, who would have thunk it. You learn something new every day. Zulu fleet promotions upon conquest are indeed available after Nationalism.

Before Nationalism:
Spoiler :


After Nationalism:
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I suppose Zulu are in fact a Naval power. Unlikely I would ever use them as such. Nationalism does come fairly late after all. And as I found out today, a single caravel attacking a city isn't very effective for taking down city health. I had to get a field cannon up there to get health down enough (my pike and shot corps were too strong and would have taken the city outright which I didn't want to do for this test).
 

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So what are you saying? That you could make a fleet with caravels when you got mercantilism?

I tried with gallies and that did not work.
 
Everyone gets fleets with Nationalism.
 
But you don't get a fleet when you conquer a city with a caravel, only the Zulu do.
 
I can remember when I first moved up to Immortal difficulty I used to always get defeated in the medieval era when 6+ Knights came at me. They'd rush into my lands with their 4 movement and 48 strength, flanking my soldiers quickly. Used to playing on Emperor difficulty, i'd have 5 or 6 Crossbowmen to hold off attacks. But Knights have lots of movement and 2 of them can kill a Crossbowman in a turn.

I'd have no problem holding off Swordsmen and Crossbowmen since they couldn't flank me as easily as Knights due to having only 2 movement, plus they don't have 48 Strength. Even though Horsemen had the movement of Knights, Crossbowmen are too strong for them, plus 2 of them can't kill a Crossbowman in 1 turn.

When I found out the Zulu's UU was the Impi I was delighted. They only cost 1 GPT per unit compared to 3 GPT for a Pikeman, so you can build plenty without worrying much about the maintenance cost. I feel comfortable playing on Immortal difficulty when playing as the Zulu's.
 
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That would seem to be a bug since it says corps and army.

Most likely a bug, but verified in my post in post #10.

and Zulu armadas. If only England were in the game...

and of course you get Armadas when conquering a city with a caravel/ironclad after Mobilization.
Spoiler :


I included the save. Conquer the city with the caravel. Surely this wasn't intended behavior. A free caravel is pretty strong, they aren't exactly cheap units.
 

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Nice work Disgustipated. When I played the zulus I must not have tried to capture a city with a meleship. Will try it this time around
But yeah, it does make the Zulus a bit of a naval power then
 
No they don't get fleets faster. They don't hate Spain that much.

Anyhow, Zulu are pretty generic until they get Mercenaries, as they get no early bonuses besides the increased loyalty for garrisons but that's more of a stopgap. The early Ikanda is okay but it's not that special since Great Generals take a while to come up but it does have great synergy when they finally get corps. And Impis are alright; have synergy with GGs when no resources

Focusing culture and getting horse/swordsman corps can keep you ahead even if their tech is superior so there's that.

Early-late game, they're at the strongest with super armies and being able to upgrade to corps/armies upon captures but they fall behind the likes of Aztecs/Mongols so better get that stuff done.

The corps mechanics are pretty fun, but I'd put them as low/low-mid tier, maybe.Certainly much above the weaker civs but nowhere near the solid ones and there's a lot.

Most likely a bug, but verified in my post in post #10.

and Zulu armadas. If only England were in the game...

and of course you get Armadas when conquering a city with a caravel/ironclad after Mobilization.
Spoiler :


I included the save. Conquer the city with the caravel. Surely this wasn't intended behavior. A free caravel is pretty strong, they aren't exactly cheap units.

Thanks for confirming. I’ll clarify when I (belatedly) do the write up.

I haven’t played Zulu. The mechanics around corps and armies seem clever - particular the loyalty bump. I’d only recently got my head around how strong corps and armies are - it really can level the playing field if your behind in science and ahead in culture. Having a Civ that uses that Mechanic more generally is very cool.

Indeed, Corps seem very powerful for Zulu, seeing as you get the at Mercanaries, i.e. the same card which gives Professional Army and makes Knight Rushes possible. Sheesh. Spain’s Armada ability is very poor in comparison (man, Spain would be so more dangerous if there was a way they could faith buy naval units).

My one grump about Zulu is that it’s yet another Civ that’s a little hamstrung by the relative weakness of Anti-Cav. Seriously, FXS need to really look at these units (cost, promotions, bonuses generally). If Anti-Cav could be made better it would really make a lot of Civs more fun - Greece and Zulu are obvious ones, but also anyone with a Military Tactics unique unit (Norway, Japan, Georgia), and any Civs that are Bee-lining the top two lines of the tech tree (Poland, Germany).
 
Well, been playing this Emperor game for a few days. This start isn't bad but it also has some issues....



Luckily there's a natural wonder nearby which helped a bit, but I really regretted rushing an ikanda which means I built that and a campus, and a theater square. As a result I went broke and probably should have built a commercial hub. It got so bad I could only upgrade 2 swordsmen so that took a while. Also probably should have targeted Scotland first. Fortunately, I remember sending a trade route also will improve visibility from my Gengish playthrough so that was useful.

As a result my army was very small the whole game.... leading to the situation where you have too many generals and not enough soldiers (corps didn't help the matter, but hey these swordsmen can beat the crap out of Samurai.

Spoiler :


That era score tho
Spoiler :


War for a National Park, since I can't get through any other way
Spoiler :


Also thanks to Kandy, a funny note to end the game on.



Norway and Germany were the only capitals I didn't take but since Norway's on its own landmass I was like whatever and just won the cultural victory
 

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Zulu are interesting in terms of balance.

They get earlier Corps & Armies. Okay, that’s fine. We’ve seen that for Spain (more or less). It applies to all land units. Uhh huh. Got it.

You get free upgrades to Corps or Armies when you capture a city. Okay, that’s spicy. So, a unit captures a city, and basically gets +10 or +17 attack for free. Crikey. I mean, it’s not like you’re getting free melee units when you capture a city, which is apparently just way way too powerful to let any Civ have even though they’d had that ability for about two years since release... but, okay. Sure. Free Knight Corps and Armies, what could go wrong?

You can also build Corps and Armies with just Encampments, and the Encampments are half price. Uh, say what now? Exactly how easy do we need to make it for you to buy Corps or Armies.

Your Corps and Armies a better than other’s, by giving additional loyalty. Really? Is this Civ really built for Players, or for the AI?

I mean, I guess they don’t get many other abilities, so maybe it works itself out. But sheesh.
 
I played Zulu once and I ended up snowballing that game. It's hard to say whether that is due to the Zulu being THAT strong or the game mechanics, which favour aggressive warmonger in general. (I've had similar situations in which I was forced into early wars as Georgia and Mapuche, and snowballed in those games as well)
 
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