[R&F] Civ of the Week: Zulu

[Victoria]

. Killing blow seems to give 1 extra XP

So impi and swordsman taking a city with no Ikanda built to validate just the XP the zulu gets

My swordsmen takes it and gets 10 XP (as expected)

My Impi takes it and gets 13 XP... conclusion ... the Impi gets 25-30% additional XP....(it could be 25% because all XP results are rounded up... I doubt they would have given 21-24%)

Edit, just checked in UnitAbilities.xml and it is 25%

The extra 25% may not seem like a lot but when melded with a Barracks pushes you to 8XP (max per combat) pretty fast. The only thing that exceeds this is taking a city where it is possible to get over 50XP in an extreme situation.

 

[Disgustipated]

Thanks for running that test. I didn't have time to run tests under different conditions like taking cities which give more xp it seems. A percentage makes the most sense and would be applicable on different game speeds. Or does different game speeds give the same xp but have a higher threshold for gaining levels? I never looked into it. I just know it's hard to get level 6 and 7 units on marathon according to other players. I never play that game speed myself.

So I feel it's worth it to use Impi as the majority of your army as I did in my game above. It's slow in my experience, but quite powerful.

 

[Victoria]

does different game speeds give the same xp but have a higher threshold for gaining levels?

XP level change as per standard game speed escalations ... rounded down

Marathon 300% - First promotion 45XP
Epic 150% - First promotion 22XP
Standard 100% - First promotion 15XP
Quick 67% - First promotion 10 XP
Online 50% - Thurst promotion 7 XP

but quite powerful.

Instant corps knights are also powerful... and you really do not need a lot and have an anti range promotion.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

The extra 25% may not seem like a lot but when melded with a Barracks pushes you to 8XP (max per combat) pretty fast. The only thing that exceeds this is taking a city where it is possible to get over 50XP in an extreme situation.

Suzerianship of Kabul regularly exceeds the +8XP threshold. I believe if you retire a great general with a +XP% bonus, that exceeds it as well.

Odds are good the knight in my image was stable trained, but he could well be standard as I have lost track of the 2 that were not stable trained.

Spoiler :

 

[Victoria]

Suzerianship of Kabul regularly exceeds the +8XP threshold. I believe if you retire a great general with a +XP% bonus, that exceeds it as well.

??? are you saying that in non-city combat you can get more than 8 XP from a single combat when using Kabul or a GG?
Seems to go against tests I did a couple of months ago.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

??? are you saying that in non-city combat you can get more than 8 XP from a single combat when using Kabul or a GG?
Seems to go against tests I did a couple of months ago.

Yes. But the great general must have been retired on the unit in question.

 

[Disgustipated]

XP level change as per standard game speed escalations ... rounded down

Marathon 300% - First promotion 45XP
Epic 150% - First promotion 22XP
Standard 100% - First promotion 15XP
Quick 67% - First promotion 10 XP
Online 50% - Thurst promotion 7 XP

Good to know. Thanks. I learned a lot about XP gains in this thread.

As for knights, I am surprised everyone else seems to get iron so easily. I almost never get it. At least not until I capture several cities. I sometimes think the AI knows where Iron is before its revealed. It's not something I count on. And honestly, I would never use knights with Zulu regardless because it doesn't seem "in character". The game is more than just numbers to me. Using knights with the zulu seems silly to me. I will be using Impi regardless with crossbowmen as backup range support (though my game above I almost never used them either). Not that I intend on playing them again any time soon. It's possible I may never play them again.