How to counter The Zulu and Mongols

[human101101]

I was playing on Emporer difficulty and going for a domination victory. I was playing Gilgamesh and thought I was doing well until I was attacked by the Mongols on one side and the Zulu on the other. They kept producing army and corps one after another and even after defeating a bunch of them, they kept coming until I was overwhelmed. How does one counter these types of civs? How did the Zulu get advanced tech so quickly? When I was still at artillery they had tanks. I cannot figure how the got such advanced tech while producing more units.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I would assume that the Zulu had a lot of Ikandas because Ikandas give +1 Science for every Building built in them.

 

[human101101]

I was reading on Ikandas and I didn’t see anything about +1 science per building. Are you sure it is Ikandas? They do have +1 housing.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Maybe you have different sources than I do? Because my sources say otherwise.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Ikanda_(Civ6)
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/april-2021-update-patch-notes-discussion.669526/

 

[Archon_Wing]

Take them out in the early game. Zulu don't have anything early game besides Ikhandas and Mongolia needs to send you a trade route to get their combat bonus.

As Sumeria you should be building war carts from the start.

 

[Socrates99]

Defensively, I'd use the main melee line and archers against the Zulu and anticav and archers v Mongols. I'd avoid much cavalry v either because Shaka's going to roll with impis and Genghis can steal your cavalry. Find ways to set up kill zones with encampments or city centers adding a shot. Remember the infantry isn't your weapon, they're your shield. Don't use them in a way where they'll get massacred since both opponents are strong and mobile. The ranged strikes are necessary to whittle their troops down since both are going to field stronger units than Sumeria can once warcarts have lost their edge.

Once you deplete their armies march in and threaten a city until they sue for peace or just go full dom.

 

[Heyesey]

If I'm playing on Emperor as ANYBODY and the Mongols are next door, I'm dead. How did you manage to even fend them off short-term?

 

[jasper]

How can anyone answer you? No one knows the details of your game. How can anyone tell you how the zulu got so much tech?

All the ways in which you could have defended from those two civ joint attacking are in the 50 to 100 turns prior. Maybe you pissed someone or both of them off. Maybe you just needed to play more efficently. Who knows...

 

[Bibor]

On emperor, the difficulty I play on, early wars with Gilgamesh should be a breeze. Just start your first city on a 2-2 tile and work a 2-2 tile. Start immediately with a war cart and don't stop until you get both the Zulu and Mongols out, taking one front at a time. City walls should be plenty enough to defend you against at least one opponent, except if the AI somehow manages to park two catapults at your front door without you noticing, which should be really hard to do.

 

[Vargas1]

It's tough to say without knowing what your game status is like (number of cities, districts, etc.). It sounds like you're fairly late game, if you're talking tanks and armies. If you're getting out-scienced by the Zulu at that point of the game, especially as Gilgamesh, it seems highly likely you don't have enough cities and/or haven't built up enough in those cities. With Gilga you should expand early and often (through settling and conquering), and then fill your riversides with ziggurats to keep your science nice and high.

As a general matter, when you're next to Zulu your best bet is likely either early warfare to weaken/take them out, or turtling in the midgame to weather their early and powerful corps/armies. The Zulu have a major power spike in the late medieval/early renaissance period, that will last until you can catch up an era or two later. But other than building lots of ikandas, their early game doesn't have any real bonuses. Contrast that with Gilga, who is one of the (if not the) strongest early game civs, and the takeaway is you probably should never have waited until the late game to deal with them.

 

[DrCron]

Apart from what others have already said, a generally good tip is to not got for war on two fronts at once. On the contrary, try to bribe other AIs to attack the one you are attacking whenever possible, to divide their attention.

But yeah, if your science is behind Shaka's in the late game, on emperor difficulty, you probably made a lot of mistakes in the early-mid game. We would have to take a look at your empire to point out whats wrong with it.