[BTS] Where to place my city?

[TheKidBoy]

Hi,

I've started new game, playing as Zulu, Warlord, Fractal, Standard, Medium sea level.

I am an inexperienced player and I wanted to play aggressive game thus after research I chose Zulu.

What are your tips and recommendations for playing aggressive as Zulu?

And, this is my starting position. What do you recommend to do? Where should I place my city?

Thank you.

 

[elmurcis]

This is far from true that playing leader with aggresive trait, game will be more aggresive. Player decide what type of game it will be. World around impacts this but not trait by itself (although AGG trait gives early options for specific units promotions like Shock or Cover that might increase early attack effiency. And war in general has to be high effiency stuff as its pretty much military investment that has to make some "profit" (new cities, land, solving potential issues with certain oponent in future etc.) not just be cool stuff.
Gold makes start kind of.. "I want that shiny stuff... " but... there are 2 Cows (nice tiles but not amazing when it comes to pure food), Zulu starts with Hunting AND Agriculture (knowing both gives discount for Animal Husbandry) and Shaka is Expansive that gives +25% boost for worker production (hammers only). With any other non-EXP leader I might go 1W to settle on plain hill but with this it would be okay to settle in place and work that Plan Hill (3 H ) that would give a bit faster worker. So build order - Worker, Warrior (switch to working 3F Cow tile and growing to size 2) ->settler and need to see area around Gold (with fingers crossed about some more food there but 2nd city 3 tiles to North would be okay anyway. After Animal Husbandry tech order propably Mining->Bronze Working as there are many forests so can use some chops. That is my 1st view and hope that some better players will make bigger plan

 

[Olafeson]

First of all you need to move your scout to explore the river to the north a bit. Second of all welcome to the forum @TheKidBoy .

My recomendation would be 2N of your starting location. Directly north of the lake. Grabs double gold, double cow and gets more river tiles. Loses 1 turn but makes capital a lot stronger.

Marble can come later with 2nd or 3th city. Just from the starting screenshot it is hard to tell, which agressive strategy should or could be used. I recommend you play small turnsets (like 5-10 turns), give us an update here on the forum. Share your thoughts and wait for advice.

I would recomend warfare with catapults together with axeman/swordsman on warlord difficulty. Maybe with trebuchets and maceman and pikeman too.
If you have elephants, then use elephants, they are by far the strongest early game unit with their 8 srength, together with the praeroritans of rome.

 

[Fippy]

2N would be the best Cap for "normal" diffs as Olafeson wrote.
However, and being totally honest, on warlord you can rush very well with warriors.

You could certainly settle 1w for an extra hammer in your city (forever), and work a plains hill for 5h total, giving you a new warrior each 3 turns.
On warlord, AI cities might not be defended at all early.
Or with only 1 warrior, so if you arrive with let's say 3+ you should have nps grabbing an early capital from them.

 

[Olafeson]

Or with only 1 warrior, so if you arrive with let's say 3+ you should have nps grabbing an early capital from them.

You can really take capital with omly 3 warriors? A.I. surely is a whimp on low difficulty.

 

[Major Tom]

What are your tips and recommendations for playing aggressive as Zulu?

Those 2 moving Impis born with mobility promo are great fun. You have to leverage those. Just watch out for enemy's axes. That is after the warriors rush Fippy mentioned.
Also, Ikhandas acts as minicourthouses so steamroll as much you can from the very beginning.

 

[TheKidBoy]

Update:

Turn 26: I have taken the enemy's capital. And now I have two cities: Ulundi and Kyoto.

What should I do now? Build new city? Where should I place it? And what improvements should I make?

There are two nations more: Chinese and Spain. Should I attack them also?

 

[Major Tom]

Well done with the warrior rush, you have played like a pro, turn 26 and two enemies down. I would build some workers and start improving the cities. They can be connected by rivers (sailing tech) so they can share resources and also get some commerce. Bronze is coming up soon, you better hook it up. Then run 2 moving impis, steal more workers, capture or raze rest. Think you will have a great conquest date.

Bronze work give access to slavery. Use it though. Cities regrow fast.

 

[lymond]

@TheKidBoy

With Imgur, you can simply click on the image to bring up the various text fields. Copy the text in the BBCode field and paste it directly into your post, ideally in Spoiler tags. Zoom in a little bit more with your pics too.

Also, posting a save will allow us to see your game better.

Kyoto should probably build a worker too unless you capture one, but even then it would still might be best. You can chop out the new worker there. One worker can connect cities by road after improving a couple of specials up there.

 

[TheKidBoy]

@TheKidBoy

Here is my capital right now

Spoiler Ulundi :

And to the north of it is my new captured city:

Spoiler Kyoto :

And to the east and west respectively:

Spoiler East and West :

And I think that Spain and China are to the north of the continent.

Also, I attached the save.

 

[TheKidBoy]

I have a question: How to determine how many farm or cottages should I build in a city?

 

[lymond]

Kyoto is nice - your future capital. (build Palace there later)

Yep...worker now in Kyoto since you did not capture one.

You know, I'm inclined to put 2 more turns in Ulundi worker, then 1 turn something else (warrior, Ikhanda), switch to slavery next turn and 1 pop whip worker into a new worker. Shaka is expansive and getting a fast 2nd worker there will pay off.

You don't need a warrior in Ulundi right now...send him East a bit to scout and spawnbust.

When Ulundi worker finishes (and since Warlord you get TW for free), step one tile toward grass cow > 1t of road > cancel worker action> move to improve cows. (little trick with worker management)

Next city probably 1SE of wheat just N looks good.

Although not optimal in a general sense, I'm might go direct to Sailing after BW. Reason is that you can connect to Kyoto with just 1 road place 1N of Ulundi due to river connection without building a long road to do that. FISH gives bonus on POT anyway, which would be your next tech after that.

"No tech trading or vassals" is not settings I would recommend, but since this is warlords it doesn't matter since AI sucks anyway. But no vassals will slow down a conquest/dom win should you choose.

Huts on are also very misleading for when you are learning.

 

[Olafeson]

I have a question: How to determine how many farm or cottages should I build in a city?

It always is absed on the circumstances. I personally look to get in every city i want to grow a food suprlus of around +3/turn to +5food/turn. If possible (assuming you have pigs or dry corn/rice/wheat or other good food tiles, it would be even better to get around +6/turn to +7 or 8/turn. More food is often time just too much since you will grow to unhappy cap and unhealty cap to quick. Especially when you have a granary. Just make sure you also use the food to get some commerce(via cottages) or hammers (via slavery or hammers)

Then there are some cities that you can grow to size 2 to 4 and let them work for example a copper mine and a hill mine, just produce warriors or settlers/workers from there. Maybe later spies or missionaries.

 

[lymond]

I have a question: How to determine how many farm or cottages should I build in a city?

Ha..it's a loaded question

Honestly, you don't really have to concern yourself much with this at the moment. Kyoto will be your Bureau capital so it will get mainly cottages for that. Ulundi is food poor so will likely be farmed ..no cottages at all..and become a production type city.

So the answer is ..it's situational. Not every city gets cottages..they are important but mainly for a city with riverside grass tiles or floodplains. You will get a feel for this the more you play and learn.

Right now the important thing is expansion, so you will be building workers and settlers and spawnbusters for now.

So you will improve specials and then chop forests for now.

 

[lymond]

Oh..with gems you will want border pop in Kyoto sooner than later, so actually go Myst after BW and chop a Monument in Kyoto. Gems are just too good early.

 

[TheKidBoy]

Hi

First of all thanks to everyone helping me.
I reached turn 67. I created a 3rd city "Mngungundlovu".
I also searched Writing, Iron Working, Sailing and Mysticism. Currently I am aiming at Calendar.
I built 2 wonders: Stonehenge and Great Wall.
I connected gems, cows, marble, corn and wheat.
I adopted Slavery.
I have 3 workers and producing the 4th in Ulundi.
Here are the details for each city:

Spoiler Ulundi :

I built 2 plantations and 3 mines.

Spoiler Mngungundlovu :

I built here 3 farms

Spoiler Kyoto :

I built here 3 mines, a farm and a cottage.

And now I have already produced a settler in Kyoto. Where do you recommend I establish my 4th city?

Spoiler Map :

And what do you suggest doing next?

 

[TheKidBoy]

I am thinking of placing my city near the stone resource to claim it before my rivals...

 

[Gumbolt]

Your use of workers is pretty poor.
Do not irrigate plains tiles.
Do not build road for the sake of it early on.
You don't need a road south of Kyoto.

Do chop forest! That forest near Kyoto is covering up juicy grassland. I would cancel all your current worker actions. None are needed.

You need more cities by 1320bc. 3 is quite low. Albeit you did a warrior rush.

City wise. 1N of the rice. Will eventually grab the cows and you can cottage the flood plains.

If you want Kyoto as your capital you want cities north and south of it for cottages. A city on jungle between horse and cows looks good.

Followed by 3n1E of Kyoto to help with cottages.
To make these cities work you really need to start chopping forest. Why are so many new player against chopping?

If you want to wipe out Spain tech HBR and take out Madrid. On these lower levels you can take out most of map with HA.

Time to whip that library and run 2 scientists.

Warrior rushes on these levels is why you maybe should level up once your comfortable with game mechanics.

 

[TheKidBoy]

.

Well, I am now at turn +150. Although I aimed for an aggressive game, I have not yet made an army worthy of such aim. Things are very complicated now. China have placed a city near me. And I have many cities to manager. I will post screenshots and save-game later.

 

[Gumbolt]

By T150 I would of expected most of the empty land to be filled. If you want to win at higher levels you need to learn to manage empires of 10+ cities. Staying at 4-5 cities won't win you games.

This is warlord level. The cards are heavily stacked in your favour. For instance on Monarch+ level a warrior rush would not be really possible. Plus the Ai would expand much quickly. Come immortal level the Ai starts with a worker, more techs and units.Their second city can arrive before 3000bc.

From the point you left this game it should not of been hard at 1320bc to start pumping out units. You were not that far from construction or HBR. You had so much forest too. What went wrong here?