Got my first win over a Zulu player today!

[Legatus]

I think of myself as a decent player - not as good as most forum member, but good enough to put up a fight and handle most of the ranked masses - but Zulu players have been a major struggle for me, even though I know the strategy.

Anyways, England is pulled up, I take them. OblivionCats is the lobby. I've heard of that name before, but don't remember why. When the game starts, I remember: Zulu.

I move my settler (start in southern end), see that he has settled in place. I don't want to move for long, so I settle on turn 2 next to a barb with 4 forest, 2 grass, 1 water. After beating the barb, I make a warrior army so I can at least fight back against an Impi, and not have to heal against other barbs.

Move NW and find Delhi. He was a warrior out and retreats. I attack the cap and win (3400BC). More good news: Delhi has dye.

I research Bronze working. I them work gold and find a few more barbs and get 100g. I put my first WA and the 100g settler on galley and head off. I also produce an archer and another WA and head east. By this point he has taken Berlin and Beijing, and found the 7 cities of gold.

Settle the 100g settler on 8-tile island with 2 dye and fish. Proceed to research Iron working while growing London.

Find a named tile of his to the east, and eventually located all his caps. Discover that he has archer armies up everywhere. Did not see a built city anywhere. I do get the cannon from the KT.

Go to Code of laws, expand a little bit (produce 30 trade per turn), move a settler fairly close to his cap. Hammer bank while I research Feudalism. Get it around 300 AD (I think). I think he has a 15 to 9 tech lead at this point.

Research religion, build a road, and attack with the 2 warrior armies, 1 vet legion army, 1 vet archer army (defense), the cannon, and 3 vet knight armies. When it was all said and done I think he built at least 2 pike armies (maybe 3) and an archer army, with a galleon for support. Weakened the inital defense with the warriors and legions, and the knights mopped up archers/pikes, while the cannon blew away the Great scientist he settled .

After that he quit.

I never was attacked.

[MultiPlayaBeast]

Excellent job vs that Zulu player man... any other Zulu player with some great skill could have been beaten with you playing like that. Great game and nice strat for the dude.

[ScottieX]

Well done Legatus, sounds like you are playing well.

Usually I'd try to get away with not forming my warrior army if I can this is because I'd want to el-breacher the ai cap or get a vet upgrade or even cover various different directions. Of course I also don't want to wander into his army with a single warrior either...

zulu with 7cog would have just about any player hanging their heads a bit, with 2 fast ai caps, thats scary GOTW style expansion because impi can scout out a really good space... but an island with 2 dye and fish is pretty good... From there it sounds like you picked a good strategy and executed it. So nice

[Legatus]

Thanks.

Obviously, getting an AI cap plus 3 barbs helped a ton.

It's obvious I was left alone partly because he just wandered in the direction of the AI. I can only suppose he also didn't bother me because he figured his impis would have been useless against the longbow archers. I never did see him even scout me (I do think I was Adar'd some).

I just wonder if he had an actual strategy to win, other than turtle his way to econ or tech, or figure that I would quit probably 80% of his opposition would have done.

Yes, it was very nice winning that type of game, especially since my earlier FFA game where I was killing everyone froze on me (and apparently unfroze when I left).

FWIW, after when I was running on the treadmill after I typed this, I do remember another game against a Zulu player where I was the Aztecs and he quit after losing an early clash. But this is the first drawn out affair with a good Zulu start that I survived.

BTW, Multi, my gamertag is Etherlicous; you beat me in that FFA game a few weeks ago (Germany v. Arabs).

[MultiPlayaBeast]

Lol, yeah rarely see you in FFA's... will have to see you again... I will add you and perhaps you can beat my Arabs in a game or that might be to much for ya.

[Legatus]

I only play Civ about once a week, and have only just started playing FFA again, so yeah, people won't see me much.

I'd probably have to take the Aztecs against you in an Arab H2H match. Something tells me not to take the Zulu, and I don't want to resort to China or USA (who I always screw up anyways). And since I'm willing to bet you are the better player, a non-power civ would likely go very bad for me.

[danthechan]

he was probably intimidated by your uber powerful archers, and thinking tankage. it amazes me that more people haven't learned the power of attacking with multiple armies (especially in fundy). good job! i've beaten and lost to that guy a few times.

[Zefelius]

Hard for me to believe it Legatus... not that you won, but that this is your 1st win against Zulu. You're a good player! There's no way you've been losing to all the Zulu players over the last few years. I refuse to believe it!!

Good job in any case...

[Legatus]

Zef - yeah, you would think. I may have won some FFA games that involved one.

But where I don't get to play online all that often, I really don't run into that many. And a lot of the times, it has been the Zulu player who's in the top 20. Yeah, I know getting the Zulu there is not a big accomplishment, but they are certainly more dangerous than the noob who can only do the 3300BC impi assault.

[Zefelius]

Zef - yeah, you would think. I may have won some FFA games that involved one.

But where I don't get to play online all that often, I really don't run into that many. And a lot of the times, it has been the Zulu player who's in the top 20. Yeah, I know getting the Zulu there is not a big accomplishment, but they are certainly more dangerous than the noob who can only do the 3300BC impi assault.

I think I remember you saying elsewhere that you only play about once a week... so I agree that makes it more difficult. Oblivion is pretty good, at least that's what I remember from when I played more last year. So if you can start beating Zulu like him, I think that puts you in pretty good shape to keep beating more Zulu players, including the top 20 ones.