If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

Let them come. Let them break upon our spears. Let them run. Let them flee these lands. Our enemies shall fear us as they have feared none before. But the Zulu Empire's strengths are not only forged upon the battlefield. Intimidation and alliances can grant us greater influence in addition to conquest. For our greatest strength of all is our reputation.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

The Zulus have no start bias.

• Cities with garrisoned units gain +3 loyalty per turn.
  
• Cities with garrisoned corps or armies gain +5 loyalty per turn instead.
  
• Capturing a city with a land unit upgrades it to a corps if you have the medieval-era Mercenaries civic.
  
• Capturing a city with a corps or naval unit upgrades it to an army or fleet respectively if you have the industrial-era Nationalism civic.
  
• Capturing a city with a fleet upgrades it to an armada if you have the modern-era Mobilisation civic.

• Corps and armies have +5 strength and ranged strength.
  
• May form corps at the medieval-era Mercenaries civic, instead of the industrial-era Nationalism civic.
  
• May form armies at the industrial-era Nationalism civic, instead of the modern-era Mobilisation civic.

A medieval-era anti-cavalry unit which replaces the Pikeman

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.


Negative changes

• Costs 195 gold to upgrade, up from 80 (+144%)

Positive changes

• Costs 125 production/500 gold/250 faith, down from 200/800/400 respectively (-37.5%)
  
• Less expensive to upgrade to
  
• Costs 1 gold maintenance per turn, down from 3 (-67%)
  
• Flanking provides +2 strength per other adjacent owned unit, instead of +1.
  
• Gains 25% more experience from combat

An ancient-era speciality district which replaces the Encampment

*All districts increase in production cost over the course of the game. If you have fewer copies of a district in total than the average among all players, it will be 40% cheaper to construct.

**Purchasing districts with gold requires the governor Reyna (the Financier) with the Contractor promotion to be present in the city. It always costs four times as much gold as it does production, before modifiers to purchasing costs are applied.


Positive changes

• -50% production cost
  
• +1 housing
  
• Allows the direct training of corps and armies, assuming you have the corresponding civics to unlock them
  
• Corps and armies cost 25% less production to train
  
  • This does not stack with the 25% cost reduction offered by Military Academies.

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.


Aside from the spoils of war and the +1 housing bonus Ikandas have, the Zulus lack advantages to victory routes other than domination. Thankfully, they're among the best civs in the game at it. Impi are cheap and can counter a unit usually dominant in the medieval era (Knights), but what makes the Zulus really strong is their early, extra-powerful corps. The pre-industrial strength advantage of the Zulus is virtually unmatched.

The bulk of Zulu strengths don't come into play until the medieval era, but there's plenty you can do to prepare. The Bronze Working technology will allow you to train Spearmen ready for upgrading to Impi later, and also unlocks this unique district.

At first, Ikandas offer relatively little - but they're still very much worth building. They offer half the housing of a Granary and are cheaper than them for quite some time. You can build both to allow your cities to grow further, or just neglect Granaries in favour of getting Monuments, Spearmen, Settlers and so forth instead.

More importantly, getting the low-cost Ikandas up and running early will help you on the way to a Great General. Any classical or medieval-era Great General will make Impi stronger and faster; the speed bonus being particularly useful as it makes it easier to use their stronger flanking bonus.

With the Mercenaries and Nationalism civic, you can directly form corps and armies respectively at Ikandas, without the need for a Military Academy. Like Military Academies, Ikandas also make corps and armies cheaper to train than it would be to make the individual units and pair them up. It's recommended you only use this feature to make corps rather than armies. It's just as cost-effective, and you can use the Zulu civ ability to make them into armies for free.

Because the production cost reduction for training corps and armies doesn't stack, Military Academies are much less useful for the Zulus than other civs. As such, you can neglect the bottom part of the technology tree for quite some time in favour of heading to technologies like Metal Casting and Chemistry to upgrade your Impi.


The main advantage of Ikandas is that they make securing a Great General much easier. Their low cost and housing bonus means they can easily fit in to your general early development plans without causing too much disruption.

Impi aren't hugely powerful by themselves, but their low cost and low maintenance makes it easy to overwhelm your enemies with sheer numbers - or you can train Impi corps for a lower cost than other civs have to pay for just one Pikeman. Combined with the other Zulu military advantages, you can take on practically anything in the medieval era and earlier, and even have a good shot against more advanced foes.


Make your way to Bronze Working early on, and you can train Spearmen ready for upgrading to Impi later. Keep in mind that Spearmen are weak to Warriors and Swordsmen alike, so don't depend on them alone for early-game defence; getting a couple of Archers trained isn't a bad idea. You'll also want at least one Battering Ram or Siege Tower to help deal with city defences.

Don't forget to also build plenty of Monuments along the way - the sooner you get the Mercenaries civic, the longer you'll have a huge strength advantage over other civs.


Impi by default are equal in combat stats to Pikemen, except that flanking bonuses are doubled (you gain +2 strength per adjacent owned unit next to your target instead of +1). Among other things, this means:

• Against cities they're 5 points stronger than Swordsmen, but 7 points weaker than Knights.
  
• They have a 3 point advantage when fighting Knights
  
• They have a 5 point disadvantage when fighting Swordsmen

That doesn't sound especially impressive, but there's a three key bonuses you can add to make Impi much, much better.

• Ikandas are cheap and should get you on your way to an early Great General, granting you +5 strength and +1 movement.
  
• The Oligarchy government and its legacy policy card together add +8 strength.
  
• Forming a corps adds +15 strength thanks to Shaka's leader ability, and can be done at a time where no other civ has the ability.

Suddenly, your 41-strength Impi now have 69 strength, and possibly even more if they can make good use of their flanking bonuses. That's enough to get a combat advantage even against Musketmen, and you can kill Knights in one hit!


Samurai would normally be the biggest pre-renaissance threat to Impi, but the Thrust (+10 strength vs. melee infantry) and Schiltron (+10 strength when defending against melee infantry) promotions in conjunction with flanking turns that around. Three promotions gets you to Redeploy, which adds +1 movement to Impi making flanking easier.


With the renaissance-era Metal Casting technology, Impi can be upgraded to Pike and Shot units. This gives a massive +14 strength boost, but comes at a high cost - upgrading Impi to Pike and Shot units is more expensive than upgrading regular Pikemen, having lots of corps and armies will increase the upgrade costs further, and Pike and Shot units cost four times as much in maintenance. As such, while your Impi are out conquering, you may want to emphasise building up a gold infrastructure at home.

Shaka's leader ablity is where the real power of the Zulus lies. Being able to form corps earlier than other civs allows you to exploit a huge 10-point advantage for a couple of eras, and Shaka adds +5 on top giving you even greater dominance of the battlefield.

You can't get anything out of this ability until you reach the Mercenaries civic, and as such you'll want a strong culture output. Settling a few cities early on and building Monuments will really help. Head towards the Political Philosophy civic first - from there, you'll need the following:

• Games and Recreation (Boost: Discover the Construction technology - Construction is on the way to Military Engineering, though it's hard to research it in time for the boost to Games and Recreation. Consider just researching this all the way if need be.)
  
• Defensive Tactics (Boost: Be the target of a declaration of war - Mainly out of your hands; you might have to hard-research this.)
  
• Feudalism (Boost: Have six farms in your territory - A couple of Builders can get the job done.)
  
• Military Tradition (Boost: Destroy a Barbarian Encampment - Barbarians are everywhere. Getting this boost is easy.)
  
• Military Training (Boost: Build an Encampment - Easy thanks to the unique Ikanda district.)
  
• Mercenaries (Boost: Have 8 land military units in your territory. If you've been prebuilding plenty of Spearmen ready for upgrading into Impi, this should be easy.)

In addition to unlocking corps, the Mercenaries civic also offers the Professional Army military policy card, that cuts the cost of unit upgrades in half. That can save a lot of money upgrading Spearmen to Impi, but be careful not to delay launching Impi wars for too long. If you get the Military Tactics technology significantly before Mercenaries, upgrade your Spearmen and start the war anyway. Even without the +15 boost of having corps, Impi making good use of their flanking bonuses in conjunction with a Great General should be able to handle enemy Swordsmen for long enough to secure the Thrust promotion, preventing that particular weakness from being too much of an issue.

If you can get Mercenaries and Military Tactics around the same time, form a Impi corps or two, but otherwise leave the rest as individual units. Those individual units can be upgraded to corps via the Zulu civ ability, saving you production or gold. Starting with a corps or two, meanwhile, will help you handle trickier opponents like promoted Swordsmen. Alternatively, you can substitute those starting corps for a couple of Knights if you have some iron.


Forming early corps is clearly useful in conjunction with Impi, but they aren't the only units that benefit. Zulu Crossbow corps for example have 45 melee strength, which makes them significantly less vulnerable in defence. Zulu Knight corps have a massive 63 strength, which will crush pre-medieval era units with ease. Even a Scout corps can be useful for spying on enemy lands, as the extra 15 strength means they can survive an extra hit or two once they get caught.

The big limiting factor, however, is money. Corps cost double the maintenance cost of individual units, and you'll need to consider carefully if it's worth it for a +15 strength bonus. On average, a Zulu corps will deal around 10% less damage per turn than two individual Zulu units of the same type, though they'll also take less damage as well meaning they don't need to spend as long healing up. This suggests that corps are more effective offensively, and individual units can still be useful defensively.


Shaka allows you to train armies at the industrial-era Nationalism civic, when most civs can only train corps. If your culture output is strong enough that you can get there before other civs, you can exploit a strength advantage of 22 points for a short time!

Aside from ranged units (which can't capture cities and hence can't be upgraded to armies via the Zulu civ ability), there's little need to train armies directly. As corps are just as cost-effective to train as armies, you can just train them as corps and upgrade them via city conquest.

Once other civs reach the modern-era Mobilisation civic, the Zulu advantage will shrink considerably. Shaka will still offer the +5 strength bonus for corps and armies, but that will be your sole remaining unique strength advantage.

• Make sure your culture output is high to make the most of this ability
  
• You often don't need to train corps and armies directly thanks to the Zulu civ ability
  
• Corps and armies are expensive to maintain, so keep your gold infrastructure strong.

I've just taken the city, and the presence of the capturing unit is just enough to keep it on positive loyalty.

The Zulu civ ability helps you hold on to what you capture by granting you corps or armies from taking cities, and by offering loyalty bonuses from having units present.

Whichever land unit captures a city (remember that ranged and siege units can't capture cities) is eligible for an upgrade from a unit to a corps or a corps to an army, assuming it's an individual unit and you have the Mercenaries civic, or a corps and you have the Nationalism civic respectively. The resultant unit will still be injured from having made the final attack against the city, so you'll want to leave them there to heal up for a few turns.

Thankfully, leaving corps stationed in a city offers a +5 loyalty boost, making it much easier to hold the city (particularly if you move a governor there), so even a unit that's out of the fight for now can still provide some positive effects. In fiercer fights where you can't spare any corps, you can use individual units as a stopgap measure, though that'll only provide a +3 boost.

Though forming corps and armies for free can really help save you production, it will start to place pressure on your gold reserves - particularly once Impi are obsolete. A Pike and Shot unit that becomes a corps for example will start costing you an extra 4 gold per turn. If this starts to become a problem, you may want to set your cities to emphasise gold generation over other yields, and if that's not enough, consider capturing cities with military units that won't be upgraded (like corps if you lack Nationalism, or armies if you have it).


Curiously, if you have the industrial-era Nationalism civic, capturing a city with a melee naval unit will upgrade it to a fleet. If you have the modern-era Mobilisation civic, capturing a city with a melee naval fleet will upgrade it to an armada. Seeing as you'll have probably neglected your navy up to that point, getting a stronger navy at no additional production cost is rather helpful.

Keep in mind that melee naval units are the only naval units that are eligible, as naval ranged units, naval raiders and carriers can't capture cities. Naval melee units are strong against naval raiders, moderately vulnerable to naval ranged units (though forming fleets and armadas easily will help account for this), and particularly vulnerable to promoted air units. Battleships and Missile Cruisers have built-in anti-air defence, so consider bringing at least one to accompany your late-game melee naval units.


The Zulu civ ability is mostly useful for securing offensive conquests, but there may be times where you're on the receiving end of both an enemy military and a lot of loyalty pressure - particularly if you're playing against the Mapuche. If that's the case, position some ranged unit corps or armies in your key border cities so they can provide a good loyalty boost and a strong attack at the same time.


This ability is what provides the Zulus with real lasting power in wars. The unique loyalty boost is one of the strongest in the game, ensuring you don't lose the cities you take, and free corps and armies means your forces can get stronger without you needing to spare any additional production.

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.


Tier One

Oligarchy is clearly the best choice of government considering the strength boost it adds to Impi.

The Warlord's Throne is an appropriate complementary government building. The production boost it offers when capturing cities will help you develop a gold infrastructure at home, allowing you to support more corps and armies.

Tier Two

It may be a good idea to postpone unlocking the second tier of governments in favour of getting to the Nationalism civic sooner. After all, Oligarchy's +4 strength bonus will still be very useful. Nonetheless, if you need more policy card slots, consider Merchant Republic. It's not too far away from the Mercenaries civic and offers a small gold bonus - something you'll need once you start upgrading Impi.

As for the best government building, you may find the Grand Master's Chapel to be most appropriate. All your Impi conquests will probably result in you getting a lot of Holy Sites and nothing to spend the faith on. With the Grand Master's Chapel, you can spend the faith on additional units. If you're desperate for extra gold and can't support more units, consider getting the Intelligence Agency and using the extra Spy to siphon funds off another civ.

Tier Three

Fascism will be the most effective choice for the Zulus due to its strong strength and unit production bonuses.

The War Department building lets your units heal when they kill others; a useful additional boost in late-game warfare.


Ancient Era

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmenship) - A must-have policy card when you're training up Spearmen ready for upgrading to Impi later.

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Eliminates the maintenance cost of Spearmen, allowing you to save up more money to upgrade them to Pikemen later.

Limitanei (Military, requires Early Empire) - If there's an occasion where loyalty is really a problem in a captured city, this policy card may help. It offers loyalty in cities where you have a unit garrisoned, much like the Zulu civ ability, so it doesn't require any extra effort to use.

Classical Era

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - You can build Ikandas incredibly quickly with this policy card. That can be quite helpful for boosting the housing capacity in new cities.

Medieval Era

Feudal Contract (Military, requires Feudalism) - Impi will now be cheaper to train than Swordsmen for civs without Agoge. Alternatively, you can train Impi corps in the same time it would have previously taken to train a single Impi unit.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Neatly coming at the same civic that lets you form corps, this policy card will save you a lot of money over the course of the game. Upgrading corps or armies is expensive!

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - While you're stationing units in cities to boost their loyalty, you can boost their amenities at the same time with this policy card. Particularly useful for prolonged wars where war weariness is really kicking in. Boosting amenities in a city will also boost its loyalty.

Industrial Era

National Identity (Military, requires Nationalism) - This policy card reduces the strength penalty from injured units. This is particularly useful for newly-formed corps and armies from city captures, as it helps them get back into the fight sooner.

Modern Era

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - The Zulu army can get pretty expensive to maintain, making this policy rather useful. Note that it provides the same -2 maintenance cost for individual units, corps and armies alike.

Martial Law (Military, requires Totalitarianism) - Boosts the loyalty bonus from having military units stationed in a city further, while also reducing the rate at which you gain war weariness.


Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - If you're fast, you can make this work. Adding a +5 attack bonus to Impi helps them rip through enemies quickly, and not being able to heal outside friendly territory isn't a problem if you can capture new cities quickly enough. If you're stuck with a low-health unit in enemy lands, combine it with a unit at full health to form a corps, and it'll only be half as injured.

Reform the Coinage (Golden Age, Renaissance to Modern eras) - This dedication really helps you get much-needed gold to support your corps and armies. Not only does it boost the gold from international trade, but by making trade routes safe from pillaging, you can safely trade with anyone you're not at war with.

To Arms! (Dedication, Industrial to Information eras) - The ease in which the Zulus can obtain corps and armies pushes your opponents to obtain some of their own. By killing those, you can get plenty of era score with this dedication.

God of the Forge - This can help you train Spearmen ready for upgrading later.

God of the Open Sky - A helpful culture boost to get you to Mercenaries sooner.


You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Church Property (Founder) - One of three founder beliefs which offer gold, helping you to support your corps and armies.

Stewardship (Founder) - While generally the weakest of the three gold-boosting founder beliefs, this belief is still better than nothing if you really need some extra cash to maintain corps and armies.

Tithe (Founder) - An alternative founder belief for providing gold.


Kabul (Militaristic) - Impi need a promotion or two to be able to counter the bonus Swordsmen and Musketmen have against them. If you're suzerain over Kabul, you can gain experience faster and get to those crucial promotions.

Kumasi (Cultural) - The Zulus benefit from gold and culture alike for getting to key civics and maintaining corps/armies respectively, and here's a city-state that boosts both.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Stockholm can help you dominate Great General generation, making it harder for other civs to face you with ones of their own.

Valletta (Militaristic) - You can use the excess faith from capturing cities with Holy Sites to develop your Ikandas with Valletta as your suzerain.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - A helpful boost to culture to get you on the way to Mercenaries and Nationalism.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - Impi are vulnerable to Swordsmen until they have the Thrust promotion. Thankfully, just one promotion level is enough to get there. The Terracotta Army wonder will give all your units a free promotion level.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Later in the game, you can upgrade the formation type of naval melee units for free by capturing cities, much as you can with land units. Combined with this wonder, you can end up getting two armadas for the price of a single unit - that's a saving of up to 83% on the production cost!

Great Zimbabwe (Renaissance era, Banking technology) - One of the strongest sources of gold from any single wonder, which will really help you support your corps and armies.


Any one classical and medieval-era Great General is useful to have as they can make Impi stronger and faster, but otherwise no particular Great Person has strong synergy with Zulu uniques specifically. Look out for early culture bonuses to help you get to key civics like Mercenaries faster, and gold bonuses to help you maintain corps and armies.

The Zulus are by far at their strongest in the medieval era. Failure to prepare could bring your empire down quickly, but defend well or strike first and you can defeat them.


The large boost to loyalty the Zulus can get makes it hard to flip their cities unless they're particularly isolated, or their units are busy. Use of the governor Amani (the Diplomat) may help to partially counter their loyalty bonus.

As for their ability to form corps and armies from city captures, the simple rule is this: don't let the Zulus take cities. While for some troublesome opponents conceding a minor new city so you can force your opponent to fight you on more favourable terrain is a viable strategy, letting even one city flip gives the Zulus a significant boost to their military. Keep any border you have with the Zulus well-secured; it's a lot easier to fight of an initial attack of individual units than it is to fight a bunch of promoted corps after losing your border cities.


This ability makes the Zulus absolutely terrifying opponents in the medieval era. Zulu corps have a +15 strength advantage over individual units. If their culture output is strong enough they can get Nationalism before you, they can form armies before you can form corps, giving as much as a 22-point advantage. Add a Great General from the Ikanda district for another 5.

Mercifully, this period of dominant strength is narrower than it is for many other warmongers. The Zulus have very little in the way of military advantages prior to them entering the medieval era, so if you're able to pull off an early rush against them, it may be a good idea. Similarly, once you get the modern-era Mobilisation civic letting you form armies, Shaka's leader ability is reduced down to a manageable, if still significant, +5 advantage.

If attacking the Zulus early isn't an option, you need a defence ready. Swordsmen backed up with Crossbowmen can do reasonably well against Impi corps. If there's a Barbarian encampment near your lands, consider using it to train your ranged units to their first promotion - Volley or Garrison will be a huge help.

Maritime empires should have an easier time against the Zulus. Ranged naval units can do decent damage against their land forces, but more to the point, the Zulu unique bonuses don't particularly promote use of units that can counter naval units well.

Early corps and armies do open up a notable vulnerability for the Zulus - they need a lot of gold for their maintenance. While Impi corps are cheap to maintain at 2 gold per turn, Pike and Shot corps cost 8. That means careful disruption of Zulu gold supplies (e.g. pillaging their trade routes, pillaging their Commercial Hubs, refusing to trade gold to them) can really limit their military's potential.


An computer-controlled Shaka aims to form lots of corps and armies, and likes civs that do the same. He dislikes civs that do not.

This makes Shaka likely to look unfavourably towards most civs in the medieval and renaissance eras, when he can form corps and armies but no-one else can, making him potentially unpredictable in regards to which civ he'll target next. On the other hand, that'll make it more likely he'll end up without allies.

Come the industrial era, when other civs can start forming corps, Shaka should become a lot friendlier to much of the world. Forming corps isn't especially difficult as agenda requirements go. Considering the Zulu loyalty advantages Shaka isn't a bad choice for a cultural alliance, seeing as your loyalty pressure on his cities usually won't make that much of an impact anyway.


Impi themselves aren't a huge threat, but Shaka's leader ability makes them terrifying. A lone unpromoted Impi unit only has 41 strength and will be beaten by a Swordsman - a unit that arrives earlier and costs less to train. The problem sets in once you start facing Impi corps, especially those promoted with the Thrust promotion and accompanied by a Great General. You'll want strength in numbers. Plenty of Crossbowmen with a front line of Swordsmen will help. Exploiting a chokepoint will help even more if possible.


The biggest threat of Ikandas is the fact they make it easy for the Zulus to get a Great General, and the strength and speed bonuses that come with that. There's no easy way to play around that, but one thing that is worth considering is this: the Zulus will build plenty of copies of their unique district, as well as plenty of Commercial Hubs to help maintain their corps and armies. That means they may well neglect their science infrastructure relative to most domination-oriented civs. You may well be able to get to Musketmen before the Zulus can upgrade their Impi, giving you the upper hand in war once more.

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These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
  
• Civ summaries

Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Georgia (Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.