Zulus are done (huzzah!) and time to get back to farming

By Brant Guillory, GrogDude

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Last episode, we sent Shaka packing like Duke in the first round of the NCAAs against a double-digit seed. Now it’s time to start digging holes, planting crops, and raking in the (agri)culture.

Ulundi is mine
And all those Portuguese dudes meandering about can’t have it… any time soon.

Hey!
Where’d all them Anglish go?

Damn Pirates
So I can’t build boats, but it wouldn’t matter because the Zulus were too stupid to build on the ocean (just one of several Mugabeisms built into the Zulus – they are about as dumb as you would expect them to be with him as their modern-day descendant). I can, however, lob animal carcasses at him.

Exploriating
Again, I’m not cool enough to get explorers as a sub-Saharan nation, but the “ruins” they get to explore do look pretty cool on the map.

Building Again
Pretoria needs a little love. Bread and circuses people, bread and circuses.

Let’s Load the Queue
Opera house for culture, Caravansary to get trade routes to other nations than the Anglish, and a Bank for the cash, yo.

Train Kept a-Rollin’
No idea how much this hurts me in the scoring. I just don’t like the game teasing me.

Planting and Tationing
Put ’em together, and I’ve got a citrus plantation, on perfectly fertile land that the ZANU-PF Zulus were horribly mismanaging and allowing to lie fallow.

Caravan, ho!
I can get a decent revenue pull from any of the Anglish cities. Near as I can tell, the revenue calculations for the caravans are the same as BNW.

Strategeric View
I’ve got a good little amount of real estate building up here. I’m going to get squeezed for space, and that lake in the middle doesn’t help, but imagine how much worse this would be if the Zulus were still on the map. There’s some room to the north, but not much. I need to buy some tiles, soon.

Improvements
This view can do a very good job of showing you where you can/should build more. No surprise that a lot of building needs to happen around the former Zulu cities.

He Likes To Lance. A Lot.
Lancers aren’t really suited to being scouts, but it’s the only mounted unit I can build right now, and I can’t build scouts. So if I want to see what’s over the next horizon, I’ve got to send him out there.

One of my fortresses
Here’s hoping it doesn’t become Eben Emael. Yes, I have a cavalry unit, finally.

Rifled Cannons
Are best for attacking cities, but they can protect one quite well, too. It’s just another toy I’d like to see in the ‘real’ game.

Fortifying with Cannons
The range helps cover most of my current territory. I’ve got to start expanding it though. All that open ground becomes farms for me, and those culture points contribute to VPs.

Spending Spree!
Like Thomas Jefferson and Louisiana, I start buying some real estate and add 5 tiles to my turf. Note that my bankroll does the same thing in real life after my wife heads to Target.

Anlgish Settler-folk
I really don’t like them wandering about. I’ve going to have to close the borders, next chance I get.

Changing Caravans
I love the teleporting caravans feature of BNW. In this case, I’m beaming him to a new city to develop a trade connection with not-the-Anglish so I can start making friends elsewhere.

Really?
I put on deodorant this morning! I mean, seriously, what the hell? Must’ve been my land-grab, but that was closer to the Anglish in Mombasa that the Deutsch in Swakopmund.

Zanzibar
Hey look – a city-state!

Will the Germans try to go all ‘German’ on me and try picking a fight? Or can I farm out the fighting to someone else?

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