Egyptian Historical Victory

[NitroJay]

Well, I downloaded the newest version and gave a shot with Egypt for historical victory on Monarch... I won, which is cool, but I have some observations...

First off, the 1st requirement for HV (Have more than 500 culture in 700BC) is, by far, the hardest goal. I went straight for monothesism to found judaism and built the stonehenge and the pyramids. After playing last night, I have decided to agree with what I've been hearing... The stonehenge should be renamed to pyramids... To win a HV with Egypt, you almost HAVE to build the stonehenge. Wouldn't it make more sense to just make it an Egyptian wonder? Since there's no one up there in Britain to build it anyways...

The other two goals seemed easy, by building the pyramids, lighthouse, and great library, my culture went through the roof. So both, the building requirements and the culture requirement seemed like just one big goal. I still didn't get to build any chariots though... I was too focused on culture...
Oh, and no one declared war on me when I finished the second goal, but the Roman's started threatening me...

Without thinking of anything else, I'm going to have to say that I think the Egyptian goals need to be tweaked a bit more... The first goal is pretty hard, but I'm okay with it (even if it goes against Rob's progessivly difficult HV plan)... I think there is room to change the second goal... Instead of 5000 culture by 450 AD, maybe it should be "never lose a city to barbarians by XXXAD" or something like that... The culture and the building requirements solve each other; I'd just like to see a goal that takes Egypt a little farther than 450AD.

 

[dafiden]

Yep, I agree with you. Especially, with that you must build stonehenge to win.

However, does Egypt have any historical victories after 450 AD in real life? Weren't they mostly conquered by other civs after that time?

 

[Rhye]

Pyramids and Stonehenge effect are swapped in next version

 

[Surtur]

Will Stonehenge still be there or do you remove it?

 

[Rhye]

it's still there; it unlocks religion civics

 

[NitroJay]

That makes total sense...

 

[Tom Veil]

Egypt's is freaking HARD. I played Egypt roughly 8 times last night. The closest I came was about 15 turns away with enough culture to win, when suddenly Rome, Greece, and Persia go at me like wolves because I had been shamefully under-militarized. In most games, I am about 100 short at the 500 cut off, or else 1000 short at the 5000 cutoff.

Any tips on how to beat it?

 

[kairob]

go for (I think its) music pretty early, use ya capital as a wonder-whore and max out your culture slider once you can...

 

[NitroJay]

In the early game, you need to think about NOTHING except culture. Be content with one warrior per city (you can upgrade them to spearmen later). It's important to rush yourself to monotheism before it's auto-founded, the extra culture from having a religious founding city really helps. Build the pyramids as early as possible to get the monument bonus... I usually build stonehenge too... Don't forget to expand though, the more cities you have pushing out those religous/monument culture points, the quicker you will get to the goals. I've won egypts UHV a few times, I find the first culture marker is the hardest to achieve, being first with the Great Library causes problems sometimes too since it's so far up the tech tree...

The only thing that sucks for Egypt's UHV is the STRONG focus on culture forces your military to be REALLY weak... By the time I can get around to building my war chariots, they are already obsolete...! Once you can, upgrade most of your warrior defenders to spearmen to be ready for Arabia... Although, keep a few Axemen in your southern cities and any cities in reach of Rome... Rome attacks with with it's legions and the barbarians come up from the south... SLAVERY really helps build troops in a hurry if you are caught off guard...

Rod's got a step by step strategy guide in the Strategy guide section, but I prefer making my own decisions from turn to turn...

 

[kairob]

I find two cities works well, and good point on the religion forgot to mention that...

 

[OzzyKP]

I think the first culture requirement is easier to get than the second.

 

[NitroJay]

Two cities is fine for the first goal... I just finished an Egyptian game on the warlords again... I lost the UHV... Those aggressive AI's took me down hard! It was a fun game though, I didn't lose any cities, but I lost the last culture goal since I spent a lot of my resources boosting my military. For the second goal, I find it best to have somewhere around 4-6 cities. Make sure religion is present in all of them and build cultural improvements. Your military will suffer, but if you win, it won't matter much. If I get in a pinch, I hire mercenaries with my cottage money or slave units out of my cities. I wouldn't consider myself a "wonder whore" though... I find that having libraries and jewish temples are much faster to build and provide enough culture to make the goal... I mean, having the great library, lighthouse, and pyramids (along with sometimes stonehenge [for the religious civics] and/or the oracle [for my free advanced tech for trading]) I'm pretty much maxed out with wonders as is...

 

[Tom Veil]

I won! Not only that, but I won in the most dramatic fashion possible. I finished the Great Library the same turn that the Romans captured the town, but then I recaptured it the next turn while simultaneously getting the Great Artist for discovering Music, thereby winning on the last possible turn.

Thanks you guys!

 

[NitroJay]

Sweet! I love those kind of endings... Really gets your blood going there...

 

[radzik]

In the early game, you need to think about NOTHING except culture. Be content with one warrior per city (you can upgrade them to spearmen later). It's important to rush yourself to monotheism before it's auto-founded, the extra culture from having a religious founding city really helps. Build the pyramids as early as possible to get the monument bonus... I usually build stonehenge too... Don't forget to expand though, the more cities you have pushing out those religous/monument culture points, the quicker you will get to the goals. I've won egypts UHV a few times, I find the first culture marker is the hardest to achieve, being first with the Great Library causes problems sometimes too since it's so far up the tech tree...

The only thing that sucks for Egypt's UHV is the STRONG focus on culture forces your military to be REALLY weak... By the time I can get around to building my war chariots, they are already obsolete...! Once you can, upgrade most of your warrior defenders to spearmen to be ready for Arabia... Although, keep a few Axemen in your southern cities and any cities in reach of Rome... Rome attacks with with it's legions and the barbarians come up from the south... SLAVERY really helps build troops in a hurry if you are caught off guard...

Rod's got a step by step strategy guide in the Strategy guide section, but I prefer making my own decisions from turn to turn...

I decided to go AH first, built some war chariots and only then started builing wonders. Monotheism was founded in Jerushalaim, so i simply captured it with 3 war chariots . Then I captured Carthagine, second Hannibal's city was simultanously taken by barbarians ("independent"), then I quickly took it as well. There was a counter-attack by a Hannibal's numidian cavalry landing from a galley, they took my 2nd city in Cyrenaica (with Great Lighthouse already built) but I managed to recaptured it in same turn. I built pyramids and Hanging Gardens in my capital, then used a GE to build a Great Library in Jerushalaim. So only 2 cities founded, 3 captured. The game is not finished yet but looks promising. Viceroy level though, still learning..

 

[NitroJay]

With going military early, did you hit the first cultural goal? If you did, I may have to rethink the way I play Egypt...

 

[jgbaxter]

Well, the game I'm in at Vice-roy just had the Americans enter, only three nations so far have even 1 of their goals (Greece, Japan, Mongols), Greece has capitulated to France (they started a war with me as Egypt first chance they saw me, and we fought until 1000ad +, we had a short peace then they DoW me again, sio I bribed all their neighbours to attack them hehe), Japan and the Mongols will probably get their second goal. Other than that, it's interesting game.

In this game I moved my starting settler to make the Suez canal, why, I have no clue, I didn't build a ship until the 13th century.

I missed my first goal by lots, about 80 culture, second goal I missed by about 300 culture (14 turns or so), I beelined straight to music after occasionally grabbing the other techs I needed to progress.

I probably could have made both had I not did silly things in the game, but it's part of the fun I suppose is to do silly things.

As for the wonders... HA! I whipped those slaves like mad but couldn't get the pyramids built, instead I got the Great Library and Great Lighthouse pretty quick. Barbarians were evil, just evil... I blame them.

BTW, beware of Greeks bearing gifts, or even Greeks bearing no gifts, actually beware of anyone that's visited or knows of the existance of Greeks, DEATH TO ALEXANDER!

Mod rocks.

 

[holy king]

Well, the game I'm in at Vice-roy just had the Americans enter, only three nations so far have even 1 of their goals (Greece, Japan, Mongols),

those goals are for human player only, ai cant go for it (as they cant go for a cultural victory in the unmodded game...)

 

[McA123]

Many of the goals are designed to be achievable by the AI, sometimes, though.

 

[jgbaxter]

Well, they may not win but they do get a free wonder at 2 of the goals, which Japan just squeezed out and probably the mongols will as well.

Further Greek news, they own Sparta and Athens, having been cut up by the Germans, Spainairds, and France (whom they capitulated too).

Death to Greece!