Conquest Victory Challenge - Ram Imm Pang NH NE

Great library in. NE to follow. Should I have built these in Elephantine?



GS for first half of Edu bulb, and some nice failgold.



HE unlocked! It will go in the cap as the other cities will be whipped to death when it's Police State/cuir time.



Second half Edu bulb in.




I follow Seraiel's advice and it works out nicely. Should do this more.



Cities ready for the GAge with their food bars full.



With most of the world at war already, I can go Pacifism in my GAge. This takes care of a possible DOW from Mansa.



GMerchant in. He heads of to the TArtemis.



Lib bulb in.



Libralism in 125ad. I'm well pleased with that.



Gunpowder in and Cuir production starts. I switch to Police State.



Second GAge with the Taj. It's nice, but it's come at the wrong time. I want to be whipping cuirs at this point. No more GPeople are needed.



1100 gold from the trade mission, and nothing to spend it on.



End of the round and... I didn't quite make it. 14 cuirs isn't bad, but I'm sure I can do better. Mansa is my first target and this probably isn't enough to cap him. Not worth the risk at any rate.

So, there were positives and negatives in that attempt.

Positives: V good Lib date, good gunpowder date. Lots of trees left to chop into cuirs.

Negatives: Imbalanced. Too much tech, gold and GPeople. Not enough workers/infra/troops to upgrade. Stables not finished by the time Gunpowder is in. 2 GPeople twiddling their thumbs in Thebes. Second GAge misused. I only upgraded two WCs so the GMerchant was a total extravagance. No Drama, and hence no theatres, to deal with whip anger.

I'm going to try again. The goal is more than 14 cuirs by 500ad. I'm sure it's more than doable.

Techpath:
Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, Mysticism, Mining, Polytheism, Priesthood (1920 BC), Masonry, Writing (1520 BC).

Expansion:
Thebes 3960 BC, Memphis 2640 BC, Heliopolis 2400 BC, Elephantine 2120 BC, Alexandria 1560 BC.

Build orders (roughly):
Thebes: worker, 3x settler, worker, settler, Oracle.
Memphis: worker at size 1, settler at size 4.

Screenshot for early expansion:


NB : major miss : worker stealing from Saladin. I circled his territory but missed on the opportunity.

From there,
Oracle → Aesthetics

Research:
Fishing, Litterature.
925 BC: trades for Alphabet, Sailing, Iron Working, Mathematics, Monarchy, Metal Casting.
Code of Laws (575 BC), Civil Service (375 BC).

Wonders:
Oracle: 1480 BC
Pyramids: 825 BC
The Great Library: 725 BC
The Hanging Gardens : 125 BC

Cute play:
Parthenon in Heliopolis in 700 BC. Forward wonder.

Screenshot at 350 BC. Preparing for a Machinery trade.
Favourable diplo with Judaism spread:


Excess production is diverted into Macemen. Macemen fund research in the form of pillage gold.
25 AD:


175 AD:


15 macemen were produced. 12 are still standing.
NB : The first Great General is used on a Medic 3 scout that unlocks the Heroic Epic. Online in Heliopolis from 225 AD.

A Great Engineer was born in Thebes and used for the first Golden Age (speeds up research and the building of the Taj Mahal).
Leading to a 300 AD Liberalism screenshot (Music trade from Mansa):



500 AD.
Engineering has been traded for and the macemen force has been completed with a few Trebuchets.
Cuirassiers production has started on 400 AD (Gunpowder 375 AD, end of turn).
With 10 cities, the military production is fast.

Bribing Bismark on Mansa resulted in a world war:
Mansa and Zara vs Bismark
Bismark and Saladin vs Mansa.

So Saladin was capped already (war: 350 AD, 475 AD). An awkward peace treaty prevents me from declaring on Bismark asap. So Mansa will have to fall first.
Meanwhile, the Macemen & Trebuchets are healing and getting in line on the German front.

Army:
9 Macemen, 5 Trebuchets
11 Cuirassiers.

GP production :
All GPs were produced in Thebes. No switch into Caste System.
GP use :
1st GP was a Prophet (settled). Then came a scientist (Academy). Next 2 GS were used to bulb Education (Philosophy self-researched). Then an Engineer was used for a Golden Age.
1 GS is stored and will either be used to bulb into Printing Press (towards Rifling) or in conjunction with the next GP to trigger another Golden Age.

Screenshot:

Nice play! You're way ahead of me in terms of an early conquest victory. Did you see it out? What was your date?

I had another go but stuck to my 4 city approach. It's not as effective as what you did, but it is less work. My approach isn't optimal (far from it). Earlier breakouts and more land/cities will lead to a faster win date. Your Macemen showed that.

My problem is that I often lose interest in my games and start another one. By keeping things quick and simple I hoped to avoid that. If I am dedicated to anything, it is laziness! Plus something appeals to me in the idea that with just a few little cities you can rule the world. That's why I love Rammy.

My final attempt at the 4-city thing led to:


So not bad, but nowhere near your effort in terms of being near a win date. Thanks for posting. You've inspired me to have another go with a different more war-like approach.

Couldn't get peace from Hammurabi until Alpha, which came unusually late from Mansa (650BC, having stolen the worker in 2840). This left me fending off mini-stacks with war chariots while my settler waited around for the marble/seafood spot that was always threatened.

Aside from allowing me to fend off Hammurabi, my leftover stack allowed me to snipe Wang's excellent capital and gold/rice location after he got dogpiled:





Without losing a unit That knocked Wang out of the game.

A/ Wonders.
The Great Library, Pyramids and Oracle are all very desirable.
Of those, The Oracle is both the cheapest and the most contested wonder.
Therefore, it should be built first. And Priesthood has a higher priority than Masonry. It seems like a waste to invest hammers into the Pyramids before switching to the Oracle. Likewise, it seems like a waste to start on the Pyramids before switching to a settler.
→ Your tech path and build orders could be refined in that matter. Maybe you've found out about it already.

B/ Early priorities : cities vs wonders.
When comparing our two games, it should appear clearly that you were too conservative in your expansion, building a 2-cities Oracle, whereas I got greedy and maybe carried away into a 4-cities Oracle.
(4 cities by 2000 BC is REXing, by the way.)

What does the Oracle do ?
It turns hammers (100 for Ramessess) into beakers (200-300, depending on the target).
What do cities do ?
They turn hammers (100) into food/hammers/beakers.

The point I'm getting to is that building the Oracle forgoes production. And delaying cities to build the Oracle forgoes production even more.
Later city = later food, commerce and builds.
Sometimes, if one delays a (strong) city by rushing a wonder, it simply isn't worth it. The loss in growth, especially, should be considered. A size 4 city easily yields 10 f/h/c per turn. The payback is really good and allows to invest in many different things.
Likewise, it is dodgy and very debattable to delay a city because the road network is late. It may be a lot better to settle a disconnected city and start on growing or a worker turns earlier.

So, my stand on the subject is that building wonders shouldn't distract you from the early game priorities, that is : establishing a strong productive base.
Once the major cities have been settled, then it is find to invest hammers into wonders. At that point, the decision process isn't "wonder vs settler" but rather "wonder vs granary or library".

C/ City placement.
2nd city : neglecting the corn to settle by the stone is a mistake, imo. Corn is an easily improved tile and a food resource. That makes it invaluable (build a warrior and soon you have a size 4 city).

Seafood : you were driven into investing heavily into culture, because you allowed Hammurabi to settle with crabs in the 1st ring. Settling 1SW from where you did negates entirely the culture issue and still shares the pigs from Thebes.

Stone : From my paragraph on wonders, you gather that I don't place a high priority on stone. Since there aren't any food resources nearby, I happily settled it 2nd ring and fueled the city with 2 farmed floodplains.
The stone is important to build the Pyramids and that's compatible with getting a border pop first.
Competing against settlers/workers, Stonehenge and The Great Wall are, here, imo, counterproductive.
The Great Wall is an awesome wonder, don't get me wrong, but mostly when the tech lead isn't ensured and the spy points matter.

D/ Horses.
An early war would be the best way to establish control over the map but here :
- Horse city would be poor (no food).
- Stone & marble dictate some heavy wonder investment.
Due to low priority, I eventually lost the site to Wang. Being Egypt, War Chariots would be the n°1 reason to settle the horses. Here, wonders were more attractive, I think.
Said otherwise, settling the horses for Cuirassiers seems premature before 2000 BC. If you don't get horses for Cuirassiers, there is plenty of time to adapt.

E/ Specialists.
Final point.
I don't think it's widely accepted that Representation specialists are the fastest way to a Cuirassiers break-out. Maybe it is, though, and then I'm not aware.

The base yield of a Rep scientist is -2F+6C. The -2F part is huge.
If you compare that with a riverside hamlet, 2F3C, working the scientist instead of the hamlet trades 4F for 3C. This is a very bad deal. Working the hamlet would lead to growing the city 1 size and working another 2F3C hamlet.
(In the same way, you can note that the 3F2C floodplains cottage is a better deal than the -2F3H7C gold mine : working the mine trades 5F for 3H5C.)

So where is the breaking point ? Because there is a breaking point...
a) If you're running a specialist to get a Great Person, then that's fine. Great Persons are invaluable and the only really good reason to run specialists.
b) If you're at happy/health cap and have nothing to whip, then running a specialist is fine. However, if you're at happy/health cap and have nothing to whip, maybe you should question how and why you're in this situation. It may be the sign that one is being too passive with the game.
Conspicuously, I had several cities in this situation turns before getting Machinery (3 peripheral cities grew and ran 2-3 specs each, with no hope to raise a GP and nothing to whip because they had their infra).

So, except for these two situations, working a food neutral or, better, positive tile, is almost always better than hiring the specialist, be it a Representation or a regular specialist.
Only Great Persons fully justify the loss in production.

Note : if, more broadly, one compares cottage-driven research to heavy bulb strategies, then one has to note that heavy bulb strats are of the “do or die” kind. The increasing cost of GPs means that it can be impossible to keep up with the game if one fails to expand after the initial bulbs.
Bulbs aren't sustainable, simply. They can only allow one to go so far. Once that point is reached...
Which is more, the tech rate flattens once tiles start being worked (workshops ?) or cities are whipped.
Sustainability is a real question when betting everything in bulbs on a hard map.

Note 2, on Golden Ages : Seing how you're running 15 specialists at 375 BC, I'm pretty sure you should have triggered your first GA at that point.
The +100% production on GPs is a major bonus in GAs. Assuming 15 specs/turn during the whole GA, you'd have gained 360gpp. Of course you probably wouldn't have run 15specs/turn during the whole GA but... think about it. 360gpp easily pay for a miserable Music Free Artist...

I'm not saying you're right but
I'm not saying you're wrong either.

If you're talking about self-researching HBR and Construction, then that tech plan is very different from what I did, indeed (Oracle Aest, research Litt, CoL, CS).
You're right that Const + HBR could be known 1000 years before CS + Machinery, but that doesn't come without a cost.
- Researching Construction + HBR takes at least 10 turns, that are a delay towards the Renaissance (compared with a 1 turn investment to get Machinery) ;
- It delays The Great Library by at least 15 turns and the GP production accordingly ;
- Bureaucracy is delayed.

There are benefits to a Construction + HBR beeline but then the cost in research is very real. Here, between Mansa trading Metal Casting early and IND Ramessess having access to Stone and Marble, I wouldn't say the Elephant route is clearly better.

On a more general note, you bring up an interesting point that should be considered when one has to decide when and with what to wage war.

Earlier war → higher investment → better return off conquered land.
Later war → faster conquest → lower return.

The whole idea behind a Cuirassiers break-out is that the delay in military action is made up by the faster conquering.
The whole idea behind early military action is that there will be a lot of time to take advantage of the conquered land.
Both ideas are antagonistic, one excluding the other.

What route is better depends each map and each game's situation.
A key factor in deciding whether to wage war or develop peacefully for a while longer is the cost of warring.
Typically, the earlier war costs more (but the gains are greater) because it's harder to multitask with fewer and smaller cities. One either builds a settler and a worker, or a wonder, or 4-5 units.
However, depending upon the map and the situation, there may be sweet spots, points at which war comes at a bargain.
(Backstabs, AI without metal, AI caught in expansion/missionary spam, 4 cities AI, etc.)
I'd like to think that my Macemen war came at a bargain, losing 3 maces and 1 cuirassier to capture 7 cities.

I knew you were gonna be early starting at 500 AD with 2 civs down. Didn't imagine though that your total war time would be lower than what I had set up !

You did it in 280 years vs me doing 360, whilst I had double the cuirassiers to start with !
If you notice in my losses taken I didn't stop to heal or anything, taking 2 cities per turn more often than not, fighting 2 wars at once. No idea how you shaved off 80 years starting with 11 dudes. You almost took no losses at all !

At least my production seems to have been on par with yours.

Thanks for taking the time to show me what I could do better. I know my tech path, city placement and timing, and wonder-prioritizing compromise my win date. Yeah deciding on a cuir breakout so early and building an inferior second city is weak play. Same of taking Masonry before Priesthood (which I did to get Stonehenge, not to start on the 'mids btw), and delaying my third and fourth cities. I did all that because I wanted to do the 4-city cuir breakout and had already decided to wage no wars before that time. Of course this is sub-optimal, but I was just trying it out to see how much I could refine it and compare it to more direct conquest-style play such as your attempt. Now I see just how unfavorably it does compare.

Other things I've learnt (or am learning) is that cottaging the capital as opposed to filling it with rep specialists (thanks for your analysis of the shortfalls of this strat) and running shorter bursts of caste/paci is better. In basically all of my tries at this map (and yeah there've been a few ) I've ended up with too many GPeople and too little production. So more slavery/whipping and more commerce in the cap to lever bureau is needed. Same of taking the GAge from the Music GA: I usually delay it far too long.