ALC Game #4 Pre-Game Show: Playing as Hatshepsut

In the next ALC game, I'll be playing as Hatshepsut, leader of Egypt.

The fact sheet:

• Traits: Spiritual and Creative
• Starting Techs: Agriculture and the Wheel
• Unique Unit: War Chariot

I'll start with some general thoughts about Hatshepsut and her characteristics, then outline the strategy I'm thinking of.

Hatshepsut--fondly known in the Civ IV community as "Hatty"--is one of those leaders that seems to have a very complimentary trait combination. Spiritual means that Hatty experiences no anarchy for civics changes; also, build costs for temples are halved. Creative means every Egyptian city produces two culture points every turn, and can build theatres and colosseums at half-cost. Since temples and colosseums (and, a little later, theaters) all produce culture, it doesn't take much to turn an early Egyptian city into a border-expanding, land-grabbing powerhouse.

As we saw in the Montezuma ALC game, the Spiritual trait is very powerful for flexibility when it comes to civics. It makes sense to prioritize techs that grant new civics, and to change them as conditions warrant throughout the game. Since being Creative makes Stonehenge a lower priority or even a non-starter, it might make more sense (and be wholly appropriate from a historical standpoint) to go after the Pyramids to open up all the government civics. If my luck from previous games holds, I'll be looking for stone near my starting location.

The techs Hatty starts with, the Wheel and Agriculture, are two of the most important and useful early worker techs. The first build might be a Worker, since he can be kept busy building roads if nothing else. It would also make sense to try to found the first city with at least one farmable resource in its fat cross.

However, these starting techs create almost too many options for early tech paths. Although Hatty is Spiritual, she does not start with Mysticism. This puts her at a disadvantage for founding an early religion, depending on what other civs are in the game. Nevertheless, Egypt needs a religion to make use of the low-cost temples; it would probably make sense to research Mysticism, see which of Buddhism or Hinduism gets founded, then pursue the other one or, failing that, Monotheism (especially since its pre-req, Masonry, is required for the Pyramids as well).

Animal Husbandry also has to be a priority, since horses are required for Egypt's Unique Unit. More on that in a moment. And whither Bronze Working, that old standby?

Egypt's UU has a lot of potential. The 2-movement War Chariot replaces the Chariot, adding an upgrade in strength from 4 to 5 and an immunity to first strikes--definitely an advantage against Archers, the AI's preferred early city defender. Unlike all other mounted units, this one does NOT require the relatively expensive Horseback Riding tech.

To my mind, this UU has "early rush" written all over it. It has the base strength of Axemen with the added advantage of speed. A wave of War Chariots could conceivably wash over a rival before they have time to react. At the very least, it can be used to steal workers, pillage, and stunt a rival's growth, a strategy outlined in this thread.

However, even an unpromoted Archer fortified in a city is roughly equal to a War Chariot in strength (Strength 3 + 50% city defense + 25% maximum fortify bonus = 4.75 strength.) To use WCs to capture cities, I'll need several and should expect to lose at least half of them. WCs should eat Warriors for breakfast; Spearmen, however, would be the bane of their existence, making pillaging of any copper or iron mines a priority.

So as I said, in the very early game, there's almost too much to choose from. I'm thinking of simplifying completely.

The previous ALC games have shown that I like to do some infrastructure and wonder-building before starting an early war. However, in the Qin game, I tried some new tactics out that posters suggested. I'd like to do something similar, and get out of my comfort zone again.

I've never done an early-early war--i.e. the immediate, worker-stealing, stifling type. I think the War Chariots would be perfect for this, given their strength and speed. So here's what I'm thinking of doing:

• Capital's first build: Worker. Second build: Settler. Then a Warrior for protection.
• Research: Animal Husbandry - Mining - Bronze Working (for chopping) - other worker techs needed for nearby resources - Writing - Alphabet (for trading/extorting techs).
• AH reveals horses. If not in the capital's fat cross, send Settler to build 2nd city near horses.
• 2nd city's first build: Warrior for protection.
• Worker builds Pasture on horses, road between two cities.
• When horses are hooked up, build nothing but War Chariots.
• Send War Chariots to rivals. Steal their workers, pillage their tile improvements, especially Copper so effective counters (Spearmen, even Axes) to the WCs can't be built.
• Raze cities defended by Warriors, leave cities defended by Archers. The first few WCs are to survive and harass another day. If they earn promotions, they get Flanking.
• Once enough War Chariots are built to keep all rivals stifled, expand and build.
• Hook up copper, build Axemen, wipe out weakened rivals.

This may lend itself to a conquest or domination win, but it is very much dependent on hooking up horses ASAP. If I get the continent all or mostly to myself, I could also go for that so-far elusive cultural win.

As always, I eagerly await your thoughts. I would like to develop more of an overall strategy this time, as some people pointed out that has been lacking in the ALC games up until now. That likely means determining and committing to a victory type early on.

I recently played a game as hatty (noble, continents) - my opening strat was similar to yours in tech / build order. AI on my continent were Alexander and Mansa. First priority was Alexander .. I damn sure didnt want him getting phalanx .. that would be a strat buster and I'd need axes/swords. While building war chariots in 2 of my 3 first cities I attempted to build pyramids .. no stone .. i got beat to it . no biggie .. the $$ helped fund the war effort.
I researched horseback riding + iron working while building forces.. never know what ai might come up with and I wanted to clean my continent of AI by 1AD.

You are right on about bringing 2 chariots per defender .. I brought 10 and 2 horse archers to Alexanders capital .. lost 5 chariots (1 defender was CG2, other 3 were CG1). The horse archers wernt really needed against Alexander, but they sure came in handy vs Mansa's skirmishers (archers on steroids).
I missed cleaning the continent by 1AD .. I had switched out of total war mode before I finished off Mansa and needed extra units to finish him off .. and the sneaky pig sent a settler / skirmisher combo to other side of continent via gally !! .. I killed what I thought was his last city and didnt get the "mansas dead" message .. so I had to search for him. Lucky I had 3 chariots with xtra visibility upgrade. (having a scout or chariot with medic promotion is key to keeping army moving fast).

They most certainly are good rushers. You should scout out other Civs aggressively and pick a target if you have accessible horses. I happened to pop some in the capital's fat cross(Thebes, is it?) and I went to town on Genghis, who was literally on the other side of the continent. I got them out so early he had 4 archers defending two cities with poor cultural defenses. I had probably about 8 WCs, split evenly between flanking and combat promotions, and mopped the floor with him. I only kept his capital(Karakoroum) and though the upkeep was a tad high, it had two rivers flowing through the fat cross and plenty of food, which allowed it to pay for itself easily. I dominated my continent and stamped out my other neighbor, Roosevelt, with a little help from Caesar(he and Bismarck were technically on the same landmass, but the only connector was an isthmus blocked by a mountain) in the classical age, when I was busy expanding and nursing upkeep. It was on Noble, but I scored an easy Space Race win in the early 1900s, mainly because FDR pissed me off by stealing one of my prospective city sites(among other things...NO ONE insults Miss Anorexic!). I was buddy-buddy with Caesar and Bismarck, and soon achieved an insurmountable tech advantage. But, she certainly does lend herself nicely to a Cultural win. Creative should help you get a nice chunk of land sealed off all for yourself, and Spiritual is just great in any situation....

I haven't played Egypt since Hatshepsut's Heiroglyphics. There are a lot of reports by some very good players, which offer good ideas on how to handle the Egyptian opening (of course, this game was a variant, and the restrictions make a difference for long term planning).

OK - Spiritual. Creative. War Chariots. Agriculture. Wheel.

The immediate big deal of the starting techs is that your uber unit is one tech away, and it can absolutely handle all of your barbarian issues (until the barbarians figure out which bit is the pointy end of a spear).

Spears are definitely an issue for early fighting (and the AI prioritizes more than most humans do, I believe). And until you've researched the metals, you won't be able to see which mines to target.

Given that Animal Loving is going to be a top research priority, and that you aren't in good position to race for a religion, you might take a turn or two to scout around looking for pigs or cows before you settle. You'd prefer plants to animals to postpone Pottery for a bit (since the metals are less critical, you don't need Pottery so early to unlock Metal Casting).

All kinds of wonderful synergies can start to emerge if Stone is available. Big if, though. I wouldn't start basing strategy on it until it shows up - if it's there, though, prioritizing it is perfectly fair.

If you are planning to slap the neighbors around early, Alphabet is pretty important. The theaters will help control war weariness if you grab drama next.

As for the starting build, I'd probably get one Warrior as an additional Scout First (allow pop growth to 2) before Worker... because you can almost certainly get 2 'net production' tiles. (F+P>2) in your area.

AH->Bronze first is a good idea, using WarChariots leading into Axes could allow an early Manifest Destinty. Then its head for pretty much any win (although Cultural would require not to mainy religions on the other continent by the time you finished clearing)

Actually Hatty's traits seem to point to domination (easy switching between civics and easy culture expansion of conquered cities)

VoiceOfUnreason said:

The immediate big deal of the starting techs is that your uber unit is one tech away, and it can absolutely handle all of your barbarian issues (until the barbarians figure out which bit is the pointy end of a spear).

Click to expand...

I've actually never seen a barbarian spear. Warriors, Archers, Axemen, Horse Archers, and Workers, yes, but never a spear. I wouldn't put it past them, though. I haven't played a Terra map but have read reports of barb cities in the new world with Riflemen. Scary.

Going AH -> Mining -> BW is, as you say, also important so I can see what to pillage. Good point. Sounds like I'd need to make IW a priority as well. The AI often does, and likely will if I'm denying them copper.

How many cities should be built before going on the attack? Two? Three? The longer I delay, the more likely I'll run into counter units.

One advantage, though, is that if I attack first with Chariots, the AI will prioritize Spears. If I then follow up with a wave of +50%-versus-Melee Axemen... heh heh heh.

I was thinking of ways to safeguard the first few War Chariots, since they don't receive defensive bonuses and will probably be on their own. One thought I had was to pillage and then retreat, especially across a river if one is handy, to give a counter-attacking unit a -25% penalty. I also thought of giving any of these first few lone raiders Flanking promotions; later ones would get Combat I. Any other suggestions?

As for the long term, I was reading through the Catherine Cottage Spam thread the other day with great interest. Something like that might work very well with Hatty, who shares Catherine's Creative trait. When I've tried the CCS, I usually get pounced on by my most aggressive neighbours. But if a War Chariot rush has relegated them to the dark ages, I could expand and cottage spam at my leisure.

Remember that the War Chariot has a very limited window of opportunity. Also remember that Alexander is not a nice neighbour for Egypt.

I guess that I tried to build up peacefully and cottage spam but Napolean and later Alexander decided otherwise...

Three notes, from limited play as Hatty:

1. Horses don't have a backup like BW. If you miss by five tiles or more, those dreams of early conquest will be idle phantasie.

2. Pottery is literally one step away from your start. Having Villages when other civs are just building Cottages strikes me as just as nice as an early Shrine, as long as you can defend them. (See point 1.) Of all the civs, Hatty seems to demand a choice between building and war earliest of all.

3. I've never seen a Barb Spearman either, and doubt they are more than a 1% kind of event-- but that doesn't matter so much, since even a War Chariot is a dicey proposition to take out anything but a Warrior that has a defensive bonus. Taking out everything but the capitol may be the best option of your early, early war. Didn't you mention bouncing back and forth, weakening neighbors to take them down later in an earlier ALC? Hatty may be the best chance you have to use this strat, forcing the AI to play its own variation on the One City Challenge, as it were . . .

Then again, I'm having trouble winning consistently on Noble. Go do your thing, and let us all ooh and ahh at the results.

Do recall though that Hatty is creative. Which makes grabbing early horses less painful if you're using your first settler to do it.

With a chariot UU being so limited a window I find that two cities is all you need to setup your attack. Get one worker out to hook up horses then your settler. From there get a barracks up and start building up your attack force.

Given how easily spears can ruin a chariots day I'd satisfy yourself with taking out one rival. Only grab his capital and one other city at the most so you don't take an early punch in the gut in maintence costs. Then you can retask those chariots to barb suprression and build your empire up a bit. From there you can get any victory you'd like.

ISTM that Alex and Cyrus are the neighbors you don't want to have, since they have early UUs that counter yours. The Mongols could also make you a bit nervous.

If you're planning on early-early war, then "good" neighbors would include anyone who starts with Mysticism (so they can found a holy city for you to capture), anyone with late UUs or UUs whose special abilities won't affect you (i.e. Quechuas), and anyone who's obnoxious enough that you'd probably attack them anyway.

So, you'd be happy to see Isabella or Monty! Weird, huh? Already your strategy is paying dividends...

Saladin and Huayna also tend to found religions, and so would be worth your attention. Alex, you gotta do a very fast pre-emptive strike and take out his copper. Otherwise, make friends.

You'd probably be less happy to find George Washington or Mansa as your neighbor. These guys are relatively peaceful and tend to be willing to trade. So killing them early has a higher opportunity cost.

Culture win: you need 9 cities, plus perhaps one or two extra just in case. In a continents setup, that pretty much compels you to eliminate at least one rival civ. So, your early-early war won't make much difference there.

The idea of early-early is intriguing, but let's see what the world generator gives you. If you're stuck on a small continent, or on a medium sized one with a single neighbor you'd rather not kill (i.e., Mansa), you'll have to show flexibility.

That said, I'm hoping you get a chance to try it. I never have, and I'd like to see it done.

cheers,


Waldo

Hatty, one of strongest and fun play with leaders in my book.

First, her starting tech made you set, you can go first worker and it will have thinks to do.
Second, you need to research a worker technology, animal hasbentry, in order to get access to your UU. You UU is perfect again barbarian and will rule early on.
This is one civ I can delay bronse working for a long time.

Creative and spiritual = flexibility.

Hatty will shine no matter are you in a midle of bisy continent or on lonly island.
If alone on island I will forget early religious tech and go to dramma-philosofy(GS) route, obtaining religion, pacifism and a lot of happiness with cheap theaters/colliseums.

If in a midle of hub = war chariot rush. No matter what your paln is, hatty will shine.

Araqiel (and everyone), should I even bother with barracks at first? Gnarfflinger is right, Chariots have a limited window of opportunity, and on a continents map, it will take several turns just to reach my neighbours, especially with virgin forests and jungle in the way.

And I confess I'm a bit torn between focusing on just one rival or stifling several. I could always just do a little Worker-theft and pillaging of most or all of them, and then focus on one (especially if one founds a religion). But I may not want a -1 or more diplo penalty with my closest neighbours. Hmmm...

Well, the map may dictate much of this, as vormuir said. Just as a for instance, let's consider the previous ALC game maps (Mao, Qin, and Monty) for an early chariot rush:

• In the Mao game, given where I and my rivals were placed on that continent, I would probably only have been able to go after Catherine; Monty and Mansa were way, way, WAY further south, and I had to go through Catherine to get to them. They probably both would have had copper for Axemen and Spearmen by the time I got to them.
  
• In the Qin game, I could conceivably have gone after both Caesar and Huayna--assuming I had been able to find them quickly enough. It was, as Nares pointed out, a bit of a weird map.
  
• In the Monty game, though, I probably could have really gone to town. Three of my four rivals on that continent were relatively close by and, more importantly, not in my way to reach the others. Of course, having Scouts helped me find everyone quickly, and that's not an advantage I'll have in this game unless I have pretty good luck with the goody huts.

So I'm liking Krikkitone's suggestion of a Warrior build off the bat to do a little extra scouting. I can then pull the two Warriors back to my two initial cities as protectors once the first War Chariots are ready and the trumpets blare.

There is an additional advantage to the War Chariots: with 2 moves per turn and 5 strength, even if they don't attack everyone, they're much better for exploration than either Warriors OR Scouts. That's something I may use even ordinary Chariots for in future games, especially if I don't start with Hunting nor have a resource that requires it close by. Chariots are usually your first and cheapest two-move, >1 strength unit.

And yeah, there's the barb-whomping thing too. Handy. Especially since the WCs can race out to defend tile improvements.

After two games as China, I'm anxious and excited to try a totally different civ with completely different traits and a very different UU. I'll start the game and post the opening position in a new thread tomorrow night. In the meantime, keep the ideas and suggestions coming!

Sisiutil said:

And yeah, there's the barb-whomping thing too. Handy. Especially since the WCs can race out to defend tile improvements.

Click to expand...

Don't forget to put roads between the various whomping points, so that you can use fewer hammers in defense.

Sisiutil said:

everyone), should I even bother with barracks at first?

Click to expand...

Well given that a Barracks is basically 2 Chariots, I'd say no, rely on numbers to allow them to level up/retreat.
(4 WCs better than 2 promoted ones, because with the 4 WCs youl'll probably end up with 3 promoted ones after the battles)

As for number of cities... I'd say 3 Total... that way 2 can focus on War production while the other can continue with 'civilian' builds, expanding or Wonders depending on what you want. Or perhaps you can have one build the barracks while the other two build the WCs... and when the Barracks is done start it on WCs and put another one on Barracks.

I think three gives you the necessary flexibility.

and VoUs definitely right (whether refering to barbarians or target enemies, a combat, probably slave, worker may be good.)

as for Barbarian spearmen, there are some units the barbarians Can't build... I think those may be one of them

Starting build: I would let the starting resources determine worker or warrior first. If you have an agricultural resource in the fat cross, then worker first. Otherwise, warrior first would be okay. I would prefer worker first either way, actually, because the sooner you get roads started the earlier everything gets hooked up (ignore this if you happen to be on a winding river).

Early war / religion: I like the ideas so far, but would caution against making too many enemies early on. Target one at a time. If you eliminate one and still have the power to take on another, then do so. Hopefully someone very near you founds a religion so you can take the shrine, but if the nearest shrine is too far away, or too well defended then you'll want open borders to increase the odds of the religion spreading. Making enemies with everyone around greatly increases the length of time until they're willing to open borders. By the time you're researching Mysticism, both starting religions should already be founded. I would definitely try to get one of the next three, though.

War Chariots: I really like your strategy here. Well thought out, taking into account their strengths, weaknesses and window of opportunity. I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.

My thoughts on Hatty (having never played her). Early chariot rush is the way to go. If you're not going for SH then you can build 5 chariots for the same hammer cost (125 vs 120). So start with hooking up horses and taking out neighbour asap. As also pointed out limited window of opportunity for chariots so maybe then go for copper for standard axe rush against other neighbours. OTOH I'm confident you'll go for pyramids if stone is anywhere close so you'd have to decide on sequencing.
I'd be tempted to advise fairly vanilla start:AH,mining,bronze,myst,poly/med,priesthood, start oracle,writing,CoL slingshot,iron,pottery. If you're going for pyramids you'd likely divert to masonry before iron. City 1 horses, city2 copper/stone,city 3 copper/stone.
Obviously this is all based on availability of resources. From previous ALC games if copper is in a naff location research iron before deciding on settling copper. If you don't have nearby horses then that also will have a huge bearing on initial plans.
Build sequence:worker,warrior,warrior(up to siz 2),settler.
A feature of playing continents is that by the time you've taken out a neighbour or two for initial expansion you're half way to owning the continent with an experienced army. You may as well go for taking out the rest of the continent while developing infrastructure for planned victory.
In terms of exploration use starting warrior for local recon,assuming you snag horses and build chariots you can use your first few chariots for distant exploration while waiting to complete the stack.
BTW If you were going through civs alphabetically what happened to Arabia?
Edit: In terms of barracks I'd say chariot stack first,barracks before axe stack.

It'll be interesting to see how an EEW strategy affects your fiscal situation. Hatty is neither financial nor organized, so she's exposed to the full consequence of imperial overstretch. And I have seen people complaining that EEW left them painfully handicapped in the tech race going into the midgame.

You can raze, obviously, but that's a stopgap rather than an answer. By 1500 BC or so, a continents map will be filling up, and the AIs will be getting very quick to grab good sites. We've all had the experience of razing an enemy city only to watch a neutral civ rush a settler in there just a few turns later.

Well, this too depends on geography. Let's see what we get.


Waldo

If you've got a continent to yourself fairly early on then a mid-game tech deficit may not be insurmountable. Other continent is not going to pose a threat until astronomy. Lots of cities and cottages should enable you to be catching up by that point.
I'm not completely sure about the benefits of tech-trading unless you can do multiple trades for the same tech because otherwise tech trading benefits your opponents at least as much as it benefits you (and every AI is an opponent regardless of friendship). In my shadow Qin game I basically avoided tech trading but still kept a tech lead (that was with financial of course).
As Vormuir also pointed out it all depends on the geography. At some point in ALC series you're going to find yourself alone on a small continent (like MM in ALC3).
Edit: also worth considering thread on early wars of opportunity (don't know how to insert link).

One of the greatest strengths for War Chariots is their cost. Nothing in the entire game can match 5 strength for the cost of 4 shields. By this measure, they are even superior to Horse-Archers, which are double their price for a measly 20% increase in strength. Furthermore, as long as you can deny your opponent metal, war-chariots do not go obsolete until feudalism. They are cheap, they are strong, and they can withdraw. Only anti-cavalry can actually beat them in the final tally. War-chariot cost = Archer cost, you can actually afford to spend a WC for every archer you kill.

Now, as for building Barracks, I would strongly recommend this. True, it's that a barracks costs you about 2 WCs, but given the number you'll be churning out, I think higher quality troops are more in order. As for the promotions, I would recommend against the flanking route. You are going to need some hard-hitters, and a Combat 1 WC is just strong enough (5.5) to beat a fully-fortified archer (5.25), and a Combat 2 WC (6.0) is enough to overcome a full-fortified archer with a bit of defense (5.85). The survival bonuses gained by crossing the line in combat strength is far more than you would ever achieve by a 50% retreat chance with.

Flanking 2: 5.0 vs. 5.25 = 35% win + 33% withdrawl = 68% survival.
Combat 1: 5.5 vs. 5.25 = 62% win + 8% withdrawl = 70% survival.
COmbat 2: 6.0 vs. 5.25 = 70% win + 6% withdrawl = 76% survival.

Combat 1 is comparable in odds to Flanking 2, and is a heck of a lot more useful. It leads to Combat 2 which is even better and can handle tougher problems, and Medic 1 for healing your armies which will speed up your conquest. Flanking is only really good for suicide grade battles, when you want to weaken your foe, but if you can deny your foe metal, you won't be facing many of those. Besides, WCs are cheaper than spearmen even if it does come down to that. WCs allow you to flood your opponent with stronger and more maneuverable troops.

War Chariots: Faster, Better, Cheaper.

I liked Krikkitone's suggestions regarding three cities, building unpromoted WCs at first, then building barracks to take advantage of the odds Hans pointed to.

I think this will all depend very much on the map, availability of resources, proximity of opponents (as well as who they are--good points, vormuir), and so on. Basically, because we're talking about an extremely early strategic approach, its viability and the details of its implementation very much depend upon the starting position. I will be proceeding very slowly and posting only a few turns at a time at first so we can all discuss the best way to proceed based upon the start. The first few turns of Civ IV are vital, and if you're trying a very early gambit like this, all the more so.

EDIT: Sorry Pigswill, I forgot to answer your question about Arabia. I did play a game as Saladin/Arabia which did not go well. (Basically, Caesar and Kublai dog-piled me in mid-game.) I posted about it in another thread way way back, and everyone offered so many suggestions on how I could have played it better, especially on how to better take advantage of Saladin's traits, opening techs, and UU, that the idea for these threads occurred to me. If there's interest, I may go back and try another Saladin game once the other leaders are done.