King of the World, Open game, Chapter I :Hatshepsut

The Earth 18 civs was one of the most popular scenarios brought by Vanilla Civ : 18 civilizations in a hand made map, with every civ facing diferent chalenges and oportunities ( European civs cramped in a tiny space, with no option except to fight each other or to expand overseas, the Incas cramped between the Pacific and the Andes, the Americans with wide open spaces to the west, like the Russians to the east, etc ) make it a very interesting variation of the normal maps ( especially before BtS, when the map scripts created less than varied maps ).
After our friend Neal had started ( and unfortunately not finished ) 2 games with this map in Warlords, it was suggested than a Open game using this map would be a good idea. So I decided to open a game where to discuss and apply strategies about this particular map. As the scenario exists in all the Civ IV incarnations, players using Vanilla , Warlords of BtS are welcomed to play and share their experiences ( in spite of some buildings ,techs and wonders could make a diference. For a example in vanilla Mali and Egypt were swarmed by barbs because they simply couldn't fill Africa before of barbs start to swarm in strengh. The Great Wall in Warlords and BtS can help a bit with that... )

Because we don't have any kind of bias against any civ, it was choosed the first civ that appears when we load the scenario ( Single Player -> Load a scenario -> Earth 18 civs ), the Egyptians leaded by Hatshepsut ( aka Hatty ) :

Hatty has the War Chariot as UU ( a stronger chariot immune to first strikes enabled by the wheel and horses ( that requires Animal Husbandry ) ), that became more useful with the inclusion of a anti axeman bonus to all chariot type units in Warlords and BtS. In Warlords and in BtS, Hatty also has a UB, the Obelisk, that replaces the monument ( thay in vanilla is called Obelisk :crazyeyes: ) and enables the hiring of two priests, leading to all kind of religious flavour strategies and Great Prophet settling ......

Here is the start:

The touch of a hand made map.... riverside incense floodplain, riverside stone floodplain and riverside marble flooplain . Of course that so much FP means heavy and besides the marble and the stone, no in sight....

This are the settings that I am going to use ( BtS 3.13, no Bhruic patch to patch ):
I'll try to post in every 100 turns a small report saying what I did and what happened and I would like to see some others from other players ( of course that you aren't obliged to that.... this for fun ,not a competition ).

First, some thoughts:
I don't play this scenario for a long time ( since Vanilla ), but I do recall that thre are horses nearby ( not sure if in the BFC )... but the nearest civ is Persia , not exactly the better candidate to a chariot rush . There are a lot of wonder options as well..... the Henge ( good synergy with the UB ), the GW ( no barb problems ), the Pyramids ( early Rep ), Oracle ( do I really need to explain? ).... maybe a Obsolete-type strategy may be in hand.
As far as I can remember, there are not good production sites nearby ( the nearest place is in Eastern Anatolia and I'm not sure that we can get there before Cyrus ) so BW may be in hand as well, even if only for pop control...

Oh well, good luck to all, and let the games begin !!!

what difficulty and game speed are you going to play on? It'll probably help if we all play with the same settings. I've never played an earth game but I'll give it a try until my computer dies.

you could rush Saladin instead...

Ramsess II would have been overkill here...
Rush saladin and musa, conquer Africa, head to the stars.
You don't mind if I play warlords and play at Noble, right?

@shyuhe
Check image on third spoiler ( monarch, epic speed )

@tycoonist

True enough..... I forgot him. But if I can remember well, he has crappy land, not worthing the effort

@Hackapell

Ramesses would be really a overkill here, but this is a Vanilla scenario....
And play what level, speeed and plataform you wish

I will most likely join on this - I have been looking at the Earth map with some joy, just for the "lol Risk" element of it alone is fun. I'll probably play BtS/Prince and see how I fare.

I'm most definatly playing this one with the exact settings: epic/monarch.

marble/stone/wheat ON the floodplains in the initial fatcross

I've never seen a better start, period, that is once you fix the health problem.

Never played 18-civ earth scenario, really looking forward to this one, great idea rolo

France's start is even better IMO. stone, marble, wheat, horses, Iron, coal, AND clams. and its Luis XIV so he's industrious...AND he's cultural. you can flip london before the ADs easy.

Saladin has crappy land, but he almost always founds hinduism so he's worth the rush, because his location can mean it spreads to +40% of the world with nets 50-70GPT from the shrine if you get trade routes set up fast. I find that one fo the most important things is to get a religion set up fast along with the trade routes with the shrine if possible so the trade routes open up as soon as possible meaning your religion spreads as fast as possible. I'll probably play on emperor and just REX all of Africa.

^^I already played 80 turns ( couldn't play more , terribe toothache )
and Saladin remained atheistic until Confu spread to them.... but well, in this game Alex founded Buddhism .... Will see if I am able to play and post today.

the first game I played, Isabella managed somehow to not found Buddhism, but besides that it's almost always been Isabella founds Buddhism and Saladin Hinduism. I'll probably get around to playing it sometime soon. either tomorrow or tuesday

Wouldn't I have been involved in so many projects, RL work and fiancée overload, some minimum sleeping time, I would definitely gave this one a try

Stone&marble floodplains seems a little bit overkill but what a great epic game would it be.

I'll be sure to book some time for your games in the near future r_rolo!

I've played to 1800BC.

I most often get "the villagers are hostile" from huts, but check this out:

This is my favorite scenario, and my favorite start. Love Egypt.

I'm going to try for a Specialist Economy with three core cities: (1) at the start location, (2) a "Nubia" city south of Thebes near the elephant tile, and (3) near modern-day Israel. For added historical flavor, I will attempt to found Judaism and build the Pyramids, Great Lighthouse, and Great Library.

My real question is how to best run a SE with Hatty. I see two options there:

1. Representation + Caste System, running scientists (and merchants when necessary). Good news: lots of scientists. Bad news: requires CoL and lacks way to rush production and/or reduce unhappiness.
2. Representation + Slavery, running scientists and priests (using Obelisks and Temples). Good news: uses UB, allows for pop-rushing. Priests provide a good all-around boost to commerce, production, and research (with representation). Bad news: Number of scientist specialists capped at 2.

I'm going to try option 2. I figure every city will be running 5 specialists (2 scientists, 3 priests), so that means a lot of farmed floodplains. I may be able to throw an engineer in there too once I build forges.

Warplans:

1. Ancient period: War Chariot rush Mansa Musa. Mansa has gems, seafood, and cows in his area IIRC, plus Iron and Wine to his NW. More health resources = good for Hatty, who has major health issues.
2. Late Classical period: War Elephants against Saladin, who has seafood and sheep for more health goodness.

Wiping out Saladin and Mansa Musa pretty much guarantees Hatty will own Africa. She just needs to settle near Morocco and Carthage to keep the Europeans out and along the East African coast to keep Persian and India away. The Congo, East Africa, and South Africa all have decent resources.

I suppose the other issue will be choosing a victory condition and deciding whether to stay in a SE.

I'll play and post tonight.

with all those FPs you could probably do a hybrid economy from the get go and just cottage everything. all the excess food should allow you to run enough specialists to counter act unhappiness and health issues.

I've had quite a bit of fun playing this game. Cheers to a great idea.

I played through turn 104 (forgot to pause at 100).

This game has been extreamly fun so far. I'm playing 3.13 and am going for a wonder-based/settled GP ecomony.

warning: I played through to 190AD, and gave a VERY long and detailed rightup just FYI.

My game at turn 100 ( 375 BC )
Good to see that people are having fun... that's the point ( P.S. I also love this map.... but I like more his 1000 AD incarnation. Maybe in another time I'll try to do a open game with it )

I went a much different route than you . I researched Pottery from the get go and started spamming cottages in my capital. I also settled 2 cities pretty fast in between building the GW, Oracle, and half of ToA. I also used oracle to get math in the hopes of getting hanging gardens for the health...but got beat to that 5 turns before it because i felt safe and put it off . currently it's turn 107 and i'm gearing up for REXing the rest of africa/blocking off saladins expansion into it (he's already got 2 cities on it , and then building an army to take out his hindu holy city which has spread to ~25% of the world already. after the Great Library is built i think we'll be golden.

I feel like the only warmonger here I've played my current game past turn 350 (about 1600 AD) and I should be able to wrap up my game soon. I'll try to post more then.

@r_rolo1

The other options gave the possiblity of extra health in the future, with the expense of ( 1 in the second and 2 in the third )... Like in Civ IV happiness normally is far more important than health ( and even more in the first tuns, even a temporary happy boost is better than a permanent health one ( the game proved me right: the extra citizen allowed by the extra happiness allowed me to work all the resource tiles in the BFC, that permited me to finish fast a temple, making a temporary hap boost in a permanent one )

Click to expand...

I found out the hard way that not selecting the +1 happiness option can really hurt a growing empire; it potentially causes 20-30 (can't remember) turns of unhappiness in some cities so even whipping becomes difficult and it can really put the brakes on a growing civilization at the most critical time, when happiness is already low. I'd agree that in most situations choosing the +1 happiness option is the best there.

Also good stuff getting this started, I'll give this a go sometime this week. I am curious to see how the new patch changes things...