Egypt Monarch Game - What would you have done?

Hi all,

I have started another game - this time Hattie of Egypt at Monarch level on a standard continents random map.

Founded Thebes 1E from the starting position - I wanted to be on the river and my food sources were still in the BFC.

Founded Memphis Turn 37 - This site gives me access to clams, rice and a plains cow pasture.

Founded Heliopolis Turn 52 - This site gives me access to fish and stone.

Founded Elephantine Turn 71 - This site gives me access to horses and looks like a good spot for the Moai Statues. However the food on this site is weak so it will be slow growing this city into a production powerhouse.

Research path was:
Animal Husbandry (13) to get the cows next to the capital
Fishing (19) Pottery (27) for granaries and cottages
Mining (35) Bronze Working (49) to get a whip economy going
Mysticism (54) Masonry (59) access to stone
Writing (68) Sailing (76) trade with the Greeks
Currently I am researching Iron Working to see where it is - There is no copper nearby.

What I find particularly challenging about this map is the luxury resources are very far away and Perry has an advantage in getting them first. A lack of happiness slows down the economy.

One way to deal with this might have been to pack my cities a little closer together and using one food source per city since they will not be growing very big. Eventually I can research Monarchy and then I can grow and whip my cities. An early religion is unlikely, but I can set myself up for a Theology bulb by running priests from the Obelisks.

I decided to try building the Pyramids. I had access to stone and lots of forest tiles. Running Representation will help with the happiness problem and aid research if and when I am running specialists, which is very likely since I have three food happy cities.

So I started the Pyramids on Turn 65 and chopped the forests within 3 tiles of Thebes and finished them on Turn 79. I might as well run Representation since I have it and then work my way towards a religion.

My next city should claim the fish and marble to the southeast of my empire.

I am posting an initial save and screen shot and save at 900BC, or Turn 79.

What would you have done in this situation? (lack of luxury resources)

Rep is stronger when you have more happy. Trade for what resources you can and build temples (you're SPI and get them @ a discount). Mids with stone isn't a terrible idea and if you have enough workers + improve your tiles you should have a decent output. Pericles isn't murderer's row as a neighbor so I don't really see the issue. I'll look at the save and edit this in a sec if need be.

1. Elephantine is a bad city. No food resources at all. If you want to get war chariots ASAP, at least get a food resource in the ring for one of your horses.

2. Speaking of which, either spawn bust with warriors better or get the war chariots earlier

3. Switch into rep, in the save you're not in it yet and you carry no penalty for doing it as SPI

4. In the future, try to set up a shot at one of the middle religions (confuc, christianity, or taoism) on a map like this where your island has no religion. The would be welcome, and so would the diplo bonuses and religious civic boost.

5. Keep settling cities. Once pericles gets calendar he'll have multiples of resources to trade for.

I don't see anything overly challenging here though as long as you take care of your empire somewhat.

Okay - I moved some files around while editing. I am now showing a save at Turn 79 instead of a Turn 76 autosave and am showing a screen shot at turn 79 instead of the initial start.

Regarding resource trade, I am not sure what I would be able to supply Perry with that would get me gems and spice.

Regarding 1, I agree it has no food resources at all. Currently at Turn 100, I have a granary and lighthouse up for a food surplus of 3 and it is slow growing. Moai Statues will be up on Turn 114 and I do not think I am going to hurry that by whipping Library or Barracks because of the lack of food surplus.

Regarding 2, ya my spawn busting sucked. I should not have had my warriors hang back more. It looks like this cost me a couple of warriors that should have been saved. I was three turns from a level 2 War Chariot anyway so not much harm was done.

Regarding 3, the switch to representation was intended, but intentionally left out of the saved game.

Regarding 4, I was planning to set up a Theology bulb in case a Great Prophet shows up and maybe a Philosophy bulb for a Great Scientist.

EDIT: Removed update

Harv: a couple of points - and an apology. I tried posting this three times only for the cfc site to crash as a result of database errors, d'oh!

Firstly, I endorse everything that TMIT mentioned – in particular about Elephantine...IMHO it would have looked so much better located a little further south where it had rice and clams available to feed the horses. In addition, I admit that I would’ve been VERY reluctant to move the capital onto the river. Admittedly, I see the benefit of the late game levee but, when I opened the 4000BC save, I thought that whilst I’ve seen better capitals, there’s enough food and production there from the hills to make it a decent enough early worker / settler pump. By moving east onto the river to get the late game levee, the capital lost all of its early production because the hills were no longer in the BFC.

So, what would I have done in your position? IMHO, the key was your UU, the war chariot. It costs the same as a normal chariot but has 1 extra base strength. Admittedly, chariots don’t get CR promos but then they cost 5 less than an axe, so you can get a couple more of them out to compensate. As was illustrated in Sisiutil’s ALC game (which is well worth reading IMHO), the keys to using them are (i) mass production and (ii) their vulnerability to spears like any chariot.

Whilst production of them can easily be obtained from the whip or a chop, the second point deserves a little more explanation. In short, it means that bronze working and writing also become very important early techs – because they will enable you to open borders with Pericles and scout him out to ascertain if he has copper. If he has none, you know you have until he gets either iron working (the next earliest he can get spears) or feudalism (when he can get longbows) if you want to take him out with nothing more than war chariots. Whilst others might suggest playing more peacefully, I’d suggest that the map has made his capital too good not to add to your empire.

To show you what’s possible, I picked up your 4000BC save and played until the attached 275BC save when the Greeks have been destroyed. (I’ve also included a 725BC save, which is the closest I have to your 775BC save, for comparison.) Please feel free to have a look at either or both saves and ask any questions that spring to mind. Before you do however, there are a couple of points to note:

(a) If you don’t want to know where iron is located on the map, don’t look...it’s location is revealed in the saves. I researched iron working to enable access to all those lovely gems in the jungle.

(b) I had a much easier time than you with Pericles in this game because he went down the religious path and founded Judaism, shrined his capital and built a wonder or two. However, the plan I’ve outlined of AH > mining (which I popped from a hut) > BW > pottery > writing for open borders and scouting, would still have been the way I played. (Note: I reversed pottery and BW in my game...I don’t know what I was smoking when I made that decision. Note also that I was part way through bronze working when I switched to fishing once I saw the clams next to the horses and rice where I settled Memphis. I then picked up bronze working again.) No bronze available to Pericles means it’s time to start building, whipping and chopping those chariots IMHO. Provided your first couple of cities have some decent food, you don’t even need early infrastructure like granaries because, alot of the time, the chariots will be one pop whips. As a result, granaries will only generate too many unhappy citizens.

(c) As TMIT notes, the other key is to keep expanding. As you’ll see from my save, that’s why I settled Heliopolis and Elephantine – because they got in quite a decent block. In effect, they said to Pericles “if you want to expand into a meaningful number of cities, you’re going to have to go through all that jungle east of Athens” (which, of course, will take time to clear). Of course, once I saw all those gems in the jungle, another settler was rushed out ASAP to settle Alexandria as well. Now, admittedly, Heliopolis may not be much of a long term city but Elephantine is a prime candidate for the heroic epic.

(d) It might be worth noting from the saves how I’ve stacked whip weariness in a few cities to get out those chariots. Now that a couple of cities are at their happy caps as a result, they can produce settlers and workers for a few more cities whilst whip weariness subsides.

(e) Although Pericles had only two cities in my game (like I said, he went down the religious path whilst I tried blocking him in), note that Athens was a holy city. Despite the extra cultural defences this gave the city, note that I was still able to take it with nothing more than war chariots. Moreover, you’ll note from the save that I have many more chariots that would’ve been available to take out another city if he had one – because he only has archers. As I mentioned at the beginning, IMHO the key to this start is using Egypt’s UU to cripple Pericles before he builds too many wonders and drowns Egypt in culture.

(f) Most importantly, yes, I’m know my start sucks! I’ve been largely absent from civ for a little while (a start on another thread was my first in about a month) and I’m ashamed to see how many bad habits have crept back into my civving. In particular, my surfeit of war chariots means that I really should’ve declared several turns ago. Oh well, more games needed it seems. Hope it helps you though.

EDIT: I've tried attaching my 725BC save, but, after yet more database errors on the site, I've given up...I'll try adding it later.

The window of opportunity for war chariots is a small one. The strategy for this involves grabbing the horses + food with the second city and spamming chariots ASAP. If you go with the pyramids, then peaceful expansion is in the cards more than war is. So with the mids in place it makes more sense to settle Elephantine somewhere south of Thebes towards the AI, maybe along the river.

PartAnon said:

The window of opportunity for war chariots is a small one. The strategy for this involves grabbing the horses + food with the second city and spamming chariots ASAP.

Click to expand...

Very true. As a result, I played again from the 4000BC start and this time got to three cities. The good news is that Pericles also managed to get to the same number, rather than waste his time investing hammers in wonders soon to be part of the Egyptian empire.

Over time, all three (rather than the two you mention PartAnon) cities contributed to mass whipping of war chariots. As a result, at 1120BC I found myself with two stackettes positioned to attack two cities, the idea being that any left over would converge on city three. Note that I was unconcerned if city three did not fall - the real prize was Athens. That said, as the 950BC save illustrates, the result was the same as before - the Greeks have been consigned to history, this time at 950BC, just to reinforce the point about how powerful war chariots can be against archers.

As before Harv, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Oh, and this does all tie in with your point about happiness. Having done my initial scouting I, like you, discovered a complete absence of early happiness resources. As a result, my mind began to wonder about whether calendar resources were available. As it happens, we've seen that they are - albeit in small number - and there are also gems available for happiness. The problem as I see it, is that you have a rival who's every bit as close to those reources as you are when the game starts...which is precisely when your UU is available. My conclusion is therefore to leverage your UU: kill, or at least severely cripple Pericles by taking Athens plus one other city containing a happy resource to help alleviate the problem. BTW, from this point on, there are several options (i) spread religion (or found one if Pericles didn't as TMIT notes) (ii) happy boosting buildings such as temples (remmber Hatshepsut is spiritual, so these are built at double speed), forges (for the gems), maybe even colosseums (iii) resources such as spices (iv) techs such as monarchy for hereditary rule and lastly (v) this I'm spoilering because it reveals something about the map I've learned from my two playthroughs:


EDIT: Once again, I've tried uploading the two saves I mention but have encountered a database error in the popup when I click the manage attachments link. When it gets fixed by IT, I'll happily upload the saves for ya!

I loaded up the save from Turn 79 and fixed some micromanagement.

Researched Iron Working (89) Polytheism (95) Monotheism (99) Mathematics (105) Meditation (106) Alphabet (112) Currency (116) Priesthood (117)

I will work on Code of Laws next and when I finish that, I believe I should be able to bulb Philosophy and that will get me started on the religious nut path.

In Heliopolis, I started the Great Lighthouse and finished it Turn 98. I also built the Temple of Artemis in Memphis on Turn 112. (had 4 forests to chop and workers nearby to do it)

When I researched Iron Working, I found out that the Greeks had no metal, but had founded a city close enough to get it shortly and they were sending workers. Turn 101 I started a war and did a triple worker capture then sent 5 war chariots against 2 archers in Corinth then sent them rolling towards Sparta. I decided to ignore Argos until the end while I focused on taking out Athens.

So I opted to take Pericles out with a combination of swords and war chariots. At this point, I have the island to myself - as well as the Pyramids, Great Wall, Lighthouse, and Temple of Artemis.

For luxury resources I will have gems, spices, incense and whale available eventually and I have a decent shot at getting a religion - it is looking like Taoism.

The save game file shows exactly the point where I took Perry's last city.

Bad news is that I have movers coming in tomorrow and it may be a few months before I can finish this game - but I will try to log on and check the feedback. Thanks for the advice.

Well you took out Pericles and have a big continent to yourself so there's not much to comment on. Whip the settler in Pi-Ramesses right away for 3 pop. And you have 2 idle great scientists.. sure save one for a Philosophy bulb if you must, but you should build an Academy with one. Athens should be the GP farm (haha, Scotland Yard), and I would consider moving the capital to the eventual triple gems/rice/iron site for a crazy city (call it Cairo). Thebes isn't that great.