Nobles' Club XCII: Hatshepsut of Egypt

dalamb

dalamb

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The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

Our next leader is Hatshepsut of Egypt, whom we last played in NC XXIII; we last played the Egyptians under Ramesses II in NC LX. The Egyptians start with Agriculture and The Wheel.
Hatchepsut.jpg
  • Traits: Hatshepsut is Spiritual and Creative. SPI gives faster temples, which helps in a cultural victory, but is also a diplomatic trait that lets you give in to civic and religion switch demands from the AIs without anarchy, and quietly switch back a few turns later. Cheap switches have several other advantages; see message 9. CRE gives a crucial +2:culture: to give you faster border pops without building infrastructure; it also makes some cultural buildings cheaper (libraries, theatres, and colosseums).
  • The UB: The Obelisk, a Monument that lets you turn two citizens into priests. This gives you Great People sooner, though Great Prophets are not everyone's favourite; with enough food (!) and happiness resources, and in combination with a fast CRE library you can get a chance at a very early Great Scientist.
    Obelisk.jpg

  • The UU: The War Chariot, a Chariot with 5 :strength: instead of 4, and immune to first strikes. It thus negates one of the advantages of Archers; it's a good early rush unit.
    WarChariot.jpg
And the start:
Start.jpg

Spoiler map details :
Medium and Small -- two continents of those sizes, with some islands. Random opponents.
Spoiler edits :
After being dissatistied with a lot of Pangaea maps, the first M&S map when I saw all that corn. Rerouted the adjacent river to irrigate them all. Made sure we had horses reasonably nearby for the UU.
Finally, a cut and paste of our standard doctrine:
There are no hard and fast rules here: fun and learning are our primary goals, but we do suggest that you update your progress at various points in the game, using the Spoiler feature of the boards. You can post as often as you like; here's one suggestion:
  • 4000 BC (starting thoughts, no spoiler required for that discussion)
  • 1000 BC or so (how you decided to progress up the early tech/build paths, which AIs you have met, where you're thinking of putting cities, etc)
  • 500 AD or so (after establishing some cities and a possible plan of action)
  • 1200 AD or so (mid-game, Lib race, wars or peace, or whichever happened or didn't, met other
  • continent if applicable, etc)
  • 1600 AD (or when you have decided on a course of action and a specific victory condition)
  • End of game (Victory!!! or defeat, no shame in losing, especially if you tried a higher level. Learning is what we focus on, not fastest win or biggest empire)
This is just a guideline. If you're trying to improve your game, then posting more frequent updates, in as much detail as you can manage, is the best way to get suggestions from other players. If you come to what seems like a major decision and you want some advice, post an update, regardless of what game-year it is.

We also welcome players to ask for specific game advice, as we have a number or stronger players who lurk and help out with solid tips, and of course, we help each other. Replies to specific questions should also be in spoilers, with a simple "@" in front of the person the answer is directed towards.

Special Thanks go to Bleys and TMIT, who really made this series a great one, r_rolo1, mapmaker extraordinaire, for his maps in the early days of the series, and all of you for playing.
Click to expand...
The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC 92 Hatty Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels). You can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
Spoiler what's up with specific difficulties :
In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add archery as a tech for the barbarians (if you don't, the AI will capture their cities very early). This cannot be done in the WB save file and must be done in Worldbuilder as follows:
Spoiler how to add techs to the barbarians :

  1. Zoom in all the way so you can't see the rest of the map.
  2. Use the CTRL-W key (or the menu) to enter the worldbuilder. Avoid looking at the mini-map in the lower right corner.
  3. By default you're in "player" mode (look in the box in the upper right; the icon that looks like a person should be selected). You'll get a drop down menu labeled with your leader's name. Barbarians are at the bottom, so cover the rest of the list with your hand if you don't want to see who else is on the map. Select "Barbarians".
  4. Select the "Technologies" tab in the box on the left.
  5. Find Archery (the arrow head icon; 8th row, 3rd column from the right) and click it.
  6. Exit the worldbuilder.
  7. Zoom out again after the map fades, and start playing.
Spoiler huts and events :
Note: The standard saves have no huts and have events turned off. If you want tribal villages and random events, choose the saves with "Huts" in their names. If you want huts but no events, select the Huts saves and use Custom Scenario to turn on the option that suppresses events.
 

Attachments

dalamb said:
All that food suggests using the capital as a GP farm. Would that require moving the capital elsewhere -- since a GP farm can't make much use of Bureacracy. Maybe conquer a neighbour and use his/her capital?
Click to expand...

I just simply meant I will probably play this :-) not worth to overspecialize your cities T0...

this amount of food surely should lead to some good overlap with capital with city 2 to speed up things and creative suggests early library.

mining->bw looks like first 2 techs to take

was thinking for a second about settling on one of those wet corns, but I would kill myself for it later for sure...
 
That's going to be a really strong early worker/settler pump. Looking at the surrounding area (early-turn spoilers)...

Spoiler :
...you can get in 2-3 good cities to share all four of the corn resources, including the horse city and a possible GP farm to the southwest with the sheep and crabs. The obvious early rush target (Hannibal) is interesting because his capital is on a hill and he can settle a second city for copper without too much trouble. I'm tempted to found enough cities to share the capital's rich resources and then WC rush Hannibal right off the map. Protective Sal and Wang are going to be more long-term of course if we go military, but on a map with this much cottageable green land and the possibility of being squeezed out by neighbors, culture is a more inviting option than usual, especially since diplomacy with Saladin is usually a breeze.

That's the direction I'll likely take: settle sheep/crabs/corn city as a GP farm, then go with horse city, Thebes, and a third floodplains city to the north for the three cultural sites.
 
Holy mama! Never seen three riverside corns clustered that way. And I have seen many starts.
 
With the other Egyptian leader it would of been a perfect Obs style start I think (stone or marble is about only way it could get better)
 
Nice writeup, but I want to point out one thing:

SPI gives faster temples, which helps in a cultural victory, but is primarily a diplomatic trait that lets you give in to civic and religion switch demands from the AIs without anarchy, and quietly switch back a few turns later.
Click to expand...

This is actually a side-benefit of SPI. There are 2 main points to it that are much more important:

-Swap between war and peace civics, such as Theocracy and Organized Religion. This works best if you're running primarily a specialist economy, as you can also swap between specialists and hills.

-Use Caste System while still having access to occasional whips for infrastructure, either in new cities or when a new tech finishes.

And 2 fun tricks, which I'd put on par with giving in to AI demands:

-Swap to Pacifism and starve cities to run specialists for 10 turns, like a mini-golden age.

-Serfdom is usually too weak to use. But for a brief period when you get Civil Service (chain irrigation), it's actually quite good.

Thought that might help someone.
 
Sick start... going to start playing this now on Immortal. Will probably settle on one of those corns depending on what my warrior reveals.

Just to be a nitpick: the leader's name is Hatshepsut. :egypt:
 
That's a ton of food, zomgz! And chop chop wonders? :D Hatty is one of my favorite leaders, even though I usually play Ramy.

The only thing I'm worried about is that there are any hills in this capital besides the 1 we see.

Playing this on Emperor, so expect a lot of ragequit/restart. :D What do I have to add to the barbs-- archery and hunting?
 
I'd suggest editing the boiler plate a little because if one reads it not so carefully, they'd just think you'd need archery. Suggested parts in bold:

The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel.

For players on Monarch or above, you should add the additional techs that the AI gets on your difficulty as a tech for the barbarians
Click to expand...
 
Spoiler :
Carthage on a hill took AAAAGES to warchariot "rush"
and 2 protective neighbors made my cuirs rush slow enough to face rifles before i could have the continent :(
Great Map though!
 
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