[R&F] Civ of the Week: Egypt

[acluewithout]

• Leader: Cleopatra.
  
  
• Leader Ability: Mediterranean's Bride. Egypt's international trade routes provide it with +4 gold. Other civilizations' trade routes to Egypt provide them with +2 food, and provide Egypt with +2 gold. Earn double Alliance Points from trading with Allies.
  
  
• Civ Ability: Iteru. +15 Production towards distracts and wonders built next to a River. Can build on Floodplains.
  
  
• Unique Unit: Maryannu Chariot. Ranged unit that replaces the Chariot (upgrades to x-bows, not Knights). Melee Strength 25, Ranged Strength 35 (Attack Range 2), Movement 2 (+2 Movement if it starts on Flat Terrain). Production cost 120, mainentance 2.
  
  
• Unique Infrastructure: Sphinx. Unique Improvement. +1 Culture, +1 Appeal, +1 Faith, +2 Faith if next to a Wonder, +1 Culture (after researching Natural History).
  
  
• Leader Agenda: Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. Cleo likes Civs with powerful militaries, and tries to ally with them. She doesn't like Civs with weak militaries.

• Interesting links: Civ VI Wiki, Power Ranking the Vanilla Civs (Archon_Wing), Civ 6 Deity Tier List, A consistent Egypt strategy? , Egypt - 2 Queries , Weakest Unique Unit , As of now, which is your favourite Civ to play as, and your least favourite (Lily_Lancer likes Egypt), (LMK if there are any other great posts or threads you think I should add.)

A few notes for those that don't know:

• Egypt's Maryannu Chariot replaces the Chariot, but it is a ranged unit. So, Cleo can't Knight rush; i.e. build Chariots and then upgrade them to Knights using gold and one iron.
  
  
• Egypt is the only civ to have %production bonus to building Wonders for all Eras.
  
  
• Egypt is the only Civ that can build district and wonders on Floodplains (although everyone can build the Pyramids and Petra on Floodplains, because reasons).

 

[Disgustipated]

Anyone know if that production bonus also applies to government districts? I know in the past I've had trouble playing Egypt optimally. I will attempt to do so. My main problem is I don't like to put a bunch of wonders and districts on rivers. Old civ habits are still sometimes ingrained in me and I'm thinking I need those for irrigation for farms. I will attempt to play them putting a lot of stuff on rivers. It will be a random map since the Earth map only gives them 1 river to work with. Not so great. And they are stuck with lots of desert, though if you get Petra is not so bad.

I'm thinking peaceful is the best course of action for them? They have that early uu, but I never cared for it. I'd rather build archers. 120 production seems really high. I don't have the game open, so I can't compare it to archers right at the moment, but I'm certain archers are cheaper.

 

[Jarms48]

The things I like about Egypt:
- Decent UU.
- Mediterranean's Bride is very thematic for Cleopatra.
- UI means they can make decent Petra or St. Basil's Cathedral cities. The UI also helps with the adjacent Seaside Resorts / National Parks.

Things I don't like about Cleopatra:
- The Maryannu should be in-addition to the Heavy Chariot not a replacement. I'd also reduce it's production cost to 80, and maintenance cost to 1 GPT.
- This is more of a complaint about the game mechanics than Iteru, but I would allow all Civ's to be able to build on Floodplain tiles (the sacrifice for building on Floodplains is losing a good food tile). I would instead give Egypt +2 Gold / +1 Culture / +1 Faith from Floodplains (one of those not all). The gold would provide synergy with Mediterranean Bride, the +1 Culture would provide Egypt faster access to Civic cards which would help with her start bias and it gives synergy with their UI, the +1 Faith similarly provides Egypt with faster access to a Pantheon which would help with her start bias and it gives synergy with their UI.

I feel like if those complaints were addressed it'd make Egypt much more enjoyable, but certainly not overpowered.

 

[Disgustipated]

And doesn't the Sphinx seem a little underpowered to anyone? Especially compared to the Mapuche UI which gives more culture.

I haven't played Civ6 since the patch, and I consider Egypt to be a weak civilization (at least with my playstyle) so I've dropped down to Prince. I also plan on playing peacefully to maximize trading opportunities. Here's my starting location. Not too bad. I'll include my save if anyone wants to play. It's hot and arid world conditions just be aware.

 

[Morningcalm]

It's 15% production bonus for desert and flood plains right?

And what do people think about Egypt's power level? They seem weak to me.

 

[acluewithout]

I think it’s just 15% boost for next to rivers.

There’s a good synergy with commercial hubs: you want these by the river anyway for the adjacency, and then getting the 15% production boost lets you get these up faster and so get to more trade routes faster; and then your trade routes earn you extra gold under the LA on top of that.

 

[Forster]

As an aside, shouldn't the Civ of the Week be in the Strategy & Tips forum?

 

[The Ferret]

• 9 Civs (including me)
• Emperor
• Standard
• Shuffle

Initial thoughts are to take advantage of its extra production towards wonders and additional gold from international trade routes. Will see how it pans out, although I don't intend to warmonger early unless I have to.

Starting location

Spoiler :

Managed to build the Hanging Gardens, however slightly concerned with the proximity of Gilga. The shmuck even settled beneath my capital, despite efforts to try and stop him. Perhaps war is coming....

Spoiler :

In other news, Greece has declared war on Rome and seem to be sieging one of their cities.

Spoiler :

One of my new cities is attempting to build Petra. Hopefully no one else will build it within the next 47 turns!!! Rome has also declared war on Greece, maybe they want their city back...

Spoiler :

Feel like I'm living dangerously and may need to build walls before Gilga tramples all over my empire

 

[Sylfea]

And doesn't the Sphinx seem a little underpowered to anyone? Especially compared to the Mapuche UI which gives more culture.

I haven't played Civ6 since the patch, and I consider Egypt to be a weak civilization (at least with my playstyle) so I've dropped down to Prince. I also plan on playing peacefully to maximize trading opportunities. Here's my starting location. Not too bad. I'll include my save if anyone wants to play. It's hot and arid world conditions just be aware.

I _hate_ floodplains - so many cities ruined by that one floodplain in the middle of the jungle I didn't see until I tried to build on it - but I played several matches with the Aztec last week and enjoyed it, so suppose I'll try to give Egypt a fair chance this week. I'll see what happens with that save - never tried playing someone else's save before either, hah.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Egypt is still bad and with the changes to trade routes making them harder to get and bonuses being moved to t1 buildings they may even be worse. Though I wouldn't put them as trash tier anymore, but this is only because England

Their district bonus is not as good as it seems because besides commercial hubs and maybe the occasional theater district it's not really preferrable to place a district on a river. It is nice they can overwrite floodplains though. Rise and Fall does buff wonder building as you get some compensation for failing, there's more wonders, and some are better.

Getting more gold from international trade is probably their best ability; the food one is actually a nice touch too.

The Chariot is a pretty big insult since Egypt has traditionaly had a good early Chariot unit but this thing is super expensive and it is rare you need that kind of bombard strength early on-- you're more likely to need an actual stronger melee unit to take cities. Not being upgrade it to knight means Egypt has no midgame power spike and that just leaves it in the dust. Between that and the Magnus meta (even after the nerf), Egypt doesn't really bring anything to the table. In fact, with the introduction of civs like the Cree, Egypt is completely redundant, although this may be an inevitability of power creep.

Though as I've said before, this is mostly because the style of playing as has often traditionally been aside to Egypt (wonder spam and peaceful building) is the weakest in Civ 6 and simply does not match the flow of the game's mechanics. It is possible that if war should become costly some day that they may see themselves a bit more useful.

 

[KayAU]

Ah, Egypt, I wish this was a better civ.

Leader Ability - Mediterranean's Bride: Well, you now get double alliance points, which makes this a bit better. The gold bonus from outgoing international routes is alright, although I might still go for internal trade routes. The incoming trade route bonus is something you have little control over, and gives a better bonus to your rivals than to you.
Civ Ability - Iteru: Very weak. I rarely, if ever, want to place districts on floodplains, that's what the surrounding desert is for. A 15% production bonus is rather tiny. The way the math works out, in the instances where the bonus kicks in, you will be producing things in 87% of the time it would otherwise have taken. Compare this to Nubia's very similar ability, which gives them +20% for districts regardless of placement (produce in 83% of the time), 40% if they have their unique tile improvement next to the city center (71% of the time).
Unique Unit - Maryannu Chariot Archer: This one is absolutely terrible. Yes, it is powerful, but it is also very expensive, and prevents you from upgrading Chariots to Knights. Compare it again to rival Nubia's similar range/mobility Ancient Era unit, the amazing Pitati Archer: It is only 5 points weaker, with better mobility, and Nubia can build 5 of those Archers in the same time Egypt can produce 2 Chariots. I know the Pitati is the best UU in the game, but it is hard not to compare when two civs are so clearly set up as rivals.
Unique Infrastructure - Sphinx: This one is good, actually. Early game culture is useful, and sometimes hard to come by.

Thematically, Egypt is okay, but it is one of the weakest civs in the game, with very little going for it. It gets even worse when comparing to Nubia which is set up as a rival civ, with some similar types of bonuses which are just far superior.

 

[Abraxis]

I consider Egypt to be a weak civilization (at least with my playstyle)

They seem weak to me.

Egypt is still bad.

Ah, Egypt, I wish this was a better civ.

I'm sure insulting the sphinx as she tries to tell you her riddle is not going to get you anywhere.
She exists to test the soul, to judge its worth for higher purpose.
She does not exist only to devour those around her.
Though, they can make a tasty treat.

"Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold."
-Some mortal

 

[Morningcalm]

Or maybe the sphinx is weak, and I want to be stronger, and I point it out not to insult the sphinx but to indicate how it may better emanate strength and power rather than exotic weakness.

 

[Disgustipated]

Sphinx hasn't turned out too bad in my game. My culture is quite high and very much outpacing my research. I normally like to research sanitation before getting universal suffrage, but it ain't happening this game. I was only like 12 turns for universal suffrage anyways without the boost (on epic speed). I should have stayed with King difficulty, as my game has been quite easy, and not a single person has declared war on me (though because of alliances I did have Nubia from another continent declare on me just recently). Playing with barbarians on is like easy level. Barbs put a hurt on Spain early on, though Spain later broke out and put the hurt on Korea and a little bit on Zulu (just 1 city). Mongolia was doing fairly well on the other continent, but I just recently passed him in score. I did build 1 of my UU for the era score, but never really used it. I only conquered 1 free city (Georgia's capital was flipped by Korean pressure mostly)

I'm not sure how you guys make your tiers. I've never officially made my tiers. I'll just go with the grade school system of A, B, C, D, and F. I gave last week's civ an A-. I'm nearing the end of my game already as its been pretty quick. I spent some time with my mom for mother's day, but I will try to get close to finishing today. Peaceful games with no wars can be quick. And my peaceful games mean no declarations of war and no conquering of AI cities (though I did conquer 1 free city, it was stable loyalty and wasn't going anywhere). As for my score, right now I'm leaning towards a solid middle C. Culture and Gold are pretty high with this civ which helps redeem them.

I still didn't put that many Sphinx's, but probably more than past games. Perhaps I underestimated them in the past. In the past I was reluctant to use unique improvements because they don't increase food or production, and almost seem like a drain. But at least with Egypt you can put them on flood plains and still be increasing your food and population with them. The game recommends I put them on desert squares, but I'd rather not. The exception is my desert square next to Kilamanjaro. I still don't have optimum placement of Sphinx's in this game. I don't like to micro stuff like that. I just throw them wherever.

And what do people think about Egypt's power level? They seem weak to me.

See my above paragraph. Before I would have ranked them lower. But they seem slightly stronger in rise and fall since it's a little easier to get into alliances if you are peaceful which means good trade routes. Commercial hubs are slightly easier to build as well due to production bonus of 15%, too bad that doesn't apply to district buildings though. Culture and Gold (and a little bit of faith) help redeem them. Much better than a civ like Georgia which only gives faith (and some envoys if you go through the work of converting city states). I'm ranking them a C. In the past I would have ranked them a D. But I had a lot of rivers in my current game which certainly helps things. Without rivers I'd rank them an F. They are nearly completely dependent on rivers to excel.

I _hate_ floodplains - so many cities ruined by that one floodplain in the middle of the jungle I didn't see until I tried to build on it

I'm finding flood plains a good place to put sphinx on as it is more than self sustaining. 3 food plus the culture and faith isn't bad. In hindsight I might have chosen the Pantheon to boost production, but my capital wasn't on flood plains, it was only later I had a lot of flood plains in my cities.

Screenshot of my current status. If anyone is playing the save I put above, feel free to share. It's always interesting how people develop their civs differently when starting from the same starting point. I could have went on the offensive, but that would have made things too easy. This is all peaceful expansion. I had no culture flips, though I did take the Georgian capital only after it became a free city (free city units still harass me even after the patch).

Yes I'm saving up gold in preparation for Big Ben. This is my favorite hobby. One time I made over 50,000 gold from Big Ben.

 

[acluewithout]

I really, really like Egypt. They are well designed, with great synergies. They suffer a little from two design flaws. But while they’re not particularly powerful, they’re fun and challenging to play.

- Culture not Faith. Egypt on the tin look like they could be cultural or religious. Let’s look at Culture first: basically, Egypt’s deal is quick wonders (which provide eg tourism later) and a UI which gives culture (and also therefore tourism). Sounds good.

- Egypt’s other abilities also synergise with culture: Egypt are encouraged to build districts on rivers (so adjacent to their city centre) which really suits Commecial Hubs and Theatre Districts (you often want to build cities on rivers for fresh water, CHs and TDs both like district triangles, and CHs get bonuses from rivers); Egypt’s CHs then give them gold to buy great works and trade routes to give them more gold and also boost tourism; their unique chariot unit is pretty good defensively; and their tendency to have friendly relations also helps tourism (eg open borders).

- What about faith and religion? Well, they look good. I’m theory they could build religious wonders. But that’s hard work, because only certain wonders help religion (whereas all wonders help tourism at least a little). You could build faster holy sites on rivers, but rivers don’t naturally give HSs great adjacency. And your UI gives you some extra faith.

- Egypt ultimately aren’t great at religion. They don’t get any bonus to getting a religion. That’s not a deal breaker for a good religious civ (IMO), but the killer is that they also don’t really get any boosts for religion. They only get boosts for faith.

- The way I see it, Egypt’s faith generation is really about bolstering culture, by giving them faith they can use to by naturalist or other things they need (great people, units, settlers, whatever). Extra faith maybe helps offset the lack of production from deserts, but I suspect it probably doesn’t help enough.

- Egypt’s Chariot. Is it a bug or a feature Egypt can’t get normal chariots or knight rush? I really don’t know. IMO, ranged are really more a defensive unit. It’s kind of handy for Egypt that in the classical era it can build two sorts of ranged, normal cheap archers, and expensive super chariot archers. Later, these all upgrade to x-bows, that egypt can use to defend its borders. Not having normal chariots definitely makes Egypt weaker, but I tend to think how things are currently is sort of interesting (although I get how it’s also maybe frustrating).

- Egypt’s problems (no, not the chariot). I think Egypt has two big problems (excluding their chariot archer, which as I’ve said maybe sort of isn’t a problem anyway). First, as Egypt, you really want those early wonders. Petra, Pyramids, Oracle, all of them are good for you. But the rub is, although Egypt is the Civ which built the only Ancient Wonder that still exists, Egypt is just not the best Civ for getting early wonders: China is. That sucks.

- Second, Egypt gets desert starts, which can be pretty rough. There are quite a few pantheons which Egypt can use to make up for desert starts; but these are all ultimately limited, you can only choose one, and of course using your pantheon slot this way means you can’t choose one of the other useful pantheons (eg divine spark).

- I really like how Civ gives Egypt a sort of natural competitor, ie Nubia. There are a few other Civs that have that same feature (eg England and France; seriously, they both have unique industrial melee, that unlock at Military Science, but England’s gets +10 on Foreign Continents and France’s gets +10 on it’s Home Continent - “Round One! FIGHT!!”.) But if you look at Nubia, they seem just much, much stronger than Egypt, which is a bit of a shame.

- Overall, I think Egypt could probably use a very small buff. Like, +1 production from stone quarries. Or maybe all wonders in a city boost production by 5%. Or one free builder when you unlock your tier one government. Just something to make those desert starts a little easier and help them nab or a few early wonders.

 

[Pietato]

Would love to play as Egypt, but they are too depressing to use. Too many stupid flaws.

 

[isau]

Egypt was one of the first civs I targeted for modding when the game came out, right after Spain and France.

A few thoughts.

• The unique chariot unit. Really, really feels like it should be able to move after shooting. Didn't Egypt's UU work that way in a previous civ game? Drawing a blank.
• Sphinxes. Not bad. I modded this to provide +1 Culture +1 Faith to adjacent Desert tiles, non-stacking with other Sphinxes. This essentially brings Egypt into line on Desert with Russia's Tundra bonuses, altho TBH Desert is usually still less useful than Tundra because it has weaker yields and is less predictable to find.
• Iteru. A truly poor ability for a civ that starts near deserts because rivers tiles are the last place you want place districts or wonders. I changed this to +20% production toward wonders and districts in cities with at least one world wonder.
• The ULA trade route stuff. Not bad. But not enough to make up for the rest. I modded this ability too but the modding I did is probably not suited for the base game (it involves free relics in cities with ancient or classical wonders when the proper era rolls around). I wouldn't mind if the other changes got made to Egypt though.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Ugh Egypt - how far we have fallen. They are a bottom tier civ IMO and I don't really have any great strategies with them. They aren't very interesting to me either and it's a shame because Egypt is such an important civilization historically that it feels like they should get better bonuses. I guess I would try to get a foreign trade route out ASAP and go for early commercial districts and try to rake in as much cash as possible. I might play defensively in the opening and build a few chariots (straight archers are probably better though for the cost) - maybe a horsemen rush if there are plenty of forests nearby but that's doubtful given that Egypt starts near desert. Only Georgia is worse.

Edit: I think I will try the following strategy:

Open defensively and try to form friendships - extra trade route gold will help with delegations and the UU will help thwart early aggressors. I'll aim for an early pantheon and pick the +25% for first district which I assume stacks with Iteru. Then I'll focus on settling rivers with ancestral hall and try to lay down a bunch of early commercial hubs and theaters which should line them up for a nice culture victory and all that cash can be used to purchase museums and archealogists.

 

[KayAU]

Part of the problem is that almost everything Egypt does, someone else usually does better.

• With the unique unit, I'm having a hard time thinking of a civ which doesn't have a better one. It is arguably the worst unique unit in the game, due to it taking away a more useful unit, and being so expensive. You could argue that there are equally useless unique units in the later game, but at least you can build those for the era score without damaging your economy too much.
• Production bonus for districts, 15% is really tiny. Nubia has a much better bonus, which applies for all districts, not just those which are on a river. The Aztecs can boost districts with builders, which is way more powerful. Numerous civs have unique districts, which can be produced much more quickly, in addition to being more powerful. Japan gets a 100% production boost to 3 district types.
• Production bonus for Wonders, again it is just 15%, and only on rivers. China's ability is much, much better.
• Better trade route yields are okay, but I much prefer those given to Persia, or the Cree's additional trade route and free trader. Poland's Sukiennice also seems to give a better boost.
• The unique improvement is okay, but there are obviously many overall better tile improvements, and there are other civs which get better sources of early game culture. Rome gets a free monument. The Mapuche get an arguably more powerful culture tile improvement.

 

[acluewithout]

I think Egypt’s design is basically sound. They just need a bit of a boost.

Extra Production

I agree that like Russia they need a boost to working desert tiles. My suggestion is +1 from quarries (or maybe just stone quarries), but maybe cities on a river get +1 production, or they get +1 production from flood plains (and then just lose the pantheon that grants the same bonus).

I don’t think they need any more than that. But, if they were going to be buffed some more...

Unique Improvement and Unique Unit

I think the UI is fine. I like the idea of just making their unique unit a bit better - move and shoot would be good.

Other Abilities

And then the wonder, trade andh district bonuses. These could just be straight out buffed (say 20% production bonus) or made less situational (bonus applies to cities founded on a river, although that’s then very strong). How much of a buff would depend on how much extra production you gave them.

The other option would be to give them an extra sub-ability. eg wonders built in your capital give trade routes, and or wonders (and or districts) give you extra loyalty, and or wonders let you culture bomb.