Earth18civs - Did I blow the best start ever?

[fathertuck]

I'm not sure but I might have blown the greatest start ever this weekend! I was playing earth18civs for the first time, and I started a game as Egypt. Very early on in the game the barbarian uprising event took place, and a stack of 4 Archers (at least that's what I saw) took out Saladin and Darius in a few turns. two of my neighbours was dead, but I never managed to take advantage of this rare(?) situation because one of the Archers continued on and took out my undefended second city and I just rage quit.

I assumed these events were more common in this scenario than they are, but I've played a handful of games after this and it has never happened again. I could have resettled my second city (it was only pop 1 so it got razed) and easily taken the two barb cities (former Arabian cap + Persian cap) with some WarChariots. I'm afraid I screwed up what could have been the game of my life, but there's no way to find out that now. Please tell me this wasn't a once in a lifetime opportunity I messed up. I've really thought about this game and it bothers me so much that I rage quit. One outcome of this event could have been that some other AI would have beaten me to this available land, so maybe I didn't lose out much after all? Wishful thinking?

 

[Amao]

just one word: defense!

 

[fathertuck]

just one word: defense!

My warriors were looking for goody huts at that moment so I had no defence whatsoever. Remember, it was really early on in the game.

 

[theratman]

If you had a second city you should have had an extra warrior or two?

 

[whats a navy]

Ask yourself "would I rather have a chance to find more goody huts or protect my second city?". Even if your first warrior is away you should usually have a build order of worker-warrior(s)-settler to allow for protection and spawnbusting.

 

[sensual benny]

Thankfully no, you didn't blow a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Egypt's UU is incredibly good and those nearby civs are easy to conquer with it whether or not barbarians beat you to it. In fact, as someone said not long ago, every action in Earth18 has consequences, so Arabia and Persia being eliminated early may not have been beneficial in the long term (unless you were planning to kill them anyway) -- the Middle East will probably go to you, but Persia's lands will likely be settled by Catherine, making Russia a monster civ when it's normally one of the biggest and most powerful anyway. Asoka will possibly become bigger too.

 

[fathertuck]

If you had a second city you should have had an extra warrior or two?

I was under the impression that barbs doesn't enter your borders until there's 2.5 cities per/civilization, so I don't quite understand why they barbs attacked. Is it because it was a random event, or maybe the scenario has different rules than normal games?

But back to your comment, I don't see any reason keeping warriors idle in the cities when there's unpopped goody-huts out there and AI's too meet. Egypt has horses so WarChariots can be built if needed for defence. This random event caught me pants down though.

 

[JoeHollywood]

The best start I ever had at E18 was as rome. Imagine that.

Normally I go the BW/IW route and just prae rush till I get to india or so and then just press enter till I launch a spaceship or whatnot.

Instead I decided to build up a couple warriors and go for a 3v1 warrior cheese on paris.

Well my first warrior won that 3% battle chance so I sent the other two straight at berlin. by turn 15 I had the three best capitols in europe.

 

[fathertuck]

Thankfully no, you didn't blow a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Egypt's UU is incredibly good and those nearby civs are easy to conquer with it whether or not barbarians beat you to it. In fact, as someone said not long ago, every action in Earth18 has consequences, so Arabia and Persia being eliminated early may not have been beneficial in the long term (unless you were planning to kill them anyway) -- the Middle East will probably go to you, but Persia's lands will likely be settled by Catherine, making Russia a monster civ when it's normally one of the biggest and most powerful anyway. Asoka will possibly become bigger too.

I figured this might be the case. I'm new to this scenario so I don't know how the land looks like and how easily it could be settled. Well, maybe I'll sleep a little better tonight after reading this.

 

[theratman]

I was under the impression that barbs doesn't enter your borders until there's 2.5 cities per/civilization, so I don't quite understand why they barbs attacked. Is it because it was a random event, or maybe the scenario has different rules than normal games?

But back to your comment, I don't see any reason keeping warriors idle in the cities when there's unpopped goody-huts out there and AI's too meet. Egypt has horses so WarChariots can be built if needed for defence. This random event caught me pants down though.

I think what it boils down to is how much time you had from the onset of the event,I would have pulled back my warrior and changed whatever production I had going to warriors,once again it depends how many turns you had to play with.

 

[ben-jammin]

Saladin on that map is an easy early kill anyway. Darius on the other hand...Im not exactly sure how well the AI does but playing as Persia my immortals made short work of India and Saladin and set me up for a pretty dominant game on Emperor.

 

[shyuhe]

I was under the impression that barbs doesn't enter your borders until there's 2.5 cities per/civilization, so I don't quite understand why they barbs attacked. Is it because it was a random event, or maybe the scenario has different rules than normal games?

The Verdic Aryans do not obey this rule. They follow the AI script lemming (I think) and beeline straight for their target city. After they conquer it, they target another city (generally the least defended I think) and head straight for it, ignoring any empty cities on the way

@OP: Taking out Saladin with war chariots can be costly if he gets archers so you didn't blow the best start ever. It IS nice to take out Darius early though, as his capital is a production monster.

 

[coanda]

I'm pretty sure that any start as Rome is better, for what it's worth. I don't know that I actually think that start is much better than a typical Egypt start (a little better, sure... just not a lot). If it really bugs you, it should be fairly easy that early in the game to just use the worldbuilder to set up an equivalent situation and play it through to see how it turns out.

 

[theratman]

I had an interesting start the other day,was with Khmer on an island and decided to rush him with one warrior just to see what would happen,I won the battle with his fortified warrior (5% or less)Could not believe it!
However it turns out that the other 4 civs where on another island and by the time I made contact I was very far behind tech and dip wise

 

[revengeofmakno]

Well, you did "blow" a unique opportunity (unique in that it was provided by a random event) at least to some extent but that doesn't mean the situation could not have been taken advantage of as @sensual_benny has alluded to. It's too bad you quite in a rage.

The way to get Egypt off to a flying start in Earth 18 is to immediately research animal husbandry and then build war chariots ASAP and take down Arabia and Persia. Incidentally, that is one of the best starts overall in Earth 18. It doesn't seem like you had that in mind (as you had multiple warriors and a second city) but the barbarians did you a favour by taking out those civs for you and while you did lose a city, your capital is still there and the barbarian cities would be easier to conquer than the Arabian and Persian versions of them would have been. So you could have gone that route albeit a bit behind schedule. Just imagine if you had gone for the early War Chariot aggression and that random event had occurred. Now that would be a start to remember!

Starting a second city and not having sufficient protection is a risk. The temptation to use the warrior(s) for other tasks is there but any risk can backfire!

 

[fathertuck]

The Verdic Aryans do not obey this rule. They follow the AI script lemming (I think) and beeline straight for their target city. After they conquer it, they target another city (generally the least defended I think) and head straight for it, ignoring any empty cities on the way

Ok, that would explain the barbs behaviour. I usually play with random events off, so I don't know the mechanics that well.

 

[fathertuck]

The way to get Egypt off to a flying start in Earth 18 is to immediately research animal husbandry and then build war chariots ASAP and take down Arabia and Persia. Incidentally, that is one of the best starts overall in Earth 18. It doesn't seem like you had that in mind

I'm a noob when it comes to scenarios, so I started playing as I always do when I'm going for the early rush on random maps, by settling another city, building barracks and so on. I will definitly take up on your advice here.