Civ Discussion - Egypt

[bengalryan9]

Next up for discussion as we work our way through the civs is Egypt.

Egypt is a Cultural and Economic civ with a starting bias towards navigable rivers and desert. They also get a discount towards building The Pyramids (+1 gold and production on river tiles in the settlement, must be built in desert next to a navigable river). They automatically unlock the Abbasid and Songhai civilizations at the age transition.

Their unique ability is Gifts of Osiris, which gives +1 production on navigable river tiles.
Their unique military unit is the Medjay, a warrior replacement with +3 combat strength in friendly territory which is doubled inside of settlements.
Their unique civilian unit is the Tjaty, a great person that can be trained in cities with a necropolis. You receive one at random and they get more expensive with each one built. I don't want to copy the whole list but they either grant production towards wonders, grant bonuses towards wonders already built (ie, gold or culture), give free units, give a celebration, give a codex, or buff the palace.
Their unique buildings are the Mastaba, which gives base culture and bonus gold, and the Mortuary Temple, which gives base gold and bonus happiness. Together these make up the Necropolis unique quarter, which grants +100 gold every time a wonder is built in that city.
Unique civics are Arrival of Hapi (which unlocks the Mortuary Temple, the Akhet tradition, and prevents minor rivers from ending movement), Scales of Anubis (unlocks the Mastaba, the Riches of the Duat tradition, and +1 gold in settlements with a Medjay stationed in them), and Light of Amun-Ra (unlocks the Pyramids, the Kemet tradition, and gives +1 gold on the palace and +1 settlement limit). They are no masteries here.

Traditions:
Akhet - +1 food on navigable rivers
Riches of the Duat - +15% production towards wonders
Kemet - +1 culture on navigable rivers

What are your thoughts on Egypt? What do you like? What do you find lacking? Which leaders do you think fit well, and which civs should you be looking to transition to in future ages? Let's hear it!

 

[bengalryan9]

I don't have a ton to say because I've only played Egypt once. They seem somewhat map dependent, but if you get lucky with navigable rivers (which used to be rare on release but since then see much more common) you can do well. My own game with them I had three long navigable rivers that I could take advantage of.

I'm guessing most people aren't super high on the Medjay, but as a player who prefers to just turtle and build they fit my playstyle well. Not sure how people view great people in general but there are some nice Tjatys if you get lucky enough to get the right ones at the right times.

Egypt seems clearly built towards going down the cultural path in antiquity, but they are also likely to have plenty of gold to spend as well.

Pyramids are a great fit.

I actually don't remember who I chose in Exploration in the game I played as Egypt, but I was targeting Siam in the modern age from the start and that is a great fit. You will have crazy yields on those navigable river tiles with Akhet, Kemet, and Bangs.

 

[Gorbles]

Hatshepsut into Egypt always gives me navigable river starts. Medjay are solid against early hostile IPs until you can really start looking them down with Slingers.

Maybe I'm biased (well, probably literal favoritism here), but I really enjoy them. Rivers combo into religious play or simple food spam, which works even better since they reworked food scaling.

I like 'em.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Egypt-players, I previously avoided playing this Civ because their bonuses felt mediocre and inconsistent. It seems like they’ve been helped greatly by changes post-launch. Would you say it’s worth giving them another shot?

 

[phoenixician]

I actually don't remember who I chose in Exploration in the game I played as Egypt, but I was targeting Siam in the modern age from the start and that is a great fit. You will have crazy yields on those navigable river tiles with Akhet, Kemet, and Bangs.

My own civ path was similar. Without regards to leaders, I usually go Egypt -> Shawnee -> Siam (for Diplo/City State focus build, all 3 civs benefit from navigable rivers). With regards to leader, Baroque Friedrich in particular, I would go Egypt -> Songhai OR Bulgaria -> Buganda. In this alternate civ path, emphasis is still on navigable river but with a bit of military aggression; Songhai provides more consistent progress toward Economic path in Exploration but Bulgaria's traditions augment the successor Buganda better.

In general, I think Egypt is okay. The bonus to building wonders is modest; their bonus to navigable traditions can vary depending on the map. Their Unique quarters (when combined with the Great Steele wonders) can provide a lot of momentum in Antiquity age; the adjacency bonus is okay, can get up to 4 or even 5 without wonders if you're lucky the map generation. Unique infantry is good for defending, but surprisingly not that bad to spam for offensive wars either (no maintenance goes a long way).

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

I played them on a not-deity difficulty. I started with a Navigable river and combined with the Tjayt it was pretty easy to get the 9 wonders. It might be that playing on a harder difficulty would require spending more resources elsewhere and make it harder.

 

[MutilationWave]

I played them on a not-deity difficulty. I started with a Navigable river and combined with the Tjayt it was pretty easy to get the 9 wonders. It might be that playing on a harder difficulty would require spending more resources elsewhere and make it harder.

On deity, there are sometimes wonders you just will have to be very good and lucky to get. AIs prioritize certain wonders, that's why it's usually so easy to get Gate of All Nations.

(Caution with what I typed below, this may not be accurate anymore as the following was my experience pre patch 1.2)

I challenge anyone to try to build Mausoleum of Theodoric on deity without eliminating civs or going crazy on wonder production to the detriment of everything else in their empire. I know it's possible, but trying it with Amina proved impossible for me. I restarted the game several times and whichever AI(s) get runaway yields will have the civic for it when you're still two civics behind, beelining it.

I ended up taking the city that built it because I was trying something, but patch 1.2 hit and wrecked my silly plan.

 

[user746383]

They were the first civ I played and my favorite civ to "role-play" through the eras as - probably because of seeing Stargate when I was a kid, I just love the idea of ancient Egypt evolved tech all the way through modern and to Giant Death Robots. In Civ7 so far though I find myself way more drawn to Persia and Rome because of their unique commanders (especially Persia because I always start with picking initiative anyway), and anyway there's no Giant Death Robots and I can't still be playing Egypt in modern either.

Otherwise, for Egypt, I didn't find the Tjaties particularly fun or rewarding even focusing a game on them and getting them all once. The Medjay get a bonus in friendly territory, but I don't use my army in friendly territory. The necropolis has a super cool theme, but I find it hard to have enough resources to build my wonders and my unique district by the time the era ends. I feel like in general they could use a buff, but it's also quite possible they pop in certain circumstances which don't match my militaristic playstyle. Their bonuses certainly point towards turtling and building wonders, but I don't personally find that the most engaging way to play, and on Immortal/Deity it sets you up to be behind in future eras. You also can't really leverage the Necropolis in an expansionist exploration era because you can no longer build it wherever you capture more wonders.

 

[Navelgazer]

Egypt-players, I previously avoided playing this Civ because their bonuses felt mediocre and inconsistent. It seems like they’ve been helped greatly by changes post-launch. Would you say it’s worth giving them another shot?

I recently did an Egypt game as Hatshepsut, and yeah, the yeilds got kind of ridiculous. My full path was Egypt -> Songhai -> Siam, just because I got so many good Navigable River spots to take advantage of. Culture Victory on Turn 65 in the modern age (which is a record for me, I believe.) It was a fun time.

 

[bengalryan9]

Worth pointing out that if you really want to take advantage of those navigable river yields in future ages make sure to put any aquatic buildings (fishing quays, mills, wharfs, shipyards, etc) you want elsewhere, off of those river tiles. Should probably skip bridges altogether.

Don't forget that you can also get unique river improvements from economic city states, too (I think that's in the modern age?) if you go in a different direction than Siam.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I DESPISE playing this miserable, miserable Civ. I'd argue they're the worst Civ in the game.

I'm playing them right now, actually. I'm at attempt #6 (I counted) to turn my consistently horrible starts into something playable.

Navigable Rivers is one of the game's worst starting biases, fully restricting your development. Since you cannot build across a Navigable River, it delays your important infrastructure. I've had games where I started completely boxed in by mountains AND rivers, with no room to build my Necropoles and Libraries.

The Tjaty's (or Twatties as I call them) you receive are random, and range from ludicrously overpowered (have a free wonder!) to laughably terrible (+2 Gold on every Wonder that you've built in a City). You don't know which one you're getting in advance, so have fun building a strategy around a certain wonder. Petra for one is amazing in the hands of Egypt, and they're just as bad at building it as the other Civs you're playing are.

The Necropolis gives you 100 Gold when you build a wonder. Big Whoop. The Mayans get a few extra turns on all construction in their cities. The Greek and Romans both get Influence.

You do get a good amount of yields from the Navigable Rivers eventually, (especially with God of the Sea) but it comes at the expense of your cities being underdeveloped and vulnerable. I'm not sure whether that's a good trait.

But hey, you get to play Abbasids in Exploration, so there's that (ignoring that you won't have room to build Ulema Districts).

 

[Lord Lakely]

As for leaders, I assume only Augustus wants to be Egypt, specifically? Is there another leader that specifically wants to be them? Baroque Freddy maybe?

 

[UWHabs]

They were a little underwhelming. I still had a good game with them, and it was fun to chase wonders and actually succeed at a level in that. But they could use more.

Navigable rivers are good, but you don't always have a lot of them around. And it costs you 2 traditions to fully level them up as Egypt, and then when you lose the production into the next eras, those traditions are just... underwhelming. In my game with them, I think they were worth maybe 10-15 food/culture apiece? Pretty weak as far as traditions go. They probably need to be "on or adjacent to" for them to truly be worth it.

Great people are fun, but it is always a frustration with them. I wish we at least had a choice of 2-3, at least make sure the one I get is not useless to me at the moment. A couple of the ones here give you more than enough production to make up for it, but sometimes it's spending a bunch of production to get like 2 units back, which would have been cheaper to buy individually. They'd be great if it was "get a free Tjaty when you complete a Necropolis", and give you the option to build more. At least then you get a few of them for free.

 

[Lord Lakely]

In my current game, I got all the wonder building Tjaty's last, and all the "buff up your wonders" Tjaty's first. Managed to hard-build Petra anyway, which I followed-up with the Stele and four more wonders. One of those (Nalanda) was a Tjaty pop. The other two Free Wonder Tjaty's brought the construction time to 1 turn left, only for the AI to immediately snag the wonders on both occasions. .

I ended the Cultural Legacy path at 6 Wonders out of 7. Fantastic GP.

I was playing Augustus and I credit his kit for the progress I made. Extra production in Waset + being able to buy Mastaba's in desert towns came in very clutch, and allowed me to pull ahead in Culture, Gold and Production. The Necropolis + Stele Combo gave me 1300 Gold total, which helped. I cannot imagine wanting to play Egypt with anyone else. Playing Egypt is a misery even with the leader that gives them the most progress.

I feel like the posters here disagree with me, but I think the Civ's fairly poorly designed, and a large part of that is the inherent lack of Production value. Either expand the Production bonus to minor Rivers, or redesign the useless Tjaty's so you get more worth for whatever little production you do have.

 

[UWHabs]

In my current game, I got all the wonder building Tjaty's last, and all the "buff up your wonders" Tjaty's first. Managed to hard-build Petra anyway, which I followed-up with the Stele and four more wonders. One of those (Nalanda) was a Tjaty pop. The other two Free Wonder Tjaty's brought the construction time to 1 turn left, only for the AI to immediately snag the wonders on both occasions. .

I ended the Cultural Legacy path at 6 Wonders out of 7. Fantastic GP.

I was playing Augustus and I credit his kit for the progress I made. Extra production in Waset + being able to buy Mastaba's in desert towns came in very clutch, and allowed me to pull ahead in Culture, Gold and Production. The Necropolis + Stele Combo gave me 1300 Gold total, which helped. I cannot imagine wanting to play Egypt with anyone else. Playing Egypt is a misery even with the leader that gives them the most progress.

I feel like the posters here disagree with me, but I think the Civ's fairly poorly designed, and a large part of that is the inherent lack of Production value. Either expand the Production bonus to minor Rivers, or redesign the useless Tjaty's so you get more worth for whatever little production you do have.

Yeah, they could definitely use a little more. Even if you combine the 2 navigable river traditions into one bonus, and then have another tradition which is +1 production on minor rivers (or on all rivers), that would give them a little more staying power.
Maybe give them a mastery which grants +15% production for all wonders on or next to a river as well? Maybe also +1 food on all rivers?

I know it's cool to really focus them into navigable rivers, but given how often they're just a couple tiles linking a lake to the ocean, expanding them to be just a touch wider scope could help balance them out.

 

[disjointaccount]

I'm not a huge Egypt fan. I see the vision but their kit feels a little at odds with what it's supposed to be used for, to me.

The good:
- Nav river production synergises well with the start bias for snowballing. I'll throw Pyramids under this general synergy too, since with the start bias and production boost you're essentially guaranteed them if you want them. All comes together to give you a ton of production.
- Medjays are incredible defensive units. Personally, I don't love them, just because I play very aggressively, and so I like unique infantry or ranged that can give me a leg up me rush a neighbour quickly. Objectively, though, Medjays excel at their purpose of keeping you safe to turtle and spam wonders.
- Settlement limit in the Civics tree. I'm not too afraid to balloon past the cap in mid-late Antiquity, but it's still nice to have to support faster expansion earlier.

The fine:
- Unique quarters are always kind of two-pronged in that you have the buildings themselves, as well as the overall quarter effect. I put quite a lot of stock into unique buildings (imo they are a big boon to power for Civs that get them over Civs that don't) because an extra two buildings churning out whatever the relevant yields are is very strong. In this regard, the Mastaba and Mortuary Temple are great. Culture and gold are very important to a wonder-focused Civ, enabling you to unlock wonders before others and keep city development going while the build queue is tied up with wonders, so the yields are welcome in that regard. As I'll mention below, though, I think the nature of these yields as coming from unique buildings on the unique tree is a little counterproductive to wonder spam.
- Another Civ where the traditions are just "fine" for me. They fit well with how you're likely to be playing Egypt and give nice little boosts, but aren't going to massively upend your game in this age or the next. Riches of the Duat is definitely a nice one if you're planning on competing for some of the hot wonders in early-mid Exploration.

The bad:
- The Necropolis itself is the first aspect of Egypt's kit that feels awkward for me. For one, 100 gold on building a wonder has the potential to be an absolute non-bonus on Necropolises in smaller cities that aren't doing wonder building. But more significantly, for two, to really see benefits from that bonus and make a lot of gold, you'd have to unlock and build the Necropolis before spamming your wonders, which I never find myself wanting to do. There's definitely an element of playstyle variance here but I tend to plan out my 7 (or more) wonders very early on and build most, if not all, of them in my capital. Some of those tend to be fairly competitive so I really beeline them and rush their production. In a lot of games, my capital is just tied up with a queue of 4-5 wonders back to back. Taking the time to optimise for the Necropolis by unlocking and building it prior to all those wonders is counter to the goal of getting the wonders in the first place, since if I'm not beelining them on the tree and producing them as early as I can, I'll probably miss out on some of them. I'm a big Great Stele defender, but I think it works because it comes so early on a tree you'd be progressing anyway and is a wonder in itself, so it's a kind of two-birds-one-stone situation. The Necropolis has neither of those going for it. Yes, you can buy it while your city is doing the wonders, but then it's unlikely to even pay itself off (from the bonus gold, not the GPT) until the next age at the earliest. Really, the Mortuary Temple and Mastaba are just yields buildings for me - very welcome boosts to my output that I'll place when I can, but their quarter bonus is a non-factor in my mind.
- Tjatys suffer from a similar problem. Again, I could spend the production building a Tjaty to speed up a wonder (if I get lucky with the Tjaty I roll), or I could just build the wonder in the first place. There's definitely more of an argument around buying these, but that feels like a pretty big gamble for a Civ with relatively minimal gold production when you might get a Tjaty that's totally useless to you. Most of them have decent bonuses (the wonder producers being the obvious standouts), but they're very timing-dependent. I quite like 7's implementation of great people for the most part, but Tjatys are a case where the randomness really makes the production feel like too big a risk for me.

It really feels like a lot of Egypt's power is supposed to be in the UQ and Tjatys; I just wish there was a little more cohesion and you didn't have to slow yourself down from racing for wonders to get them. Some aspect of the kit, like the unique ability, giving inherent culture to start racing through the tree faster (which would make detouring into the uniques a lot more viable) would really go a long way for me.

Leaders-wise, the wonder synergy with Hatshepsut is obviously there; Augustus being able to get Mastabas in towns is fun; and Amina with Medjays in the desert is a truly immovable object. Given that for me, though, a big issue with Egypt is that it's great at building wonders but not so great at unlocking them or continuing to develop its cities while they're tied up building the wonders, I'll shout out economic Xerxes, because although it's not the most direct or obvious synergy I think his culture and gold production are actually really valuable to Egypt.

Lastly, in terms of where to go next, I love the Songhai unlock from them given its synergy with the nav rivers you spawned on (and hopefully settled more of) in Antiquity. The upcoming treasure fleet changes might be a soft nerf to Songhai, but for the time being, their homelands treasure fleets are so nice if you have a decent number of cities to spawn them in. Abbasid also have a good natural synergy playstyle-wise if you want to keep turtling but shift to more of a science focus. I think Egypt is a good case where both its unlocks feel like they follow on from it well in one way or another.

 

[Nikolai II]

For me, Egypt and Han is my most played civs I believe. I am a buioder at heart, with the need to defend myself, so the production bonus and the medjay is a good combo.

 

[Leucarum]

Egypt's a weird one. The wonder-building Tjaty are amazing especially on higher difficulties, but it's not great for one of your best abilities to be RNG, and a lot of the Tjaty are garbage. It's tough to out culture-victory Egypt in Antiquity, but sometimes they just roll the dice bad...

The Necropolis has an underwhelming unique effect, but it is still an UD, you can get good adjacencies, have active specialists on it at the start of the next age... If you get some good desert/river tiles it's a great candidate for enlightenment stacking of specialists in exploration... It's very middle-of-the road but that's fine.

The traditions are fine, if map dependant. You can get quite nice navigable river bonuses at game start but they don't scale and by late game they won't matter much. The wonder construction is a nice to have, but after antiquities there aren't many must have wonders...

The Medjay is ok defensively, but most of the time I'd rather have more archers... I rarely build them.

Unfortunately I think the navigable river start bias is probably my favourite part of Egypt's kit. Given how hard economic can be to score in exploration, having a near guaranteed path to Songhai is a really useful thing.

On paper I'd say Egypt definitely isn't sitting at the top tables, but building all the wonders is unambiguously fun and their kit is usable. As a certified Songhai enjoyer I play them more than I probably should, for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I know it's cool to really focus them into navigable rivers, but given how often they're just a couple tiles linking a lake to the ocean, expanding them to be just a touch wider scope could help balance them out.

That part of their kit is flavourful, but it's not enough production by itself. Production is gained by expanding into rough or vegetated terrain, after building the brickyard and sawpit.

Navigable Rivers need God of the Sea + an Altar to function as a subsitute, and even then... If the river boxes in your capital, you'll need to research bridges to get the buildings on the other side. (a problem for Pachacuti, who is one of the few leaders who can leverage Egypt's river bonuses into meaningful production early on).

More often than not, it's a pain to expand with this Civ. If one of the traditions allowed Egypt to build INTO navigable river tiles with regular buildings, it would be a different story.


I've tried the Civ several times, and the only good Antiquity age I had was in my 7th and most recent game, where I got both Petra AND the Great Stele in my capital. And that Combo is good on anyone, tbh.

 

[Sagax]

Navigable Rivers need God of the Sea + an Altar to function as a subsitute, and even then... If the river boxes in your capital, you'll need to research bridges to get the buildings on the other side.

Clarification - you don’t need strictly bridges. An early Fishing Quay or Bath will suffice, it’s the same basic urban spreading rule at play.

I thought the notion of constrained development was weird in your earlier comment, now I think I know why.