[Deity] Stairway to Heaven #3: Hatshepsut of Egypt (Pangaea)

[pomthom]

The purple plot is fine, though 1-W will leave the AI with fewer workable tiles. That may happen when your capital gets to cultural radius 4. The "trap" city will be trapped in your culture. Ideally, one can found a city to keep which will also pressure the "trap" city cultural from the opposite direction than from the capital. Thus, the "trap" city will be surrounded by the culture of these two cities.

To generate culture in the "trap" city, again spreading your state religion would be the easiest. Owning the Stonehenge would instantly add 1 Cpt, though probably not possible intem your current game. A Caste System Artist would greatly accelerate the culture rate with Code of Laws and the Spiritual trait makes it easy to switch between Slavery and Caste System every 5 or more turns.

Not too worried about that, I'm Creative

By founding Taoism, I presume you plan to use your Great Scientist to bulb Philosophy?

Yes probably, but I'm going to try and sketch out a bit more clearly my objectives and my paths.

Good luck with your "trap" city and your game!

Sun Tzu Wu

Cheers! Good luck with the SGOTM

 

[pomthom]

Ok let's talk about the bigger scheme of things.

------

The Cuirs Breakout goes down the sink?​

Yep I don't have Iron....

Should I wage a medieval war to get my hands on some Iron so that I can then stomp the map with Cuirs/Cavs? I got Elephants in a deal with Freddy and can research Construction (only Gandhi knows it)...

I also thought of this to get my Iron. If it works it would probably not change my original evil plan.

EDIT: I can get free Iron for 1 turn by pillaging abuses so Cuirs are still on the table (well "free" means a couple of Worker Turns).

Development​

My next city will be a Trojan for Gandhi (I have a settler ready) to give its a bit of time to mature.

Another Settler is coming out in 3 turns, where should I put him? There are 3 immediately interesting backfill spots I can consider.

These 2:

Spoiler :

(screen not at same date as game)

And 2N1E of Stone:

Spoiler :

(screen not at same date as game)

In which order should I settle them? I was thinking: 1. Stone/Gold (because it can share mined Gold + irrigated FPs) ; 2. Copper/Clams (which should become a very good Moai city + HE maybe) ; 3. Fish/Sheep.

Research​

The situation is a bit awkward:



I think I need to self-tech a bit in the Myst branch to unlock Lit/Mono/Monarchy and such.

I guess I should aim for CoL/Civil Service in a very near future. The problem with researching CoL is that Gandhi already has it.

What to do with my next GS? (~30 turns) Bulb Philo or Edu? Bulbing Philo is a waste of but is a nice tech to get first...

 

[Thrar]

I would start with the city near the stone - although I would put it 1E on the grassland, no need to waste a perfectly good floodplain. Cottaged up it's going to be a pretty nice city, and desert hill stone is only 4 anyway.

The other two cities are more marginal. Get them when you can, but I don't think they'll have much impact for a while. If they're not in your borders yet, make sure nobody drops a surprise settling party there.

Is there any particular reason for you to get the religious techs? If you want to get the GLib, just Myst and Medit would be fine, maybe followed by a push to Music for the free GA. Gandhi might get there before you though.
CoL is a solid choice too, but fairly popular with the AI. You might be able to trade for it reasonably soon, unless you think you need it now.

 

[pomthom]

I would start with the city near the stone - although I would put it 1E on the grassland, no need to waste a perfectly good floodplain. Cottaged up it's going to be a pretty nice city, and desert hill stone is only 4 anyway.

Can't! It's 2 diagonals away from Heliopolis

The other two cities are more marginal. Get them when you can, but I don't think they'll have much impact for a while.

You're probably right but since my economy can stomach new cities, I might as well make them contribute as early as possible no?

Is there any particular reason for you to get the religious techs? If you want to get the GLib, just Myst and Medit would be fine, maybe followed by a push to Music for the free GA. Gandhi might get there before you though.

I was thinking Meditation to unlock Lit + Philo, Mono for OR. Hereditary Rule is less a priority because my current bottleneck is (at least until I hook up the resources of my next settled cities) and I don't have that many things to whip.

CoL is a solid choice too, but fairly popular with the AI. You might be able to trade for it reasonably soon, unless you think you need it now.

I agree. I think I'll unlock Myst/Meditation and judge from there. Since I plan to Cuirs rush, I could also make the HBR detour.

 

[Thrar]

Can't! It's 2 diagonals away from Heliopolis

Oh right.

What about the plains 1E of stone? Not sure what else is there towards the south, anything worthwhile that the city could share? You'll still be able to cover all the unused tiles, and an extra FP might be nice since there doesn't seem to be much food around.

If your economy can support two more cities and you have the to spare, by all means, no need to wait. The sooner you make the investment, the sooner it will pay off.

It looks like Gandhi already has Lit - by the time you get there, he might be very close to building GLib himself. Same thing for trying to get the GA from Music. Are there any other goals you can achieve going down that tech path?
OR means you need a state religion and spread it around. Are you ready to choose sides in diplo and make that investment?

A completely different approach might be to just go for construction (you said you can get ivory, right?), build a bunch of phants and cats and go take someone's land. Maybe even Gandhi's; he's not exactly known to have a big military...
In that case, I wouldn't build those settlers at this point - those are better used for military.

 

[pomthom]

What about the plains 1E of stone? Not sure what else is there towards the south, anything worthwhile that the city could share? You'll still be able to cover all the unused tiles, and an extra FP might be nice since there doesn't seem to be much food around.

Yes it would be a shame to destroy the FP but 1E of Stone takes out the Gold tile from the BFC, and having the possibility to share a Gold tile is very powerful IMO (+ 1E of Stone also screws a bit my last backfill spot near the oasis -- not very important but still). Maybe I'm overrating the sharing gold thing...

It looks like Gandhi already has Lit - by the time you get there, he might be very close to building GLib himself. Same thing for trying to get the GA from Music. Are there any other goals you can achieve going down that tech path?

True I hadn't noticed. That pretty much cancels out going for Lit (I wouldn't build GLib anyway for lack of Marble). I'd really like to avoid researching something Gandhi already has but he's got such a head start it's difficult. This gives even more weight in setting up the Trojan ASAP.

Maybe some funky play by researching Optics??

OR means you need a state religion and spread it around. Are you ready to choose sides in diplo and make that investment?

Gandhi has been spamming Buddhism to my cities like crazy. I'm not sure that's the religion I want however because my 2 other neighbours are Hindu (doesn't bother me too much for Darius, but Joao...). I am SPI however and have flexibility in that matter.

A completely different approach might be to just go for construction (you said you can get ivory, right?), build a bunch of phants and cats and go take someone's land. Maybe even Gandhi's; he's not exactly known to have a big military...
In that case, I wouldn't build those settlers at this point - those are better used for military.

Well I thought about that too but a couple things bother me in that respect: I would have to self-tech Construction which Gandhi already knows and which is quite generally popular amongst other AIs, and would have to go on war-mode now which I don't like because I actually have a lot of room to develop... will digest though

 

[Seraiel]

pomthom said I should post here and be mean to him, so I'm doing so .

Settler = very expensive
War Chariot = Strong and very cheap

-> Instead of building a Settler, you could also build 3-4 War Chariots.

Newly founded city: Size 1, no improved tiles.
Conquered city: Size 4, improved tiles, chance to capture 1 or 2 Workers.

-> Conquered city allows for additional 3-4 War Chariots and then is still better than the self-founded one.

Now you have to ask yourself: How many cities are there in the game that one cannot conquer with 6-8 War Chariots?

Answer: If good at war (i. e. leaving a city in the back undefended to lure out defenders) almost none (until AI gets Pikes or at least Longbows) .

-> If you are Egypt and have Horses, go for a War Chariot rush. You can still settle the land in between peacefully afterwards, you gain more powerful cities and you get some highly promoted War Chariots which will allow you to build the HE very early and by that easily continue the war. There's even the chance you'll get 1 or 2 techs in a peacedeal and you can get Workers for free.

The cost of this is a mere -1 diplo-hit you get from the Civs that are pleased towards the Civ you're attacking. You get chances to conquer a holy city, you take out 1 stupid AI that could only get on your nerves very early, and the HE is very powerful.

---------------

When looking at this game I have 2 questions:

1. Why aren't you trading your techs?

2. Is it still possible to rush. You got 6 cities and could pump out 10-15 War Chariots very easily, maybe even 20-25. You got Currency so you'll be able to pay for the rush and Darius is a weakling, Joao is stronger, but both have no chance of getting towards units that could stop those numbers.

Watcha think? Joao definately is the better target because he has Forrests and Iron as I see and Darius should be given the chance to develop those Jungle-cities before conquering them. You could declare war in maybe 5 turns.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

^^ Seraiel's advice looks very good to me, especially choosing an AI target with forests over an AI target with jungles. I like capturing lots of Workers and chopping out more military units to capture more cities and more workers.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[pomthom]

pomthom said I should post here and be mean to him, so I'm doing so .

Thanks man

1. Why aren't you trading your techs?

Well I hate wasting a WFYABTA chip for Mysticism (even though I have absolutely no math to back-up that feeling, "hate" is often stronger than "math" in decision-making ), and an "Aesth VS Sailing + Hunting" trade doesn't feel like a good deal... I was thinking of self-teching Myst and then make a deal for more techs. Maybe I should just get Myst + Sailing + Hunting now....

Settler = very expensive
War Chariot = Strong and very cheap

-> Instead of building a Settler, you could also build 3-4 War Chariots.

Newly founded city: Size 1, no improved tiles.
Conquered city: Size 4, improved tiles, chance to capture 1 or 2 Workers.

-> Conquered city allows for additional 3-4 War Chariots and then is still better than the self-founded one.

Now you have to ask yourself: How many cities are there in the game that one cannot conquer with 6-8 War Chariots?

Answer: If good at war (i. e. leaving a city in the back undefended to lure out defenders) almost none (until AI gets Pikes or at least Longbows) .

-> If you are Egypt and have Horses, go for a War Chariot rush. You can still settle the land in between peacefully afterwards, you gain more powerful cities and you get some highly promoted War Chariots which will allow you to build the HE very early and by that easily continue the war. There's even the chance you'll get 1 or 2 techs in a peacedeal and you can get Workers for free.

The cost of this is a mere -1 diplo-hit you get from the Civs that are pleased towards the Civ you're attacking. You get chances to conquer a holy city, you take out 1 stupid AI that could only get on your nerves very early, and the HE is very powerful.

2. Is it still possible to rush. You got 6 cities and could pump out 10-15 War Chariots very easily, maybe even 20-25. You got Currency so you'll be able to pay for the rush and Darius is a weakling, Joao is stronger, but both have no chance of getting towards units that could stop those numbers.

Watcha think? Joao definately is the better target because he has Forrests and Iron as I see and Darius should be given the chance to develop those Jungle-cities before conquering them. You could declare war in maybe 5 turns.

All this is very convincing... I'm tempted to try both! (seperately of course)

However I still have reserves about turning to this approach now:

- I haven't prepared for it, I have 1 Barracks for 5 (soon to be 6) cities, and just a couple of War Chariots. Well OK I could prepare now but it's still pretty late and I'm afraid my window of opportunity is not that wide. A decision that would have been perfect 20 turns ago makes it a lot less profitable 20 turns later, even if it is viable.
- I'm not so sure my economy can stomach that kind of war now, even with Currency + conquered . Investing "600+ to conquer" VS "300 to settle" is fine, but these are all hammers that I will not be investing in infra or fail gold to fuel a solid economy. The math seems risky...
- I'm just a tech away from Construction, if I want to war, wouldn't I waste less hammers if I were to go that route? I'm really afraid I will lose a lot of WCs ​

I'm hearing your arguments very clearly, I think they are good. But I kinda feel I was too slow and so I'm uncomfortable with a strategy that I should have started 10/20 turns ago...

As for targets Joao sounds better also because he only has the 1 source of metal that's just 2 tiles away from my border. War Chariots VS Archers are alright

However Joao has 0 Wonders + 0 Shrines while Darius has 2 Wonders + 1 Shrine... There's also fcking Toku with only 4 cities and GW + GLH... (access by sea?)

Spoiler :

http://imgflip.com/memegenerator

Still mulling this over...

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Some Generic Goals for Early Expansion: Early Conquest versus Early Settling

It actually can be very profitable to capture cities somewhat later rather than sooner. In either case, it is often better than settling new cities.

Capturing cities later gives the AI more time to build your infrastructure. In capturing cities, some buildings are lost, but the longer one waits, the more building there will be and more there will be that survives capture. Another good thing about waiting is the AI pays maintenance on your future cities until he graciously allows you to capture them loaded with useful buildings and of course great wonders (which always survive). You can also get AI settled great people too!

Capturing too early is not as good, but not bad if the cities captured have large populations. Quite often, one can capture a city with a Granary and possibly another building intact. One can build either more infrastructure or better yet more military units via slavery.

When one settles all his own cities, one starts with just population 1 (Ancient Era), one needs to slowly build up their population, their infrastructure and their military. This is really the hardest way to win a game in the ancient and classical eras.

So an early rush or not so early rush is often the best way to start. Also, a well coordinated worker poaching campaign preceding the early rush to help chop military units can really jump start an early rush. An AI that has lost all its workers to such a poaching campaign will be no threat and will often be a safe first military victum though its population and infrastructure will be low due to worker poaching often being more effective than choking an AI. Although, worker poaching is best done very early and repeatedly, it can also work later -- in the stage of the game you are now in.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[pomthom]

OK I have pondered this quite a bit and I think I will not attempt a late War Chariot war on Joao.

I have a feeling this will be very very risky on my economy. I find the reasons Seraiel gave me very good but they might be not as good here (or at least a lot less justified). For example caturing 3 cities at size 4 >> settling 3 cities at size 1, but if the cost of capturing these is that I have to cut my core cities from size 6/8 to 3/4 (to pump out 20 WC in a very few turns for ex), it does off-set some of the benefits.

I find Slavery the most powerful civic of the game because it is the #1 tool for expansion, and I think Civ 4 is all about quick and controled expansion (in the end). But here I'll have 9 cities in the BCs with the possibility of horizontal expansion, and that is not too shabby. This will allow me to build a very sturdy empire that might swoop the map away in one swift blow. I dig that, that's how I like to roll

That being said I got really curious about the scenario and I think I'll try it out once my game is finished, to compare. Of course if someone feels like trying it themselves, they are most welcome

Will play and update in the next few days hopefully!

 

[pomthom]

It's been a while... there's just too much to read and learn on these forums!

--------------
Played 23 turns: from 550 BC to 100 AD (turn 119)

Major things that happened:

(i) I chose to not start a late War Chariot frenzy
(ii) I set up a trojan city to steal from Gandhi who has been running away in tech and wonders
(iii) I settled 3 decent backfill cities (one last to go)​

Here's how it went (will try to make it short):

First of all I thought "screw WFYABTA, I need them BS techs! Let's trade like there's no tomorrow":

Spoiler :

New techs.

Cool.

Now let's see the big picture...





OK so Gandhi is FLYING away and there are already some douche AIs for whom I have blown my WFYABTA count (see douche-Darius)

Let's not panick. Let's steal some crap instead.



The nice city of TROJAN is settled.



Screw !!
Long live !!



I accumulate some culture in TROJAN while building up and sending spy-dudes.


Then, something really cool happens:




So to thank Gandhi for his grand generosity, I hand him out a gift of my own:






----------
[ -- In the meantime, the Egyptian Empire expands -- ]:

Spoiler :

(backfill city 1)



(backfill city 2)



(backfill city 3)

[ -- Now even Joao has converted to Buddhism, there's not reason for me to stay out of the love fest -- ]:

Spoiler :

----------


Speaking of Buddhism, Gandhi has been nice enough to build the Shwedagon Paya and switch to Free Religion. I thus send to TROJAN an evil Buddhist monk who will grant me a further 15% discount on my spy steals:






The spies start working their magic:






And 10 turns later:









A last few tech trades land me Feudalism, Machinery, Construction and Compass (for trade bait).


---------
(see next post for current situation)

 

[pomthom]

(end of previous post)

----------
So here's our situation:

1. Techs​

OK now the mighty Egyptian Empire is ready to go back to self-teching evil

Here's the score:




MUCH BETTER.


It is high time I started on a monopoly tech... Paper or Nationalism seem obvious in that respect. Probably Paper first... your thoughts?

2. Cities​

I am up to 8 cities and have almost fully expanded.

Cities:

Spoiler :

Here I should probably farm the Western FP? The cottage seems awkward:




Here the Nothern cottage was improved at a time where I need to work tiles. Now that I can spread irrigation I will farm over all green flat tiles and this city will become a great site:








Infra was severely hampered in this city because of freakin Barb galleys I had to whip a Trireme for :

3. The Grand Plan​

I think trying to Lib MT and going for Gandhi first is the way to go. Although most advanced, he's a wimp, has good land, and lots of wonders. However I still don't have Iron...

On the diplo front things are running smoothly. Alex has been plotting for 10-15 turns. I really don't think I'm the target (I don't even know where he is!) but I'll look out anyway.

Also I can start some trouble with this:



Seems expensive...

Further descriptive screenshots:​

Spoiler :

Diplo:​

Mesdames et Messieurs, what do you think?​

 

[soundjata]

My 2 cents of an advice (no access to the save here ):

Spoiler :

Steal Engineering, go to war against Gandhi (Trebuchets + War Chariots)

Don't bribe Fred against Alex I think (or at least not before you are ready to attack)

The biggest threat now is Darius? Can't you bribe Alex on him?

You could try and cap Gandhi, give him back all his cities (you have enough of your own), extort iron from him (easy when he's your vassal) and use him as a shield when you take on Darius (who will hopefully be exhausted of the war you led him into )

Try and prevent Gandhi leaking too many techs outside (negociate stop trading with... deals with him)

Conquer!

 

[pomthom]

@soudjata

- Steal Engineering: yes good idea, although at this point I'd rather bring Maces and Elephants along with my trebs (I have Copper and an Ivory deal with Freddie). War Chariots are cheap but against Pikemen.... I just don't see it
However Gandhi stands no chance against Trebs + Maces + WE (who does?) and I think I have the production to pump out a small but sufficient army without tanking my economy
- Bribing Alex: wow actually I hadn't noticed he had switched out of WHEOOHRN... will have to see​

I think going for Gandhi sooner rather than later is a good call

 

[soundjata]

Oui I have not yet won a single game @ Deity so you can take my advice with a grain of salt

 

[pomthom]

I have not yet won a single game @ Deity

Oh you liar
Show me your Hall of Fame and I'll believe you

The only challenge you may face at this point is if you don't have iron (which we hope obviously )

I hope you're glad BTW...

 

[soundjata]

Oh you liar
Show me your Hall of Fame and I'll believe you

I checked and found a deity win (culture) that I could not remember of...
So you are right I lied
I should probably be able to win a few if I had time on my hands and I was not so bad at warring

I hope you're glad BTW...

indeed

 

[pomthom]

I'm considering more and more the steal Engineering + rush Gandhi approach...

What would be funny would be to cap Gandhi but keep the Trojan city.

So I can then gift it to Darius... (Muahahahaha!!!!)

 

[Seraiel]

I looked at the save and found this:

• You must stop working that plains-Cottage in your Capital, even if it's riverside! Plains-Cottages aren't worth it, unless you're FIN or get them in at least Village status or close before that. Build something useful from it (unit) !
• 2nd city has a Temple ( ) and is working a Plains-mine. Plains-mines are also not worth working, whip again something useful! (Grassland Farms btw. are also not good, you could whip that city even twice or do a larger whip! That together with the fail-Temple would already be 5 Chariots! )
• Heliopolis: Why the fuq has this city a Library and a Temple? It has exactly 2 non-riverside Cottages, which already aren't worth working, and makes 7 / turn!!! It also isn't anywhere close near Happycap, wtf! WHIP WHIP WHIP!
• Elephantine: You really do love Temples, don't you?
• Alexandria and Pi-Ramesses: Again, Library, Temple, Grassland Farms...

So from what I saw, you're building very many superflous things just because they're cheap, and you don't build what you need to win, because that would be:

Elephants!

You can easily steal Engineering from Gandhi, you did a great Job on building that Trojan city and extorting the techs from him, now just one more, add some Trebs to your 10 Elephants that you could insta-produce (and even already could have if you hadn't build all that superflous stuff! ) and go for one of your neighbours. Probably not Gandhi, he's too valuable as a tech-steal target.

With running an Espionage-Economy btw., the GS for the Academy was a fail too, at least use the next one to bulb Education and don't do something odd.

Question btw. is also why you're running OR, as it's so weak compared to Pacifism (especially with no army ) .

You did a good job expanding and getting the cities, but you have to think larger and get more cities and continue on the road towards Cuirrs, because all your army will be mounted units mainly.

Of course, you could already go Maces + Trebs and later Rifles if you wanted that, it's actually more powerful than going Cuirrs. You've read my latest writeup so you know how to do it.

Hth.