Malchar
Prince
Introduction
Why you should play Egypt:
- You spawn at the beginning of time, so you have maximum influence over the course of events throughout history. You can also interact with non-barbarian civs, so it's more interesting than China.
- You have the potential to stay alive through the whole game without having other people spawn on top of you. This is the envy of Persia and Babylon.
- You have extremely powerful land and the opportunity to go for almost every wonder in the game.
- You start with Dynasticism and Slavery, so the possibilities are endless.
- Since everyone around you will eventually collapse, you can use tech trading combined with your high commerce land to end up with a massive tech lead.
- You can colonize all of Africa or check out America while the Europeans are still dying from plague.
UHV Goals
Valley of Kings: Have more than 500 culture on turn 84.
Monuments on the Nile: Build the Pyramids, the Great Library, and the Great Lighthouse by turn 134.
The Ptolemaic Dynasty: Have more than 5000 culture on turn 152.
This will be a UHV+ guide for Egypt. The idea is to win the UHV with the option to continue playing in a heavily advantaged position. This is opposed to other guides which try to win the UHV at any cost as soon as possible or with the highest score on the victory date. The first iteration of the guide will be for Rhye's and Fall - Dawn of Civilization version 1.14 with the most recent hotfix patch.
Walkthrough
I have tried to make the walkthrough as deterministic as possible, but there is still some luck involved. The guide may be "too strict" in the sense that it rushes the UHV goal at the cost of other routes that could improve your game more going into the future. For example, building libraries will give you a huge advantage if you continue past the UHV date, but you take more risk of missing the necessary wonders and military strength. You can certainly take some gambles if you think that your opponents will not go for the wonders or if you want to skimp on military to combat the invasions and barbarians.
Part One
1. Settle Niwt-Rst 1N (one tile north) of your spawning position. Build: worker -> obelisk -> The Pyramids -> Great Sphinx
2. Research Tech: Mysticism -> Masonry -> Fishing -> Pottery -> Writing
3. Have your warrior look for tribal villages. Explore southwest to the Mali territory, then north to Gibraltar, then east along the Mediterranean coast back home.
4. Don't change civics, we already have exactly what we need.
5. Use your worker to improve the wheat -> stone -> marble -> 2 cottages on flood plains. Build roads if you have extra turns.
6. Use slavery to whip the obelisk with maximum overflow into The Pyramids after you have hooked up the stone. I believe that if you time everything correctly you will end up delaying the obelisk for one turn because you can't hook up the stone fast enough. During that extra turn, you can just switch to producing The Pyramids.
7. Once you have the obelisk and Niwt-Rst is size three, work the stone, marble, and priest until you have completed The Pyramids and Great Sphinx.
8. It's unlikely but possible for Babylon to complete the Great Sphinx on turn 51, so you might want to use slavery to whip complete the Sphinx for turn 50.
Comments
-In Dawn of Civilization, settling on flood plains does not remove them. We also need to be able to work the stone and marble in the capital to build the wonders by turn 51, which is when Babylon could complete either of them. Settling 1N gives us a very powerful city right away, and it also gives us room to setup our other core cities in a great position for future play.
-If you travel into Jerusalem, they will attack and kill any units unless you have a stack of at least five war chariots. It might be worth exploring to the south along East Africa, but I haven't tried it. Exploration is not required at all, but it's fine if the warrior dies because there's a long time before Niwt-Rst will grow big enough to be unhappy without protection.
-You don't need roads to gain access to resources that are on rivers in your culture.
-Obviously, Great Sphinx is not mandatory for the UHV in general, but it is required to achieve the first and third UHV goals using this strategy.
-The Pyramids should be built before Great Sphinx because Babylon seems to be more likely to beat you to the Pyramids on turn 51.
-A completely alternative strategy involves rushing five war chariots to harass Babylon. This allows you to delay the wonder dates, but then you still have to worry about Greece. I feel that you sacrifice too much by rushing military.
-Working the priest allows you to get a great person as soon as possible, which will be useful later.
-Cottages should be built in positions so that they can be used by multiple cities, which will be useful later.
-Fishing is necessary to research now so that we can trade for sailing later. We might as well get it before pottery since we have time.
-River crossings can mess up your unit movement even if you have roads because we won't have construction for bridges for a long time.
-The obelisk plus The Pyramids and Great Sphinx are enough to achieve the first UHV goal on their own.
Part Two
1. Niwt-Rst builds: settler -> settler -> worker. Stop working the priest so that you can produce the settlers as fast as possible.
2. Tech aesthetics -> literature.
3. When you finish aesthetics, trade it to Phoenicia for sailing + polytheism + mining. When you finish literature, trade it to them for animal husbandry + bronze working. You might have to put one turn of research into bronze working before they will accept this trade. You also might need to send your warrior into Jerusalem territory to make contact with Phoenicia. Horse will be located 1E of Niwt-Rst, and copper will be 1E of the horse.
4. Settle Ra-Kedet 2NW of Niwt-Rst. Settle your great person here, and build: obelisk -> work boat -> The Great Lighthouse -> The Great Library. Do not take the wheat tile from Niwt-Rst. The work boat does not need to be prioritized as the fish resource is not immediately inside your culture.
5. Settle Akhetaten 2S of Niwt-Rst. The production doesn't matter much, but it's probably safe to build a library. Work the gold tile once it is improved.
6. Continue building cottages on flood plains, but improve the gold and horse as soon as they are available. Horse will need roads to be connected. If you have time, build roads between your cities and also a road from Akhetaten extending 2SE which will be useful later.
7. After Niwt-Rst has produced the two settlers and the worker, have Ra-Kedet take the marble and wheat tiles, and Akhetaten may take the stone if you like. Have Niwt-Rst work cottages while the other cities grow and setup their infrastructure. You should also work a priest in Niwt-Rst so that you will be more likely to generate one.
8. Have Niwt-Rst build a barracks -> *war chariots. Time it so that the war chariots can start as soon as the horse is connected. Niwt-Rst should continue to produce war chariots until you have at least ten of them.
9. Once you have bronze working, use workers to chop forests to complete The Great Lighthouse and The Great Library faster.
10. Improve the copper to boost production in Niwt-Rst, but the resource itself is not necessary yet.
Comments
-Settling a great prophet in Ra-Kedet is a little risky because you absolutely need a great prophet later to achieve the third UHV goal. However, it is very likely that you will get another one in time, and settling it gives Ra-Kedet a huge boost in production and it keeps your economy alive during your expansion.
-Micro your cities carefully. Make sure that the cities are always working tiles that are improved. You will have to swap tiles back and forth between cities. You can work specialists in Ra-Kedet or Niwt-Rst in lieu of improved tiles or to stall growth. You will need a great prophet by turn 152 for the third UHV.
-Unhealthiness is normal. It basically just cancels out with the flood plains and makes them into grassland tiles, which is still quite strong. Also note that the grasslands tile in our core is strictly worse than all of the flood plain tiles.
-In general, Ra-Kedet has poor production, so they need the wheat and marble to complete the wonders on time. Greece can complete The Great Lighthouse on turn 106, so you should prioritize it over The Great Library. Since the wonders provide useful benefits, you should chop the forests and consider using slavery to finish them as soon as possible. Using slavery to whip the wonders directly gives you a production penalty, so consider building another unit and then whipping it so that the overflow goes into the wonder.
-In Dawn of Civilization, a city does not need a library as a prerequisite to build The Great Library.
-Akhetaten has very poor production, but it more than pays for itself by working the gold. This lets us tech to literature quickly without having to dedicate our other cities to research. Ra-Kedet can focus on producing the wonders, and Niwt-Rst can focus on military production.
-Barbarian Nubian Medjays can start spawning around turn 89. Ideally, trick them to attack into your war chariots across rivers for the best odds. On 1.14, they can spawn inside your culture borders. Consider putting a unit on the copper so that they won't spawn there as that is particularly horrible.
-Building a smokehouse in any city is useless at this time, but it will provide +2 health after we capture Aksum.
-You can consider building libraries in any or all cities. In Ra-Kedet, you can replace the obelisk with it. It will be riskier, but it will give you a bigger advantage if you play beyond the UHV date.
Part Three
1. Tech path doesn't matter for the UHV anymore, so you can plan ahead for what you want to do after the UHV date. See the comments below for some ideas.
2. If you get a great prophet, save it for the third UHV goal. If you get a great engineer, keep working priests in Ra-Kedet and/or Niwt-Rst until you get a great prophet. On the plus side, you can consider using the engineer to build The Hanging Gardens, which will be very useful for the permanent health bonus.
3. When you finish the first two UHV goals, you get a triumphal arch in your capital, which adds 4 culture and +50% military unit production. It also starts a golden age, so you should try to time it when your cities have high population so you can maximize the increased tile yields and great person points.
4. The Greek invasion can occur around turn 117. Two Hoplites and one catapult will spawn on each of two tiles: one next to Ra-Kedet and one next to Niwt-Rst. Eliminate them as soon as possible using war chariots. It might be rough if you have to attack across rivers, but ten war chariots should be sufficient.
5. Ethiopia spawns on turn 121 and will build Aksum 2SE of the gold the following turn. You can't declare war on them until turn 131, but you should capture Aksum as soon as possible and ideally before the Roman invasion. If Ethiopia has other cities, you can take them as a vassal, but they will likely collapse anyway. You should try to get as many of their techs as possible before this happens.
6. Aksum is not connected to the trade network unless you have a road connection.
7. The Roman invasion can occur around turn 140. It's the same as the Greek invasion except they have Legions instead of hoplites. If you have the opportunity, you should promote your war chariots with shock. You can also get extra XP on your military units if you have the opportunity to settle a great general in Niwt-Rst or switch to Theocracy.
8. Sometimes another Roman invasion stack will wander into your territory from Carthage.
9. Use your great prophet to create a great work in Aksum for +1600 culture. Combined with the obelisks and wonders in Niwt-Rst and Ra-Kedet, this should give you 5000 culture by turn 152. Make sure that you don't tech drama because it will obsolete the Great Sphinx and disable the great work ability.
Comments
-Sometimes Ra-Kedet will lose the fish resource to Greek culture. This is unfortunate, but not a huge problem for the UHV. You can consider using the final great prophet to make a great work there instead of in Aksum, but even if you do it's likely that you will lose the tile to the Byzantines later on anyway.
-Once you have sufficient military force to fight off the invasions, you can build more infrastructure or work specialists in Niwt-Rst. By combining slavery with dynasticism, you can get tons of production.
-As long as your cities have some kind of defense, the invaders will usually opt to bombard your defenses rather than attack. This can give you some extra time to build units, but ideally you want to have enough to wipe out the attackers immediately.
-You can potentially capture three or four workers from Ethiopia when you attack them.
Planning for the future
-You could beeline calendar and you're likely to found Taoism. Calendar is already very useful because you can improve dye, cotton, and incense. Taoism also allows you to build the Terracotta Army and the Grand Canal (even though it says Confucianism is required).
-You can also beeline Theology and found Christianity. Orthodoxy gives you access to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, but the Blue Mosque requires music and engineering. Catholicism gives you the Leaning Tower, the Sistine Chapel, and Versailles.
-Theology also lets you skip all the medieval techs and go directly to paper -> education -> gunpowder. However, the Turks spawn with it, and Africa will be swarming with Pombos, so it's not a particularly big advantage. Rifles are the key.
-You can also beeline liberalism by teching education as above plus philosophy. Philosophy gives scholasticism, which is nice on its own, and you can use liberalism to grab gunpower or printing press for free. If you backtech and delay liberalism a little, you might even be able to take constitution as your free tech.
-It's also quite good to just get the medieval techs. Courthouses give a stability bonus when you expand in foreign territory. Vassalage and levy armies give a nice stability bonus, as does organized religion + theocracy. Guilds is also great for setting up your infrastructure.
-In Dawn of Civilization, golden ages do not allow you to switch civics without anarchy, but the anarchy turns do not count against the golden age turns. It's easy to turn Niwt-Rst and Ra-Kedet into powerful great-person farms.
-You should carefully balance your population with your city happiness. Unlike Beyond the Sword, you shouldn't simply grow to your happiness cap. You want to keep a buffer of a few extra happiness in each of your big cities for the domestic happiness stability bonus.
-The three core cities were placed to maximize their available food. This lets you get the highest possible population in your core. When you expand with cities into foreign territory, you need to limit their growth. Check your expansion stability and only grow your foreign cities when you're safe to do so. There are many luxury resources available in Africa, but it's all worthless if you collapse trying to get them.
-Barbarians will continue to spawn to your west basically forever. Eventually, you will be spamming Axemen and Spearmen from Aksum just to keep up.
-Spearmen will be necessary to defend Ra-Kedet, Niwt-Rst, and Akhetaten from the barbarian horsemen: Numidian Cavalry, Fararis, and Camel Archers. You should also build a fort 2NE of Niwt-Rst and put some spearmen there to defend from Arabia when they spawn.
-Axemen should be used in Akhetaten, Aksum, and any cities you build further south to defend from the Impis. Note that Impis have 2 moves, and they can move through marsh, jungle, and rainforest unimpeded. However, they cannot enter desert at all.
-If you capture Jerusalem, it will try to flip to the Byzantines, and it will be attacked by Arabia after that regardless. In my opinion, it's not worth it until much later if ever.
-The Moors will spawn in North Africa, so don't go there. Eventually, their core will shrink to just Morocco, so you should try to capture Lybia and Algeria though.
-During the middle ages, the copper 2E of Niwt-Rst will be replaced with an iron, so you don't need to worry about finding iron for the future. Oil and Uranium will also be available in Lybia and near the Gulf of Guinea.
-You should consider taking Congo and Mali as vassals before the Europeans arrive.
-It will be difficult to have naval superiority over the Europeans because they spawn so far ahead in that tech path.
Thank you for reading, and I will continue to add more information as I play. Please leave any questions or comments here.
Why you should play Egypt:
- You spawn at the beginning of time, so you have maximum influence over the course of events throughout history. You can also interact with non-barbarian civs, so it's more interesting than China.
- You have the potential to stay alive through the whole game without having other people spawn on top of you. This is the envy of Persia and Babylon.
- You have extremely powerful land and the opportunity to go for almost every wonder in the game.
- You start with Dynasticism and Slavery, so the possibilities are endless.
- Since everyone around you will eventually collapse, you can use tech trading combined with your high commerce land to end up with a massive tech lead.
- You can colonize all of Africa or check out America while the Europeans are still dying from plague.
UHV Goals
Valley of Kings: Have more than 500 culture on turn 84.
Monuments on the Nile: Build the Pyramids, the Great Library, and the Great Lighthouse by turn 134.
The Ptolemaic Dynasty: Have more than 5000 culture on turn 152.
This will be a UHV+ guide for Egypt. The idea is to win the UHV with the option to continue playing in a heavily advantaged position. This is opposed to other guides which try to win the UHV at any cost as soon as possible or with the highest score on the victory date. The first iteration of the guide will be for Rhye's and Fall - Dawn of Civilization version 1.14 with the most recent hotfix patch.
Walkthrough
I have tried to make the walkthrough as deterministic as possible, but there is still some luck involved. The guide may be "too strict" in the sense that it rushes the UHV goal at the cost of other routes that could improve your game more going into the future. For example, building libraries will give you a huge advantage if you continue past the UHV date, but you take more risk of missing the necessary wonders and military strength. You can certainly take some gambles if you think that your opponents will not go for the wonders or if you want to skimp on military to combat the invasions and barbarians.
Part One
1. Settle Niwt-Rst 1N (one tile north) of your spawning position. Build: worker -> obelisk -> The Pyramids -> Great Sphinx
2. Research Tech: Mysticism -> Masonry -> Fishing -> Pottery -> Writing
3. Have your warrior look for tribal villages. Explore southwest to the Mali territory, then north to Gibraltar, then east along the Mediterranean coast back home.
4. Don't change civics, we already have exactly what we need.
5. Use your worker to improve the wheat -> stone -> marble -> 2 cottages on flood plains. Build roads if you have extra turns.
6. Use slavery to whip the obelisk with maximum overflow into The Pyramids after you have hooked up the stone. I believe that if you time everything correctly you will end up delaying the obelisk for one turn because you can't hook up the stone fast enough. During that extra turn, you can just switch to producing The Pyramids.
7. Once you have the obelisk and Niwt-Rst is size three, work the stone, marble, and priest until you have completed The Pyramids and Great Sphinx.
8. It's unlikely but possible for Babylon to complete the Great Sphinx on turn 51, so you might want to use slavery to whip complete the Sphinx for turn 50.
Comments
-In Dawn of Civilization, settling on flood plains does not remove them. We also need to be able to work the stone and marble in the capital to build the wonders by turn 51, which is when Babylon could complete either of them. Settling 1N gives us a very powerful city right away, and it also gives us room to setup our other core cities in a great position for future play.
-If you travel into Jerusalem, they will attack and kill any units unless you have a stack of at least five war chariots. It might be worth exploring to the south along East Africa, but I haven't tried it. Exploration is not required at all, but it's fine if the warrior dies because there's a long time before Niwt-Rst will grow big enough to be unhappy without protection.
-You don't need roads to gain access to resources that are on rivers in your culture.
-Obviously, Great Sphinx is not mandatory for the UHV in general, but it is required to achieve the first and third UHV goals using this strategy.
-The Pyramids should be built before Great Sphinx because Babylon seems to be more likely to beat you to the Pyramids on turn 51.
-A completely alternative strategy involves rushing five war chariots to harass Babylon. This allows you to delay the wonder dates, but then you still have to worry about Greece. I feel that you sacrifice too much by rushing military.
-Working the priest allows you to get a great person as soon as possible, which will be useful later.
-Cottages should be built in positions so that they can be used by multiple cities, which will be useful later.
-Fishing is necessary to research now so that we can trade for sailing later. We might as well get it before pottery since we have time.
-River crossings can mess up your unit movement even if you have roads because we won't have construction for bridges for a long time.
-The obelisk plus The Pyramids and Great Sphinx are enough to achieve the first UHV goal on their own.
Part Two
1. Niwt-Rst builds: settler -> settler -> worker. Stop working the priest so that you can produce the settlers as fast as possible.
2. Tech aesthetics -> literature.
3. When you finish aesthetics, trade it to Phoenicia for sailing + polytheism + mining. When you finish literature, trade it to them for animal husbandry + bronze working. You might have to put one turn of research into bronze working before they will accept this trade. You also might need to send your warrior into Jerusalem territory to make contact with Phoenicia. Horse will be located 1E of Niwt-Rst, and copper will be 1E of the horse.
4. Settle Ra-Kedet 2NW of Niwt-Rst. Settle your great person here, and build: obelisk -> work boat -> The Great Lighthouse -> The Great Library. Do not take the wheat tile from Niwt-Rst. The work boat does not need to be prioritized as the fish resource is not immediately inside your culture.
5. Settle Akhetaten 2S of Niwt-Rst. The production doesn't matter much, but it's probably safe to build a library. Work the gold tile once it is improved.
6. Continue building cottages on flood plains, but improve the gold and horse as soon as they are available. Horse will need roads to be connected. If you have time, build roads between your cities and also a road from Akhetaten extending 2SE which will be useful later.
7. After Niwt-Rst has produced the two settlers and the worker, have Ra-Kedet take the marble and wheat tiles, and Akhetaten may take the stone if you like. Have Niwt-Rst work cottages while the other cities grow and setup their infrastructure. You should also work a priest in Niwt-Rst so that you will be more likely to generate one.
8. Have Niwt-Rst build a barracks -> *war chariots. Time it so that the war chariots can start as soon as the horse is connected. Niwt-Rst should continue to produce war chariots until you have at least ten of them.
9. Once you have bronze working, use workers to chop forests to complete The Great Lighthouse and The Great Library faster.
10. Improve the copper to boost production in Niwt-Rst, but the resource itself is not necessary yet.
Comments
-Settling a great prophet in Ra-Kedet is a little risky because you absolutely need a great prophet later to achieve the third UHV goal. However, it is very likely that you will get another one in time, and settling it gives Ra-Kedet a huge boost in production and it keeps your economy alive during your expansion.
-Micro your cities carefully. Make sure that the cities are always working tiles that are improved. You will have to swap tiles back and forth between cities. You can work specialists in Ra-Kedet or Niwt-Rst in lieu of improved tiles or to stall growth. You will need a great prophet by turn 152 for the third UHV.
-Unhealthiness is normal. It basically just cancels out with the flood plains and makes them into grassland tiles, which is still quite strong. Also note that the grasslands tile in our core is strictly worse than all of the flood plain tiles.
-In general, Ra-Kedet has poor production, so they need the wheat and marble to complete the wonders on time. Greece can complete The Great Lighthouse on turn 106, so you should prioritize it over The Great Library. Since the wonders provide useful benefits, you should chop the forests and consider using slavery to finish them as soon as possible. Using slavery to whip the wonders directly gives you a production penalty, so consider building another unit and then whipping it so that the overflow goes into the wonder.
-In Dawn of Civilization, a city does not need a library as a prerequisite to build The Great Library.
-Akhetaten has very poor production, but it more than pays for itself by working the gold. This lets us tech to literature quickly without having to dedicate our other cities to research. Ra-Kedet can focus on producing the wonders, and Niwt-Rst can focus on military production.
-Barbarian Nubian Medjays can start spawning around turn 89. Ideally, trick them to attack into your war chariots across rivers for the best odds. On 1.14, they can spawn inside your culture borders. Consider putting a unit on the copper so that they won't spawn there as that is particularly horrible.
-Building a smokehouse in any city is useless at this time, but it will provide +2 health after we capture Aksum.
-You can consider building libraries in any or all cities. In Ra-Kedet, you can replace the obelisk with it. It will be riskier, but it will give you a bigger advantage if you play beyond the UHV date.
Part Three
1. Tech path doesn't matter for the UHV anymore, so you can plan ahead for what you want to do after the UHV date. See the comments below for some ideas.
2. If you get a great prophet, save it for the third UHV goal. If you get a great engineer, keep working priests in Ra-Kedet and/or Niwt-Rst until you get a great prophet. On the plus side, you can consider using the engineer to build The Hanging Gardens, which will be very useful for the permanent health bonus.
3. When you finish the first two UHV goals, you get a triumphal arch in your capital, which adds 4 culture and +50% military unit production. It also starts a golden age, so you should try to time it when your cities have high population so you can maximize the increased tile yields and great person points.
4. The Greek invasion can occur around turn 117. Two Hoplites and one catapult will spawn on each of two tiles: one next to Ra-Kedet and one next to Niwt-Rst. Eliminate them as soon as possible using war chariots. It might be rough if you have to attack across rivers, but ten war chariots should be sufficient.
5. Ethiopia spawns on turn 121 and will build Aksum 2SE of the gold the following turn. You can't declare war on them until turn 131, but you should capture Aksum as soon as possible and ideally before the Roman invasion. If Ethiopia has other cities, you can take them as a vassal, but they will likely collapse anyway. You should try to get as many of their techs as possible before this happens.
6. Aksum is not connected to the trade network unless you have a road connection.
7. The Roman invasion can occur around turn 140. It's the same as the Greek invasion except they have Legions instead of hoplites. If you have the opportunity, you should promote your war chariots with shock. You can also get extra XP on your military units if you have the opportunity to settle a great general in Niwt-Rst or switch to Theocracy.
8. Sometimes another Roman invasion stack will wander into your territory from Carthage.
9. Use your great prophet to create a great work in Aksum for +1600 culture. Combined with the obelisks and wonders in Niwt-Rst and Ra-Kedet, this should give you 5000 culture by turn 152. Make sure that you don't tech drama because it will obsolete the Great Sphinx and disable the great work ability.
Comments
-Sometimes Ra-Kedet will lose the fish resource to Greek culture. This is unfortunate, but not a huge problem for the UHV. You can consider using the final great prophet to make a great work there instead of in Aksum, but even if you do it's likely that you will lose the tile to the Byzantines later on anyway.
-Once you have sufficient military force to fight off the invasions, you can build more infrastructure or work specialists in Niwt-Rst. By combining slavery with dynasticism, you can get tons of production.
-As long as your cities have some kind of defense, the invaders will usually opt to bombard your defenses rather than attack. This can give you some extra time to build units, but ideally you want to have enough to wipe out the attackers immediately.
-You can potentially capture three or four workers from Ethiopia when you attack them.
Planning for the future
-You could beeline calendar and you're likely to found Taoism. Calendar is already very useful because you can improve dye, cotton, and incense. Taoism also allows you to build the Terracotta Army and the Grand Canal (even though it says Confucianism is required).
-You can also beeline Theology and found Christianity. Orthodoxy gives you access to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, but the Blue Mosque requires music and engineering. Catholicism gives you the Leaning Tower, the Sistine Chapel, and Versailles.
-Theology also lets you skip all the medieval techs and go directly to paper -> education -> gunpowder. However, the Turks spawn with it, and Africa will be swarming with Pombos, so it's not a particularly big advantage. Rifles are the key.
-You can also beeline liberalism by teching education as above plus philosophy. Philosophy gives scholasticism, which is nice on its own, and you can use liberalism to grab gunpower or printing press for free. If you backtech and delay liberalism a little, you might even be able to take constitution as your free tech.
-It's also quite good to just get the medieval techs. Courthouses give a stability bonus when you expand in foreign territory. Vassalage and levy armies give a nice stability bonus, as does organized religion + theocracy. Guilds is also great for setting up your infrastructure.
-In Dawn of Civilization, golden ages do not allow you to switch civics without anarchy, but the anarchy turns do not count against the golden age turns. It's easy to turn Niwt-Rst and Ra-Kedet into powerful great-person farms.
-You should carefully balance your population with your city happiness. Unlike Beyond the Sword, you shouldn't simply grow to your happiness cap. You want to keep a buffer of a few extra happiness in each of your big cities for the domestic happiness stability bonus.
-The three core cities were placed to maximize their available food. This lets you get the highest possible population in your core. When you expand with cities into foreign territory, you need to limit their growth. Check your expansion stability and only grow your foreign cities when you're safe to do so. There are many luxury resources available in Africa, but it's all worthless if you collapse trying to get them.
-Barbarians will continue to spawn to your west basically forever. Eventually, you will be spamming Axemen and Spearmen from Aksum just to keep up.
-Spearmen will be necessary to defend Ra-Kedet, Niwt-Rst, and Akhetaten from the barbarian horsemen: Numidian Cavalry, Fararis, and Camel Archers. You should also build a fort 2NE of Niwt-Rst and put some spearmen there to defend from Arabia when they spawn.
-Axemen should be used in Akhetaten, Aksum, and any cities you build further south to defend from the Impis. Note that Impis have 2 moves, and they can move through marsh, jungle, and rainforest unimpeded. However, they cannot enter desert at all.
-If you capture Jerusalem, it will try to flip to the Byzantines, and it will be attacked by Arabia after that regardless. In my opinion, it's not worth it until much later if ever.
-The Moors will spawn in North Africa, so don't go there. Eventually, their core will shrink to just Morocco, so you should try to capture Lybia and Algeria though.
-During the middle ages, the copper 2E of Niwt-Rst will be replaced with an iron, so you don't need to worry about finding iron for the future. Oil and Uranium will also be available in Lybia and near the Gulf of Guinea.
-You should consider taking Congo and Mali as vassals before the Europeans arrive.
-It will be difficult to have naval superiority over the Europeans because they spawn so far ahead in that tech path.
Thank you for reading, and I will continue to add more information as I play. Please leave any questions or comments here.
