Egyptian Strategy: Wheel of the Chariot

[alpaca]

No, this isn't about chariots. It's about the Egyptian unique building: the Burial Tomb.

The Burial Tomb replaces the Temple, yields only 2 instead of 3 culture but grants +2 happiness and 2 culture for no maintenance fee. This got me thinking. The +2 happiness mean you can offset a new city's city number unhappiness by building a burial tomb. Combined with Meritocracy which yields +1 happiness for each city connected to your capital, this can completely eliminate unhappiness for size 1 cities.

Since new cities have one worker and a city tile that yields +2 hammers and +1 gold, their single population generates a lot more production than another citizen in the capital. So this is the strategy:

- Build a worker in your capital first. I don't think exploring is worthwhile enough to build something else.
- When your city reaches two population and the worker is built, create a settler ASAP
- Research-wise, beeline to Philosophy
- Go for the Great Library into Civil Service slingshot. You want Philosophy for the Tomb anyways so you might as well make use of Egypt's unique ability
- After that, grow as you see fit. If you let your new cities grow to size >= 2 you can turn a profit from building roads there if you put them close together.

The next question is what city placement you want. I think it's acceptable to steal our capital 6 tiles and go for a city distance of two. What you do with the additional production from all those city tiles is at your discretion... but dare I suggest War Chariots?

All those cities have another advantage: They allow you to hook up a lot of happiness resources. It's acceptable to have some gaps in your city placement to first go for some happy faces that you can grow your cities with or save for a golden age. The primary advantage, however, is a lot of additional production. Settlers should be built preferably in the small cities while your capital concentrates on buildings, wonders, and primarily, growth. Tiles should mostly go to the capital, too.

Note that militarily, the close city proximity has two tactical upsides as well: Firstly you can move units between cities quickly. Secondly, cities provide cover fire for each other so only two tiles immediately adjacent to each city can be occupied by enemy units without another city being able to shoot at them.

I don't have the full game yet but a test in the demo looked promising. I was able to get more than 50 hammers and more than 70 gold per turn before turn 100 (in a golden age I admit). I'd be happy if some of you Americanos gave it a try

Spoiler :

 

[obsolete]

Egypt sucks in this game.

 

[mcmpan]

really nice strategy!
I have played two games with egypt (1 warlord, 1 king) and I always did the War Charriot rush to conquer at least one main capital. As you normally don't lose any unit in your first rush, you can use your units to help city states.
This already works extremely well.

 

[alpaca]

I gave it another whirl in the demo (which always gives you the same map and starting location). It went a little better this time, see the screens. It's quite hard to get enough happiness resources to make continued expansion work while you build those burial tombs but I think from that start I could easily have dominated my opponents had I chosen to start building military units. Difficulty was Emperor.

Pi-Ramesses is a little out of place due to my favoring not building it on horses to get the +2 hammers. Now, I'm not convinced that was correct, I think sticking to the pattern whenever possible is better because of the minimal 2 tile distance between cities.

Some other notes:

- The Civil Service slingshot has the nice side effect of making your cities stronger. It seems their strength is governed by era.

- You can claim a lot of tiles in this way without waiting for the slow culture spread.

- It makes sense to wait until you unlock Tradition to build your first settler. You may consider building something else meanwhile, another worker or a monument perhaps

- This is basically a REX strategy

 

[JudgeDeath]

Egypt sucks in this game.

Such a helpful comment. Your name appears accurate.

 

[r_rolo1]

Egypt sucks in this game.

You should try your "pile wonders in cap" strat with them while maximizing the SP related with cap output. That + Oracle + Great library ensure a strong grip on a early CS and in this game population =

 

[Martin Alvito]

This still works on Immortal, after a fashion. You can't deviate from the beeline, or you lose the GL. This prevents you from aggressively settling until well after the GL finishes. Meanwhile, the AI will spam cities at you.

The only hope in the demo is to bravely settle the Ivory to the northwest, then backfill. If you don't, the AI will take that site. The Ivory is on the beeline, so it can tide you over until you can get the Marble and Spices rolling. Doing this requires a second Warrior build (one for each city for barb defense), but in this strong start it isn't a problem. On a straight beeline you end up with too many hammers anyway.

The other nice thing about the tile SE of the Ivory is that it enables you to chop rush an item in that city. The Tombs are the obvious choice, but there may be better alternatives.

Be aware that you're going to get a DoW from two civs around turn 70 (NW and east). You'll want something remotely resembling a military by then. You'd also want a charnel house city improvement, if there were one. As long as you build some Archer support, you'll wipe the floor with the enemy civs at this point in the game because the AI is so comically terrible at making war.

Long story short, this approach will dominate Emperor, give you a winning game in Immortal from a strong start, and fail on Deity. You'll have to REX Deity without the GL, or you'll get strangled to death.

I'm not yet convinced that Egypt is optimal for this strategy. The Burial Tombs are nice, but either you're going to have to chop rush them (precluding Worker and defensive builds) or they're going to come in after you need them in every place except the first couple of cities. You're putting in 120 hammers for an effective return of two per turn. You also get a culture boost, but that is more or less a wash due to the extra cities you are building. Those hammers aren't a bad investment, but they aren't concentrated in one place. So unless the plan is to spam the map full of cheap units, then upgrade, it's likely that more efficient approaches exist.