Open, Ancient Age from 4000 - 370 BC
Settling the Rock
I started my moving the settler to the hill and then roaded the BG when nothing special appeared. Thebes was founded on the spot next turn. In retrospect, it may have been better to move once more in order to bring the fish into play.
When F10 revealed that there were no commercial civs were in the game, I decided to research Alphabet and Math in the hopes of getting two good techs for trading purposes. The alternative would be The Wheel, but that is not as valuable and doesnt lead to such nice secondary techs.
I met the Chinese in 3350BC. They knew BW, WC and Pottery (had they met someone already?). Naturally, they were not willing to trade anything for CB.
My initial builds were three warriors and a settler. In 2900, Memphis was founded on the hill by the fish. It built a warrior for defence followed a temple to bring wines into play. Meanwhile the capital started on a barracks.
The following year I met the Celts and traded Masonry for Warrior Code straight up.
2630BC was a banner year. I met the Americans and Germans. I also brought in Alphabet as a monopoly tech and traded around for BW, Pottery, TW, Mysticism, 2 workers and 33g! I started in on Math at max as planned and switched the capital from a barracks to a granary. The next turn, I bought IW from the Germans for TW, Myst and 38g. I sold that to the Americans a couple of turns later in exchange for a worker and 10g.
At this point, I started immediately on a road to the outside world with a worker and a slave, stopping to mine a hill for a future city on the way. A worker and a slave make a nice combo: two turns to road a hill and three turns for a mountain.
In 2310 I got yet another worker from the Chinese. This was all the workers that the industrious Egyptian nation would need for more than a thousand years. It's been a long time since I played an industrious civ in vanilla. I'd forgotten just what a pleasure it is.
In 1830BC, the Germans learned Writing so I traded it for contact with the Arabs, Celts and Chinese (Chinese??

), gaining 63g as well. I then traded writing around, getting about 80 more gold. In 1700 Math came in as a monopoly tech, confirmed in the big picture. Infuriatingly, the Chinese and Arabs had learned Math and HBR by the end of the inter-turn and traded with each other leaving me out in the cold.

I did trade the tech to the Celts later for HBR, which went to Lincoln for 42g. As planned I started on a Currency min-sci so for the next part of the game, I quietly built infra, military and cities.
Noteworthy events of this period:
1650 Heliopolis founded on the plains by the wheat
1600 Elephantine founded on the hill by the cow
1500 Bismarck threatened war. Surprisingly he backed down when I refused to give in.
1425 Alexandria founded in position to claim the iron
1350 Everyone suddenly knew Mapmaking. I traded maps around, netting a full world map and 59 gold to boot. I did not trade for the tech itself. Useless except for harbours and I was far from ready for them.
1200 Pi-Rameses founded at the northern horses, connecting them to the core
1175 Giza founded at the eastern horses, the last place to settle in our mountains.
1150 First war chariot rolls off the assembly line.
The Great Northern Road reaches grassland! Did anyone beat this date? Get the Forbidden Palace message.
1100 Arabs declared war
1075 Iron connected; upgrade 8 warriors to swordsmen
1000 Iron disconnected again
QSC stats
Firaxis score:246
7 cities, pop 15, 289 gold
1 settler, 1(!) worker and 5 slaves
3 barracks, 3 temples, 2 granaries
All first and second level techs. No third.
3 warriors, 1 archer, 1 spear, 8 swords and 2 war chariots
The wars.
My plan was to build a new capital on the forest between the two wheats in the far north with a ring of cities at RCP 4 around it. As the capital of modern Egypt, it would be called Cairo. Byblos, founded in 925BC, would be the first of the cities in the ring. The Chinese cities of Nanking and Chengdu have to fall in order to make space for our new nation. Eventually New York, which is in the ring, must assimilate to the Egyptian juggernaut as well.
However, in 925BC, the year I declared war on China, Berlin finished the Pyramids. Berlin is not far from our new lands and must be higher priority than New York as this wonder will be very useful to allow the new cities to grow rapidly. The plan thus was a series of quick wars, first on China, then on Germany and finally on America, allowing us to stake out our new kingdom. Initially the wars would be fought with swords. At some point we would revolt to Republic and a War Chariot would bring on our GA.
China
Would the plan work? It started out badly as three veteran swordsmen died in the assault on Nanking, but the city duly fell. Cairo was founded in 750 BC. Mao built The Great Wall in the next inter-turn as I had readied my attack on Chengdu

but the city was destroyed at a cost of three more swords. I had attained my goal. Mao sued for peace offering four techs and 59g.
On to Berlin. Six more swords have been trained for that purpose, giving nine in total. Most production is switched over to War Chariots. The Age of the Sword will soon come to an end.
In 710BC, my min-sci on Currency came in and, for the second time, an AI learnt it in the inter-turn after the big picture! This gets lame. This time it was the Celts. The Arabs discovered Polytheism at the same time, the last of the required techs for the MA. I traded Currency for Construction, a worker and some cash. I next started research on Republic. Even at full speed, it was slated to take 27 turns.
Germany
In 570 BC, I declared war on Germany and moved a force of eight swordsmen and an archer towards Berlin. This time the PRG Gods were more gentle. In 530 BC, the city fell without loss and the Pyramids were mine. In 470BC, The Great Northern Road reached the former German capital.
The following turn everyone suddenly learnt Polytheism, Currency and the Republic, all entering the ME together. The good news was that my research time to Republic had suddenly dropped to 3 turns and Poly was only 5 more. A massive barb uprising was announced near Berlin, but it was really in German lands. I took care to place War Chariots everywhere to prevent having to deal with it myself. I watched a humungous number of barbs move on Hamburg and the city suddenly dropped from size 4 to size 1. In other news, Frankfurt fell as I started to go after German luxes.
In 370, the Arabs sued for peace. I accepted in exchange for Polytheism, putting an end to our long phoney war and entered into the Middle Ages. Otto learned Monotheismas his free and is "doubtful" about whether to share it with us. I guess he just needs a bit more convincing.
Future plans
At this point I know Republic but I am not quite ready for a revolt. According to CivAssist II, with the capital in Thebes and no FP, we are more productive in despotism than republic. However, that will change soon. Memphis will finish the FP in seven turns. After that we revolt and the capital will be moved to Aegyptus Novus..
Already, CA tells us that we are most productive with the capital in Cairo and the FP in Memphis. This will only get better as more cities are added to the ring and they are allowed to grow. So far they have been mainly building workers and the odd temple. Once we revolt, the American and Chinese blots on my lands will be eradicated and the GA will start. We already have 11 chariots and plenty more will be built in time for the wars.
Aegyptus Novus