Harvshepsut of Egypt (NOT Earth 18)

[Gumbolt]

6 turns worker. 8 turns workboat. 6 turns worker. 5-6 turns mine on pigs. Then you have BW. You can then chop putting hammers into workboat or settler. Aim to get second city built if you whip by 2480bc. Later if you slow build.

Whatever you do with Shaka due to the seafood start your attack will be delayed. The alternative is AH first but again this has huge drawbacks in terms of worker use. The other choice is BW first. Of course this leaves worker waiting around too. Mining pigs is best here.

On my brief run through I had to deal with a 4xarcher uprising. A slaves revolt. Shaka spammed archers in his hill cities but I managed to take down 3 cities. Razing 1. He had two left by about 1080bc. One was spamming archers. At which point the hill city was best left. If your planning on granaries and barracks that would delay any attack here.

Taking peace often allows a better chance to take cities as units may leave the cities. You would want at least 8-10 chariots for capital and same for hill cities.

At this point I would try for mids for rep.. Hard to know if i would get it so late. On Monarch I might go music route. Albeit meeting other continent is always good. On monarch their tech would be much slower.

 

[Harv]

You got the 4 archer Vedic Aryans? I was worried they show up on turn 21 and ruin the game.

Yeah, it looks like the seafood start slows down a rush. Each work boat costs hammers.

 

[Harv]

I'm messing around with starts. Right now, I got a city founded by the Horse at Turn 44. I did not whip the Settler, because I did not have a road leading to the new city site. This is a problem with having only one Worker.

 

[Gumbolt]

Without whipping 2440bc settled. Why do you need all those roads? You will get horses in capital with no roads just by culture. Same for trade routes.

The second mine and 2 roads have cost you 40+ hammers. Which in effect has delayed your workboats and settler by 5 turns. Mines/roads early on are poor investments.The pigs was an exception as it is a 2f3H tile. Plus the worker would of been idle.

You could try whipping a second worker in capital? Not sure that would be quicker. Especially if your using it for roads.

Note by crossing the river onto a hill with roads a 2mp unit will still use all it's movement doing this. So that road is no use till you have construction.

 

[Harv]

Thank you for your patience. It looks like I did not understand cultural borders and connected cities and found out later that I did not have to road to my new city site.

Considering what you said about Worker first, then two work boats, I have one more thing to try:

If I start a Worker, then at Turn 6, I have Fishing and 24/60.
If I start a Work Boat, then I can have it complete at Turn 14 and have 2/22 towards growth. This is also the earliest I can have a Work Boat.
I can go back to the Worker and finish at Turn 20, five turns later than originally planned.

Turn 24 we grow to Size 2. I believe this is exactly when the pig iron mine is ready.

 

[Gumbolt]

So if you complete the worker first it's 15 turns. Fish and mining ready? You will end up with a 2f3h tile. Albeit 5 turns later once mined. T20?. So workboat still takes 8 turns. Or 10 turns if you run 2f1H for 5 turns. So 8 or 10 turns for the workboat but you gain 16 or 6f. Your losing at least 1 commerce a turn for each turn you don't use the fish.
You have the worker nice and early. It can certainly mine the pigs and likely build 2 roads. However you work out at neutral as the roads add no value unless you speed up a chop by 1 turn.

Getting the fish up sooner speeds up the worker build time.

T14 you could have the fish worked and a 5f2c tile ready. This speeds up the worker by 3T (4H vs 6H over 6 turns). Your growing on fish so the delayed mine hardly matters as it times perfectly with size 2 and BW.

If you run the 2f1h tile on your way it's the same as running fish for 2 turns. Your just losing 5 commerce.

Overall you want your best tile improved asap. You don't want to waste the first 6 turns as you know you want that worker sooner than later. Building a warrior first merely delays the mined pigs.

You next have to consider what is best? One more workboat and settler at size 3? Or grow to size 4. You could even chop the settler at size 2. 12 turn settler. Less chops could reduce that to 10 turns.

So a possible 2nd city before 2500bc? This is what makes coastal starts so hard. You really have to work out the micro. So maybe settler at size 2 could be good. Main downside is you probably wanted that 3rd workboat for your second city. With chops this would not take too long. You could even put OF into workboats to time with chops.

If your mining and building roads you won't get 2500bc or earlier.

 

[Harv]

Take 3, Session 1
to Turn 25 / 3000 BC

Turn 0 - Settle in place. Start Worker / Fishing. Explore with Warrior along Rough / High terrain.
Turn 6 - Fishing. Switch to Work Boat
Turn 13 - Mining. Micro Thebes to get Work Boat and 2/22 Food.
Turn 14 - Finish Work Boat. Six turns to finish the Worker.
Turn 20 - Finish the Worker.
Turn 24 - Finish the Pig Iron Mine. Thebes is Size 2.

Spoiler :

Not much happened on the event front. The Zulus got a special herb and most likely another +2 health bonus.

This is also a picture of Ulundi with as much of it scouted as I can get right now. It appears to be just south of a lake, surrounded by forest, but has a pig pasture, some marble, and a flood plain. The Zulus have a great setup for an Impi rush. Even with the production bonuses they seem to get at Monarch, they could chop whip a Settler, put it right next to the Copper, get that mine up, and chop up a bunch of Impis and strike on a helpless Egyptian empire that never bothered to research Archery and is stuck defending with Warriors and War Chariots, which are no match for the Impis. This looks like a great map for the Zulus!

Impis against fortified CG1 Archers on Hills might be a different story.

I put up a Turn 20 Autosave, because that is when the Worker is finished. I thought the Work Boat was the way to keep the city growing. I also put up a turn 25 save, Take 3, Session 1.

This seems to be a huge improvement over what I had when I started. As a bonus, the Worker has finished the mine exactly in time for the city to grow to Size 2 and move to a forest to chop just in time for Bronze Working. I think I will experiment with the Turn 25 save and see how I can get that second city founded by Turn 38. That probably means I'm growing to Size 4 and getting a whip.

Options are still open at this stage (Turn 25) on how to deal with the Zulu. We can expand and claim the resources as we find them. I think we get Animal Husbandry on Turn 34 and that's when we should "know" where to found the second city. Seeing how they like to spam Archers, it might also be an option to take them out with Construction - as long as we know they are not getting Iron.

On another subject, this game and the Earth game make me think of my early experience with the original Civilization. I also liked to play Egypt on the Earth map and I was pretty obsessed about it. The Russians were jerks and they kept wiping me out. We wiped them out on Earth 18. The Zulus were jerks and they kept wiping me out. We are dealing with them on this map.

 

[Harv]

The Vedic Aryans are out! In one of my runs, this happened:

Spoiler :

This is probably a very good reason to turn random events off. Otherwise, reload and move some unit in a different direction and maybe they do not appear. They are "active" in 20% of games. I think there is a 1% probability per game turn than an event occurs. However, I have seen quite a few events for this 1% to be the case. It then checks against a list of weighted probabilities. There are not that many events, so this weight will be approximately 20%, 200 out of about 1000 total. So for each turn after 21 (when Polythiesm was discovered by somebody) there is a probability of approximately 0.2% that the 4 Barbarian Archers show up on the border. That will be approximately 4% probability of it happening some time between Turns 21 and 40. There are also 6 opponents, so a similar probability applies to them as well. However with their Archery start and a bunch of production bonuses, they will be okay in this event.

Since they were active and since I have been running through the early turns so many times, they were bound to appear in one of the runs.

 

[Gumbolt]

For this to happen I think one AI needs archery. Another needs Poly. They don't always target the AI that got these techs. Which means on a standard game on monarch they could wipe out 1 AI. Hmmm.

These events could kill a perfectly decent game.

 

[Harv]

For this to happen I think one AI needs archery. Another needs Poly. They don't always target the AI that got these techs. Which means on a standard game on monarch they could wipe out 1 AI. Hmmm.

These events could kill a perfectly decent game.

Kill a perfectly decent game? Yes.

At Monarch? All AI have archery, so that requirement is met. Another AI needs Polytheism, so we know it is a possibility as soon as we see Hinduism founded, which happened on Turn 21 in this game.

Wipe out an AI at Monarch? They start with Archery and one or two Archers at the start of the game. Most likely they have two defenders and I think it would be very difficult to wipe out two defending Archers with 4 attacking Archers, but never ran the numbers.

It does happen on Earth 18 games. We suddenly see XXX civilization has been destroyed.

It was also funny in that screen shot they seemed to start on that copper tile next to the Zulus, but made a beeline for Thebes. Do Barbarians at this level have a mission to go after the nearest Player city if the player is close enough?

I'm still experimenting with earlier city builds. The best I can do so far is Turn 35 / 2600 BC. I get that by:
T24 - Reach size 2. Switch to settler.
T25 - Move Worker to Forest tile
T26 - Bronze Working - Start chopping.
The second chop gets the Settler and a bunch of overflow into the Work Boat.

Spoiler :

I don't know if this is ideal. I also could have settled Memphis where I have been settling before. Based on the map, I do not know what is hiding near (0,5). I might have also done better to settle one of the Forests right next to the Copper, like (4,3). Had I moved the Warrior to protect that tile, I would have much more likely saved him. This also delays the city to Turn 36 / 2560 BC. The Worker should also be right on top of that city site and moving to the Copper to have a mine ready three turns after founding the city.

Unfortunately, this is the only good tile for the city. I might do well to start a Worker instead of Warrior in the city. Grow Thebes to Size 3 and start another Settler and claim the Horse. It looks like I lose one or two turns of the pig iron and I don't believe that is ideal, so next I will experiment with starting the settler when Thebes grows to Size 3.

Added: This is what it looks like if I grow Thebes to Size 3 and then start the Settler. One chop gets the Work Boat. The Settler shows up one turn before finishing the third chop. The third chop gets another Work Boat. I might have grown on Warriors, but I had a chop going on. I could also have build the Green Mine.

Spoiler :

So this run gets me a city to claim the Copper at Turn 39. We still have to connect it and it is costing us a little bit more money. Growing the city to Size 4 will delay a little bit more, unless I

Without whipping, we have Memphis founded on the same spot on Turn 42. I'm going to look through these and compare.

Spoiler :

 

[Harv]

I got the grow Thebes to Size 3 on the Work Boat, then build Settler scenario down to Memphis founded on Turn 38. The location by the Horse might have been better, because it is already connected and the Worker would be working on the Horse. That pushes back to Turn 37.

It sure looks like I trust Shaka here.

Spoiler :

I'm going to think about it over night.

I got this to happen: Going back to my Turn 24 Autosave, I switched Thebes over to building a Settler. The Worker chopped one Forest, then started to road towards the new city site. Turn 35, Memphis was founded and the road complete.

Spoiler :

It looks like Thebes hits size 3 a couple of turns before the Work Boat gets the Clams up and running. Memphis should have that Copper tile mined in four more turns and in six more turns, we have access to Axes.

It is otherwise a terrible city site. The only purpose is to claim the Copper for ourselves, while denying it to the Zulus.

The next city site should be where we had it before. It gets to share the Clams and Pig Iron with Thebes.

 

[Gumbolt]

That is not a great place to settle memphis. No food resources nearby.The horse/clams and pigs was much stronger. Your putting too much value on the Zulus. Yes they may get metal but they are a tool. So they will attack with a few units and often suicide on a city. If you went HA rush here it would be slightly stronger than war chariots. I think WC is right approach here. If Zulu's don't get copper they will likely find iron somewhere.

 

[Harv]

We have been going over what to do in the opening quite a bit. Admittedly, that is why in another game I am watching, the turn sets are very short. (They seem to recognize more early decision points or errors.)

Here is a run up to Turn 35 / 2600 BC. It is very similar to the last one.

Turn 0 - Settle in place. Start Worker. Research Fishing.
Turn 6 - Fishing complete. Research Mining. Start Work Boat. Work the Plains Hill Forest Tile for 3 Hammers for 7 Turns, then back to the Pig Hill for 1 Turn.
Turn 13 - Mining complete. Research Bronze Working.
Turn 14 - Work Boat complete. Finish the Worker.
Turn 20 - Worker complete. Start a Work Boat.
Turn 24 - Pig Iron Mine complete. Thebes is now size 2.
Turn 26 - Bronze Working complete. Research Animal Husbandry.
Turn 28 - Plains Forest chopped at (2,0).
Turn 29 - Work Boat 2 complete. Thebes is now size 3. Start Settler.
Turn 32 - Grassland Forest chopped at (2,-1).
Turn 35 - Animal Husbandry complete........

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I think you might have whipped the Settler back on Turn 33 when we got the forest chop. However, we did not have Animal Husbandry until Turn 35 and that was when I was planning to 'decide' where to put the city. An earlier city might be at (-3,-2) to get a whole bunch more seafood, but there is no production at that site. The copper has no food near it, but I would still prefer to claim it, or at least deny it to the Zulus.

Based on the information in the picture, we can settle at (1,3) very quickly (Turn 37) and have horses by Turn 44. I did not scout (0,5) because I just could not get the Warrior there in time. He went to protect a path to the copper instead of pressing into the jungle further north.

When I think about (0,5) as an alternate city site for the horse, the invisible tile I was worried about was a single Ocean tile at (-2,6). This would be useful only after Optics and only if there were other food sources which I cannot see right now. So there might not be anything in the picture that might change a decision where to found Memphis.

From here, I am thinking:

Research Pottery. I was considering whether Pottery next or Masonry. Eventually I will quarry the marble for a 1f, 3h, 2c tile that is slightly better than a green mine. With Pottery, I can whip a Granary at Size 4, then grow back to size with War Chariots in between.

Build a Worker next, maybe with a one-pop whip. We will lose the clam tile to Memphis and be working an unimproved tile. We might also lose the pig iron to Memphis. We are also losing several worker turns to Memphis.

Speaking of lost worker turns and roads, it looks like I am "investing" four worker turns, 34, 35, 36, and 37 into a road to Memphis I don't really need. The "return" I see so far is one turn saved founding Memphis and possibly two more worker turns if I decide that worker should return to Thebes. I might have also done slightly better to clear the green hill forest instead of the grassland. That would get a mine up a little bit sooner.

The Warrior - I might have been able to scout a little better - or I might have lost him. Right now, he is guarding a clear path the the copper.

The other clam - So far they are not in my list of tiles used. I might check to see how often they might get used in a whip cycle. Right now with a happy cap of 5, there seems to be a lot of food being produced right now.

 

[Gumbolt]

I would not bother with that road. The settler will not be speeded up reaching Memphis. Better to keep chopping. You want that 3rd workboat as new city will want to run clams for growth. Whip worker at size 2 when you can?

If your rushing Shaka he might work that marble for you anyway. In any case right now if your going war mode all effort should be put into chopping chariots. Building quarrys takes 9 or so turns. Not worth it till your Shaka war is done.

Don't forget to switch to slavery.

Certainly wouldn't whip war chariots. You can always whip granary between builds. Also a settler for the double sea food city.

I wouldn't over think this start. The sooner you have 9-10 war chariots the sooner you can go to war. You could consider a third worker to speed up war chariots? If you do whip it. The horse and road for horse is your biggest delay to war chariots.

 

[Harv]

I went with your advice to grow to Size 4 with the third work boat.

Turn 35 - Road complete at (1,1).
Turn 36 - Settler 1 in Thebes. Move to 1,1.
Turn 37 - Road complete at (2,2). Found Memphis at (1,3).
Memphis grabbed the clams, so I micro'd Thebes to work a Forest tile. The horse pasture will be ready in 4 turns.
Memphis is growing to size 2 and I decided to grow on a warrior. I will need one soon, anyway.
Turn 38 - Start the horse pasture at (0,4).
Turn 41 - Work boat complete. Move to (-2,1). Horse pasture complete at (0,4).

Spoiler :

I made an ankh with my city!

When the copper showed up, I suddenly got cautious with that warrior and did a bad job scouting. At this point, the warrior should just go back to Thebes and fortify. The barbarians are coming - and so are the war chariots.

For Micro, Memphis can make it to size 2 in 3 turns and complete the warrior by working the horse. I thought it was better to work a horse title for 2f, 3h, 1c in Memphis than to work a forest tile in Thebes for 2f, 1h. When it hits size 2, then I can whip the granary in Thebes and have 17 hammers towards the war chariot.

Added: up to Turn 46

Since I had an even number of commerce, I ran 50% treasury to raise some money. For Turns 42 to 45, I had 20 commerce and could set the treasury wherever I wanted, so ran 90% for a couple of turns and 70% for a couple of turns. The treasury is now at 44 gp. We have events on and some events cost money. Right now, most events cost 20 gp.

Turn 42 - We have the clams at (-2,1).
Turn 43 - The Zulus founded their second city, just two turns after we did.
Also, the road is complete at (0,4) and we have access to Thebes.
There is not much else to do around Memphis, so the Worker will return to Thebes.
Turn 44 - Warrior 2 is ready in Memphis. It will defend. Warrior 1 will defend Thebes.
Memphis also grew to size 2 and is working the clams and horse.
Thebes is stuck working a 3h tile.
Turn 45 - Thebes grew to size 5, so we switched over to slavery and whipped the granary.

I waited on this, because I wanted Memphis to be size 2 to work the clams and the horse.
Thebes is now size 3 and works the other clams, fish, and pig iron.
Our first War Chariot will be ready next turn.

This seems to be a huge improvement over my first try at this. We have our first War Chariot at Turn 47 instead of Turn 55.

Spoiler :

From here, I have not decided whether I am better off starting a second worker right away or letting Thebes grow to 4 and then do it. With workers, earlier is probably better and we get only one hammer at size 4. I might even do better to build the second Worker and wait on the War Chariot. I will think about it.

Also - what to research next, Sailing or Writing? For warmongering, neither is really helpful. The Sailing will give us another building to whip, the Lighthouse. Writing gives us the Library. It also allows open borders with Shaka and I would get to see his empire from the inside.

We still have options open on early war or early expansion.

Added: up to Turn 53

I went with Writing. Then we can check out Shaka more closely.
I changed the build in Thebes to Worker. I figured it would be more useful at this point and the payoff will be quick. There is a little bit too much for one Worker to do.

Turn 47 - Forest chopped on the green hill.
Turn 48 - Worker 2 in Thebes.
Meanwhile in Ulundi, the Zulus have truffles.

Spoiler :

There it is! They can put a mine there and have a tile equal to our pig iron mine! 2f, 3f, 1c. It isn't game breaking, but it seems pretty big.

Turn 50 - Memphis grows to size 3. It is now working the clams, horse, and pig iron. Thebes is stuck with a 3h tile.
Turn 51 - War Chariot 1 is ready in Memphis. It starts rolling towards Zulu territory.
Elsewhere in the world, somebody built Stonehenge. This is no surprise.
Forest cleared. Green Mine complete. Thebes grew to size 4 and is still stuck working a 3h tile.
Turn 52 - War Chariot 2 is ready in Thebes. There is another decision point I could have stopped at, what to build next. The option is still open to build a settler and found a city by that seafood.
Turn 53 - Writing. We signed open borders with Shaka and rolled War Chariot 1 in to get a proper sight on Ulundi.

Spoiler :

There are three archers and a settler in Ulundi. The other stack is an archer and a warrior protecting a worker. mBgungunlovu is most likely somewhere to the southwest. It probably has at least two archers. They will have other units somewhere, because there is a reason they got ranked as most powerful and the strength ratio is persistently very low. They are also getting ready to settle a city somewhere.

What to research next? I have Sailing selected, but can switch to something else pretty quickly. Would a beeline to Construction be a good idea?

What to build in Thebes? I am leaning towards a Barracks. A Library would later give us an option to run scientists. A settler one turn ago might also have been a good idea.

Memphis will whip a Granary when it hits Size 4.

 

[Harv]

Session 7
to T67 / 1320 BC

This time, I gave up on the idea of rushing Shaka and went back to building. Some of it is a lot of what I did was not building early War Chariots. He seemed to have more archers than I had War Chariots and the capacity to build more archers. On open field, that is one thing, but in cities, that is just not good. I will leave it like that and see what happens. Hopefully, I had some balance between preparing to rush Shaka and not preparing for war at all.

I also decided to research Sailing next.

Turn 55 - War Chariot "2" in Memphis. For some reason, we have two War Chariot 1's and I don't know why that is.
Library in Thebes. It turned out that the chop and whip overflow were enough to build both a Library and a Barracks and the overflow was just too much for another War Chariot.
Turn 56 - Barracks in Thebes. Quarry built at (1,-2).
Turn 57 - War Chariot 3 in Thebes, actually our fourth War Chariot.
Turn 58 - Sailing. Granary in Memphis.
I decided to go with Sailing because Lighthouses might still be useful with all those sea resources. Thebes already has access to two or three of them.
Turn 60 - The Zulus founded their third city, Nobamba, in the southeast, by the sheep.
Turn 61 - Work Boat 4 in Memphis.
Turn 62 - Settler 2 in Thebes.
Turn 63 - Heliopolis founded.
Turn 65 - Lighthouse in Thebes.
Turn 66 - Work Boat 5 in Thebes.
Turn 67 - Iron Working
Barracks in Memphis.

Spoiler :

Did I mention that I gave up on the idea of rushing Shaka?

I can't give up on the idea of an early war, because maybe one is coming. I think that's his entire stack, plus two archers for each of the other two cities. I thought I saw four CG1 Archers in Ulundi.
(Yup, I did.) So the best case is he has 10 Archers.

We also got a quest.

I heard a rumor that the quest is just not worth the hammers invested. It's 7 stables when we just don't need 7 stables.

Here is the only iron I could find.

It looks like we need a lot more War Chariots - and I still think we should claim that copper on the border. We can at least defend with Axes.

Interestingly, I have not seen a single mine in Zulu territory.

What to research next? I have Mathematics shown in case I wanted to go the Construction / Catapult route. Since I now have Iron Working, would Optics be in order - and try to find Mansa the Muse to rescue our situation?

I think we have two more War Chariots in two more turns, but we will need more units. It might be adequate for a defensive war.

The Great Lighthouse would be nice, if I can afford the hammers, but I don't believe I can. The stone quarry is completely useless, unless I plan to build the Pyramids instead. That would be even more hammers. For Heliopolis, I was thinking the Moai Statues. It has no source of hammers, two seafood resources, and a lot of coast tiles.

 

[Gumbolt]

Based on your save from earlier I had Zulu's wiped out by 1400bc. I killed off a settler and archers heading to that new city. 5 archers in capital. 2-1 ratio of units.

 

[Harv]

Was that from Turn 53 or 35?

 

[Gumbolt]

T35 I think.

 

[Harv]

That sounds like when I decided to whip the granary in Thebes, I basically went the peace route and wondered why it took so long to get war chariots. The granary is 60 hammers and I don’t remember if it takes one whip cycle to repay or two. The second worker is 60 hammers and takes three chop cycles to repay. The quarry is 6 turns, or 24 hammers in your currency and that many turns to repay, neglecting commerce. The mine is 4 turns, or 16 hammers, 16 turns.

I will treat this like a puzzle.