Hatshepsut!

[stratozyck]

I've been playing for a while, and never really tried Egypt until recently. My fav civs were always Frederick and Shaka and I play on Monarch.

Here's a surefire way to kick butt in the game. Be Hatshepsut (Spi/Cre), and build only two cities. You want one of the two to have some horse. Immediately rush out as many War Chariots as possible. Before doing this, build the obelisks in each city. Ideally youd like both cities to have two priests as your chopping forests to rush these chariots.

These war Chariots can take any non capital in the world at the time. With a little luck, you may be able to take a capital. My strategy is to use their speed to my advantage. I will pillage and take a few cities of each of my neighbors. The goal is to have weak neighbors and use the creative trait to claim as much land as possible with the least amount of cities.

By now I use the Great prophets to support this expansion by adding them to my cities, or if I capture a holy city to build a shrine.

My record time (w/o Rome) was 1500 AD as the Inca, first time using this strategy I won a conquest in 1200 AD.

 

[Davidicus]

What difficulty level?

 

[biggamer132]

What difficulty level?

He did say it was on Monarch.

 

[Galileo44]

And what game speed? Marathon I would guess.

 

[kniteowl]

What Map were you playing? Terra? Pangea?

If you're playing a Fractual or Continents Map, Creative gives you cheap libraries, possibly beelining to writing, building those libraries and assigning scientist specialist for GS for an Academy in the Capital or lightbulbing Philosophy for the Pacifism Civic which will allow you to create more Great People maybe the better Strategy.

As Long as you ignore Calander, you can still get those Great Prophets after the 1st or 2nd GS.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

What Map were you playing? Terra? Pangea?

If you're playing a Fractual or Continents Map, Creative gives you cheap libraries, possibly beelining to writing, building those libraries and assigning scientist specialist for GS for an Academy in the Capital or lightbulbing Philosophy for the Pacifism Civic which will allow you to create more Great People maybe the better Strategy.

As Long as you ignore Calander, you can still get those Great Prophets after the 1st or 2nd GS.

It doesn't sound like the OP needs a better strategy if you ask me

 

[kniteowl]

It doesn't sound like the OP needs a better strategy if you ask me

LOL I guess... Probably different Playing styles, I'm generally a builder it depends on my traits, Maybe the the guy should try his hand out on Better AI to see if He can Rush all the AIs by 1200AD, their A LOT smarter at war now, from What I've heard

 

[Galileo44]

Plus, Monarch is not the hardest level by any means.

 

[lilnev]

I've always liked Hattie for the combination of Creative and War Chariots. You can get a very fast start with her. I'm not sold on running priests though. I'd rather be working tiles initially and generating GSs later.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Sisiutil]

My 2nd-best game of all time was with Hatty (the ALC with her, link in my sig below). The OP forgot to mention that War Chariots are cheap; you can take a capital with them, provide you have enough of 'em, which isn't hard to do.

 

[cabert]

I've always liked Hattie for the combination of Creative and War Chariots. You can get a very fast start with her. I'm not sold on running priests though. I'd rather be working tiles initially and generating GSs later.

peace,
lilnev

the trick about great prophets is they give hammers and gold.
Funding a rush is always a bit tricky. This way you can build loads of chariots and pay for the war.
seems a solid strat to me.

 

[Davidicus]

Plus, Monarch is not the hardest level by any means.

speak for yourself! Been playing Civ since II and never got past noble (or the equivalent thereof) on any of them. But then again I just don't have much time to play to master strategies.

 

[ChinaBlue]

@Sisiutil. I have to ask, what's your best game of all time?

 

[Sisiutil]

@Sisiutil. I have to ask, what's your best game of all time?

Going strictly by score, the Tokugawa game.

Samurai are da bomb.

 

[Polycrates]

The other cool thing about War Chariots is that they're that little bit tougher than normal chariots. They still get minced by spearmen, of course, but they can make enemy archers, axes and chariots think twice about attacking them. So you can pillage more aggressively with them and feel safer about keeping them right in the middle of an enemy empire to harass the hell out of reinforcements and workers etc. Not an insubstantial benefit.

Sidenote on priests - the Egyptians are both Spiritual but neither start with Mysticism, so one of their best chances to get a religion is to run priests with an obelisk and lightbulb Theology.

 

[cabert]

Going strictly by score, the Tokugawa game.

Samurai are da bomb.

that's because you didn't play Rome
Even a softie like me is able to get 100k+ scores for domination with Augustus.

 

[lukep]

that's because you didn't play Rome
Even a softie like me is able to get 100k+ scores for domination with Augustus.

The **very** nice thing about samurais is the length of time you can use them. A CR3 + pinch + Combat 1 or 2 in vanilla is both easy to acheive and awesome

Pretorians window of use is shorter, and either too late or too early for my gameplay

 

[cabert]

The **very** nice thing about samurais is the length of time you can use them. A CR3 + pinch + Combat 1 or 2 in vanilla is both easy to acheive and awesome

Pretorians window of use is shorter, and either too late or too early for my gameplay

really?
I built praetorians from 1000 BC up to 1400 AD (end game).
Of course, the last one get build for CR promotions, then get upgraded to grenadiers.

 

[lilnev]

Praetorians last a very long time. Until rifles/cavalry. I often keep building them even after maces are available. They're just as strong (unless you really need the bonus vs. melee) and a lot cheaper. Praets are dumb.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Sisiutil]

Praetorians last a very long time. Until rifles/cavalry. I often keep building them even after maces are available. They're just as strong (unless you really need the bonus vs. melee) and a lot cheaper. Praets are dumb.

peace,
lilnev

Agreed. If the AI countered with more melee units, upgrades to Macemen would be required, but it doesn't; it relies heavily on Longbowmen, and you don't even need Trebuchets to take them out; several Cats and a few Praets will do.

I usually don't get my Praets going early enough. Both Caesars have land-grab capabilities, so I get caught up doing that (since the AI doesn't always put cities where I think they should go), improving the tiles I've claimed, and so on. And then there's the "I'll build just one more Praetorian, then I'll declare war..." syndrome. One day I'll try Moonsinger's Rome strategy, I swear. I'm still too much of a builder.