Need help with Hattie SE strategy

[slobberinbear]

I'm trying to learn how to run a SE, so bear (no pun intended) with me.

So Hatshepsut is Creative / Spiritual, giving (among other things) cheap libraries and temples, allowing one scientist and priest specialist, respectively. And the Obelisk special building allows a city to take two priest specialists. So I naturally foresee large, food-producing Egyptian cities allowing multiple specialists. To have those big cities, I need a religion, a good civic, and/or happiness buildings -- plus some health resources and probably a granary and/or aqueduct. I should try to build the Pyramids to get Representation early (for the +2 beakers and increased happy caps).

Since I'll be making priests I'll get a little production out of the SE. I will use Great Prophets to get Judaism, Christianity or Islam, build shrines, and settle them for hammers and gold.

So far so good?

Some silly questions:

1. when do you make the switch to the SE?

2. how often should I "check in" with my SE cities to make sure they're not stagnating or doing silly things?

3. I assume using Slavery can mess up the SE. Is Caste System preferred for this reason (and because of the specialist flexibility)?

4. I presume that I need a food/hammer production city paired with the SE city to make military units, settlers, wonders, etc. Correct?

 

[PurpleTurtle]

To your first question, I like to bring specialists online as I near a temporary pop ceiling, or if I simply feel they have enough food to support it and still grow in a timely fashion. My capital is rarely my big specialist city because it usually doesn't have enough food and more importantly it has pressing matters to attend to and needs to develope otherwise. I do make an effort to land a few wonders in my specialist city if I feel it is doable, though I limit it to those wonders that will keep my city "pure" so it can generate the kind of GP I want...merchants!!! Having the +1 food is an incredible boon for running specialists.

Honestly I haven't tried using slavery with a SE, so I can't answer that, but Caste System does let me whip out a lot of great merchants.

I kinda advise doing a bit of SE economy in any city you can, the research bonus really adds up.

I usually find that my SE cities have pretty good if not better production than the others(at least after angkor wat).

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I've been playing SE games almost exclusively since BtS released. I played the first half of a round with Hatty just last night.

Settings were Big & Small / Standard / Prince / Epic

I got lucky and started with Stone in my BFC, so this strategy was a little easier than it should've been. These are the high points:

• Stonehenge (Stone): Free Obelisk UB in every city.
• Obelisk: +1 & allows two Priest specialists.
• Temple: +1 & allows one Priest specialist. 50% cost from Spiritual to boot!
• Great Wall (Stone): Let's me ignore Barbarians and focus on building/expanding.
• Pyramids (Stone): Early Representation ... +3 to all specialists -- essentially turning Priests into 'normal' Scientist specialists.
• The Hanging Gardens (Stone): +1 in all cities.
• Angkor Wat (Stone): +1 per Priest specialist -- essentially turning Priests into 'normal' Engineer specialists.

So overall, my strategy has been to not run Scientists at all ... instead, using my Rep-boosted Priests as an early substitute. (I did run Scientists just long enough to get a GS for an Academy, though.)

Once Agnkor Wat comes around Priests are making 2, 1, 3 -- that's the same as an Engineer and a Scientist!

Since I'll be making priests I'll get a little production out of the SE. I will use Great Prophets to get Judaism, Christianity or Islam, build shrines, and settle them for hammers and gold.

I tend not to build shrines, but I think that's more personal preference than anything. I feel like at that stage of the game, devoting 330 (Epic) towards a Monastery & 4 Missionaries is counterproductive to just settling the GPr outright for the +5 and spending all that production on another wonder or a small military force. And, IMHO, hoping for a Shrine's to spread naturally is more of a gambit than a strategy.

The few times I have sought early religions for spamming (typically for a Diplomatic or Cultural victory), Judaism is the one, since OR makes spamming Judaism a fairly simple operation.

But I digress ...

Some silly questions:

1. when do you make the switch to the SE?

4000 BC

2. how often should I "check in" with my SE cities to make sure they're not stagnating or doing silly things?

In BtS? Practically every turn: the City Governor is sofa king we todd did.

3. I assume using Slavery can mess up the SE. Is Caste System preferred for this reason (and because of the specialist flexibility)?

Yes and no. Slavery can mess any system up with the new revolt event. With a Spiritual leader, it's best to stay out of Slavery until you actually need it.

Caste System is usually preferred in an SE for two main reasons: A.) to skip Library/Market/Theatre infrastructure to immediately begin working the specialists you want; and B) so your farm / city can maximize its excessive food by running 'unlimited' Scientists.

4. I presume that I need a food/hammer production city paired with the SE city to make military units, settlers, wonders, etc. Correct?

Typically, you do want one large city with high devoted to cranking out new Settlers and Workers, but with Angkor Wat-empowered Priests, every one of your cities is going to have decent intrinsic production already.

 

[Scaphism]

Starting with stone would be awesome. I have a question though - since you built Stonehenge, your Obelisks dissapear when you reseach Astronomy. If you had built each Obelisk individually they would remain after astronomy, continuing to give Culture. Would you also be able to run the extra priest specialists after the Obelisk is obsolete?

 

[slobberinbear]

Starting with stone would be awesome. I have a question though - since you built Stonehenge, your Obelisks dissapear when you reseach Astronomy. If you had built each Obelisk individually they would remain after astronomy, continuing to give Culture. Would you also be able to run the extra priest specialists after the Obelisk is obsolete?

I didn't think there was a difference between "manually" built Obelisks and those from Stonehenge. Someone please confirm this.

 

[slobberinbear]

Otaku:

Thanks for the highlights. I'm going to try a Hattie SE on the 18 Civ Earth map just for grins, since she starts with both stone and marble. The game plan is to settle the Israel area and let Judaism be founded there and turn it into a gold-generating holy city and great prophet generator while I settle the rest of the Nile, Ethiopia, and then wipe out Saladin.

After the Pyramids are built, I'll stay in Representation and Caste System most of the time, swapping to slavery as needed as you suggest.

 

[OTAKUjbski]

I didn't think there was a difference between "manually" built Obelisks and those from Stonehenge. Someone please confirm this.

"Free" Monuments/Obelisks from Stonehenge disappear with the discovery of Astronomy [when Monuments and Stonehenge are made obsolete].

Monuments built before the building/liberating of Stonehenge don't disappear with the discovery of Astronomy, thus they continue to contribute to the city in which they were built.

Starting with stone would be awesome. I have a question though - since you built Stonehenge, your Obelisks dissapear when you reseach Astronomy. If you had built each Obelisk individually they would remain after astronomy, continuing to give Culture. Would you also be able to run the extra priest specialists after the Obelisk is obsolete?

That would be dope if they did. But alas, the ability to run those Priests is gone after the discovery of Astronomy even if the Monument remains.

 

[Auren]

Really for looking at how to play and SE game one should create two seperate strats for with stone or without. I think when starting to run an SE for the first time it is important to realize that your goal is to generate as many great people as you can and settle them.

This is the SE equivilent to cottage growth. Each great person should eventually be around the value of ~30 plus a or when they are settled in a fully developed city with oxford/wallstreet. It depends on the type of great people you are generating and settling. I generate almost all scientists. With Egypt will be priests and so they should be settled in a wall street city.

 

[Polycrates]

Egypt is a Spiritual civ without Mysticism, but with an excellent UU and UB for SE. So you almost certainly won't be getting one of the early religions, but that's okay.
You need to make a decision about Pyramids very early, and it depends whether you can get access to stone, and enough trees to chop the hell out of it. If you don't have stone, no problems - you're an excellent civ for running SE without it. Firstly, you can build the Horde Of War Chariots wonder to help with barbs, give yourself an extra capital and lots of extra room for expanding. Second, Creative is very suited to massive expansion and the easy creation of lots of libraries. For this reason in particular, I would be more inclined to leave the Pyramids with Hatty (though I'd build them with Ramesses). And third, you can run lots of priests without a religion, and have 4 specialists without Caste System.

Without Pyramids:
Early, I would aim for one city running two priests ASAP, and the rest running scientists (with the intention of popping the prophet first).
I would be aiming for quick Code of Laws via mysticism/priesthood (consider the Oracle if you have marble), and if my prophet was getting close (or I lost the Confucianism race), I would consider a quick polytheism/monotheism diversion to bulb theology ASAP. The second or third GP should be spent on Philosophy - for Taoism, Pacifism and Angkor Wat (this wonder is pretty nice for you). You should be a shoe-in for Christianity and Taoism, and a pretty good chance for Confucianism.
I would also consider the Apostolic Palace with this setup.
When you get Code of Laws, I would also recommend having one production-based city running only a single spy specialist so you eventually have a good chance at an early Great Spy to steal some tech.

Whatever you do, I would suggest you run a bit of OR and produce significant numbers of missionaries for your chosen religion (probably Christianity, maybe Confucianism) as soon as possible, to spread to yourself and applicable neighbours. You have the religious civics early, and you're spiritual so you can make the very most out of all of them. Lots of bursts of caste system/pacifism, slavery/OR and slavery/theocracy will set you up nicely with GPPs, military and infrastructure.

After CoL, I would prioritise (in vague order) monarchy (for happiness to run more specialists), construction (for cats to go do some warfare), currency, literature (bulbing Philosophy on the way), music if you've got a chance at the free artist, bulb paper (probably nabbing Sankore) and education, liberalism, take nationalism, constitution.

As far as Great People go, I would be inclined to stay in slavery for more time than usual and run a couple of cities with 2 scientists, 2+ priests and a spy and take whichever GP comes out. Scientists bulb, spies go steal, prophets build shrines or bulb Divine Right (for Spiral Minaret). I think you still want to be trying to generate mostly scientists, though. Still lots of CS+Pacifism+hordes of scientists, though.

For wonders, obviously Pyramids if you feel it's worthwhile. Maybe Oracle for CoL if you have marble and it's not too much hassle. Great Library. Angkor Wat. The combo of Apostolic Palace+Sankore+Spiral Minaret+Sistine Chapel is pretty nice (especially with Spiritual), and you're well placed to get it. Then again, a massive pile of theocracy-trained catapults, war chariots and axes is pretty nice too.
I definitely wouldn't bother with Stonehenge - you're Creative and obelisks are hardly urgent purchases for early cities. And you have the least need of anyone for the prophet points.

It sounds like it would be a fun game!

 

[RandomLeader]

This is the SE equivilent to cottage growth. Each great person should eventually be around the value of ~30 plus a or when they are settled in a fully developed city with oxford/wallstreet. It depends on the type of great people you are generating and settling. I generate almost all scientists. With Egypt will be priests and so they should be settled in a wall street city.

I tend to aim for combined production&science city which basicly needs representation as civic, for some reason I don't use caste system so much, and building oxford and ironworks to the same city. I settle all my priests there. City usually becomes a production powerhouse so it's very fast to build banks, grocers etc. there and they provide all the gold I need. Other cities contribute mainly to gold also. I've noticed (from Obsoletes walktroughs) that I tend to aim to one supercity but more lesser cities combined for military production. In time I allways get 3-5 more fair production cities where I can build wonders I don't really need and military. They also help with spaceship. I'm not saying that I would use Obsoletes(everybody knows what I mean) strategy as a whole, but I have been adopting many fine things from there.

Main issue with my quote is that I usually don't build wall street at all because I simply don't need it. No matter how I play, I can't worry about the gold by the time I can build it. I always have enough. If I need more, I produce it. Angor Wat seems to be essential in my games, I don't know why.

 

[Bast]

Is the Stonehenge with Hats really necessary??

I'd rather have two or three of my highest food cities building obelisks and running 2 or 3 priests (with temples) in each of them.

Hats is an awesome early warmonger. I daresay I learned to warmonger with her and the war chariots and creative.

I would rather save the hammers from stonehenge, great wall and pyramids and spend them on taking out a civ or two or three.

Also, I don't play the religious game with my other fave leaders but with her I'm forced to. So why not found a few late religions (mind you, monotheism is perfectly capable for her anyway) and build shrines for all of them. Of course, you might capture one of the meditation or polytheism enabled holy cities too. That should be a goal. Hone in on those religion founders.

I like to think of her as a holy city plunderer.