Playing the real earth map on the Total Realism mod. I'd gotten a bit comfortable with the tight spaces of Europe and decided to try Egypt for a change. 20 something civilizations (I think), massive map, Monarch difficulty, barbarians set on raging.
Well I found out pretty quickly why I see the message 'The Egyptian civilization has been destroyed' about every other game on this map. For those that haven't played it, just about every inch of space from Thebes to Zulu is held by pissed off barbarians. Did I mention I had them on raging? Well, they raged.
My usual tactic of leaving the city defenseless during the very early stages (each civ starts with 2 city def. promoted warriors) to gobble up goodie huts and get some exp. from animals doesn't fly on the Nile. Before I hit the second hut I got the 'Enemy has been spotted near Thebes' message. Got one produced in the nick of time to stave off anniliation. But than there was another. I figured this might be a trend so I got my city def. warriors into the city and held tight.
Did I mention the barbs were on raging? Well, they raged. Finally a stack of 4 of them shattered my defenses and conquered my lone city before I even sniffed bronze working or got access to horses. Reload.
New Game: Screw the goodie huts, get enough warriors to staff a Walmart than think about goodies. After enough defenses, my guys got good enough to roam out of the city. My workers were contained to the northern half since it wasn't safe south. No problem, got the mines on the hills and it'd be a while before I could build cottages. I like the early culture boost (near impossible to get culture in a new city very early in the game) so I beelined everything towards Stonehenge (hit or miss in this mod, you have to really chuck everything to make it and absolutely must have stone). I got it. Time to populate.
But in my mad rush to get Stonehenge and protect my lone city I lost the settler race and the Arabs got a city on the Sinai. Not only is it prime real estate (a properly places city essentially becomes a Suez canal), but it has my first access to horses.
Now horses for the Egyptians are like crack to an addict in the very early stage of the game. Their war chariots are some of the best ancient units you can find. 5 strength instead of 4, immune to first strikes. More than a match for the bronze working era units as they're stronger than the shortswordsmen and get bonuses against the axe.
Luckily the arabs left their new city lightly defended (and poorly positioned, no Suez). So I declare war, lose a warrior and destroy their city. I immediately start my new city, fortify the hill near the Suez, which serves as an effective stopgap to any Arab counterattack. And start building my horsie pasture. As i start to roll out my fresh new War chariots, i notice that Mecca is still down there with only warriors. Well why not take out one regional rival early.
Of course as I'm doing that, Hannibal decides he wants to walk like an Egyptian and invades while I'm stretched thin. In an interesting bit of AI strategy he brings his melee units along the road built across the habitable parts of northern Africa and brings fast moving chariots through unroaded areas of the Sahara. And did I mention the barbarians were raging? Yeah, the southern half of Thebes is still no man's land for workers.
So I'm sitting there fighting a war on three fronts. And oddly enough the Barbarian hordes are by far the most difficult of the bunch. Thankfully they're just warriors at the moment and not too mobile. I make short work of Mecca and remove the Arabs from the equation. I destroy Hannibals nearest city and fortify the lone road. I'm finally getting settled and gaining a regional upper hand when the Greeks (They never get this big, this fast when I play in Europe) decide they want to skinny dip in the Nile too. And unlike Hannibal, they've brought some serious friends. And did I mention that bronze era Greek units in this game are pretty impressive and make short work of horses?
So I'm playing a holding motion at Sinai again, waiting til the greeks hit non-wooded, non-hilled territory than bringing on the cavalry charge and hiding behind my melee units for the counterattacks. Survived one stack. Hannibal has reduced his efforts to periodic harassment and my southern armies have beaten back the barbarians enough to consider expanding southward. But I can't afford to take the first barbarian city (and gain more land that must be defended) until I can force a peace somewhere.
Usually in this game, taking a city or lasting a bunch of turns is the key to forcing a peace. Of course the nearest Greek city (a recently conquered former barb Assyria) has so many units its congested. And I don't have the manpower because while I'm building troops in Mecca and Sinai, I'm also trying to get the Pyramids in Thebes. (An even more massive boost in this game since its literally forever until the decent government civics otherwise)
But they do have one poorly placed city on the western edge of the Anatolian Penninsula with only a few troops in it. So I gathered up my quickest, most experienced units and bypassed the Greek monstrosity in Assyria and headed straight for their unprotected city. Of course this left me largely unprotected and the computer with its omnipotent knowledge knew it and moved towards Sinai. I didn't look back. Plunged into the Greek city, conquered and razed.
But they're heading towards my lightly protected cities and Alexander still isn't in a negotiating mood, arrogant prick. So i throw the remainder of my assault troops at the heavier defended Constantinople (has that location, not the name) and eventually break through. With the loss of two cities, Alexander decides he's had enough and agrees to peace.
By this time I'm crapping out great generals, have several attached to some SERIOUSLY promoted chariots and I beat Hannibal back to Carthage with relative ease. He accepts peace with a 'thank you sir, may I have another' (Don't want to pay the maintainance cost of a city that far away this early). By that time I have the meanest, leanest, most experienced force the ancient world had ever seen and I head south to civilize some barbarians.
In no time I have a solid, well improved corps of cities going, founded Zoroastrianism and Buddism, spread them, gaining a tech lead and my dominance was never seriously threatened again. It eventually became a question of whenever I felt like conquering a neighbor, not if. Right now I've got a trio of level 20 + Cavalry who with some infantry support, can essentially take out rival civilizations on their own.
A bit frustrating as the game becomes quite boring in the later stages. The AI is a bear early on, a struggle to compete and a struggle to keep up with. But by the late stages you can be discovering tanks and curing cancer while they're just finding out what a knight is. Right now I'm using great artists and Dasturs (essentially mini-great artists creatable if Zoroastrianism is your state religion and you have a Zoro cathedral in the city) to culture bomb everyone into oblivion and using spies to create revolts, slowly conquering the world without a shot fired.
I have a slight advantage in both score and tech. It is 630AD and I am researching Liberalism!!! Never got there so fast before.
, I opened WB
, added horses
. Then I closed the game without saving (I didn't want it in the records) and went to bed.
