The Egypt & Nubia Thread

[sync_ronist]

When you all are talking "Alexandria" do you mean 78,44 in the core area?

Just tried and failed the UHV, on monarch, roughly 2-3 turns away from succeeding but was just too slow in attacking the Levant.

Capitol 78,44 the uppermost-left core spot. Settled Abju 80,41 asap on the lowest-right core spot. Masonry and fishing and manually focusing citizens meant the capitol could grow at exactly the same speed as the happiness boosting buildings, then at the happiness cap could stick citizens to work ocean tiles to get some cash, helped keep the research % around 80-90% until Calendar and other techs meant money stopping being a research issue. In hindsight I wonder if beelining Writing for libraries was actually helpful, I kind of think not. Oracle to obtain Writing and Calendar.

Thought I had plenty of time so was casually making some war chariots when a flood of sea peoples came my way. They weren't problematic per se. Buut I think I made too many chariots, the sea people were the only thing they were helpful with.

Abju snagged Hanging Gardens which was funny given upthread comments about Babylon yoinking Egypt's wonders. This meant by 600 BC, Ra-Kedet (Alexandria? I dunno) had 12 pop and Abdju had 10 pop.

Nubia's Medjays slaughtered war chariots in droves. No xp upgrades seemed to make any meaningful difference. Had to go back a few turns to load a save, first attack on Nubia failed. A few suicide archers served to damage Medjays and make it possible for the chariots and 1 light sword to take Nubia but ouch, there weren't many chariots left. Medjays punched way above their weight class it seemed.

In the interim, Phoenicia had conquered Jerusalem and had piles of sacred band all over the place. Managed to take Jerusalem and was grinding down (Tyre?) when the clock ran out on 600 BC.

I tried to max out research and libraries and used prophets. I don't think there's a realistic way to get mathematics soon enough to get a catapult or two to deal some damage to help take Tyre by then, feels like catapults come online 500-200BC?

2 things I'd change on a retry. 1) Target Copper and start pumping out light swords way sooner. 2) Try to time the attack on Jerusalem for the exact moment Phoenicia takes it (moment of relative weakest-ness?), forget targeting Nubia first.

Are the Sea Peoples the Greek Conquerors y'all are talking about, or did you all get attacked by the Myceneans or Phoenicians?

Despite having failed the UHV, and without having expanded much, I felt like this city placement (especially with having yoinked Hanging Gardens for Abju) was well set up for a longer game in terms of stability (maxing population in the core area).

 

[banzay13]

When you all are talking "Alexandria" do you mean 78,44 in the core area?

Just tried and failed the UHV, on monarch, roughly 2-3 turns away from succeeding but was just too slow in attacking the Levant.

Capitol 78,44 the uppermost-left core spot. Settled Abju 80,41 asap on the lowest-right core spot. Masonry and fishing and manually focusing citizens meant the capitol could grow at exactly the same speed as the happiness boosting buildings, then at the happiness cap could stick citizens to work ocean tiles to get some cash, helped keep the research % around 80-90% until Calendar and other techs meant money stopping being a research issue. In hindsight I wonder if beelining Writing for libraries was actually helpful, I kind of think not. Oracle to obtain Writing and Calendar.

Thought I had plenty of time so was casually making some war chariots when a flood of sea peoples came my way. They weren't problematic per se. Buut I think I made too many chariots, the sea people were the only thing they were helpful with.

Abju snagged Hanging Gardens which was funny given upthread comments about Babylon yoinking Egypt's wonders. This meant by 600 BC, Ra-Kedet (Alexandria? I dunno) had 12 pop and Abdju had 10 pop.

Nubia's Medjays slaughtered war chariots in droves. No xp upgrades seemed to make any meaningful difference. Had to go back a few turns to load a save, first attack on Nubia failed. A few suicide archers served to damage Medjays and make it possible for the chariots and 1 light sword to take Nubia but ouch, there weren't many chariots left. Medjays punched way above their weight class it seemed.

In the interim, Phoenicia had conquered Jerusalem and had piles of sacred band all over the place. Managed to take Jerusalem and was grinding down (Tyre?) when the clock ran out on 600 BC.

I tried to max out research and libraries and used prophets. I don't think there's a realistic way to get mathematics soon enough to get a catapult or two to deal some damage to help take Tyre by then, feels like catapults come online 500-200BC?

2 things I'd change on a retry. 1) Target Copper and start pumping out light swords way sooner. 2) Try to time the attack on Jerusalem for the exact moment Phoenicia takes it (moment of relative weakest-ness?), forget targeting Nubia first.

Are the Sea Peoples the Greek Conquerors y'all are talking about, or did you all get attacked by the Myceneans or Phoenicians?

Despite having failed the UHV, and without having expanded much, I felt like this city placement (especially with having yoinked Hanging Gardens for Abju) was well set up for a longer game in terms of stability (maxing population in the core area).

OMG, man, why i didnt settle it *facepalm.jpg. Just moved my capital from starting plot ro Ra-Kadet and it's really very good spot. I need a new run))
Well, much less production, so Abju will be powerhouse...
P.S. UHV game - it's like playing cards with professional hustlers. But after all, it's good old Egypt like in 1.17. Still can win Space Race

 

[Makudomi]

You can play with Egypt if it reborn. Run 600AD game with France (or someone), autoplay for 1000-1100AD and here we are.
Nice bonus - your GP birth rare is reset

Not a fan of that playstyle, haha. But thanks!

 

[Hickman888]

When you all are talking "Alexandria" do you mean 78,44 in the core area?

Just tried and failed the UHV, on monarch, roughly 2-3 turns away from succeeding but was just too slow in attacking the Levant.

Capitol 78,44 the uppermost-left core spot. Settled Abju 80,41 asap on the lowest-right core spot. Masonry and fishing and manually focusing citizens meant the capitol could grow at exactly the same speed as the happiness boosting buildings, then at the happiness cap could stick citizens to work ocean tiles to get some cash, helped keep the research % around 80-90% until Calendar and other techs meant money stopping being a research issue. In hindsight I wonder if beelining Writing for libraries was actually helpful, I kind of think not. Oracle to obtain Writing and Calendar.

Thought I had plenty of time so was casually making some war chariots when a flood of sea peoples came my way. They weren't problematic per se. Buut I think I made too many chariots, the sea people were the only thing they were helpful with.

Abju snagged Hanging Gardens which was funny given upthread comments about Babylon yoinking Egypt's wonders. This meant by 600 BC, Ra-Kedet (Alexandria? I dunno) had 12 pop and Abdju had 10 pop.

Nubia's Medjays slaughtered war chariots in droves. No xp upgrades seemed to make any meaningful difference. Had to go back a few turns to load a save, first attack on Nubia failed. A few suicide archers served to damage Medjays and make it possible for the chariots and 1 light sword to take Nubia but ouch, there weren't many chariots left. Medjays punched way above their weight class it seemed.

In the interim, Phoenicia had conquered Jerusalem and had piles of sacred band all over the place. Managed to take Jerusalem and was grinding down (Tyre?) when the clock ran out on 600 BC.

I tried to max out research and libraries and used prophets. I don't think there's a realistic way to get mathematics soon enough to get a catapult or two to deal some damage to help take Tyre by then, feels like catapults come online 500-200BC?

2 things I'd change on a retry. 1) Target Copper and start pumping out light swords way sooner. 2) Try to time the attack on Jerusalem for the exact moment Phoenicia takes it (moment of relative weakest-ness?), forget targeting Nubia first.

Are the Sea Peoples the Greek Conquerors y'all are talking about, or did you all get attacked by the Myceneans or Phoenicians?

Despite having failed the UHV, and without having expanded much, I felt like this city placement (especially with having yoinked Hanging Gardens for Abju) was well set up for a longer game in terms of stability (maxing population in the core area).

Looking at banzay13's photo of that capital location, yes that actually looks like a decent spot. The only problem is that location moves you out of range of the horses and hills, leaving your only production source as the stone quarry. Let us know how that city placement turns out for your next game. No, when I mentioned Alexandria, I was referring to the tile 1W of there, right outside of core territory.

I found Light Swordsmen to be my best bet against Nubia too. Some other people were saying they managed to make the War Chariot work, but I had the same experience as you: The Medjay absolutely slaughters the War Chariot, no contest. I suggested a slight nerf to his city defense.

If you keep playing, circa 330 BC the Greeks will spawn with a couple of armies in Egypt. This is totally separate from the Sea Peoples, circa 1200 BC.

 

[sync_ronist]

Am currently obsessively replaying over and again. I don't overly feel the lack of production in Ra-Kedet (or Abju if it is the capitol instead) on Monarch. As long as Babylon and Harappa don't aggressively beeline the Pyramids or the Sphinx and Egypt gets them, the 2 specialists from the Pyramids add a few more hammers. Yeah, not the most amazing, but the point of the 2-core cities would be to continue after achieving UHV, for better stability.

Tried making three early settlers. One to settle other corner of core area, and two to settle the eastern sahel, in between where Mali will spawn and where Nubia/Ethiopia spawn. Eh, a few more luxury resources were nice but the increase in beakers to tech up meant it wasn't worth it to oversettle so early.

I'm now convinced that achieving Legendary UHV Egypt might be impossible. Would love to hear if anyone succeeds. But if it is possible, I'm starting to think has to be with only one city in the core area, not two. Only one city gimps long-term stability (essentially, 1 core city is gonna be roughly half the pop of 2 core cities, or only slightly more than half). The two-core-city start, whether the capitol is Abju, or Ra-Kedet, just gimps research too much for UHV to be obtainable. And neither Abju nor Ra-Kedet have the hammers to ever get Sphinx and Pyramids on Legendary, ever.

 

[Just an idea]

I came up with alternative method for Egypt UHV2. Tested it on Regent/Normal. I didn't play further so I don't know how viable opening this is.

I started teching towards Masonry and working on Pyramids right away. Worker starts by improving Wheat and starts working on Farm on plains tile 1NW of Stone. Switch to improving Stone as soon as Masonry is researched. Once Pyramids are done, the Sphinx is next, after that two Settlers. Nubia and Levant can be settled before Nubia or Jerusalem spawn.

Spoiler :

 

[CometHalo]

I did this once, for Nubia at least. It precluded Nubia spawning entirely. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or intended…

 

[Lilna]

I did this once, for Nubia at least. It precluded Nubia spawning entirely. I’m not sure if that’s a bug or intended…

It appears to be intended, looking at the files. I'm not certain why, but there's code telling Nubia not to spawn if there's a city in its region, and comments on it indicating that's intentional.

 

[Hickman888]

After putting out my video for Nubia, I wanted to get my thoughts out there on how this civilization plays. But since Nubia's region is so close to Egypt, and it's first goal basically necessitates conquering Egypt, I decided to coopt this thread to include Nubia as well.

Nubia:​

Historical Goals:​

1. Have 200 gold, 200 culture and acquire 5 happiness resources by 900 BC. In practice, this is a conquest goal with a couple of extra conditions- namely, making sure your resources are hooked up and you have enough gold in the treasury. In my experience with multiple games, this goal is obtainable most of the time. However, there is still the wildcard of how successful the Sea People are in the north against Egypt, the general makeup of the Egyptian army, and if you are able to capture Egyptian workers to build the improvements in time. (I was also incentivized to settle one tile to the west, to get cultural access to the desert Ivory, rather than forcing myself to capture the Egyptian dye south of their capitol.)
2. Have a population of 40 in happy cities by 300 BC. I'll be honest, I don't like this goal. Nubia's 3rd goal of beelining Ethics already incentivizes maximizing a happy and full population for your cities, and if this goal didn't exist, I probably would've gotten 40 population in my cities without even explicitly going for it. Instead, I would like to see UHV2 focus on trade. From what I understand, Nubia was renowned for exporting Gold and Ivory to Egypt, and both Nubia and Egypt constructed forts, in part, to help guard these trade routes. From a gameplay perspective, Nubia's first goal involves acquiring many luxury resources (perfect for selling to other civilizations); And Nubia's 3rd goal involves beelining Ethics (which I researched early, in 360 BC). Requiring Nubia to take a detour to Contract and Currency to help complete this goal would be good for preventing Orthodoxy being founded too early, and also add a degree of tension for the player that currently doesn't exist for UHV2, after you conquer Egypt. Suggestion: Acquire 500 (?) through trade (selling resources, trade routes) by 300 BC.
3. Found Orthodoxy and control an Orthodox Cathedral by 600 AD. This goal is good. I think if UHV2 changes to require researching Contract/Currency as I suggested, it will keep the tension still fairly high for founding Orthodoxy. The final deadline can definitely be changed to an earlier date though: I finished it Turn 159, 71 turns early!

Spawn Date:​

Generally speaking, I think it's a good thing to maximize the amount of turns that a civilization has to play on the map. Unless that civilization is especially expansionist, and spawning it too early would mess with the balance of civilizations (looking at you Rome...), I think we should allow that civilization to spawn earlier, so as to give the player more agency over their playthrough. I think this case is especially strong for Nubia, as the Nubian civilization was interacting with the Egyptians well before 1650 BC. I suggest the Nubian spawn date get pushed back to 2400-2200 BC. The player should now start with only 50 in treasury, and be missing the Ceremony technology (Mudbrick Pyramids!), to set them back a little more.

The main concern would be that the player now has the ability to go for a Medjay rush against Egypt 25 turns earlier, leading to a too-early conquest. To counter this outcome, I propose...

Medjay:​

...that the Medjay be transformed from an Archer UU, to a Skirmisher UU, and his technology requirement be changed to Leverage. This would solve two problems with the Medjay: Preventing an early Medjay rush (if Nubia changes to spawn earlier), and his ridiculously strong city defense strength ( of 6).

Mudbrick Pyramid:​

I really like the Mudbrick Pyramid. My only complaint is that it is functionally identical to the Javanese Candi, except that the Candi also gives an engineer slot. I hate to see a unique building just be a worse copy of another unique building. Perhaps we can give something extra to the Mudbrick Pyramid: +1 to help counter the early whipping? +4 to help meet the culture goal? +2 xp for Archery units, to help the Medjay rush a little more?

​

 

[Lilna]

I'm in agreement that an earlier start date could be good for Nubia, representing the Kerma culture. Some other suggestions:

Instead of the current 2x3 core, a 3x2 core to encompass Sakole/Dongala(79,38) as well as the current spawn location in Medewi/Meroe might work better. Dongola was the capital of medieval Makuria, the most influential Nubian state of that period, and is also in a good location to represent the core of the Kerma culture (though the name Kerma is currently given to the cotton one tile north). This puts the core between the 3rd and 5th cataracts, which feels right from a gameplay and history perspective.

The historical area should also be pushed south some, perhaps two tiles. Currently, Soba(80,35) is considered foreign to Nubia, when historically it was the capital of medieval Alodia, one of the three prominent Nubian states of the period. It definitely shouldn't give a foreign level stability hit.

Another thing is the unique power, as well as the third UHV goal. Nubia was known as a medieval center of Christianity, but only after being converted by Byzantine missionaries in the 500s. Before then, the region was somewhat famous for how stubbornly it held onto its local religion compared to Egypt. I like the idea of a Christianity related goal, since that was a strong part of Nubia's medieval identity - but I think that goal should be something completed sometime after the Arab rise, in part to make it feel more historical, and in part to let them actually use their UP (named for the Nubian treaty with Muslim Egypt), which currently serves no purpose when pursuing their UHV.