Wonder...ing about Egypt...with Religion.

[El Quaker Oat]

This is only my second post on this forum and first thread. I love the interaction and help that is offered here. Also, I used to play primarily on Prince but after joining the forum and seeing how so many play at higher difficulties I decided to give king a try. First one was with Byzantium and I loved the results. A little more challenging but not at all stressful.

Anyway, I never really cared to play as Egypt because of what I considered a lackluster UU and UB. But after reading another post regarding the buff that chariot archers and thus the Egypt UU had gotten I decided, why not, especially with the opportunity to really increase wonder production via religion.

So I've started a King/Marathon/Huge Map...(I'm in it for the long haul.)
Im kind of a wonder hog so I thought Egypt with the monument to the gods pantheon, a little marble and a trek down the tradition tree, (aristocracy), would make for a good wonder building game.

My question is has anyone taken up an adventure with Egypt in G&K with a focus on wonders and if so how did it work out? Also for any of those veteran players are there any tips you might have in producing a bustling empire and not getting too bogged down in the wonder process...I tend to do that with other civs.

I would appreciate any input and if you notice any of my terminology being off please feel free to.correct me.

 

[Smokeybear]

Main tip I can give you, is to be sure to build at least several other good cities early on. If you just have Thebes and maybe one other city, you won't be able to build wonders, improve your empire, and build defensive units at the same time. You'll stay small and stagnate, and they'll pass you by. And with more cities, you will be able to spread the wonder-construction out more, instead of just having to focus on that in your capital. It's great to have a capital that's strong at wonder production, but if you focus too much on just that in one city, that city quickly becomes stunted in other equally important aspects.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Just use the gold from the other cities and trade deals to buy the buildings and units you need while your capital builds nothing but wonders. I...kind of went nuts with Medieval wonders and beyond using that strategy in my last game as the Aztecs.

 

[Beld]

Hi! Welcome to the forums. Egypt is a great civ to play in G&K, and I'm torn on whether I should stick to my tried and true "Small & Tall" empire (4 cities, limitless population), or go wide, since the UB has a lot of good synergy with a wide empire (faith is a hard resource to acquire, having more cities with faith buildings makes that easier, and the +2 happy is a real treat).

So far I've only done small, pairing their great UA with the Tradition policies and the religious trait makes for stupid fast wonders, especially if you are lucky enough to get marble next to your capital.

With your map and game speed choice, I'd suggest that you be prepared to launch many "punitive expeditions" to other countries, because that map size can lead to sprawling "run away civs", which are hard to keep up with in Science and Gold (and hard to emulate on any difficulty above prince). You can make a lot of gold by just tearing a path through a larger empire and having them all paying you tribute. If you want to avoid being labeled "warmonger" then don't actually take over cities, but mantain a large gold "War chest" and a small army to goad others into declaring war against you, then (after rush buying your army) go on a pillage spree and rip the heck out of the landscape.

One other way to combat the run-away civs inherent in large maps would be to go for a cultural victory, since it requires less gold and science (though you dont want to fall too far behind, or key wonders will be lost), but in that case Egypt isn't the best choice (but is certainly viable, CV requires quite a few wonders). But I'm rambling.

Back on the subject, it'll be hard to curb your wander lust with Egypt. In fact, when I'm playing them I go way overboard with the wonders, but if that's not what you want to do-- try diversifying your pantheon/religion and don't take the wonder trait (and maybe go Liberty, though Tradition is just so great!) cause then you wont feel like you're "wasting" all those traits because you aren't chain-building wonders in Thebes.

 

[nefloyd]

Works great on lower difficulties but the higher you get the more wonders you'll have sniped

 

[chazzycat]

Main tip I can give you, is to be sure to build at least several other good cities early on. If you just have Thebes and maybe one other city, you won't be able to build wonders, improve your empire, and build defensive units at the same time. You'll stay small and stagnate, and they'll pass you by. And with more cities, you will be able to spread the wonder-construction out more, instead of just having to focus on that in your capital. It's great to have a capital that's strong at wonder production, but if you focus too much on just that in one city, that city quickly becomes stunted in other equally important aspects.

not sure I agree with this after playing my first G&K OCC last night. I was not playing as Egypt, nor did I have marble. But nonetheless by relentlessly focusing on growth & production, I was able to spam a ton of wonders, enough to tip the balance. There is a religious belief that grants +2 faith per wonder. If your capital is really that good, that will add up. With tithe, you can vastly improve your economy, allowing you to buy as many RAs as your heart desires. There are certain efficiences you gain by only having one city. Like building the CIA in one turn, or having a crapload of extra happiness due to monarchy. I am at 91 happiness right now - I kid you not. I am currently in a 77 turn golden age.

This is on king, but the extent to which I am dominating this game leads me to believe its possible even on the higher levels. I have all the CS, first in economy, production, and science all game long.

There is also another crazy thread by Sadato showing all sorts of wins under 250 turns with only one city (on deity!).

 

[RealHuhn]

With Egypt, I either spam cities with liberty/piety or rush my closest neighbour with war chariots, tradition.

It depends on my starting location. If it's possible to found an early religion, I also like to pick the "world church" belief for extra culture which helps to finish the commerce tree around turn 160 which is also the time you should enter the industrial era for ..... Autocracy .
Make sure, you also spawn a great merchant around that time for a trading mission worth of 1200 gold.

After that, get Big Ben, turn most of your tiles into trading posts (+4 gold in a golden age xD), rushbuy a huge army and steam roll everybody lol!

Works well with Egypt because of the extra happiness and the increased chance of getting wonders, even in smaller cities.

 

[Smokeybear]

not sure I agree with this after playing my first G&K OCC last night. I was not playing as Egypt, nor did I have marble. But nonetheless by relentlessly focusing on growth & production, I was able to spam a ton of wonders, enough to tip the balance. There is a religious belief that grants +2 faith per wonder. If your capital is really that good, that will add up. With tithe, you can vastly improve your economy, allowing you to buy as many RAs as your heart desires. There are certain efficiences you gain by only having one city. Like building the CIA in one turn, or having a crapload of extra happiness due to monarchy. I am at 91 happiness right now - I kid you not. I am currently in a 77 turn golden age.

This is on king, but the extent to which I am dominating this game leads me to believe its possible even on the higher levels. I have all the CS, first in economy, production, and science all game long.

There is also another crazy thread by Sadato showing all sorts of wins under 250 turns with only one city (on deity!).

Well, if you plan to play OCC, and you have a really nice starting layout, sure. But otherwise, definitely not.

 

[ahawk]

Egypt gets exponentially more powerful as the number of civs in a game goes down. Why? Because you stand a much higher chance of using all those bonuses toward wondering-building to actually hard-build numerous wonders (Marble, Egypt UA, the belief that speeds up Ancient/Classical wonders by 15%, the Tradition SP for speeding up wonders). Combine all those wonder-building-bonuses when you play as Egypt, and you can hard-build essentially every wonder in the game.

Conversely, when the number of opposing civs increases, your odds fall because, chances are, someone else has marble and/or is working on a different wonder at the same time as you, meaning while you hard-build one wonder, one of the other civs is hard-building another.

Long story short, since G&K, if you can add the religious Ancient/Classical wonder bonus to Egypt with Tradition and Marble, you can speed up wonders incredibly for the early wonders. All the same, you still need to have the right tech to build a wonder, and at the higher difficulty levels, the AI will beat you to many of the earlier techs, rendering the Ancient/Classical bonus from G&K relatively useless at those levels.

 

[nefloyd]

It also depends on how the AI plays out. Sometimes one of them will go bat@#$# crazy for wonder spamming, other times you can hit industrial without anyone building stuff like pyramids or mausoleum. You can usually pick up quite a few of the 'side' wonders but the AI is absolutely crazy about things like chichen itza, forbidden palace, and alhambra

 

[chazzycat]

Well, if you plan to play OCC, and you have a really nice starting layout, sure. But otherwise, definitely not.

yeah this probably isn't the best thread to discuss it, I just wanted to say it's possible to stay with one city and avoid the stagnation you referred to. In most games it's probably not the ideal path to choose, but IMO players should keep it in the back of their mind as a possiblity if the starting location is right for it. Honestly OCC can be a very solid route to victory, even easy. The map for GOTM 40 for example - I had no problem at all OCCing my way to victory. And that was without a riverside start, no marble, no mountain, and no Egypt. It's easier than people think.

 

[El Quaker Oat]

I started the game on marathon with ten civs. Capital did not have marble but founded a second city with. Austria declared war on me early and with the war chariots I easily took out her capital which, believe it or not, had marble. I now have two cities with marble and some crazy awesome wonder building. Thanks for the comments! If anyone can tell me where a guide is to posting screen shots I will share some.

 

[Kwami]

This is on king, but the extent to which I am dominating this game leads me to believe its possible even on the higher levels. I have all the CS, first in economy, production, and science all game long.

No, that's not true. Strategies that work well on King don't always work well on Emperor, Immortal, or Deity. The difficulty scales in strange ways that make some things easier and other things harder. For example, it's easier to sell luxuries and get research agreements early on Deity than it is on Emperor because the AI has much more gold. However, it's much, much, much harder to get any wonders from the first few eras because the AI has a huge tech lead at the start and production bonuses, too.

 

[chazzycat]

I am aware of that. I generally play on immortal, that game was just on king because of the GOTM. check out Sadato's thread though if you don't believe me, hes pulling it off consistently on deity.

 

[Kwami]

Is he the one that allows policy saving and turns off barbarians?

Also, do you have a link?

 

[chazzycat]

Sure: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=467359

I don't think he allows policy saving or turns off the barbs as far as I can tell.

 

[Slvynn]

Egypt is one of best civs suited for Cultural victories.
the thing you need to use your advantage from very start, and balance food/science /production, in very similar way as explained in my Iroquois guide:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469985
chapter 1 is same for Iroquois and Egypt actually, they are most wonderspam - suited civs in game
You must grow, you must have enough science to build, and build enough to grow your advantages

 

[ezysquire]

Egypt wonder building is great if you have a production happy capital. I just won a culture victory on immortal with them and my Thebes was ridiculous... It was on a river surrounded by plains, salt, hills and marble. All the hammers meant I felt like I was in a hardware store and boy was I nailing the wonders... From Classical on they were mostly all buildable 8-15 turns (hard way). This was on standard speed. Just ridiculous. The wheat around helped with specialists too... I think I only missed a couple in total. I used my religion to boost growth a bit to allow me more hammer focus to get those cheap hard way builds. Don't worry too much about piety to start with; beeline social policies to get growth assistance from free aqueducts.
I recommend teching archery-masonry-maths to get ToA, Pyramids and Hanging Gardens. You will need some luck to get all three, but if you micro to max hammers, is perfectly doable a good percentage of the time.