Wonders of the Ancient World Scenario

I suck at this scenario on deity. I just tried for a few hours with no such luck using strats I read here. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.
 
Just beat this on Deity as Egypt on the historical map.

Immediately sent the starting warrior over to Saudi Arabia to pick up all the ruins there before Persia and Sumer could grab them. Followed the warrior up with two production focused scouts. (Those starting turns are crucial for getting more ruins, and getting a single free population ruin will more than make up for the lost growth.) After grabbing all the ruins in the eastern desert I turned to the Sahara to the west of Memphis before the other civs' scouts could get there. All in all, between the two deserts I collected around 20 total ruins. This earned me about 2 policies worth of free culture, nearly all of the ancient era techs, and around 5 population.
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Egypt turns out to be quite decent on this map. I just played them on immortal and got all 9 wonders. WTF? Did as described above but avoided liberty entirely. I swear by turn 60 I had ALL of tradition (free monuments from legalism) and a 7 or 8 pop capitol. Three cities at end at pops 23, 14, 14. I did dog the finish a little to finish NT with the GLH. I moved a tile south at start and capitol eventually had 3 hills, one with stone closest. Two cities had 2 wonders (one with 2 hills and the other 1 hill) and the capitol 5 wonders and the NC, CM and NT. Finished at turn 148. ~turn 100 I got a GG and Oracle said no one was even close on wonder races except maybe the GL. I had 5 almost done, Colossus started and Hali-wonder in the queue. WTF? Replay indicates I was tied for fastest to 3 cities. It also suggested that early lux sales netted fail gold from others building Oracle. So basically, once Oracle was in the other 8 wonders were cake. WTF? I checked and, yep, it was immortal.

Map was nice. Second city had 5 sugar, stone and eventually an ivory. Nearby was a patch of 5 desert incense. No food! It lay dormant. With 3 wine and eventually silver in capitol, everyone was near broke buying from me until the end. (Calender from a hut.) Port city did have marble, 2 pearls and eventually a whale. Nice map. Also nabbed 3 policies in piety.
 
Greece on historical map is not fun. Tried them on immortal. I can't see how a person can get all wonders in that start. The early economic and scientific wonders will be the hardest, but the other 7 should be in play. I got 6 in my attempt, all in Athens with 3 cities and 2 puppets. Ugly map: no lux in capitol except 3rd tier whales, settled on hill but had 2 cows, a wheat and a sheep to play around with. Only one civ wanted OB and Oracle set off ill will world wide. Somebody denounced so I gave the world a great big screw job. Sold the same lux from 2nd city to everybody and DoWed everybody (serially.) Bought meself a great big army. World war. Mids came in and I had to disband one of the free workers for maintenance cost reasons. I went after the 2 nearby CSes, there was a third but it was allied. With the army mainly bought, Athens could focus on wonders. CSes were a royal pain with all them hills and rivers, but eventually I wore them down and got them. Must have been like the whole second half the game. Scientists from liberty and Oracle (100 turns later) saw me to the GL in time. Policies were tradition opener and all of liberty.

Edit: Greek UA is weird, units heal 2 points inside CS territory even while at war with them, 3 points if medic nearby. Of course the CSes get to stack attack with 2 archers before moving one out across a river. Also , no perma war. Not met any others yet? When I did later, no 15 gold though.
 
I'm still having a tough time getting this scenario on deity..no matter what I seem to do they just get to every wonder except the oracle before me. Can someone give me a build order they used?
 
I'm still having a tough time getting this scenario on deity..no matter what I seem to do they just get to every wonder except the oracle before me. Can someone give me a build order they used?
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Make a list of the wonders you aim to build. With Deity's 4 tech head start and it's "civ 3 coastal wonder" mentality, it is reasonable to try to get Oracle, 1500 culture wonder and the 2 coastal wonders. What worked for me was a mining start with scout/Oracle build order. Depending on map (CS and hut luck) it was buy a unit to steal a worker then buy a worker. Early trades are a bit iffy cash wise. (Why I bought a unit first.)

I'm finding Tradition to be strong in this at immortal. The opener immediately puts pressure on getting mids and 1500 culture wonder while monarchy helps with commerce wonders and solves happiness sooner than meritocracy for sooner lux sales. Depending on land, 3-4 cities is ideal but 5 cities is playable but arduous. Egypt with +1 from monuments is good for legalism ASAP (may need aritocracy first depending on huts.) I just tried Mutt with full tradition and got 8 wonders. (The 2 close civs went to war early and Zeus went in a heartbeat.) But Mutt's legalism opened up build order of Lion's Gate/library in new cities. With full tradition a person must solve early lux fast to buy a settler or 2 depending on land and # of cities desired. Early cities have to get built fast, done by turns 55-60 if possible. Sumer can hold out for zigs from legalism so can try hybrid SPs like monarchy and republic etc. With Greece I found it best to go full liberty after tradition opener, not easy. This was on a historical map--inland sea may make full tradition playable? Looking over Persia no to come up with a plan.
 
Persia seems to be more a liberty civ. I settled off river on hilly marble otherwise start looked poor. Went scout/monument Oracle with the idea of buying as many units as possible. Historical map. Warrior sort of weedled it's way towards the CS district, a couple huts en route. Bought scout, worker and warrior as soon as possible. Mining->writing. Capitol kind of sucked but got some culture ruins and masonry + calender so the game went like lightning. Burned up the turf with 4 cities before turn 55 I think, both extra settlers cash bought. Built granary/worker in Capitol after Oracle. By turn 63 Mids were underway and ~turn 65 Zeus unlocked. Had a warrior and scout in Sahara for the liberty GA. Woohoo! Egypt sucks there big time. The extra movement and a scout turned archer meant big time fun there. Then I realized I settled a lake instead of coast. Oops. Didn't stop the sweep or the highest score for me in the series. Liberty closer went for currency and the NT was up easily before GLH unlocked.
 
Played the last civ on the historical map, Sumer. Decided to go off the wall. Played a couple maps until I got a barb free path for the settler. That settler met the nearby CS en route to settling next to Persia. Caught some gold from a hut and at turn 4 the capitol was founded on cotton with 4 more and 2 ivory. Hmmm. Production wasn't good but had enough cash to almost buy a scout. So I chanced a scout/Oracle start. Got a rather late Oracle with early aristocracy. (Eventual monarchy/republic policies.) Denounced and DoWed Persia almost immediately just to kill a scout. Then came an adventure in DoWing everything that irritated me: Mutt and Alex. DoFed Egypt however. As to the free scientist, it went for civil service which probably slowed things down for the HG. I didn't care at that point. Egypt had wonder building shoes on and got a real early mids. Military CSes were very kind: mucho pikeman which fit in with the ultimate plan: Mutt. I hate Mutt in this thing. Took all his cities that he settled in the CS district. Some were puppeted, one was gifted to Persia and another to Greece. 7 wonders with an early GLH--before Colossus.

My final wonder tally on immortal historical map:
Persia-9
Egypt-9
Mutt-8
Sumer-7
Greece-6
 
Wow I just totally cheesed a win on deity finally.

I built the oracle and the 2 war wonders so I thought I was doing well. Then I had the problem that unfortunately Alexander was building 3 wonders. Since the oracle is worth less than the rest, I would lose. I kept reloading the map, trying many different strategies. Tried taking out Egypt, the city was too strong. Then I noticed that Greece had a weak city building all of their wonders. I tried launching an assault on that city with great success. Now just to wait until the last wonder is built and I win by default...

Except Greece kept taking the city back. This wasn't working. I would win if it was Persia that built the last wonder instead of Greece. This is where the cheese comes in...

I reloaded and sent my troops to the city that I knew Greece was building all of the wonders in. But I didn't try to take it. Instead I fortified outside of it. For whatever reason, the AI wouldn't continue building the wonder since I was near the city. So I just waited it out, Alexander attacking me sometimes and haulting all progress on the great library while Persia built it...and I won.

It felt really lame but I don't care. I hate deity. The AI stopping building was quite odd though. I'm not sure what in the programming makes them do that. Its borderline exploit.
 
It felt really lame but I don't care. I hate deity. The AI stopping building was quite odd though. I'm not sure what in the programming makes them do that. Its borderline exploit.
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Congrats on the win. I noticed the DoW thing once while experimenting. It seems even DoWing from a distance with no troops will get them to change production. May help in a close race of a turn or two.
 
A person can get both an artist and engineer to pop at the 100 breakpoint. I tested this in a second city designed for this. Needs to have some decent production to get things done in time. Build mids, ToA (the 2 engineering wonders) and temple and fill the artist slot and micro it. Useful if a person is going through liberty and can get some good culture ruins fast--steal worker near second city. (And if a person is pushing lux sales so hard that he never sees a happiness GA. So GA from artist and engineer a late wonder if more than one needs to get done.)
 
I just finished my final win: turn 137 deity - egypt ancient map

Played one game on settler, to get the grabs. Then played the prince to deity levels in a straight row with all leaders. Always got all Wonders, except on Immortal as Hittites I only managed 7, and on Deity only 4. In my Deity game at turn 130 Persia, Sumer and Hittites were cruising at over 2500 cash and over 250 gpt!!!

For Deity I deliberately chose Egypt, who can get 4 hills in it's capital by moving one turn. I focused on getting the Culture and War wonders which I indeed manged to get. I ended up being 5th in all categories of the F9 button, still winning!!

edit1: Deity Capital: 3 sugar, 1 wine and 1 marble; 2nd city: 2 ivory and 1 sugar; 3rd city: 1 sugar, 2 cotton and 1 whale. I could only sell 2 sugar as Sumer and Hittites had sugar themselves.
edit2: 1st war wonder I unlocked by fighting barbs, 2nd war wonder I unlocked fighting CS
 
iggymnrr said:
Egypt turns out to be quite decent on this map. I just played them on immortal and got all 9 wonders. WTF? Did as described above but avoided liberty entirely. I swear by turn 60 I had ALL of tradition (free monuments from legalism) and a 7 or 8 pop capitol. Three cities at end at pops 23, 14, 14. I did dog the finish a little to finish NT with the GLH. I moved a tile south at start and capitol eventually had 3 hills, one with stone closest. Two cities had 2 wonders (one with 2 hills and the other 1 hill) and the capitol 5 wonders and the NC, CM and NT. Finished at turn 148. ~turn 100 I got a GG and Oracle said no one was even close on wonder races except maybe the GL. I had 5 almost done, Colossus started and Hali-wonder in the queue. WTF? Replay indicates I was tied for fastest to 3 cities. It also suggested that early lux sales netted fail gold from others building Oracle. So basically, once Oracle was in the other 8 wonders were cake. WTF? I checked and, yep, it was immortal.

Map was nice. Second city had 5 sugar, stone and eventually an ivory. Nearby was a patch of 5 desert incense. No food! It lay dormant. With 3 wine and eventually silver in capitol, everyone was near broke buying from me until the end. (Calender from a hut.) Port city did have marble, 2 pearls and eventually a whale. Nice map. Also nabbed 3 policies in piety.
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Iggy, do you still have a save of this start?
 
Iggy, do you still have a save of this start?
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Sorry, no. I only remember the early cash was decent to buy 1-2 settlers and 2-4 units. Tradition is good for Egypt hence buying the setter(s). It's a short scenario and therefore the free monuments are huge with their +1 as well as palace getting +1 due to the UA. Had to move toward the hills for a turn IIRC. Geography stays the same but resources change each time the map is played.
 
Have just beaten this at Deity, thanks to all the great help here (I'm only a King player usually, so this can be done!). Its also achivement 176/176, so very happy about that!

Distilled tips/strategy used (much coming from contributors in the rest of the thread):

- Settings: Deity, historical, Egypt (seems to be the easiest combination - you usually have lots of luxuries to sell and the distance from the other civs keeps them happier, so you can trade more and not put a high priority on defence - indeed I stayed friendly with all four for the entire game. Also, as Darius seems to have the highest production, his lack of sea access stops him from grabbing the tier two trade and war wonders).

Turn one - move east towards the hills: you need them for production - if you're lucky you might have marble or silver (resources changes on reload).

Early build order - production focus two scouts, defensive unit. Send the warrior and one scout into the Arabian desert to pop huts and the second scout west into the Sahara. Getting techs, pop increases and culture all help more than feeble growth. Do not go for Oracle - without forests to chop you won't get it, as Darius will between 35 and 45 turns in (or you might, but you'll have no civ when you do)...

On polices (sped up by huts), I went for Liberty, with worker first then settler. You can also use a unit to steal a worker from Sharuhen.

On science, you won't be building much infrastructure or military - go for mining -> masonry if your starting city has silver/marble or pottery -> calendar for sugar plantations. Then do the other branch and go for the wheel (war chariots).

On gold, improve a luxury and sell it for gpt (usually 7gpt and 20gold) to Darius. Repeat as often as possible (I had 4 sugar and 4 silver all sold). Also sell open borders for 1gpt and 19 gold when someone gets writing. Don't worry about happiness now. The reason to go for gpt is that counts towards your trade wonder count and also slows the others down. Using this tactic, the AIs gpt only passed Egypt's around turn 70-80 ish.

Cities, place your second on the red sea coast, opposite the tip of Sinai - this will build the coastal wonders. Then build one, preferable two more with bought (500 gold) settlers. I had three down by turn 35; on the replay this was keeping pace with the AIs.

Grand wonder strategy: I went for all the military, trade and culture ones on the basis that if I only went for four, then Darius could also get four and beat me with his better score, therefore I needed to compete on three fronts. I went for culture first, then trade, then military, as that seems to be the order the AI achieves them.

I went for Pyramids first (four cities, all with bought monuments and goody hut pops) and got that turn 73 in my capital. Meanwhile my coastal city went for Statue of Zeus (with xp coming from the war chariots, being shot by a galley and harassing Sharuhen) and got that uncontested on turn 83. Annoyingly, I lost Temple of Artemis by 3 turns to Darius on turn 85 (my capital would have got that in time, but I could get enough production to do both, as the capital was at pop 3 for most of the game due to selling lux). Turn 86 Hanging gardens went to Alexander (didn't contest obviously). As I was pulling in so much gpt, my coastal city went for Colossus next (I assumed with no wars the Great Lighthouse, also unlocked, was safe to leave for later). I got it on turn 97, then it started Great Lighthouse. Meanwhile, my capital went for the Masoleum. On turn 103 Darius built it. I'd sent my Great Engineer for finishing the liberty tree to the coastal city. D'oh (cough, reload). Contrary to Persian propaganda Egypt built the Masoleum on turn 100 and the Great Lighthouse completed on turn 112. Alexander finished the Great Library to finish the game on turn 118. Egypt wins 5 wonders to 2 / by 4000 to 2200.

I think that was tougher than the Mongol scenario on Deity. Glad that's over with now, and thanks again for the help. Back to King...
 
Way to go! Can you post a save of your start? Sounds like it was really good.
 
Thank you. I look forward to trying it this weekend. I hope I can mirror your win.

<EDIT> I was finally able to get the Deity win with your map Haphaz. Thanks for posting it.
For once, Persia didn't build a ton of wonders.
 
Just won on Deity as Egypt on the historical map. I moved my settler to the east and founded Memphis on a coastal silver deposit with a marble tile in the second ring.

Initial build order was scout, scout, settler, settler (bought an archer for barb defence). First policy was tradition opener, then a couple of lucky culture ruins enabled me to take Legalism to get my monument for free. I then went into Liberty (opener, free worker), then back to Tradition for the boost to wonder production. I managed to get 4 cities settled by turn 45-ish, all with free monuments, and built the Pyramids in the capital.

The next phase involved building a small army and waging war on Sharuhen to unlock Zeus and the Lighthouse. The Mausoleum unlocked a few turns after I finished building Zeus in the capital. At this point, Persia DoWed me and sent a few horsemen over - a welcome contribution to my wonder unlocking endeavours.

As my capital was on a coastal hill and had marble by this point, it was quicker to wait until I'd built the MoH and go straight into the Lighthouse, rather than risking building it in my second coastal city.

I had 4 wonders by turn 107, and it was then just a case of waiting for someone to build the Great Library and ending the game. Achievement 175/176... just Genghis Khan to go.
 
My only grief is that I can't stand playing Egypt as they have pretty much zero production anywhere near them. Zero hills...zero plains...never any Iron around....

Egypt's population will zoom up and usually be one of the top civs but they pose no threat toward wonders since their production will always be crap.
 
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