Epic Eight - EGYPT

[Sullla]

I liked your analytical approach to the game, with the pre-planning strategy. I'm not sure there was a great need for test games (since this was an unscored event, after all), but it looks like they served you well.

I did want to comment on a couple of things. First of all, the point on not taking a religion. That can be a very useful strategy, absolutely, but I'm seeing so many people deliberately avoiding founding/adopting a religion, I feel compelled to state the case for the more traditional position again. By sticking with No state religion, you have no bad enemies - but no close friends either. There are advantages and disadvantages to that, of course, but as I posted back in RB21 succession game, I'd rather have a couple of "Friendly" civs and some civs that detest me than a situation where everyone is kind of lukewarm without any strong feelings. That might be a personal preference, but I think it's a viable alternative strategically - and it seems to make games more interesting too. So to summarize: your plan was very much a sound decision, I just don't want readers to get the impression that avoiding a religion is the One Right Choice ™ for high difficulties. It's not!

I was also a little surprised to see these paragraphs:

I followed my default research path - Mining, Bronze, worker tech to hook up resource in capital's radius (it was AH in this game), Iron Working. I like knowing which locations will have metal before I found my third city.

Similarly, I have a default build order (at least on Monarch) - worker, worker chops worker, second worker hooks up resource, first worker chops settler. After that I built a war chariot while growing to two, and then a second settler.

I would really suggest that you get away from the notion of using a default build order/tech path in all situations. For one thing, Animal Husbandry was clearly more useful in this starting position than beginning with Mining/Bronze Working. As far as the build order goes, following a prefabricated opening tends to make the game boring, since you're doing the same thing over and over again. More importantly though, it's not sound strategically either. This game is too complicated to follow the same plan, in all circumstances, and come out ahead. There is no One Right Choice ™ to begin the game! I think most of the fun comes from adapting to the particular circumstances of each map, personally.

Since we toned down the forest chops in 1.61 (and that was badly needed), the super-early chops just aren't really worth it, IMO. You built two workers and a settler at size 1 in this game, relying on chops to help out. In that same time span, I could build one worker naturally, grow to size 3, work the cows/horses/gold tiles, and probably get out the first settler JUST as fast, WITHOUT burning multiple forest tiles in the process, plus having a capital at a larger size afterwards, working more productive tiles. Again, without pictures there's no real way to tell, but the super-early "let's chop everything and ignore resources" strategy which was so popular in 1.52 is pretty dead now, IMO.

Anyway, I'm glad you won the game and had a great time. I hope you don't mind the comments; any time someone talks about a "default" build order, I feel compelled to answer in some way!

[Atlas]

Your start was good, move to the gold and go for Animal Husbandry, but after poping it from a hut you swithced to grab religions (your report is a bit confusing on this point)? This is not a bad idea, but probably not optimal since you are already behind Saladin + an other AI that went Mysticism first.

I need archers, cottages and some metals and I'm taking the long, slow road to religion. Bad move. When I realize my mistake I change course to Archery --> Pottery --> Bronze working

This is an interesting quote and some of it is right and some not. You do need cottages (Pottery (it also gives granaries)) and you do need Bronze Working (slavery, metal and chopping are important), but you do not need archers. You don't even need Axemen. You had War Chariots which are 2 move and cheaper than Axes (they cost the same as archers). Researching Archery was a mistake. You don't need archery if you have horses/metals. I only research this if I lack both. Along this line it sounds like you researched Horseback Riding since you fought China with Horse Archers? This was not optimal, for a different civ HBR is a good research item if you have horses, but lack metals, however for Egpyt you have War Chariots which are only 1 str. less than Horse Archers, but much cheaper. With Eygpt I probably would not bother with HBR until I got Guilds or Mil. Trad. (since you need it for Knights/Calvary).

Your conclusions at the end are solid. For city placement count your food (if not already for more on this chech out this thread http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1464 ) and try to grab new resources. Research is about 3 things, Focus, Focus, Focus . I generally start a game check out my civ, immediate surroundings and then only turn 10 make a plan of my next 7-10 techs-aiming at a single goal like building a certain Wonder, destroying/taking over a neighbor's land, getting a specific religion etc. Sometimes this means ignoring some techs -fishing, archery, Iron working, all the religious techs etc. As far as Civics you need to know which civics are good for your current situation, food poor? then you probably don't want to whip too much. No happy faces- Hereditary Rule can help. Need lots of infrastructure buildings (forge, library, granary) try Organized Religion. Going to war-> Vassalage or theocracy. Then finally to second Sulla you need bigger cities. Set the governor to max hammer/commerce/food and when the cities get unhappy/unhealthy them.

Also more screenshots/note couldn't hurt . Thanks for reporting, reporting and having fun are the two most important things.

[pling]

Do I understand that you want to see where the AI Egypt put its cities?

Yeah, that was what I was after and you're right, it'll be possible to get from someone's report, I was just trying to get a screenshot the lazy way of just the egyptian cities so there was one less thing to piece together But given in the end I'll need to have looked at everyone's report & everyone's screenshots if I wanna do dotmaps for all the civs (don't hold your breaths, I'll have to see how it goes ) then it's not that big a deal to get the AI Egypt from a report ...

[sunrise089]

I suppose to be polite I should add some friendly comment on your report, but I haven't finished reading yours yet (truth be told I was short on time so I just skipped to the end to see what victory condition you went with) so I'll congratulate you on your game later.

Also, I do appreciate all comments, especially constructive ones. I know I didn't post enough detail for anyone to give me tactical advice for my next game, but whatever advice anyone can offer will always be usefull to me.

I'm not sure there was a great need for test games (since this was an unscored event, after all), but it looks like they served you well.

I understand that since it wasn't scored there was no need to try to be perfect, but I did want at least a win. Keep in mind as of six weeks ago I had won one game on Prince (and lost more than that, including a few Noble losses).

I'd rather have a couple of "Friendly" civs and some civs that detest me than a situation where everyone is kind of lukewarm without any strong feelings.

I've read this by you and others over at CivFanatics. I'm sure it's the best strategy overall, but I think at difficulties up to Monarch it's less important if the player feels he can dominate militarily. I had to reason to need resource partners since my empire was the largest, my military could handle any other Civ's, so I think the main benefit to having close friends would have been tech trading opportunities without running into WFYABTA. In my game I acknowledged my own lack of great warmaking skills at Civ, and decided that I much would rather fight wars of my choosing at a slower tech pace then help out Civs I might eventually attack tech faster. It realy comes down to me not being that confident in being able to fend off a sneak attack from an AI when I'm totally unprepared.

I would really suggest that you get away from the notion of using a default build order/tech path in all situations. For one thing, Animal Husbandry was clearly more useful in this starting position than beginning with Mining/Bronze Working. As far as the build order goes, following a prefabricated opening tends to make the game boring, since you're doing the same thing over and over again. More importantly though, it's not sound strategically either. This game is too complicated to follow the same plan, in all circumstances, and come out ahead. There is no One Right Choice ™ to begin the game! I think most of the fun comes from adapting to the particular circumstances of each map, personally.

I never had any specific build order until I read the one above. Keep in mind one thing - I ONLY chop grassland forest, so as not to affect lumbermill placement later in the game. I feel that the speed benefits to early growing are less than getting to a second city faster, and I thought this build path was a bit faster than growing and then building even after the chop nerf. Plus, the way I see it, I now already have my worker for my second city, I already have cleared tiles to add cotages faster and I can improve the capitals tiles faster while it does grow using both workers. I know I FEEL like I expand faster using this order, and the AIs on Monarch and higher tend to expand pretty fast as it is, so I don't really want to be much slower.

Thanks again for your comments and I look forward to reading your report.

[jonottawa]

Funny that Darrell and I had completely different openings (I bullied the entire eastern half of the continent, he chose Mansa (a bizarre choice, imo, our UU's don't match up well, but it worked)) and chose different late victims (he went Northwest, I went Southwest) and triggered domination on the exact same date, 1589 AD.

Reading the reports the most common mistake seems to be underappreciating how awesome War Chariots are. The best defense is a good offense in this case, so archers (horse archers?????) are out. Settlers? I built lots of settlers. My settlers carried big spears and were pulled around by horses.

Sulla's Sorority Variant was interesting. FWIW I'm not much of a fan of the "variant within a variant" that certain people like so much either. Cough, cough. I wonder if settling that great artist would have been more effective at flipping rival cities than culture bombing him.

Blake's game was the most impressive Egyptian game I've seen. A true diplomatic win in 1667 AD is no mean feat. The hydra city was also very cool. Oh, and in the opening I thought grabbing the gold out of the gate was a no-brainer and he definitely showed that that wasn't necessarily so.

[Sullla]

Sulla's Sorority Variant was interesting. FWIW I'm not much of a fan of the "variant within a variant" that certain people like so much either. Cough, cough. I wonder if settling that great artist would have been more effective at flipping rival cities than culture bombing him.

Why in the world did you refer to my game as "Sorority Variant?" That was hardly a flattering term for a non-aggressive game. On a map like this, with horses in the capital's starting radius, I could win a cav-fueled Domination victory with both hands tied behind my back. If I chose not to go there, it was simply out of a desire to chase new forms of gameplay, new experiences, new challenges. I hope you can understand that.

[Atlas]

I wonder if settling that great artist would have been more effective at flipping rival cities than culture bombing him.

Nope, would be my guess, that bomb surrounded the city. In the early game that will normally do it. Settling an artist is a better strategy for flipping cities with culture in them.

Sullla I am really interested to see your passive-aggressive game, having played in that SG. Hatty was a good choice. There are a number of good choices for this strat in my mind- Louis, Saladin, Gandhi, Hatty, maybe Qin.

[jonottawa]

I thought Sorority Variant captured the essence of the idea (I was going to call it Sulla's Sorority Strategy because I liked the alliteration.) Doesn't it? I see many similarities:

1. The world is a popularity contest.

2. Backstab people to get other people to like you.

3. Don't fight wars (avoid direct confrontation). They're messy. Men fight wars. Not us Tri-Delts. Or the Tri-Glyphs, since it's Hatty. We won't use our divinely bestowed war chariots for icky fighting.

4. Act honorably until you don't feel like it anymore (or get RILLY drunk.) Maintain peaceful relations to somebody's face but bribe someone else to attack them.

My sense is that settling the artist is more likely to flip the city eventually whereas bombing it raises the chances of flipping it sooner but also raises the chances of not flipping it at all. Maybe I'm completely wrong. The big advantage of bombing is depriving the target of the means to produce cultural buildings (or anything else.) The big advantage of settling is nailing the target with a significant cultural invasion every turn (once your borders pop, which doesn't take long, but isn't immediate.)

[sooooo]

"sorority variant" .

Reading the reports the most common mistake seems to be underappreciating how awesome War Chariots are. The best defense is a good offense in this case, so archers (horse archers?????) are out. Settlers? I built lots of settlers. My settlers carried big spears and were pulled around by horses.

You're 100% correct, and I used to adopt the same strategy until recently. But I'm sure after a month or so of using early chariot/axe/sword rushes in these and other events you will grow tired of this tactic, and wish to expore other areas of the game. For an unscored event, there are no "mistakes".

[jonottawa]

When I say 'most common mistake' I'm referring primarily to newbies who lost or struggled. Surely they (on some level) would want to win as early/decisively as possible, whether the game is scored or not. But yes, after you've been there, done that, enough times I have no problem with other paths. There's just something about Hatty and horses in the capital that makes me wince at anyone who didn't use them.