Deity for beginners.

[Lord Merciless]

Txurce, did you use the Mobilization? I once managed to pump out 96 Tanks, 24 Artilleries, 5 Fighters, and 1 Bombers with 15 cities in 16 turns. I managed to wreck an empire as large as your Egytian ones in less than 5 turns. Of course, I sneak attacked them with a ROP in effect.

[Txurce]

LM, that is impressive. I am definitely using mobilization, but don't have the shields - low population and only some factories - to build the sort of army that you did. My first war was an ROP betrayal, but I didn't have enough units to really make it hurt. Where did you rank in population and mfg. goods when you built that monster?

[Txurce]

Egypt checked.

After making peace with Egypt in 1490, I built temples and cathedrals in my captured cities, then switched back to a wartime economy. My Iron Works city built the Academy, Pentagon, and two new armies; most of the other cities built MA. I was first in GNP, and third in manufacturing and productivity.

In the meantime, the rest of the world - all communist - is furious with me, regularly waging propaganda campaigns against me, even stealing my military plans. But more importantly, they were still at war with Egypt. China gained temporary footholds on the western end of the continent, and the Iroquois gave up cities grudgingly reduced to six in the course of 135 years. Egypt’s dominance had been seriously reduced, but they were grinding their way to victory. By 1625, I again felt that the Iroquois were about to crack, and I couldn’t put off attacking any longer.

I had an attack force of four maxed MA armies and 24 MA. My defense against an Egyptian counterattack was 16 MI, 4 stealth bombers and two artilleries. Clearly, this was not enough fight a protracted war against a counterattacking enemy with deep defensive reserves.

My plan was to break Egypt’s back in one deep southward thrust: take Busiris and Cumae, then go for Thebes with its three wonders, including Suffrage, and finally Memphis, with two wonders including Hoover’s. I had no hope of holding the latter two, given Egypt’s huge cultural advantage – after taking Thebes and Memphis, I would raze them. The result would leave Egypt with a large population loss, and a serious drop in both their production and ability to wage war.

I took Busiris, and then Cumae, with the armies and one MA, and sent the rest of the MAs into the hills outside Thebes. Over the next four turns, the Egyptians whittled away at my MA stack, while keeping my armies and bombard units busy fighting back a series of counterattacks. Once again, I was forced to draft heavily to prevent my two captured cities from flipping (one flipped anyway). But by 1650, I had three armies ready to join the assault on Thebes. I don’t know how many MI Egypt had in there – I barely made it in. There was no way I could take Memphis with my severly reduced forces - and my lack of happiness wonders makes fighting in republic difficult even with all the luxuries - so I offered Egypt a deal which netted me 400 gold.

My attack caused Egypt to lose ground in the west – the Iroquois retook a city and the Chinese now had a real foothold (see map below). Egypt made peace with the Iroquois two turns later. In the meantime, I abandoned Thebes (!), built temples and cathedrals in the two small captured cities, and went back to pumping out armies and MA. Because I wasn’t done with Egypt yet.

It is now 1690, and I have seven armies and 31 MA ready to move on Memphis. As you can see, it will take me three turns to get there, but I think it’s key to knock out Hoover’s. At the same time, I’ll draw the Iroquois back into the war with an offer of oil, which they lack. Depending on how things go, I will either try for a peace treaty asap after that, or else settle in for the long haul against a once-dominant enemy that will be on the ropes. Either way, I expect to finish this war as the #1 world power.

The map below focuses on my two captured Egyptian cities, and the route I have to take to reach Memphis in the south. The gap in between is where Thebes was.

The world map shows Egypt’s relative gains against the Iroquois, but keep in mind that the western half of their empire is captured, and probably unproductive.

[Theseus]

What about Egyptian Bombers?

[Txurce]

Theseus, one of the biggest (welcome) surprises of the two wars with Egypt is that I haven't seen one enemy bomber, and their navy has caused negligible damage. The latter is probably due to over a century of tangling with the Chinese and English navies, so I assume they lost their bombers against the Iroquois. For that matter, I have taken seven Egyptian cities, and have yet to capture a single artillery piece. This is even weirder, since these units tend to not die in intra-AI battle.

[Lord Merciless]

Here is the game shortly before my offensive:

[Theseus]

Weird... especially with large cities with airports right there.

So, 3 moves to the hills, 3 to the mountains, and then attack?

Couple of sidenotes:

* To build a barracks, esp. if militaristic, I will typically disband highly damaged and / or obsolete units in a newly captured city in the late game.

* Keep your treasury above 1K! (assuming you've built Wall Street).

And a question:

Was there anything about Egypt starting conditions, or early game, that made it killer?

[Txurce]

Theseus, I am not complaining about the clear blue skies of Egypt. Actually, I play without animation, and do experience some "artillery" damage on a few (very few) of my coastal roads, so I guess this could be aircraft... but these hits are never on my units, which is why I assume I'm being hit by naval shelling. I'll try to remember to fight one battle with animation on, and get a better view of what's going on.

Yes, that's my path, all right, although I will also feint a thrust toward Alexandria on the first turn, and then just past toward the capital right behind it in the next turn, so as to minimize the concentration of enemy forces in Memphis. And given how long it will take me to reach Memphis, I better leave some MA at home for once, since we all know the AI prefers to go for your weak spot, and my entire country is undefended behind the front-line cities.

I do have Wall Street, but dipped under 1k in my gold reserves rushing MA for the upcoming action - as you can see from the last paragraph, I may be stretched a little thin. I'll be back up in two turns, and then will keep it there, barring an emergency.

I'm out of obsolete units, and am not about to disband any damaged MAs, but I'm writing down that barracks tip for a more opportune moment.

Egypt's original peaceful expansion took it west as far as that inland sea; to the north was Rome, which never got fully untracked because it was my only neighbor, and therefore the civ against whom I waged periodic war throughout the ancient era. The western half of the continent was split horizontally by the Iroquois and the Americans to their north. At one point, the Americans were as strong as Egypt, but declared war against the Iroquois, and were jumped by everybody (I took two cities in my rear). You can see their one and only city on the world map, on that island to my northwest. After Egypt took Rome (minus my piece), their holdings - which included half of what was once America - gave them a definite edge over the Iroquois, and a huge one over me. They also have the world's best culture, which is why I expect to keep only their smaller cities, and resettle the rest of them.

[Jaybe]

Txurce, did you ever attempt to plant a spy in Cleo's capital? I found some time ago that you can also do it during wartime (assuming an embassy, of course).

[Txurce]

Jaybe, I haven't, because being behind, I've been throwing all my gold into either buying tech or, more recently, rushing MA. Are you suggesting that I steal their military plans? I've only done this once before in all the games I've played. It makes a lot of sense here - think it's worth saving my pennies to do so?

[dojoboy]

Ah-ha, Txurce. Sleeping w/ the enemy are we? Great thread! It makes me want to jump from monarch to deity - forget about emperor! Well, maybe not.

[Txurce]

This is the land where I was born, Dojoboy! It's been fun being in over my head... although I've turned the corner, and think I see the downslope.

[Txurce]

Egypt is history.

In 1690, I ignored the Iroquois theft of my military plans, and sent seven armies and about twenty MA toward Memphis and its four wonders. I split my remaining eleven MA between a feint at size-27 Alexandria, and guarding the home front. I shifted immediately into monarchy – no happiness wonders are a killer – and for a third time, drafted heavily to defend my border cities. (I finally found the enemy using radar artillery… but not a single plane.)

Memphis fell fairly easily in 1700, costing me only two MA. I had captured Hoover, Smith’s, SETI, and the Cure for Cancer. But after selling what I could, I abandoned the city. My reasoning was that I couldn’t have held it against Egypt’s big cultural edge, and I didn’t yet know how much of a fight they’d put up.

While the Monsters of Memphis made their way back to the Aztec border, the Egyptians took the two small cities on my southwest corner. But the counterattack was stopped in 1710 and, even as my returning units reached my railroads, I could see that Egypt was approaching exhaustion.

I brought the Iroquois back into the war in exchange for oil and coal. The opportunistic Chinese moved eastward on my continent, taking some of the original American cities from the reeling Egyptians. I hurried to seal them off as best I could, betraying Egypt one last time for a peace treaty that gave me New Orleans.

When I attacked them on the very same turn, they showed their displeasure by nuking New Orleans. This made me a little nervous, as I had no nuclear weapons, and worse, no nuclear defenses. England responded by nuking Egypt with an ICBM; Egypt nuked London, was nuked a couple more times in return, and nuked me one last time, destroying one of my victorious armies. (You can see the damage below!) In the end, all the nuking allowed me to pretty much walk into the remaining Egyptian cities, and in 1762 the world’s first superpower was swept into the dustbin of history.

I had some tidying up to do: settling cities in much of the razed territory (see below), and taking the lone American city before somebody else did. All these goals have been accomplished, and I need to settle on a strategy for the next phase of the game… apart from cleaning up all that radioactivity.

China is directly in my way, but they are the world’s most productive civ, and I can only imagine how many MI they and England must have on their islands, since neither has fought a serious war. I could easily kick them off my continent, but I also have nukes to worry about, don’t I? My immediate plan is to research or trade up to SDI as quickly as possible, while building a few nukes myself. My guess is that I’ll skirt past the Chinese and take the wobbly Iroquois next, but the cautious approach would be to hope China attacks someone, and join in. I don’t think I’ll win by domination with only my continent, so nuke-happy England will have to be dealt with. At least now I can build the Battlefield Medicine wonder, even though I have yet to build a single hospital… those seriously reduced Egyptian cities all have hospitals!

[Xpert]

interesting, might try deity soon=/

[Arrian]

Kill the Iroquois. No doubt about it.

-Arrian