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Background
Two consecutive victorious games without the spaceship option (the “Deity for beginners” and “Isle of the Sleeping God” threads) established pretty clearly that an early rush, followed by a long cocoon period in which you steadily catch up in tech as the AI plateaus in the modern era, allows enough time to build a strong modern military and go from last to first. The trickiest part is making sure the AI doesn’t destroy you in that middle period, when your military is basically obsolete; a low profile and paying tribute mean even more than alliances and an ability to take out those half-assed midgame invasions.
Pre-game strategy
For my next game, I decided to keep the spaceship option on, which meant that I couldn’t afford to hang back and let the “tech wall” bring me back into the game. Before starting, I concluded the obvious: that generating enough beakers against an AI who has a 40% production edge and trades with itself is the key to winning the space race. This led me to draw up a list of my first three goals: the Great Library, the Forbidden Palace, and one of the happiness wonders. All three go a long way toward generating tech, and getting them would leave me with a shot at my fourth goal: the TOE wonder. If I picked up the TOE, I would have a good chance of building Hoover’s as well, and that should be enough for me to edge out the AI for the launch.
Playing with eight civs on a standard setting, I chose Egypt, reasoning that the industrious trait would be key, and changing governments more than once would mean more than the scientific trait’s free techs (especially if I had the GL). I shied away from a militaristic civ, because I wasn’t going for a domination win, and the goals I set up for myself meant I might not be able to mount an early rush in time.
The ancient era: peaceful expansion and the Great Library.
Egypt started on one end of a continent with Rome and Greece. The terrain to the north was fertile, with a central river and two sites for settler factories. I sealed off those civs from 40% of the continent with two warriors on a chokehold, while building two settler factories, a worker factory, and the GL site as my first four towns.
The key was the GL city, which was surrounded by plains and forests – ideal for an early build – and on a river. One worker built roads, a second worked the GL site tiles, and all the rest fattened up the GL city to size 12 as quickly as I could (eventually resulting in a 30% despot luxury rate). This city had a temple; my subsequent towns were scheduled for barracks, then War Chariots.
With help from the chokehold, I was able to build thirteen cities, even though the Greeks, Persians and Romans eventually sailed over and planted another eight (see map). I researched the wheel, traded for warrior code, researched through literature, then saved my gold. The Great Library was built in Heliopolis in 370BC. I then started work on the FP, and bounced the capital to the GL city (Heliopolis).
The focus on city- and wonder building slowed down the growth of my military. At this relatively late point, there wasn’t much value to attacking the Roman cities bordering me, and a clear benefit to maintaining that chokehold as a border. My obvious target was the four Greek cities scattered along my coast, and I didn’t have enough WCs to take on hoplites, against an enemy who would soon have knights. The result is that I plunged into the Middle Ages as a monarchy without any sort of aggressive expansion… in fact, with no war at all.
This is a map of the Egyptian half of the continent, circa 10AD:
Two consecutive victorious games without the spaceship option (the “Deity for beginners” and “Isle of the Sleeping God” threads) established pretty clearly that an early rush, followed by a long cocoon period in which you steadily catch up in tech as the AI plateaus in the modern era, allows enough time to build a strong modern military and go from last to first. The trickiest part is making sure the AI doesn’t destroy you in that middle period, when your military is basically obsolete; a low profile and paying tribute mean even more than alliances and an ability to take out those half-assed midgame invasions.
Pre-game strategy
For my next game, I decided to keep the spaceship option on, which meant that I couldn’t afford to hang back and let the “tech wall” bring me back into the game. Before starting, I concluded the obvious: that generating enough beakers against an AI who has a 40% production edge and trades with itself is the key to winning the space race. This led me to draw up a list of my first three goals: the Great Library, the Forbidden Palace, and one of the happiness wonders. All three go a long way toward generating tech, and getting them would leave me with a shot at my fourth goal: the TOE wonder. If I picked up the TOE, I would have a good chance of building Hoover’s as well, and that should be enough for me to edge out the AI for the launch.
Playing with eight civs on a standard setting, I chose Egypt, reasoning that the industrious trait would be key, and changing governments more than once would mean more than the scientific trait’s free techs (especially if I had the GL). I shied away from a militaristic civ, because I wasn’t going for a domination win, and the goals I set up for myself meant I might not be able to mount an early rush in time.
The ancient era: peaceful expansion and the Great Library.
Egypt started on one end of a continent with Rome and Greece. The terrain to the north was fertile, with a central river and two sites for settler factories. I sealed off those civs from 40% of the continent with two warriors on a chokehold, while building two settler factories, a worker factory, and the GL site as my first four towns.
The key was the GL city, which was surrounded by plains and forests – ideal for an early build – and on a river. One worker built roads, a second worked the GL site tiles, and all the rest fattened up the GL city to size 12 as quickly as I could (eventually resulting in a 30% despot luxury rate). This city had a temple; my subsequent towns were scheduled for barracks, then War Chariots.
With help from the chokehold, I was able to build thirteen cities, even though the Greeks, Persians and Romans eventually sailed over and planted another eight (see map). I researched the wheel, traded for warrior code, researched through literature, then saved my gold. The Great Library was built in Heliopolis in 370BC. I then started work on the FP, and bounced the capital to the GL city (Heliopolis).
The focus on city- and wonder building slowed down the growth of my military. At this relatively late point, there wasn’t much value to attacking the Roman cities bordering me, and a clear benefit to maintaining that chokehold as a border. My obvious target was the four Greek cities scattered along my coast, and I didn’t have enough WCs to take on hoplites, against an enemy who would soon have knights. The result is that I plunged into the Middle Ages as a monarchy without any sort of aggressive expansion… in fact, with no war at all.
This is a map of the Egyptian half of the continent, circa 10AD:
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