I founded the capital on the spot and began a worker to take immediate advantage of the wheat. I researched Fishing first, because I wanted to improve that fish tile right away and get some boats out exploring as soon as possible.  Founding Thebes popped a hut, which gave me a scout. He headed west while my warrior scoped out the east.  By 3640 BC, I had scouted the entire continent. Yep, it’s snaky all right. It’s also pretty large. If I wanted to, I could expand for a long time without ever taking to the waves.  My warrior parks on the silver hill east of Thebes.

From that vantage he clears all the eastern fog; so I don’t have anything to fear from barbarians on that front. After fishing I moved on to sailing, since I really wanted to get galleys out exploring quickly and available later for ferrying settlers to choice locations.  After finishing Sailing, I moved on to Mining-Bronze Working. My capital was going to grow into unhappiness in short order, and slavery is magical in its ability to turn unproductive live citizens into super-productive dead ones. Plus BW will reveal copper, if there’s any to be found – and copper rules.

3190 BC – While I’m figuring out Mining, I learn that Buddhism has been founded in a distant land. Gee, I wonder who might have done that? It suddenly, if belatedly, occurs to me that religion would be a great way to alleviate my happiness problem. Since there’s only one other opponent, I stand a fair chance of founding Hinduism, even at this late date. Accordingly, after Mining, I take a little detour to Mysticism-Polytheism.

2500 BC – My scout, who had perched on a hill to give advance warning of western barbarians, gives advance warning by dying at the hands of one. If I had seen that barb coming I would have moved the scout, but it wasn’t such a big deal losing him. He had served his purpose. Frankly, I would have killed him later myself just to diminish unit cost. I obsessed a lot about cost in the early to mid stages of the game. I was frankly startled by how steep all the costs were on Immortal level, especially city maintenance costs. It took some getting used to. Thebes had started on a lighthouse after the work boat, but I now switched to a warrior, so the capital wouldn’t be defenseless in case the barbarian came closer.

2350 BC –At size 4, Thebes switched production again from the lighthouse to start on a settler. I think this might be the latest I’ve ever started on a first settler, but I was in no rush on this very watery map. Another reason for the delay – I wanted my capital to be the city in which I founded Hinduism, which happened the next turn. After Hinduism, it was on to Bronze Working again.

In 1930 BC, Memphis is founded to the east, over by the pigs and silver.

1870 BC – With bronze working researched, I immediately revolt to slavery, a civic which I’d keep for virtually the entire game. It was pretty much the only way to get any infrastructure in a lot of my island cities with limited or nonexistent production, and I used it all the way up into the modern era. Production on these sorts of maps always tends to be lacking, so I slaved liberally – an odd choice of words, perhaps.

A quick look at the map in 1870 BC revealed no copper on my continent. I next researched Animal Husbandry, so I could pasture the pigs in Memphis and see if I’ll be able to build war chariots. After the first settler, Thebes got to work immediately on a second one to make up for lost settling time.

1600 BC – Memphis finishes its warrior garrison and gets to work immediately on a galley for some sea exploration. Sometimes on these maps it’s possible to circumnavigate the globe really early with two galleys headed in opposite directions, and I fully intended to try this. On a map like this, which will clearly involve naval invasions and troop ferrying, that extra movement point can sometimes be decisive to the turn of events. The next turn, animal husbandry finished. Naturally, since the Egyptian unique unit is the war chariot, there are no horses to be found.

1510 BC – Heliopolis is founded to the northwest. It has fish, stone, and (after Calendar) bananas. Plus it’s got a nice mix of grassland, hills, and plains. It will end up becoming my military factory. Thebes now gets to work on a galley for the western waters, while I research pottery. I want to get some cottages up and running as soon as possible, and the granaries will come in very handy given all my major food resources and the rapid recovery granaries allow from pop-rushing.

1270 BC – After pottery it’s on to hunting-archery. I don’t know if I’ll find any military resources at all on this continent or on nearby islands, so I have to have archers. I was particularly inspired to this move by the presence of a barbarian archer to the north. In the mean time, I’ve scoped out my fourth city location – just north of Heliopolis.

It will be a canal city, connecting the two oceans. It turns out that the home continent allows no natural passage between the oceans – it’s blocked by ice to the north and south. So canal city will be handy. Plus, the city will have corn and ivory. I may never build a war chariot, but I’ll sure build war elephants. Corn-fed war elephants, I imagine.

1210 BC – my first galley finishes in Thebes, and starts exploring westward. My navy ruled the waves in this game, and this was the moment it all started. In 985, he came across Alex. From his welcome, I guess he hasn’t heard it’s just he and I on this world.

970 BC - While trying to decide what to research next it suddenly occurs to me that there aren’t tons of immortal AI out there trying to build wonders and that I might stand a chance at getting the oracle, even though on most other maps someone would be finishing it around this time. So I start researching Priesthood after Archery, while my second galley heads up to see what’s on a nearby island, and Memphis starts on a granary for more efficient slaving.

<955 BC>

955 BC – My galley witnesses the founding of Judaism in the Greek city of Corinth. Corinth is an exciting find. Not because of Judaism, but because it appears to not be on Alex’s home continent, which makes it fair game for a conquest. Our seamen look on covetously.

925 BC – in the meantime, my eastern galley has scoped out that island to the northeast and discovered that it contains . . .

. . . copper! And gems. And some jungle where cottages could go. Very exciting. I immediately decide that canal city will have to wait, and that this will be the location of my fourth city. I want that copper ASAP, since who knows what resources Alex has on his continent, or how far ahead he is in military tech, or when his units will start showing up on my continent. At this point, I had no idea what to expect from Immortal AI research speed – for all I knew, he had swordsmen.  Thebes immediately switches production to a settler to claim the copper.

775 BC – After Priesthood it was on to writing. I need libraries and I may want an open borders agreement with Alex so my galley can continue to explore points westward. The Corinthian isle turned out to be the sole coastal route to the west, and his borders prevented me from going farther.  In this shot, you can see my galley parked to give advance warning of any of his settlers coming to foul my pristine shores.

760 BC – after writing it was on to masonry for the Great Lighthouse.

715 BC – Thebes finishes its settler and starts work on the Oracle. If I finish it, I’ll grab Metal Casting as my free tech, for a quick Colossus and for early forges to widen my production advantage.

655 BC – Elephantine was founded in this year on the copper isle.  It got started on a worker immediately to get that copper hooked up. In retrospect, it would obviously have been better to send a worker up there in the galley, and to have a more developed town build a replacement. It turned out not to be a game breaker, but it did cost me several turns getting the copper.

610 BC – once finished with its library, Memphis gets to work on the Great Lighthouse. Immortal level, only 4 cities, and I’ve got half of them building wonders? The fact is, I felt pretty secure given the map. I felt sure I’d be seeing some settlers from Alex before I saw an invasion force, but no settlers had come yet. And if by chance I did see an invasion force coming, I was confident I’d be able to switch production to archers and pop rush out enough to deal with it if I had to. I just didn’t envision the AI mounting a truly dangerous naval invasion in the early going. Since this was immortal level, maybe I was playing with fire. As it turned out, I gambled rightly.

Now, the Great Lighthouse was not worth it for the trade routes, since I never had open borders with Alex. But the great merchant points were valuable. I’m not sure if it was at this point, or later when I saw how easy it was to build wonders in this particular game, that I made the luxurious decision to try to concentrate particular types of wonders in particular cities. In the capital would go all the great prophet generating wonders and Memphis would get the Great Lighthouse and the Colossus. Thus the great person point pool in each city would be relatively pure, ensuring a vast majority of my great people would be prophets and merchants. This actually worked extremely well, I got a ton of prophets, and a handful of merchants as well I lightbulbed most of the merchants, and settled most of the prophets. Thebes also produced a few great scientists due to running science specialists – I built an academy with one of these, and lightbulbed the rest. Heliopolis gave me two great artists, which I used as culture bombs in conquered territory. But by and large it was prophets and merchants, and the overwhelming majority were prophets who settled in Thebes.

In 355 BC, I finish the Oracle. To be honest, I wasn’t very concerned about missing it, was sure I would miss it, and was half looking forward to the nice chunk of change I’d get for missing it. But I wasn’t complaining. As planned, I took Metal Casting as my free tech. Amazingly, Alex had built no wonders by this point. Since this was immortal level, I started off the game fully intending to not mess about with wonders. I figured I’d probably not get them, and would just waste shields that could have been better spent on other things. I decided instead to concentrate on fundamentals, which are all that should really be necessary for winning. But when I got the oracle as an afterthought in 355 BC, I changed my mind in the opposite direction, and built wonders just for the heck of it. There’s no other explanation for my later decision to build chichen itza due to its Great Prophet points.

310 BC – Here’s the unsettled part of my continent, for which I had big plans. At this time, I figured I’d fit 4 cities up there in the north. First, canal city, one tile west of the corn, another city just north of the incense, another one by the fish, and eventually a coastal town up in the tundra. In the end, I only founded three – maintenance costs, don’t you know. Amazingly, still no settlers from Alex. I guess he has room to expand elsewhere. In this year Egypt got its first archer. Just a little late.

Here’s a shot of the Egyptian empire to date. Given how late I got the oracle and seeing as I haven’t received word of any other wonders being built, I believe I may even finish the Great Lighthouse. What’s he been building over there? Hopefully not a ton of superior military units.

Not seeing any settlers from Alex, I also still feel I have some breathing room for infrastructure rather than military units. Alex does like the early aggression; but except for freaks like Montezuma, the AI tends to try to expand before it tries to conquer. Once the copper in Elephantine is hooked up, I plan on getting a nice little axeman army in short order. In the mean time, it makes sense to ready Thebes and Heliopolis for more efficient axeman production. Granaries and early forges are the answer.  

And there’s Alex’s first settler. At this point I start to worry about invasion. He opts to found Knossos on the precise spot I had chosen for canal city. This actually turns out to be a boon, since now I don’t have to waste production on a settler – I just have to build the axemen I was planning on building anyway.

The Venerable Bede writes that Egypt is less advanced than Alex. Of course, since there are only two of us, I’m still “the Great”. And, really, I’m not in bad shape. Here are the demographics.

My production is almost twice Alex’s. No wonder he isn’t building any wonders. Of course, I have half his army, but that’s to be expected. I can defend myself with that much, and besides, I’ll close that gap significantly. You can see from the population statistics that he’s also been letting his cities grow, since he has almost three times my population but less land area. I’m sure my creative borders have something to do with the size, but the population is doubtless also an effect of my happiness cap. On the bright side, I might be killing more of my population off than him, which means my production advantage may actually be bigger than the demographics suggest.  I’m not much worried about the low crop yield, as I’m purposefully not working all my superfood tiles due to happiness limitations in maxed out cities. Of course, my GNP is severely lacking, because I’ve been emphasizing production to get infrastructure in place. Still that’s a worrisome statistic. The Colossus, which I have no doubt I’ll get after the oracle, will help.

160 BC –in this year I kill off half the population of Memphis to get the Great Lighthouse in a more timely fashion. It also times nicely with the completion of my Code of Laws research. I love it when lots of things come together in one turn. Thank you, dead citizens of Memphis!

145 BC – a banner year for the Egyptian empire. Confucianism is founded in Elephantine and the Great Lighthouse is built in Memphis. More important than both of these events is the fact that I can now build courthouses. Again, the GL didn’t do very much. I went from +2 gpt at 40% science to a whopping +6. Still, those merchant points will pay dividends in the future. I opted to research monarchy next. To me this was the obvious choice – it will remove all limits to my cities’ happiness.

85 BC – I love this shot. It shows one of the great benefits of being creative. Thanks to nothing more than innate culture, my axemen will be able to walk right up to Knossos, and then declare war and capture the city in a single turn. There’s my worker building the road that will allow it to happen. Surely that Greek archer must know what’s afoot?

70 BC –Copper is finally hooked up. Both Thebes and Heliopolis are working on forges, which will be whipped to completion. After that – it’s all axemen. I figured about 6 should be more than enough to account for some bad dice rolls. The axemen will probably be obsolete very soon, but they’re all I’ve got at this point, and I plan on using them to take out Knossos, and to destroy that other city Alex founded to the north. And I plan to do it soon, before Alex gets all Feudalistic and longbowish on me.

95 AD – Alex got a great scientist on his turn and used it to lightbulb Philosophy, founding Taoism. Now Taoism is a peaceful religion, so I was surprised to see this on the same turn. . .

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