
Originally Posted by
Zso_Zso
I had a humiliating defeat due to horrible bad choices I made on a map and situation that could have been favourable to me if I do the right thing. I got Egypt from random against America. My starting location had 2 desert tiles (in addition to the usual 2 trees/sea/grass) so I settled in-place and got the Oracle. I decided to go for horse rush, thinking that the Americans will probably do the same, so I need my own army to counter and take some AI caps and then press him to slow down his expansion. Anyway, I figured that's the only way I could make use of my Oracle if I try to go aggressive. Man, have I been totally wrong...
It turned out the map had plenty of deserts north of me (I started quite far south), but I had no gold whatsoever! It was worse than a Mongol start in that respect. I made 1 warrior, then teched HBR with 2 desert tiles. My warrior found 1 barb (the only one I have ever seen the whole game), killed 1 flag getting double injury, while I healed the barb grew, I took 2nd flag getting double injured again, then the American took the last flag just before I arrived with my 1st hammered out horse. Then he managed to sell the warrior before I could attack it. Then my 2 exp warrior found a friendly hut (the only 1 for me in the game). And guess what I got from it ? It upgraded the warrior to veteran! My horse did not find any barb either just another American warrior far away wandering, it must have picked up all the barbs already. I got 20g from naming tiles with the horse that I spent on rushing the last horse for the army. I found Washington with my horse army after 2000BC, it had a wall and strong defense, the Oracle wouldn't let me attack. Wasted 3 turns trying. It turned out the American did not horse rush, he collected lots of gold, had 100g milestone early, THEN he picked up the 7CoG, and he did NOT expand on the main-land (probably because he saw my horses running around) so he went to the islands right away. He was in medieval era and Republic by the time I found him and I had a useless horse army and an empty 2pop cap and no gold. Rome was even further away from me (all the way up NW) and I could not attack them either and finally I found the Zulu (far S, close to me over the sea but very far on land). The barbs were all cleared off by the Americans and the Zulu, so I still did not have my 100g by 0AD and I only hammered out 3 cities (after the useless horse army). I put those on 2-3 desert spots, one with spice. I sold my horse army and sold HBR/Alphabet to the AIs to get my 100g and teched up to COL finally, when the American was in Monarchy with 13 techs, probably producing lots of knights on his islands. He also picked up SoC. I had a GS saved in my cap but no defense and just rushing settlers to try to catch up with my very late expansion -- at least the main land was all empty for me. That's when the Zulu AI galley-dropped my capital and immediately settled my GS, so even if I could take it back I lost the GS. At that point I decided to quit. The Americans would've come with a lot of knights very soon anyways and I had no means to counter them. I do not think I ever had a chance to win that game, because the American probably started with a GB that he used for 3 warriors (the only way he could get so far from his cap with them so early in 2 different directions), then he had 350+ gold and SoC, early medieval+COL. But I could have put up a much better fight if I start expanding early instead of selling out on the useless horse army. But it just seemed like the right decision with Egypt+Oracle against an American...