Middle Kingdom Thinis, too hard?

[BattleFerrett]

I've been breezing through the game up to this point. Picked Thinis because the other option had monuments that I didn't feel like waiting to build, and it's like the game has taken several steps up in difficulty all at once.

The military demands feel nothing short of brutal to me. It seems just impossible to pass the first few requests for military aid, even if the very first thing I do is start on a military. This shuts down trade routes that I need, and then money inevitably becomes a problem. On my attempts that I've managed to keep a strong economy going, the enemy armies eventually grind me down until I'm either out of debens or my kingdom rating is low enough that the next defeat loses me the mission.

Anyone got any tips for this?

[PinkCashmere]

I'm playing this now and I don't know if I'm stuck in no man's land forever trade wise or what. I can't get more copper to make more weapons so I can't replenish my army, I'm barely breaking even and nothing is changing. Did you have to restart?

[[NCE] McDerp]

It was like this in the old one too. See if you can have more success by lowering the difficulty

[BOT Moses]

It was a lot worse back in the original on Very Hard. Clever placement of your City Palace to maximize input from the gold mines will help shore up your economy. Think in terms of minimizing walking distance for as many mines as possible. It should let you slowly build up enough resources to get a sufficient military going. In addition to that Beer is available to sell right? Get that going early. Let your people live like animals in their sheds while your army grows strong. They need to be alive to work but just barely.

It also lets you hunt and make shields right? It will boost your army more and is actually very cheap. Long lead time though so get it going early.

[Laelaps]

1. Do not try mining gold - it's a trap, it won't be efficient enough to sustain the economy
2. Try immediately exporting lots of beer (max out beer exports) and surplus chickpeas
3. Ignore the first military request, you will be gifted some copper. You should have stable income from exporting beer by then so you can start building up your military without the need to import copper early
4. If you are short on cash you can gift money to the city that were accumulated by the mansion

[Mao]

Gold mining is useful enough. You can only make 5 mines, but it still gives you about 4000 dbs a year, so it pays itself off in less than a year.

You can export Clay, Pottery, Beer. All produced locally, but your first year will be poorer because the game always start at January and the flood happens too soon while your waiting for immigrants.
Ignore food while you setup your funds, industry, and army.

Start off with archers so you can recruit early before you can earn money for copper. The bigger your army the less losses you take each battle.

If your funds are low, dont import massive amounts of copper, maintain a moderate amount like 800 and have only a few weaponsmiths. There is a limit to how fast you can recruit anyway.

[Stas]

One important moment absolutely for the whole game. Build the economy in the first 2 years, and it will be almost impossible to lose.
1. in the first year, to prohibit the supply of everything except food to the bazaar
2. to produce what is most exported on the world map in the aggregate

P.S. This level is really the hardest in the game. Further it will be easier.

[Злобный_бульбуля]

Originally posted by BOT Moses:

It was a lot worse back in the original on Very Hard. Clever placement of your City Palace to maximize input from the gold mines will help shore up your economy. Think in terms of minimizing walking distance for as many mines as possible. It should let you slowly build up enough resources to get a sufficient military going. In addition to that Beer is available to sell right? Get that going early. Let your people live like animals in their sheds while your army grows strong. They need to be alive to work but just barely.

It also lets you hunt and make shields right? It will boost your army more and is actually very cheap. Long lead time though so get it going early.

ive tried this but then no matter how much help i send, the route for papyrus always closes at some point and i cant upgrade the houses to finish the level.

[carnini]

I remember that one, its was tough but not brutal. I built like 5 gold mines and exported copper. I started troops ASAP. I do know I lost a trading partner but later on I got to send troops and was able to open more trading.

[The Shrike]

Starts tough sort of, indeed but it gets real easy once you start exporting beer and pottery. Didn't even have to use the vault money. Of course it took me 3-4 restarts until I figured things out. For some strange reason even though you can sell clay and barley noone was buying it - they just took beer and pottery only. And as many times as i tried I just couldnt save that first city - even though i managed to send 15/16 set of archers and 15/16 set of infantry equipped with shields.

[Burnt Snag]

Originally posted by Stas:

P.S. This level is really the hardest in the game. Further it will be easier.

Iken on hard is pretty hard also, balls to the wall from the very start

[red1]

Thinis was easy in the OG and same this time. Forget building a beautiful city, Thinis is all about meeting the victory conditions. They are not hard. Go for the 5 gold mines, reduce monthly salary to almost zero, at least at first, focus on surviving the first couple of invasions and more important the housing quality goal. Put you city center on the side of the gold mines. use the island as your trading hub, build meadow farms for barley. You should "win" before the first major civil war invasion. PS: trade clay, pottery, beer at first.

[Rubeck]

Too hard is an understatement — it's borderline impossible! I've almost managed to do it on Hard in the original, only after several tries and following all tips I could find. This mission is truly a test to building a strong economy, a strong military, a populous city, while meeting demands to score a good kingdom rating, all in a short amount of time.

So far, on my best attempt, I built a settlement on the large arable area, made industries of pottery and beer, and built the City Palace on the other side of the river to make use of those 5 gold mines, while also collecting taxes everywhere. Now that I know Dunqul Oasis does not close if I refuse to abide to the extortion (explanation below), I just trade with them. I purchased early papyrus before the route closes. Early Nubian attacks should be easy to repel. I built 3 towers to the southeast of my start town behind the dunes, and with 2 archer battalions it was sufficient.

VALUABLE TIP: The second Nubian attack comes by sea with 1 warship and 2 transport ships. If you have at least 2 Academy-trained archer battalions, they can destroy the boats before they land. Position your archers behind the marsh locations. Transport ships can't unload there. If you use a shore, the Nubians will disembark and murder your forces.

One thing nobody mentioned anywhere: deciding to pay the 142 deben extortion sends the wrong message to the cities aligned with Inyotef (Waset and Dunqul Oasis). This is why they enter political instability and stop trading, as does Men-Nefer, which sells papyrus. Later, they reopen if you meet an extravagant demand: at least 2000 units, but up to 4000, of either pottery or beer. They will make this demand either way.

Men-Nefer starts requesting troops a while after that (through sea, to make matters worse). In the original, the troops you send are never enough, and the trade route closes, while kingdom rating just keeps dropping. This might be a bug, and apparently a recent patch allows it to reopen somehow. The only solution is to buy papyrus early.

However, if you do not pay the extortion, it is the cities aligned with Henen-Nesw, to the north of Thinis, namely Khmun (with which I traded pottery on my first attempts), will close their trade routes. Fortunately, the Egyptians will see this as a positive act, and your kingdom score will rise, while Waset and Dunqul Oasis will keep trading with you. An egyptian army (presumably from Henen-Nesw) eventually attacks from the north. This is not as strong as the typical Pharaoh armies, and can be repelled somewhat easily: 4 towers, plus 2 archer battalions, plus 1 infantry battalion was enough.

VALUABLE TIP: If you built a settlement in the arable area as I did, the egyptian army treads through the marsh to attack. If you get lucky with your timings (and/or can manipulate it somehow), the rising flood will catch the enemy army, and they will be instantly deleted. Could this be key to beating the mission on Very Hard?

VALUABLE TIP: Archers move faster than infantry. This rule also applies to enemy Egyptians. I used this to have 2 archer battalions “kite” one of the enemy infantry: when the enemy infantry has almost reached the archers, move them away, and leave the other battalion firing upon the enemy. Do this repeatedly until the enemy infantry retreats.

For now, I'm stuck because the Kingdom rating keeps plummeting. What I'm planning to do is to stop sending help to Men-Nefer. This will cause Pharaoh armies to attack, but Men-Nefer will never request help again. If I manage to repel the invasion, I will use my now considerable funds to send gifts to Egypt, launch festivals to Ra, and try to raise my kingdom score up to 90. Then just make use of that early-acquired papyrus.

If that doesn't work, I might just retry the mission again and try to do everything I did, but faster.

EDIT: Aaaand it worked! I had to face a large army, but I had all forts up and managed to hold them back! Much to my dismay, one of the invasions landed on the other side of the river. They destroyed my Palace, but not my storage yard with papyrus, blessed be! I just rebuilt everything, rose my kingdom rating with festivals to Ra and gifts, and then built those scribal schools to finish the level! Victory!

[red1]

I posted this some time ago, how to win Thinis

Thinis is tricky, but quick if you play smart. Make sure you know the victory conditions. The common residence is the key. Generally, you don't want to get bogged down in city building or war fighting. You just need to survive enough battles to get the population and housing quality number. Here is my strategy. Build 5 gold mines across the river and place your city center on the same side and as close as you can get it to the mines. Put your trading dock and shipwright on the island. Build 6 warships with some on the island and some on the same side of the river as the gold mines. Focus on building trade in clay, pottery, barley and beer. By design most of the trade routes besides these will close. A couple of hints, buy enough wood early to build the warships, and papyrus if you can afford it and reduce your salary to 12 debens for the first couple of years. Build one archer fort first so you can answer the early call for troops so you don't take a big reputation hit. You will get an early gift of copper and then later a gift of beer. Build meadow farms for barley as they are more consistent for output. Rely on game for food as it is available on both sides of the river. I hope this helps.

[red1]

PS, I mean quick, you want to rush the victory conditions, with the least amount of city building you can do and still meet the conditions...You should be able to win before the first Egyptian army invades.

[Stormless]

I've just finally managed to beat this mission on 'Hard' difficulty. I hated most of the past week however now I've completed it I enjoyed the challenge xD

Like most others, I setup a palace near gold mines with a trading / production hub on the bottom right of the map (there is space for 2 docks and a ferry landing which is close to the trader spawn point).

Early game I actually make use of the fact that trade routes are open and import gems to re-sell jewellery, but most focus on pottery and beer. You have to be mindful to shut down these industries once trade routes collapse. I found that exporting when over 600 of anything allows your economy to stay strong without trade affecting your housing.

I always had trade set to:

Chickpeas - export surplus
Barley - export surplus
Clay - export surplus
Pottery - export over 600
Beer - export over 600
Copper - Maintain 200
Wood - Maintain 400
Jewels - Maintain 300
Papyrus - Maintain 1000

One of the big factors for me was not letting my money run into negative figures. Whenever that happened for 1 year, I believe the game punished me for it in some way or another.

One of the key things in this level which I didn't see anyone mention, is religion. If you honour Ra and Ptah often, they will give you huge bonuses to help you through this mission.

Ra - lifts your kingdom rating (= helps get more population) and inspires more trade (= more money / better trading values). Early on in the game, you can earn a lot through trade boosting.
Ptah - can stock all your crafting buildings with materials or fill storage yards (super useful early on)

If you pay yourself a salary (I didn't touch this from default) then you can keep giving money to the city as a boost when you need it. Sometimes I would be able to put 5000 deben into the economy after I'd forgotten I was paying myself. It's a lifesaver sometimes.

With regards to fighting, don't forget to build archer towers. They can help a bit against invasions.

Try to achieve Wasets demands and you will get all your trade routes back (use stockpiling in the trade window to effect), but you'll receive regular invasions afterwards. I believe the invasions got weaker and weaker over time but also my army grew so that could be why.