Moai Statues and National Epic

[The Priest]

Where do people build the the Moai Statues and the National Epic?

I used to aim at maximizing their potential. Thus allocating the Moai Statues to a small island/thin peninsula city with an overwhelming number of water plots. The statues would transform this from a helpless no-production weak city, into a great all-rounder. National Epic similarly I would put into a high-food city (flood plains or sea food) to turn it into a GP pump.

Great in theory, but they would both take eons to build because I was deliberately choosing low production cities and I would want to use GE for wonders. (And even if National Epic could be build, if I wasn't running Caste I still needed to build buildings to allow specialists.)

So I have changed. Moai goes in early in a good production city with say 5 coastal cities. Not as spectacular, but it gets built early and therefore has a far larger strategic effect. Similarly, I put the National Epic in a major core city which might have wonders. Again less spectacular, but an impact far earlier in the game.

Less impact millennia earlier > late perfection.

Am I stupid?

[Supr49er]

I use your earlier approach to build MS in a city with mostly water. It takes a while, but that city won't be building anything fast anyway. After MS is completed, you have a pretty good production naval city.

[CerberusIV]

It's not an easy choice. I usually put the National Epic in my Forbidden Palace city - mainly because I don't find any other national wonders pair up well with the FP and as the FP city has fair production the two wonders get built early. This also means I don't have to worry about putting the NE into a city where I will want 2 national wonders later on. Downside is that is usually isn't a particularly good GP pump.

Moai statues has 2 options. It can go into a coastal city which needs the hammers but unless you have a mined hill or a couple of other decent hammer tiles it takes forever to build. I now tend towards a coastal city on a river (for health and possibly 3 Gorges) with 5-6 2 commerce coastal tiles if possible (lakes are good). Later on that city gets Ironworks and can usually crank out anything you want almost instantly.

[snoopy369]

NE I either put in my capital if it has turned out to be a super wonder pump, in those games where I'm IND/stone or marble. The GPP from the wonders outweigh the GPP from specialists. Otherwise I put it in the GPP pump city (specialist capital of the world).

Moai Statues I try to put in a city with some production but not too much; and it must actually use at least 5-6 water squares (either a bunch of seafood resources, or a lighthouse city that mostly uses water tiles, but still has enough hammers to generate the wonder itself). Typically in one of my first four cities, unless I'm quite landlocked.

[Ming]

I also like to pair up Moai and Ironworks in a costal city that has a reasonable amount of sea squares available.

Then I use it to crank out an instant navy

[Garth Vader]

NE Almost always goes in the capital and if it's production heavy I'll build a lot of wonders, especially all the GE ones and try to make an engineer pump. If it's commerce heavy I'll pair it with the GL and try to generate scientists.

Moai just goes in one of my early cities with the most water. I built it once with the HE and that worked quite well.

[Quillan]

In most games I configure one city to run specialists for great person generation. This city gets the National Epic and generally Globe Theater. I have not tended to use the Moai Statues much, because my high production coastal cities generally get other national wonders like Heroic Epic or Red Cross. Normally, if I build the statues, it goes in my second or third highest production coastal city.

[Theben]

NE goes into the capital almost w/o question, as it's always my main (if not only) GP pump. MS, I try to utilize it in a city with the most water tiles, but as mentioned elsewhere it needs some other form of early production available.

[Hauptman]

Ok, first Moi statues...

I usually put it in a good sea food city, almost never my capital but perhaps a captured seafood capital or a decent coastal city. Ive tried putting it in that crappy penisula city, hoping to make it nice, but it was still crappy even afterwards.

The national epic gets built in my seafood start capital (if i have a seafood start) otherwise it gets built in a HEAVILY forested location to take advantage of the national park late game.

[Blaupanzer]

Originally posted by Hauptman

The national epic gets built in my seafood start capital (if i have a seafood start) otherwise it gets built in a HEAVILY forested location to take advantage of the national park late game.

I build NE in the city I plan to leave the most forested, for the national park later. The MAOI statues go in a production-light, many sea square city. I build workshops, offset by seafood bonus squares to build the statues, then decide what to do next. If it works out, whipping or chopping the Colussus in another coastal city, makes the statues city a real powerhouse.

[joncnunn]

For Moi Statues I like to build it on the city with the most water within city radius I'll have. This will turn what would be an extremely weak hammer city into a very good hammer city.

For National Epic, I tend to found it in the capital, but that has more to do with me normally building most of my world wonders there. So I'm doubling the wonder based GPP points.

[Hauptman]

Originally posted by joncnunn
For Moi Statues I like to build it on the city with the most water within city radius I'll have. This will turn what would be an extremely weak hammer city into a very good hammer city.

For National Epic, I tend to found it in the capital, but that has more to do with me normally building most of my world wonders there. So I'm doubling the wonder based GPP points.

I used to always put the national epic and the oxford university in my cap. But with the addition of the national park, Thats changed for me. Now its only when playing a PHI civ or a great fish start does the cap get it.

[Sabre2th]

If i bother to build the Moai Statues, they go in a city with lots of sea tiles. I haven't found them to be very useful for any other type of city.

National Epic is one that I generally wait to build. I often build it so late that it's hardly even useful. It tends to go in my wonder city more than high food cities.

[CerberusIV]

The other useful pairing that BtS introduced is National Park/Globe Theatre. Needs a city with a couple of food resources and 4-5 forested tiles (a tundra forest city with perhaps a deer and a seafood is ideal).

Globe Theatre means city size is not limited by happiness. National Park means very little unhealthiness so that doesn't limit size either. So the only limit is food. This allows that one city to get large and run a lot of specialists if you don't have that many happy/healthy resources and your other cities are constrained in size.

Obviously this is less of a consideration for the rabid warmongers amongst us who have stolen all the resources they want from the AI civs.


About the Moai Statues/Ironworks pairing. It really is best in a city on a river as you can also benefit from a levee. I don't play the Dutch very often but a dike makes the production from a city like this almost obscene.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
The other useful pairing that BtS introduced is National Park/Globe Theatre. Needs a city with a couple of food resources and 4-5 forested tiles (a tundra forest city with perhaps a deer and a seafood is ideal).

Globe Theatre means city size is not limited by happiness. National Park means very little unhealthiness so that doesn't limit size either. So the only limit is food. This allows that one city to get large and run a lot of specialists if you don't have that many happy/healthy resources and your other cities are constrained in size.

Eh...but the thing is, if you build national park in a really hevily forested area, it won't get that big anyway, because there won't be much food there.