what do you use the Oracle for?

[sorinache]

That early the pennies you get from the GP don't compare to, say, grabbing CoL from Oracle instead and building Courthouses (not to mention an earlier Civil Service). Better to use the later GPs for the shrines.

Talk about lopsided thinking. 4 gold coins in, say, 300 BC (early pennies as you'd call them) when I have 4 cities count as much or more as 40 gold later in the game.

Besides, "building Courthouses" has "building" in it - you have to build 3 whereas the religion spreads itself (on average I need to build close to zero missionaries for the first 4 cities, since I get one free upon founding the religion). So you are arguing that building 3 courthouses in cities where I would most likely go from 3 to 1,5 average maintenance, despite the cost, is better than making about the same amount of money from the great shrine and spending the hammers on building, for instance, monasteries (+10% beakers, +2 culture, potential for hammers with AP and more gold with spiral minaret) ?

I'm not convinced.

[sorinache]

When is the Oracle built in your games ?

Playing Emperor, I noticed the Oracle usually got built (by me or, sometimes, the AI) somewhere between 1100 and 900 BC although in a recent game everybody was apparently so busy that it didn't get built until 400 BC.

I recently started trying to play Immortal. In my latest game (standard Earth map, playing Frederick of the Germans alongside Julius Caesar, Alexander, Hatchepsut, Cyrus, Asoka, Gengis Khan, Toku and the Chinese guy whose name i never remember), Asoka built the Oracle in ... 1950 BC ! Wow, that was early !

I was wondering, when do you build the Oracle or see it being built usually ? For those of you playing Immortal, is 2000 - 1700 BC standard or was Asoka particularly successful this time only ?

[wodan11]

Wow, thread necromancy.

Anyway on the Great Prophet issue to me it's much more complicated. If my early religion stands to spread on its own, then an early shrine is probably the better bet. Or, if I intend to spread it myself. But sometimes I don't intend to spread it and it stands to not spread much on its own (because there are several competing religions).

It's intertwined with the situation with AIs. Sometimes I want to found and spread a religion, sometimes when I adopt it and sometimes when I don't (either because I already have a religion or adopt an AI's religion). Clearly, if I adopt a religion then I probably want to spread to all of my cities (for happy, culture, diplomatic, or money reasons), and sometimes to AIs too (for diplomatic or money reasons). Sometimes when I don't adopt a religion I still want to spread it to my cities (for happy, culture, diplomatic, or money reasons), and sometimes to AIs too (for diplomatic or money reasons).

IMO Sorinache what you're pointing out is close enough that it's moot. I agree with you that we cannot conclusively say it's economically better to use a prophet to lightbulb or Oracle COL. In fact, IMO, it's about the same. Shrine, lightbulb/Oracle, you'll get your money's worth either way.

The other issues affect the money much more. If you spread the religion or it has the opportunity to do a lot of spreading on its own then usually the Shrine is a better option. But whether you want to spread it or it has the opportunity to spread on its own depends on all those other things.

And, all those other things have value in of themselves. The diplomatic situation alone may swing this one way or the other, and screw the money.

[slnz]

Talk about lopsided thinking. 4 gold coins in, say, 300 BC (early pennies as you'd call them) when I have 4 cities count as much or more as 40 gold later in the game.

Besides, "building Courthouses" has "building" in it - you have to build 3 whereas the religion spreads itself (on average I need to build close to zero missionaries for the first 4 cities, since I get one free upon founding the religion). So you are arguing that building 3 courthouses in cities where I would most likely go from 3 to 1,5 average maintenance, despite the cost, is better than making about the same amount of money from the great shrine and spending the hammers on building, for instance, monasteries (+10% beakers, +2 culture, potential for hammers with AP and more gold with spiral minaret) ?

I'm not convinced.

Hmm, didn't have the effort in me to dig up the whole context of when I said that... IIRC it was about oracling CoL and bulbing Theology instead of oracling Theology?

Where did the "4 cities" figure come from? Near 1AD I rarely have under 6 cities and preferably 7-8. We value early expansion much differently. I usually can't succeed in games (for reference, Immortal/Deity) without focusing much on early expansion. Exceptions include games with a very capital-centric economy, such as WE/SSE off IND, PHI or Stone&Marble.

The second GProphet isn't very far off, since you have a religion (or many) and got Priesthood fast, so I don't see how the economic hit is that big. The earlier double spread from shrine can be helpful though. Then again I can see courthouses not working so well if you just have 4 cities. Prioritizing Monasteries over Courthouses sounds ludicrous to me, though.

Still I don't see what's the rush to get to Theology (AP can wait for a while, economy can't), so I'd say it would be best to both build the shrine, get CoL from oracle, and delay Theology.

Playing Emperor, I noticed the Oracle usually got built (by me or, sometimes, the AI) somewhere between 1100 and 900 BC although in a recent game everybody was apparently so busy that it didn't get built until 400 BC.

I recently started trying to play Immortal. In my latest game (standard Earth map, playing Frederick of the Germans alongside Julius Caesar, Alexander, Hatchepsut, Cyrus, Asoka, Gengis Khan, Toku and the Chinese guy whose name i never remember), Asoka built the Oracle in ... 1950 BC ! Wow, that was early !

I was wondering, when do you build the Oracle or see it being built usually ? For those of you playing Immortal, is 2000 - 1700 BC standard or was Asoka particularly successful this time only ?

It varies, sometimes it goes 2400BC, sometimes 1000BC. On average I'd say about 1800BC.

[Blaupanzer]

At Monarch I get Priesthood as my seventh/eighth tech, and can usually get the Oracle done by 1400 to 1100 BC. By 800 BC, it is always gone. I have seen it built by 1600 BC, and when I've skipped it due to an early war, as late as 800 BC. When I can tell, it seems that the AI takes CoL. Of course, some AI aren't oriented to build wonders or only go after certain ones. The IND ones, OTOH, are inclined to go after all of the wonders and quickly go after the associated techs. Makes wonder-related techs good tradebait with them.

[rah]

The Oracle is usually one of my priorities.
In emperor it's about a 99% shot.
At immortal it drops to about 50%

I'll have to go back and see about when I usually finish it.

[sorinache]

Hmm, didn't have the effort in me to dig up the whole context of when I said that... IIRC it was about oracling CoL and bulbing Theology instead of oracling Theology?

Where did the "4 cities" figure come from? Near 1AD I rarely have under 6 cities and preferably 7-8. We value early expansion much differently.

As I said in an earlier post : I came from a Civ 2 background and as such I valued early (mid- and late-) expansion immensely. Yet when I reached Civ IV Emperor level, I noticed I cannot make it work anymore. Each time I've tried to expand early I was throttled by maintenance costs and had to go to 10 - 20% science way before I got Currency to be able to create merchants.

Before Currency, if you do not build Great Shrines, I simply do not understand where do you get the money from, to be able to afford expansion while keeping your reasearch rate high. What is the secret recipe I'm missing ? How can you pay for 4 or 5 cities before Currency and without Great Shrines while keeping your slider at 80-90% research ? I, for one, haven't managed this feat yet. This is why I'm expanding more slowly.

Exceptions include games with a very capital-centric economy, such as WE/SSE off IND, PHI or Stone&Marble.

You lost me here. What is WE/SSE ?

The second GProphet isn't very far off, since you have a religion (or many) and got Priesthood fast, so I don't see how the economic hit is that big. The earlier double spread from shrine can be helpful though. Then again I can see courthouses not working so well if you just have 4 cities. Prioritizing Monasteries over Courthouses sounds ludicrous to me, though.

I love monasteries. They are cheap and potentially very powerful because you can build plenty of them. In my current Immortal game getting Sci Meth (when there was nothing else left to research) took me back from about 1750 to about 1550 beakers per turn. I was getting more than 10 % of my total research from monasteries.

Still I don't see what's the rush to get to Theology (AP can wait for a while, economy can't), so I'd say it would be best to both build the shrine, get CoL from oracle, and delay Theology.

Because if you get it early one of your neighbors that shares your state religion will not only pay handsomely for it (I can typically get Currency and some gold for it) but in addition will start building the AP and you'll benefit from it for free !!!

It varies, sometimes it goes 2400BC, sometimes 1000BC. On average I'd say about 1800BC.

Wow. Good to know.

[slnz]

Before Currency, if you do not build Great Shrines, I simply do not understand where do you get the money from, to be able to afford expansion while keeping your reasearch rate high. What is the secret recipe I'm missing ? How can you pay for 4 or 5 cities before Currency and without Great Shrines while keeping your slider at 80-90% research ? I, for one, haven't managed this feat yet. This is why I'm expanding more slowly.

Forget the 80-90% slider. A slider above 50% (in the early-earlymid game) usually means I haven't been able to expand as much as I had liked. Again, even 0% is perfectly acceptable if you have Pottery and Writing. Whip Libraries, run scientists to crawl to Aes(to trade for Alpha)/Alpha, then you can build Research to reach Currency, and then Wealth to reach CoL.

Land = power. It's the by far the hardest resource to get and it's way easier to get it by settling than warfare. Remember, 10% of 500 is more than 90% of 50... Less cities might make you more comfortable techwise early game, but you will start to fall behind... All the shrines in the world don't help that much after they boost you to 100%.

You lost me here. What is WE/SSE ?

An acronym for Wonder Economy or Settled Specialist Economy, a strategy where you focus 100% on and in the capital, build a ton of wonders while running max specialists when there's no wonders to build. Almost all GPs are settled in the capital, except for a GS who makes an Academy there and possibly 1-3 GSs who bulb Edu and Philo. An early Edu is critical for getting Oxford ASAP (before 1000AD) to benefit from all those settled GPs, and so is early Representation from either 'Mids or Constitution taken with Lib. It's not unusual for a capital like this to give close to 1000 beakers when nearing the lategame.

I love monasteries. They are cheap and potentially very powerful because you can build plenty of them. In my current Immortal game getting Sci Meth (when there was nothing else left to research) took me back from about 1750 to about 1550 beakers per turn. I was getting more than 10 % of my total research from monasteries.

Because if you get it early one of your neighbors that shares your state religion will not only pay handsomely for it (I can typically get Currency and some gold for it) but in addition will start building the AP and you'll benefit from it for free !!!

Well, I've stated my opinion on strategies relying on religions often enough I'd love to see writeups of successful religion-driven strategies on Immortal+ though. Can always learn something new.

[talha the turk]

metal casting rulez dudes...

[Ming]

True enough... if you are doing a sea based economy, MC is a good one to take. It's almost a lead pipe sinch to get Colossus.

[Dinner]

Sea based economy? Hell, Forges are one of the things I put in every city like a library and an aqueduct.

[sorinache]

Aqueducts are not nearly as useful as they used to be back in Civ 2. I'd rather strive to acquire a couple more resources and then build granaries and, later, harbors. My cities are 16-20 in pop when I start to need aqueducts.

[sorinache]

Forget the 80-90% slider. A slider above 50% (in the early-earlymid game) usually means I haven't been able to expand as much as I had liked. Again, even 0% is perfectly acceptable if you have Pottery and Writing. Whip Libraries, run scientists to crawl to Aes(to trade for Alpha)/Alpha, then you can build Research to reach Currency, and then Wealth to reach CoL.

That sounds awfully slow. I suspect that if I do that, by the time I reached CoL, Gengis Khan will visit me with Riflemen ...

Land = power. It's the by far the hardest resource to get and it's way easier to get it by settling than warfare. Remember, 10% of 500 is more than 90% of 50...

I heard that many times, but I believe it to be a fallacy. It implies that the time and effort I spend in order to keep my slider at 90% would, used differently, allow me to go to a basis of 500 instead, which to me sounds very, very untrue. I am, for instance, at 90% of 50 around 300 BC (give or take) on Emperor and Immortal. I frankly can't imagine how one can generate 500 basis commerce around that time.

Less cities might make you more comfortable techwise early game, but you will start to fall behind... All the shrines in the world don't help that much after they boost you to 100%.

Well, that is also untrue. On one hand, if I'm at 90 - 100% I consider expanding. If that is not easily achievable then I concentrate on expanding the basis to which the 100% applies - such as building monasteries but also simply growing (which means not whipping). A coastal city size 20 can have commercial routes bringing 10 each, unlike a smaller city. Since growing also increases maintenance cost, the shrines do help by letting me keep the slider at 100%. As I said, I've already won at Emperor level while playing most of the game with no more than 3 - 5 cities, so it's achievable. I would be surprised if going to Immortal would imply completely ditching my "builder" strategy rather than simply tuning it a little.

An acronym for Wonder Economy or Settled Specialist Economy, a strategy where you focus 100% on and in the capital, build a ton of wonders while running max specialists when there's no wonders to build. Almost all GPs are settled in the capital, except for a GS who makes an Academy there and possibly 1-3 GSs who bulb Edu and Philo. An early Edu is critical for getting Oxford ASAP (before 1000AD) to benefit from all those settled GPs, and so is early Representation from either 'Mids or Constitution taken with Lib. It's not unusual for a capital like this to give close to 1000 beakers when nearing the lategame.

Wow. That is a lot, but I beleive it to be achievable, especially when adding Aluminium Inc. + Standard Ethanol in the mix ...

Well, I've stated my opinion on strategies relying on religions often enough I'd love to see writeups of successful religion-driven strategies on Immortal+ though. Can always learn something new.

As soon as I'll manage one ) For the moment I'm nearing my first victory on Immortal, and I haven't used a religion-driven strategy. Playing Fred II on Earth, I believe the critical ingredients were the fact that I managed to settle (ah, it vindicates you ! in France before Julius Caesar (which gave me Iberia as well and forced him to go settle to the East, thus "buffering" me against all the others) and the fact that the Earth map is so rich in resources (which I believe a human uses better than an AI). The London site is especially amazingly rich : two cows, two wheat (one in France), horses, stone, two dye (one in France), clam ...

Critical of course was also the fact that I managed to stand my ground in front of the Roman legions of praetorians. German Mellee Axemen fortified on hill tops pretty much did it.

The only religion I founded was Taoism (bulbed it) but it wasn't for lack of trying : I was beaten to Mono despite prioritizing it and from there on I was in a bad position to claim anything else besides Tao ... But the Dai Miao did serve me very well, I was very happy I had it.

[slnz]

That sounds awfully slow. I suspect that if I do that, by the time I reached CoL, Gengis Khan will visit me with Riflemen ...

Don't look at the slider %. It's deceiving. Bpt rate at 100% is a better metric, regardless of if you can finance keeping the slider there or not. Also don't forget how strong building Wealth and Research can be at key times. You won't be in the gutter tech wise for more than a few dozen turns at most. Something's seriously wrong if you won't regain parity through Education at latest.

I heard that many times, but I believe it to be a fallacy. It implies that the time and effort I spend in order to keep my slider at 90% would, used differently, allow me to go to a basis of 500 instead, which to me sounds very, very untrue. I am, for instance, at 90% of 50 around 300 BC (give or take) on Emperor and Immortal. I frankly can't imagine how one can generate 500 basis commerce around that time.

At 1AD the economy is usually revived through Currency. An average for me might be 50% of 200 at 1AD, with a lot of possibilities for vertical growth. Best is 80% of 500 but that one had quite favorable conditions

Well, that is also untrue. On one hand, if I'm at 90 - 100% I consider expanding. If that is not easily achievable then I concentrate on expanding the basis to which the 100% applies - such as building monasteries but also simply growing (which means not whipping). A coastal city size 20 can have commercial routes bringing 10 each, unlike a smaller city. Since growing also increases maintenance cost, the shrines do help by letting me keep the slider at 100%. As I said, I've already won at Emperor level while playing most of the game with no more than 3 - 5 cities, so it's achievable. I would be surprised if going to Immortal would imply completely ditching my "builder" strategy rather than simply tuning it a little.

All these slider rules totally fark you if you don't have your early shrines. Remember, only way you can have such a slider is through direct gold sources which are few and far between (shrines, corp HQs, settled GPr/GM/GA, building Wealth). And I've never seen an Immortal game won with fewer than 6 cities at the start of the Industrial era, other than through AP cheese, and that doesn't really count... Provided Standard map size where you need 6 for the key national wonders. If you pull one off, I'd love to see a report of that.

Don't look at the slider %, look at the bpt

Wow. That is a lot, but I beleive it to be achievable, especially when adding Aluminium Inc. + Standard Ethanol in the mix ...

What do those have to do with anything? IMO they're a huge waste if you aren't in a desperate need of Aluminum/Oil... Here's a (crappy, was really lazy about micro and growing to happy cap) example of one early - it's going to steadily go up and skyrocket at Biology. Not too many wonders though... Got beaten to Paya, AW, Chicken Pizza and Taj by a few turns (some I stopped building and settled for the failure cash). Oh, and if you do this try to avoid what I had to do here (=build a GA wonder other than NE in the capital).

Spoiler:

As soon as I'll manage one ) For the moment I'm nearing my first victory on Immortal, and I haven't used a religion-driven strategy. Playing Fred II on Earth, I believe the critical ingredients were the fact that I managed to settle (ah, it vindicates you ! in France before Julius Caesar (which gave me Iberia as well and forced him to go settle to the East, thus "buffering" me against all the others) and the fact that the Earth map is so rich in resources (which I believe a human uses better than an AI). The London site is especially amazingly rich : two cows, two wheat (one in France), horses, stone, two dye (one in France), clam ...

Critical of course was also the fact that I managed to stand my ground in front of the Roman legions of praetorians. German Mellee Axemen fortified on hill tops pretty much did it.

The only religion I founded was Taoism (bulbed it) but it wasn't for lack of trying : I was beaten to Mono despite prioritizing it and from there on I was in a bad position to claim anything else besides Tao ... But the Dai Miao did serve me very well, I was very happy I had it.

The Earth map is a joke from a difficulty PoV. A Monarch player can easily beat it at Immortal if he starts in Europe and just axerushes Rome, France, Spain and England. The AIs don't even have Immortal starting units IIRC. Don't use that scenario as a measurement of difficulty level I advocate plain good old Fractal/Random starts.

[sorinache]

Don't look at the slider %. It's deceiving. Bpt rate at 100% is a better metric, regardless of if you can finance keeping the slider there or not. Also don't forget how strong building Wealth and Research can be at key times.

??? Building wealth and research doesn't go through the respective % modifiers. How powerful can that be ? I'm puzzled

You won't be in the gutter tech wise for more than a few dozen turns at most. Something's seriously wrong if you won't regain parity through Education at latest.

I have an Immortal game with random start where I'll be able to survive (though I'll probably finish first before last at best). Now in this game I managed to climb back somewhat and overtake, tech-wise, the two most backwards Civs, Justinian and Gilgamesh. This happened at a stage where the map was covered, so nobody was expanding anymore. There weren't border-moving wars either (Justinian was weak militarily, Gilgamesh had lots of military but was backward in tech). Pure city development within almost fixed borders, the part I'm strongest at. So it made sense to me : everybody's borders are fixed so the tech rate depends on how well each civ is developing its territory and cities. I'm good at it, hence I'm catching up on the slowest Civs in terms of tech ...

Then I noticed something strange : these guys do not have money and have nothing to trade with the other AIs for their tech. Given the conditions, my tech advantage over them, once they were overtaken, should have kept growing. Yet instead of this happening, they somehow staged a come back. It was the first game I've seen something like this happening (and at the time my first game at Immortal where I managed to stay in the game so late). I look at their cities and they didn't seem to have blossomed in the meanwhile. I was developing as fast as I could. Yet they claimed back the lost terrain (tech wise). I have no idea how that is at all possible (apart from cheating) and I'll probably have to open the WorldBuilder to understand. has anyone seen this phenomenon before ? An AI that, during complete peacetime, manages to come back from behind after being overtaken ?

At 1AD the economy is usually revived through Currency. An average for me might be 50% of 200 at 1AD, with a lot of possibilities for vertical growth. Best is 80% of 500 but that one had quite favorable conditions

All these slider rules totally fark you if you don't have your early shrines. Remember, only way you can have such a slider is through direct gold sources which are few and far between (shrines, corp HQs, settled GPr/GM/GA, building Wealth). And I've never seen an Immortal game won with fewer than 6 cities at the start of the Industrial era, other than through AP cheese, and that doesn't really count... Provided Standard map size where you need 6 for the key national wonders. If you pull one off, I'd love to see a report of that.

Well I wouldn't even try for the moment - I said 3-5 cities till "late" on Emperor - this is coherent with 6 at the start of the Industrial era on Immortal

What do those have to do with anything? IMO they're a huge waste if you aren't in a desperate need of Aluminum/Oil...

Well, we were talking about 1000 bpt capitals and these both provide beakers ... I do not usually build either but since I'm playing now on Earth and have an easy time, I did found St. Eth. I didn't know what else to do with the GS ... his 2 - 3 000 beakers are less than I'm producing per turn and late techs cost in the 15 000 so it seemed useless to bulb ... I already built Academies where it was worth doing so ... settling when there are probably less than 100 turns left didn't seem wise either and I needed 3 other great persons for a Golden Age ... So ... a huge waste of WHAT exactly ??? As Standard Ethanol, the GS is bringing 14 base beakers per city per turn (28 beakers with modifiers). Aluminium Inc would have brought even more. As it happens my army is big enough and my cities are fully developed, so the hammers "wasted" on building St. Eth. reps. wouldn't have served a more interesting purpose IMO ... Once I expand St. Eth. to my current 35 cities I'll get 980 beakers per turn, which is 25 - 30 % of my current, pre- St. Eth. science output. I have a hard time seeing how that can be qualified as wasteful ...

Here's a (crappy, was really lazy about micro and growing to happy cap) example of one early - it's going to steadily go up and skyrocket at Biology. Not too many wonders though... Got beaten to Paya, AW, Chicken Pizza and Taj by a few turns (some I stopped building and settled for the failure cash). Oh, and if you do this try to avoid what I had to do here (=build a GA wonder other than NE in the capital).

I've never had such a favorable start on Immortal ... Marble in my BFC ??? Only on the Earth map I've seen this. Even on Emperor I NEVER got marble nor stone in my capital BFC and only seldom had it in my expansion radius. And I played about 20 emperor games in BtS. 5 resources plus horses nearby ??? What MOD is this that you are playing ? Anyway, with such lucky starts it's no wonder it's going well for you

Frankly, I have a hard time believing this is an Immortal game, given the way you talk about emphasizing expansion - how can a non-Industrious leader without stone get both the Great Wall and the Pyramids on Immortal while expanding fast, it's beyond me.

The Earth map is a joke from a difficulty PoV. A Monarch player can easily beat it at Immortal if he starts in Europe and just axerushes Rome, France, Spain and England. The AIs don't even have Immortal starting units IIRC. Don't use that scenario as a measurement of difficulty level I advocate plain good old Fractal/Random starts.

I'll try that next, but my past attempts were unsuccessful. What MOD is it that you are playing ? Because on standard BtS I usually get 3 lousy resources in my capital BFC (typically a combination of clam, cow, maize and / or rice ...)