Ducki Does C3C at Emperor

[Dominae]

Doc, I agree with you that less-experienced players use Wonders as "crutches", or at least think they're not competitive if they do not build a Wonder or three in the Ancient era. But this is different from claiming that the Pyramids or the Great Library are not useful Wonders... useful enough to be at the core of your strategy, depending on the scenario.

I think you can justify the Pyramids even on Standard-size maps. With a very good start my strategy (similar to Aeson's) would be to get a couple of cities up quickly, then use one to support the other in building the Wonder. There's no reason why the first or second city could not build a Granary itself to help in this regard; the efficiency of an early Granary is not wasted when the Pyramids get built, if that Granary helped secure the Pyarmids in the first place.

Other points that I agree with: vxma1's about the need for scouting to determine what's the best course of actions, and Aeson's (again) about denying Granaries to the AI (the AI is horrible at exploiting Food...the Pyramids are the best Wonder it could possibly have).


Dominae

[DrSpike]

I didn't say they weren't useful, not once. I said that my impression was that they were seen as more useful than they actually are. Hence I emphasised the other side of the coin, since I feel it needs emphasising.

If you can justify the shields (and sometimes you can) then all power to you. I just make the suggestion that players should really feel that building the wonder is the best way forward given all the settings and the general gameplan.

[ducki]

I agree with everybody. Until Doc pointed out justifying the shield cost, I'd never done the math on the GP versus a Granary and Settlers. It was eye-opening, to say the least, and shows me that I should probably "never" convert my pump to a wonder city if there's still a need to pump.
"Never" being a fuzzy term.

[vmxa1]

It is alway good to see how others approach things and to see if what you are doing is in the ball park. It also helps to be forced to evaluate your concepts.

Speaking of such, are you about to conclude the coastal threead Dom?

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Doc
I didn't say they weren't useful, not once. I said that my impression was that they were seen as more useful than they actually are. Hence I emphasised the other side of the coin, since I feel it needs emphasising.

Then I misunderstood you, my bad.

[ducki]

Originally posted by vmxa1
It also helps to be forced to evaluate your concepts.

This is precisely why I love reading and posting here. I don't mind sounding like a total "newb" if it means I'll learn something. This thread alone has done more for my C3 skills than any other single chunk of information I can remember and it all stemmed from an off-hand remark by a couple of the vets.

Sure, sometimes I look like an idiot, but I'm cool with that.

[Arrian]

I was toying around with trying to build the Pyramids, using my 2nd city for that purpose, in a nice easy Monarch level game I had a nice capital spot, but not one ideally suited for a granary (+4fpt), so I didn't build one, and instead built a barracks and fit troops inbetween settlers. Bab bowmen are excellent barb hunters. Anyway, the AI built the Pyramids in 1125bc. I don't know exactly what happened in this example, since normally the Pyramids don't get built until a tad later (900-800bc) on that level of play.

But regardless, it illustrates another element to all of this: the risk of investing heavily in building the Pyramids, and losing them. The AI is wonder crazed. It will start building wonders early and often, which is actually great for an opportunistic human that is foregoing wonders and building military or even just regular city improvements like markets and libraries. But it means that competing for major wonders can be brutal, and the Pyramids might be the worst of all.

-Arrian

[DrSpike]

Absolutely! Games can be ruined by going for a wonder and missing it. You'll end up with something sucky.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Arrian
I was toying around with trying to build the Pyramids, using my 2nd city for that purpose, in a nice easy Monarch level game. I had a nice capital spot, but not one ideally suited for a granary (+4fpt), so I didn't build one, and instead built a barracks and fit troops inbetween settlers. Bab bowmen are excellent barb hunters. Anyway, the AI built the Pyramids in 1125bc. I don't know exactly what happened in this example, since normally the Pyramids don't get built until a tad later (900-800bc) on that level of play.

I would like to see you try it again using both cities to help the Pyramids effort. No offense, but it sounds to me like you wanted to fail...

Edit: I'm not arguing against your point mind you; going for an early Wonder is never a sure thing if you're on the right difficulty level. But that's what keeps things interesting!

It's possible that the AI rushed the Pyramids with an SGL. That is definitely a weakness of the early-Wonder gambit. SGLs should not appear before Literature.


Dominae

[ducki]

I was thinking that skipping the granary might have been a subconscious blip. +4 food is still magnified to an effective +8 with the granary, and you'd have been able to sprint the population in the Pyramids town to it's max rather quickly to push your shield production.

Not that I'm criticising. Hell, I still haven't managed to wrap my brain around using a worker pump just to transfer population in-game. Theoretically, I can see how brilliant it is. In practice, something's holding me back. I just need to throw some switch up there, like you guys did explaining the pumps in the first place.

How about posting a sav and we can see if anyone can get the Pyramids before the AI?

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Dominae


I would like to see you try it again using both cities to help the Pyramids effort. No offense, but it sounds to me like you wanted to fail...

Edit: I'm not arguing against your point mind you; going for an early Wonder is never a sure thing if you're on the right difficulty level. But that's what keeps things interesting!

It's possible that the AI rushed the Pyramids with an SGL. That is definitely a weakness of the early-Wonder gambit. SGLs should not appear before Literature.

Dominae

I did not want to fail, Dom. I was seriously bummed when I lost the race. Trying for the Pyramids is something I very rarely do, so I'm not accustomed to it. That probably means I'm not very good at it. And keep in mind that you're a better player in general.

What happened was that, given a +4fpt capable capital, I chose NOT to build a granary, and thus my pop growth was limited. 5-turn growth in the capital. IIRC, I was going spearman-settler-bowman-spearman-settler for a while. No workers for boosting pop in other cities.

In retrospect, I should have built a granary. +4food with a granary isn't very efficient, but it's still decent and since on Monarch one can get to Republic very quickly (CoL first, then Philo, Rep as free tech), the irrigated grassland cow I had would've gotten an extra fpt, and the city would have jumped to +5fpt not too far down the road. Though I think in most cases on that difficulty level I would have gotten the Pyramids on that map. The Spanish did something out of the ordinary to build the Pyramids in 1125bc. It could have been an SGL, sure.

I actually tried twice, by the way. The second game was strangely similar: I had a river capital with 1 grass cow, for +4fpt. Didn't build granary. My 2nd city went for the Pyramids. The Inca beat me handily.

I could have cut out some builds in that 2nd city to tighten up the race (the city went warrior-worker-temple-Pyramids). But I still would have lost. I don't remember the date of completion, but they beat me by a lot. Part of it was that the 2nd city didn't have a lot of bonus production tiles. Part of it was that I didn't boost its pop with workers from elsewhere.

Given a +5fpt capital, I could build a granary and run 2-turn workers for ~10 turns and just pump up that second city, hardly missing a beat in my normal REX. With a +4fpt city lacking a granary, I cannot. It would mean seriously curtailing that REX. And then we get into opportunity cost of the wonder.

I'm feeling my way through this. I'd like to see if I can pull of building the Pyramids while still doing a reasonable REX, and figure out the best way of doing that. Clearly I haven't thrown enough resources at the wonder city, and that has hurt me. I will try more, fear not.

I just got kicked off the computer after my second attempt, so my gf could go invade the Celts (which went badly - both of us had a frustrating night of civ).

-Arrian

[Aeson]

If the AI build the Pyramids by 1125BC on Monarch that is either an SGL or a godly start position.

I've never been beaten to the Pyramids (I don't try to build them on Deity or Sid of course), but it can happen. You just got very very unlucky. I would say it's comparable to when the volcano goes off and destroys a similar number of shields of units...

There is risk whatever you go for.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by ducki
I was thinking that skipping the granary might have been a subconscious blip. +4 food is still magnified to an effective +8 with the granary, and you'd have been able to sprint the population in the Pyramids town to it's max rather quickly to push your shield production.

Not that I'm criticising. Hell, I still haven't managed to wrap my brain around using a worker pump just to transfer population in-game. Theoretically, I can see how brilliant it is. In practice, something's holding me back. I just need to throw some switch up there, like you guys did explaining the pumps in the first place.

How about posting a sav and we can see if anyone can get the Pyramids before the AI?

Agreed on the first bit. Should've built the granary and transferred pop to the Pyramids city.

Speaking of pop transfer... I struggled with that concept as well. Then I started a game (PTW) as the French, and made a concious decision to: 1) ignore wonders; 2) stick with the pump far longer than I normally would - resisting the urge to switch to improvements. I fished for a +5fpt site, got it, and played. The rest of my land was so-so at best. I held firm and left Paris pumping 2-turn workers for a long while, and added workers all over the place.

My empire wasn't wonderous. It wasn't particularly cultured. But it sure as hell was competitive - more so, I feel, than it would have been given that same terrain and my normal approach. It was instructive.

I don't play that way all the time, though. There is always a time when I cave in and switch my pump over to building improvements, even when I could still be moving pop out to surrounding cities. What I've gotten a bit better with is the method of shutting off the pump. I now try to remember to spit out 5 extra workers so I can immediately boost the city to size12. The workers fix up the terrain (maximizing production) and then join the city.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Aeson
If the AI build the Pyramids by 1125BC on Monarch that is either an SGL or a godly start position.

I've never been beaten to the Pyramids (I don't try to build them on Deity or Sid of course), but it can happen. You just got very very unlucky. I would say it's comparable to when the volcano goes off and destroys a similar number of shields of units...

There is risk whatever you go for.

Yes, so very hot of the RNG.

I know 1125bc on Monarch is unusual. But it probably isn't so unusual on Emperor, is it? And that's really more relevent, I feel. I chose Monarch so I could play around with it, almost like "sandbox" mode - because I'm super comfortable on that level. But Emp is really where the cost-benifit-risk analysis gets interesting, I think.

-Arrian

p.s. You don't get beat to the Pyramids because you're the AI's worst nightmare incarnate.

[Aeson]

I've seen Agricultural civs with very good starts on Emperor hit 1050BC. Never seen a build earlier than that, but with SGL's it could be very early on any difficulty I suppose. I'm not sure how the AI uses SGL's though, anyone?

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Here is a 'bad' (not terrible) Monarch start for going for the Pyramids. By bad I mean Mongols (no Ag, no Ind, no Masonry), no bonus food unless you wander a bit, and neighbors with pretty good terrain. I normally wouldn't build the Pyramids on this map, but if you like a small empire with massive population, it's a good choice here. Pyramids followed up by a conquest on this map may be the 'best' option in a Jason score sense, but probably not a QSC one. Fastest Spaceship/Diplomatic/20k type of game most definitely. Anything worse than this start, and you just don't want to build the Pyramids I'd think. You can do it without a fresh water source (I finished at size ~7.5), but it would be pushing it. You need 4-5 tiles of 2 production (no more than 2 being Forests).

I ran through quickly with no preplanning and built the Pyramids at 1350BC in my capitol (moved out to the coast, so no bonus food). First building a Granary and a Settler (probably should have reversed that, building a Settler then a Granary, or just not build the Granary at all). Didn't add a single Worker to do it. Your expansion will be slow, but not much slower than REXing regularly if you don't push quite so hard towards the Pyramids like I did. No one on my continent had even started building it by the time I finished. IIRC Monarch tends to finish the Pyramids ~800-600BC most of the time.