Ancient Era- REXing Vs Wonders

[j_wedd]

I am playing PtW on Emporer level on a huge panagaea. I am REXing as much as possible.

I need an expert player to advise me on how to get the Pyramids and the Great Library whilst not compromising the REX stategy too much.

[vmxa1]

Don't know about the epxert part, I will leave that for others. But in that map I would maybe have 2 or 3 camps. After they were up I would switch my capitol to a wonder or prebuild. You would need
to have something that could hold the shields until you have the tech for the wonder.
Using my camps, I would get as many workers as I could use to mine tiles for the capitol. You could even go so far as to add workers to the city to grow it faster.
This may or may not be needed. Check the F7 to see if anyone is building it already.
The GL is not a big problem to get if you want to go for it, the Pyramids could be tricky. Did you start with the knowledge of it or not. Do you have good location or not? Are neighbors close by and are they going to get hostile, such as Bismark.
Do I have a lux hooked up, a temple in place already? These are important to me for a GL run as I can get away with more citizens working tiles. If I don't have any bonus grass or forrest it will make things harder. A hill with bonus shields is a big bost if I have it and can get away with using it.

[j_wedd]

VMXA 1, thanks for your suggestions.

I always pick good/adequate start locations. Restarting if necessary.

I usually choose to play Cathage as I like their attributes (industrious and commercial) and their Numidian Warriors make a tough, flexible military force. Sometimes I play as France, very similar to Carthage.

Almost inevitably one of my neighbours will be hostile - Zulu, Aztec, German, Chinese, Celts etc.

Unfortuately Carthage does not start with the tech for the Pyramids.

The Pyramids seem almost impossible to get because the competing Civs are also very keen to secure the benefits for themselves.

The Pyramids seem to be the best Ancient Wonder because of the boost to growth at this crucial time in the early game. The extra culture is also nice.

[vmxa1]

Huge map is 400, emp is 8 and pottery is 2.
So it is 2 x 400 = 800
800/8 = 100
Ignoring contacts and number of civs and just using the raw 100, how many beakers can you generate each turn? So lets say it took you about 23 turns to learn pottery.

That is plenty of time, you will not see anyone starting the Pyramids by then. If you get some workers (2) to get mines in the city, you should be able to beat the AI to it, if you want it that much.

If other things are more pressing, then it starts to get tight. I have built it at Demi, but I did have pottery as a starting tech.

I have not tried to build it at any higher levels and the few games I have played I would not have been able to do it.

I do not always get or even attempt to at Emperor as other events get in the way. Things like less than optimal start location, an early war are the main reasons.

So I would look at my timing of the switch to a prebuild and the use of my work force. One of them is the thing that is breaking down, given a decent start location.

Most likely not getting tiles improved in a timely fashion and growing the wonder city up fast enough.