Seven Pillars of Wisdom

[Konquest02]

Wonder building

Arrian: I think that if you control Theseus' Seven Pillars, you're going to build most of the wonders. Wonder building is mostly a consequence of everything else.

1) Warfare: Keep your opponents at war or crush them, and they won't be able to build wonders.

2) Research: Get first to a tech, you'll start the according wonder first, thus more chance of building it!

3) Trade and Diplo: Even better than 1). Get your opponents at war against each other and build the wonders while they focus on battle!

4) Happiness: More happy people = more people working tiles = faster building of anything (which includes wonders!)

5) Gold: Related to 2 and 4 (luxury slider).

6) Tile Working: without appropriate tile working on higher levels (monarch+), you won't get enough production to build any wonders.

7) Building: err...

If you control the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, you inevitably go towards Ultimate Power, which is IMHO, a goal to aim in every game!

--Kon--

[Alex]

Nice thread.

Some ideas:

- I think that mastering the 'seven pillars' warrants a victory for any player, but the game offers another options that are not necessarily linked to total control of all the aspects. Using the military might represents a tool that, when properly handled, can allow the player to overlook certain peculiarities of the other pillars, focusing the game on a more tactical level. Sure, every aspect is related to another aspect (a big military force needs updated units, which need advanced tech, which requires money -- both to researching and buying --, which, in turn, facilitates the maintenance of a large army in representative governments and so on), but I think that it is possible to focus in only one aspect more than in other(s).
- a victory is often achieved through the means of small things, such as building a wonder at the right time, winning a war in a quick manner, or sewing a brilliant diplomatic patchwork.

[nbarclay]

Re: Wonder building

Originally posted by Konquest02
Arrian: I think that if you control Theseus' Seven Pillars, you're going to build most of the wonders. Wonder building is mostly a consequence of everything else.

1) Warfare: Keep your opponents at war or crush them, and they won't be able to build wonders.

Too much warfare too early can easily hurt wonder prospects. As you noted later, research is important, but warfare is often at odds with building improvements that help improve the research rate. And slowing down nearby civs' wonder-building may just mean that civs farther away (and thus harder to capture wonders from) end up getting all the good ones.

Nathan

[joncnunn]

The 0% (+1 scientist) is an Emperor / Diety tactic only.

It makes no sense on the lower levels, where it's easy to get a branch lead even in the anicnt era.

Things are different on the Emperor level, where the AI has a 20% science edge. You can't possibly consitantly outresearch the AI until your Forbiden Palace is complete at this level. The techs that you can ourreserach the AI to are off the main branches of reserach and can be done in the 40 turns. In the Ancient Era, set the scince breaker as low as you can such that you still have one beaker, and pick the most expensive tech. Peroidaclly check in with other AIs to buy every tech as it comes adviable. Tech whore both techs that you buy from an AI and the ones you get for 40 beakers. (If there's few enough AIs: Polythesism & Monarchy are the best candidates for this.)

Sometime during the Middle Ages, your Forbiden Palace should be complete (along with lots of Market Places and Court Houses where needed.) Then you can start reseraching profitably along a single branch and try to keep it as close to 4 turns as possible.

The general prinicple is either go all-out for reserach (preferably along a beeline path), or else don't bother. The middle road is inferior to both.

Check in with the AI at least every 10 turns to see what techs you can buy. When you buy the techs, do it as much as possible in GPT rather than one time gold. This is because some AIs are very agressive at the Emperor level, and if they attack you while your still paying for a tech, you've gotten a discount on the price. And before you hit the "Leave or Declare War" button, always buy all the techs they have in a pure GPT deal and then hit the "Leve or Declare War" button the same turn. This gives you all their techs for free when they declare war.

[Theseus]

Wilbill: Thanks... I meant to bring that up, that learning to play and win in different ways has kept my enthusiasm for Civ3 alive. You said it well though, and I think it bears repeating time to time.

Arrian: GAs and Wonders... they go towards success in whatever Pillar(s) you are focusing on as your game strategy.

Alexnm: I think you are right on target... you don;t need ALL of the Strategic Advantages to win any given game, you just need one of the three to gain control. That said, I agree with the sentiment that learning how to achieve each of the three is important in becoming a good or excellent player.

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by joncnunn
The 0% (+1 scientist) is an Emperor / Diety tactic only.

It makes no sense on the lower levels, where it's easy to get a branch lead even in the anicnt era.

I believe they are trying to say that this is never a good strategy. Personally I still think its the way to go durning BC, but I'm open to persuasive arguements.

[Theseus]

No, I think with 1 scientist it's *okay*, but I'd rather have the citizen working. The impact of allocating 10% to research in the ancient era is minimal.

[alexman]

It depends on how much income goes to science by setting your slider to 10%. If you lose just 1, definitely go with the slider. If you lose over 3, then you probably want to consider converting a citizen in a totally corrupt city into an entertainer.

[Theseus]

Hey, PB2000, I cross-posted with you and didn't see it. Yeah, I admit, I have biases... straight-out builder is not something I've done much of, except for the AU game where we played with no military. I guess what I don;t get is, what do you to take CONTROL of the game? It's gotta be something... is it better "Production Efficiency" (in effect, 'out-building' the AI civs), maybe combined with some Machiavellian diplo strategies?

[punkbass2000]

I must admit control is usually taken via ToE.

[joncnunn]

I actually start with 20% until I have a city with enough worked road tiles to where it will have 1 beaker with 10%.

Then I switch to 10% as soon as I can do with while still having 1 beaker.

Later, when the empire has enough worked tiles to where 3+ beakers would be used at 10%, then the slider is dropped to 0% and a citizen in a corrupt city turned to a scientist.

Originally posted by Theseus
No, I think with 1 scientist it's *okay*, but I'd rather have the citizen working. The impact of allocating 10% to research in the ancient era is minimal.

[Dominae]

I've been concerned with the "10% Science" line of thought that I've been running into on 'Poly. Isn't it sometimes better to go 90% to get that tech sooner. In my recent games as the Carthaginians, I try to research Bronze Working ASAP, for obvious reasons. Usually (depending on the start location), putting Science at 10% or 20% gives me Bronze Working in 30 or 40 turns, but putting it all the way to 90% brings it down to 23 turns. Of course the exact numbers change once I start building Settlers and new cities pop up, but those early beakers don't go to waste! Can anyone explain to me why hovering around 10% in the early game is best?


Dominae

[joncnunn]

Note that this low reserach in is purely for the Emperor level (and Diety)

Polythesism is a very expensive ancient era tech. You don't knock that many turns off the reserach with an all out effort to get it on a pure bee-line compared with reseraching it for 40 turns at 10% from the time you buy Mystism. If the AI does beat you, and you end up buying it, it's no big loss.

[ducki]

On Regent/Monarch, I often drop my research rate to 30% for the first tech.

My reasoning is that if I go down to 20%, I don't save any extra money or go any slower, if I go to 10%, I don't get any research done, and more than likely, I'm going to buy/trade for most of the first level techs before I've had time to finish researching one; but on the off chance that I'm alone, I still want to get some research done.

After the first round of trades, then and only then do I have a clear picture of where I can research and hopefully get a lead, or at least a tradeable commodity, at which point I can decide whether to increase or decrease research.

With PtW, like I said earlier, though, I am getting outresearched by the AI as though I were the village idiot and they are all reincarnations of Einstein and Aristotle.
It's definitely got me started looking at different strategies for ancient research that don't entail constant war.

[ThePlagueRat]

sorry, wrong thread