Early pyramid construction

[rah]

"250x120 square maps... "
Well that's obviously your problem

and to think that for four person MP games we use 39x49. A slightly different game.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

MUCH different, I'm sure.

In SP, you need to give the AI time and space to expand for them to be any kind of challenge.. or even entertainment.

On a 39x49 map, I expect non-OCC SP games would be over in a half hour or so

[War4ever]

actually i enjoy large maps when it comes to sp....and boats are always necessary...

your right, those giga maps can take awhile to find all the contestants....

its only mp where i play small or med worlds

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

When you think about it, a 250x120 map has 30000 tiles... moving a ship with vision 1 6 tiles in a straight line will uncover about 3 tiles per move, or 18 tiles... With only one ship, it would take @1700 turns to uncover the whole map that way (if its mostly water)

Or with a mostly land map and explorers, it would take @3400 turns... gotta build a LOT of exploring ships

Or maybe I should have worked a bit harder to get Marco Polo

[rah]

And then if you're playing restarting civs..............

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Not usually an issue... I've never won by conquest on a big gigamap before 1500. For others it might be, though.

The only time I turn off restarting civs consistently is on small/medium maps.

[Old n Slow]

When I first started playing, I went for the Pyramids first & the Library next. Now years later, I’m in 2nd gear with the Colossus & SSC as a primary strategy.

At Prince level, it is not much of an issue, since I focus on and often achieve building all the wonders. At king I’ll typically get 5 of the ancients, and all the rest. At deity, I’ll sometimes only get one, and if so, I’d like a good SSC. As a perfectionist sort of player, HG hasn’t hit me yet (I’m usually late on getting around to Pottery as well). The second wonder for me at Emperor or Diety is probably Marco’s since I often go for Trade soon after Monarchy.

After that it is usually a rush for a bunch of wonders (Shakes, KRC, Sun Tsu, Mike’s, Leo’s, Magellan’s and whatever remaining Ancients laying around), not to mention potential visits from barbs and neighbors.

So I guess, my thought would best be limited to Emperor level -- and Pyramids would get the nod as the third to fifth wonder built/acquired.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Old n Slow

So I guess, my thought would best be limited to Emperor level -- and Pyramids would get the nod as the third to fifth wonder built/acquired.

Pyramids are a good play on lower levels - they're quite handy at Prince level for getting early growth in Despo/Monarchy, since unhappiness isn't an issue. I agree, on the higher levels it's 3rd to 5th among the ancient wonders. By the time I've built 3 wonders, some of the early Renaissance wonders are there for the taking, and Pyramids seldom gets built by me.

On Deity (and perhaps Emperor as well), you might find HG a better first option than Colossus. It's an instant celebration at size 3 - and in Monarchy that's the same effect as Colossus, basically. I used to be a Colossus-first kind of guy, but HG is just too good for getting a bunch of cities down and keeping them content. More cities = more production, and you can usually get Colossus as well. HG+Colossus is a great combination.

[Campo]

STYOM is exactly right. I usually get both HG and Colossus, but if I had to choose one it would be HG. He mentioned the celebrations and extra production. More cities also lets you devote more settlers to improving your SCC tiles so it can grow faster.

Old n Slow (I can relate to the name, BTW), you ought to try a rush to HG in a diety game. Then maybe put down more cities than you usually do and see what you can do with them. I'm not an ICS'er, but I do like to get down 10 or so cities early and build them all up. At diety HG helps a lot.

[War4ever]

for its price in MP, any of the wonders that are 200 shields are all great.....pyramids if used properly in mp can delay republic for many turns in order to raise that army of vet cats and pike....

i love pyramids and mixed with HG spells certain trouble for other players, the growth and regrowth is astronomical.

but as history changes, so to does strategy....what we all used to do and what we do now are two completely different stories.

that in itself is the beauty of this game, it continually evolves...and you either evolve and survive or you get squashed like abug

[rah]

It changes because if it doesn't, you become predictable and more beatable. But some strats come and go in circles. It's always nice to slip into that comfortable jacket (strat) that used to work until they figured it out, but now they've stopped guarding against it because you've moved on.

RAH
If that made any sense.

[DrSpike]

Perfect sense.

Not to knock civ2, cos it's a great game, but there aren't many players left now, and even at it's height it was not as popular as some games. The evolution Rah alludes to can be seen much more starkly in games with 100,000s of players.

Trends in strategies worldwide are driven in part by watchable replays, but it still never ceases to amaze me how strong trends can be. When you come up with a strat that was popular a few months back (and may in fairness be just that slightly bit inferior to the new flavour of the month) you often surprise your opponent, which counts for far more than its inherent value.

[War4ever]

or vice versa Dr. Spike.....

its not so much what the new strat is , its how well you can read the situation your in and use the best strat you know for working within the constraints of your land/wonders/huts etc....

most know the basic strats, some of us have other little tricks we pull out of our sleeves to mix it up.....and of course the luck factor comes into play..

how well you adapt is how well you will do....most of the time

[rah]

Yes, judging the situation and acting accordingly is the desired outcome. But it never surprises me that some people will try to use the same forumla game after game even when the flow of the game dictates otherwise. Predictable can be beaten even from an inferior position.

[War4ever]

i am a very lazy civ player......this stems from too much single player lately and not enough MP.....

too many crashes have me pounding ai, instead of humans