Pyramids

[asleepathewheel]

I voted no to the pyramids. I don't particularly care for the wonder, and I certainly hate blowing the GA like that.

IMHO, it would be cheaper just to build grainaries in each city, since the continent isn't that large anyway.


I would prefer building the lighthouse, as that may be our only chance off this rock for a while.

[OPD]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the pyramids cost 400 shields and each stlr costs 30 sheilds. Allowing for the building of a granary first so as not to be limited by pop so much and giving some allowance for the extra production that would be possible with a higher pop due to not building any stlrs. (which wouldn't be too big a deal as pop would be limited by disorder anyway). Then I'd say we could build 8 cities in the time it would take to build the pyramids.

Building stlrs and having a reduced pop would loose trade but building the pyramids would tie up our capital for a long time and we would loose some flexibility should something unexpected happen.

If it is as simple as this then I'd prefer teh 8 cities.

Do we have enough space. I dunno but we'd need alot of cities for the pyramids to be viable anyway.


(On another point I know I'm wrong but I always thought you needed a GW from both of your civ qualities to get a GA??)

[DeepO]

*sigh*
I guess I needed to do some more campaigning before starting this poll... I guess this is the result from trying to be overly unbiased

Question: how many cities with granaries do you need to offset the pyramids costs.
Answer: not 6.7 like the shield count would suggest (400 shields for the pyramids, 60 for a granary), but a whole lot more.

With the pyramids, you do not need to build the granaries, you gain them for free. So, you don't need to spend 60 shields, but instead can use those shields to build settlers. 1 granary is equal to 2 settlers in shield cost, and with our terrain, it is more or less true that those settlers can be built by the time a city reaches size 3.

So, when in scenario A (without pyramids) you finally start on your first settler in a city, in scenario B (with pyramids) you have built 2 settlers already, and the city from the first settler has built another settler itself. So, one free granary gives you 3 cities extra. These 3 cities have granaries as well, further exploding the calculation.

You can see where this is going: instead of being able to build 1 settler after 90 shields in the initial city, you can build 7 settlers. After 120 shields, you don't have 2 settlers and one granary in progress, but have 14. And so on. The benefits are huge, certainly when you don't need to commit much resources to defense (which is our case, as long as we don't meet another team).

Also, I like the Collossus as well, and will always try to build it in SP on Emperor (as the pryamids aren't possible with AIs), but what is best: 1 city with approximately double commerce, or triple the amount of cities?

Okay, corruption is counteracting the benefits you gain from the pyramids, but I am sure that within 40 turns after building the pyramids we can have double the amount of cities of the next team, and thus gain loads of benefits. And these effects continue until we can't grow anymore in all our cities.

DeepO

[DeepO]

OPD, that calculation doesn't really hold: you can't build 8 settlers in the same city that builds the pyramids, more like 2 or so (which I conviently forgot to inlude in the above calculation, after all I'm trying to proof my point ). The reason for this is that settlers are mostly limited by popgrowth, and not by shield cost. The pyramids would take around 40 turns to complete, by which time you could at most build two, possibly 3 cities.

Further, we wouldn't build it in our capital, but in the city (at site #2, see placement proposal) we get from settling our christmas gift. Thus, if it needs to be, we can still switch to the lighthouse or the colossus if we miss the pyramids.

DeepO

[nbarclay]

I think this poll is premature. We need hard data for what our expansion could look like both with and without the Pyramids. Otherwise, any votes cast are based on speculation rather than on clear knowledge.

I would like to ask that we take close to the full 24 hours allowed for our next turn to maximize the time available for testing, unless we have time to do the necessary testing before then. This is too important a decision to get wrong, and whether we build the Pyramids or not determines whether site 2 (Pyramids) or the modified site 13 (settler pump) is a better place for our free settler.

By the way, I'm withholding my vote for the time being precisely because I don't have sufficient data to feel like I know whether building the Pyramids would be a good idea or not.

Nathan

[alva]

the score is still
5 against
5 for
1 perhaps

I voted for, I know the games where I was able to get it (usually trough conquering it), went alot smother after it

[DeepO]

Nathan: I'll offer it again: if you have a save I can use, please forward it, and tell me what you want tested. I can't promise when I have time to test it, but tonight shouldn't be a problem. Atm I'm working on something else, unluckily this discussion is already taking up a large part of my time. But hey, this is exiting

DeepO

[OPD]

As with everything it depends on teh situation, how much room do we have etc.

Originally posted by DeepO
but I am sure that within 40 turns after building the pyramids we can have double the amount of cities of the next team, and thus gain loads of benefits. And these effects continue until we can't grow anymore in all our cities.
DeepO

The pyramids will make us great if there is enough room. But is there? I dunno?

I remember a similar discussion in the DG.

[Randolph]

Some more 2 cents (I hope I’m helping, and not hurting the cause )

Testing certainly would be nice if someone really wants to invest that type of time (I certainly can't, as I don't have access to Civ at all). We do have several turns before the choice become critical, so I don't really see a need to delay the game (I really think we should do our part to keep the game moving quickly, even if it means having to make untested calls).

Good analysis DeepO, that was exactly my line of thought (although obviously not as worked out). If my estimations are right it shouldn’t be a matter of Pyramids vs. expansion, but the pyramids simply optimizing our ability to expand (REX). And since expansion seems to be the consensus “optimal strategy” at the moment, the pyramids would seem an optimal choice (yes tested would need to be done to confirm this).

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by DeepO
Nathan: I'll offer it again: if you have a save I can use, please forward it, and tell me what you want tested. I can't promise when I have time to test it, but tonight shouldn't be a problem. Atm I'm working on something else, unluckily this discussion is already taking up a large part of my time. But hey, this is exiting

I won't be able to do any testing until this evening myself. Whichever of us gets a scenario set up first certainly needs to send it to the other one and to the GS mailbox, and then we can discuss our experiments with it and the results thereof. (We probably ought to start a thread named something like "Pyramid Question Experiments" specifically for such discussion.)

Nathan

[DeepO]

OPD, we already have room for more then 14 cities, I think that is more then enough to see the benefits. Of course, while we are building the pyramids, our other cities don't need to start playing with their thumbs, so by the time it is finished, we will have got 4-6 cities... but even if all available land is settled, we still gain benefits from it, up until we have all cities at size 12, and more workers then tiles.

Nathan, this should mean I'd be the first to test it. Once I've got time, I'll get to it, and start the thread. But it won't be the next few hours, I'm afraid

DeepO

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Randolph
Testing certainly would be nice if someone really wants to invest that type of time (I certainly can't, as I don't have access to Civ at all). We do have several turns before the choice become critical, so I don't really see a need to delay the game (I really think we should do our part to keep the game moving quickly, even if it means having to make untested calls).

I suppose we could go ahead and settle #2 and plan to use it as our main troop producer for the time being if we don't build the Pyramids there. I hate the delay in settling the modified #13 if we don't go for the Pyramids, but if barbarians start showing up (it's still possible barbarians are sedentary), extra units could come in handy. And in my opinion, EotS is definitely more valuable to us focusing on settlers and workers than building military units.

Nathan

[OPD]

lol I love these kind of debates.

I always wanted to do an early pyramid test myself but never got round to it.

If it is put simply in terms of expansion which it should not be then the pyramids will always win on a large enough time scale no doubt, but are we going to do enough expansion to make the pyramids the best option for the city?

Also just for the hell of it I still stand by my original estimate of 8 cities (or at least 8 stlrs) instead of the pyramids.

[DeepO]

OPD: you can stand by your 8 settlers, but without testing I dare to say that shields is not what limits us without a granary, but food will. Which is another reason for the pyramids: we move from food focus to shield focus, which is easier to modify under despotism. Oh, and the debate is wonderful

[OPD]

WTF

I must have clicked edit instead of quote but????