Pyramids

[Giovanni Wine]

I have a question for all the civ and ancient history fans, something that I always wondered about.

Why do in civs, the Pyramids give to each city a granary?

I mean, for all other wonders there is a clear link between their in-game benefits, and whet they are/were/should be in the real life, but I can not understand what do the Pyramids have to do with granaries.

Saluti

[Chemical Ollie]

I think it's because it's about the only building that's available at that time.

Or perhaps the Pyramids are used as a central mega-granary?

[minke19104]

I think it has something to do with Egyptians being able to create and manage a city of workers in the middle of the desert to make Pyramids.

[XarXo]

Fried mummies are a great launch option!

[CiverDan]

The food came from flood plains, not desert. I think that the pyramids should have been a temple in every city. But the designers probably thought this was too close to the effect of the Oracle, which doubles the effect of all temples.

[minke19104]

temples in every city is far too powerful...

Just look at Internet wonder in PTW. You get free Labs that generates culture.. Imagine having free temple generating cultures early in the game and its impacts..

[Alex]

Yes, a wonder which gave free temples in all cities early in the game would be very unbalancing. If you build the Pyramids, you have to get some benefit from it. Early in the game, there are not many city improvements available, so they opted for granaries.

[vulture]

Plus there is the tenuous link of the bible story of Joseph, who swans off to Egypt (as a slave) and ends up averting a famine - he is told in a dream that there will be seven years of good crops followed by seven years of famine, so he get put in charge of storing up food from the good years to avoid the worst of the famine. That's some kind of assosciation between Pyramids in Egypt and the granary effect.

[m0lok0plus]

i remember hearing one time that before people really studied the great pyramid they believed it was a central storehouse for grain

[Boris Godunov]

I personally think it's just because they wanted a wonder to do this, but couldn't think of anything else. Remember that in Civ I and II, the Pyramids bestowed other benefits in addition to the granary effect.

[pedrojedi]

The management theory is good. The building of the great pyramids of Egypt (notably Ramses', Queops' and Miquerinos') were excelent examples of worker administration and food management, as there's reliable data about food processing buildings built all around those building sites just to feed the huge number of workers in the area.

[Odd]

Short answer: no, it does´nt makes any sense pyramids giving free granaries.

It´s like Bach´s cathedral improving your city wall defenses, since gothic cathedrals construction made innovations that were transplanted to castles.

[Falconius]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
Remember that in Civ I and II, the Pyramids bestowed other benefits in addition to the granary effect.

In Civ I, the Pyramids allowed you to change to any government type, even ones not researched yet. There was no connection to granaries or any other effect.

[Reinhard-Baer]

Hmm the egyptians gave their dead rulers a lot of gifts for the afterlife. Perhaps they packed some grains or bread into it too well you know if you get hungry in heaven

[ToeTruck]

I think it's strictly a "game dynamic" kind of thing.

I can just imagine the folks at Firaxis reading this thread chucking to themselves: "Yea, Biblical...that's the ticket."

- TT