Mayan Wonder Building Advantage

[Fearitself]

Mayans build faster than other civs. With no upgrading to anyone's build speed, here's what we have:

2 Mayans take about 1 min 59 sec to build a pyramid. Other civs need 5 citizens to build the pyramid in about 1 min 55 sec.

5 Mayans build the pyramid in about 1 min 17 sec. You need about 20 guys from another civ working on the pyramid to beat that due to the rapid falloff in efficiency af added builders.

Therefore, the most efficient scheme to adopt as a Mayan civ is to have only two guys building a wonder. If your opponent is foolish enough to try and build the same wonder with a bunch of guys, if you add a few guys, you should beat him to it.
If your opponent tries to build the wonder first, jump in and build it, causing him to waste resources and have a bunch of citizens not truly productive.

This assumes that there is no upgrading in build speed in his favor.

[Skanky Burns]

Nice analysis.

[asleepathewheel]

jesus, thats excellent.

[Grossadmiral]

If possible and you can manage to not spend those resources but save them, never, never ever start building a wonder first (unless your so much in front that waiting would be stupid)... wait until your opponent starts building a wonder, and then and only then, after he spent all those valuable resources you will start building the same wonder. Due to the mighty power of architecture, you will finish building the wonder first.

So easy and so devastating.

[Jaybe]

If you start a wonder and see that someone else is going to beat you to it no matter what, then take your builders off the project and DELETE the bleeper. Get your refund before the opposing wonder gets built!

[tetley]

I've actually found the Mayans' Fort-building bonus to be much more significant. You typically border-push with Forts, and it's important to get them up quickly; especially that first one. Then when you do, Mayan forts get improved attack.

I've dissed on somebody with the wonder bonus more than once, though.

[Lord Sun Ce]

I normally just get the ToT wonder, and place temples in all of my cities. The research required for the upgrades in temples is Civics, which bolster my economy and borders. Thus, when most of the temple upgrades are researched, I'm able to get the temple wonder, which increases temple powers by 50%! Once that baby is up, my cities are virtually impregnable. Later, when I obtain the Taj, my territory stretches over half the map (1v1), and my opponent can only make a sizeable dent in my territory by air units. The Maya, coupled with a Russian ally, are truly a defensive force.

[Bridger]

Actually there is a bug where ToT doesn't actually improve borders, hope it's fixed in next patch.

[Lord Sun Ce]

Oh, really?! Man, thnx. Although, since I'm not able to play online, I can't get the auto-patch. The last time I downloaded a patch, it erased a file that was needed to play the game. Do you know of anywhere else I can download the newest patch other than the homepage?