Everyone knows that being able to get Representation up and running early in the game is a very powerful ability - that's why the Pyramids are so expensive to build! The instant happiness bonus is obviously great for high pop cities or liberal use of slavery, and the beaker bonus to specialists is another no-brainer: run specialists everywhere. Even automated cities realise that under early representation, running a scientist or two is better than working certain tiles.

The question is to what extent do you think that getting the Pyramids is a guaranteed win? Mainly I'm interested in the single player viewpoint.

My last game consisted of building the 'mids and running loads of specialists, settling them in my capital for an Oxford/Ironworks powerhouse leading to an Emperor level domination - my first at this level. I'm trying to convince myself that I can beat Emperor, but at the back of my mind I'm wondering whether winning the Pyramids race is a crutch too far.

Although the pyramids are arguably the best wonder in the game, getting them (early) certainly doesn't guaranty a win.

I prefer to take Pyramids than to build them. In the higher levels you ain't gonna build them anyway.

It stands to reason, if you can not build them at the higher levels, you probably won't be able to take them either.

I belive pyramids is hugely overrated. Teching monarchy can often be gotten at the same time and earlier and in a large amount of games monarchy is just better than rep(read when you don't have a large amount of happiness resources and/or you are not running a large amount of specialists).

Actually, we built them in IMC I. But it came at a high price, even with stone and Industrious. Expanding and blocking some land for yourself is probably the most important thing on Immortal/Deity. On Monarch/Emperor getting the Pyramids is quite powerful, although I still wouldn't try it without being Industrious and/or having stone.

It depends on playing style, if you go for a playing style where you don't bulb techs but settle the GP than i agree that Mids is a great wonder to have since constitution'll take some time and Mids enhances these settled specialists.

But for a bulbing playing style shooting for lib i think Mids are seriously overrated. Certainly not the best early wonder. I think on average GLH is the best wonder in this case and there are many situations where GL is stronger too. I think you should not run massive amounts of specialists in the early game. You need to whip settlers/workers/infra. Mids is good for the instant happiness but often your cities are really small due to whipping. Regrow speed is often more of an issue than happiness. Once monarchy is in there's not really a happiness problem. I seldom have happy problems in the early game.If there is not one happy resource in sight then admittedly Mids becomes a bit stronger. But basically Mids only enhances those 2 scientists you'll assign somewhere to get that early academy.

Early mid game it gets better since you will run some specialists to get some GP. But the goal here is to shoot to liberalism and after that constitution is very close. If you compare the beaker count from the bulbs to the extra beakers from running the scientists the first far exceeds the latter.

Building Mids without stone is imo more of a losing than a winning option. With stone i think it's more or less worth it unless you cripple your early expansion.

It stands to reason, if you can not build them at the higher levels, you probably won't be able to take them either.

There are more tactical ways of mitigating your inherent handicaps at the higher levels, militarily, as opposed to the raw horse-race of building a wonder in which each stone block you quarry the AI gets to quarry five, no matter what.

There are more tactical ways of mitigating your inherent handicaps at the higher levels, militarily, as opposed to the raw horse-race of building a wonder in which each stone block you quarry the AI gets to quarry five, no matter what.

No, Deity AI doesn't get bonuses on wonder builds.

No, Deity AI doesn't get bonuses on wonder builds.

Except on era-modifiers, you mean...where they do.

My view of the Pyramids

1) They do NOT assure you of victory. The is certainly plenty of time for an Ai to clobber you while devoting so many hammers to a large wonder

2) I never attempt the pyramids without stone or being industrious.

3) All four government civics are very powerful early on. Representation and Heritary Rule are self explainatory, HR is soso (easy enough to tech or trade for) but representation that early is pretty powerful. Police State is incredible if warring during the middle Ages through Cavalry. US is powerul with a Great Merchant.

4) Those Great Engineer points are pretty useful that early on.

5) Spiritual leaders get a significant edge as you can swap government civics often.

Personally, I prefer the Great Lighthouse, the Great Wall, and the Oracle for early wonders over the pyramids.

Police State is incredible if warring during the middle Ages through Cavalry.

Actually, it's incredible from the start of the game. I ran it very early in the BC era in a game where me and Snaaty captured pyramids from Budicia. Not only does the bonus apply to tiremes, but it also boosts galleys. On top of that, it even boosted workboats! I assume this may be a bug, because I don't consider all of these to be military units.

As someone who fairly recently made the transition to this level of play I can safely say it takes a whole lot more than the pyramids to win. Perhaps you were just playing a certain way before without them that seriously benefited but the truth is the pyramids are just a tool like any other and you really need to leverage it correctly to pull off that victory. Perhaps there were other things that made this game exceptional? Did you get a great start or got a favorable event (the shields one is broken)? I'm not trying to diminish your win ... I'm just saying in my experience Pyramids are just one part of what it takes to pull off that level of win ... and if you did it for your first time ever ... and did it easily as you claim ... then I'd be surprised if you didn't have more than just that going for you. I personally found the jump from Monarch to Emperor pretty nasty overall ... far worse than prince->monarch.

What civ did you use and what strategy did you play? I'm assuming a settled GP SE? Maybe a WE with an industrious leader and marble and stone nearby? Again I'm not trying to discredit you and obviously you know what you're doing but if your first ever Emperor victory was that easy ... maybe you've just really been sandbagging badly all this time.

I think you'd have a pretty hard time making a case that a work boat is military, but galleys and triremes are both military units. They can kill other units, pillage tiles, and even blockade!

I've had a fun low difficulty archipelago map or two where I'd get MC reasonably early (colossus), and proceed to completely screw an AI until 1000 AD or so by blockading it with 3 triremes. Its tech rate died and it simply refused to tech MC to stop me.

Triremes are one of those units that I wish were better than they were ... that said I never thought of using them for active blockades.

Please help

I just purchased Civ IV complete, (wich includes beyond the sword, warlords and the origional). I can not get the ralling point feture to work. I have looked it up and it says shift + rite click on a city, but that does not work. Does anyone know how to set a ralling point???

Thank you.

Please help

I just purchased Civ IV complete, (wich includes beyond the sword, warlords and the origional). I can not get the ralling point feture to work. I have looked it up and it says shift + rite click on a city, but that does not work. Does anyone know how to set a ralling point???

Thank you.

It's shift and right click on a city (but you have to select cities to waypoint there first).

Note, however, that if the city you're right clicking on is selected, it actually removes all waypoints of all cities selected. So make sure your target city isn't selected when trying to set a waypoint or waypoint elsewhere.

pyramids are overrated. They cost a ton to build, HR is plenty good enough to run until you research representation, glh and great library are better wonders. Even the great wall is better imo, setting you up to steal plenty of techs from your neighbors.

Thank you, I will try that.

Once having selected the original city you can shift+right click on any square, not only another city. To cancel it you simply do the same operation but with the same city as target. It's a "waypoint" to itself.

"Police State is incredible if warring during the middle Ages through Cavalry."

"Actually, it's incredible from the start of the game."

Getting the Pyramids and running Representation instead of Police State is like building the Oracle to discover Hunting.

It depends on playing style, if you go for a playing style where you don't bulb techs but settle the GP than i agree that Mids is a great wonder to have since constitution'll take some time and Mids enhances these settled specialists.

But for a bulbing playing style shooting for lib i think Mids are seriously overrated.

I may be missing the point, but I would say that if you bag the Pyramids and run Representation, that should really have a big impact on the strategy you decide upon. You aren't likely to be bulbing all your great people anyway when you get a bonus if you settle them, right? :confused: Would you run Hereditary Rule instead?

I think you should not run massive amounts of specialists in the early game. You need to whip settlers/workers/infra.

Perhaps as a general rule, I don't know. I understand that those things are all vital aspects of the early game, but can't you devote one city to running two early scientists (as well as any other GPs you can run) while you whip stuff in your other cities?

Building Mids without stone is imo more of a losing than a winning option. With stone i think it's more or less worth it unless you cripple your early expansion.

Several others have mentioned that without stone/industrious Pyramids aren't viable, which makes sense. I certainly wouldn't try for them without either of those, but if I get either stone/ind I think that Pyramids are the thing to aim for. In terms of my original post, I'm trying to decide whether a start with stone -> get the 'mids constitutes an easy ride. I'm pretty sure that if you had accelerated wonders and stone, then you'd be sorted.

Perhaps there were other things that made this game exceptional? Did you get a great start or got a favorable event (the shields one is broken)? I'm not trying to diminish your win ... I'm just saying in my experience Pyramids are just one part of what it takes to pull off that level of win ... and if you did it for your first time ever ... and did it easily as you claim ... then I'd be surprised if you didn't have more than just that going for you.

...

What civ did you use and what strategy did you play? I'm assuming a settled GP SE? Maybe a WE with an industrious leader and marble and stone nearby? Again I'm not trying to discredit you and obviously you know what you're doing but if your first ever Emperor victory was that easy ... maybe you've just really been sandbagging badly all this time.

Don't worry, I'm trying to diminish my win myself! The game I played most recently was with Mao, standard fractal and high seas, normal speed. Capital had stone in the BFC and I chopped the Great Wall. Second city went next to my neighbour Elizabeth, blocking her expansion in my direction. It was all hills and coast but claimed two desert hill golds and one clam. That city built axes and my capital built the 'mids, ran scientists and settled the great spy. Captured London and razed two other cities; London had two corn and two clam so eventually became a GP farm. London (and before National Epic went in London, Beijing) gushed out great people which were settled in Beijing, which eventually received Oxford/Ironworks. However, I didn't decide upon that strategy until I successfully nabbed the 'mids - from then on it seemed the best thing to do to exploit Representation.

Those cities generated lots of beakers while I backfilled and from then on it was straight-forward. I admit that there were several good aspects to that early game (blocking Elizabeth off, claiming the gold, capturing a great GP farm site, getting the Great Wall too) but of all the things, having stone for the 'mids seemed to be the most fortunate thing and was a significant help in propelling me into a winning position, keeping my science up even with war spending.

Getting the Pyramids and running Representation instead of Police State is like building the Oracle to discover Hunting.

Getting a great person and sending him into battle is like smearing yourself with marmalade

Early game hereditary rule is worth more than both representation and police state unless for some reason you have no ability to attack enemy civs. But assuming you're on a giant land mass, you can slave way more with hereditary rule than you can with rep and much more so than for police state.

HR is a good way to put obsolete units to good use. :)

I see I see. Yeah honestly I've found early gold resources near my SSC to be far more broken than stone or anything else ... but they're pretty rare. Looks like you didn't exploit them though and instead just played a solid game. No need to diminish the win ... basically all you had going for you was stone and you used it well.

Getting a great person and sending him into battle is like smearing yourself with marmalade
. . . while lying on an anthill.

Finished that for ya!

I stopped building the Mids a while back, and still avoid them even if I am IND or have Stone. I would much rather invest those hammers into Settlers or different Wonders, like the GW, GLH, GL, and HGs.

Getting a great person and sending him into battle is like smearing yourself with marmalade
Dear God I loled.

Playing on deity I've come to think that the answer to the question is "no" lately.
When I played emperor I would probably have said "yes". So I guess difficulty is an important factor here.
Agree that GLH and GL can be really gamebreaking. They are the only two wonders I'll sometimes go for without being industrous or having the relevant resource, which says alot. Well Taj is the third I guess.

The pyramid could have been a few settlers or a rather decent attack force; building them certainly isn't a no-brainer.

If you can win peacefully with a compact empire, the Pyramids greatly simplify this because they allow a good tech rate without resorting to lightbulbs. Unless I can block off a decent amount of land to settle at my leasure, I'd rather expand/conquer rapidly though.
I've become a lot better at breaking out of a squeeze on Deity with the aid of a loyal&stupid war ally, but that's not something I want to gamble on every single game.

I don't think the Pyramids is an instant win. There are countless other factors that could affect your game adversely.

Playing on deity I've come to think that the answer to the question is "no" lately.
When I played emperor I would probably have said "yes". So I guess difficulty is an important factor here.
Agree that GLH and GL can be really gamebreaking. They are the only two wonders I'll sometimes go for without being industrous or having the relevant resource, which says alot. Well Taj is the third I guess.

Well with the way I lay out my cities the 'mids usually build the Great Library for me with the first GE that the mids city produces. Ends up being something of a 2 for 1 deal.

@Munch,

I'll put my own comments and your reaction here so that we're clear what i'm reacting upon:

Originally Posted by Dirk1302:
It depends on playing style, if you go for a playing style where you don't bulb techs but settle the GP than i agree that Mids is a great wonder to have since constitution'll take some time and Mids enhances these settled specialists.
But for a bulbing playing style shooting for lib i think Mids are seriously overrated.
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Munch:
I may be missing the point, but I would say that if you bag the Pyramids and run Representation, that should really have a big impact on the strategy you decide upon. You aren't likely to be bulbing all your great people anyway when you get a bonus if you settle them, right? Would you run Hereditary Rule instead?
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Dirk:
Yes if i were to build mids i would certainly consider settling my gp instead of bulbing because otherwise i shouldn't have built Mids in the first place. Problem is i don't believe that on high levels settling GP is the way to go unless you go for a really Obsolete wonder heavy style. So i first decide i won't go settling gp and subsequently i decide that i don't need Mids really bad.

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Originally Posted by Dirk1302 View Post
I think you should not run massive amounts of specialists in the early game. You need to whip settlers/workers/infra.
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Munch:
Perhaps as a general rule, I don't know. I understand that those things are all vital aspects of the early game, but can't you devote one city to running two early scientists (as well as any other GPs you can run) while you whip stuff in your other cities?
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Dirk:
Yes i stated in my post that certainly one city has to run 2 scientists and yes they're enhanced by Mids. But not nearly enough to merit building Mids for this reason.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirk1302 View Post
Building Mids without stone is imo more of a losing than a winning option. With stone i think it's more or less worth it unless you cripple your early expansion.
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Munch:
Several others have mentioned that without stone/industrious Pyramids aren't viable, which makes sense. I certainly wouldn't try for them without either of those, but if I get either stone/ind I think that Pyramids are the thing to aim for. In terms of my original post, I'm trying to decide whether a start with stone -> get the 'mids constitutes an easy ride. I'm pretty sure that if you had accelerated wonders and stone, then you'd be sorted.
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Dirk:
We partially agree here, with stone i'd give it a passing thought at least. I still think you should go GLH because GLH is very strong without affecting your strategy. Mids is only very strong if you bend your strategy towards it. In other words you may be adopting an inferior strategy which is redeemed by the strength of the Mids.

Gliese makes an important observation here that i share. Mids decrease in value as the level where you're playing on increases. The reason regardless of chosen strategy is simple, the higher the level, the faster you'll reach constitution (on deity this is well before 1000 AD) and this tech obsoletes 95% of the wonder.

@Munch,

Gliese makes an important observation here that i share. Mids decrease in value as the level where you're playing on increases. The reason regardless of chosen strategy is simple, the higher the level, the faster you'll reach constitution (on deity this is well before 1000 AD) and this tech obsoletes 95% of the wonder.

Aside from the faster tech pace the AI also settles much faster, particularly on deity I find I often struggle to keep my economy alive whilst at the same time trying to block of a good chunk of land.

A good example of this is my latest couple of deity games where I've had at least 1 settler just fortify in a spot with scouts out and wait until the AI approaches with a settler before claiming the spot (when it has no good commerce to offset the costs), a good measure of the immense strain that the blocking efforts often put on your economy. On immortal and lower levels where expansion can be done more casually I never employ this strategy.

One reason not to build the mids would be that sometimes you just don't need them. Specifically, when the capital has a lot of riverside tiles (=bureaucracy+academy+cottages)

Take the latest immortal university game for example (Churchill). There was stone nearby, but the capital was such a great cottage heaven. I settled 5 cities and beelined pottery and later civil service. I never really needed the pyramids and hardly ran any specialists in this game (except for an early academy).

I find that a good bureaucracy capital can sustain the entire empire's research until around 1000AD. With oxford you can get approximately 300bpt from the capital alone. So, under these conditions, I would say, getting those 6 cities for oxford is more important than getting pyramids.

Another good reason not to build pyramids is when you have neighbours with monarchy as favourite civic (Pacal, Suleiman, Joao, Cathrine, Gilgamesh, HC).
The ultimate way to keep up in tech is massive trading, and with favourite civic you can both avoid war and get those AIs to friendly, which means no limit on tech trading.

I still think mids are good when you have stone and a food rich empire, or when isolated without many happy resources.
Snaaty once showed a game with an IND leader on deity where he was blocked to 3 cities only. He managed to grab stone and built pyramids and angkor wat in the capital. With priest specialists and settled great priests he managed to get money, production and research needed for a cuirassier war.

GEs to build GL is the strongest argument in favor of 'mids, especially if you don't have marble, are running cottage spam at your GSS but want to build GL there for obvious reasons, are not Ind, and have rivals who aren't faced with those obstacles. Just because you *can* run Representation doesn't mean you have to. I often go ugly early and flip to police state with 'mids and just stay on the march until the economy is coughing up blood.

But it's also not the end of the game if an AI beats you to 'mids.

Getting a great person and sending him into battle is like smearing yourself with marmalade


Oh dear god, is it ok if I put that in my sig?