[REQ] The best way to build a Moai

12tn2

Prince
Joined
Aug 7, 2009
Messages
306
Hi there!

I happen to not be able to find a thread about how to build the Moai statues in the most efficient way. If there's one already, pls kindly point me to it. & pls move this thread if it's not in the appropriate area.

So, to the main point. I've seen lots of debates about the optimal terrain settings of a Moai city. I'd like to make an actual gaming comparison, but well I'm not kind of a tester :mischief: So I want to call for all testers to give it a try. The options, as I think of now, can be about:
1/ Land. Should be 3 scenarios:
a/ The extreme 1 tile island;
b/ The opposite of it, which consists of 15 land tiles & 6 water tiles;
c/ & the average with 8 land tiles, among them 3 are hills.
I think 2 food resources are reasonale for these 3 cases.

2/ Purpose. 2 options are:
a/ Military. HE is obvious.
b/ General.

3/ Other improvement buildings. The hottest debates revolve around whether to build the factory or not. Not that it's limited to that particular building, but if testings are limited I think the 2 choices are:
a/ With factory.
b/ Skip it.

4/ Time. Depending on the strategy of a player, but general people may want to reap the benefits in:
a/ Short term: 50 turns.
b/ Mid: 150.
c/ Long: 300.

Because Moai is a production wonder, the measure of the tests is obviously hammers output. I'm imagining some line like "A military 1-tile city without factory will produce 12460 hammers via units in the long term at the initial cost of 575 hammers".

That's it. Taking only the above 4 points into account, it will be a whooping 36 scenarios already :crazyeye: That's why I don't want to do it in the 1st place :p But hey, is anyone both kind & interested enough?
 
Well there are two other large considerations that i did not see in your post and those are:

1) When is it actually worthwhile to build Moai at all (many players frequently do not build them)
2) When they are built, which tiles are actually worth working

#2 will have a large influence on #1 since the amount of water tiles worked will have a large impact on the time required to recover the investment. I've seen the argument made (and I tend to agree) that only food tiles are actually worth working (3:food: lake tiles typically included) on a full time basis. The argument centers around the efficiency of whipping. Each point of population whipped provides a base of 30:hammers: whereas using that population to work a water tile would require 30T to equal that production.

Obviously the dynamics could change with a number of factors including civics choices, the type of game being played (conquest vs space etc), whether or not your empire is in a production or teching phase, and other things. Personally i prefer warmonger style games and i like them to be over before factories and such are available the majority of the time, so i prefer the simplistic view of Moai in which I'm comparing the opportunity cost of working tiles vs whipping that population away.

The primary factors for me when choosing whether or not to build Moai are stone, IND leader, and whether or not i will be able to generate some good fail gold with them. Without either stone or an IND leader i never build them because the cost of 250:hammers: is just too great.
 
I might build it in a game where I'm going for a cuirassier break-out, and can build it in the teching period where you might not have other things to build. Then it is basically a tradeoff between the Maoi hammers during the war phase, and the wealth you could have accumulated during the teching phase.
 
I regulary build them in Space Races and Time games. If I want to know whether they are worth it, I simply devide the cost through the extra hammers. I only count seafood tiles for that, with others, Izuul is right, they're not worth it, unless owning 50% of the world and being in a teching phase.
 
Apologies for the semi-necro. At least with the last post being from April, the body may be a little warm still ;)

I wrote a bit about Moai here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=465798 and here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=416773 . I’ve come to think that Moai isn’t really a good build on a normal map unless you have 4 or more lake or seafood tiles in the BFC. 3F1H2C is a pretty decent tile, especially in the early came. 2F1H2C tiles aren’t good tiles for very long. So a 1-tile island, unless it’s got more seafood than a Red Lobster on Friday morning, often isn’t a good place for Moai. 1-tile islands tend to have too much ocean (2F1H1C), which is the same as the almost-worthless riverside plains farm. And a 1-tile island without 2+ seafood tiles will also take forever to build Moai, because whipped population takes longer to regrow.

One thing about Moai that is really nice is that it boosts base hammers – so all your additional multipliers (HE, Forge, etc) will benefit. That’s why I have found it can have synergy with Heroic Epic, which is the best early-game hammer multiplier around.

And of course, abnormal maps are a different story. Moai can be huge on an archipelago map, or a map where you don’t have much in the way of hill tiles for production.

So to answer your question… I think the best way to build Moai is to whip it, ASAP, if you are going to build it at all. By the time you get to the Medieval/Renaissance era, Moai water tiles are nothing special when compared with improved land tiles like villages/towns, mines, or Caste workshops. As for (some of) your scenarios:

1a – a last resort. I’d rather whip a Library here and/or run Caste System to run multiple scientists, assuming there are 2+ seafood tiles. 3 :science: plus GPP points are probably better than 2F1H2C when you deduct the 250 hammers you need for Moai from the latter. But if there are no better places for Moai, you could whip units and overflow into Moai here.

1b – unless 4 of the 6 water tiles are lake or seafood tiles, why bother with Moai? Grass river cottages or grass hill mines are better than Moai coast. You’ll never work the non-seafood water tiles until the city is size 16 or more, which may be never.

1c – this is your ideal Moai location, especially if your food resources are in the water. Lots of coast/lakes will make Moai a more attractive play here.

2a – HE can be a good choice, although if I have a land site with 2+ food tiles and multiple hills, HE goes there instead.

3a – Factories don’t add as much production as you would like, unless they come with power. A city site that’s mostly 1H tiles isn’t generally a good place for a Factory.
 
if you build it (with Stone), build it in a city that has a reasonable amount of land tiles and you just add some growth potential.
Rome on Earth18 Map is for example a good candidate.
 
You also must factor in the cost (and opportunity cost) of building The lighthouse in the City to take advantage of the +1 :food: on the water tiles

Perhaps you could whip stack (and or chop) into the Lighthouse (60) then a forge (120) then finally into the Maoi Statues (250) as always giving you a shorter payoff time

If you take in industrial age start They become much more attractive.

Of course this is completely different if you are playing the Dutch and can Build Dikes for an extra +1 :hammers: on sea and river tiles.

Maoi can contribute too a nice Naval Unit production city paired with a dry dock if you have already built the big Unit production wonders like Heroic Epic and Iron Works without sea access.
 
Of course this is completely different if you are playing the Dutch and can Build Dikes for an extra +1 :hammers: on sea and river tiles.

A Dutch city with Moai + Dike during a Golden Age is downright sick. :drool:

IMHO it's never worth building Moai on a 1-tile island. For starters, it will take so long to build, you'll probably have to rush it with a GE, which of course can be used for better things. Even after that, the city will take a very long time to reach max potential -- remember that you can't work more than 8-10 tiles in the early to mid game. And any units you build there will have to be ferried/airlifted away, which adds an extra layer of tedious micromanagement.

What I find works best is to build Moai to enhance an otherwise high-production city with lots (8-10) water tiles -- HE + Moai is good, so is WS + Moai. Freshwater lakes are especially good with Moai.
 
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