Petra on Immortal and Deity Domination

When playing for domination with a desert start I often feel obligated to go for petra. Whenever I get a petra game and plan on going perta, my first army always feels gimped because something has to be sacrificed to be able to get petra on immortal and especially deity, be it religion, expansions, some other wonder, or early army size.

On top of this, going petra means attempting a religion seems like a good idea because of desert folklore possibility, further hindering early army. Sometimes I almost wish petra wasn't in the game.

Without getting into whether it's worth it or not, what are your typical build and tech paths if planning on getting petra in capital or expansion with domination victory in mind? What do you sacrifice?

Maya or Liberty are alternatives to building it.

dpunk said:

What do you sacrifice?

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Time. Lots and lots of it. Because nobody can predict the number of rerolls and playing trough several dozens of turns during each attempt needed to roll a map where AI gets no desert at all.


Chasing wonders while playing for domination is something that will always puzzle me. Common sense suggests you missed 'not' in your first sentence.

So, get desert start -> reroll?

It is achievable but I don't think it's the percentage play. As it happens I'm currently playing an immortal game as the celts where I've got desert folklore and done the Hanging Gardens, Petra sling shot. I'm now at about turn 150 and the games as good as over, I'm number one in pretty much everything.

As you say your early game is very weak. I had to trade composite bows for Hanging Gardens, Petra attempt, so an early DOW would have been near enough game over. Your science is also toilet early on because of the delayed NC and universities.

If you do get the two wonders, then from turn 80 or so onwards your capital can become a monster very quickly, churn out lots of cheap units quickly before using all your gold upgrading them to medievil units and going warring. But I'm well aware that if I'd missed one of them or got DOW'd early I'd have been toast.

In that sense I can see why alot of poeple would have rerolled straight off, because you pretty much need to go the route I chose, but then it's game over very quickly, you either get squashed or are in a ridiculously powerful position so why bother.

dpunk said:

So, get desert start -> reroll?

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Of course not, but I won't beeline Petra either. Definitely not when I'm playing for domination. Why? I could understand for other VC's, but domination and hard building wonders just don't mesh together for me.

Desert start is just as good as any other start, desert hills yield the same hammers and flood plains yield the same food as grasslands. Capital will be a decent city usually without Petra, so if nobody grabs it early, I'll be glad to pick it up, but won't go an extra mile to get it. AI can easily build it in 2nd or 3rd city, while I can't. Thus I won't intentionally settle a secondary desert city dedicated to Petra. Emperor and below is a different story though.

Yeah I don't even bother chasing Petra on Deity because of how random it is. It's a nice thing to have if you can build it later on, but it's just that, a "nice to have".

There are certain wonders you can build to help with a domination game(Oracle, GL below Emperor etc.) but Petra is not one I would chase in any game unless by some miracle it was still up when my Liberty GE came.

You don't really need Petra to make the desert start work anyway if you have Desert Folklore. It's a very powerful pantheon, although it's not overpowered like people say.

The Pilgrim said:

Desert start is just as good as any other start, desert hills yield the same hammers and flood plains yield the same food as grasslands. Capital will be a decent city usually without Petra

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Light Cleric said:

You don't really need Petra to make the desert start work anyway if you have Desert Folklore. It's a very powerful pantheon, although it's not overpowered like people say.

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True, and a desert start might be preferred say, over plains. Just without petra I look at desert similar to grassland start without trees to chop. Speaking of grasslands and pantheon, for a domination i'd much prefer a grassland start with a decent mix of trees/hills and quarries for stone circles.

On a different topic. I've been having trouble being able to open rationalism right after I finish liberty or tradition. Going domination you will be teching down the science and military lines, so hitting rennassaince at the right time is more difficult. What I've been doing recently is annexing enough cities just enough to stall, after rationalism opener I stop annexing until I get either planned economy or planned economy + huminism if more happy is needed. But I wonder how other people might deal with their social policies for this issue.

Petra's cool and all, but I don't see why people think it's overpowered or worthy of basing your entire game around. You'll wind up with a better city if you find a good spot next to a mountain surrounded by jungles and a river, and you don't have to rely on a wonder. I've had some strong games with Petra and desert folklore, but I don't see it as being so amazing it should be central to your strategy. The wonder comes at an awkward time when you should be rushing science techs (if going diplo/science) or drama/theology techs for a culture game, or busy building up that phat Composite bow rush into a nasty Crossbow rush. Well, that's my two cents.

dpunk said:

On a different topic. I've been having trouble being able to open rationalism right after I finish liberty or tradition. Going domination you will be teching down the science and military lines, so hitting rennassaince at the right time is more difficult. What I've been doing recently is annexing enough cities just enough to stall, after rationalism opener I stop annexing until I get either planned economy or planned economy + huminism if more happy is needed. But I wonder how other people might deal with their social policies for this issue.

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Well there are other trees, you know! I usually sink those filler points into Commerce, although if you get there sooner, Patronage is a good choice too. A couplefew points sunk into Patronage makes city state alliances EZ-MODE, and cultural city states make filling out the other policy trees pretty darn easy too.

On the other hand, the right side of Commerce has some synergy with the rest of the standard "left side of Rationalism, middle path of Order" which seems pretty common for science/diplo/dominance games. The "cheesy" solution would be turn on policy saving in advanced startup options but a lot of people around here consider that cheating.

The wonder actually has a very nice position on the tech tree. You'll definitely get to finish it before hitting Education, and there is no need to build things that you get from Civil Service or Theology. Any earlier would require you to forego other infrastructure to get it before the AI, and any later would diminish its impact. It is ideal from that perspective.

dpunk said:

On a different topic. I've been having trouble being able to open rationalism right after I finish liberty or tradition. Going domination you will be teching down the science and military lines, so hitting rennassaince at the right time is more difficult. What I've been doing recently is annexing enough cities just enough to stall, after rationalism opener I stop annexing until I get either planned economy or planned economy + huminism if more happy is needed. But I wonder how other people might deal with their social policies for this issue.

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Although annexing allows better timing of Rationalism opener, it slows down the acquisition of later Rationalism policies. Not sure if this is good idea. I guess only if you meant to annex these cities anyways. On immortal I usually take Honor as second tree though, on Deity giving up on Rationalism is much scarier.

What is the best policy/tech path to getting Petra on Immortal?

Obviously going 6 Liberty and taking a GE as your finisher is one method and probably the best.

I am Shoshone and I have a desert border. As Shoshone I can afford to skip all kinds of stuff, especially religions, and still be OK...even grab a pantheon and possibly desert folklore or faith quarries BC I also happen to have Marble.

I was thinking of going Tradition for Aristocracy, beelining for quarries then doing pottery - > writing, then beelining for Petra? I assume we are skipping the NC opening to make this work?

The Liberty finisher comes way too late unless you're Poland or you have 3 cultural city states as allies...

The most reliable way is going for 3 or 4 city Tradition and beelining Petra after you got your Libraries up. Petra honestly isn't that hard to get, even on Deity. The main thing to keep in mind is that your capital should be as big as possible and have all relevant tiles improved.

Also don't forget to exchange embassies, see which AI has desert (the amount does not matter, it just has to be adjacent to their capital) and bribe them into a war. An AI that is at war is less likely to build wonders. You can even make an empty threat: declare on an AI when you're halfway through with your wonder, but never follow the DOW up with any troop movement. It does help occasionally and the diplo penalty is negligible.

I´m pretty sure I prefer Sailing over Writing for fast Currency. Of course given I have neighbours.

Library is 75 hammers, Caravan is 75 hammers. Sailing is 55 beakers, Writing is 55 beakers. If Caravan gives 3 or more science, its difficult for the Library to compete.

How have I not thought about this? That's actually much better. You also don't have to pay maintenance for the Library so that's another added bonus!