[BTS] Building the Pyramids as quickly as possible?

[Xpl]

Me and my friend had a challenge to see who could build the pyramids as fast as possible. While I decided to adopt the Oracle-MC gambit, he just cut everything in sight and built tonnes of mines.

Here is his result:

Spoiler:

Now the best I could do is 580BC. Is there any way I can build it quicker than him? Settings are Fractal/Normal/Noble with huts and randoms turned off. We also agreed not to use stone. Also he's playing as Pericles and I chose Lizzie. So basically, can I either build it quicker using Liz, or by using the gambit above?
Thanks.

[lymond]

whip overflow and chopping would get it much quicker.

The advantage of leaders really boils down to starting techs with Mining being an obvious advantage. I don't think Greece start with Mining. Also, Lizzie Fin trait may get you to Masonry and BW faster.

An IND leader with the Mining start I would think would be the fastest. Maybe someone like AC. (edit)

[Xpl]

Yeah I adopt slavery and he doesn't. I pretty much prechop everything and whip my cities to death. I think all he does is literally chop a few tries and build mines. I just don't understand how he beats me.

And I'm not really keen on AC. I suppose if I wanted to beat him that badly, I could use Gandhi, but I want to use Lizzie. I'm just really curious as to why I can't beat his time with Lizzie. Is it Greece's CRE trait at work here?

[iggymnrr]

Stone helps.

[Gwynnja]

It doesn't sound like the two of you played the same start. I don't understand the point of racing if you are going to use different leaders and starting positions.

[Xpl]

Originally Posted by iggymnrr

Stone helps.

Of course, but I was wondering without stone.

Originally Posted by Gwynnja

It doesn't sound like the two of you played the same start. I don't understand the point of racing if you are going to use different leaders and starting positions.

We thought that out and decided to do like 5 attempts and average them out. Silly and probably very pointless, but he always beat me by about 30 turns, which doesn't seem right to me.

[Amao]

Originally Posted by Xpl

Of course, but I was wondering without stone.


We thought that out and decided to do like 5 attempts and average them out. Silly and probably very pointless, but he always beat me by about 30 turns, which doesn't seem right to me.

his approach is better, obviously.

[Xpl]

I asked him later what he did and he just teched normally while I was seeing how that gambit went. I suppose what I'm trying to find out is how is I over an average of 5 or so different maps, manage to build the pyramids about 30 turns later using a gambit strategy. Just puzzles me.

[lymond]

Will I mentioned AC as he is IND. Qin actually might be best for a quick start Mids build in a vacuum as he starts with AG/Mining - arguable the best starting techs in the game.

Do yall use the same start location? I really don't see how you could lose to him with Liz. I mean you are a whole tech ahead on Peri. You can start teching Masonry immediately and then right into BW. Emphasis commerce to Masonry and then start building the Mids. Workers should be out improving food and then mines. ONce BW is in, switch to slavery and start chopping.

As for whipping, you may not be doing it right to max overflow. Generally 2 pop whip items like workers and settler early. Do not whip warriors. Axes can work if you adjust the tiles right. Try not to whip on the 1turn of a build since there is a penalty.

Chop every forest in sight and then some.

(I assume that this is just some test game with no actually intent of playing the game the right way. Having different starts though could effect the results quite a bit regardless.

edit: oh and don't overwhip. the whip overflow is a huge boost but you should keep around size 4 or 5 most times and let some unhappiness wear off. If there are happy resources nearby...settle and road them to increase your cap

[iggymnrr]

I wonder if, without stone, granary->mids isn't faster with Bismarck.

[lymond]

I edited my last post. Not sure if you even saw it

Biz would be okay. However, no matter who the leader is, if you don't know how to max certain things out early it is hard to say. I have no clue how your game is.

Really, I think you should roll one game and copy the save and then each play the same leader and start for comparison purposes. He'll probably still beat you bases on what I here but at least it is a level playing field.

[ABCDPuppies]

The point of Oracle -> MC -> Pyramids isn't to get pyramids as quickly as possible; obviously it will be faster to just build them, provided you have some production capacity, than to pursue a whole different tech path and build another (albeit much cheaper) wonder en route. The point, rather, is that taking this route garners other benefits as well: the hammers saved on not building pyramids (minus those spent building the oracle) can be invested in settlers and workers for expansion in the meantime, and MC and forges are independently useful to have.

Personally, however, I don't like Oracle -> MC for pyramids very much. Ultimately there are just too many moving parts: you have to not only get the Oracle, but get it early enough that you will have time to build a forge and generate an engineer from a single specialist before mids are built elsewhere. In essence, you have to win two wonder-races to get one wonder. That's trickier than it may sound at higher difficulties, and extremely dicey if you are not Philosophical. If I feel like I really need mids, I'll usually just build them.

[lymond]

Oh man, after all that, I completely had glossed over the Oracle>MC gambit bit.

No man...in a test game like you are doing you can go straight to Mids long before the Oracle>MC gambit. As mentioned, that is for high levels and the fact that your test games are generally very less optimal ways of playing the game.

[Xpl]

Originally Posted by lymond

Will I mentioned AC as he is IND. Qin actually might be best for a quick start Mids build in a vacuum as he starts with AG/Mining - arguable the best starting techs in the game.

I've considered using Qin regularly in the past, but for now I'm pretty stuck on Liz.

Originally Posted by lymond

Do yall use the same start location? I really don't see how you could lose to him with Liz. I mean you are a whole tech ahead on Peri.
No, but we decided to find an average over 5 games and compare. His was considerably lower.

Originally Posted by lymond

You can start teching Masonry immediately and then right into BW. Emphasis commerce to Masonry and then start building the Mids. Workers should be out improving food and then mines. ONce BW is in, switch to slavery and start chopping.

I suppose this is where I went wrong. I usually mess about with techs getting all sorts of things like meditation and pottery.

Originally Posted by lymond

As for whipping, you may not be doing it right to max overflow. Generally 2 pop whip items like workers and settler early. Do not whip warriors. Axes can work if you adjust the tiles right. Try not to whip on the 1turn of a build since there is a penalty.

I understand the slavery mechanics, but very basically. I'm never really confident enough to start slashing away population. I've read articles here, but I'm not very good on using slavery.

Originally Posted by lymond

Chop every forest in sight and then some.

(I assume that this is just some test game with no actually intent of playing the game the right way. Having different starts though could effect the results quite a bit regardless.

edit: oh and don't overwhip. the whip overflow is a huge boost but you should keep around size 4 or 5 most times and let some unhappiness wear off. If there are happy resources nearby...settle and road them to increase your cap

Will do.

[iggymnrr]

Also with Bismarck is the worker production bonus, faster worker->mids should beat anybody without a granary.

[Benginal]

I thought I'd have a little fun and give this exercise a try.

Spoiler:

I chose Qin as my leader.



I chose him for several reasons. First, I wanted to be Industrious as that would take 33% off my Pyramids time. Second, I wanted to start with Mining so that I could go straight for Masonry. Third, I wanted Agriculture so that I could improve the food in my capital right away.



I rolled a few times until I got a corn start. I had to turn away pigs since I didn't want to have to waste time getting AH. I was also looking for trees since I'd be chopping for much of my production.

You can see that my first city build was a worker. Worker first is super obvious (since I re-rolled until it was super obvious). In terms of tech I debated going BW first, but decided that Masonry was better. Just to be clear, I was not crunching numbers here. This was just for fun and I'm certain two or three turns could have been shaved off of this start.



For my second technology, and only other important one in the round, I chose Bronze Working. This would allow both the chopping of trees and the whipping of population. You can also see that I haven't explored. I don't want any fear for our safety unhappiness and I'd rather just keep the warrior I start with home. The first worker came out a few turns later.



He went one square east to farm the corn. This would allow growth in my capital which was going to be necessary to work the good tiles and whip a few times.



I thought about chopping now or mining the marble. But food man food is where it's at. So I went ahead and farmed the other corn.

There's not point waiting.



So I revolted right away. This costs a turn, but definitely saves at least 3 or 4 from my finish time.

Again, my worker micro is questionable. I opted against chopping out the next worker and instead decided to do this:



Mining the marble is far superior to quarrying it. Even in non-gambit games I often mine my Masonry resources when the extra hammer is worth more than the commerce. I obviously quarry over them when I need the resource, but in this time and place the 5 tile is going to be very useful.

After that I moved the worker one north.



I had him put this chop into the pyramids. After the chop, I switched to a worker.



I didn't consider the possibility of growing to size five and then doing the same thing as I was about to do. This might have been faster. I waited two turns for maximum overflow.



I've now got my workers on full chop duty.



A few forests later and I can whip in the pyramids. Fitting, no? (Is it still too soon?)



And on turn 50:



50 turns isn't too bad. My empire now has the pyramids and two workers. I'd be interested in seeing somebody who actually pays attention to micro try this also, so I'm attaching the save.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally Posted by Xpl

Of course, but I was wondering without stone.


We thought that out and decided to do like 5 attempts and average them out. Silly and probably very pointless, but he always beat me by about 30 turns, which doesn't seem right to me.

Don't build mids w/o stone or industrious. If you lack those things you have better options: non-resource boosted wonders like GLH (functionally oracle/SH/gwall too), expansion onto good tiles, rushing, etc.

However if you want to ASAP mids w/o stone then you go with a) whatever you need to improve your food specials b)masonry c) BW. Just keep in mind that mids without stone will usually be a bad play if you're not IND.

[iggymnrr]

I experimented with this as Bismarck. Rerolled once or twice to get this start, monarch difficulty:

Spoiler:

Ag->masonry->BW->mono. First time through I forgot about unhappiness, mids finished turn 51, no slavery. 2nd time though, I deleted the scout and went worker/warrior/grow to pop 2. At pop 2 I switched to a 2nd worked and worker unimproved phants to speed up tech while worker was building camp. Worker finished and overflow went into mids. Resumed warrior while both workers farmed FP. Switched to FP when farm done. Grew to pop 4 and switched to 3 camps and corn. One worker lost 2 turns on brown hill and 2nd worker lost 1 turn in forest waiting for BW. At turn 48:

Spoiler:

So mids at turn 49 with no slavery.

Edit: @ Benigal. I was able to duplicate a turn 50 mids using your save without slavery. worker->mids->grow to pop 3->worker etc. Without slavery, it looks like the difference between Bismarck and Qin is net turns saved building workers +15h for warrior. Green hills would work instead of camps.

[barbertje]

Originally Posted by Benginal

50 turns isn't too bad. My empire now has the pyramids and two workers. I'd be interested in seeing somebody who actually pays attention to micro try this also, so I'm attaching the save.
[/SPOILER]

I was able to get it 1 turn earlier by doing the following three things.

A grassland mine will give only a single extra hammer more than a plainsforest,
so it has to be worked for 20 turns, before it will give more than a chop, wich
the worker can do instead of mining. Only mining the marble makes sense, the
grasslandhill mine you built came too late.

delaying whipping the worker to get more overflow, produces no extra hammers, and
costs 2 turns of chopping

growing to size 5 costs 28 food, and these can be converted in 14 base hammers
instead by working a plainsforest instead of the corn for some time. After the city
has gone to size 5 it can produce 2 hammers/turn extra, so you need 7 turns at
size 5 to break even. I don't think you can get to size 5 before turn 45, so I just kept the city at size 4 with no food in the bar by switching corn and forests.

This made it possible to whip the pyramids on turn 48 for just 1 pop.

[iggymnrr]

I just had a turn 46 mids with Bizzy on a pop 2 city. Tech path BW->masonry. Built 4x workers then mids. Workers mined pigs and chopped non stop. Can be optimized. I went with zero micro, lost many hammers and even a worker to some animal. I basically said screw it to food, happiness and slavery. I will try to see how low the turn count can get.

Edit: Optimized it to turn 44 with this start:

Spoiler:

Settled on cows queued 3x workers. 2 mines and nothing but chopping afterwards. Microed the 1 commerce tile to reach this as 3rd worker was about to finish:

Spoiler:

Then everyone chopped until this:

Spoiler:

Turn 44, 2240 BC mids.