Stone & Marble

How far do you guys go to claim stone and/or marble if it is reachable if you hurry to the site, but is a bit far away? Let's say that location of these resources make it so that if you don't hurry, you will most definitely lose it to your neighbor.

I admit that I am extremely greedy, and seeing these resources on the map brings fireworks to my eyes. I don't build a lot of wonders, but for those that I really want like the Pyramids, the Great Library and such, they save a lot of time.

So if you are playing a non-Industrious leader, would you go out of your way to grab these at the start of the game to beat the AI to it, or would you pretend that they are not there and move on?

I think stone by itself is sometimes not enough motivation for me to build mids. If conditions are right and the city won't be too much of a drain, I'd go for it. Marble is a game changer; I will essentially always go TGlib if I have it, and even on deity, you can pretty much always get it first. Stone also helps with oxford of course, but that's pretty far off to change plans so much early.

awilder said:

I think stone by itself is sometimes not enough motivation for me to build mids. If conditions are right and the city won't be too much of a drain, I'd go for it. Marble is a game changer; I will essentially always go TGlib if I have it, and even on deity, you can pretty much always get it first. Stone also helps with oxford of course, but that's pretty far off to change plans so much early.

Click to expand...

I guess the question is, how much of a drain is too much drain if the site around the marble or the stone isn't all that great? I am talking about making the site as the 2nd city, because if you don't settle there ASAP as a 2nd city, it will be lost to the AI. But since having a strong 2nd city is very essential and desired, you pretty much sacrifice a lot for a strategic resource or two.

I am so greedy with resources and grabbing land that I lose focus quite a bit. I am sure at Immortal and Deity, you probably won't be able to have even the luxury of debating about this, but for Monarch and Emperor, it still seems possible to be greedy.

It's so hard for me to just close my eyes and tell myself, "Hey you! Just pretend they are not there and move on!" ^_^

the great library isn't a huge investment either way. you can get it with a few chops and overflow whips as long as you get to literature first. so i won't break my economy to get marble, although it is probably the better bet as far as wonders go (especially national epic in a hammer poor city). stone for oxford helps a lot , but i usually put it in my capitol (or captured capitol), so hammers aren't as much an issue.

unless i can get either one in the 1st or 2nd city, it's really just icing on the cake. i wouldn't consider them game changers, because odds are you will be competing against at least 1 or even 2 industrious leaders anyways, so it's more of a race to the appropriate techs anyways. if you can get to a tech first, you have a 99% chance of building that wonder, sans enemy GE or other bad luck.

the two exceptions that i make for early wonders are the pyramids and the great lighthouse. the latter doesn't get any bonuses anyways, so it doesn't matter unless you are IND. these 2 can be game changers, but it depends on the map;p both will help mitigate really crap land.

other than that, most wonders don't make a huge difference. i love the MoM, but if i don't get it, it doesn't mean game over. with enough hammers=troops, you can win anything against the ai.

Gwaja said:

So if you are playing a non-Industrious leader, would you go out of your way to grab these at the start of the game to beat the AI to it, or would you pretend that they are not there and move on?

Click to expand...

On any given wonder stone or marble is worth more hammers to a non-industrious leaders. E.g. stone reduces the pyramids cost to 250 from 500, a saving of 250, compared to 200 from 333, a saving of just 133.

I'm a big fan of S&M. There are very few things in the game which give 100% multipliers on anything, so if I find these resources I will think very hard about whether my early-game plan can be tweaked so I can use them. Obviously you want to be building more wonders if it's more effort to claim but in the right circumstances I have no problem about putting a junk city quite a long way away.

I'm more in the boat that lets the AI build all the stuff and conquer it then. I even go as far as selling those resources to my neighbour for cheap gold or gifting them outright, including the techs. Just to make sure that the Sistine is right in my neighbourhood.

Building wonders often is a huge investment and besides Pyramids and Lighthouse, I rarely see an improvement over standard expanding -> some infra -> units into AI terrority. They really push me into a passive mode and I dislike that. Lighthouse makes almost every coastal junker worthwhile. Pyramids give you a lot of strong options if you can leverage them. So i can understand what those wonders do, but others?

They also screw up the specialist odds, which I really hate.

That said, if I have a questionable site (i.e. monument needed for weak food and land, no religion present) for a stone/marble city, I still take it. That still doesnt mean that i'm stacking wonders

Generally the only long distance thing I will rush for is a great city site or blocking city. Stone and marble are great, but like CaF says, it's not always such a bad thing if your neighbour gets them.

they're even useful if you dont want the wonders after all - just sell the resource for gpt works throughout the whole game after currency, ofc. i'd never consider a city just for stone (often located in desert) or marble if the city is crappy in any other way, means: no block value, no food, no production beside the resource etc.

ofc you'll take any crapcity for two (!) resources you lack, but just for marble or stone? na, most likely not.

I usually don't go out of my way for them, but I usually end up with at least one or the other by the time I reach Alphabet (I REX a lot better than I rush).

That said, I always get Great Library in my Epic city regardless of marble. The AI is just stupid about the aesthetics branch of the tech tree. I can usually get Sistine Chapel with no challenge also, if I am going for cultural.

It's not just the world wonders, but the national ones that are helped. With stone and marble, you save 300 hammers from Oxford, National Epic, Heroic Epic and Moai, and 700 from West Point and Mt Rushmore (if you build those - I rarely do)

That said - I wouldn't pass up a great #2 city for them. I might push for a #3 site to get them, but I figure that if the AI settles the site, i'll just kill them and take it from them anyway

Depends on how easily I can turn it into a settler/worker pump, which is what I'm generally looking for in my 2nd city. Can I get it working 4 decent tiles quickly? If so, then yeah, I might settle that stone/marble for my second city. Also depends on how suitable the capitol and my general situation is for a wonder.

Copper, Iron, and Oil are the only resources that I will set up a "out of place" city to claim. Out of place can refer to my dot-map plan or expansion plan. These are game changers/deciders. Stone and Marble are great if I can get them, but I won't make a special effort to get them.

I like them a lot but find I do better if I don't reach too far for them. What I like the most is that they open up so many possibilities. You can ignore them--potentially costing your neighbors many hammers to build wonders--and just rush, you can sell them for a good profit, you can do some wonder building yourself, or you can go for the failure gold. I love the choice, look at the land, look at my traits, look at the neighbors, and choose a fun route to follow.

It usually is not healthy to found a distant city for those resources, but if they are well located, say next to some food or a river in the direction of a neighbor, then it is time to get there quickly.

Speaking as a compulsive wonder builder, it is always a strong temptation, especially if I am not playing an IND leader and so the bonus is needed that much more. However, the second city needs to claim copper, not Marble or Stone (unless one is lucky enough to get a package deal). An axe rush is often more important than building an early wonder.

However, if I can get marble, and then build the GL, I am happier since I can do my usual Super Science City and am in my Civ comfort zone. I can usually win (on Noble)without the GL, but I don't have as much fun, and it takes me longer.

Even if you don't want the wonders, failgold with the resource is a great hammer-to-cash conversion ratio, and doesn't require currency.

Even at currency compared to building wealth it's obviously twice as good in pure numbers although you do have to wait for the payout. Compared to trading for say 6gpt which would be reasonable around that time, in a 12 hammer city the stone/marble is worth 12fgpt, or twice as much. And 12 hammers is a really modest production city.

I understand deliberately failing to build wonders is a bit cheesy and/or micro intensive for some people though

There's a question of whether you can hook it up in time for the desired wonders.

It's all about the land early on for me. My first, second, and third cities are all chosen to help me get as much land as possible as fast as possible. After I've got those three going, I can usually rely on them to get me up to 6-7 cities in reasonably good time, so I can start choosing city sites for things like resources and long-term growth then.

I might choose an otherwise good city which also has stone or marble over a great city which has neither, but I would never take a poor city that early even if it gave me stone and marble (unless, of course, I had a simply terrible map and there were no sites that weren't poor cities).

babar said:

Generally the only long distance thing I will rush for is a great city site or blocking city. Stone and marble are great, but like CaF says, it's not always such a bad thing if your neighbour gets them.

Click to expand...

It is if they like to build wonders, and you're trying to prioritize certain ones.

If I know I'm going to be building the Parthenon and/or the GL, I'll absolutely settle the marble unless it's an extremely long way away from my Capital. The same goes for stone.

I won't chase Stone/Marble... if I can get it easily with city #2 or #3, I will. But I figure if I have to spend time chasing it, I'll probably lose the wonder race in question anyway.

Wait Stone is used for something? The only thing I've ever used Marble for was speeding up Oxford. Don't build wonders take them.