[BTS] SGOTM 14 - Fifth Element

[pnp_dredd]

my suggestion

a comparison of sites

[beestar]

Hey guys, I had some time so I did some WB tests to confirm the maximum culture capability of the various sites. This comparison is just raw commerce and artists, no buildings or Wonders. Assumptions:

(edit 4 October: I forgot the +2 commerce from each Town in Free Speech - this favours cottage cities rather than artists, though of course it takes a long time to grow into Towns. I've recalculated accordingly, but the screenshots are unchanged)

- 100% culture slider, so 1 commerce = 1 culture
- Ignore culture from buildings, except that all cities have 3 cathedrals
- Have not included the ability to build Culture - hammers are more valuable than this calculation shows
- Sistine adds +2 culture/specialist
- Bonus cottage commerce from Printing Press shown separately
- Don't worry about the buildings in the WB test - I just put them there to increase the health and happy cap.
- All cities are shown at max without working unimproved water tiles (these are sucky tiles but perhaps we do want the +2 commerce from coast tiles - so I've included them separately)
- Trade routes not included for any city

Site D, population 14

Spoiler:

Run 8 artist specialists * 6 (4 + 2 sistine) = 48 culture
1 grassland cottage = 6 commerce
city centre = 1 commerce

If we grow to work all the coast tiles, then we can add 5 pop and gain 10 commerce. We could squeeze out even more by working ocean tiles, but I think a cycle of growth / starving by running an artist might be better than working an ocean tile (?)

Total =
54 culture
55 if we tech PP
65 if we tech PP and grow to 19 pop to work coast tiles

Actually, you'll notice we can get more culture by firing one artist (-6 culture) and spending the 2 food freed up on working two grassland hill cottages (+12 culture before PP) or 2 plains cottages. This is why cottages beat artists for an LC ... and why the NEpic city doesn't generate the max culture it possibly could.

Gold-Stone, pop 15

Spoiler:

4 grassland cottages * 6 commerce = 24
gold mine, 7 commerce
riverside plains cottage, 7 commerce
riverside grassland cottage, 7 commerce
riverside hills grassland cottage, 7 commerce
4 plains cottage * 6 commerce = 24
crab, 2 commerce
city centre, 1 commerce
stick a cottage on the stone, 6 more commerce

If we grow to work all the water tiles, then we can add 4 pop and gain 8 commerce.

total =
83 commerce
95 if we tech PP
103 if we tech PP and grow to pop 19 and work 4 water tiles

New York, pop 12

Spoiler:

1 artist = 6 culture
3 riverside grassland cottages * 7 commerce = 21
1 riverside plains cottage * 7 commerce = 7
2 plains cottages * 6 commerce = 12
1 grassland cottage = 6 commerce
1 grassland riverside hill cottage = 7 commerce
1 crab = 2 commerce
1 quarried marble = 3 commerce
city centre, 1 commerce

total =
65 culture
81 if we tech PP
89 if we tech PP and grow to pop 20 and work water tiles

pnp city, pop 16

Spoiler:

assumes no overlap with Washington, steals all possible tiles from New York

3 riverside grassland cottages * 7 commerce = 21
6 grassland cottages * 6 commerce = 36
1 oasis = 2 commerce
1 hill grassland cottage = 6
3 plains cottages * 6 commerce = 18
city centre, 1 commerce
surplus food lets us work 1 artist = 6 culture

total =
90 culture
103 if we tech PP
no point in growing any bigger as it steals tiles from Washington

BLubmuz's NEpic, pop 15

Spoiler:

I've set this up first as a GP farm rather than as a pure culture city.

Population 15
7 artists * 6 = 42 culture
city centre = 1 commerce
silk = 4 commerce
clams = 2 commerce
grassland town = 6 commerce (shared with Washington)
lake = 2 commerce
windmill grassland hill = 1 commerce

total =
59 culture
60 if we tech PP
71 if we tech PP and grow to 20 to work 6 water tiles

Note that the farm is needed to feed the artists, but it would otherwise be a grassland cottage for Washington. In GP farm terms, it doesn't matter whether we steal the grassland cottage from Washington - we could skip it (and the silk for that matter) and generate the same GPP rate at pop 13.


-----------------

If we wanted to make a LC site instead, then I would cottage the hills and replace the farm with a cottage.

Population 15, borrowing 2 tiles from Washington's BFC.
5 artists * 6 = 30 culture
city centre = 1
silk = 4
clams = 2
2 grassland town * 6 = 12
2 grassland hill towns * 6 = 12
1 plains town * 6 = 6
1 lake = 2

total =
69 culture
74 if we tech PP
85 if we grow to 21 to work 6 more water tiles

[beestar]

My conclusions are that

- Cottages really do beat artists. Site D isn't good as an LC site - better to keep it pure GArtist pump
- Gold-Stone is actually not bad
- New York is sort of mediocre.
- pnp's city is very good, but it compromises New York and Gold-Stone. If we went with it, we'd have to find a different LC3 site. Any suggestions?

I see pnp's argument about being able to GA-bomb our NEpic city, and therefore being able to skip cathedrals, but I think that's quite a non-standard approach. There's a lot of culture to accumulate, and if you can run three cottage cities with cathedral multipliers, you should. You'll accumulate culture quicker, and then toward the end you can spread the GAs evenly among them - and you'll finish sooner. We do have the space for 9+ cities so we can run 3 cathedrals. It might be a different story if we only had 6 cities.

There are a lot of additional factors:

- Sites with high-hammer tiles and forests can be converted into Wonders and buildings, which can generate a lot of culture (especially factoring in the doubling of building culture every 1000 years). It might be enough to tip the balance among the sites.

- We should favour cities that can generate a lot of commerce with small pop. Waiting to grow to pop 20 in order to work coast tiles is probably a bad idea, because it would be better to use the food growth to whip out cathedrals quicker instead. Working out exactly how to decide this tradeoff is left as an exercise for the reader!

- Timing will be a factor; waiting a long time to settle LC3 will slow down getting the infrastructure up.

- Trade routes will have an effect, but I think it's not a big one.

- Conquering Colossus would be nice

[pnp_dredd]

Nice analysis!

You state that "Site D isn't good as an LC site" but I note that Site D is making more raw culture that NY, and has heaps of hammer tiles. In this case we can build cathedrals in that city - it will only take a few turns, and if we time it right then this won't cost us any GAs, because the break from the NEpic city often allows starvation-GAs from minor cities which may otherwise never produce a GA.

I'm at work, so can't check, but I think there are more rivers that haven't been included aroudn my selection. I think it's around 5 base culture that has been missed? Maybe only 3? In any case it's around 10 base culture better than gold-stone with PP and without working caostal tiles.

Also, cottages on hills never have time to mature fully, and generally it's not worth working them, but just to run artists instead. I don't think this would make a substantial difference to your analysis though.

NY is well below average for an LC. I don't think it's worth considering, as I think that site D is a better LC. Perhaps I've missed something?

[beestar]

Hey pnp, thanks.

About the missing rivers, is it because our test game doesn't exactly match the real game? I just did it using WorldBuilder on the test game.

A grassland hill cottage should be equivalent to a plains flatland cottage, and my calculations assume we work a lot of those, so I think we would go for cottages there. Having said that, I haven't factored population growth time at all ...

The bigger issues ...

True that base culture from Site D was higher in the base case - I was looking at the 'with PP' and 'with coast tiles' numbers. It would be useful if someone could do a detailed estimate of how many great artists it would cost us if we spent time building cathedrals in Site D. I think that's the relevant tradeoff.

Oh, another issue (and I hate to bring this up) but if we settle the proposed pnp site third, we're probably not going to have stone for Pyramids in time. Do we care?

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by beestar

My conclusions are that

- Cottages really do beat artists. Site D isn't good as an LC site - better to keep it pure GArtist pump
- Gold-Stone is actually not bad
- New York is sort of mediocre.
- pnp's city is very good, but it compromises New York and Gold-Stone. If we went with it, we'd have to find a different LC3 site. Any suggestions?

Since someone has bothered to test something, i give my opinion, knowing no one will listen:
your test demonstrates that NY is the weakest of the LCs, while Gold/Stone is a very good LC3. With an early Parthenon there it can be a monster, since the already huge 10cpt will be 20 after 1000 years. And that city has a lot of forests.

NY can recover by building the GLib early for the same reason. Also, with Sistine, which i'd like to build in Wash with some chop we can spare after the mids, it generates 4 more cpt.

Wash is out of quesstion with that early Oracle, Palace, early 'mids and later Sitine and Taj.

It's obvious we'll tech PP, how can we build rifles otherwise?

Now, if you want be so nice, would you like to test how many specialists the city N of the lake (NW of Wash) can run? It's that city the one i identified for the NE.
You'll see that if you farm S of the lake and later you convert the mines to windmills, it can run 7-8 specialists with almost no production, but continuing to grow. It can halt the specialists to build harbor/grocer later. It can also work the early cottages for Wash and it can borrow the PH from Wash.

This will make the sugar city, placed on that damn hill, our natural military city, due to:
- it's near the possible front, 2 turns without Engineering
- if you mine the hills and even workshop it will be a production monster
- if not in need for military (but we'll be if we want satisfy the conditions of this game) it can run some specialist, to help our NE city.

- Conquering Colossus would be nice

Forget it. Any active military action is a delay for culture in this map. And by the time we can arrive to see it, we can have Astro almost in. A waste. I remember a culture game where i avoided Astro like a plague, 'cause i built it. It's great, but unless you can build it, better forget it.

[BLubmuz]

UT asked for my maps. they are here
This is the attention you give to my efforts, right? it's 8 days those screenies are there. And i also posted screenies of the LC3 and NE city. Shame!


Then, there's some other question is better decide now:
- how many GAges do we want?
- Do we really want to build the shrine if we have a GPro?
- how do we plan to switch again to Caste/Pacifism and adopt a religion? Do we afford many turns of anarchy or do we use 1 or 2 GAges? Please remember that GAges also will speed the GPeople.
- Given the above decision, do we build the MoM? We can switch 3 times with MoM, only 2 without.

[pnp_dredd]

Originally Posted by beestar

True that base culture from Site D was higher in the base case - I was looking at the 'with PP' and 'with coast tiles' numbers. It would be useful if someone could do a detailed estimate of how many great artists it would cost us if we spent time building cathedrals in Site D. I think that's the relevant tradeoff.

The other trade-off to consider is that site D produces it's maximum amount of base culture as soon as it hits mximum size. Another site like NY takes a long time to grow cottages and then only reaches maximum after PP. It's unlikely to be worth working coasts.

This evening, I'll have a look into how long it takes to build cathedrals at site D. How many GArtists is difficult to predict, because it partly depends on how many artists we can run in our next 4-5 high food cities.

Oh, another issue (and I hate to bring this up) but if we settle the proposed pnp site third, we're probably not going to have stone for Pyramids in time. Do we care?

If we must have 'mids then we could delay settling that final LC for ~10 turns.

Originally Posted by BLubmuz

Parthenon ... GLib ... 'mids ... Sitine ... Taj ... MoM

BL, you only ever state the advantages of Wonders, without ever considering the opportunity costs. Yes, wonders have intrinsic advantages, and provide culture, and early +10 culture wonders are particularly nice! However, this needs to be balanced against the need to REX with settlers/workers, and the need to build granaries, CHs and forges and the need to build temples and cathedrals. Delaying REX delays building temples which delays building cathdrals. Building cathedrals or the hermitage later will result in a slower VC. We've already spent a good chunk of the game (~30%) building wonders rather than REXing. We need to be very cautious about other delays!

[pnp_dredd]

Originally Posted by BLubmuz

Now, if you want be so nice, would you like to test how many specialists the city N of the lake (NW of Wash) can run? It's that city the one i identified for the NE.
You'll see that if you farm S of the lake and later you convert the mines to windmills, it can run 7-8 specialists with almost no production, but continuing to grow. It can halt the specialists to build harbor/grocer later. It can also work the early cottages for Wash and it can borrow the PH from Wash.

BL, is it 7 or 8? The rest of the stuff doesn't matter for the NEpic city. It's absolute specialty is pumping out Artists. harbour and grocers are useless in that respect. Workign cottages is useless unless there is plenty of spare happy and healthy. A PH is not useful.

If it can run 8 specialists, like site D, then it's worth thinking about. But if it is 7 then it's just not as good a site.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by pnp_dredd

If we must have 'mids then we could delay settling that final LC for ~10 turns.

Reading many of Jesusin's reports about his culture games, yes they are.
SH, Oracle, 'mids, Taj and Sistine are the key wonders for culture.

BL, you only ever state the advantages of Wonders, without ever considering the opportunity costs. Yes, wonders have intrinsic advantages, and provide culture, and early +10 culture wonders are particularly nice! However, this needs to be balanced against the need to REX with settlers/workers, and the need to build granaries, CHs and forges and the need to build temples and cathedrals. Delaying REX delays building temples which delays building cathdrals. Building cathedrals or the hermitage later will result in a slower VC. We've already spent a good chunk of the game (~30%) building wonders rather than REXing. We need to be very cautious about other delays!

With the power of Wash in pumping out settlers and wonders i won't consider that aspect. The only wonder which delays in some way the REX is Pyramids, the others will arrive after that. Then, how comes you did not started a worker in NY at size 3?

Originally Posted by pnp_dredd

BL, is it 7 or 8? The rest of the stuff doesn't matter for the NEpic city. It's absolute specialty is pumping out Artists. harbour and grocers are useless in that respect. Workign cottages is useless unless there is plenty of spare happy and healthy. A PH is not useful.

If it can run 8 specialists, like site D, then it's worth thinking about. But if it is 7 then it's just not as good a site.

A city which can run 7-8 specialists is a big city and it can have problems of health. An harbor and/or a grocer will solve. Obviously the city needs to grow and while growing it can work the 2 GL cottages that later Wash will work. The PH is useful when you build the NE and the uni there.

But those GL can be farmed to be used by the NE city, so we can run another spec. And later the 2 hills can be changed from mines to windmills, so we can run 1 more.

That city will probably generate the first GA using 3 hired artists. It's not that when you settle a city you can have it at full strenght.

And remember that we're not alone in this map. I ask again: where do we think to build military if in need? Have you counted how many turns a unit will need to move to the horse site? We can have 3 cities capable of build military AND send the slow moving units (chariots, HA and knight are useless) in a reasonable time to the front: the original sugar city, the horse city and Wash. End of the military cities.

[WithTea]

I pretty much agree with Blub on wonders. I'm not sold that the Pyramids can be pulled off with as many hammers as have to go into it, and everything else we are doing. However Sistine is beyond important. Winning culture without it is possible, but it will be a very, very late date. Taj is terrifically useful, but its usefulness depends upon MoM. They work together with more great ages to pump out more great people. Also the benefits of more hammers and commerce.

BTW Jessusin is wrong on SH and Oracle. The Oracle is useful for its own thing, but neither essential nor even important to a culture win. I like SH but for a fast culture win direct monuments work better.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by WithTea

BTW Jessusin is wrong on SH and Oracle. The Oracle is useful for its own thing, but neither essential nor even important to a culture win. I like SH but for a fast culture win direct monuments work better.

one monument in each of the 3 LCs will help, since it doubles its culture after 1000 years, like any other cultural building. Another point in favor of 'mids: 6 culture IIRC, built in the BCs, so another 12 points.

MoM+Taj it's why i asked to define now the plans for the GAges. If we plan only one MoM does not pays for itself, but if we plan 2 or 3 it will pays off.

My building queue for the gold/stone city was always WB/granary/MoM/Parthenon. It soon became LC2, not 3.

[MeowZeDung]

I don't think anyone is disputing the importance of what we did with the Oracle, or the importance of Sistine's/Taj. What I feel is being questioned (atleast by me) is the need for Mids/GLib/Parth/MoM.

Mids delays the REX. That is the main reason I question it's usefulness. I don't doubt that Rep would be lovely, but as I have stated before, imho the GPfarm is higher priority than stone/gold. However, I can see Mids usefulness in this game due to the fact that we are going to be teching quite a bit past lib. Still not sure it's worth it though.

GLib would help research yes, but as dredd says will delay REX and vital infrastructure that a good culture date depends on. Plus it pollutes Washington's GPP even more. We are going to need the capitol to pop a few GA's, a GP wouldn't be a complete loss since we could build a shrine, but a GS doesn't do much more than get us half of Edu/PP/whatever.

Parth. . . we are Phi. . . overkill imho

MoM. . . what great people are going to be starting these golden ages exactly? We need the artists for culture, even using enough for just 1 or 2 like BL is considering seems to me like it would be a smaller return on investment than a culture bomb / settled artist. If we can somehow optimize chops to get it incredibly quickly I could possibly be in favor of it just because it will boost the Taj GA.

[pnp_dredd]

Originally Posted by pnp_dredd

I'll have a look into how long it takes to build cathedrals at site D. How many GArtists is difficult to predict, because it partly depends on how many artists we can run in our next 4-5 high food cities.

It takes just 8 turns to build a cathedral at site D, and we can still run 3.75 Artists* while doing so. It will take less turns if there are forests to chop or we have spare worker turns to build workshops.

Evidence in the spoiler:

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by BLubmuz

And remember that we're not alone in this map. I ask again: where do we think to build military if in need? Have you counted how many turns a unit will need to move to the horse site? We can have 3 cities capable of build military AND send the slow moving units (chariots, HA and knight are useless) in a reasonable time to the front: the original sugar city, the horse city and Wash. End of the military cities.

Here's where I would build HEpic, or perhaps 1SW of here, because that gets a fish, which would allow working 2 more workshops, and workshops are excellent after guilds and chemistry:

Spoiler:

* Run 3 artists for 1 turn with +3 food (work sugar), then 4 artists for 3 turns for -3 food = 3.75 artists on average.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by pnp_dredd

It takes just 8 turns to build a cathedral at site D, and we can still run 3.75 Artists* while doing so. It will take less turns if there are forests to chop or we have spare worker turns to build workshops.

I continue to not see why you keep proposing that lousy site D as the NE site instead of the city N of the lake. I already posted screenies of that city and i can assure it's absolutely the best choice for the NE

Here's where I would build HEpic, or perhaps 1SW of here, because that gets a fish, which would allow working 2 more workshops, and workshops are excellent after guilds and chemistry

That city must go 1S to get the fish if you wanna work the worshops. i built the Moai there and the HE in my sugar city. But we can also move the Moai there.

Do you really think that we can be safe with only one military city close enough to the front? And how do you think we can protect the horses AND the city? As i said near the beginning of this game, that city must be a stronghold or we are toasted. But to be a stronghold, it needs a lot of military. Again, it's not that when you settle it it can be at full strenght. We need to build military elsewhere before it's ready.

Again, you keep forgetting we're not alone.
First survive,
Second win the game,
Third win this competition.

[BLubmuz]

Originally Posted by MeowZeDung

Parth. . . we are Phi. . . overkill imho

What i usually say.
But it gives 10 cpt and 2 GA points. Peanuts?

And i know the GLib is usually disturbing a cultural game. But in a cultural game the last tech you need is Lib, so you need Edu only for that. Here we need Edu for the OU and to build our cheap unis, to speed the research we need.

And we need PP soon, so 2 GSs are more than welcome.

[beestar]

city sites

Okay, I've added BLubmuz's city site to my city site post. Unfortunately, I don't think this WB test clarifies much, since it's easy to calculate it can run 7 artist specialists. The debate is whether this site clears space for a better dotmap, and whether the sacrifice of 1 artist (relative to Site D) is worth the greater hammers / flexiblity / whatever. And I believe BLubmuz doesn't intend this site to be a LC (though I've done the culture calculation anyway).

I'll wait to hear from the others on city sites / dotmap.

Pyramids: I'm not in favour. We need to develop our cottages and it's better to run a cottage economy than a specialist economy. Every scientist we run in an LC city is a cottage tile that isn't being developed.

Yes, we're running lots of specialists in our GP Farm, but on the other hand, we're not going to waste hammers on a Library/Academy/etc. in our GP Farm.

If we learn we need to tech deeper to defeat WOZ, then we will also need to slow down culture accumulation so that we don't trigger Cultural Victory too early. We drop the culture slider, raise the science slider, and tech what we need then.

Other items

It's by no means certain we need Rifling, or PP, or Astro. We've heard a lot of assumptions about what WOZ is - but we have no evidence for any of it. I think we have to take the risk that we can beat WOZ with units that are on-path, explore like crazy over the next 30 turns, and then if we need to change strategy, do it then.

Wonders: I might consider Parthenon, which is almost as expensive as Pyramids (400 vs 500 hammers), but the bonus GPP are directly useful for our game as GArtists directly impact our finish time. PHI +100% GP rate, Parthenon +50% GP rate - we get 2.5Xnormal instead of 2.0X normal. Can someone do a calculation to show how many more GArtists it gets us? The GA points are of limited usefulness because Parthenon would be built in an LC city (which won't run Artists until all cottages are worked), but 10 culture points is not bad.

On the other hand, MoM is a really bad investment. We can't afford to be burning Great People on golden ages. Maybe one, possibly, but consider we're throwing away 5000 culture per Great Person.

GLib ... only with Pyramids, I think. We want to be popping GArtists, not GS. Every GS we pop raises the GPP requirement for our last GArtist.

Conquering Colossus was a joke, hence the smiley. I don't even want to spend hammers on a big defensive army, let alone a big offensive army. We have to avoid military conflict by clever diplo - it's a small risk, but it's worth the hammer savings. Go big or go home!

[BLubmuz]

Beestar, if my assumptions on the WOZ are correct Pyramyds can't be skipped. The problem is that, by the time we can know if those assumptions are correct, it's too late.

If they are, a caravel (optics) will need between 25 and 30 turns to see what he is (Rifle, MG or else). Then we need to tech as needed, build the necessary units, move them where needed, kill him AND win by culture. Too late.

IF we assume the WOZ will need Astro to be reached and rifles or grens to be killed, we can have a big advantage over our competitors. This is the only way to shoot high.

In other words this is my strategy for this game. I'll fight until death to see this strategy actuated. Any other point is just about how to actuate it better.

But please remember that the strategy for SG12 was mine too. It was supported by many great decisions of the Team, but the big picture was mine.

[WithTea]

I have serious doubts about the Pyramids. Some on Glib, but that runs both ways. Doubts on its usefulness and doubts on its lack of usefulness. The MoM on the other hand I'm foursquare for. No one but Blub seems to be getting how strong Golden Ages are for culture victories. Especially for culture victories that rely on large numbers of great artists.

As I was writing this I had an epiphany. The real argument about wonders is not wonders themselves, but economy. We need to settle the argument about what sort of economy we are running. Cottages are stronger in the long run than specialists. True. Specialists are stronger in the short(edit should have only been one short) term. True. There are more great people with more specialists are. Another truth. Wonders give more great people and other benefits true.

So we have a bunch of things we all agree on for what the benefits are. Then we argue whether those benefits outweigh the costs, but we are arguing about differing costs and benefits.

Essentially we arguing over specialist economy or cottage economy. Amongst the mighty and hallowed guide writers this debate still rages. We are not going to easily settle that question, so I hope that perhaps we can just put out where we are coming from.

It seems fairly certain to me that beestar is coming at it from a cottage perpective. In his case overall he's got a good assessment that the wonders are not going to be much use. He is however for a full blown cottage economy. Blub is for a specialist heavy economy. In which case his view on the wonders is spot on. I tend to favor a mostly specialized economy though through at least nationalism so I'm mostly in favor of the wonders. Dredd's economy is usually slavery based, and therefore food oriented. As specialists are always the first to die with slavery, he's going to be looking like a cottage economist.

Sorry dredd if it looks like I give short shrift tothe slave economy. I do know that it is incredibly powerful. It is also the economy I'm least comfortable with. Hence my single game playing the Aztecs for HoF.

Meow seems to be leaning toward cottage to me, which of course makes most of the wonders Blub is pushing for worth less in his opinion than what they are worth to Blub. Though Meow if you're looking to culture bomb more than a couple of times, you are going to need specialists. Lots of them. You're going to want to run philosophy too.

UT is still fence sitting on economy and therefore his cost benefit analysis on wonders is kind of stuck half way. It seems to me that he's still trying to crunch the best numbers overall with no clear plan put before him on what is actually occurring to derive real numbers. We should all write him a Tylenol prescription.

So these are my thoughts on it. I favor a large portion of the economy be specialists. If you want to get Great Artists to speed things along you're going to need them. Wonders amplify specialists. I'm alright with switching economies later toward cottage, but that occurs somewhere in the post turn 200 realm. Hopefully we can finish before turn 300. This means that we are going to have a game that is strongly invested in mids.

I firmly believe that even with a cottage economy that MoM and Taj are important for a culture win. Sistine is every bit as essential as I originally said. Whatever else is going on we really need to try to be first to Music and settle that artist. I think that the parthenon is a good use of hammers. I'm also in favor of the Statue of Zeus. It's cheap for a wonder and produces copious amounts of culture.

[WithTea]

Cogitating on it I guess this means I'm for the Pyramids. The tech boost for early Representation is too much to pass up. Though I do think it's a gamble. Great Library is then double it's general usefulness, but I'm not sure if we can do both and the Pyramids are the more important. Blub is right on asking Golden Ages number question. I say two to three plus the Taj golden age.

We're at an impasse on these things because the economy question has been kicked down the road just as much in real life.