Ancestral Hall Discussion Thread - follow up to Ancient and Classical buildings Elimination Thread

[bengalryan9]

For me personally (ie, not someone who tries to maximize efficiency), whether or not I build the AH tends to come down to two things:

1) How much space do I have to settle? Maybe I'm on a pennisula or island, maybe I'm crowded by nearby AI leaders or city states, or maybe the terrain is mostly garbage. If I don't have enough space to settle a bunch of cities after completing it then there's really no point in building it. I'll almost always go with AC in that case because I abhor going to war in this game, but others would probably take the Warlord's Throne.

2) How quickly do I need to claim land? Maybe there's a lot of space nearby but I'm between two AI who will also be looking to claim it. If that's the case, I'm not waiting to complete AH (I don't care for chopping as a mechanic, personally), I'm pushing settlers and grabbing the spots I want ASAP. I'll take an amazing city spot with no free builder over a mediocre city spot and a free builder any day.

 

[Time Tested]

The elimination thread in question had a lot of valuable and interesting conversation. One of the "synergistic" strategies in that thread was prioritizing GP in your capital and combining it with Magnus + Provision + Surplus Logistics and sending trade routes back to your capital for the 5f/3p bonus in your new cities. I happened to start a new game as that thread was developing and tried this out since I had a decent amount of room to settle. It's a pretty cool strategy when it pans out and I never would have thought about that (mostly because there isn't great information around what impacts the trade route bonuses).

I'm also usually too late to get a benefit from AH, but glad to see this thread pop up as well to understand how people force that benefit into what I would otherwise consider an unnatural situation.

 

[hhhhhh]

Do they ever found a religion? I never bother.

There is a period where getting a religion is hugely profitable (when AI don't grab Choral Music ASAP and when religious settlement is available) but these days it depends. I'd say for some Civ that specializes in religion (e.g. Russia and Japan) they do get a religion.

Wow - I assume you are playing without Barbs then??

People can handle barbarian with the initial warrior, just explore within the 7th ring of your city first. It require some understanding of the barb mechanism but doable.

(IIRC Settler are about 3x the faith cost of a Builder)

Settler cost is 50 + 30x, and builder cost is 46 + 4x, where x is the number of this unit that you have built. It's not necessarily always 3 times.

combining it with Magnus + Provision + Surplus Logistics

From my understanding Magnus doesn't need the 2 extra promotion. It's OK to let the Gov. Plaza city population drop to 2, it will grow back. Unless you are playing late era start, Provision is usually not that useful. (Especially when you can chop some rainforest when you chop settler.) The governor's title is better spent on Pingala or Amani.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Settler cost is 50 + 30x, and builder cost is 46 + 4x, where x is the number of this unit that you have built. It's not necessarily always 3 times.

OK thanks. x3 is just my rule of thumb when faith buying them in monumentality

 

[Vargas1]

From my understanding Magnus doesn't need the 2 extra promotion. It's OK to let the Gov. Plaza city population drop to 2, it will grow back. Unless you are playing late era start, Provision is usually not that useful. (Especially when you can chop some rainforest when you chop settler.) The governor's title is better spent on Pingala or Amani.

I find Provision for Magnus to be most beneficial with an early Monumentality Golden Age for a civ with lots of early faith generation (Russia on tundra, Mali in desert, Ethiopia, etc.). If you can faith-buy 4-5 or more settlers in an era, it's helpful to be able to do that without gutting your population.

 

[Kwami]

From my understanding Magnus doesn't need the 2 extra promotion. It's OK to let the Gov. Plaza city population drop to 2, it will grow back. Unless you are playing late era start, Provision is usually not that useful. (Especially when you can chop some rainforest when you chop settler.) The governor's title is better spent on Pingala or Amani.

There aren't going to be enough rainforests or other resources to chop out all of the settlers, though. At some point, you'll just be building them the regular way. In that case, building with only 2 workers would be pretty bad.

 

[hhhhhh]

I find Provision for Magnus to be most beneficial with an early Monumentality Golden Age for a civ with lots of early faith generation (Russia on tundra, Mali in desert, Ethiopia, etc.). If you can faith-buy 4-5 or more settlers in an era, it's helpful to be able to do that without gutting your population.

Even if you use faith to buy (taking advantage of Theocracy + monumentality), it's unlikely to buy all of them in the same city. So provision is not that useful in this case. Many may buy settler in a large city, say to make population go from 9 -> 8. That does hurt. But actually it's better to buy settler in a small city, say that makes population go from 3 to 2. The population tends to bounce very quickly in those cases. (To grow from 8 to 9 is way harder than from 2-3). And there are cases where a settler doesn't cost you a population (settler in a 3 population city cost food needed to grow from 2 to 3, so if you have enough food saved, say your population is almost growing to 4, then getting a settler won't cost you a population.)

There aren't going to be enough rainforests or other resources to chop out all of the settlers, though. At some point, you'll just be building them the regular way. In that case, building with only 2 workers would be pretty bad.

You chop a batch, faith-buy a batch (monumentality + Theocracy, faith purchase are 45% off, so a 350 production settler only cost 385 faith), and that should be enough. If not you chop in a city without gov plaza.

 

[Kwami]

You chop a batch, faith-buy a batch (monumentality + Theocracy, faith purchase are 45% off, so a 350 production settler only cost 385 faith), and that should be enough. If not you chop in a city without gov plaza.

That's all really specific, though. What if you miss a golden age? Are you really waiting all the way until Theocracy to buy a bunch of settlers? And buying them with faith means that you aren't taking advantage of the +50% production from the AH. Buying them with faith also means not rebuilding your population like chopping rainforests does. Eventually, you're done with settlers and now your capital has like 2-3 population to build districts and everything else. That's pretty bad.

I don't know, I'm not sold. I started a game on the lakes map last night and went for AH because there's a stupid amount of open land, and that's working great. But I still went for Magnus + Provision because settlers still take a lot of production and having more workers is better than not.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

People can handle barbarian with the initial warrior, just explore within the 7th ring of your city first. It require some understanding of the barb mechanism but doable.

I've had a go at this twice today with mixed results.

The first game I carefully managed the initial barbarian scout away from my city and used my scout and warrior to manage the barb camp, just as I finished my first Settler two other Barb scouts appeared and both spotted my city. It was downhill from there!

The second go was much better, there was lots of open land but the layout meant I didn't get too much barb trouble (narrow passage to the tundra in the south). Found a great site for my 2nd city, on a river surrounded by two rings of trees. Built the Plaza/AH there whilst Pingala was in the rapidly growing Capital. 3 cities on t49 which is par for the course, Liang went in the 3rd city which built 2 builders for me (she started in the second city before I got Magnus so in total 3 Liang boosted builders). The next portion to turn 80 felt slower than normal as I built the plaza and AH, along with the Oracle in my Capital to be fair (I was playing quick so not really optimised either) HOWEVER from turn 88 to 104 I founded 6 cities, crucially all with a free builder so productive much quicker than otherwise (generally Monument into a District but in one case a late run at the Pyramids - less than 20 turn build for a city founded 5 turns ago is crazy). I've now run out of chops but have a Monumentality GA so plan is for Magnus to do a tour of the outer cities faith buying a Settler every 5 turns or so - I'm in Voidsingers and all my cities have Obelisks!

So all in all find it a very strong strategy in the right circumstances, thanks for everyone who has chipped in to both threads with their thoughts and ideas.

 

[hhhhhh]

What if you miss a golden age?

You simply don't. I admit that classical golden age may be hard and you need some luck. But after that with enough familiarity of the game one can just chain golden age till the end of the game. (In some games people win SV while still in the Renaissance monumentality golden age.)

Anyway provision can be useful in some cases. I'm not saying it's completely useless.

I built the plaza and AH, along with the Oracle in my Capital to be fair

You may want to separate your Oracle city and your Gov. Plaza city. GP takes a district slot that could have been used to generate Great Person Points. And GP's city won't have high population since you are churning out settlers (so it's hard to build other districts).

Normally for the first three city people assign certain roles, like Oracle-Pingala city (may or may not be capital), Pyramid city (normally 3rd city if you can get a flat desert, and you chop the Pyramids easily) and GP city (usually the 2nd city, can be capital in certain occasions).

 

[Noble Zarkon]

You may want to separate your Oracle city and your Gov. Plaza city.

I expressed that badly, my Capital had Oracle / Pingala, 2nd City the Plaza/Magnus and 3rd was a builder pump with Liang

 

[Mahi]

Most easiest rule to set for yourself is to chop out the district in second city as the first build.. Then either hard built or chop out AH when possible.. Get it out the way as quickly as possible.
The district is really cheap and easy to chop even without Magnus.

You third settler may not benefit from AH but the rest should. I find it very easy to get AH since I already invested in the district really early. The capitol and the third city manage to build all other thing while AH is being built. Your fourth settler should be ready around the time after AH has been built.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

chop out AH when possible

Aren't you better keeping the chops for the 100% boost to Settlers though??

 

[hhhhhh]

Aren't you better keeping the chops for the 100% boost to Settlers though??

At least chop one woods for the AH. Otherwise it's too slow. 150 production is highly non-trivial at that stage (half of a Oracle-level wonder!)

 

[Pietato]

You may want to separate your Oracle city and your Gov. Plaza city. GP takes a district slot that could have been used to generate Great Person Points. And GP's city won't have high population since you are churning out settlers (so it's hard to build other districts).

Normally for the first three city people assign certain roles, like Oracle-Pingala city (may or may not be capital), Pyramid city (normally 3rd city if you can get a flat desert, and you chop the Pyramids easily) and GP city (usually the 2nd city, can be capital in certain occasions).

Yep. That is what I do.

 

[aieeegrunt]

I usually don't chop the Ancestral Hall in because it feels like an exploit (i always start with Provisions Magnus in my capital, which is where I always build the GP => AC myself), but once I finish it, around T100 usually, it's time to slot in the Colonization card and just alternate Settler => District/Building => Settler => District/Building => Settler; etc for the next 150 turns. I go Monument => Walls => Comm Hub => Market => Trader in each newly settled city and use internal routes for roads/growth/prod until Wisselbanken (then it's allied trade all the way)

That order has always worked for me :shrug:

That is almost exactly how I do it.

 

[newbie2]

Most easiest rule to set for yourself is to chop out the district in second city as the first build.. Then either hard built or chop out AH when possible.. Get it out the way as quickly as possible.
The district is really cheap and easy to chop even without Magnus.

You third settler may not benefit from AH but the rest should. I find it very easy to get AH since I already invested in the district really early. The capitol and the third city manage to build all other thing while AH is being built. Your fourth settler should be ready around the time after AH has been built.

I always build it in my first city, but I guess I should look into to building it i my second. my second city usually is a forward settle to an AI rather than looking at the amount of chops.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I always build it in my first city, but I guess I should look into to building it i my second. my second city usually is a forward settle to an AI rather than looking at the amount of chops.

I had another go last night, 2nd city was a forward settle then 3rd city was the AH home.

 

[Lord Lakely]

From my current game on King Difficulty:

Got the Ancestral Hall with Magnus in the capital, only one chop needed, my second and third city have a campus AND a 5F/2P trade route to the capital. My Pingala City will have some nice district adjacency due to the GP next door.

My expansion is a bit slow because I'm currently at war with the Ottomans and I needed to cram in a few units to properly defend myself (but I did manage to steal one of their settlers). The land to the east is free and ripe for settling as I farm XP for my Ohkichitaws with Survey. ^__^

 

[Deadly Dog]

From my current game on King Difficulty:

View attachment 590574

Got the Ancestral Hall with Magnus in the capital, only one chop needed, my second and third city have a campus AND a 5F/2P trade route to the capital. My Pingala City will have some nice district adjacency due to the GP next door.

My expansion is a bit slow because I'm currently at war with the Ottomans and I needed to cram in a few units to properly defend myself (but I did manage to steal one of their settlers). The land to the east is free and ripe for settling as I farm XP for my Ohkichitaws with Survey. ^__^

Nice beginning! Cree are fantastic for early expansion, especially with a start like that. You're at the point where I would start getting CH's up, and get more traders. Every new city now, if I were playing, it, would have a trader available immediately on founding to run a high food internal trade route. I see a spot on the river to the SW that could have 4 camp/pastures, which would give you +4 food on domestic trade routes.

Since Cree have bonuses to food, production and housing in their kit I like to doggedly pursue amenities and watch my cities grow fast. Probably too late but you have a couple of cities that would enjoy the ToA; in any case I would even start planning a spot for the Colosseum. Obviously the Ottomans have been occupying your attention though.