Here is a way to get Pyramids if you are not industrious, and have no access to stone. This works on Noble, but not consistently. It would be even more iffy on a higher difficulty level.
This method basically involves bee-lining metal casting, building a forge, hiring an engineer specialist, and waiting for a great engineer to be born. It works best if your leader is financial (to research metal casting sooner) and/or philisophical (to cut the time for the great engineer to be born). Of course Lizzy would be ideal, but I've also done it with Mansa Musa (financial, but not philosophical).
This is on Vanilla. I think a much easier way to do basically the same thing if you have Warlords is to build the great wall first, and get your great engineer from that. I don't have Warlords, so can't comment on that method.
First, you'll need to research fishing or agriculture, mining, bronze working, wheel (hopefully you start with a couple of those), pottery, and metal casting.
You're best off if you have good sources of early commerce. If you're financial, coast tiles (if you have fishing) and oasises work well. After you get pottery, building cottages in flood plains also helps. Of course, if you're lucky enough to get gold/gems/silver, they would be great.
Research bronze working early for the whip and the chop. Go ahead and build/whip/chop a granary when you can. After you have all the others, start on metal casting. It will tell you the research will take a long time (around 80 turns on marathon) but that number should come down quickly as your population develops and you develop commerce improvements.
When metal casting research nears completion, start pre-chopping a couple forests, and make sure your population is built up a bit. If you have a population of 6 and a couple forests pre-chopped, then after you change your production order to forge you should be able to chop the two forests and whip the forge right away. Next turn, make sure you hire an engineer specialist.
Now you wait several turns for a great engineer to be born. The wait will be halved if you are philosophical.
One of the nice things about this is that, while you're researching metal casting, and then again while you're waiting for the engineer to be born. you can go ahead and do other things. In my last game I founded a second city by some copper, researched writing, built a barracks and library in my capital, and axe-rushed one of my neighbors (of course you need copper for this last action). You also could build a lot of settlers and workers. Just make sure you keep an engineer specialist hired in the forge city (especially if you whip again).
Before the great engineer is born, make sure you set aside time to research masonry. You might not have time to research both writing and alphabet while waiting, so you may have to do masonry before alphabet.
After the great engineer is born, he can build the Pyramids right away. This will usually be in your forge city where he was born, but it doesn't have to be. In my last game I found my deceased neighbor's former capital had seven food resources, so I decided to make that my GP farm/Wonder City, and sent the great engineer down to build the pyramids there (meanwhile working on granary and forge asap).
Another advantage to this is that it gives you a great start on the best of all possible GP farms - the Great Engineer Farm. With the forge/engineer specialist, you've already go two great engineer-generating sources. You're close to mathematics for a third, the hanging gardens. This city can generate huge GP points with little or no hammers, relying on great engineers to build the tough wonders (especially those for which you don't have the resources to double build time, such as stone/marble/copper). I'll usually also build some other wonders there, such as Colossus and Great Library.
In my last game as Lizzy/Noble/Marathon, I had the engineer about BC 800, and still had a few turns to walk him down to my newly-designated GP Farm/Wonder City.
Finally, if somebody builds the pyramids before you do all this, it's no disaster. You still have a forge and a great engineer to build something else, and meanwhile your cities have been working on something else most of the time.
This method basically involves bee-lining metal casting, building a forge, hiring an engineer specialist, and waiting for a great engineer to be born. It works best if your leader is financial (to research metal casting sooner) and/or philisophical (to cut the time for the great engineer to be born). Of course Lizzy would be ideal, but I've also done it with Mansa Musa (financial, but not philosophical).
This is on Vanilla. I think a much easier way to do basically the same thing if you have Warlords is to build the great wall first, and get your great engineer from that. I don't have Warlords, so can't comment on that method.
First, you'll need to research fishing or agriculture, mining, bronze working, wheel (hopefully you start with a couple of those), pottery, and metal casting.
You're best off if you have good sources of early commerce. If you're financial, coast tiles (if you have fishing) and oasises work well. After you get pottery, building cottages in flood plains also helps. Of course, if you're lucky enough to get gold/gems/silver, they would be great.
Research bronze working early for the whip and the chop. Go ahead and build/whip/chop a granary when you can. After you have all the others, start on metal casting. It will tell you the research will take a long time (around 80 turns on marathon) but that number should come down quickly as your population develops and you develop commerce improvements.
When metal casting research nears completion, start pre-chopping a couple forests, and make sure your population is built up a bit. If you have a population of 6 and a couple forests pre-chopped, then after you change your production order to forge you should be able to chop the two forests and whip the forge right away. Next turn, make sure you hire an engineer specialist.
Now you wait several turns for a great engineer to be born. The wait will be halved if you are philosophical.
One of the nice things about this is that, while you're researching metal casting, and then again while you're waiting for the engineer to be born. you can go ahead and do other things. In my last game I founded a second city by some copper, researched writing, built a barracks and library in my capital, and axe-rushed one of my neighbors (of course you need copper for this last action). You also could build a lot of settlers and workers. Just make sure you keep an engineer specialist hired in the forge city (especially if you whip again).
Before the great engineer is born, make sure you set aside time to research masonry. You might not have time to research both writing and alphabet while waiting, so you may have to do masonry before alphabet.
After the great engineer is born, he can build the Pyramids right away. This will usually be in your forge city where he was born, but it doesn't have to be. In my last game I found my deceased neighbor's former capital had seven food resources, so I decided to make that my GP farm/Wonder City, and sent the great engineer down to build the pyramids there (meanwhile working on granary and forge asap).
Another advantage to this is that it gives you a great start on the best of all possible GP farms - the Great Engineer Farm. With the forge/engineer specialist, you've already go two great engineer-generating sources. You're close to mathematics for a third, the hanging gardens. This city can generate huge GP points with little or no hammers, relying on great engineers to build the tough wonders (especially those for which you don't have the resources to double build time, such as stone/marble/copper). I'll usually also build some other wonders there, such as Colossus and Great Library.
In my last game as Lizzy/Noble/Marathon, I had the engineer about BC 800, and still had a few turns to walk him down to my newly-designated GP Farm/Wonder City.
Finally, if somebody builds the pyramids before you do all this, it's no disaster. You still have a forge and a great engineer to build something else, and meanwhile your cities have been working on something else most of the time.
