Best use of the Moai Statues

[morchuflex]

Hello.

Since buying BTS, I have been wondering about the best way to put this national wonder to good use.

- It can be tempting to build it in the capital for an early boost, especially if you have both stone and one of these seafood-rich starts. However, that means one less nat wonder in the capital later. Not good at all.

- Another option is to construct it in a small island totally surrounded by water and transform the poor "fishing village" into a powerhouse, perhaps in combination with the Theater wonder, or Hereditary rule and a huge garrison to keep the populace growing. However, without at least a couple adjacent mines, it will take a loooong time to build.

Your opinion?

 

[tomaalimosh]

Actually ... the best use would be putting it in a city near a river (very small river), on a tiny island (2-3 plots of land) and build Moai Statues, and Dike

Oh... yes... you need to play the dutch

 

[MrFelony]

well one capital i had had about 4-5 inland seas in the BFC and 2 crabs and about 2 other coast tiles. i was also dutch so that was an awesome use of it. i also put my globe in there so it would reach about 25-27 pop. i didnt have the heart to draft it . was getting about 100hammers in the end.

you dont need a river to build a dike, it works alongthe coastline

 

[tomaalimosh]

WOW!!!

That makes the Dutch way overpowered! (for sea rich maps anyway)

East Indiaman. very nice versatile UU.

Fin/cre. again very nice combo

and Dike being available without rivers... welll that means all you need is a lot of one tile islands, and you got it made

A certainly have to play them.

 

[Rotting]

Definitely NOT in the capital.

I build it mostly in those 1 field-Islands, I sometimes even used an engineer for it or put some GP-Priests in there, which I didn't need for Shrines anymore, to get things done.

BUT:

sometimes you find those 9 field sweet water seas, adjacent to Ocean. If a City is properly plantet there, you can build a lighthouse, and have the sweetwatersea produce 3food 2 commerce per field. To those cities I often add Moai!

 

[drank]

A fun OCC variant is to open the world builder and give yourself exactly one plot of land in the middle of the ocean. Add some seafood and oil resources as you see fit. Then get started researching Sailing.

It takes a LONG time to build the Moai Statues, but it's off to the races after that.

 

[PibbZ]

sometimes you find those 9 field sweet water seas, adjacent to Ocean. If a City is properly plantet there, you can build a lighthouse, and have the sweetwatersea produce 3food 2 commerce per field.

What do you mean by sweet water?

 

[Ethric]

Not salty, aka fresh water?

 

[Crezth]

WOW!!!

That makes the Dutch way overpowered! (for sea rich maps anyway)

East Indiaman. very nice versatile UU.

Fin/cre. again very nice combo

and Dike being available without rivers... welll that means all you need is a lot of one tile islands, and you got it made

A certainly have to play them.

I agree. They essentially have the Moai Statues nat. wonder for free in all coastal/river cities.

And it doesn't make it redundant, either. +2 prod on each sea square... double trouble!

 

[guyb]

I always use them on an island square because it gives the best return although if I recall I had to use an engineer to hurry them.

In another game, I only had one city on the coast so this was a no-brainer.

 

[ViterboKnight]

Hello.

- Another option is to construct it in a small island totally surrounded by water and transform the poor "fishing village" into a powerhouse, perhaps in combination with the Theater wonder, or Hereditary rule and a huge garrison to keep the populace growing. However, without at least a couple adjacent mines, it will take a loooong time to build.

I'd even waste a great engineer for it!!!

 

[Rotting]

Not salty, aka fresh water?

yap this I meant!

 

[Quildavyr]

Willem van Oranjes Amsterdam.On a island.With dike and ironworks.

 

[Spearthrower]

I had a game with an 3 tile island, 2 tiles were plains hills: one hill had a later-spawned iron and one that had coal!!

There were 2 fish

I was playing as the Dutch.

I don't recall the final hammerage in that city (I am sure someone can work it out!) but with Moai, Dike and Ironworks it was by far the most productive city in my empire.

 

[Quildavyr]

It is probably not just most productive city of your Empire.It is the most productive city of the game.It is Crazyyyy.

 

[Psyringe]

I prefer to build the statues on a small island that wouldn't be useful otherwise. Usually there are sea food resources in the fat cross of such an island, so I hurry a lighthouse, a granary, and some workboats if I can't get them there by other means, send a missionary to the island (so that it produces at least 1 culture point), and then build the statues. They take some time, but since the city has a lot of food, I can usually whip it after a while.

 

[Hero]

Build it in (future) Heroic Epic city. West Point I usually combine with Ironworks. Red Cross is my other option for HE city, but only if I was severely landlocked at start. Building HE on coast is better anyway, and Moai is available so early that you can have a super military city early.

 

[Dennis_Moore]

Think about it, a 5-tile island in the shape of a cross with your city in the centre tile....

....oh, and Dutch of course!

 

[johnny5000]

In one of my recent games I had a really good location for it-
a 1 tile island which was separated from the mainland by 1 tile of ocean (sea? whatever it is.)

So it was surrounded by water on all sides, but still could work 3 tiles on the mainland, and I think 2 of those tiles were mined.

So if I'm counting correctly, that's 21 tiles of water surrounding it, plus I was able to built it pretty well by working the mined mainland tiles.

After that it was my #1 production city. The only problem with that was I could crank out the units but it was a pain getting them to where I wanted them, since they were stuck on an island

 

[morchuflex]

However, building it on a tiny island has one drawback: since it takes much longer to build, you may not get the maximum return for your investment. I'd rather finish it sooner, on a coastal, already productive city, so that it gets completed when a powerhouse can still have a great impact on my empire's development. See my point?