Best use of the Moai Statues

[tomaalimosh]

if you have a city surrounded by sea, but with at least 4 resources on them, and mabye access to stone, you can whip the moai fairly early and get an ubercity. especially if you're financial (I think this is the only place financial really rocks - on ocean shore tiles).

however, if the city grows too slowly, and you don't have stone... than... better build it on a bigger landmass

 

[Seras]

i usually place them in a coastal city that has lots of hills(and the food bonuses to work them)...moai statues == shipyard !

 

[DigitalBoy]

I always save the Moai Statues for a city with plenty of coast tiles, but it helps to have a few hammer rich tiles to get the wonder up faster.

 

[bob_x]

The Moai statues are very powerful, they turn a crappy city into a strong production city.

I build them ASAP in my second city, which is usually founded on the coast.

The Moai statue city needs to have some some land based hills to provide production, otherwise the Moai statues will take practically forever to build. (Trying to max out the Moai statues by finding a one square island doesn't really work very well--you lose out on the opportunity to build them early when they make the most difference.)

Dutch Dikes are also very powerful, but they come a lot later in the game.

 

[eXcel]

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!

I always look to put it at one of these sites. in my current game it is currently my top production city around size 20 in late renaissance era

 

[Hawaiian]

In one game I saved the Moai for a mid-game expansion city on an island far away. (Large map) Turned out to be a game-winning strategic location because it was close to a far-away top-contender cultural civ. (Huayna on a medium continent all by himself!)

It was awesome! I got spies to my opponent quickly, destroying his cultural multiplier buildings (religious +50% ones), got a whole butt-load of troops ready to take out one of his near-coast cultural powerhouse cities (that housed statue of Zeus), just in case he neared a cultural victory before my spaceship reached its destination.

Turned out that my navy and transports waited just outside of his borders, about 5 turns away from having to use them with my guided-missile instant bombard to 0 and tank rush strategy. Needless to say, it was awesome! And I didn't have to go to war.

As a side note, this whole game I didn't have oil. Nowhere near me. Noone wanted to trade it. So thanks to Standard Ethanol, which I founded, a few of my key cities had this lifesaving corp. (Including, of course, my strategic-Moai Statue-powerhouse-island city out in the middle of nowhere)

 

[50_dollar_bag]

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?

I often have this debate with myself, is it better to build it to make a crappy city good or a good city great?
I usually go with the later, having a city with a strategic resource, a few hills, 1 or 2 seafoods and about half the tiles as water trying to get as many coastal tiles as possible for that extra commerce.

 

[methane]

I often have this debate with myself, is it better to build it to make a crappy city good or a good city great?
I usually go with the later, having a city with a strategic resource, a few hills, 1 or 2 seafoods and about half the tiles as water trying to get as many coastal tiles as possible for that extra commerce.

I think the key is to build it early. Maybe not necessarily in your first or 2nd city, but identify one of your early cities to start building it in not long after you get the tech. If you wait half the game to find the 'perfect city', you're depriving yourself of one of the great wonders of the game for half the game!

So whether you pick a city that can build it slowly or quickly, with 6 water tiles or 12, make your choice quickly, and you'll have its benefits for a long time.

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I think the key is to build it early. Maybe not necessarily in your first or 2nd city, but identify one of your early cities to start building it in not long after you get the tech. If you wait half the game to find the 'perfect city', you're depriving yourself of one of the great wonders of the game for half the game!

So whether you pick a city that can build it slowly or quickly, with 6 water tiles or 12, make your choice quickly, and you'll have its benefits for a long time.

You've got a good point there sometimes I don't start building it until 500AD. In fact that reminds me, I haven't built it in my current game

 

[bonafide11]

I usually just build it on a decent coastal city with a lot of water around it. I don't care if it takes a while to build, eventually I can whip it and the city isn't effective at building anything else.

 

[snipafist]

I'll sometimes build in in my capital if I get a coastal start near a lot of food resources (especially good with cities located on an inlet, so you're harvesting a lot of coastal tiles). In cases like that, I also try to get the naval wonders (Lighthouse, Colossus) if possible. The bonus production from the ocean tiles mixed with the ease of maximizing production on the mainland (hills, forests everywhere as the ocean food resources usually manage the city just fine for food so I maximize production elsewhere) gives you a major production city that can complete many wonders. It will never be the National Epic great person farm city, but you can have other cities for that. The bonus of a strong production capital early in the game is undeniable.

 

[whb]

I usually (well in the two BTS games I've played) put it in a coastal city which has some production but good sea resources. It could turn around an island city, but only later in the game (because it takes so long to build) -- when corporations can be used to provide production to unproductive cities anyway. I don't like having the burden of an unproductive island city early in the game when you are limited in expansion by finances.

 

[Cvntpumeler]

I always try to build a city on the ocean that is also right next to a big freshwater lake. That way, the lake tiles produce 3F 1H 2C and the city can be a powerhouse.