Chichen Itza on Imm/Dei?

[tdotk]

I have been trying a new strategy with Darius, basically using Stone Henge to get to classical quickly so I can get all of the Piety SPs and play almost the entire game in a Golden Age. However, a key element of this strategy is getting the +50% Golden Age bonus from Chichen Itza. At the higher difficulties (immortal / deity), getting CI is basically impossible - someone pops it before I have even gotten the tech, let alone built the wonder.

Any suggestions? Am I naive to think I can get an early wonder at these difficulty levels? Am I not being ruthless enough in my tech / production beeline? Thanks.

 

[Monthar]

You'll have to beeline the tech and hope you generate at GE in order to build it in one turn.

 

[vexing]

are you getting tradition for aristocracy?
you need to slingshot via ras.

so you can slingshot to civil service and just build it,
the other option is after stonehenge build great pyramids, slingshot to metal casting and buy a workshop, fill the engineer slot, then wait for the great engineer.

either should work pretty consistently on immortal.

if you want more of a guarantee, restart until you're next to marble.

 

[snarzberry]

Using your first RA to get Civil Service means that you're unlocking the ability to start building Chichen Itza around turn 60 or 70, something like that? Stonehenge is built around turn 30 - 40 so there's not enough time to pop an engineer to build it straight away. It's a popular wonder with the AI but sometimes I notice it sitting there un-built and have even built it myself on deity after it's been available for quite a long time. Your strategy may hinge on just being lucky enough that the AI doesn't build it so early that you have no chance at it.

How many turns does it take to build manually when it becomes available? You might be better just waiting and hoping it's still available when you get your engineer around turn 80-100. It sucks leaving such a big part of your strat to chance, but there may be no way to increase your likelihood of getting it.

A strategy that can win on imm/deity, even some of the time, is still a good strat.

 

[tdotk]

Thanks for the ideas, all.

@snarzberry: I have been trying that exact strategy, rarely works though, the AI seems to love the Itza

@vezing: I am using tradition. I avoid slingshotting via RAs, but a good point. I have been thinking a second engineer may be necessary, I will experiment with the workshop/Pyramids idea.

 

[bryanw1995]

prioritize national college and/or GL early on. I don't know what has changed, but I seem to be able to get the GL almost 100% of the time on immortal post-patch. CS by turn 45, you have plenty of time to build the itza before an AI does it. I usually go war crazy and don't bother, but it's definitely a good option for a persia game.

 

[biohazard72]

Hard teching Civil Service is utterly impractical, and you won't get a Great Engineer from Stonehedge quickly enough. Best case scenario, you get a very early RA partner (they will need philosophy), you sign a RA immediately upon availability, and get Civil Service around turn 60. Either that or you can go for Great Library, but that's very risky, especially on Deity. It also precludes National College, which will stagnate your tech rate even if you do manage to pull off GL and Chichen Itza.

Altogether not worth it. Chichen Itza, while excellent up to King or possibly Emperor, doesn't hold up well at Deity (and I assume Immortal).

 

[Bibor]

The way I see it, the fastest way to this wonder is to go writing, philosophy, trapping, while building TGL.

I can see how it would be worth it, even without building the Nat. College.
- you'll get a Great Scientist around early renaissance (when its really important) from TGL (say, bulbing Printing Press? )
- extra food from CS will speed up your research significantly once you have CS

For Darius, who already has huge golden ages, this might be a super-strong option even at immortal+. I don't know how realistic TGL is on those levels though.

 

[Wargizmo]

I've been working on a nice build for this, it takes advantage of the 49 turn golden age from Taj Mahal. Which happens when you're persia and have Chichen Itza

You go a standard National College opener (tech luxury then writing, trade your first luxury only so you can rush buy library, rest goes towards happiness for first golden age) then pump out settlers after you build the NC while researching up to Civil Service (grab any luxuries you need obviously), don't settle near enemies and rush buy enough warriors to keep your neighbours off your back. Take tradition social policy and then Aristocracy (33% building wonders), you'll get the second policy around the time Civil Service finishes, then start building Chichen Itza in your capital, while it's building you'll hit first golden age helping it along. After Civil Service tech up iron and make your way to printing press for the Taj Mahal. After Chichen Itza finishes get a workshop in your capital and assign a specialist. Your first great engineer should appear just after you unlock Taj Mahal, use the GE to build the Taj then BAM! 49 turn golden age! Then just build up with your uber economy and production and roflstomp the opposition It works really well on Emperor but I haven't tried it on a harder setting yet.

 

[tdotk]

In Imm, just got ithe Itza by nabbing Stone Henge and Pyramids for 2 GE pts, then timing a hard tech to Civil Service with when my GE popped. I still feel lucky that the AI didn't get it first.

@Wargizmo: yes next step I have been taking is going for the Taj, 225% GA

 

[elthrasher]

It's a nice trick, but not really necessary. I had a ~150 turn golden age as Darius without the Chichen Itza on Immortal.

I delayed my first happy bucket GA (15 turns) until I could build the Taj Mahal (later wonders are typically more feasible on higher levels) for +22, then the Piety SP for another 15 turns, total 52 turns. After that I just kept burning GP. I think I must have gotten the wonder that speeds up their production, but I had enough of them to stay in a golden age until the end of the game. I used a couple of generals, too. I might have gotten the Louvre, which helps for GP golden ages.

I had tried for the Chichen Itza that game, but failed to get it. Turns out I didn't need it.

 

[vexing]

It's a nice trick, but not really necessary. I had a ~150 turn golden age as Darius without the Chichen Itza on Immortal.

the stacking is such that you'd have gotten up to at least 250 turns with chichen... or you could have used great people for other stuff.
there are two major reasons chichen is so important: the broken double stacking with taj so it's 49 instead of 22 turns, and then great people go to a min of 6 turns vs 4 (1.5x improvement)

 

[elthrasher]

the stacking is such that you'd have gotten up to at least 250 turns with chichen... or you could have used great people for other stuff.
there are two major reasons chichen is so important: the broken double stacking with taj so it's 49 instead of 22 turns, and then great people go to a min of 6 turns vs 4 (1.5x improvement)

The game didn't go that long is my point. I had a constant GA from my first one (just before I built the Taj) to the end of the game. Yeah, it's even better with Chichen Itza, but you can go absurdly long without it.

 

[vexing]

boo, and now i see from the patch notes they finally fixed persia + chichen + taj.

 

[Wargizmo]

boo, and now i see from the patch notes they finally fixed persia + chichen + taj.

That sucks IMO. I mean it was really good but it wasn't as overpowered some of the other ridiculous bonus stacking you can do in this game, such as Siam/Patronage combo.

 

[bryanw1995]

boo, and now i see from the patch notes they finally fixed persia + chichen + taj.

still a big advantage for persia, and the crash fixes will be very nice.

 

[biohazard72]

That sucks IMO. I mean it was really good but it wasn't as overpowered some of the other ridiculous bonus stacking you can do in this game, such as Siam/Patronage combo.

But it was incorrect. It's still a powerful combo, just no longer glitched to give you twice the golden age length that it should.

 

[Bobafett0610]

Settings: Diety/Persia/Huge Pangea/ 22Civs/28CityStates/domination only victory

i got chitzen itza while playing persia on diety. I simply beelined NC(had to build library as i didn't have enough cash) then went straight to researching Civil Service. Grabbed tradition and aristocracy. Once I got the tech I had capital focus production and build the chitzen itza. All of this while holding off a massive attack from the iroquis. It's very difficult but doable and its also a very hit or miss lots of luck type of deal.

P.S. I spent the time selling open borders for cash. Unfortunatly with the zerg of the savages i wasent able to really improved the terrain with my worker. I wasent able to improve my two calender resources (sugar/wine) cause of all the troops which ment i had to build library as i couldn't sell a lux resource early on and was therefore only able to get in farming a riverside hill. Good thing is I saved my cash and used it to buy 2 pikemen as soon as civil service popped. Spain surrounded my capital with their cities which acted as a buffer between me and savages and then they DW on iroqui. It is doable to get this wonder on diety but i would only recommend trying it if you are playing persia as when you are done building it you will be very gimped in all aspects of your empire. I now have next to no land to settle and only 2 pikemen for troops(warrior got killed in war).

 

[Bobafett0610]

The thing that sucks as doing it as persia is that you then don't have any time to build immortals that you can upgrade later since you'll be gunning for CS tech. But that in reality is a small incovenience as you'll have 20 turn golden ages as the standard and on top of that 20 turns of +10% combat and +1 move which helps bigtime for persia since you'll need it after building the wonder to combine with oligargy to hold of all the other civs that attack you since you have a very weak score.

 

[Airey]

The way I see it, the fastest way to this wonder is to go writing, philosophy, trapping, while building TGL.

I can see how it would be worth it, even without building the Nat. College.
- you'll get a Great Scientist around early renaissance (when its really important) from TGL (say, bulbing Printing Press? )
- extra food from CS will speed up your research significantly once you have CS

For Darius, who already has huge golden ages, this might be a super-strong option even at immortal+. I don't know how realistic TGL is on those levels though.

No chance of recovery if you miss the TGL. Too behind in military, too behind to catch up in science postponing settler/NC. Prob have no lux improved if you don't have Ivory in BFC. In practice, it's more reliable to capture it from AI.
To plan that from turn 0 is too risky immort+.