Get Pyramids; win?

[Munch]

Everyone knows that being able to get Representation up and running early in the game is a very powerful ability - that's why the Pyramids are so expensive to build! The instant happiness bonus is obviously great for high pop cities or liberal use of slavery, and the beaker bonus to specialists is another no-brainer: run specialists everywhere. Even automated cities realise that under early representation, running a scientist or two is better than working certain tiles.

The question is to what extent do you think that getting the Pyramids is a guaranteed win? Mainly I'm interested in the single player viewpoint.

My last game consisted of building the 'mids and running loads of specialists, settling them in my capital for an Oxford/Ironworks powerhouse leading to an Emperor level domination - my first at this level. I'm trying to convince myself that I can beat Emperor, but at the back of my mind I'm wondering whether winning the Pyramids race is a crutch too far.

 

[J-man]

Although the pyramids are arguably the best wonder in the game, getting them (early) certainly doesn't guaranty a win.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I prefer to take Pyramids than to build them. In the higher levels you ain't gonna build them anyway.

 

[obsolete]

It stands to reason, if you can not build them at the higher levels, you probably won't be able to take them either.

 

[oyzar]

I belive pyramids is hugely overrated. Teching monarchy can often be gotten at the same time and earlier and in a large amount of games monarchy is just better than rep(read when you don't have a large amount of happiness resources and/or you are not running a large amount of specialists).

 

[carl corey]

Actually, we built them in IMC I. But it came at a high price, even with stone and Industrious. Expanding and blocking some land for yourself is probably the most important thing on Immortal/Deity. On Monarch/Emperor getting the Pyramids is quite powerful, although I still wouldn't try it without being Industrious and/or having stone.

 

[Dirk1302]

It depends on playing style, if you go for a playing style where you don't bulb techs but settle the GP than i agree that Mids is a great wonder to have since constitution'll take some time and Mids enhances these settled specialists.

But for a bulbing playing style shooting for lib i think Mids are seriously overrated. Certainly not the best early wonder. I think on average GLH is the best wonder in this case and there are many situations where GL is stronger too. I think you should not run massive amounts of specialists in the early game. You need to whip settlers/workers/infra. Mids is good for the instant happiness but often your cities are really small due to whipping. Regrow speed is often more of an issue than happiness. Once monarchy is in there's not really a happiness problem. I seldom have happy problems in the early game.If there is not one happy resource in sight then admittedly Mids becomes a bit stronger. But basically Mids only enhances those 2 scientists you'll assign somewhere to get that early academy.

Early mid game it gets better since you will run some specialists to get some GP. But the goal here is to shoot to liberalism and after that constitution is very close. If you compare the beaker count from the bulbs to the extra beakers from running the scientists the first far exceeds the latter.

Building Mids without stone is imo more of a losing than a winning option. With stone i think it's more or less worth it unless you cripple your early expansion.

 

[Skallagrimson]

It stands to reason, if you can not build them at the higher levels, you probably won't be able to take them either.

There are more tactical ways of mitigating your inherent handicaps at the higher levels, militarily, as opposed to the raw horse-race of building a wonder in which each stone block you quarry the AI gets to quarry five, no matter what.

 

[obsolete]

There are more tactical ways of mitigating your inherent handicaps at the higher levels, militarily, as opposed to the raw horse-race of building a wonder in which each stone block you quarry the AI gets to quarry five, no matter what.

No, Deity AI doesn't get bonuses on wonder builds.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No, Deity AI doesn't get bonuses on wonder builds.

Except on era-modifiers, you mean...where they do.

 

[madscientist]

My view of the Pyramids

1) They do NOT assure you of victory. The is certainly plenty of time for an Ai to clobber you while devoting so many hammers to a large wonder

2) I never attempt the pyramids without stone or being industrious.

3) All four government civics are very powerful early on. Representation and Heritary Rule are self explainatory, HR is soso (easy enough to tech or trade for) but representation that early is pretty powerful. Police State is incredible if warring during the middle Ages through Cavalry. US is powerul with a Great Merchant.

4) Those Great Engineer points are pretty useful that early on.

5) Spiritual leaders get a significant edge as you can swap government civics often.

Personally, I prefer the Great Lighthouse, the Great Wall, and the Oracle for early wonders over the pyramids.

 

[obsolete]

Police State is incredible if warring during the middle Ages through Cavalry.

Actually, it's incredible from the start of the game. I ran it very early in the BC era in a game where me and Snaaty captured pyramids from Budicia. Not only does the bonus apply to tiremes, but it also boosts galleys. On top of that, it even boosted workboats! I assume this may be a bug, because I don't consider all of these to be military units.

 

[feralminded]

As someone who fairly recently made the transition to this level of play I can safely say it takes a whole lot more than the pyramids to win. Perhaps you were just playing a certain way before without them that seriously benefited but the truth is the pyramids are just a tool like any other and you really need to leverage it correctly to pull off that victory. Perhaps there were other things that made this game exceptional? Did you get a great start or got a favorable event (the shields one is broken)? I'm not trying to diminish your win ... I'm just saying in my experience Pyramids are just one part of what it takes to pull off that level of win ... and if you did it for your first time ever ... and did it easily as you claim ... then I'd be surprised if you didn't have more than just that going for you. I personally found the jump from Monarch to Emperor pretty nasty overall ... far worse than prince->monarch.

What civ did you use and what strategy did you play? I'm assuming a settled GP SE? Maybe a WE with an industrious leader and marble and stone nearby? Again I'm not trying to discredit you and obviously you know what you're doing but if your first ever Emperor victory was that easy ... maybe you've just really been sandbagging badly all this time.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I think you'd have a pretty hard time making a case that a work boat is military, but galleys and triremes are both military units. They can kill other units, pillage tiles, and even blockade!

I've had a fun low difficulty archipelago map or two where I'd get MC reasonably early (colossus), and proceed to completely screw an AI until 1000 AD or so by blockading it with 3 triremes. Its tech rate died and it simply refused to tech MC to stop me.

 

[feralminded]

Triremes are one of those units that I wish were better than they were ... that said I never thought of using them for active blockades.

 

[abr]

Please help

I just purchased Civ IV complete, (wich includes beyond the sword, warlords and the origional). I can not get the ralling point feture to work. I have looked it up and it says shift + rite click on a city, but that does not work. Does anyone know how to set a ralling point???

Thank you.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Please help

I just purchased Civ IV complete, (wich includes beyond the sword, warlords and the origional). I can not get the ralling point feture to work. I have looked it up and it says shift + rite click on a city, but that does not work. Does anyone know how to set a ralling point???

Thank you.

It's shift and right click on a city (but you have to select cities to waypoint there first).

Note, however, that if the city you're right clicking on is selected, it actually removes all waypoints of all cities selected. So make sure your target city isn't selected when trying to set a waypoint or waypoint elsewhere.

 

[civvver]

pyramids are overrated. They cost a ton to build, HR is plenty good enough to run until you research representation, glh and great library are better wonders. Even the great wall is better imo, setting you up to steal plenty of techs from your neighbors.

 

[abr]

Thank you, I will try that.

 

[carl corey]

Once having selected the original city you can shift+right click on any square, not only another city. To cancel it you simply do the same operation but with the same city as target. It's a "waypoint" to itself.