disitinerant
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2010
- Messages
- 6
or GEE WIZ for short
Dysclayme: Im more of a designer than a systems analyst, so the following strategy is probably half-baked, but Id love some feedback.
I love Great Engineers because I love hogging wonders and for that end GEs are like passive income. I also love me some stacking functions, so Ive been working on maximizing this passive income affect, and I think Ive come up with something worth sharing. Maybe this has already been thoroughly discussed, but I didnt see it in the War Academy. Ive only tried it on Noble so far, and it seems to break the game before AD on that level, which isnt bad for a strategy that doesnt count on war (although it has great synergy with war strategies too).
The meat of the strategy is to build GE popping structures in your capital as quick as you can get them and use them to get free wonders in your other cities, as few as possible in each city to avoid popping much else but GEs. This is A Good Thing because:
1. It doesnt terribly interfere with many other strategies.
2. Except for in the capital, you build minimal wonders yet hog them all.
3. You get almost all the wonders, but dont have to spend production on them , so you can focus on building other infrastructure or military or both.
4. Even if somehow it fails, you still get great results: lots of GP and focus on the basics: expansion, military, and specialized cities.
Here are the important steps as I see them.
1. Be philosophical. Duh.
2. Dont be industrous or creative. Youre getting your wonders for free so Ind is a waste, and youre sending probably a wonder to each new city so Cre is unnecessary for popping borders or even competing culturally.
3. Get stone online if you can find it. Stone Tools is on the way to archery which is a great early tech since you get a free archer in ROM if you get there first. Hint hint. Its also on the way to Metal Casting and forges which you will need ASAP.
4. Build the Pyramids. Gets the ball rolling on the GEs right away and you cant afford to lose a GE producing wonder.
5. Tech to Metal Casting to get forges. Ive been teching to Sailing and Trade first for the free galley and trade caravan (which can help in producing Pyramids or a Settler). You can use the galley to take your free archer and warrior (make another archer or peltast to protect from early threats unless youre playing without Start as Minor) and probably get the nearest good capital by sending the warrior in first to weaken and take hard with the archer.
6. Build a forge in the capital and as soon as possible run an engineer specialist for the GE points and run it all game long.
7. Tech Bronze Working and use your first GE to get the Colossus somewhere. Unless youre landlocked, this one is worth fighting for and racing to. Olympic Games will be a good idea at some point too. I got the Oracle in my first game and took Code of Laws, but I dont think it was all that important. Free wonders gives plenty of production to build science buildings all over the place so getting ahead in tech is a waste of bulbing and maybe of the Oracle. Higher levels may be different for this.
8. Tech toward your favorite wonders and get to Math for Hanging Gardens soon and build that in the capital assuming it has good production by now. If not use a GE to get it.
9. Use the passive income GEs to tech one wonder each in your new cities acquired by military or your settler factory (which for me was my capital). Of course build the science wonders in your richest city and go ahead and build more than one there. If you accidentally pop a GS, great build an academy there. If you accidentally build a GProphet save him for a religious building. If you accidentally build a GA build the National Epic in your capital. Youll be building it there anyway. It gives an unnerving chance of getting the wrong GP, but its worth it for the GP boost. If you accidentally build a GM use him however he will best serve you, maybe for an extra food in the capital if you can stomach the risk of tainting your GE stock.
10. Without neglecting Literature for Great Library in Science Town, tech to Theology and Canals for the last two GE wonders to build in your capital.
11. Make sure you GE the Parthenon somewhere.
12. Hook up salt and tech glassblowing. Get another Engineer specialist going in your capital.
13. Tech Armor and get another engineer specialist in your capital.
14. Et cetera.
Tips
Making a Science Town is important to stay ahead in tech so you can hog all the wonders. Making a Cash Town is important to keep the economy strong enough to maximize the Science Town. Making a Culture Town is not important and counterproductive since you dont want GAs. Military production centers as your particular needs demand. Spy Town has synergy with Ship Building Town. In my games so far I have ended up on small continent with 3-4 others and need no significant military. Getting to Iron Working in reasonable time and building a few Light Swords early took all their cities before 500BC and I didnt even try that hard. Also I only built one worker and it was enough because expansion wasnt hurried and I stole some workers from the AI on accident.
Since getting all the wonders is so thrilling to the builder in me, I tend to neglect expansion and military in favor of making better cities, but Im pretty sure that is a mistake. More cities would probably be way better for many reasons, not the least of which are claiming vital resources and getting more science and production faster and then by a factor in the long run.
Run engineer specialists from forges and glass smiths and so on in every city you can. This increases the cities GP rate, but gives good odds it will be GE. I did this in my first game with better results than the games where I did not. Later in the game when you can run enough engineer specialists, all your cities, regardless of wonder s can be GE factories. You can always turn this off when you have all the wonders, of course, or when there are no wonders in sight for now or if you are so far ahead you can just build the wonders yourself.
That's about it for now. I will read responses and maybe alter the Wizard based on them, but I can't promise timeliness. Thanks for reading and please let me know what ya think. This is like my third post ever and my first attempt at a guide.
Non sequiter: I like to turn off all the victory conditions and play like the game has a sandbox mode. Does anyone know if this inadvertently makes the AI too easy to surpass? Does the AI do poorly when it has no victory goal?
Dysclayme: Im more of a designer than a systems analyst, so the following strategy is probably half-baked, but Id love some feedback.
I love Great Engineers because I love hogging wonders and for that end GEs are like passive income. I also love me some stacking functions, so Ive been working on maximizing this passive income affect, and I think Ive come up with something worth sharing. Maybe this has already been thoroughly discussed, but I didnt see it in the War Academy. Ive only tried it on Noble so far, and it seems to break the game before AD on that level, which isnt bad for a strategy that doesnt count on war (although it has great synergy with war strategies too).
The meat of the strategy is to build GE popping structures in your capital as quick as you can get them and use them to get free wonders in your other cities, as few as possible in each city to avoid popping much else but GEs. This is A Good Thing because:
1. It doesnt terribly interfere with many other strategies.
2. Except for in the capital, you build minimal wonders yet hog them all.
3. You get almost all the wonders, but dont have to spend production on them , so you can focus on building other infrastructure or military or both.
4. Even if somehow it fails, you still get great results: lots of GP and focus on the basics: expansion, military, and specialized cities.
Here are the important steps as I see them.
1. Be philosophical. Duh.
2. Dont be industrous or creative. Youre getting your wonders for free so Ind is a waste, and youre sending probably a wonder to each new city so Cre is unnecessary for popping borders or even competing culturally.
3. Get stone online if you can find it. Stone Tools is on the way to archery which is a great early tech since you get a free archer in ROM if you get there first. Hint hint. Its also on the way to Metal Casting and forges which you will need ASAP.
4. Build the Pyramids. Gets the ball rolling on the GEs right away and you cant afford to lose a GE producing wonder.
5. Tech to Metal Casting to get forges. Ive been teching to Sailing and Trade first for the free galley and trade caravan (which can help in producing Pyramids or a Settler). You can use the galley to take your free archer and warrior (make another archer or peltast to protect from early threats unless youre playing without Start as Minor) and probably get the nearest good capital by sending the warrior in first to weaken and take hard with the archer.
6. Build a forge in the capital and as soon as possible run an engineer specialist for the GE points and run it all game long.
7. Tech Bronze Working and use your first GE to get the Colossus somewhere. Unless youre landlocked, this one is worth fighting for and racing to. Olympic Games will be a good idea at some point too. I got the Oracle in my first game and took Code of Laws, but I dont think it was all that important. Free wonders gives plenty of production to build science buildings all over the place so getting ahead in tech is a waste of bulbing and maybe of the Oracle. Higher levels may be different for this.
8. Tech toward your favorite wonders and get to Math for Hanging Gardens soon and build that in the capital assuming it has good production by now. If not use a GE to get it.
9. Use the passive income GEs to tech one wonder each in your new cities acquired by military or your settler factory (which for me was my capital). Of course build the science wonders in your richest city and go ahead and build more than one there. If you accidentally pop a GS, great build an academy there. If you accidentally build a GProphet save him for a religious building. If you accidentally build a GA build the National Epic in your capital. Youll be building it there anyway. It gives an unnerving chance of getting the wrong GP, but its worth it for the GP boost. If you accidentally build a GM use him however he will best serve you, maybe for an extra food in the capital if you can stomach the risk of tainting your GE stock.
10. Without neglecting Literature for Great Library in Science Town, tech to Theology and Canals for the last two GE wonders to build in your capital.
11. Make sure you GE the Parthenon somewhere.
12. Hook up salt and tech glassblowing. Get another Engineer specialist going in your capital.
13. Tech Armor and get another engineer specialist in your capital.
14. Et cetera.
Tips
Making a Science Town is important to stay ahead in tech so you can hog all the wonders. Making a Cash Town is important to keep the economy strong enough to maximize the Science Town. Making a Culture Town is not important and counterproductive since you dont want GAs. Military production centers as your particular needs demand. Spy Town has synergy with Ship Building Town. In my games so far I have ended up on small continent with 3-4 others and need no significant military. Getting to Iron Working in reasonable time and building a few Light Swords early took all their cities before 500BC and I didnt even try that hard. Also I only built one worker and it was enough because expansion wasnt hurried and I stole some workers from the AI on accident.
Since getting all the wonders is so thrilling to the builder in me, I tend to neglect expansion and military in favor of making better cities, but Im pretty sure that is a mistake. More cities would probably be way better for many reasons, not the least of which are claiming vital resources and getting more science and production faster and then by a factor in the long run.
Run engineer specialists from forges and glass smiths and so on in every city you can. This increases the cities GP rate, but gives good odds it will be GE. I did this in my first game with better results than the games where I did not. Later in the game when you can run enough engineer specialists, all your cities, regardless of wonder s can be GE factories. You can always turn this off when you have all the wonders, of course, or when there are no wonders in sight for now or if you are so far ahead you can just build the wonders yourself.
That's about it for now. I will read responses and maybe alter the Wizard based on them, but I can't promise timeliness. Thanks for reading and please let me know what ya think. This is like my third post ever and my first attempt at a guide.
Non sequiter: I like to turn off all the victory conditions and play like the game has a sandbox mode. Does anyone know if this inadvertently makes the AI too easy to surpass? Does the AI do poorly when it has no victory goal?
)
