Learning Specialist Economy

[Kesshi]

I normally go for GLH these days over pyramids unless i have a city that can build it in time. If you have Pyramids then rep is an obvious choice.

Which begs the question. How early do you build the Pyramids? Whats the latest you will leave it to if you have no stone. It is a good strategy for a early GE.

Gumbolt,

If you're Industrial, you should be able to get both. However if you don't start on the coast, chances are you won't find a production city on the coast, and won't be able to build the GLH in time. Regardless, if you didn't start on the coast, and can't find a decent nearby coastal production city, you probably wouldn't get a good use out of GLH anyways.

The Pyramids are an absolute must for the way I play. Which is why I favor Industrial over all other traits. Though I have been having fun with Industrial / Financial, playing a hybrid economy as of late. I'm still trying to find the sweet spot of cottages mixed with farms, but I favor Farms over Cottages early game...then I don't want to swap to Emancipation for the late game, so my late cottages grow so slowly that I end up not using them.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think the only thing that puts me off the pyramids is the 750 hammers required. (I play epic) I am the sort of player that will try to play most civs. I rarely use financial civs really as its less of a challenge. which is kind of silly as i like the GLH. Doh!!

One of the issues for me is distraction. You cant do everything early on. Both the GLH and Pyramids take a lot of hammers early on. 1050. If you go Stone henge and Oracle thats nearly 1450ish hammers on wonders.

On my last game the pyramids was built about 100ad by the Ai. (Tad late) I could of tried to build it in my capital but this would have taken 50+ turns. (i was somewhat trapped on the end of a snake like island.

Pyramids is a strong strategy and i dont deny that. Be easier if the Ai built it for me or I had a stone start each game. Masonry is one of the tech that you will rarely beat the Ai to.

 

[Kesshi]

Gumbolt,

The way I go for the Pyramids is by settling my 2nd or 3rd city on Stone. Granted, there are times when I won't have Stone around, but if that's the case I'll find the most forested area and chop the heck out of it.

If I'm chopping, chances are I'm freeing up a lot of grassland, where I can plop down farms, and grow. I'll grow to size 6, build a settler for a few turns, whip a Settler out, then go back to building the Pyramids. This waste as little time as possible for I am using the food to grow and the trees to build. Would I get the pyramids out faster had I simply chopped and built them? Sure, but I'd probably have 1 to 3 less Settlers by that time.

If I find a production heavy city, I've found that there's no need to grow to the maximum city size right away. Just because there's enough food to support a size 10 city doesn't mean it would be better for me to stop at size 6. You'd be surprised how quickly the Pyramids go by if you are building it in a city that isn't focused on growing. Each food tile worked is one less hammer tile. My typical rule of thumb is to grow until I have stone hooked up, at which point if I'm close to another city size (or on an odd size) I'll finish it, else I'll just build like crazy.

Oh, and remember that you don't need the Masonry tech to see Stone like with many other technological dependant resources. You can settle on the Stone much before you even have Masonry, and the turn you learn Masnory you get you stone hooked up. No waiting 18 turns (Marathon) for the stone!

Another strategy I've used is to reload the map until you start with Riverside Plains Hill Stone in your BFC. This is an extremly strong tile as you can mine it for 5 hammers very early on. When you do learn Masonry you can quarry over the mine for the Stone bonus, as you can't build the Pyramids without Masonry anyways.

Edit: I should mention that using that last strategy is how I beat some of my first Deity games.

 

[eXeel]

Just finished my first proper Monarch game and won. Didn't even win a game on the prior difficulty, so the help here was greatly appreciated
Uploading my save, if anyone is interested.

Lots still to improve and I could have dominated more, but gave cities back to my friends, or razed them, if I wanted to progress without having to defend. I also lost some won cities to them going back to their motherland.
Annoying...

What is the difference on Monarch and the next difficulty? What advantages does the CPU have?

 

[royal62184]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=236346

it's a 76 page pdf. The differences in difficulties is at the very end or close to it. Take a look, i'm sorry I don't have it memorized and I can't download it at work.

 

[eXeel]

That was more than enough help, thank you It was for BtS, though. I play vanilla Civ IV. Will search on...

 

[Gumbolt]

Gumbolt,

The way I go for the Pyramids is by settling my 2nd or 3rd city on Stone. Granted, there are times when I won't have Stone around, but if that's the case I'll find the most forested area and chop the heck out of it.

If I'm chopping, chances are I'm freeing up a lot of grassland, where I can plop down farms, and grow. I'll grow to size 6, build a settler for a few turns, whip a Settler out, then go back to building the Pyramids. This waste as little time as possible for I am using the food to grow and the trees to build. Would I get the pyramids out faster had I simply chopped and built them? Sure, but I'd probably have 1 to 3 less Settlers by that time.

If I find a production heavy city, I've found that there's no need to grow to the maximum city size right away. Just because there's enough food to support a size 10 city doesn't mean it would be better for me to stop at size 6. You'd be surprised how quickly the Pyramids go by if you are building it in a city that isn't focused on growing. Each food tile worked is one less hammer tile. My typical rule of thumb is to grow until I have stone hooked up, at which point if I'm close to another city size (or on an odd size) I'll finish it, else I'll just build like crazy.

Oh, and remember that you don't need the Masonry tech to see Stone like with many other technological dependant resources. You can settle on the Stone much before you even have Masonry, and the turn you learn Masnory you get you stone hooked up. No waiting 18 turns (Marathon) for the stone!

Another strategy I've used is to reload the map until you start with Riverside Plains Hill Stone in your BFC. This is an extremly strong tile as you can mine it for 5 hammers very early on. When you do learn Masonry you can quarry over the mine for the Stone bonus, as you can't build the Pyramids without Masonry anyways.

Edit: I should mention that using that last strategy is how I beat some of my first Deity games.

I get all that. Have been playing this a while. I dont agree with reloading till you get stone in BFC. Defeats purpose of game.

In terms of chopping without Stone this is possible but would use up many forest. On Epic its 20-30 per chop unless ind, math or you have Stone or a religious civic. I was never one for keeping forest.

Perhaps I am using too many forest for worker/settlers instead of wonders.

 

[Kesshi]

Gumbolt,

Prechop all the forests until you convert to Organized Religion. Then chop every forest. Wham, a bonus 25% hammers. If I think I'll have to rely a lot on chopping, I'll delay it until Mathmatix. My typical tech route goes along Math to get Currency so it's nothing out of the way for me.

 

[Scoojitsu]

BFC = Big Fat Cross. It's the workable titles for a city. You on;y really need to improve the tiles in it, the tiles under your control but not within a BFC don't need anything except maybe a fort if it's a resource tile (Iron, Oil, Cattle, what have you)

Quick question here... what good is a fort on a resource tile outside of my workable area? I know the automated workers like to do that, too.
I was under the impression that as long as the tile isn't improved I don't have the resource available for trade or receiver it's bonus.

 

[JujuLautre]

Forts connect resources in BTS, just like the correct improvement (plantation on bananas, camp on fur...)