Need Altar advice
- Thread starter loffenx
- Start date
JFSebastian
Scout
It would probably be a good idea to knock out the first 3-4 parts of the Altar as quickly as possible so you can start taking advantage of its special bonuses. Be sure to build it in a city that has long term potential as a specialist city so you'll be able to work several priests there. You may want to use a prophet for a holy city shrine too. As far as finishing up parts 5 and 6, that will probably depend on how comfortable you are going to war with all the evil civs and/or how long it will take you to finish the research for part 7. It would probably not slow you down too much to have a couple other GP during that time, but if I had a choice, I'd probably want extra prophets to settle since they will be extra strong with the Altar. Having some great engineers at the end would be nice too.
Der Kantelberg
Chieftain
I try to keep the Great-Person-Pool clean. Only Prophets and lots of them. I usually try to found several religions in one city. With the shrine there are even more prophets available. spreading evry Religion to that city, building the Altar in that city is obviuos. With this you will manage to engage priest Until a limit of 10 - 15: 1 Pagan shrine, 1 Overlors-temple, 1 Runes-temple, 2 Order-temple, 2 Empyrion-tempel, 1 Fellowship-temple 1-3 Altar himself, several from Shrines. First you have to feed these all. If that has happenen you can think of other specialists.
100% will not work becouse you want to build several wonders in this city due to its strong production potential. Also the National Epic seems essential. If you don't have hills in this city you shouldn't take it als your Altar-city because the last level has to be built and it's expensive.
Spiritual will also give a benefit for this victory for building all thes temples.
The other way is to adopt Theocracy an engage as many priests as you can feed.
Antheanian
Chieftain
Der Kantelberg, you just gave me an idea... Have a normal specialist city, and one huge production city (maybe with the 3-radius wonder in it). Then adopt theocracy to pump out prophets in the specialist city, but build the altar in your productive city. There you can build an army of disciple units with lot of XP. At the end, building the last part of the Altar should be easier than in a normal specialist city without theocracy. You can even turn into God-King in the end to increase 
output...
Gotta try this...
output...Gotta try this...
Love
Deity
The civic giving unlimited priests is kinda needed.
Frostdrake
Chieftain
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2009
- Messages
- 9
Hmm...
Later altar levels improve the priests, so a huge sized city can manage pretty well with 3 hammers each priest...
Later altar levels improve the priests, so a huge sized city can manage pretty well with 3 hammers each priest...
I've always found it best to pay-rush the final altar (as well as the ToW) so you avoid war entirely. Of course you'll probably have to build a little too just because of the gold cost but endgame priests are certainly not the worst at just building up your treasury.
Philosophical civs are nice (example: Einion of the Elohim I think is philo, his spell/hero make it almost impossible for you to lose against the AI once you're solidly into the game, unless you are like the worst player in civ at diplomacy...). Elves/Kuriotates are both nice for uber-specialist producing cities - FOL with elves gives ridiculous amounts of food, easy to get multiple 30+ cities if you're focusing on farms and specialists. Likewise the Ljosalfar world spell is useful enough defensively that it can save you from a stupid mistake.
In general I think the Altar is a quite easy win condition - you can play a game many times faster than other games too so if you don't like one you can always try again. Altar is also less micro than Tower of Mastery IMO too and doesn't require as much research of extra techs you may not need.
So in the end if you choose a good civ and plan out what you're doing it should go pretty well - you can choose almost any religion (except AV) that gets you in a good situation friendwise. The real trick is probably to get early prophets to get the thing started, and not polute great person pool too much. Good luck.
Philosophical civs are nice (example: Einion of the Elohim I think is philo, his spell/hero make it almost impossible for you to lose against the AI once you're solidly into the game, unless you are like the worst player in civ at diplomacy...). Elves/Kuriotates are both nice for uber-specialist producing cities - FOL with elves gives ridiculous amounts of food, easy to get multiple 30+ cities if you're focusing on farms and specialists. Likewise the Ljosalfar world spell is useful enough defensively that it can save you from a stupid mistake.
In general I think the Altar is a quite easy win condition - you can play a game many times faster than other games too so if you don't like one you can always try again. Altar is also less micro than Tower of Mastery IMO too and doesn't require as much research of extra techs you may not need.
So in the end if you choose a good civ and plan out what you're doing it should go pretty well - you can choose almost any religion (except AV) that gets you in a good situation friendwise. The real trick is probably to get early prophets to get the thing started, and not polute great person pool too much. Good luck.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
While Great Prophets are essential, generating some Great Engineers can be helpful too, especially if you save them to rush the Final Altar. Getting that done quickly can be important, as evil civs are likely to all go to war with you to prevent your victory. (That can be stopped if you cn get them to all go to war with each other though, as only civs not at war will declare war for this reason.)
WarKirby
Arty person
Seems like it would be quite easy to do with the elohim.
When others declare war on you, you can use Peace or Sanctuary,
When others declare war on you, you can use Peace or Sanctuary,
Jules.lt
Prince
The only annoyance is the need to keep your GPP pool pure enough.
It's always annoying when you get a great commander because of the National Epic
Also, the governor has an annoying tendency to assign citizens that can't work their tile (usually because of a barb invasion) to sages.
It's always annoying when you get a great commander because of the National Epic
Also, the governor has an annoying tendency to assign citizens that can't work their tile (usually because of a barb invasion) to sages.
WarKirby
Arty person
I'm inclined to say that the National Epic should lose that bonus. It seems to just get in the way.
Other ways to get great commanders are needed, but NE should be neutral, I think, and not favor any one type.
Der Kantelberg
Chieftain
Yes, it should get Great Spy points.....
No, not necessary.
As I said before you can get about 10-15 Priest without this civic. Only temples, shrines and Altar itself. That should be pretty enough.
But maybe it gets eaysier.
No, not necessary.
As I said before you can get about 10-15 Priest without this civic. Only temples, shrines and Altar itself. That should be pretty enough.
But maybe it gets eaysier.
Getting the first as-early-as-possible Great Sage to build an Academy in your best research city is still worth it IMO. The Altar does take quite a bit of research, way more than Tower unlike what someone said! You need Righteousness, and then to the end of arcane techs to Omniscience. (Which requires Commune, another expensive one.)
It's a real blessing rest of the time, often I wouldn't want any of the other specialists.
It's a real blessing rest of the time, often I wouldn't want any of the other specialists.
Force a priest. All other specialists assigned by the governor will be priests until no more can be assigned. And even after all priest slots are filled I have a feeling that the governor will prefer working tiles rather than pollute the GP pool.
Ur_Vile_Wedge
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
- Messages
- 416
Remember that once you're on the final altar, a normal priest is generating 3 hammers a turn, a great one 4. When I do altar victories, I tend to find that my priest spam city has quite a high production.....
Oh, and for the final stage, ditch Theocracy. You probably have a bunch of temples and a high level altar can support quite a few priests. Run God-king. Switch your capital if you need to.
Oh, and for the final stage, ditch Theocracy. You probably have a bunch of temples and a high level altar can support quite a few priests. Run God-king. Switch your capital if you need to.
loffenx
Warlord
- Joined
- May 6, 2008
- Messages
- 265
Thanks for the tips, everyone! Trying a kinda unorthodox combo, Thessa and the Svartalfar, i've been having problems with too many bards popping (due to Song of Autumn), but once i got lvl 3 of the tower the tower-city turned into quite the production powerhouse, coupled with God King.
I think I have found a new favourite victory condition
I think I have found a new favourite victory condition
Thats the best thing about the Altar and Towers for me, even if they are not a victory condition theres still a very good reason to build them. Come to think of it, the actual Tower of Mastery provides no buffs, does it?
Ur_Vile_Wedge
Prince
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
- Messages
- 416
Nope. Once, waaaaaaay back, I suggested that it give something along the lines of 5 of every mana to the building civ (and possibly destroy all other mana sources on the map, signifying your utter control over the ether), but it never went anywhere.
