Open competition: Earliest pyramids using philosophical civ and no stone

[futurehermit]

Yes. You need to research all the way through Divine Right, or avoid Masonry to block that path off.

Darn, ok, so what comes after Drama in the GA path? And what comes after Music?

 

[futurehermit]

Ok, I looked it up.

Ideal situation:

Research Drama. Use the GA from the parthenon on Music to give you a second GA. Save this GA until you have researched Divine Right (which is good to target anyways for Versailles). Then use the second GA to unlock Nationalism, which is on the path to Democracy (Statue of liberty, emancipation for making the switch to cottage econ)

 

[Mutineer]

if you do not research masonry, GA will research Nationalism and GM will research Republic.

 

[UncleJJ]

if you do not research masonry, GA will research Nationalism and GM will research Republic.

I think masonary just might be needed for other parts of this challenge ... like to build the Pyramids ... which is what this thread is all about

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I got lucky in my last game (which is why I said the next tech is Nationhood). I popped a Great Prophet right before my Great Artist from Music. Since I already had my Holy Shrine built I used the prophet to lightbulb Divine Right. A few turns after music (I had to research Drama) I also had Nationhood.

 

[DaveMcW]

I think masonary just might be needed for other parts of this challenge ... like to build the Pyramids ... which is what this thread is all about

Researching Republic is the same as building the Pyramids.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Researching Republic is the same as building the Pyramids.

If you can explain your strategy for doing that by 1000BC, I'm all ears.

 

[Eqqman]

Here's the Metal-Casting Pyramids in 1000BC. You gave up way too soon there Futurehermit!

This finish required a plains hill close enough to allow city founding on turn 2, with a tile providing 3F unimproved in the fat cross. The site for the second city needed to be adjacent to 3 forest tiles and needs to work a 3F tile from the founding of the city. The second city also needed a 4th forest. It is sufficient for this forest to lie in the 2nd ring of this city but be outside the cultural borders (you don't have time to get them popped on the 2nd city by any manual method). The second city must be 3 tiles away to avoid distance maintenance. Both cities need access to a Mine (it may be a requirement for this Mine to be on a grassland, not plains, hill), which they can share since the Forge city can work the Mine used by the first city to finish the Oracle [EDIT: to clarify, they *could* share a mine, but I think you just have enough time to build a 2nd Mine if you had to]. 1 Forest is needed to help finish the Oracle. It may not be evident from the picture but the second city was founded on Rice. Clearly I would have preferred picking a different spot so I didn't waste the Rice but this was the only place to go to meet the 3 trees requirement.

The Cows tile is actually a little misleading from looking at the picture. The first tech on the list was Agriculture, so I started with a farm on that tile to get it to +1F and the Pasture came much later. While obviously it is better to work a Pasture than a Farmed Cows, I discovered that having to start with Animal Husbandry over Agriculture caused enough delay that the extra bonus from a Pasture was no help [EDIT: If you could *start* research on AH right off, then the Pasture does in fact make up for the delay. It's the fact that you also have to research Hunting to hit AH ASAP that makes it too slow]. Given an Agriculture-based bonus over the Cows, I could probably have done better and most likely would not have needed the Plains hill start. But I think the setup I had in this game is not too unreasonable and therefore could probably be pulled off fairly consistently. I would discount the fact that I founded Buddhism, but it shows that you might get some icing on the cake. I was doing well enough that I was also within a few turns of placing Stonehenge in the Oracle city, but I didn't want to spend the time doing the math to make sure that it would not accelerate the Prophet production by enough that it superceded the Engineer. Either way it was still worth starting to get the cash infusion when another civ finished it.

Production is as follows, I'm not sure how tweakable this is yet to using civs other than Saladin, but I'm also convinced the Fishing leaders of Elizabeth and Alexander can pull off their own version in a seafood start (see previous post where I finished 4 turns later at 900 BC).

Capital: Worker -> Settler -> Oracle -> Whatever you decide
2nd City -> Worker -> Warrior (swap to Forge)

Techs: Agriculture -> Meditation -> Priesthood (the finish of this times closely with being done with the Settler) -> Mining -> Bronze Working -> Pottery -> Masonry (although you have time to do something else first, I went for Animal Husbandry).

The first Worker starts with a farm, and then builds roads to your forests. Time his actions so that he is ready to go on a Mine the minute you finish Mining. Then it's back to roadbuilding until you finish Bronze Working. Then both Workers prechop the woods until you're ready to pop out the buildings. The second city must have grown to size 2 before you need to start the Forge, since it must spend 3 turns creating 6 Hammers per turn under the given conditions and needs 1 pop to be whipped.

You *might* be able to adapt this to Mao. At first I thought that having no 'good' Worker improvement techs at the outset was a huge disadvanatge for Saladin, but you can easily pick these up while building the Oracle. The key for this strat is to get as many ordinary Hammers into the Oracle as fast as possible. With Mao, I would try the same build plan but change the tech path to Myst-> Med-> Pr -> Wheel -> Bronze -> Pottery. Wheel is cheap though, maybe cheap enough that I would insert that ahead of Mysticism. Under Mao the first Worker makes a Farm and then starts the Mines while you wait for the Wheel.

In previous attempts I've been going for an earlier BW, but this is a mistake I think. The 5 forests I need here only take 10 Worker turns to pre-chop, which you can easily do later on. Slavery is also only needed later on when you're ready to finish the buildings. You want to avoid the 1 turn of Anarchy by switching to Slavery while you haven't yet started Oracle (bonus: not a worry for Saladin). Slavery is no help early on since you have to take time growing cities that you can't afford to spend, and if you use forests to rush the Settler and second Worker, then they aren't available for the buildings where it is even more important. If you get a start swimming in trees then maybe you can get away with a faster Bronze.

A last comment, I've been discovering that having more than one or two floodplains are actually a detriment of sorts. Once you've chopped the forests the health hit becomes quite noticable and immediately starts to slow down city growth, forcing you to make an Aqueduct. In one test game I even had a size 1 city that was starving! I'm not neccessarliy saying you shouldn't try this on a floodplains map but it's an issue to keep in the back of your mind, especially at even higher levels where health is more and more of an issue.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

The site for the second city needed to be adjacent to 3 forest tiles and needs to work a 3F tile from the founding of the city.

I don't see where that 3F tile is in the 2nd city. I think I'd get more from the screenshots if they were overhead shots (Alt-F) with grid lines and resources turned on. I see two potential 3F tiles in Medina's borders.

• plains cows ESE from the center: Those shouldn't have been in the initial city borders, and you shouldn't have been able to build a pasture there until after the borders expanded.
• riverside grassland WNW from the center: if you had built a farm there, that would have done it, but I don't see a farm. Did it get pillaged?

Oh, maybe I see it. Is that a farm or cottage to the NE? I was thinking it's a cottage, but if it's a farm how did you get water there? It looks like it should be too far south of the river delta to have fresh water.

 

[malekithe]

I don't see where that 3F tile is in the 2nd city. I think I'd get more from the screenshots if they were overhead shots (Alt-F) with grid lines and resources turned on. I see two potential 3F tiles in Medina's borders.

The city was settled on rice, for +1 food to the center tile.

 

[Eqqman]

It may not be evident from the picture but the second city was founded on Rice. Clearly I would have preferred picking a different spot so I didn't waste the Rice but this was the only place to go to meet the 3 trees requirement.

To be totally correct I should say that founding the second city requires 5 food to be available (gross, not net). The second city is founded on an unimproved Rice tile giving me 3F from the base city square plus I get the remaining two from working any nearby grasslands tile. Losing the Rice in this manner hurts the long-term growth of this city, but you can't expect to pull off a really cool rush without having to make some sacrifices.

You're right about the image, I've read plenty of other threads where people mention turning on the grid lines and so forth so I should know better. I keep forgetting, what with all the excitement and so forth of pulling off the build.

I've just run this again where I had a plains hill tile instead of a grasslands for the Mine, and the loss of that 1 food is enough to knock the growth of the capital down enough that you may be out of the target completion range if you can't make up the difference with forests.

 

[Eqqman]

@Malekithe: I'm particularly interested in your opinion of this opening plan, or the opinion of any other of the really top players out there.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Oh yeah. He mentioned that in his post. Thanks.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

@Malekithe: I'm particularly interested in your opinion of this opening plan, or the opinion of any other of the really top players out there.

I'm not one of those players, but I really like it. I prefer the Oracle -> Pyramids approach to futurehermit's all out Pyramids build. futurehermit's plan obviously gives you a better guarantee of getting the Pyramids, but your overall empire seems stronger with the Oracle slingshot. There's a big payoff for that extra risk.

Also, I think when you really look at the big picture, the risk is fairly minimal. Worst case scenario you miss out on the Pyramids, but you haven't really lost anything. You haven't put any hammers into the Pyramids. You haven't made any strategic decisions that will bite you in the ass because you didn't get the Pyramids. It's purely opportunity cost.

You still have the Great Engineer. You still have a very advanced tech that can be used for trades or to advance your military might. You'll have a prophet down the road that you can use for any number of purposes -- found a religion, build a shrine, merge him into a city for production and commerce, .... You have an outside shot of founding Buddhism or Hinduism on the way to the Oracle. If you have to change plans and go to a cottage economy, I just don't see that as a huge disaster. This is all particularly true with Mao, where Metal Casting gets you that much closer to Cho-Ko-Nu's, but really I don't think any leader is going to complain about having Metal Casting by 1000BC.

 

[Eqqman]

I'm not one of those players, but I really like it. I prefer the Oracle -> Pyramids approach to futurehermit's all out Pyramids build. futurehermit's plan obviously gives you a better guarantee of getting the Pyramids, but your overall empire seems stronger with the Oracle slingshot. There's a big payoff for that extra risk.

The all-out Pyramids plan might actually give a stronger short-term empire. There is no restriction on placing the second city, and you're free to make whatever you like out of it and pursue a war or whatnot. But I like the Metal Casting approach since even a 'failure' still gives you tons of options as already pointed out, as compared to other early game starts where an unsuccessful attempt makes the immediate future much more of an issue. And even not making it by 1000 BC doesn't always mean you won't still pull off the Pyramids.

In regards to my previous post, I don't want to imply I undervalue anybody's opinion, I'm just curious as to what the real analysis crackerjacks can do to refine things even further. I'm far from the smartest guy playing this game, so if I can do it, I'd imagine they could really pull something off.

Another thing interesting to point out, is that you might have noticed that I've gone to 1000 BC with only ONE Warrior the whole time, and Barbarians are NOT turned off. In fact, in any game I've run trying multiple versions of this plan, I haven't had to defend myself from a Barbarian attack even one time. I have no explanation as to why this is... maybe the fact that city #2 is close enough to the capital that I haven't triggered some 'expansion' factor in Barb attacks. This is a huge difference from when I build cities with far less overlap in typical games and start getting swamped by Barbs as early as the 2000s BC. In these games I've sometimes had a Barbarian appear on my borders, but then they always wander off without paying me a visit. You could say that they are going after an AI unit, but I can't buy this as being the answer every single time.

 

[malekithe]

@Malekithe: I'm particularly interested in your opinion of this opening plan, or the opinion of any other of the really top players out there.

I, like Dr. Jiggle, prefer the oracle method to any other non-stone alternative, mostly due to its flexibility. I don't know if I can completely get behind the kind of bee-line you're doing, though. In all of the tests I ran of this, all at emperor or immortal, I was fine delaying the pyramids till around 800BC. Maybe I was lucky, I don't know. But, in those extra 8 turns, I can get a lot done. I can get Bronze Working sooner. I can research AH as my first tech if needs be. I can settle my second city in a slightly more optimal spot. The list goes on.

You need to be prepared for a couple of scenarios with this plan. What if you discover stone within decent range for the second city (or the third)? What if the starting area is very short on forests (a predominantly floodplains start)? What if you have a gold mine in your city radius? All of these scenarios could considerably alter the best way to the pyramids. For these reason, I would focus less on how fast it can be done, and more on how flexible you can be in your planning. For instance, delaying Bronze until after you've settled your second city is not a consistently viable strategy.

Personally, I'm currently doing some experimenting with Mao and this strategy to bring back good ol' ICS. I imagine dozens of cities packed within three tiles of each other, each with only 4-5 population and running 2-3 specialists. I'm not 100% sure it's feasible yet, but if any leader could pull it off, it would be Mao with an early pyramids.

 

[Eqqman]

I, like Dr. Jiggle, prefer the oracle method to any other non-stone alternative, mostly due to its flexibility. I don't know if I can completely get behind the kind of bee-line you're doing, though. In all of the tests I ran of this, all at emperor or immortal, I was fine delaying the pyramids till around 800BC. Maybe I was lucky, I don't know. But, in those extra 8 turns, I can get a lot done. I can get Bronze Working sooner. I can research AH as my first tech if needs be. I can settle my second city in a slightly more optimal spot. The list goes on.

I'm really only looking at this from the 'give me Pyramids or give me death' challenge from Futurehermit. Speaking from the point of view on Monarch, it's not too infrequent to see an AI pop out the Pyramids in the 900s so I understand where his number comes from. I think the Saladin game I illustrate here is a nearly perfect example of the 'bare bones' requirements to pull this off under the widest possible set of starting conditions. Note that although I had Gold, I didn't really need it since the techs that would receive the most benefit from the extra commerce have to be researched before I can build the Mine anyway. Having an improved set of map conditions only makes this much more viable since you have time to squeeze in more empire-building tasks while on the way to Pyramids as you say. I'm not sure I'd do such a streamlined start myself at higher levels either, if for no other reason than a single Barbarian Warrior might be enough to throw the whole thing off, or an Agressive neighbor like Montezuma will almost certainly take advantage of the weak military. Players who are having fun on lower levels might like to try this since these risks are far lower.

 

[futurehermit]

Also, I think when you really look at the big picture, the risk is fairly minimal. Worst case scenario you miss out on the Pyramids, but you haven't really lost anything.

You've lost EVERYTHING!!! The advantage given by pyramids for this strat is huge. Not getting the pyramids means you're back to a cottage-based economy, which I'm convinced is vastly inferior.

I like the oracle approach, and will have to try it again I guess. I'll try settling the city close by the capital and see how that goes. In general, I don't like to have a city infringing on my capital, but considering it's a specialist approach anyways, it should be ok.

Question: How do you "share" a tile between 2 cities?

Btwn, with my Mao build I can now consistently get the pyramids by 1000BC. I'm thinking I'm almost ready to write a strategy article. Just need to tweak a few more things.

 

[drkodos]

Question: How do you "share" a tile between 2 cities?

You have the tile in both cities fat cross and you switch its use back and forth between the cities.

Something I do regularly with good resources such as Pigs. Use it to fast grow one city, and then the other when one gets near hap/health limits.

 

[futurehermit]

How do I get the tile to become available in the second city? It's always dark...