Pingala VS Magnus

[Troy Bruckner]

Since I can't answer in the elimination thread I will post this here.

Pingala first and then promoted to give +1 culture per population +the bonus % Pingala gives should result in enough culture to get one to the first real government well before the end of the ancient age and enables the building of an ancestral hall (why build anything else?) which will give you the governor promotions to have Magnus at rank 2 by the time you are ready to start pumping out settlers with faith. If the player goes Magnus first then they will lag behind in culture and unless they get lucky with first to meet culture city states they will have a significantly smaller chance to have a golden age in the second phase of the game.

 

[Victoria]

It sound very convincing, like it must be so.
I take Amani first followed by Magnus and still win on deity with a string of golden ages. Does that make me wrong?
Question though. Do you get to PP on deity before turn 40?
Do you think Magnus is about population and culture?

 

[Tech Osen]

I don't play on deity but why do you like Amani so much? I don't see it.

 

[Kwami]

I don't play on deity but why do you like Amani so much? I don't see it.

Because you can move her around to get a bunch of easy suzerains for era score.

As for the OP, he's making a lot of assumptions and I just don't buy it. You need 4 Governor Titles to get rank 2 Pingala and rank 2 Magnus, which means that you need to get to Political Philosophy, build the Government Plaza, and build a government building. By then, you should have already built a bunch of Settlers. Also, where are you getting Faith to buy a bunch of Settlers? Without Harvest, there isn't a great source of early Faith unless you invest in Holy Sites or get really lucky with the map. If you're investing in lots of Holy Sites, then you'll fall even further behind.

Or do you play at lower levels? I could see your strategy working at King or something.

 

[Bangau]

I like to mix governor's a little, but a strong plays is often: get Pingala, get him to the second culture promotion and then use the two slots from the Gov Plaza and the first building in it to get two promotions on Magnus. This is a great opening, but certain situations make other openings stronger. Amani can be cool to get early suzeranity, in a crazy early war game with loyalty issues Victor with the +4 loyalty promotion can be useful. The other four I don't think I ever use first. Would be interested to hear if anyone knows of a way they can boost the early game.

 

[Victoria]

I don't see it.

Because you can move her around to get a bunch of easy suzerains for era score.

Usually not. Early on you get 2 quite fast governors way before PP. double Pingala is one option of many. Racing too fast on the culture train can end up with very expensive districts so is not my preference. Magnus chop early is great for that key wonder like Pyramids, Oracle, apadana, whatever. But typically the second governor slot is just when you need him, not the first. Now Liang has some use or Magnus provision is another option but Amani allows me a few things.
Yes early suze of a few CS is possible but this purely gives you era as you are jumping around so do not get the dip favour.
That diplomatic favour is significant, it can be converted to a good amount of gold which you can then use to levy or whatever.
You get the choice of a very early levy and this can be more OP that some people realise. There are a few tricks and abuses in this area like levy move the troops away then take the CS but traditional use is sound.
Then there is the likes of Kumasi and others, early suze of Akkad or Kabul.
Then there is the grievances, someone is attacking it you can move Amani in
There is the -2 loyalty promotion though that I also like, yes it sacrifices others but earlier civs are more vulnerable to loyalty and once the scales start tipping it can get tricky for them.

So my honest real answer is flexibility and variety I prefer and I can still get the chop. To me Pingala is great once you are up and running but I do not necessarily want that early. I have played a double pin start but AI must stress too much science or culture not only makes for expensive districts but also often does not provide the time for eurekas and inspirations so your raw pin stat may be 6 culture per turn but you just lost an 80 culture inspiration so perhaps it is not as good in reality as on paper.

The other four I don't think I ever use

Moksha 4 promos ASAP to give promotional choice to apostles.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Assuming you didn't meet the CS first, Amani is a quick 2 yields of somethng. This can be better than Pingala in many cases. Also if you did meet them first, you can become suzerain and sell favor.

Magnus is also good because you only have to promote him once, so this isn't really that big of a dilemma. Provision is nice but if you're in a settler phase, it's not really that big of a deal.

 

[Victoria]

Provision is nice but if you're in a settler phase, it's not really that big of a deal.

It is if you are on plains, and as your pop starts decreasing the time to build a settler increases. Provision dovetails with settlers nicely. Yes with some good food you can do without.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I pretty much always take "Magnus" and "No pop settler" as my first two governor title

the third title is usually pingala, liang, or amani depending on how the game is going, but generally pingala

 

[kaspergm]

I pretty much always take "Magnus" and "No pop settler" as my first two governor title

the third title is usually pingala, liang, or amani depending on how the game is going, but generally pingala

I tend to go that direction myself, but I'm not sure it's actually the optimal. Certainly, if you have a start with good food supply, those early pop points are pretty easy to replenish.

 

[Bangau]

@Victoria : You forgot the important last word there. I said: "The other four I don't think I ever use FIRST." That's a big difference! I use all of them, but those four never as my first choice.

 

[Kwami]

@Victoria : You forgot the important last word there. I said: "The other four I don't think I ever use FIRST." That's a big difference! I use all of them, but those first never as my first choice.

I think his point was that you could go Moksha 4 first to get those Apostle promotions for a religious game.

 

[MonkeyPaw]

I'm so used to Pingala that early civics feel too slow if I don't. I want to get that first government as quick as possible and he helps that. If there's a lot of CS around I'll take both the +2 influence and 'first envoy counts as two' cards then hopefully complete some quests for them.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

My point is with Pingala you should get enough culture to be able to build an ancestral hall by the time you would otherwise be sitting there with a rank 2 Magnus if you went Magnus first. I might lose a second population for my second settler this way, but that is worth it to have a an upgraded government, the Chopadana, an ancestral hall and feudalism half an era before I would have it if I went Magnus first. For the record I play exclusively on marathon.

 

[UWHabs]

I still need to do too much early. By the time you get the government palace plus ancestral hall, that's very late to be starting the expansion phase. But I do definitely like to get Pingala's promotions early, because that ~5-7 culture (or science, if I somehow have gotten some early sources of culture) is huge to push you forward.

But I would also agree with the above comments, where I don't know what level you play at where you're building and finishing the ancestral hall in the ancient era, and also able to get a golden age too. You've got to be really lucky with your scouts I think to pull that off.

 

[Kwami]

Oh, marathon. I have no idea what works well on marathon. For standard games, waiting for Ancestral Hall before making Settlers is madness.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I think his point was that you could go Moksha 4 first to get those Apostle promotions for a religious game.

I don't like that motivation. I prefer waiting till i have 5-10k faith before making apostles anyway so that you can manage their promotions. Sure, there is some advantage to having the double promos earlier, but imo not big enough to forego the value of other early governor promotions.

I don't have experience with these means of building settlers. I usually dont have space for many cities and i don't feel the need to build many anyway. (If i want more cities, i'd rather conquer them). So usually i just build ~5 settlers asap, not waiting for any of this stuff to be available. But as i said, i don't have experience with it, so maybe i'm missing out on things.

I do have experience with amani first. I liked it an aweful lot before the most recent update where they ~halved the value of favor. Now i think it's more balanced. I still like amani, but it's no longer the no-brainer that it was.

Currently i am doing Pingala first, and it's awesome in OCC i think. (still trying to win after several attemptes...:/ ) In normal game i don't think it's that powerful, i just build monuments instead, all those city borders need to grow anyways.

And of course everything depends on what you want to achieve in a specific game.

 

[kb27787]

It sound very convincing, like it must be so.
I take Amani first followed by Magnus and still win on deity with a string of golden ages. Does that make me wrong?
Question though. Do you get to PP on deity before turn 40?
Do you think Magnus is about population and culture?

t40 is doable, but you do need some favorable terrain and CS meets.
Taking Amani first makes me think you get classic golden ages on a regular basis on deity... I for one, cannot seem to achieve this (not that I'd even want to! In classical era your empire is not quite yet ready to take full advantage of the golden age bonuses)

 

[Ziad]

I almost always go Amani first for super easy era score and bonuses. After that it depends. Magnus is very useful, especially if hop him around to save population from cities building Settlers. However Magnus' followup rankings aren't as great so I often opt for an early Pingala or Reyna on Phoenicia and just take the population loss. It's not as bad if you build settlers across many cities.

 

[NukeAJS]

There is the -2 loyalty promotion though that I also like, yes it sacrifices others but earlier civs are more vulnerable to loyalty and once the scales start tipping it can get tricky for them.

There are often situations where you'll have a CS smashed between you and another civ. Plopping Amani there with the -2 promotion (and usually a mid-to-high pop city running bread and circuses) can wreck chaos at best, or let you easily keep those cities -- though that usually requires Viktor. Still, getting Amani (and maybe Viktor) out early makes for a very strong diplo/military combo.

I recommend that everybody plays as Eleanor at least once. Not just because she can be very strong, but she's a good advanced tutorial on how loyalty works. When you combine Viktor, Amani, bread and circuses, era-based loyalty, and Eleanor's special ability, you can really see how loyalty can be exploited (and thus defended against).