The Pyramids
Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there was a trait that makes every specialist get +3 beakers of science. You will be crazy not to use SE because you want to use your advantage. Now, will building the Pyramids make sense? On one hand you are getting only +3 more beakers which is a 50% instead of 100% increase. But you will still do it - because you have a lot of specialists and you want those extra beakers.
My argument is that Philo is very much like that theoretical trait. At the end the +3 GP-points a specialist build are work +X beakers (we don't know the X). Maybe this is not enough to go all the way for a SE (I myself was never able to make it work) but it doesn't mean we don't have to increase the raw GP output of our specialists because we *should* use them more than usual.
Well, it is clear that in our game, we'll want a lot of Great People. We'll want them because we need 4 extras at the end. We'll also want them because they are useful to have.
Great People can come from Wonders or from Specialists, as well as a combination of both.
In an Emperor-level Diplo game, we won't build a lot of Wonders, so most of our Great People Points (GPP) will come from Specialists. So, it is true that a Wonder like The Pyramids will create a good synergy. The fact that we have no Anarchy also makes for a good Synergy with The Pyramids, as we can switch to Police State + Theocracy for a short time to build up an army quickly and with better base experience.
In an Emperor-level Cultural game, we'll target Wonders more aggressively, so there will be less GPP points coming from Specialists. That said, there should at least be one city with 6+ Artist Specialists, if we can manage to get such a city. Also, for this particular game, we'll likely need Astronomy to reach a Barb-infested Fur area. Let me tell you that in a Cultural game, the difference between successful late-game Research and unsuccessful late-game Research is almost purely based on whether you have Representation. Your economy buildings will not be in place due to a focus on building Cathedrals, so your only real hope to get Science is through Representation. The Tech that unlocks the Representation Civic costs a lot, but we could target delaying a Cultural game just to research it. Or, we could target The Pyramids.
It is clear that a Diplo or Cultural game would greatly benefit from The Pyramids. Building it in our capitol would hopefully eventually net us a Great Engineer, as well as an additional Great Prophet over time.
In order be able to build The Pyramids, we have to have a few things working in our favour:
1. Organized Religion helps. Checkmark.
2. Teching to The Wheel prior to Alphabet, probably after Meditation, would be required. We'd need a Road route to the Stone. Doing so would require team agreement.
3. Lots of trees to chop. Our capitol has a TON of them and we really should chop some soon, so that there is a chance for some to regrow (if Forests are packed too tightly, then there will be no space for any of them to regrow). Checkmark.
4. Teching to Masonry early helps. We've already done that. Checkmark.
5. We'll need a city by the Stone. It would help if we can get that city in place in order to get Lightbulbed Christianity in it, so that we don't have to settle immediately next to the Stone in order to get that Resource within our borders in time. We'll probably have to earmark Settler 4 for this location. We'd need team consensus in order to do so. On the good side, that would set up a "complete" cultural blocking border for Zara, who can otherwise sneak a city in past our northern cultural borders if he really likes the land to the west. On the possible bad side, it might or might not mean giving up another city closer to Zara. We'd still be settling City 3 towards Zara, though, while City 4 would still be blocking him (while a Marble city would not be oriented towards blocking him).
6. Hope that no Industrious AI was given Stone to begin with.
Not-so-short Summary
The team would have to agree to build City 4 by the Stone.
We would have to agree to use some of our capitol's Forests for chopping out The Pyramids (the Forests have to do something, so I don't think that this point will be a sticking point--we'll be chopping no matter WHAT we build--it will just be that we have to decide what it is we will be building).
The team would have to agree to research: Writing -> Meditation -> The Wheel -> then probably Alphabet next
Note that until we get Zara up to Friendly relations, learning The Alphabet won't get us ANY tech trades, anyway, so delaying Alphabet a bit further for a useful tech can be very easily justified, as we would be very unlikely to trade with him by getting Alphabet as early as just before researching The Wheel.
Zara is BIG on shared religion, so the sooner that he will adopt one of our religions, the better off we'll be in terms of being able to get on Friendly terms with him. He won't attack us at Friendly relations, but he might (10% chance, if he thinks that he's powerful enough and also passes one of the "declare war" random "dice roll" checks) if he's only Pleased with us.
Surely, with Stone so close, some of the other teams will get The Pyramids. It will be a VERY useful Science-based Wonder. With our religious-based strategy, I think that we'll be able to get the Stone within our cultural borders with a potentially better longer-term city than other teams will have. The high cost is greatly offset by Stone + Organized Religion + a huge Forest. The hardest part will be building City 4 and enough Workers, while keeping our tech rate high enough until we have researched The Wheel.
By pre-chopping the Forests with Fast Workers, we don't have to put stupid Roads on the Forests (which ARE stupid because those Roads prevent most Forest-regrowth). So, if we are close to the time to chop out The Pyramids and someone else builds it, we'll have pre-chopped Forests available for another task.
). But, if we make him our best buddy or our war target, we'll be able to get him to switch to a religion will relatively little difficulty, right?
for specialist, but solves any (or almost) happiness problem.
