So, why Pyramids.

[Zx Zero Zx]

The oracle doesnt give you anywhere near 8k beakers. Not sure if you think you're impressing newbies with over-the-top exaggerations or what. Oracle gets you, generally, a ~500 beaker tech, and a trade for alpha, ironworking, backfill techs and maybe monarchy. This assumes that an AI goes straight for alphabet, which is not always the case. This also assumes you can trade with whoever without worrying about anybody's worst enemy, also not always the case.

The pyramids also don't cost you 350 hammers more, because you're not building it without stone. The increased tech pace from proper use of the pyramids also multiplies beakers through trades.

You have your one way to play the game that you stick to, I'm not sure what qualifies you to comment on strategies you don't actually use.

So because you don't know how to tech broker as well as I do you only get 1/8 as many beakers. I don't use the Mids because I understand that they are overrated, and that there are better hammer sinks. I don't see why you argue with me over stupid crap like this so much. If you don't trust me why don't you trust one of the 5 best players of all time who says the same thing?

 

[terriFyer]

I disagree, I think the pyramids are a very good wonder, but i think the oracle is better. THE ORACLE SUCKS!!! you know something YOU SUCK

 

[Quibblesome]

Mids is a lot better though if one is completely isolated, right? In that case the beakers gained through tech trades are made redundant and the long-term effect of mids wins out.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Mids is a lot better though if one is completely isolated, right? In that case the beakers gained through tech trades are made redundant and the long-term effect of mids wins out.

Unless you're luxury resource rich AND have stone, rep is painfully cap-limiting though. You might be better off oracle something then ASAP bulb astro lol.

 

[Pengu]

If you are isolated oracling col might be better as you get happiness from religion.
Otherwise you must waste a GS to get philo or skip religion altogether.

 

[cseanny]

Unless you're luxury resource rich AND have stone, rep is painfully cap-limiting though. You might be better off oracle something then ASAP bulb astro lol.

You'd be less slider dependent so 20% with Theater/Colosseum gets the job done. Quite a bit more attractive in my eyes when you happen to have marble too.

 

[babar]

The lower the difficulty you go the bigger the tech you can take, thus the more beakers you get.... Your logic makes no sense, it's only on about Emp where your trades get a little worse. But on all difficulties below Emp you shouldn't careless about trading, and should just rush everyone with HA.

You're not going to get an 8k tech though; you need something to trade for, and if you're arguing Deity is the same as Immortal in this respect, I'm a little confused.

Trading should NEVER benefit your opponents enough for you to worry about it.

Have you tried NTB or NTT? I've actually seen Deity players argue that these settings gimp the human more than the AI, which I find preposterous. If you trade for 8k beakers, you could be giving away at least 10k to the AI combine, and even if you're just trading the same tech multiple times, you're still giving more than just one tech overall. Say you trade Divine Right to 5 AIs for different useful techs, great, but ignoring the benefit to you, now all the AIs can research 5 different techs other than Divine Right, techs which they can now trade with each other (more freely than with the player). In the extreme case, if every AI was about to research DR simultaneously, you gave away DR x 5, which isn't such a great deal as DR x 1. Tech brokering and trading is advisable because you have to be part of the trade merry-go-round or you'll be left in the dust, not because your brilliant wheeling and dealing means the AIs get nothing out of it.

I just wanted to say building the Pyramids works fine on Immortal, in fact, as someone said earlier, building them often seems to mean a won game. So new players shouldn't be put off by the anti-mids hyperbole, even if the mids possibly mightn't be quite as good as a couple of other wonders.

 

[Ringo Kid]

I pre chop forests, and build it in 1-2 turns. I never beeline it off the bat, my tech options always depends on my starting techs. But my early game tech priorities are Agri > TW > BW > Oracle techs. Only after you have all 3 is it worth it to go for the Oracle, but if I start with Agri, and TW, and have rivers in my BFC I tech Pottery before the Oracle. You aren't going down the tech path to unlock any religious later techs. There are 2 that it is nice that you can tech, but it's all about the free tech. If you have a start where you can afford to tech Writing before Priest you have 2 of the strongest Oracle options in the game from bulbing Math.



Hardly does the Mids give you 8k+ beakers over 5 turns? Oh wait it gives you like 30 over 5 turns for 350 more hammers!!! How freaking amazing! You just spent 500 hammers to get 30 additional beakers whoopedy freaking do! That helped my empire so much that it is going to take 200 turns for it to equal up to what the Oracle gave me for 150! Damn man you sure are good at math to some how get that 200 turns is a better investment than 5 for the same amount of beakers.

Not valid comparison. You can trade tech gained from running Rep over the next hundred turns

 

[ben-jammin]

So because you don't know how to tech broker as well as I do you only get 1/8 as many beakers. I don't use the Mids because I understand that they are overrated, and that there are better hammer sinks. I don't see why you argue with me over stupid crap like this so much. If you don't trust me why don't you trust one of the 5 best players of all time who says the same thing?

Tech brokering is not some great skill that only a select few possess If I wanted to make painfully dumb non-arguments like this I'd say "well if you knew how to tech-broker like me the mids would give you 50k beakers."

Yes, a very good player has said he thinks the 'mids aren't all that. Many other very good players say they are excellent under the right circumstances. This isn't an argument, it's you stroking your own ego. Why does it always come to that for you? You use the only strategy that doesn't suck, we get it.

Otherwise you must waste a GS to get philo or skip religion altogether.

Bulbing philo isn't a waste, and if nobody else has it there's no better play.

 

[Tatran]

This isn't an argument, it's you stroking your own ego.

Two minds, one thought.

The Pyramids wonder isn't a must have.
Sometimes HR is much better when lacking happiness resources and/or having leaders whose favourite civic is HR.
Unlimited tech trading (friendly relations) is always the best.

 

[lindsay40k]

The Mids don't only generate some extra beakers from your specialist economy, they also enable bigger cities before Monarchy crops up. If you've got the food to feed the whip and Scientists, that can mean more than six extra beakers and a more severe levy for conquering your neighbour's Gold.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Call me old-school, I still think the most valuable depends on what resources you have. If you've got stone, mids aren't a bad play. Often on immortal or deity, marble won't come into play for the oracle, true, but I think mids with stone aren't bad. I love switching to Police State after I've got forges and barracks whipped everywhere. I can create one heck of an army rather quickly.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You're not going to get an 8k tech though; you need something to trade for, and if you're arguing Deity is the same as Immortal in this respect, I'm a little confused.



Have you tried NTB or NTT? I've actually seen Deity players argue that these settings gimp the human more than the AI, which I find preposterous. If you trade for 8k beakers, you could be giving away at least 10k to the AI combine, and even if you're just trading the same tech multiple times, you're still giving more than just one tech overall. Say you trade Divine Right to 5 AIs for different useful techs, great, but ignoring the benefit to you, now all the AIs can research 5 different techs other than Divine Right, techs which they can now trade with each other (more freely than with the player). In the extreme case, if every AI was about to research DR simultaneously, you gave away DR x 5, which isn't such a great deal as DR x 1. Tech brokering and trading is advisable because you have to be part of the trade merry-go-round or you'll be left in the dust, not because your brilliant wheeling and dealing means the AIs get nothing out of it.

I just wanted to say building the Pyramids works fine on Immortal, in fact, as someone said earlier, building them often seems to mean a won game. So new players shouldn't be put off by the anti-mids hyperbole, even if the mids possibly mightn't be quite as good as a couple of other wonders.

This is comically misinformed.

AI tend to research a certain way, so their ability to research "different" techs is not consistently in play, and sometimes is starkly out of play (IE typical machinery ---> engineering path for them). Each individual AI will never, ever get more out of tech trades than a competent human unless the human is isolated and falls hopelessly behind some religious love fest.

On top of THAT, spare trade power can be used to get AI to throw away gobs of units beating on each other, duck early wars (or get into bogus ones for a secure position), and farm unfair (due to multiplier distribution) quantities of gold to get to the next tech the AI almost never researches early.

Mids without stone will almost certainly put you behind, but even with stone they can screw you. Sometimes you might want to sell stone to an AI for cashmoney (abuse the AI trade gold cap with subsidies for even MOAR gold!) and then let him build the mids. That might work out nicely if you know AI tendencies and it's a good way to "build" mids.

So because you don't know how to tech broker as well as I do you only get 1/8 as many beakers

AI below deity do not tech well enough to broker as much as you say. On the difficulties between "kill everything with HA" and deity, you will indeed tend to get less than you say by a significant margin.

Amusingly, that doesn't make the mids any better as a wonder, but it's worth noting.

 

[Manco Capac]

abuse the AI trade gold cap with subsidies for even MOAR gold!

Oh please, don't bring that crap overhere. I am starting to regret digging that out. Those sempiternal circumvoluted fights...in SGOTM.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oh please, don't bring that crap overhere. I am starting to regret digging that out. Those sempiternal circumvoluted fights...in SGOTM.

I'm bringing it out. S&T hasn't chewed on something this Big, Juicy, and Hard to Swallow since the old protective + (maybe) stone wall whip + chop for mass trick. Now we have a new toy, and it will probably never be patched and we can forever argue over whether someone used it at all, and if they did, if the game is any less valid!

HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[babar]

This is comically misinformed.

AI tend to research a certain way, so their ability to research "different" techs is not consistently in play, and sometimes is starkly out of play (IE typical machinery ---> engineering path for them). Each individual AI will never, ever get more out of tech trades than a competent human unless the human is isolated and falls hopelessly behind some religious love fest.

I think YOU'RE comically misinformed . I have to question whether you've ever actually tried NTB, since you're implying it makes the game EASIER for the AIs! Also, the stuff I bolded seems to undermine your argument somewhat.

The only actual point in your post I disagree with is "Each individual AI will never, ever get more out of tech trades than a competent human". Tech-wise the AIs are idiots. They need plenty of shots at the tech tree for their hit-and-miss approach to work, so they need to work in numbers or they will miss out on useful techs with weak prerequisites for too long. And of course they trade relatively freely with each other compared with the human. The clever human tech-trades to gain a brief window of advantage, but failure to make use of that advantage would mean the AIs come out ahead in the long term (I think). It's pointless to argue about though, because it's always "this unquantifiable" vs "that unquantifiable". I was just trying to point out the nonsense of the idea that AIs don't benefit from tech trading in any meaningful way; that the "8000" from the Oracle is free.

 

[ben-jammin]

AI below deity do not tech well enough to broker as much as you say. On the difficulties between "kill everything with HA" and deity, you will indeed tend to get less than you say by a significant margin.

Amusingly, that doesn't make the mids any better as a wonder, but it's worth noting.

I play on deity and don't recall ever getting 8000 beakers worth of tech with code of laws. I also don't recall getting the pyramids with stone ever 'screwing' me.

 

[RD-BH]

??? ... I don't understand this debate.

1) When I build the mids, I win in the 1800s.
2) When I don't build them, I win in the 1600s.

Either the mids aren't the end-all-be-all,
... or I'm lacking knowledge how to leverage them to greatest advantage.

For now, I'll let the AI build them for me.

 

[Bandobras Took]

??? ... I don't understand this debate.

1) When I build the mids, I win in the 1800s.
2) When I don't build them, I win in the 1600s.

Either the mids aren't the end-all-be-all,
... or I'm lacking knowledge how to leverage them to greatest advantage.

For now, I'll let the AI build them for me.

Remember, it's not when you actually win the game that matters, it's when you bulb Liberalism.

 

[ben-jammin]

??? ... I don't understand this debate.

1) When I build the mids, I win in the 1800s.
2) When I don't build them, I win in the 1600s.

Either the mids aren't the end-all-be-all,
... or I'm lacking knowledge how to leverage them to greatest advantage.

For now, I'll let the AI build them for me.

They can make otherwise poor situations fairly easily winnable. If the game is already easily winnable, you're probably not wasting hammers building wonders to begin with.