The Pyramids: the great debate of cost vs production

[mboettcher]

The Pyramids are one of the most hotly contested wonders I've seen on this forum for the higher difficulties.

Personally I only build them If I've got some forests, stone and am Ind. Which is not a particularily rare situation for an Ind leader as forests are probably a given for anybody.


The problem is that the Mids are expensive, slowing expansion, perhaps considerably if not timed right, and the Rep civic which is ever so powerful for doubling the production of those 2 scientist library cities also accrues negative diplo points in the sense you are not getting the +2 from hereditary rule. You also don't get the bonus from being able to overwhip and just garrison the unhappiness away. However it may be awhile before you get 18 units for those 6 cities. Then again it may not.

Having Rep also doesn't save you from having to research Constitution later as you need it for Corporation. However, again it does save you from researching Hereditary rule unless you got stuck with wine. Plus if under Rep and an AI demands you switch to HR then you get even more bonus' diplo points and a peace treaty and can switch back later.

Plus the Early GE points are not a small thing.

I'm just not settled on the issue. If I have stone (and am not Ind) do I build them? I don't now if they are worth it.

But the 6 beaker scientists are just soooooo good early. Dominates cottages up and down until Printing Press and uses those early food bonus' really well.

THoughts?

 

[DMOC]

I never build the Pyramids without stone and/or without the Industrious trait. If I want more research, it's time to crank out those troops and capture cottage-filled AI cities.

If I do have stone, then I always consider building the Pyramids.

 

[Earthling]

DMOC gives a very good answer. The Pyramids are pretty much the most powerful wonder you can get early on if it doesn't stifle you in other ways. But I don't find myself with stone as often as would be nice.

 

[DMOC]

DMOC gives a very good answer. The Pyramids are pretty much the most powerful wonder you can get early on if it doesn't stifle you in other ways. But I don't find myself with stone as often as would be nice.

Sadly, that's been the case. I keep getting unirrigated rice by the way.

Also, while the Pyramids might be the most powerful early wonder, the human needs to know how to leverage his/her advantage.

I also like the Great Lighthouse (on coastal maps) and the Oracle (on high difficulty levels for trading) as early wonders. As a plus, both are cheaper than the Pyramids.

 

[Derek_Zoolander]

Great Lighthouse is so amazing haha. Can instantly make cities profitable while also getting more research, more land, more resources, and more production. Especially putting cities on small island chains gives something like +150% for overseas trade. That's an amazing bonus.

OT: I generally never build the Pyramids. They're way too expensive for the timeframe for me to build them in. I need to work on getting settlers out and blocking\developing land, and if I go for the Pyramids, despite how powerful they are, I may get stuck with desert land and such. Blech.

 

[Crusher1]

Honestly, I do love the Mids but like DMOC said, you do need to know how to leverage them. Obviously CRE leaders with stone are almost too good to be true - quick libraries to actually run some scientist. Then again, with very repeatable results and nice timing, IND leaders can get the Oracle/Mids and use COL to run scientist. Hatty and Ramesses and Louie are all nice.

I'm just not settled on the issue. If I have stone (and am not Ind) do I build them? I don't now if they are worth it.

With a CRE leader I would always tend to say Yes. Yes because, you don't need hammers for border pops via SH or monuments so this enables you to quickly spam enough settlers/workers so you don't fall behind.

Yes because you don't need to settle poor city sites when worrying about border pops in order to gain access to the stone.

Yes because you can get quick access to libraries and scientist.

Anyways, just do the math in your head and count out how many turns it will take you to produce each worker, settler, the wonder, and time to hook up resoucres and research techs. If the math adds up then you can do it with any leader.

The only real prerequisite I have is that I have 5 total cities (standard/small Normal) right around 1000 BC. If I can do that then I can justify building them at any time.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I also like the Great Lighthouse (on coastal maps) and the Oracle (on high difficulty levels for trading) as early wonders. As a plus, both are cheaper than the Pyramids.

I can't remember the last time I actually managed to build the Oracle during a successful start. Back when I couldn't beat Noble, building the Oracle was easy (after all, it's only one tech away from the religion you founded). These days, it never seems to be a tech path that makes sense.

 

[DMOC]

It's true that obtaining the Oracle gets harder as time goes on. However, Unconquered Sun demonstrated a game in the thread called "homeyg vs. deity" where the Oracle really helped him in trading opportunities. It's game dependent.

 

[Crusher1]

These days, it never seems to be a tech path that makes sense.

Why not? If you play at an easy level you can tech any way you want ^^.

If you play at a harder level COL/MC backfills the stuff you would have teched if you didn't get the Oracle.

 

[Negator_UK]

The mids give you more than more powerful specialists, that +3 happy for 5 cities is an extra 15 tiles you can work without happy resources or Monarchy/HR, not to be sniffed at.

 

[mboettcher]

This is true but the only leader that I would try the oracle/mids slingshot with is Louis with possible exceptions for ramsess. Louis plays by his own rules though as far as I'm concerned. Very, very powerful leader.

I'm never against the oracle slingshot anyway with an Ind leader as the forges are a huge economic advantage as they are very affordable with Ind leaders and make building all the other infrastructure relatively easy with whips. Getting the Mids along with can be tough and I've got to say that it requires One of the above leaders, stone, and good tree supply as well to be pretty doable with out also getting pummeled in the land race.

Though thats not to say that such a sling shot is not powerful. If one fails to get the land then There is no harm in taking it militarily. 3-4 cities early that are powered by forges, super research and good sites can easily pump an army out that can take down some annoying neighbor and get those 8-10 desired cities.

 

[Iranon]

They are not worth getting beaten to several good city spots by neighbouring AIs... but they are a wonderful tool to allow a compact empire to shine with lots and lots of settled specialists. They are also very useful if our land consists of resources and junk.

If I have stone, I make at least a half-hearted attempt to build them... whip settlers, regrow investing hammers into the Pyramids. Great if it works, if it doesn't I'll at least get a nice sum of gold to finance my expansion (apparently compensation gold for failing wonders is not discounted excess multipliers).

I don't go for them as often as I do for some other wonders though (I will shoot for one of Oracle/Great Lighthouse, the Great Library and the Kremlin in practically every game).

 

[Crusher1]

They are not worth getting beaten to several good city spots by neighbouring AIs

With stone or even a good hammer capital with Industrious you don't need to start the Mids until you have already made 3 settlers first so there should be no reason you can't block + get the Mids - if you have to have em'.

Edit:

I'm never against the oracle slingshot anyway with an Ind leader as the forges are a huge economic advantage as they are very affordable with Ind leaders and make building all the other infrastructure relatively easy with whips. Getting the Mids along with can be tough and I've got to say that it requires One of the above leaders, stone, and good tree supply as well to be pretty doable with out also getting pummeled in the land race.

On Emperor it's almost a guarantee its so doable. On Immortal, if your capital has about 13-14 base production you can do it 75% +. It's not very difficult at all as long as you fog bust with your initial warriors and time the rest out. Actually, when I use Ramesses on Immortal I tend to get SH, Oracle, and Mids - even w/out stone. I'd definitely suggest getting COL instead of MC when you are getting the Mids. You can ALWAYS get 5 cities around 1000 AD too which won't leave you in the dust by any means and allow you to still block off land.

Everyone has their own style, But, if you want to make this particular opening successful it works best to settle your 1st city very close to the capital and share resources such as farms/mines/luxuries. This allows you to quickly grow while getting good production and with the help of only a couple chops completes either SH or Oracle (land/trees/timing decide) while you are growing and then immediately making a settler (+3 from capital originally) for a total of 5 cities very early. There are plenty of times you find the time to get TGW too.

OR,

You could say, use a leader which starts with Agr/Wheel and get lucky enough to have an agriculture resource and tech Min, AH, Wrt, Alpha (finished in 2000s), back fill, continue REXing, and rush with 27+ rifles w/ spies before 1000 AD. Either way is fun ^^.

 

[mboettcher]

@crusher

that is of course a legitimate and common strategy but I still believe grabbing so many winders (SH aside, I don;t ever seem to be to get that and Rex effectively) is really based on having a strong IND leader and a good start. Obviously if you have all those components in play as I mentioned earlier then grabbing Mids is not an issue but w/o those things I don';t see how early wonder whoring is even possible on emp/immortal and above w/o losing in the land race. Granted you still may get *enough* land but you still aren't getting the land you otherwise would and necessarily profiting by the route chosen w/o the proper rex/resources.


With stone and IND then mids and even oracle are not out of the question for me. The issue is though, how much are the mids worth versus early cities? I'm wiling to bet that 3-4 early mid cities are worth at least 5-6 non mids cities based on the value of standard marginal land placement (i.e. the 5th and 6th cites are not going to be in the best spots compared to 1-4). This value should be leveargable all the way until the late middle ages for military purposes alone.

In this sense I think Mids can be a very powerful wonder but they do change the entire strategy for the first third of the game.

 

[mboettcher]

all bets are off of course when it comes to getting the mids and then long successful military campaigns to take a lot of land.

 

[vicawoo]

If you're boxed in and don't have the special resource to attack, it's a good way to get a tech edge. It's also in the deity cultural victory guide in warlords to rush buy.

Culture from wonders shouldn't be underestimated. A double culture oracle is 16 culture, even holy cities get dwarfed.

 

[Fluxx]

On average with stone, or with an IND leader pyramids take about 43-50 turns to build.

In general I can make about 3-4 settlers in that time, or workers.

Unless I KNOW I will be boxed in, have problems with happy resources early, will run a heavy specialist economy, or gonna have a big cottageble land but no production I consider building mids.

Mids are great, but to damn expensive in most games on high level to take 24/7

 

[Warmessiah]

I always try mids if i got a big empire coz i need the civics, and my cities are usually production-powerhouses even tho I don't really have ind. leaders or mabye not even stone I still build them, coz if u dont get them built 1st then building a failed wonder is the best way to change hammers into gold be4 u get banking.

 

[Iranon]

One other thing to keep in mind: Because of the incompetence of the AI in all things warfare-related, you can often deal with your direct neighbours eventually. The Pyramids greatly increase the chance of a far-away AI running away with the game... as such building them just to keep them out of the hands of someone whom you can't simply take out might be preferable, even if it sets you back compared to harder expansion.

Hogging wonders, settling specialists and not trading monopoly techs can slow down the global tech rate dramatically and allow one to control the game better; for this the Pyramids are a very useful tool.

 

[madscientist]

I too have found I am more and more reluctant to go after the Pyramids without stone. Early I wonders I prefer instead are Great wall and the Great Lighthouse. I will perhaps go after Stonehenge or Oracle, but not so much anymore.