trying a wide game as Maya, got a couple ?'s

[dewbak75]

So I think I want to try playing as a wide, sprawling Mayan empire in my next game. The Mayan Pyramid that generates both faith and science early in the game is just BEGGING to be spammed all over the map. Combine that, with Messenger Of The Gods giving you more science for having all your cities linked with trade routes, and it could be fun. I was thinking of starting with Liberty in the Policies, for the production boost, faster tile improvements(specifically roads), and of course the cheap settlers I'll be pumping out to build this empire. Then probably move to Rationalism, and if I'm generating enough culture, either Freedom or Order(Order's ability to handle large empires is nice, but Freedom's boost for GP/specialist-heavy empires is REALLY nice).

I'm wondering a couple of things about getting it started, though. Mostly, how much should I build up my capital city before I start churning out Settlers. Obviously I can start as soon as the game lets me start constructing one, but it'll be SLOW going. Building the Monument & Pyramid built first seems obvious, since I'll need at least SOME culture & faith coming in. And I'll have a couple of the Atlatlists(love those guys!) around for Barbarian hunting. What about waiting until I can get the Granary built, to allow one more citizen to be working a production tile instead of a food tile. What if my starting location allows for a Stone Works or Water Mill? How much infrastructure do you folks normally set up before you turn into a Settler Factory? Or should I just get the basics in place, and buy those buildings as my income allows? Also, I plan on going light on early Wonders until my empire's more established, but I do REALLY like the Great Pyramids(they always seem to be one of my favorites in every Civ game). Speeding up the Workers even more seems like it'd be a big help on a large empire, and combining it with the Liberty tree basically means I'd get three free really fast Workers. Or would it be better overall not to delay the expansion by building it?

 

[Maxym]

I would get a granny and pyramid and monument. You'll have a free settler anyway and if pyramids are still available when you can get them quickly go for it. An early scout of course (1st) and some atlaists for CS quests.

Pantheon is very location based so don't lock yourself in Motg if better ones are available.

Later on order will be better then freedom as MLC will set your GP counter high through free GPs and you won't generate much on your own.

 

[Enonwnn]

My build order would be this, assuming a Pangaea map:

Scout > Scout > Monument > Pyramid > Great Pyramids

You need the scouts to get those goody huts before any other civs, not to mention the increased chance of better rewards with scouts, and meeting other civs earlier is vital to selling luxeries. The difference between meeting city states before or after other civs is also vital. 30 gold rather than 15 gold makes a huge difference early game. Finally, you need to know your land before you can spam those cities. Scouts are very powerful early game.

You need your monument up next. Getting those early culture points will allow you to get the liberty finisher earlier, which could result in getting a vital wonder (I usually go for a Great Engineer Machu Picchu rush). If I pop a culture ruin before finishing the monument, I will usually switch straight to pyramids so to get faith/science earlier, then finish the monument thereafter.

Now if you're going wide, you need those workers, and you need them to work fast. The Great Pyramids costs very little more than two workers would cost, yet you're getting an increased work rate for all workers! This is a no brainer in my opinion.

As for policies, this is what I would do:

Open Liberty > Get free Worker > Get production boost > Get Free Settler > + for each city connected to capital > Golden Age finisher

Getting the free worker first allows you to get those luxuries sooner. Sell those luxuries for 240g each as soon as possible! You do not need the extra happiness until you have multiple cities up, which will not happen in those 30 turns you have given the luxury away for. This should now allow you to buy Settlers in your capital for 500g each. The more luxuries you can capture, the more gold you can make, and the more Settlers you can crank out.

I tend not to start hard building settlers until turn 100 or so, but this is space dependent. By this point, I usually have to start cranking out cb's.

Hope this helps!

 

[atarihuana]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=473168


have a look there.


i usually go scout/monument and then pottery is finished and shrine goes up next.
with the delayed free settler from liberty, i tend to hard build one asap, giving me options two dump my first 2 cities the same turn in case i need to forward settle strategic places. collective rule just comes so late now.

scince i played the mayans i turn ruins off now, i got 30 faith turn 10ish and 90 faith turn 40ish on epic speed. that basically won me the game because i could just spam endlessly and mindlessly with cerimonial burial THE most useful of any founder beliefs when going super wide/ics




religion is a big part of superwide because you will need away to help offset the 3 unhappyness penalty effectively ( usually that means CB =1 happy+meritocracy =1 +pagodas =2 =sumtotal 4 which equals a one pop city. note = you are trying to shove your religion passively and not with missionary spam (pagodas need to be purchased with faith). so having ethopia next to you wil be a HUGE pain.


i woud not beeline theology with the mayans, infact i would want to skip it as long as possible, preferabbly to the point where you have kicked out one or two natrual GP. im still unclear about the long term implications of their UA.

also any ancient era wonder is taboo. why? oppertunity cost. building a wonder will slow you down so much... your empire will always be weaker later on compared to an empire having spend hammers on /settlers/workers/archers/buildings. the pyramids i would only build if the build time takes about twice as long as improving an tile does, not otherwise. and frankly when going liberty they are basically just useless.


try to micro your expansion vs your social policies. you'll want to finish liberty asap, so dont build a city if you are a couple turns away from a SP. going super wide the right side of commerce is very appealing and i ike to use my GE from liberty on machu pichu

once the core city spam is up, youll want to take down somebody close and just keep rolling from there

 

[Browd]

You don't state what difficulty level you'll be playing on, but if you are playing on Emperor or below, I would recommend a 1-city (or 2-city) GL => NC rush to get to Theology as quickly as possible (by turn 60, if possible, so your first long-count GP comes on turn 62, the next on turn 72, the one after that on turn 83, etc.).

Tech order would be Pottery, Writing, Mining, Calendar, Drama & Poetry, (bulb Philosophy with GL), Theology, AH, Masonry, Trapping, etc.

Assuming Pangaea, and a decent starting location (a forest or two to chop for production, a 3-food tile or two, and at least one mining or calendar-based luxury), I would go Scout, Monument until Pottery, Pyramid, finish Monument, GL (or scout, then GL, depending on whether Writing is done), NC. Buy a granary as soon as you can, and lock down food tiles. If the AI has no money (often the case), improve farms before luxuries and strategics, but you do want that granary as soon as possible, so when the AI has gold, improve and sell. Steal a worker if you can, but save your gold for a granary.

Social policies would be Liberty opener, Citizenship (for free worker, unless you've stolen a worker, in which case take Republic), Republic, Collective Rule (free settler -- should be popping out around the time you finish NC, unless you get an early culture ruin or two), finish Liberty.

Once you're done with NC and Theology and have settled city #2, you can research masonry and grab Pyramids, but then you want to start churning out settlers from your capital. Assuming NC done at turn 50 or so, and Theology at turn 56-59, you should have Masonry researched by turn 60-62, and Pyramids up before turn 75, so having 5-7 cities planted by turn 100 seems quite achievable.

Recommend first Long-Count GP be a scientist (planted for academy), the next an Engineer (bulb the best wonder available). The rest is game dependent.

 

[atarihuana]

why bother with NC when going wide with mayans? your capital wont be very big scince its crunching settlers, so whats the point of NC?

also the GL totally is waaay too expensive. the whole point of a wide mayan strat is that you dont go education asap. your +2 MotG +2 Shrines help your early expansion warmongering teching ( beeline CB/XB)


on emporor the last diffioculty where its easy to get GL it still is the inferior choice compared to building more cities FIRST! getting your infrastucture up asap is always gonna be the higher reward later in the game ( when it matters). so you bulbed philo turn 40. great. NC turn 50. ok. even when going tall you could have had 2 more cities by now. founding a city 30 turns earlier is such a huge diffrence. the GL is frankly just useless.

 

[The Pilgrim]

I second to what Browd said, although I'd skip the Pyramids. There is just no room for them in build order and they can be captured. HS is a better investment for fast spreading followed by LC prophet to enhance. Oracle is another good wonder to grab for Liberty finisher. 2 early academies will make up for not having libraries/universities in non capital cities for a while. But again, everything depends on difficulty level. The lower it is, the more creative you can get.

 

[The Pilgrim]

why bother with NC when going wide with mayans? your capital wont be very big scince its crunching settlers, so whats the point of NC?

Beakers? Early beakers? Early Education means early university in the capital. Without universities in non capital cities, bpt takes a major hit, you need to make up for some of that at least. There is a difference. And if you don't build NC at the beginning, the chances are you won't build it at all.

 

[atarihuana]

well yeah beakers. beakers are still pop based. a 50% boost means nothing if there is no base.

crunching settlers stalls growth. it just doesnt fit together. even when going tall i found a city before NC ( rushbuy libary). getting up citys to +5/6 pop asap will always catchup and outpreform an OCC +GL(bulb philo)+NC then expand strat beakers wise very very quickly, simply because you will have more pop and more production faster which means faster uni.

 

[The Pilgrim]

well yeah beakers. beakers are still pop based. a 50% boost means nothing if there is no base.

crunching settlers stalls growth. it just doesnt fit together. even when going tall i found a city before NC ( rushbuy libary). getting up citys to +5/6 pop asap will always catchup and outpreform an OCC +GL(bulb education)+NC then expand strat beakers wise very very quickly, simply because you will have more pop and more production faster which means faster uni.

Turn 62 academy and +6 from GL+NC give you a very good base. REXing stalls growth as well, so getting cities up to 5/6 pop is a long term goal much more than it's a short term goal. Of course, depends on how many cities we're talking about. If you mean 6 cities in total, then it's not exactly wide. Otherwise it'll take 4 2 size cities with pyramids to match GL+NC bonus. You won't get to Education earlier by spamming settlers and skipping NC. Check out this thread. While I've done that unintentionally, GL+NC payed off, my bpt was higher than of those who skipped it and I didn't even make it to t62 academy.

 

[Browd]

well yeah beakers. beakers are still pop based. a 50% boost means nothing if there is no base.

crunching settlers stalls growth. it just doesnt fit together. even when going tall i found a city before NC ( rushbuy libary). getting up citys to +5/6 pop asap will always catchup and outpreform an OCC +GL(bulb education)+NC then expand strat beakers wise very very quickly, simply because you will have more pop and more production faster which means faster uni.

Play how you like, but the GL point is specific to Mayans, to get Theology as early as possible. Early NC will get you to Theology 5-6 turns faster and will multiply the impact of your early academy (and you should take a GS first -- every time), not to mention your capital's university and public school (you will build or buy them there first), and science specialists, and eventually higher population than any other city. If you play it right, you can squeeze as many as 3 GSs out of the Mayan Long Count by turn 234 (if the game lasts that long), compensating you in part for the effects of the Long Count itself on natural GS production.

And take care not to over-value Messenger of the Gods. 2 beakers, with university and both percentage-boost Rationalism policies (total 65% boost), is worth 3.3 beakers ... period, full stop. Drop 15 cities over the course of 50-60 turns (ignoring for the moment the need to churn out a few Atlatlists along the way) and you eventually generate 49 beakers, after universities are up and 3 Rationalism policies. Nice, but not game-making, and often underwhelming in light of the opportunity cost of not taking a better pantheon (sometimes there isn't a better one, but there often is).

 

[atarihuana]

see i dont like to go early theology with mayans. i like to go to war with mayans to take down a capital asap, then come back for research to get beakers up ( because at some point you have to) but preferrably ill just be steamrolling and puppeting for more science.


so take it as a challange. any strat involving early wonders just will fall behind because of the immense oppertunity cost it takes so early in the game.

MotG+ pyramids allow you too skip philo/education longer than usual, thats the whole point in this strat imho.


thats why i enter medieval via currency/guilds to liberty/GE Machu pichu ( very powerful wehn going wide/right side commerce) this opens up machinery if needed. else just civil service next ( growth) THEN theology for education. there is no point in beelining eduction when going wide since you wont have the pop or production to (quickly) build and run unis.

 

[The Pilgrim]

see i dont like to go early theology with mayans. i like to go to war with mayans to take down a capital asap, then come back for research to get beakers up ( because at some point you have to) but preferrably ill just be steamrolling and puppeting for more science.


so take it as a challange. any strat involving early wonders just will fall behind because of the immense oppertunity cost it takes so early in the game.

MotG+ pyramids allow you too skip philo/education longer than usual, thats the whole point in this strat imho.

So we compare apples and oranges. I'm by no means advocating early wonders, especially GL with it's huge caveat, on the contrary. But for Mayans this setup does work. And speaking of opportunity cost, giving up on hitting every single science tech sooner in favor of early war, is questionable. GL is out of limits on deity and very iffy on immortal. Anything lower than that and you have more than enough room for expansion. AI's capitals won't go anywhere either. So I'm not sure what makes the Mayans so special that you absolutely need to warmonger right off the bat.

thats why i enter medieval via currency/guilds to liberty/GE Machu pichu ( very powerful wehn going wide/right side commerce) this opens up machinery if needed. else just civil service next ( growth) THEN theology for education. there is no point in beelining eduction when going wide since you wont have the pop or production to (quickly) build and run unis.

I think you're contradicting yourself a little. You're talking about spamming settlers and in the next sentence about growth. This doesn't fit. Obviously, everything you do depends on difficulty, but you need to pump beakers to stay on par the higher the level is. And the point of playing wide is staffing as many universities as you can more than anything else. Yes, Long Count messes up GP production, but tons crappy 2 pop cities are not enough to make up for lack of tall and science focus cities. You still need those scientists.

Welcome to CFC, btw!

 

[Browd]

That's fine. You're not optimizing the UA, but that certainly isn't required to play successfully. I've had Mayan games where my neighbors' "unwanted affections" precluded me from researching Theology until turn 90 or so, and still won those games (slowly and frustratingly), but I don't recommend it.

Also, with an early Atlatlist(?) rush strategy, why play as Mayans? For the pyramids?

Anyway, you stated earlier that "i woud not beeline theology with the mayans, infact i would want to skip it as long as possible, preferably to the point where you have kicked out one or two natrual GP. im still unclear about the long term implications of their UA."

I would encourage you to give beelining Theology a try, and fully explore the Mayan UA, before dismissing it out of hand. In particular, I'm hard-pressed to understand how delaying Theology will help you generate meaningfully more natural GPs before the Long-Count kicks in without setting yourself back generally, but let's see what your approach requires/implies.

Theology is required for Education and universities, and you won't have any wonders generating Great Person points in an ICS strategy, so there won't be any GP points prior to getting universities up. (I'm ignoring working the amphitheater slot, as I assume we're not focused on GAs.)

At Standard (I don't play Epic or Marathon), relevant Long-Count dates are turns 62, 72, 86, 101, 117, 133, 152, 183, and 234, but you need to finish Theology 2 turns before to obtain the benefit (i.e., finish Theology on turn 70 to get the turn 72 GP). Assuming you want a university up by no later than turn 100, let's say you aim to finish Theology on turn 85 (just missing the turn 86 GP) and finish Education by, say, turn 95 (reasonably zippy speed) and rush-buy a university and work those specialist slots from turn 95. You will get your first Long-Count GP on turn 101, by which time you will have generated just 36 GS points. To avoid spoiling your natural GS, you take a Great Admiral and send him off exploring the ocean. Your next LC GP will come just 16 turns later, on turn 117, by which point you will have spawned your first GS on turn 111 and carried over 32 GS points through turn 117. If you then take a Great General as your turn 117 GP, you can squeeze in another 16 turns, but in your capital that just gives you 128 GS points, still 72 GP points short of your next GP, before you have to take another GP.

Let's say you thought ahead and also rush-bought a second university in city #2 on turn 95, and worked those specialists from turn 95 to turn 133 - by turn 133, that city will have spawned a GS on turn 126 and carried over 28 GS points.

So, turn 95 Education and two rush-bought universities on that turn would yield 2 GSs before the GP counter gets hit by the LC. If you don't get Education until turn 100, you only get one natural GS. And, since you delayed your first LC GP to turn 101, you will only get 6 GPs from the LC, and generated two of the least popular GPs from the Long-Count (although a pre-Astronomy Great Admiral can be very useful on a continents map, if you're not going Commerce anyway).

And your first academy gets settled at turn 111, as opposed to turn 62. That turn 62 academy, with NC, would have generated 588 beakers by turn 111 (not including the general effect of NC on science from population). That could allow you to finish Education by, say, turn 80 or 85, allowing you to get universities up that much more quickly.

Delaying Theology is not the choice I would make, but to each his own.

 

[atarihuana]

I think you're contradicting yourself a little. You're talking about spamming settlers and in the next sentence about growth. This doesn't fit. Obviously, everything you do depends on difficulty, but you need to pump beakers to stay on par the higher the level is. And the point of playing wide is staffing as many universities as you can more than anything else. Yes, Long Count messes up GP production, but tons crappy 2 pop cities are not enough to make up for lack of tall and science focus cities. You still need those scientists.

Welcome to CFC, btw!

ahh see there we go. the idea is the earlier you spam settlers the larger the cities will be when you do hit universities to actually support them. when you go hardcore beeline theology with NC you will fall behind too many turns for my taste at least in spamming thoose settlers. so the idea is to use your city spam to produce units first and while putting them to use go for education.

if you settle too late, your time window of CB rushes becomes way to narrow.

on the long count,yeah im not sure about the UA, its nice sure, but because its year based its very hard to micromanage it turnbased to support any strat your running. thats why i never bothered about it and just went the go wide, go war path. theology is on the wrong side of the tree for that apporoach.



yes hi! i speak my mind, you figured that out by now sorry never ment to be rude or anything aong that line, i speak strat always as advocatus diaboli. and i have very few civ games played, there are way better payers out there, but i know my way around

edit: i do have a nice startsave with korea where you can see the benefits of early expansion vs GL bulb NC start then settle 100 turns later. its emperor , korea, continents huge(-1 civ -1 cs) epic. it doesnt fit here well( korea, go tall), but the idea is the same: the earlier you sette, the greater the benefit later. i can post some screens if anyone is intrested.

 

[Elz Majesto]

I started one yesterday with Pacal aiming to go wide.

Build:Monument, Pyramid, 2X atlatlist, library, Great Pryamid, 2X Atlatlist, NC, 2 Settlers.

Tech: Beeline for Writing, then went for Lux, then beeline for Currency (got Petra with Liberty Finisher and had severe money problem), then Theology

Religion: Desert Folklore, Ceremonial Burial, Pagodas, Cathedrals (Mosque was taken), and Double Pressure

Cities: 4 with 2 more on the way after completion of National Treasury

Be careful on going super wide early, because spamming Pyramids will take a MAJOR hit to your early road less tiny city economy.

Policies: Liberty, and Piety at the moment. (Take advantage of the uber-pyramid by also building a temple to add 10% wealth production)
Then segway into commerce, and Order.
If all goes to plan, you will have super faith based society that can pump out Great people at an alarming rate.
Each City will produce: 2+1 Faith from Pyramids, 2+1 Faith from Temple, 2 from Pagodas, and 1 or 3 from Cathedral/Mosque, will net you from 9-11 Faith per City. If you have 10 Cities that 90-110 faith per turn from building production alone!
Yes you will miss out on the Great Scientist buy out, but just focus your city to hard build them (2 slots filled per city should do the job), and buy Great Engineers to quick build wonders or settle them to make super productive cities.

 

[The Pilgrim]

ahh see there we go. the idea is the earlier you spam settlers the larger the cities will be when you do hit universities to actually support them. when you go hardcore beeline theology with NC you will fall behind too many turns for my taste at least in spamming thoose settlers. so the idea is to use your city spam to produce units first and while putting them to use go for education.

if you settle too late, your time window of CB rushes becomes way to narrow.

on the long count,yeah im not sure about the UA, its nice sure, but because its year based its very hard to micromanage it turnbased to support any strat your running. thats why i never bothered about it and just went the go wide, go war path. theology is on the wrong side of the tree for that apporoach.



yes hi! i speak my mind, you figured that out by now sorry never ment to be rude or anything aong that line, i speak strat always as advocatus diaboli. and i have very few civ games played, there are way better payers out there, but i know my way around

edit: i do have a nice startsave with korea where you can see the benefits of early expansion vs GL bulb NC start then settle 100 turns later. its emperor , korea, continents huge(-1 civ -1 cs) epic. it doesnt fit here well( korea, go tall), but the idea is the same: the earlier you sette, the greater the benefit later. i can post some screens if anyone is intrested.

If you were rude, sorry to disappoint you, but you're very bad at it, since I haven't realized that. It's all good. I just noticed your registration date later that I usually do.

And I definitely noticed you know your way around. So I'm taking my velvet gloves saved for newcomers off.
Seriously, though, why early rush with the Mayans? Not saying early war is bad, I just don't understand what's so special about them that is worth ditching their UA for. Atlatlist rush? Also what narrow window for CB rushes you're talking about? On emperor you can wipe out the whole pangaea (standard size) with them.

And again, I'll never advocate GL in any other scenario. We are on the same side. See?
Maya is the only exception. And also only because I tried and compared. I was surprised by the results myself.

 

[atarihuana]

well you see , dicussions on forums tend to people talking past each other and i do like a good discussion, realy carve out the opinions and ideas people have to get a good grasp on them. thats why ive been accused of being rude and not open for ideas when all i was doing was playing advocatus diaboli. but it seems civplayers DO like a good discussion

and yeah emperor. ill have to bumb it to immortal soon. its way too easy. but i have played 20 games so far only, so emperor still is a good place to learn timings and microing.


like i said before, the UA still puzzes me. ill try an immortal game pangea ruins off immortal and do a beeline theology vs and a war path.

why war? because you go wide = more places to produce = more units. because you go wide you will end up forward settling etc pp... then again, i havent tried a peaceful wide science strat yet. and no not whith atlatlist. they are just nice because you can skip archery early vs barbs

 

[The Pilgrim]

Hey, this is civilized community here, okay? (If one doesn't check past year infractions stats that has been posted recently, one may even believe that. )

People disagree all the time and I think it's great we have plenty of stuff to disagree about. Civ is strategy game, cookie cutters choices would've killed the whole spirit of it.

How many cities of your own you usually settle?
And yeah, do move up to immortal.

 

[Maxym]

I have always thought that MLC is one of the weirdest UAs ever, I played few games with them, mostly GOTM science, and liked them for that huge early science boost from GS. But I always thought the UA is best suited for a domination win on higher levels (immortal+) when Wonder production is restricted.

By knowing you can get every GP as needed when needed is awesome. As is getting and spreading your religion. And DC 10 has definitely proved the point. With Maya you can also replace 2nd scout with atlaist or even 1st one too as they are priced similarly and you can get them upgraded in ruins.