When are the Moai Statues worth it?

[Kid R]

Island city with a hammer tile or two. Place settler, mine hill, forget. Mid game the statues finish, take a look - oooh! very nice city now!! Life's too short for whip overflow and failgold mucking about

I build them maybe 1/4 of games, when there's a crappy site somewhere and I can afford the settler.

 

[auagxa]

Rush buying the NP in an all-preserved-jungle spot settled late can be very strong. Imagine 15+ specialists for free.... (you need Caste System or rush-buy other buildings obviously)

Well, no doubt that is strong in certain situations but it comes with some investments/downsides such as:

- Preserving the jungle instead of setting up a cottage/workshop spot that would have contributed to the empire earlier on.
- Rush-buying NP can be costly due to it being a wonder (can't find the conversion factor but I assume it's big enough to hurt the treasury).
- When not SPI, switching out of Rep to US for rush buying can take 3 turns in a big empire (epic) and another 3 turns to return to Rep. Six turns in anarchy hurts a lot when it's that late in the game. Golden Ages negate this problem though that means preserving some Great People or getting the right combination of them if you don't have them yet.
- Sooner or later, you will have to deal with the increasing emancipation anger as soon as AIs get to Democracy.

Health really shouldn't be an issue for a Maoi site with improvements like Harbors and I'm not sure what the benefit of combining it with a NP is (not that I generally build a National park anyway, so maybe I'm missing something here?)

A Moai/NP combination isn't what is being considered but an NE/NP combination as compared to an NE/Moai. But yeah, on the rare case that I have too much food for sushi + have factories in NE city that it causes some unhealthiness is where I consider building NP in NE city.

 

[Strickl3r]

Life's too short for whip overflow and failgold mucking about

bs. Once you cash in 500-900 from the failgold abuse approach with moai, after capturing an early target or expanding like the plague and trying to get the economy back on track, you will think otherwise

 

[ohjames]

Island city with a hammer tile or two. Place settler, mine hill, forget.

Place settler, mine hill, pay city maintenance for a useless backwater for 60+ turns...

Not a great idea on any challenging difficulty level.

I build them maybe 1/4 of games, when there's a crappy site somewhere and I can afford the settler.

Just skip the settler and build something that contributes to your victory condition instead.

 

[Manco Capac]

Place settler, mine hill, pay city maintenance for a useless backwater for 60+ turns...

Not a great idea on any challenging difficulty level.

*cough* Great *cough* Lighthouse.

 

[robbyextreme]

*cough* Great *cough* Lighthouse.

throat OK ?

 

[strijder20]

Rush buying the NP in an all-preserved-jungle spot settled late can be very strong. Imagine 15+ specialists for free.... (you need Caste System or rush-buy other buildings obviously)

I once built the NP in my capital and got 15 specialists there. Yes, I wasn't very skilled back then

 

[Kid R]

^ Yeah, leave&forget isn't optimum I accept, but a nice powerful city in the renaissance is just an enjoyable thing to have

Anyway (probably shouldn't say it in this forum) I'm not going for optimum, and rarely playing "challenging" levels! I did try to make my "advice" a little bit flippant

 

[Choggy]

A Moai/NP combination isn't what is being considered but an NE/NP combination as compared to an NE/Moai. But yeah, on the rare case that I have too much food for sushi + have factories in NE city that it causes some unhealthiness is where I consider building NP in NE city.

Ne+Maoi? Well that's just nonsense and a waste of the best National Wonder in the game (the NE) surely? The best Maoi sites work all the sea-tiles available along with all available land tiles that can be converted into Mines or Workshops for more hammers. NE sites just work food with the excess pop used for Specialists. There's no synergy between the two.

On the other hand, HE and Maoi can work. It won't be as good as a land-based HE in terms of hammers but it does have the advantage of being able to build Naval Units.

Going back to the OP's question about whether it's worth it or not...if I'm playing at Immortal then it's good for failgold but ultimately a luxury. At Emperor or below then for me it's worth building and then sticking a Mil Academy on it with a spare GG.

 

[Seraiel]

Ne+Maoi? Well that's just nonsense and a waste of the best National Wonder in the game (the NE) surely? The best Maoi sites work all the sea-tiles available along with all available land tiles that can be converted into Mines or Workshops for more hammers. NE sites just work food with the excess pop used for Specialists. There's no synergy between the two.

On the other hand, HE and Maoi can work. It won't be as good as a land-based HE in terms of hammers but it does have the advantage of being able to build Naval Units.

Going back to the OP's question about whether it's worth it or not...if I'm playing at Immortal then it's good for failgold but ultimately a luxury. At Emperor or below then for me it's worth building and then sticking a Mil Academy on it with a spare GG.

In my 11xx AD Spacerace, I built MOAI + NE together in one city.

That city simply had 3 Seafood + a lighthouse lake, and having MOAI in it helped decently when building a Market, a Grocer and an Observatory (for the Specialist-slots) , a Bank + a University + Theater (to unlock WS + OX + Globe) , a Factory + PP + Levee + Laboratory (to produce a SS-part later) , and a Harbour (Health) , a Ziggurat (Maintenance) and a Christian Temple (AP-Hammers) .

Something having no Synergy must not mean, that it's not still useful, just because of what it does in first place (which is "give Hammers" in case of MOAI) .

 

[auagxa]

Ne+Maoi? Well that's just nonsense and a waste of the best National Wonder in the game (the NE) surely? The best Maoi sites work all the sea-tiles available along with all available land tiles that can be converted into Mines or Workshops for more hammers. NE sites just work food with the excess pop used for Specialists. There's no synergy between the two.

I got a bit confused on what your point on raising a Moai/NP combination in your first post when it was not even considered before your first post in this thread. Looking back at it, I rephrased the thread wrong and I implied an NE/Moai combo, which I also consider an odd combo myself. Anyway, my reply to the other poster was only solely about NE/NP combo.

 

[strijder20]

^ Yeah, leave&forget isn't optimum I accept, but a nice powerful city in the renaissance is just an enjoyable thing to have

Anyway (probably shouldn't say it in this forum) I'm not going for optimum, and rarely playing "challenging" levels! I did try to make my "advice" a little bit flippant

It wasn't 'leave and forget', I just thought leaving those forests around was a good idea I don't power game either, but nowadays I have certain standards

 

[Choggy]

In my 11xx AD Spacerace, I built MOAI + HE together in one city.

That city simply had 3 Seafood + a lighthouse lake, and having MOAI in it helped decently when building a Market, a Grocer and an Observatory (for the Specialist-slots) , a Bank + a University + Theater (to unlock WS + OX + Globe) , a Factory + PP + Levee + Laboratory (to produce a SS-part later) , and a Harbour (Health) , a Ziggurat (Maintenance) and a Christian Temple (AP-Hammers) .

Something having no Synergy must not mean, that it's not still useful, just because of what it does in first place (which is "give Hammers" in case of MOAI) .

Did you mean Maoi+NE rather than Maoi+HE?

btw I watched your youtube HoF diplo game a few days ago - I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing more

 

[Seraiel]

Did you mean Maoi+NE rather than Maoi+HE?

btw I watched your youtube HoF diplo game a few days ago - I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to seeing more

Yes, it was intended to be "Moai + NE" , of course not HE.

I think the context actually makes that very clear, but I've edited it anyhow to prevent further misunderstandings.

And thx for the compliment . Next video is currently under production . First part probably going online either today or tomorrow .

 

[Choggy]

Yes, it was intended to be "Moai + NE" , of course not HE.

I think the context actually makes that very clear, but I've edited it anyhow to prevent further misunderstandings.

And thx for the compliment . Next video is currently under production . First part probably going online either today or tomorrow .

Look forward to seeing it

That Maoi/NE site you mentioned. That's an exceptional site, in both meanings of the word (it's both amazing and very rare) and, yeah, I can see why you'd build the NE there. Would it have also worked well as a Maoi/Globe drafting site instead though?

One of the reasons I prefer land-based NE sites (I know, this isn't a thread about NE sites, but...) is because when the NE runs out of steam in terms of the time taken to generate the next GP then workshops are quite powerful so it can be quickly turned into a really strong production site. Putting the NE with the Maoi takes away that opportunity somewhat.

 

[Seraiel]

I've generally gone away from building the Globe to create one super-whip super-draft city, because it's usually faster, better and easier to simply draft 1-2 times in all cities, and that's usually enough to win the game.

Situations that I see where the Globe really is either great Help or even needed, are either cities that have tremendous amounts of Food or Sushi games, because those need a lot of whips and in addition they go along with large cities so keeping whipping anger low, is adviseable.

 

[Pangaea]

I'd agree with that, based on my experience the last few games. I tend to not tech Drama myself, and neither does the AI it seems, and then they aren't interested in trading it. I usually don't build Theatres either, and in addition the Globe is kind of expensive. It works very well to just draft from more or less all cities anyway, and you'll have a kickass army in 10-15 turns.

 

[auagxa]

From my current game as Hammurabi. Hemispheres map and was stuck with Louis XIV in semi-iso.

Paris, as shown here, is one of the examples of a Moai site. Since I plan to UN this one, I think it's a good idea. If I plan a space game however, this would probably my NP site.

 

[Choggy]

Where are you all getting these amazing Maoi sites from?? My idea of a good Maoi site is a peninsula with 2 food resources and a Plains Hill

 

[cseanny]

Never!!