30-12-2002 19:10									#1
	Pyramids Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Maybe it's good to start a poll for the pyramid question, to see how far everyone wants to go to get it, and even if the group wants to go for it instead for something else. Our gift is moving over to city site #2 (which still needs a good name), and knowing what to aim for would be a good idea once it gets there.

I know, some testing needs to be done as to what exactly would be the best strategy, but that shouldn't stop us gathering opinions on what general goal we are aiming for.

So, the options:
1. No wonder now.
We don't need a wondercity now, perhaps later. The production could be better used in building settlers, i.e. classic REX. We leave the pyramids for some other team, and don't try to get it.

2. Pyramids: perhaps.
We start on the pyramids, but with just the resources we need, and no special attention. We don't add workers to #2, and if EotS would be better off using some of the furs, let EotS have them. The risk of losing the race is big, but if we do, there are some other options, e.g. the Colossus, or the two GLs.

3. Pyramids all the way.
We commit all we can to finishing the pyramids asap. All furs that can be used are used by #2, and if testing would proof that adding a worker to #2 would significantly speed up building time, then we add one or more workers to #2. The pyramids have to be ours, no matter what it takes.
(I guess there might be some subdivisions in this option: some would really commit all resources to #2, adding even 2 or 3 workers, while others might be more moderate, not boosting pop but still go for max production. Basically this option means we minimize the risk of losing the pyramids.)

4. Abstain.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 19:14									#2
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Oh, and naturally I vote 'all the way', adding workers would intuitively be my best guess when it comes to outproducing the other teams. It might stun our initial growth a little, but if testing would reveal it to be a half decent option, I would go for it. Getting the pyramids will probably mean we don't get the G. Library, but it is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 19:17									#3
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

No. Not the Pyramids. They would instantly trigger our GA. We're Egypt.

	30-12-2002 19:21									#4
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It's true, one of the disadvantages would be we trigger our GA too soon. OTOH, I believe the pyramids to be worth half a GA for the remaining of the game, instead of a 20 turn GA which might require we pick a fight with someone we want to keep as friends.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 19:28									#5
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Is there any chance we could have monarchy (or the republic) by the time the Pyramids are finished (or even shortly thereafter?

Even if not I'm for it. With our city placement strategy the Pyramids' value will be maximized (all those little cities).

	30-12-2002 19:36									#6
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I think we'll be involved wars anyway till the early medieval age. And there'll be more than one contact till this time and by far not everyone will be our friend. Mind you, that other civs want to trigger their GAs as well. We could start a wonder after our capital built 2-3 settlers, but use it as prebuild for the Great Library. This is a huge advantage. After this, head for The Republic and use the cash we make (industrious + no science) to rush-buy our infrastructure. Much better than a GA, if you ask me.

	30-12-2002 19:52									#7
	Re: Pyramids Tired of ads?

This perfectly expresses my feelings on this issue:

quote: Originally posted by DeepO We don't need a wondercity now, perhaps later. The production could be better used in building settlers

	30-12-2002 19:58									#8
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Well, I like the GL too, but the problem I see is that we have far from a garantee to get it. Everone will want it, and some other teams are in a better position to get to literature before us. Even if we beeline for literature, and time a prebuild to the best of our abilities, I guess we have less then 50% of getting it first. If OTOH we aim for the pyramids, the odds would be over 90% to get it, with our free settler, and good city position.

I guess everyone will agree that the GL is the best ancient wonder, but in the hands of a good team, wouldn't the pyramids be a close second? Besides, we might still want to go for the GL, without stopping to build the Pyramids.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 20:20									#9
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The only wonder I would argue for is the Colossus (down south).

The Pyramids are huge, and will trigger our GA. No thanks.

The GL would be nice, and perhaps we ought to consider going up the middle of the tech tree (as opposed to the Monarchy route) to get to republic asap, but even then the GL 1) may not be worth the shield investment and 2) will be heavily contested.

-Arrian

	30-12-2002 20:53									#10
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REX.

	30-12-2002 21:14									#11
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humm, well this is dieing fast.

I still think that this is something to at least look into in more detail. With all those little cities the Pyramids could be significantly be valuable than they "normally are".

I'd like to have some wonder, as a pride issue if nothing else

	30-12-2002 21:21									#12
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Pride... now that's an argument I hadn't considered yet. But you're right, building a wonder while still be one of the best what expansion is concerned certainly would be something to be proud of.

The poll isn't really going the way I thought it to be, I thought that at least Theseus would vote for it, instead of against it. One of my biggest arguments would be that Rexing would become much easier, in most cities we wouldn't need to build troops or buildings in between settlers and workers, as we gain free granaries from the start. At least it proves the poll was justified, as there are quite some conflicting opinions on the team.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 21:26									#13
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Judging from our terrain only 3-4 core cities will have a good enough mix of food/shield otuput to REX effectively anyway.
A couple of granries in the right place and at the right time would be quite sufficient, I think. We needn't go for the Pyramids.

I would, however, like to see the Colossus on a coastal/river city. It's a cheaper wonder and would give us a very nice gold boost.

	30-12-2002 21:36									#14
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FP, apart from the two cities on the incense desert in the West, all proposed cities would be good enough to rex with granaries in place! Clasiccal Rex calls for settlers to be built the moment a city hits size 3, and all are able to do that. Of course, when doing it a bit more intelligent, you're not supposed to lose shields by waiting to hit size 3, and some pumps would be allowed, but our terrain is ideal for that.

If not for the pyramids, we should build granaries in but a few cities to create pumps, but the added advantage of getting them everywhere will show for a long time. Or at least that is my humble opinion

DeepO

	30-12-2002 21:40									#15
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* FrustratedPoet should take a closer look at the screenshots before opening his big mouth.

	30-12-2002 21:50									#16
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I voted no to the pyramids. I don't particularly care for the wonder, and I certainly hate blowing the GA like that.

IMHO, it would be cheaper just to build grainaries in each city, since the continent isn't that large anyway.


I would prefer building the lighthouse, as that may be our only chance off this rock for a while.

	30-12-2002 22:09									#17
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Correct me if I'm wrong but the pyramids cost 400 shields and each stlr costs 30 sheilds. Allowing for the building of a granary first so as not to be limited by pop so much and giving some allowance for the extra production that would be possible with a higher pop due to not building any stlrs. (which wouldn't be too big a deal as pop would be limited by disorder anyway). Then I'd say we could build 8 cities in the time it would take to build the pyramids.

Building stlrs and having a reduced pop would loose trade but building the pyramids would tie up our capital for a long time and we would loose some flexibility should something unexpected happen.

If it is as simple as this then I'd prefer teh 8 cities.

Do we have enough space. I dunno but we'd need alot of cities for the pyramids to be viable anyway.


(On another point I know I'm wrong but I always thought you needed a GW from both of your civ qualities to get a GA??)

	30-12-2002 22:19									#18
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*sigh*
I guess I needed to do some more campaigning before starting this poll... I guess this is the result from trying to be overly unbiased

Question: how many cities with granaries do you need to offset the pyramids costs.
Answer: not 6.7 like the shield count would suggest (400 shields for the pyramids, 60 for a granary), but a whole lot more.

With the pyramids, you do not need to build the granaries, you gain them for free. So, you don't need to spend 60 shields, but instead can use those shields to build settlers. 1 granary is equal to 2 settlers in shield cost, and with our terrain, it is more or less true that those settlers can be built by the time a city reaches size 3.

So, when in scenario A (without pyramids) you finally start on your first settler in a city, in scenario B (with pyramids) you have built 2 settlers already, and the city from the first settler has built another settler itself. So, one free granary gives you 3 cities extra. These 3 cities have granaries as well, further exploding the calculation.

You can see where this is going: instead of being able to build 1 settler after 90 shields in the initial city, you can build 7 settlers. After 120 shields, you don't have 2 settlers and one granary in progress, but have 14. And so on. The benefits are huge, certainly when you don't need to commit much resources to defense (which is our case, as long as we don't meet another team).

Also, I like the Collossus as well, and will always try to build it in SP on Emperor (as the pryamids aren't possible with AIs), but what is best: 1 city with approximately double commerce, or triple the amount of cities?

Okay, corruption is counteracting the benefits you gain from the pyramids, but I am sure that within 40 turns after building the pyramids we can have double the amount of cities of the next team, and thus gain loads of benefits. And these effects continue until we can't grow anymore in all our cities.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 22:23									#19
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OPD, that calculation doesn't really hold: you can't build 8 settlers in the same city that builds the pyramids, more like 2 or so (which I conviently forgot to inlude in the above calculation, after all I'm trying to proof my point ). The reason for this is that settlers are mostly limited by popgrowth, and not by shield cost. The pyramids would take around 40 turns to complete, by which time you could at most build two, possibly 3 cities.

Further, we wouldn't build it in our capital, but in the city (at site #2, see placement proposal) we get from settling our christmas gift. Thus, if it needs to be, we can still switch to the lighthouse or the colossus if we miss the pyramids.

DeepO

	30-12-2002 22:26									#20
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I think this poll is premature. We need hard data for what our expansion could look like both with and without the Pyramids. Otherwise, any votes cast are based on speculation rather than on clear knowledge.

I would like to ask that we take close to the full 24 hours allowed for our next turn to maximize the time available for testing, unless we have time to do the necessary testing before then. This is too important a decision to get wrong, and whether we build the Pyramids or not determines whether site 2 (Pyramids) or the modified site 13 (settler pump) is a better place for our free settler.

By the way, I'm withholding my vote for the time being precisely because I don't have sufficient data to feel like I know whether building the Pyramids would be a good idea or not.

Nathan

	30-12-2002 22:28									#21
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the score is still
5 against
5 for
1 perhaps

I voted for, I know the games where I was able to get it (usually trough conquering it), went alot smother after it

	30-12-2002 22:29									#22
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Nathan: I'll offer it again: if you have a save I can use, please forward it, and tell me what you want tested. I can't promise when I have time to test it, but tonight shouldn't be a problem. Atm I'm working on something else, unluckily this discussion is already taking up a large part of my time. But hey, this is exiting

DeepO

	30-12-2002 22:36									#23
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As with everything it depends on teh situation, how much room do we have etc.

quote: Originally posted by DeepO but I am sure that within 40 turns after building the pyramids we can have double the amount of cities of the next team, and thus gain loads of benefits. And these effects continue until we can't grow anymore in all our cities. DeepO

The pyramids will make us great if there is enough room. But is there? I dunno?

I remember a similar discussion in the DG.

	30-12-2002 22:44									#24
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Some more 2 cents (I hope I’m helping, and not hurting the cause )

Testing certainly would be nice if someone really wants to invest that type of time (I certainly can't, as I don't have access to Civ at all). We do have several turns before the choice become critical, so I don't really see a need to delay the game (I really think we should do our part to keep the game moving quickly, even if it means having to make untested calls).

Good analysis DeepO, that was exactly my line of thought (although obviously not as worked out). If my estimations are right it shouldn’t be a matter of Pyramids vs. expansion, but the pyramids simply optimizing our ability to expand (REX). And since expansion seems to be the consensus “optimal strategy” at the moment, the pyramids would seem an optimal choice (yes tested would need to be done to confirm this).

	30-12-2002 22:49									#25
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quote: Originally posted by DeepO Nathan: I'll offer it again: if you have a save I can use, please forward it, and tell me what you want tested. I can't promise when I have time to test it, but tonight shouldn't be a problem. Atm I'm working on something else, unluckily this discussion is already taking up a large part of my time. But hey, this is exiting

I won't be able to do any testing until this evening myself. Whichever of us gets a scenario set up first certainly needs to send it to the other one and to the GS mailbox, and then we can discuss our experiments with it and the results thereof. (We probably ought to start a thread named something like "Pyramid Question Experiments" specifically for such discussion.)

Nathan

	30-12-2002 23:07									#26
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OPD, we already have room for more then 14 cities, I think that is more then enough to see the benefits. Of course, while we are building the pyramids, our other cities don't need to start playing with their thumbs, so by the time it is finished, we will have got 4-6 cities... but even if all available land is settled, we still gain benefits from it, up until we have all cities at size 12, and more workers then tiles.

Nathan, this should mean I'd be the first to test it. Once I've got time, I'll get to it, and start the thread. But it won't be the next few hours, I'm afraid

DeepO

Last edited by OPD on 31-12-2002 at 00:25

	30-12-2002 23:14									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Randolph Testing certainly would be nice if someone really wants to invest that type of time (I certainly can't, as I don't have access to Civ at all). We do have several turns before the choice become critical, so I don't really see a need to delay the game (I really think we should do our part to keep the game moving quickly, even if it means having to make untested calls).

I suppose we could go ahead and settle #2 and plan to use it as our main troop producer for the time being if we don't build the Pyramids there. I hate the delay in settling the modified #13 if we don't go for the Pyramids, but if barbarians start showing up (it's still possible barbarians are sedentary), extra units could come in handy. And in my opinion, EotS is definitely more valuable to us focusing on settlers and workers than building military units.

Nathan

	30-12-2002 23:20									#28
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lol I love these kind of debates.

I always wanted to do an early pyramid test myself but never got round to it.

If it is put simply in terms of expansion which it should not be then the pyramids will always win on a large enough time scale no doubt, but are we going to do enough expansion to make the pyramids the best option for the city?

Also just for the hell of it I still stand by my original estimate of 8 cities (or at least 8 stlrs) instead of the pyramids.

	31-12-2002 00:00									#29
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OPD: you can stand by your 8 settlers, but without testing I dare to say that shields is not what limits us without a granary, but food will. Which is another reason for the pyramids: we move from food focus to shield focus, which is easier to modify under despotism. Oh, and the debate is wonderful

Last edited by OPD on 31-12-2002 at 00:29

	31-12-2002 00:16									#30
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WTF

I must have clicked edit instead of quote but????