Scientific Leader at 1830 BC. Which Wonder?

Artifex · December 30, 2003, 16:51

Playing as the Byzantines (Scientific, Seafaring)

Pyramids? Temple of Artemis? Or save for Sun Tzu's?

Temple of Artemis looks the best to me. I think I am on a continent but still have a ways to explore..so I am not sure how much space I have.

What do you think is best?

Arrian · December 30, 2003, 17:07

PYRAMIDS!!!

Pop is power. Growth is good. Be fruitful, and multiply.

-Arrian

Rhothaerill · December 30, 2003, 17:29

Pyramids!! What Arrian said!!

My first Conquests game I received an SGL on my first tech at around 2700bc or so. Saved it until I could get masonry and rushed the Pyramids. Bam, huge expansion!

Artifex · December 30, 2003, 17:34

BTW I am playing on Emperor so happiness can be a problem.

Still think I should build Pyramids?

Arrian · December 30, 2003, 17:40

Yes.

Happiness is manageable. The luxury slider works really well. Or just build more workers (never a bad idea).

Why do you want Artemis? Happiness? Bah, the damn thing goes obselete in the middle ages (Theology?) and *poof* your temples disappear. Culture? Build libraries, you're scientific.

-Arrian

ducki · December 30, 2003, 18:00

Being very new to Emperor, I'd have to agree on the Pyramids. On Monarch I'd probably save it for something else(since they're so rare), but growth and expansion is the key, I think.

Artifex · December 30, 2003, 18:05

The Temples go *poof*? In that case Artemis is a very weak wonder. I guessed that existing temples stayed but new ones wouldn't appear when it went obsolete. I haven't used it so i guessed it would be that way. So much for that wonder then.

jshelr · December 30, 2003, 18:07

Got any ivory?? Or, can you trade for it??

Artifex · December 30, 2003, 18:09

No Ivory. I would think pyramids would be a better rush than Zeus anyway..especially at 400 shields vs 200.

But the Ancient Cav is nice no doubt.

vmxa1 · December 30, 2003, 18:37

I agree with Arrain as long as you do not have a civ that it will trigger a GA. The only ancient SGL I had and got excited and rush the Pyramid and boom a GA. I would not have done that if I was paying attention. I may have done it, but would have waited for a few more cities and mines.

Cerbykins · December 30, 2003, 20:59

Pyramids Pyramids Pyramids

This is a chance to have your entire civ grow at an unrivalled rate. Extra growth = extra food/resources/commerce = even more growth

Theseus · December 30, 2003, 21:39

Pyramids = Food Power.

No brainer.

okblacke · December 30, 2003, 22:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Artifex
The Temples go *poof*? In that case Artemis is a very weak wonder. I guessed that existing temples stayed but new ones wouldn't appear when it went obsolete. I haven't used it so i guessed it would be that way. So much for that wonder then.

Pre-patch, Artemis wiped out your existing temples when built so that not only did it stop working at (education?) you lost any you had built prior. As of the 1.2 Beta your existing temples remain after Artemis is obsolete.

But even pre-patch, I found it incredibly useful when playing the Mongols. I would conquer a town and that town immediately began generating culture. Within a few moves, it had expanded, greatly facilitating my conquest.

Artemis was the huntress, eh?

[ok]

Herodotus' Seven Wonders, by the way, were: Pyramid, Lighthouse, Library, Zeus, Artemis, Mausoleum and Colossus.

Theseus · December 30, 2003, 22:49

Whoa, with the BETA, Artemis-Temples remain?

Pyramids AND Artemis then...

(I can dream)

Catt · December 31, 2003, 00:48

Quote:

Originally posted by Theseus
Whoa, with the BETA, Artemis-Temples remain?

Nope - they disappear. Some reported that manually-built temples, completed before Artemis, also disappeared when Artemis expired, which would seem to be a full-fledged bug, but apparently that has been addressed by the 1.12 BETA patch.

Catt

Kuciwalker · December 31, 2003, 01:03

Quote:

Artemis was the huntress, eh?

No... she was the goddess of love and beauty, IIRC.

Quote:

Nope - they disappear. Some reported that manually-built temples, completed before Artemis, also disappeared when Artemis expired, which would seem to be a full-fledged bug, but apparently that has been addressed by the 1.12 BETA patch.

Correct, it was.

ducki · December 31, 2003, 01:53

Quote:

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

Artemis was the huntress, eh?

No... she was the goddess of love and beauty, IIRC.

You're thinking of Aphrodite.
Diana was the huntress, but that may have been another culture's name for Artemis. I think Artemis was The Hunt as well as Wisom, though I'm a bit rusty.

Rhothaerill · December 31, 2003, 02:41

Totally off topic, but Artemis is the Greek name for the goddess of the hunt like Theseus said. Diana is the Roman name for the same goddess. The goddess of love in Greek was Aphrodite, Venus in Roman mythology.

I used to rock at Greek mythology.

nbarclay · December 31, 2003, 03:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
PYRAMIDS!!!

Pop is power. Growth is good. Be fruitful, and multiply.

Very much agreed, no contest. Growth is the key to everything else in the early game. Growth lets you build more settlers to REX into more territory, and more workers to improve your cities. It gives you more citizens in the core to bring production, and more in outlying areas to pop rush with or turn into tax collectors or scientists. There are alternatives to temples for dealing with happiness issues: the luxury slider and military police. But there is no substitute for granaries for boosting growth.

Nathan

Aqualung71 · December 31, 2003, 03:04

Artifex,

A lot of experienced Civ3 posters have given some good advice. I wouldn't pretend to be anywhere near their level of expertise, but for what my opinion is worth they are all 100% correct. Pyramids is a no-brainer (subject to vmxa1's point about not wanting to generate a GA this early in the game, and I forget whether Pyramids will do that for the Byzantines). Artemis does provide a temporary boost to happiness and culture, but building temples isn't that expensive anyway and that makes them permanent. Pity you don't have ivory, because depending on the game circumstances Zeus can be a game winner. As for Sun Tzu, IMHO it's one of the most over-rated wonders, but I know others disagree on this.

Getting those granaries will allow you to grow much faster, which in turn will give you the ability to spit out settlers quickly to fill up that half empty continent of yours. Again, a potential game winner if you can consolidate from there!

And don't forget Arrian's point on happiness - luxury slider is good, but another great way to control happiness is to keep your pop down by building workers, which build revenue-producing roads and production-enhancing shields - vital in the early game. You're also still building settlers, which also helps control your pop.

Cheers!

Inverse Icarus · December 31, 2003, 03:14

i really need to build the pyramids more, eh? i kinda shrug it off, as i never get it in time (always seems to be built withing 5 turns of my completion).

vmxa1 · December 31, 2003, 03:27

I think I only made the ToA once and I know my existing temples were not deleted when it went away.

Puma · December 31, 2003, 04:31

Athena known as Minerva in Rome was the wisdom goddess.
D**n, I never get the pyramids on emperor; usually someone in another continent ends up building it.

nbarclay · December 31, 2003, 04:48

I almost never build the Pyramids the hard way because diverting a core city away from building settlers and workers in order to build the Pyramids slows down REXing significantly. But with an ultra-early SGL, that becomes a non-issue.

Arrian · December 31, 2003, 10:25

The insta-GA issue is a real one. I hate that. I remember getting an ultra-early leader playing vanilla civIII (we're talking Grog here, folks, like 2500bc), and I was so excited I rushed the Pyramids before realizing that it would trigger my GA, because I was Egypt. That pissed me off.

The Pyramids are now Agricultural too, right? So they would trigger GAs for Egypt, the Celts, and the Maya. But not for my Iroquois

Mine. My own. My pppppppreccccious.

Um, yeah. So if I was playing any of those civs, and found myself getting an ultra-early SGL, what would I do? Hmm. Two choices: 1) race flat-out for republic, hoping to get there and switch over before an AI civ has completed the Pyramids. Switch to rep, rush pyramids, use GA to gain strategic advantage; or 2) rush the Great Library, and research republic at 50-turn pace, hoarding cash. Maybe use on mass upgrades and break things.

-Arrian

Stuie · December 31, 2003, 11:07

I finally learned my lesson (after reading it over and over in this forum) when moving up to Emperor: Granaries are good.

Rush the Pyramids.

Plotinus · December 31, 2003, 14:42

I haven't had a chance to build the Temple of Artemis yet, but I think it looks great - just think of the early culture lead you can potentially build up, and of course the fact that newly conquered cities instantly start to get culture and expand their borders. Having to rebuild those Temples - at a later stage when they won't take so long to make - seems to me a very small price to pay.

[Okblacke] Are you sure about the list of Wonders? I was under the impression that the Great Library of Alexandria was not on the list, and that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were.

Kuciwalker · December 31, 2003, 15:07

Quote:

Originally posted by Arrian
The insta-GA issue is a real one. I hate that. I remember getting an ultra-early leader playing vanilla civIII (we're talking Grog here, folks, like 2500bc), and I was so excited I rushed the Pyramids before realizing that it would trigger my GA, because I was Egypt. That pissed me off.

The Pyramids are now Agricultural too, right? So they would trigger GAs for Egypt, the Celts, and the Maya. But not for my Iroquois

Mine. My own. My pppppppreccccious.

Ironically, the traits of the Pyramids mean that the Egyptians are among the least likely to build them

okblacke · December 31, 2003, 19:03

Quote:

Originally posted by Plotinus
I haven't had a chance to build the Temple of Artemis yet, but I think it looks great - just think of the early culture lead you can potentially build up, and of course the fact that newly conquered cities instantly start to get culture and expand their borders. Having to rebuild those Temples - at a later stage when they won't take so long to make - seems to me a very small price to pay.

Exactly. By that time, your cities are big enough to turn out a temple in three turns, and rushing them is cheap. Wanna drag it out? Research the military branch all the way to military tradition and get Cavalry.

Cavalry+Temple of Artemis = Blitzkrieg

Quote:

[Okblacke] Are you sure about the list of Wonders? I was under the impression that the Great Library of Alexandria was not on the list, and that the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were.

Damn, damn, damn! You're absolutely right!

Forgot about those hanging gardens. Recent speculation is that they may have never existed.

[ok]

mrmitchell · December 31, 2003, 19:45

Quote:

I haven't had a chance to build the Temple of Artemis yet, but I think it looks great - just think of the early culture lead you can potentially build up, and of course the fact that newly conquered cities instantly start to get culture and expand their borders. Having to rebuild those Temples - at a later stage when they won't take so long to make - seems to me a very small price to pay.

Cultural landmarks gain more culture with age IIRC. So you'll have lost some culture because in Ind age for example your Temples will have only been 1 age old instead of 2.

Well, for example (this isn't hte real values)
WITH ToA
1, then destroyed, + 1 + 2 + 4 = 8
vs
1 + 2 + 4 + 8 = 15

I don't remember how it progresses, though.