Colossus + HG in one City

[ramses II.]

I get it sometimes: Hanging Gardens and Colossus in one city - that gives your civ a boost in income and science. It's easy to keep this city celebrating.
Do you try to get this constellation, too?
(In most of my games the AI builds ther Colossus, for I put my focus on Marco Polo's and other WoW).

[Ming]

Add the science wonders, and you have a super science city

[La Fayette]

Many players use that combo, but solo now achieves extraordinary results without HG ( Shakes ASAP in the SSC)

[DrSpike]

I think most players that weren't immediately on the warpath would get that combo.

[ramses II.]

@Ming
I often build the Gardens in my capital - and normally the site is too bad for a SSC. In the beginning, I waste about 200 years searching a good site - but I usually don't find a 4 special site int that time.
If my settlers stand on a river with a whale or wheat or pheasant in the city radius, I will found my capitol immediately.

[Scouse Gits]

HG and Colossus in the same city are powerful. An interesting variation is Xin's Off Shore Gardens strategy. The Colossus is built in the capital or SSC but the Gardens are placed on an island. With both cities celebrating the trade routes between both centres are considerable. This also forms the beginning of the Two Continent trading technique.

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SG(2)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I like the offshore Colossus strategy - you can grow 2 cities to a decent size and keep them celebrating for a while - good for internal trade obviously. The problem is that it can be a slow strategy to develop - you need MapMaking, of course, and often Colossus is taken by that point.

Depending on city sites and how soon I get Trade (for wonder building with Caravans), I sometimes wind up with both HG and Col in the same city. I usually want to get HG pretty fast, so it usually gets built in my capital or one of my first 2-3 cities - which may not be SSC-suitable. If it is SSC-suitable, I always build the Colossus there as well if I can. Getting the big early arrow bonuses is huge.

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Scouse Gits
l. An interesting variation is Xin's Off Shore Gardens strategy. The Colossus is built in the capital or SSC but the Gardens are placed on an island
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SG(2)

I had a similar 'island strategy'. The problem is corruption: if you use an island far away, you get big bonuses but corruption is high.
(IIRC samson tried it and came to the conclusion that road/RR to a foreign city is more efficient)

[Caesar the Great]

in recent months i've become a big fan of making lots of big cities in republic and giving up the science wonders

[DrSpike]

For a challenge or because you're insane?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by DrSpike
For a challenge or because you're insane?

I bet CtG's scheme involves LOTS of caravans/freight. If so, then I could see how the science wonders would be pretty much meaningless...

[DrSpike]

Hehe maybe, but I'm greedy. Lots of trade = lots of beakers, but more so with science wonders.

[War4ever]

i dont build hg anymore, i feel its a crutch for the weaker player just had to bring that up again.

actually b/c i don't prioritize early wonders in mp, i almost never get hg in the rah group, i let rah build it so hes competitive j/k

i prefer pyramids, i can stay in monarchy longer and have a nice military while expanding like the dickens and not losing much in growth.

pyramids is key for rough terrain, allows more sets to team toghether for thos roads , trying to set up optimum routes....

besides once i hit republic, celebrating is easy cuz the buildings are already in place.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by War4ever
i dont build hg anymore, i feel its a crutch for the weaker player just had to bring that up again.

actually b/c i don't prioritize early wonders in mp, i almost never get hg in the rah group, i let rah build it so hes competitive j/k

Does rah ever whack you over the head with that crutch?

STYOM (one of those weak players )

[SCG]

Originally posted by War4ever
i dont build hg anymore, i feel its a crutch for the weaker player just had to bring that up again.

__________________
Pray for HG, without it you are like a noob chess player without his queen.

Thought about changing your sig at all?

[Scouse Gits]

Good hit SCG
Trolls deserve to be hit every once in a while

SG[1]

[rah]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man
Does rah ever whack you over the head with that crutch?

Frequently. But I rarely get HG in our games. You have to be prepared not to have it, which I do. But if it falls in your lap, you're silly not to take it. Fortunately I don't need it to Kick War's butt.

RAH

[-Jrabbit]

Rah and War4, I'm curious. Are there any consistent fans of early Republic in your 2x1x MP games, or is it always a race to Monarchy?

(To me, the atmosphere seems too hawkish for this to work, but like I said -- I'm curious.)

[DrSpike]

There are some straight republicans ( ) around, but not many. Deity Dude often does even in duels.

[rah]

I've seen Berz do it on occasion under certain circumstances.
A lot of first/second timers have done it too, but for some reason they don't do it for long. Or we just never see them again.

[-Jrabbit]

IMHO rah, your small rock world with 4 players is just too crowded for the luxury of restricting the size of militia, and you rarely get past the first 2 governmen advances in one night. (Any luck with a continuation game yet?)

So you gotta learn to thrive in Monarchy. Celebration is not a viable growth option.

Back OT, I can't rmember ever getting Colossus and HG together. If I want a SSC, I go Colossus - Mike's, then celebrate.

edit; spelling

[rah]

Just because straight rush to Repub isn't common does not mean that celebrating in Repub is rare. In fact it's quite common. (especially if you have HG) Having HG and COL in the same city in our games, also isn't rare.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

@Jrabbit
Unless you're playing an offshore trading strategy as has been discussed, I would think it would be preferable, and even usual, to have HG and Col in the same city if you have them at all.

To wit: I play on large maps usually. So the name of the game is expansion, particularly in the early going. So I like HG to keep my expansion from becoming unruly (i.e. beyond 5-7 cities). Often I build it in my capital, from scratch before I have Trade.

Usually my capital is on a decent starting site - and it's probably going to be bigger than the other cities which I limit to size 2-3 if I can, for a while. So it makes sense to build Colossus there as well. The city will already be celebrating - so adding an extra trade arrow there and then building library, market, uni etc makes a lot of sense. If you build Colossus somewhere else with the intent to make it a SSC, you need to make the city celebrate first (HG city does that automatically, more or less) - which can be an effort (market/turn up lux/eins) IMO.

[-Jrabbit]

Originally posted by rah
Just because straight rush to Repub isn't common does not mean that celebrating in Repub is rare. In fact it's quite common. (especially if you have HG) Having HG and COL in the same city in our games, also isn't rare.

Not quite what I meant. I was trying to say that that celebrating in Repub is seldom a viable Growth strategy -- specifically in the Friday Night Rah games I'm familiar with. (Of couse, I usually only see the first 2000 - 3000 years.)

I run to Republic and celebrate quite often in solo games. What I was asking was whether your particular game conditions, now well-tested through play, make the celebrating Repub impractical. My impression was that this is in fact the case.

Or are you saying that celebrating Republics are "quite common" on Rah Rules Fridays?

[War4ever]

lol, i hardly call our one night stand powergraph games any indication of who is winning

all it does is point out lads having problems.

if someone celebrates, they have the pg lead, if noone does then the person with HG usually has the pg lead....

or the person with pyramids....but with one nighters, not enough 'real' action happens, however if we played another session, we might see some different results ....but untill then.... the top two usually dn't have a problem or enough of a lead to really take advantage....

[rah]

JR, celebrating is not uncommon even in our one night stands. But as War said, the pg is usually only an indication of who had a bad night, not who had the best.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

It seems to me that celebrating a republic is one of those 'short term pain for long term gain' activities. Usually to grow all my cities up to size 8 (more, if they have the infrastructure), I need to reduce my tax/sci in favour of luxuries, and curtail the activities of out-of-city units, for several turns. This is something that can readily be done in SP (because the AI will leave you alone, or attack ineffectively), but in MP you probably won't be left alone to celebrate for a sustained period. And if you can't sustain the celebration... the lost time with low science rate and few units out of home cities, might kill you.

[rah]

Not really if you plan it right.
The lower science rate really isn't a problem. With the increased arrows, the number of turns needed usually increases a bit, but that is well offset by higher trade bonuses. If you pay attention to where your ships are homed and use units from other cities to escort the settlers on the ships, you can still expand at sea without a problem. The only thing you can't do is send out a massive attack force. But if that is your need, you can always drop back into monarchy or make a beeline for SOL and communism. Getting all your cities to 8 doesn't take that long.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Hmm... well then, aside from learning curve issues... where do I sign up for MP?

It still seems to me that tiny rock + MP <> Republic!

[DrSpike]

I think your instincts are sound......generally I wouldn't go republic too early on Rah's settings either. But sometimes trade may be your best chance......you have to play each game as it comes, and it will never be the same.