I just want to hear Idea's/Opinions/Comments on National Wonder Combination.

There are currently 11 national wonders (excludes Palace for Capital and Forbidden Palace)

Globe Theatre
Hermitage
Heroic Epic
Ironworks
Mt. Rushmore
National Epic
Oxford University
Red Cross
Scotland Yard
Wall Street
West Point

Which Combination is the best?

Which is your favorite?

Are there certain Combination that only work in certain situations, eg- location,World Wonder, Religion, Leader Traits, Victory Condition etc.

I guess you can remove Scotland Yard and Mount Rushmore as they can work fine by themselves and have no synergy with any other National wonder

Heroic Epic & West Point in first production (Military) City

Ironworks & Red Cross is a favorite for my second production city. Put a few military instructors here as well, and this city will be just as awesome as the HE & WP one.

National Epic I usually combine with Globe Theatre to make a good GP farm

Oxford University is usually put in my scientific commerce city along with Great Liberary.

Wall Street will go to my wealth commerce city.

Like you said, Scotland Yard and Mt. Rushmore do well on their own, and can be placeed anywhere.

Nothing new here really, standard combinations i guess, but they work very well.

How about National Epic, Oxford University and Great Library Combination? Mass Producing those GS can be powerful.

Or Heroic Epic and Ironworks for a Mass Production of Military Units, Combined this with Military Academy, Forge and if possibly have it in your capital for Bureaucracy bonus plus Angkor Wat when you reach your happy cap and run Priest for extra Hammers from the extra food, any spare Great Prophets Produced by the Priest can be settled in your Production city for an extra 2 Hammers..

I know you lose the Commerce Bonus from Bureaucracy but it won't matter when you've Produced the largest Army in the Civ World and Conquer it

I agree with Zionel.

Best regards,

How about National Epic, Oxford University and Great Library Combination? Mass Producing those GS can be powerful.

This is great for producing GS's, but when u place National Epic in a city, that means you consider that to be your main GP farm, and in those cases you want another type of GP, you will struggle getting them with all the pollution.

Or Heroic Epic and Ironworks for a Mass Production of Military Units, Combined this with Military Academy, Forge and if possibly have it in your capital for Bureaucracy bonus plus Angkor Wat when you reach your happy cap and run Priest for extra Hammers from the extra food, any spare Great Prophets Produced by the Priest can be settled in your Production city for an extra 2 Hammers..

This sounds like an overkill to me. With Ironworks and Heroic Epic alone, you are already producing a military unit every, or every second turn anyway. I'd rather split them up to have 2 great military cities.

But both of your suggestions sound fun to try out, and they might be more effective than i think ;)

This is great for producing GS's, but when u place National Epic in a city, that means you consider that to be your main GP farm, and in those cases you want another type of GP, you will struggle getting them with all the pollution.

I have won games, never ever producing a Great Person except getting them from Techs. GS are generally the most useful and Powerful Great Person available that is easy to acquire.


This sounds like an overkill to me. With Ironworks and Heroic Epic alone, you are already producing a military unit every, or every second turn anyway. I'd rather split them up to have 2 great military cities.

But both of your suggestions sound fun to try out, and they might be more effective than i think ;)

This is at the cost of not using WP either, But In that Strategy I emphasize quantity more then quality

I've Produced armies so fast using the HE & IW combination that I had to switch the city to build gold to cover the cost of my military units, that or switch to Vassalage if I'm Spiritual, I Generally like using this strategy with Isabella.

Shrines allow you to assign an extra 3 Priest, so with Angkor Wat, and any Extra Great Prophet Settled, you get a production monster. I Once was using this strategy and and ended up with 3 Holy Religions in my capital, half way through the game I realized that my shrines and settled Great Prophets had accumulated 50+ Gold all together and decided to go for a HE & Wall Street Combination instead.

50gold + Bank, Market, Grocer and Wall Street is an Extra 150 Gold

Now it was a wealthy Military Production center that could also the cost of war

Another possibility using Angkor Wat, is the HE & NE combination.... I know I know... it has no synergy, well... actually it does especially with Angkor Wat. Each Priest you assign gives you 2 Hammers, with HE it become 4H for every Unit you Produce, and while your Priest are assigned they give you GPP towards another Great Prophet which will eventually be settled for another 2 Hammers, It's just a cycle with just continuously accumulates more Prophets for more Hammers, and combine this with Pacifism during peace times... it'll just run out of control... plus the settled Great Prophets also Give out GPP which will significantly shorten the time of the next Great People Produced.

Later in the game when Angkor Wat become Obsolete with Computers, you can change all your farmed tiles into Watermills and Workshops, when running State Property and any excess food goes to Priest, Note that Great Prophet's don't benefit from Angkor Wat so they still Produce 2 Hammers. With the Power of a production City under State Property Civic combined with the Settled Great Prophet Accumulated in the past... That City you've Chosen is still a production Monster.

I haven't done a HE/NE & HE/IW Comparison to find out with is the stronger Production Monster, From a Theory Perspective, it's too hard to determine, because you can build NE Earlier so therefore you can benefit from More Great Prophets earlier which means more hammers earlier, while you can't build Ironworks until Steel, and the difference in time between Steel and Literature is a BIG Gap.

Here is an article considering various combinations with National Epic:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=209331

The fifth, involving Ironworks and National Epic, is my favorite. In any case, I think you should try to put Great Library in the same city as National Epic, so that the GP point effect of the free great scientists is increased by National Epic.

As for combinations not involving National Epic, first there is the Heroic Epic/West Point combination which has been mentioned. I like to put Globe Theatre together with Wall Street in a city with shrine(s) and a lot of food potential, for combining merchants specialists with the shrine money for a lot of cash multiplied by wall street.

Others, I generally don't worry about combinations. I'll put them where they'll do the most good (Oxford, Ironworks if I didn't build the engineer GP farm), where I have extra production (Scotland Yard, Mount Rushmore), or in a border city where I need a cultural boost (Hermitage).

Or Heroic Epic and Ironworks for a Mass Production of Military Units

Overkill but there doesn't seem to be much point in debating it unless somebody has a new argument to offer.

Mentioned before

Red Cross - Ironworks - Drydock - "1" Military Instructor (and possibly Military Academy for overkill)
Gets your Navy built quickly with free medic promotion and level 4 :) straight out of the harbour (with +4xp from Civics).

Overkill but there doesn't seem to be much point in debating it unless somebody has a new argument to offer.

I finally understood why so many people want HE + IW.
They play epic or marathon!
So it's the only way to get 1 unit per turn.

I favour normal speed, so I get 1 unit per turn with just HE and thus don't waste hammers in the combo.

HE/WP is the best combo for me, but I now leave out long term best for short term benefits, and end up with not so great combos...

I prefer Ironworks + National Epic, if I've got a tech lead and get a chance to build other wonders before the AI can. You'd be amazed how fast you can pop great people when you've got this combo running, just stack and stack and stack great people points with all the wonders built in this one city. I swear I've seen two great people pop out of the same city inside of a dozen turns.

Then again, I've scaled back to Prince level from Monarch, and that's probably the main reason I can get away with this technique. But if you can pull it off, it's a game winner.

I finally understood why so many people want HE + IW. They play epic or marathon! So it's the only way to get 1 unit per turn.

I favour normal speed, so I get 1 unit per turn with just HE and thus don't waste hammers in the combo.

HE/WP is the best combo for me, but I now leave out long term best for short term benefits, and end up with not so great combos...

oh i never thought about that! cabert is completely right (as happens very often ;) ). i play normal/quick speed only for specific gauntlets/GOTMs or when playing MP with hubby, so it feels really odd to me. game speed definitely makes a difference, as does how long you expect the game to last (short-term vs. long-term benefits).

one note on scotland yard/mount rushmore. they can be built anywhere, but i have seen cases in SGs where people have a city that's not building anything important so they throw one of those in the queue. then later they realize they'd wanted to build a set of two national wonders in there, and that's no longer possible, oopsies. i rename cities a lot, so i rename my wall street city something to do with money, and my planned main military city as the army base hubby was stationed at when i met him, and future red cross as a hospital in town, etc. it helps me remember what they're reserved for. fun side effects are that it makes me giggle and makes hubby question my sanity. this is of course not the only thing that makes hubby question my sanity.

Heroic theater, heroic epic and globe theatre, can draft/whip as many units as you want so long as you have food surplus.

Heroic epic - west point in military production city , National epic and Oxford university (in your best gp farm that is also the best science city , usually your capital)or the great library , overall i belive Oxford university science bonus is better than one or two more Great people. Iron works in space program and wonder production city.

With experience i think it is easy to see where each building provides the best bonus.

I've seen the GL / Oxford / Ironworks combination in a massive science city set to research so the hammers turn to beakers ... not sure if this is the optimal combo, but it sure was interesting.

I usually find that I get around to building Oxford either after Scientific Method kills the Great Library, or only shortly before. So, I don't see that much benefit to putting Oxford in your National Epic/Great Library city, when there are so many other great things you could put there instead (Iron Works, Globe Theatre, Wall Street if there are shrines).

In addition, the National Epic/Great Library GP farm is probably going to be relying on a lot of farms, so you could probably get more commerce elsewhere anyway.

Around the time of scientific method I'll usually shift my main science city from my original capital to a new city, where there's a lot of commerce potential, and I've built (or will build) Oxford. Sometimes I'll also move my capital to this new science city, and leave my original capital as wonder builder/gp farm.

I've seen the GL / Oxford / Ironworks combination in a massive science city set to research so the hammers turn to beakers ... not sure if this is the optimal combo, but it sure was interesting.

That would work in a specialist economy, in your Super Science City when you have nothing relevant to build in that city, so you'd convert your hammers into breakers.

I've seen the GL / Oxford / Ironworks combination in a massive science city set to research so the hammers turn to beakers ... not sure if this is the optimal combo, but it sure was interesting.

Oxford multiplies commerce into research. Ironworks multiplies hammers into whatever you need, you can output research with it. It doesn't make any sense to me to put them in the same city. If you develop you city squares to generate commerce then you are wasting your Ironworks. If you emphasize hammers then you are wasting Oxford. You would obviously do this in your capital using bureaucracy, but I still think that you would be better having a pure science city and a pure production city.

I'm fond of National Epic and Globe Theater.

I'll need the Globe Theater to keep my city from imploding and starving to death when I have 25 population before 0 AD and I get into my 3rd war in less than 40 turns.

The culture slider ain't going to take care of that much war weariness. :eek:

I'm fond of National Epic and Globe Theater.

I'll need the Globe Theater to keep my city from imploding and starving to death when I have 25 population before 0 AD and I get into my 3rd war in less than 40 turns.

The culture slider ain't going to take care of that much war weariness. :eek:

You aways have the option of building Mt Rushmore, a Jail and run Police State for -100% War weariness. Unless you haven't gotten the appropriate techs then Globe Theater is a god send. Their generally best with Creative as you required to build 6 Theaters on a standard map so therefore a Globe Theater would be relatively cheaper for a Creative Civ. Unless you play as Louis XIV Creative/Industrious

Heroic Epic and West Point is usually the only synergy I deliberately aim for, since it's so powerful. All of the other national wonders stand pretty fine just on their own in my eyes, though they can be sometimes combined for some minor benefits.

Although, Heroic Epic and Globe Theatre combined with Slavery is another interesting combination to try in an extremely high-food city (though then you'll have trouble producing those National Wonders without using Great Engineers). I haven't actually tried this strategy out myself yet, but I've heard it works extremely well. With enough surplus food you can simply whip out 1 unit / turn quite easily with the +100% unit production. I suppose a similarly high food city would do well with Ironworks and Globe Theatre as well, then it could rush out all of its needed buildings with ease (though it's not as efficient as rushing out a military).

Heroic theater, heroic epic and globe theatre, can draft/whip as many units as you want so long as you have food surplus.


Heroic EPic does nothing for your dafting ability. It does make whipping more efficient though.
But since drafting > whipping in globe theater city, I get the feeling that HE isn't put to full use there.

Although, Heroic Epic and Globe Theatre combined with Slavery is another interesting combination to try in an extremely high-food city

If you are planning on getting the Globe Theatre after a while, you can even start your whipping early - as soon as you have Monarchy.

With Heredetary Rule, you get one happyness per unit in the city and you get one unhappiness per whipping, so it's like free units (until they leave the city and the city explodes with :mad:. Once you build the Globe Theatre, all that unhappy mojo goes away and those troops can go about their normal business of conquoring and pillaging.

double post, don't know why

I have recently trying to use 2 different cities for national epic and Globe. One city concentrates on Gp the other on Military via draft and whipping. Trying to run a Gp factory while drafting 1 unit/turn is not attractive.

I've experimented a bit mostly on Prince and Monarch, and I've had a lot of success with 3 combos in particular:

Oxford + National Epic in a capital city

Ironworks + West Point (and a military academy, if possible; depending on civics and how far away I am from the next xp level bump, I might also want a Great General giving another +2 xp to bump up unit promotions another notch)

Red Cross + Heroic Epic (and another military academy, if I have yet another great general)

Why:

I used to put Globe Theater with National Epic as part of a standard GP farm, but lately I have been trying for megacapital games where I start off with 2 key cities: my capital (doubles as a super science city + great person farm), and a worker/settler farm. The capital builds a worker, settler, and then either stonehenge (if applicable) or the great wall, then it's off to the races: the 2nd city cranks out needed workers and expansion while the capital cranks out wonder after wonder after wonder (even the crappy ones, just for the Great People points), with the lulls filled up by building granaries, libraries, etc. with the occasional whipping until I get Bureaucracy. The 2nd city can be in a crappy location, by the way, as long as it has one or more megafood resources like corn or fish or something, since that city is going to stay below size 6 for a hundred turns or so as it's just a worker/settler farm. I finished a game recently where I built my 2nd city in a big desert area just because it had access to stone and gold (on desert/hills), but the city also had fish and a non-irrigable rice farm... and that was pretty much all I needed since it stayed at size 3 for seemingly ages (fish, rice, and gold mine).

Okay, I know what you are thinking; GP farm without Globe Theater? Solution: stuff as many religions as you can into your capital so it can build lots of religious buildings, build/trade for happiness-producing resources, build the Notre Dame, and if all else fails, whip a little more often than you have to. You'll usually have the Pyramids early on to help with unhappiness, anyway; Representation is great in combination with Bureaucracy+Mercantalism. That combo, along with a ton of religions in the capital + Great Library, Univ of Sankore, Colossus/GLighthouse (if applicable), Angkor Wat, Organized religion, stone, marble, industrious, Oxford, an Academy, a shrine (and market and bank), and a few more extremely useful wonders (the Spiral Minaret comes to mind) can generate a colossal amount of not just research, but production and gold as well, all while your research allotment never budges from 100% for a single turn as your gold pile easily climbs into the several thousand mark (especially with Spiral Minaret). Every single specialist I make settles in my capital unless it's more useful elsewhere (e.g., a great artist goes to a border city to help with my cultural, bloodless conquest).

As for the military combos, Red Cross units tend to be non-offensive units, so I don't need as many of them as I do the offensive units--units that will no doubt perish more often on the battlefield. The Ironworks+West Point timing, tech-wise, also works better for me than other possible combos. Red Cross always goes into a high-production coastal cities so that it can generate a few tag-along "healer" destroyers for my navy in addition to "healer" infantry.