If you totaly neglected every wonder in the game and instead focused on everything else. Can you win just as easily?

Yes. Just conquer them.

You said, conquer them, but, if the piramids are build in another continent, and you conquer them at the middle or end game, you wouldnt gain anything..
so the idea, is to build wonders according to an strategy...
plan it very well and follow it....
basicaly... if you spend time building wonders and another buildings and your neighbour is building an army... guees who will win???

Building a wonder versus building armies?

Its a tough choice. You can always raze every town you see - to make sure you dont accidently pick up a wonder. However, may wonders are helpful to combat and other situations. The oracle is a cheap fast wonder to build for a free tech. Especially, if you can find a tech thats is extremely useful and expensive to build. The tech that gives iron or the forge is a good choice. Other wonders help you defend easier, or make the enemy weaker.

If you are on the same land mass as a computer with little to no defense - you can and will eventually get smacked. If you are "alone" on a large land mass and get the great wall of China wonder you can go thru a large portion of the game with minimal troops.

This game is like chess, situational. A pawn has less movement possibilities, less attack possibilities than any other unit in the game. However, in the right moment that single pawn can turn into a powerful queen or win many games for you.

Its not so much "is it possible" - everything is virtually possible. You just need the right situation and the right mix to make it the winning combination!

Metal Casting's the one that gives you the forge. It's the one I usually pick. (It also gives you a leg up on the Colossus.) Iron Working doesn't require a rush.

but, if the piramids are build in another continent, and you conquer them at the middle or end game, you wouldnt gain anything..


That's not necessarily true. In the early game your cities are usually too small to run specialists. But once you get mid-game they'll be a little more developed, so you get alot more benefit from using Representation. Also by that time, your cities are getting larger so you get more benefit from the happiness part of Representation.

If you totaly neglected every wonder in the game and instead focused on everything else. Can you win just as easily?

Without a doubt. In fact, there are many games when I build hardly any wonders, haven't in my current game so far (~500AD).

I see no reason at all why it would be impossible, or even very hard. I often don't build any wonders until the industrial age, and I don't really so much need the industrial/modern wonders so much as figure I may as well pick them up because my empire is so much larger at that point -- having one city out of thirty building wonders is a lot less painful than having one city out of four doing so.

Certain wonders do make the game somewhat easier, and are definitely worth getting, but they're not crucial to the game in general (although they are to certain strategies).

Prior to Civ IV I was a mad lover of Wonders. I built as many as I could since I regarded them as absolutely necessary for winning
Now, on the contrary, I seldom build them. And yes, I've won in Noble without any WOW.

yes, wonders arent so important..... and you can win without them... but its a lot easier with them... or at least some of them..
Spiral Minaret...

I agree - definately possible to win without building them.

But can you build every one of the 34 World Wonders and still win??:confused:

Check it out:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2647

Here is the game description:
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2562

yes it is possible, although most people never played without at least one I'm sure, by conquering a capital for example.

@ the OP

Check this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=244409) SG game

building all 34 would be close to impossible. Having all 34 wouldn't be that bad though. I would bet your game would end by domination before then though.

I like to capture my wonders. The culture is only really useful if I'm playing a cultural game, since cultural pressure is easily solved by that army you built instead of the wonder.

I avoid wonders unless I'm Industrious. Winning in Civ IV is a matter of correctly leveraging your traits (and oft-times your UU), not of building Wonders.

I thik having the resource to build the wonder ends up being better than industrious. I may be wrong though.

building all 34 would be close to impossible. Having all 34 wouldn't be that bad though. I would bet your game would end by domination before then though.

Check links posted by Dawn on post #11.

I skip most world wonders, but skipping national wonders is a lot more difficult. Heroic epic does so much so quickly, I don't think I've ever skipped it before. I'm sure it's doable, but that's a hard habit to break.

I usually go without building wonders until I reach Radio and Mass Media, which open quite a few wonders. Usually, whatever civ I am, I aim to be able to get most of these wonders to make up for lost early wonders. Also, happiness from Broadway, Rock & Roll are desperately needed unless I investing significantly in the culture slider, and Cristo Redentor is a great wonder in itself, and I always like to be in control of the UN.

To be honest, I think that wonders are very overrated, and boost a person's score much more than they really should. In multiplayer, an Industrious person (more than not, Huayna, Louis, and DeGaulle), will go after every wonder despite its uselessness...or usefulness, but this kind of play tends to falsely inflate a person's score. I've tried playing like this as Louis, and got wonder after wonder, and managed to reach first place, however, the human players could've probably defeated me if they spent half the production I did on wonders, on their military.

I do think that getting wonders is a major part of a builder strategy, but I think that they are worth too many points when scoring :/

Depends what victory you are going for. Conquest and domination don't really need one, but culture will most likey require a wonder somewhere down the line.

Depends what victory you are going for. Conquest and domination don't really need one, but culture will most likey require a wonder somewhere down the line.

My last several games I turned Cultural Victory's off since I always won so easily with it.

I don't think that a cultural victory is possible without building wonders. Every other victory should be achievable though.

^^Dunno, with corps + broadcast towers + cathedrals cultural could work

It all depends on the situation. In a huge map with few civilizations barbarians can be a problem. The Great Wall is useful. On a small map with too many civilizations and your on a small island... barbarians are not as bad and as a result The Great Wall is useless for the most part.

If you want nukes... someone needs to build the manhatten project. But it does not matter who, for instance!