I found this exploit accidentally, I was building the great library in a city and after few turns I changed my mind and started building the GL in another city. The amazing thing is that when I finished building the GL the shields from the other city that where spent on GL was converted to gold!!

So I had a strange idea, what about this:
- Get a great engineer
- Start building an expensive wonder
- Before 1 turn from finishing the wonder cancel it and start building it in another city.
- Use the great engineer to finish the wonder
- You will get big cash + the wonder

Had anyone tried this before?

Why would you want to waste 2 Great Engineers on the same wonder?

Yeah the gold would help from that but that's only a short solution. The long term would have been probably to save an engineer for a golden age and the other for settling in the production city.

GE only gives 700 hammers, Great Merchant can give over 1500 gold.

But I do use this when I want to build gold, the resource bonus makes it more effective than building "Wealth" directly.

Using an engineer is a waste, but like Dave said when you have the resource/industrious or something you can get more gold than by building wealth. You can also turn forests into quick gold this way; all these things are the same as the well-known walls/castles with protective civs.

Personally I don't feel these are a problem/exploits, since you're not getting anything entirely free but at the cost of hammers. What really should be done though is increase the conversion for straight out building wealth/research anyway.

I realized kinda of the same thing. If you build a national wonder, take if out of queue then build it in another city, you can get a pretty big lump sum for it! ( I found out by building IronWorks in 1 city and I decided to change my city so then I built it elsewhere and found this out!) Of course its pretty wasteful delaying a maybe important Natl Wonder.

Well if there is a world wonder you dont want, and you have access to the bonus resource marble or stone and/or industrious. You can use this trick to get upto 2.5 times gold compared to just building gold

Why would you want to waste 2 Great Engineers on the same wonder?

Yeah the gold would help from that but that's only a short solution. The long term would have been probably to save an engineer for a golden age and the other for settling in the production city.

you need one engineer not 2 , there are better uses for the great engineer , but you can do this if you need cash so badly. also you can do this without an engineer if you are sure that you can finish the wonder before anybody else. meaning that you can start building the wonder again from the scratch.

Lets say you spent 30 turns building the GL, stop before 1 turn from finishing and start building in another city, lets say it will take another 23 turns in the other city, you can use a great engineer or just continue without it if you are sure that no body will beat you to it.

If you have Stone, you can mostly-build Moai in all of your coastal cities (only one at a time though) before actually completing it somewhere....

If you have Stone, you can mostly-build Moai in all of your coastal cities (only one at a time though) before actually completing it somewhere....

great idea, you will get huge cash from this

This is normally done most with hermitage. With industrious and marble when not going for cultural victory you can get quite a lot of gold per hammer for building it several places.

Just be careful because after 50 turns at any gamespeed the invested hammers start to decay. So this probably wouldn't work well on marathon where build times are probably frequently over 50 turns for wonders.

Just be careful because after 50 turns at any gamespeed the invested hammers start to decay. So this probably wouldn't work well on marathon where build times are probably frequently over 50 turns for wonders.
AFAIK there is no decay for world wonders

I didn't know that. How about national wonders?

I didn't know that. How about national wonders?
I'm not one of those code checkers, so take this with a grain of salt.
IMHO national wonders don't decay either.

This trick is most effective if you have the resource for that wonder - ie stone for mids. Every hammer you put in becomes two hammers in construction terms giving you a substantial return on your investment.

Just be careful because after 50 turns at any gamespeed the invested hammers start to decay. So this probably wouldn't work well on marathon where build times are probably frequently over 50 turns for wonders.

Don't know about vanilla but in BTS there is no hammer decay on buildings of any kind.

Don't know about vanilla but in BTS there is no hammer decay on buildings of any kind.
untrue
but the decay starts after 50 turns only, and that's pretty long.

Am I the only person that considers this an exploit?

Don't know about vanilla but in BTS there is no hammer decay on buildings of any kind.

untrue
but the decay starts after 50 turns only, and that's pretty long.

Indeed. Buildings do decay after a longer time (50 turns) and at a slower rate when they do.

Units lose 2% of their accumulated hammers (rounded up) each turn. Buildings lose 1% (rounded up). I've checked this in game before. But I probably didn't check with the wonders.

Am I the only person that considers this an exploit?

Probably, I recall one of the more experienced demo players building stonehenge "for the money" although it was only in one city (don't recall if he had stone or not).

Still, doing it in more than one city will push it further up the expliot line, but at the end of the day you only get a relatively poor return (maybe 150% with resource and industrious trait - good but not mindblowing)

The beauty of this trick, like some many things, is in the eye of the beholder....

Still, doing it in more than one city will push it further up the expliot line, but at the end of the day you only get a relatively poor return

National wonders are better for this trick, because in the case of the national wonder you have all the time in the world to finish it unlike world wonders.

And as others said using Hermitage (with marble) or Moai (with stone) sounds very profitable if it was done on large number of cities,

For example building Hermitage in 20 cities and finishing it, how much do you think you will get? With production multipliers it will be more effective than building wealth.

Another thing if you find this a waste of resources avoid doing it in the early game, do it in the late game especially if you get Mining Inc. where building national wonder at this stage will take few turns.

A definition of exploit could be that an exploit is an unintended use of a game mechanic that benefits the player.

This difficulty of course is defining "unintended" .The way I see it, gold for missed wonders and overflow is to compensate for lost hammers, ie some sort of consolation prize. In older CIVs, you could build one wonder then switch to another wonder to finish it the turn it becomes available techwise; similarly, without hammer overflow being capped you could spend 20 turns building warriors at 100 hammers per turn, giving a huge overflow (as the overflow would be carried over to the next warrior, generating more overflow), and finish a big ticket item in one turn as the tech becomes available. So, they had to stop switching wonders and cap overflow. However, they don't want the hammers to be wasted (as that would increase micromanagement to prevent big overflow), so they give gold as a consolation prize.

Under that reasoning, doing something to purposely get something that was meant as a compensation is an exploit.

However, as stated above you don't get something for nothing, although the bonusses (chopping forest for wall with protective plus stone) make you get a lot for a little.

I do it myself only if I have to wait a couple turns, for example to let the city grow before starting a settler, in the pre-alphabet/currency era. Obviously, if the designers intended me to build wealth in that era they wouldn't have made it unavailable before currency, so I guess it is an exploit per my definition. Who needs consistency, anyway?

It is an exploit, and it should be fiexed (i don't know how hard it could be).
In short : you shouldnt get more money this way than you would have if you had built wealth instead. So bonuses which don't apply to wealth making (stone bonus, organized religion bonus, trait bonus etc) should be deducted when calculating how much money we get. Things could become complicated (for example we get stone only at some point, changing civics etc, so the program would need to keep track how much "money/wealth" we invest in building whatever we do.

Why would you want to waste 2 Great Engineers on the same wonder?

Yeah the gold would help from that but that's only a short solution. The long term would have been probably to save an engineer for a golden age and the other for settling in the production city.

1st, he was only talking about using 1 Great Engineer to finish the wonder. The other city would be using :hammers: tiles to build the wonder to 1 turn left.

2nd, a GREAT ENGINEER for a golden age!!!! :confused: :cry: I could never. They are way too hard to get to be wasting them on a golden age. Settling in a production city is great. However, sometimes a powerful Wonder (like Oracle, Great Library, Notre Dame) that would have gone to an AI is better to steal away with a 1 turn Great Engineer than to settle for 3:hammers: and a couple :science:. Of course, rushing the Taj Mahal with an Engineer would be kinda silly with regards to this discussion ;)

To add to this... wow! I never thought about building a national wonder until 1 turn away, then queue it up in another city! Remember, after 60 turns, they begin to degrade

I sometimes built the same wonder in different cities, albeit by accident. The :gold: you get is sure nice, but usually I like to spend my :hammers: on other stuff.

I'll definitely stop building a wonder I don't mind missing to get the :gold: compensation, though : I like the cash from failing the Chichen Itza if I have stone, for example. If the Temple of Artemis, Sistine Chapel and Parthenon haven't been built as of late (I'm playing Monarch, so sometimes it's even later than 1000AD) and I have Marble, then the :gold: definitely helps !

And to conclude, I don't consider it an exploit at all. After all, the bonus :gold: is not "free" :

You need the 2x:hammers: resource (stone or marble) to get more :gold:
You need to burn a Great engineer if you use the opening poster's trick
You only get the :gold: after the Wonder has been completed, as opposed as staright-building :gold:.

Having the time to build wonders in multiple cities is only possible on really low levels so who cares if its an exploit? Building wonders for money (in one city) is a totally legitimate tactic, especially early game when you cant build wealth. For example, putting a few turns into SH while you wait for a certain tech or whatever is a good way to bank a little gold, even when you know you wont get the wonder or even want it. Its not an exploit, the trade off is that you aren't building settlers or workers or whatever you really need.

Having the time to build wonders in multiple cities is only possible on really low levels so who cares if its an exploit? Building wonders for money (in one city) is a totally legitimate tactic, especially early game when you cant build wealth. For example, putting a few turns into SH while you wait for a certain tech or whatever is a good way to bank a little gold, even when you know you wont get the wonder or even want it. Its not an exploit, the trade off is that you aren't building settlers or workers or whatever you really need.

Quoted for :goodjob:

Having the time to build wonders in multiple cities is only possible on really low levels so who cares if its an exploit? Building wonders for money (in one city) is a totally legitimate tactic, especially early game when you cant build wealth. For example, putting a few turns into SH while you wait for a certain tech or whatever is a good way to bank a little gold, even when you know you wont get the wonder or even want it. Its not an exploit, the trade off is that you aren't building settlers or workers or whatever you really need.

Alternatively using National Wonders at late game even at Deity when you have factories and Hermitage/Moai takes few turns.
And the beauty of this thing is building the Nat wonder in multilple cities.

I think building NW in multiple cities seems exploit-ish. But building a wonder for cash is viable.

Early game, you're on the brink of bankruptcy. No currency or Alphabet yet. Don't need the buildings you can build (ie. monument in capital). More units just means more maintenance costs, which you can't afford. If you have stone, putting 50 turns into the pyramids can net you a decent return. Just be careful if you build something for cash if you accidentally get it.

I had that in my current game. Was building the Shwedagon Paya for cash in a semi-crappy city of mine. I ignored it for a long time. Eventually, I checked back in on it, and was at 449/450. Since it was close to being useless (ie. I was nearing Liberalism, and wasn't planning on switching civics soon. It wasn't in any sort of culture battle, and wasn't a GP producing city), I stopped it and waited (seemed like forever) for someone else to finally get it.

Alternatively using National Wonders at late game even at Deity when you have factories and Hermitage/Moai takes few turns.
And the beauty of this thing is building the Nat wonder in multilple cities.

At this stage you could just turn off science for one turn and get the same result.

National wonders do decay too, I know this from experience. I've started sth like 10 Hermitages and 5 West Points in my last game and would have build more if there were no decay. :D

Doing the same with world wonders is useful too, but I don't usually manage to build more copies before sb else builds it.

Most people use gold overflow or deficit research because they need the money sooner rather than later, i.e, REXing so World Wonders that AIs prioritize work best. Swapping national wonders around in every city with a couple of chops here and there works best when planning for war and mass upgrades.

Since it was close to being useless (ie. I was nearing Liberalism, and wasn't planning on switching civics soon. It wasn't in any sort of culture battle, and wasn't a GP producing city), I stopped it and waited (seemed like forever) for someone else to finally get it.

GP Points are nothing to sneeze at. Then again, it was in a crappy city...

the thing is you can only build it in 1 city at a time, do you know how much time that would take to get a good amount!!!! In wasting 70 turns to build like 7 Moai's you could've built tens of units!!!!

the thing is you can only build it in 1 city at a time, do you know how much time that would take to get a good amount!!!! In wasting 70 turns to build like 7 Moai's you could've built tens of units!!!!

The production is halted in one city at a time and in the time that 1 city is building Moai the other 6 will be producing units as you want. you will only lose the production of one city only.

It is an exploit, and it should be fiexed (i don't know how hard it could be)

Thats your opinion, personally its not my most un-favourite bit of Civ. It would be nice if while building the pyramids they didn't just disappear as soon as someone on the other side of the world built something similar - It would be nice if they fixed that in a better way, but as soon as you go down the artificial fix route (which is what the game does) that fix will just introduce new glitches.

Thats your opinion, personally its not my most un-favourite bit of Civ. It would be nice if while building the pyramids they didn't just disappear as soon as someone on the other side of the world built something similar - It would be nice if they fixed that in a better way, but as soon as you go down the artificial fix route (which is what the game does) that fix will just introduce new glitches.
OOO I think I like this idea. Maybe creates a Materials Bank and all production gets a bonus until the bank is empty. Something like that.

It might not be easy to make it both fair and not exploitable, but it could probably be done.

Of course, in Civ 1, I used to switch production all the time; and in Civ 2, I would prebuild a wonder and switch to the one I wanted when I learned the tech (as another posted above). I thought those exploits were the way to play.

My Question?

Do you get more Gold this way than simply building Gold in your cities (needs Currency)? If not, then this is hardly an exploit.

My Question?

Do you get more Gold this way than simply building Gold in your cities (needs Currency)? If not, then this is hardly an exploit.
you get production bonuses for stone, marble, etc, so yes
in vanilla it's even better, since building wealth is largely unefficient

My Question?

Do you get more Gold this way than simply building Gold in your cities (needs Currency)? If not, then this is hardly an exploit.

Yes. Building Wealth (or Research, Culture) converts hammers in a 1:1 ratio, and produces more with hammer modifiers (e.g. forge, factory).

When it comes to wonders, every hammer wasted on a lost wonder is converted into 1:gold: but having access to the resource for the wonder will double that. Basically you take advantage of the resource as a multiplier for your gold which can't be done by building wealth outright.

Also, building wealth is available only at Currency as you noted. This trick can also be done before wealth which is part of the reason some consider it an exploit.

GE only gives 700 hammers, Great Merchant can give over 1500 gold.

But I do use this when I want to build gold, the resource bonus makes it more effective than building "Wealth" directly.

As long as you can handle the short term hit its a good way of approaching things.