I'm not a Deity-level player, nor even Demigod. But I am a pretty solid Emperor-level player. I'll admit that I'm one of those players around here who tells new players not to build the Great Wonders, at least until they've mastered some basic skills.
1. The Great Library is OFF limits. Never, absolutely never build this wonder - not even with a SGL! The single biggest wonder crutch of CIV - is this wonder. Your skills at tech research, tech trading, diplomacy, and the use of the luxury slider will be TREMENDOUSLY hampered. This single wonder delayed my Regent to Monarch transition by months.
I find it funny that Ision writes this and then SirPleb says
My advice is simple: do not build a single wonder until you have mastered Regent level. Do this, and you will have your first Deity victory in a fraction of the time it took me.
But let's look at Ision's opening to this article:
Let me start by saying that I DO build wonders, and I think they are a wonderful part of this game. They create variety and lead to a myriad of different strategies. Having said that, had I not been a victim of 'wonder fixation' as a newbie I would have become a better player FAR faster. My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months - my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.
New and inexperienced players (chieftain to regent) make certain common errors. High among these is "Wonder Fixation".
I don't think this article is advocating a complete absence of Wonder-building at all. I do think that it's aimed at getting new players to learn to live without them until they've reached a point where they can make a decent evaluation of the risks & costs vs. the reward.
The Pyramids & the GLib are great examples. They some relatively early in the game, carry a pretty high shield cost and are very powerful. They're also lots of fun. The problem comes when a new player, struggling at Chieftain or Warlord, has crippled their own REX phase by building 3-4 Ancient Age wonders in their capital (for example). It's not that their Wonders aren't doing them any good. It's that they've failed to understand what those 1000+ shields have cost them. The Pyramids just aren't that powerful when building them has limited your REX phase to 5-6 cities. The GLib still gets you the free techs, but the economic benefits that come with being able to shut off research just aren't that great when the same thing has happened.
But then a little while later SirPleb DID build the Great Library in his Hall of Fame Sid game with the Iroquois. Then he gave the thing away and took it back for more tech. Did it "limit his gameplay"? Not at all. If someone here really thinks so, they should try and beat his hall of fame score. Even miss Moonsinger says she benefited from his tactic. She also says that it may be that her score benefited from building J.S. Bach's Cathedral in 90 A.D. Don't build a wonder until you've mastered regent? Your scores will go down if you have less happy citizens... and don't you want a higher score usually? I also find it interesting that Ision says
I want to add a comment about rule 1, re the Great Library: Please don't think that this rule is just to deliberately make your game harder. The Great Library can have a worse effect than just as a crutch - counting on it stops you from even thinking about getting ahead in tech and thus limits your gameplay.
First, let me admit that I don't play for score, but I do have a basic understanding of the scoring system. With that
caveat, if you're struggling with Regent, I'd venture to say that improving your gameplay skill will help your scores more in the long run than building the GLib in every game.
There are some games in which the GLib is almost (if not entirely) essential. While there may be some DG/Deity/Sid games played and won without the GLib, I can't think of a single one that I've read where getting it (either by building or conquest) was not in the game plan. But those are players who understand the game well enough to understand the cost of tying up one of their cities long enough to complete the GLib and the risks of: (1) getting caught in a cascade; and (2) having their empire's production & expansion hampered by having that city tied up.
Again, I think this article is aimed for new players. At Chieftain and Warlord, a human player really shouldn't need the GLib. Want it? Maybe. But need? No. The human player can out-tech the AI at that level pretty easily, once basic empire management skills have been mastered. At Monarch and Emperor, even I can out-tech the AI most of the time. I think it's important for new players to understand what they can accomplish without wonders. I think it's important for them to learn what to do when they don't succeed in building them.
Also, I agree with eldar: I think it safe to say that Moonsinger and SirPleb had both "mastered Regent" by the time they played the games to which you refer.
Except that the Deity-strategy for Deity Noobs by Drakan relies on the Great Library. Sure enough, someone here will come back and say that you can do tech-trading on Deity intelligently and keep up. But, that works out as the whole problem... tech-trading speeds up the tech pace and on Deity and from what I've read Sid-level also, it seems that you generally don't want to speed up the tech pace at all... people often play archipelago on Sid to slow down the tech pace as it already goes so fast that you'll need more time to build infrastructure and/or train units before you can do all that much. Also, The Great Library, has economic benefits, since you can shut off research.
As I said above, at DG/Deity/Sid (from what I've read), the GLib is often in the game plan. A "Deity Noob," though, has probably mastered Regent.
Certain civ traits, do NOT lend themselves to building certain wonders. And one last thing... in order to build the Great Library on Deity, what do you need to do? You need to mine a bunch of tiles around your selected city and add in workers at the right time. Pre-building can also help, though it doesn't come as necessary. In order to do this, experience with the 20k game or building other wonders in non-20k games helps. So, this article works as fairly useless for Deity Noobs, since they probably want to know how to build *a* wonder when in hot competition for one in the first place. The wonder they want to build interestingly enough comes as the one called "off limits" in this article.
I don't think this is aimed at Deity Noobs. This article isn't really meant for the player who: (1) understands how to use workers; (2) knows when to start a prebuild (where necessary); (3) can time adding of workers to the wonder city; (4) has the skills necessary to build a wonder when the AI is competing for the same one.
I guess that I am puzzled by the view that building Wonders is bad. They are part of the game, yet a fair number of people argue that they should not be used. . . . .
I don't think anyone is advocating playing without ever building any wonders ever, nor arguing that they should never be used. The Great Wonders are lots of fun & a benefit to the empire. What I do see some people advocating is capturing wonders rather than building them. If you're playing for a culture victory, that's a bad idea, as captured wonders don't generate culture. For a conquest victory, though, capturing the Pyramids puts a granary in every city on my continent as surely as building them does. Is there a cost? Sure, but the shields go into military units rather than the Pyramids. Is that, in part, a matter of playstyle? Of course. If that's not what you enjoy, that's fine.
. . . . For those of you who do not like to build Wonders, and think that no human player should build them, I have a simple proposal. PUT YOUR EFFORTS WHERE YOUR POSTS ARE AND ELIMINATE THEM FROM THE GAME, TOTALLY. NO WONDERS FOR ANYONE. No Great Library, no Statue of Zeus, no Theory of Evolution, no Hoover Dam, no Manhattan Project, no Apollo Project. NOTHING. Then see how much fun the game is to play. . . . .
I don't think that anyone's advocating completely giving up Wonders for human players (except maybe as a variant). I'm sure that there are players who could win a high-level "No Great Wonders" game, but I don't know of any high-level players who have completely given up wonders. The Great Wonders are fun. I don't deny that. But this article, and the "don't build wonders" posts aren't aimed at high-level players.
Otherwise, quit telling people how they should play. You want to tell me how you play, that is fine.
DO NOT TELL ME HOW I SHOULD PLAY.
You're not struggling with basic empire management techniques, so I don't think the "don't build Wonders" statements are directed at you. However, when new players show up looking for tips, as they routinely do around here, the question they're asking is: "What should I do?" The answer to that begins with "You should . . . "