Stonehenge: the wonder I'll never build!

As a serious fan of religions in Civ V it's always been a bit disappointing to me how bad the religious wonder Stonehenge is.

5 faith seems pretty underwhelming given how much you give up going for it early. Seems like a great way to just nerf religious AI by tempting them to build something way too early. Despite the huge opportunity cost it feels weak.

Grand temple gives 8. A couple natural wonders have yields above it as well. Most pure faith pantheons that you'd choose result in better yields with just a couple resources. I really think stonehenge should've been 6-8 faith. As it is, an AI can spend a bunch of turns building it early game and still only get the 3rd-4th religion or so. I feel that the one early faith wonder should be more competitive to natural wonders or faith pantheons. Then it'd actually be a useful thing to build in the absence of other sources of faith.

As it is I'd never be tempted to build it. Not even on multiplayer.

It's not for religious civs. It's for non-religious civs. At 5 faith a turn you'll have your pantheon a few turns after building it. And then you get your religion 20+ turns later. That's way quicker than any other method other than lucking into a Natural Wonder. Also, because you know you're getting a religion in 20+ turns, you can pick a non-faith pantheon (GASP!) which can be extra early gold, extra food/growth or Culture which I think is a stronger resource in the long run than Faith. I think people generally take Faith Pantheons due to the race to religions. With Stonehenge, you're only going to lose that race to 2 maybe 3 civs and they may/may not even be in your game.

Also, no need to build early Shrines/Temples, although it doesn't FULLY make up for the hammer cost of Stonehenge.

That's not even the best part. 100 turns after building Stonehenge you get a Great Engineer. Even though that sounds like a LONG TIME, it's one of the quickest ways to get a GE.

I wouldn't suggest trying to get it on Diety though. It's even a little hard to get on Immortal. But if you don't mind dropping down to Emporer (which is fun every once in a while) you can get it almost every time if you go straight for it.

It's pretty good on lower difficulties where you can reliably get it. That 5 faith allows you to get and enhance a religion much faster, so it gives you a much better chance of getting exactly what you want from it. You also get 1 GE point which is not to be ignored as it will give you a GE that can be used for a renaissance wonder.

Now if you are referring to the opportunity cost, why single out Stonehenge? There is also Statue of Zeus, Great Library, Great Wall, Terracotta Army, Parthenon, and others (I may be subjective with some wonders).

claudiupb said:

Now if you are referring to the opportunity cost, why single out Stonehenge? There is also Statue of Zeus, Great Library, Great Wall, Terracotta Army, Parthenon, and others (I may be subjective with some wonders).

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Kind of agree with you, but I'll say the Great Wall isn't really something you can dismiss.

Whether you are defending, or just plain don't want to have to face an opponent with it, it's worth building if you can.

Play one of the civs with enhanced borders like America, Russia, or the Shoshone. Anyone attacking you has to walk in mud to do it.

sunbeam said:

Kind of agree with you, but I'll say the Great Wall isn't really something you can dismiss.

Whether you are defending, or just plain don't want to have to face an opponent with it, it's worth building if you can.

Play one of the civs with enhanced borders like America, Russia, or the Shoshone. Anyone attacking you has to walk in mud to do it.

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I can see it's uses in MP. In SP, the AI is so bad at war that it doesn't matter. Even if I had a warmonger next to me, I'd rather spend those hammers on Archers than the Great Wall.

That said, I will eventually have to get around to building it so I can get the achievement for building all of the Great Wonders.

I'm not singling it out just because of the opportunity cost. I seriously think it's underpowered as far as yields. Settling near 2 natural wonders gives more faith and that's just luck. Seriously if you are going to build a whole wonder in the first 50 turns of the game you should get rewarded more then other sources of faith. I see it as only a moderate amount of faith. I usually need to have more then 5 if I get a religion that is better then 4th or 5th. I play on immortal and deity so maybe that is why I see it as so bad of a wonder.

Statue of Zeus, Great Wall, Parthenon, and Great Library are all better imo. Esp. Statue of Zeus and great wall as they add a unique effect you can't get any other way. Granted, I'm not building them either but I would consider them on multiplayer. I sometimes take Parthenon on immortal games anyway as an extra early policy and really early scientist point is very good.

As far as AI taking it, It goes my games in the first 30-40 turns sometimes so I wouldn't call it "reliable" to get. It is an option I guess though I'll never go out of my way to get it for just 5 faith. I need to be building workers, caravans, and settlers, and libraries at the same time

Also, I dunno why you mention it as so good for religion. I get a religion pretty much every game, sometimes with or without faith pantheons depending on the terrain. And I can tell you stonehenge comes far, far too late to effect the pantheon race though it may bring you back enough to claim one of the last religions. I have no idea what game you are playing but if you wait till calendar and to build a wonder before starting to gain faith you're doing it wrong. Most of the world already has pantheons by then so you're wasting faith by getting a more expensive pantheon that way and also given up about 30 turns of faith generation by skipping the shrine. Not to mention have poorer pantheon choices left. Far better to pump out early shrine and explore for religious CS and get on earlier. The wonder is just too late and too weak to make a big difference to me.

If we are talking amount of hammers yes it is slightly cheaper (37 hammers per faith) vs. 40 hammers per faith for shrines so I guess it could be an ok investment if you could get it. But it still isn't worth not building an early shrine in capital. You are waiting too long otherwise.

I forgot to mention the GE point, that does make it slightly more useful but I usually pick up pyramids so I have a GE point.

danaphanous said:

I'm not singling it out just because of the opportunity cost. I seriously think it's underpowered as far as yields. Settling near 2 natural wonders gives more faith and that's just luck.

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Yes, if you spawn near 2 faith NWs, Stonehenge is going to be an underwhelming option. But you don't always have that sort of luck. If you want to found a religion and don't have a faith NW or good faith pantheon terrain but do have a good production start, Stonehenge is an amazing option. It may only be 5 faith, but 5 faith is a huge deal if it makes the difference between founding and not founding a religion as a civ like Byzantium, Sweden or Indonesia, or if it's the difference between losing and keeping an amazing non-faith Pantheon.

Dan, just try it. Don't say you'll never build it, just try it. This is only a game.

I haven't yet had a game with 2 natural wonders near enough to settle early. I meant there are 2 natural wonders with higher faith yields then stonehenge. One at 8 faith and one at 2 food 6 faith. Since if they occur at all the in the game someone settles them early, I was saying I feel stonehenge should match their yields with 8 faith. Otherwise the lucky player basically gets a faster religion for free. And the guy who spent 12 turns building a world wonder gets a crappier one. Sinai and Shri Pada are really not that uncommon. Uncommon for you to get personally but on maps in general? They are a pretty high chance of occurrence. I'm talking about game balance in general.

@sixty: I have tried it before. I used to build it more often but rarely now. It's extremely risky to attempt on immortal and Deity. If you get a civ with a religious flavor they will build it usually really early. But I definitely see you guys' point for the wonder if it was a level playing field like multi. It would work well with good production and as you say free you up to take another kind of pantheon. Now that you mention it that is something I really enjoy doing with Celts, Maya, Ethiopia.

danaphanous said:

I haven't yet had a game with 2 natural wonders near enough to settle early. I meant there are 2 natural wonders with higher faith yields then stonehenge. One at 8 faith and one at 2 food 6 faith. Since if they occur at all the in the game someone settles them early, I was saying I feel stonehenge should match their yields with 8 faith. Otherwise the lucky player basically gets a faster religion for free. And the guy who spent 12 turns building a world wonder gets a crappier one. Sinai and Shri Pada are really not that uncommon. Uncommon for you to get personally but on maps in general? They are a pretty high chance of occurrence. I'm talking about game balance in general.

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Okay, your point about the Natural Wonders makes more sense now. I do see Sri Pada and Mt. Sinai in a lot of games. In fact, I think I've personally settled Sri Pada more often than anything else.

The problem with Mt. Sinai though is that you really can't afford to work that tile until you hit 4 pop, probably more likely 5 pop unless you got a real early worker steal. I think the AI makes the sacrifice though so your point still stands. In the couple of games I was able to settle Mt. Sinai I think I made the sacrifice for 2 turns to get a Pantheon, and then waited till 5 pop to work it for a religion.

completely agree with the op. I even prefer wonders that are arguably worse like halicarnassos because you can actually get 'em without too much competition. stonehenge is always a huge risk with very little reward.

I guess stonehenge can be useful if you have a high hammer start (salt start, marble start, lots of pastures) and you are trying to keep your non-faith pantheon like sun god or goddess of the hunt. that's just about the only "good" use of it though.

in terms of multiplayer I think you're wrong. religion is hugely important in mp games and stonehenge essentially guarantees you first or second. of course there are games where two other players have a faith nw next door, but that's highly unlikely. the great thing about 'henge on multiplayer is that you can build it after settling and building basic infrastructure. that way investing all those hammers isn't nearly as crippling.

danaphanous said:

I haven't yet had a game with 2 natural wonders near enough to settle early. I meant there are 2 natural wonders with higher faith yields then stonehenge. One at 8 faith and one at 2 food 6 faith. Since if they occur at all the in the game someone settles them early, I was saying I feel stonehenge should match their yields with 8 faith. Otherwise the lucky player basically gets a faster religion for free. And the guy who spent 12 turns building a world wonder gets a crappier one. Sinai and Shri Pada are really not that uncommon. Uncommon for you to get personally but on maps in general? They are a pretty high chance of occurrence. I'm talking about game balance in general.

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That makes more sense, but I think my overall point still stands. Games where you don't have access to any faith NWs are going to the clear majority, and in many (though certainly not all) of those games, Stonehenge will be a great option to have.

As for increasing the yield to 8 faith, that might not be a terrible idea, but I don't think it makes nearly as much difference as you're suggesting. The point of Stonehenge isn't to generically increase your faith output, it's to make it enough to found a religion. Five faith enough to do that, and in the situations where that's what you want, it's easily worth a world wonder.

Stonehenge is one of the very best early wonders. (Temple of Artemis is the other really good one; I'm not sure which is better)

Stonehenge is pretty good wonder for non-faith civs, and contributes one great engineer point.

That 5 faith per turn means huge when you only can build one or two shrines early on which only gives 1 faith each. If you build it, you aren't looking to compete in pantheon race, but rather, founding religion race. It is possible to build a stonehenge and fail to found a religion because there is too many faith civs in the game. Happened to me once!

And the wonder gives you five faith per turn which you can use later on to purchase great people, which is one of arguably good reasons to build it. Don't think short term all the time, consider the long term picture too.

I've used the stonehenge's great engineer to rush the Ironworks just now to get a coastal city up to speed fast. I needed to have a fleet as soon as possible because I was land locked.

Ancient Era wonders by OBJECTIVE VALUE (in my opinion, so not really objective )
Disregarding opportunity cost
1. Temple of Artemis
2. Great Library
3. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
4. Stonehenge
5. Statue of Zeus

Stonehenge has been pretty helpful when I play Byzantium.

inthesomeday said:

Ancient Era wonders by OBJECTIVE VALUE (in my opinion, so not really objective )
Disregarding opportunity cost
1. Temple of Artemis
2. Great Library
3. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
4. Stonehenge
5. Statue of Zeus

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Sounds right to me for peaceful play. The SoZ becomes #1 or #2 behind GL if you're gunning for a classical/medieval domination win (although it's debatable to get any wonder for that to begin with).

Also, the bonus of the SoZ isn't all that useful. Compared to production on ranged units, from the ToA? I mean attacking cities happens but is not nearly as important as clearing ground forces, whether you're talking about multiplayer spams or AI carpets. By the time you're attacking the actual city a bonus to doing so is moot. If it was something like "15% bonus outside your territory", like in a lot of mods, it might be useful, I've just never found much use for it in actual attacks. Maybe it could be good for later era bombers/paratroopers fighting but it comes too soon for that

inthesomeday said:

Also, the bonus of the SoZ isn't all that useful. Compared to production on ranged units, from the ToA? I mean attacking cities happens but is not nearly as important as clearing ground forces, whether you're talking about multiplayer spams or AI carpets. By the time you're attacking the actual city a bonus to doing so is moot. If it was something like "15% bonus outside your territory", like in a lot of mods, it might be useful, I've just never found much use for it in actual attacks. Maybe it could be good for later era bombers/paratroopers fighting but it comes too soon for that

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I've had plenty of games where I bum rushed a civ across the map with nothing but warriors and spearmen, that 15% bonus from SoZ was very useful for that. I think it also applies to triremes. Not sure.

Anyways that wonder have biggest impact during the ancient/classical eras, which is also the time period it's built in. Think Troy, Cities can be hard to take, so each boost to warriors you have helps plenty.

And later on, it can help mitigate the defensive boost from red fort wonder, etc. Plus other reason why it doesn't buff troop vs troop action is because there's wonders like Himeji Castle....

If you wanted it that way, Himeji Castle + SoZ Giving 15% both together to your soldiers = 30% boost + several certain choices like, Ethiopia or other specific wonders and it can quickly get out of control. That kind of hijinks is reserved for late game.

inthesomeday said:

Also, the bonus of the SoZ isn't all that useful. Compared to production on ranged units, from the ToA? I mean attacking cities happens but is not nearly as important as clearing ground forces, whether you're talking about multiplayer spams or AI carpets. By the time you're attacking the actual city a bonus to doing so is moot. If it was something like "15% bonus outside your territory", like in a lot of mods, it might be useful, I've just never found much use for it in actual attacks. Maybe it could be good for later era bombers/paratroopers fighting but it comes too soon for that

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Especially compared to the ToA bonus... The ToA bonus is crap for domination. It's an economic wonder.