Worst wonder?

bestbrian said:

I really can't bad mouth The Hag; it's just a very situational wonder. Current game, Marathon speed, I got a sweet start (4 gems anyone?), and all the land around me is green, criss-crossed by rivers, and easily blocked off at two chokepoints, so it's all mine to fill in as I please (about 12 cities worth, thank you very much). The bad part? It's mostly grown over with jungle.

This situation was made for The Hag.

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by the time of the hag you should have chop away most of the jungle too.... Hagia sophia is always terrible

*Svart* said:

by the time of the hag you should have chop away most of the jungle too.... Hagia sophia is always terrible

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Says you. I say you tech too slow.

The thing about the Chichen Itza is it'za chicken.Wait.

Okay,rephrasal.

The thing about it is is that if it falls into an AI's hands-Especially a Protective leader,Boudica,or Izzy-It's a bit tough dislodging them from it.

Anyway,I count the Internet as more of a wonder than a project(It's a 1 time build that only 1 civ can make that unlocks at a certain tech that grants a bonus to the builder preventing anyone else from building it or completing it,and if you're building it and someone else completes it,you get money for it.Yes.It's a wonder).and I gotta say that if you're not already at a tech advantage,the Internet really isn't going to help-Only 2 techs that at least 2 other civs know isn't going o really give you a boost you need later in the game-especially considering those advanced civs probably built it first.

Anony1200 said:

The thing about it is is that if it falls into an AI's hands-Especially a Protective leader,Boudica,or Izzy-It's a bit tough dislodging them from it.

Anyway,I count the Internet as more of a wonder than a project(It's a 1 time build that only 1 civ can make that unlocks at a certain tech that grants a bonus to the builder preventing anyone else from building it or completing it,and if you're building it and someone else completes it,you get money for it.Yes.It's a wonder).and I gotta say that if you're not already at a tech advantage,the Internet really isn't going to help-Only 2 techs that at least 2 other civs know isn't going o really give you a boost you need later in the game-especially considering those advanced civs probably built it first.

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Izzy is not Protective

On the internet : well, it as much of wonder as Manhattan by your logic ... and none of the national wonders would be a wonder But anyway, the operational diference between a wonder and project is far diferent: wonders can be rushed ( with a heavy penalty ), projects don't. Simple, isn't it ? ( the real diference is far more abstract: in spite of being built in a city, projects, unlike wonders and buildings, become a civ caractheristic after being built, sort of extra leader trait, and become deattached from the city where they were built. This means that you can't capture projects and you can't , besides some SS related exceptions, destroy them without destroying that civ first )

Second, it is not being advanced or not that makes the internet worthwhile ... it is the ammount of techs that you can expect to see two civs have that you haven't until the end of the game. You can be enourmously advanced compared with most Ai and still profit a lot of the Internet: just don't get the techs that you can expect that the more advanced AI will have. It is the mirror situation of what some people think of stealing techs from the AI for a living.... you don't need to be backward for it to be profitable , you just need to have AI with techs you don't have OFC if you are in a left to right tech grabbing mode and are putting far more beakers out than the AI, neither stealing techs or the Net will do you much good, but not all the situations where you are technologically advanced are that one

Shwedagon Paya: it comes too late, usually I have most of reg civs except free reg when I got it. It should be earlier in the game (maybe priestfood).

HorribleHarald said:

Shwedagon Paya: it comes too late, usually I have most of reg civs except free reg when I got it. It should be earlier in the game (maybe priestfood).

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Aesthetics is often a priority tech on high levels because the AI doesn't research it, giving it abnormal trade value; rarely will you have anything but OR by that point.

Compared to the space elevator, which is consistently detrimental, paya isn't even worth considering for "worst".

it's just "meh"

*Svart* said:

it's just "meh"

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Yeah Paya is pretty sour w/o gold. However, with gold you can build it in a secondary city to culture whore the AI and get a decent civic slightly sooner so it has net value sometimes. Very few wonders are consistently harmful to pursue; that's why the space elevator is the true "worst". Teching robotics and building it will almost ALWAYS slow down space times in bts; I even created a thread on that specifically. Even under some pretty ideal conditions for it, it still failed .

Some crappy wonders are good to use a Great Engineer on if you need the culture. SoZ and the like, will produce 10 cpt. This is almost as good as settling a great artist for 2 less cpt you get some wonder magic too. So I would rate none of the 10cpt wonders as poor simply on that fact alone. It is important to consider the culture of a wonder in its evaluation.

For me the Angkor Wat. Not big on priests and religious economies. I prefer to take them over with my rifles and cannons.

Paya is just too late in the game, I agree that Space Elevator is quite unnecessary too because that hammers can use for building space ship. Better would be change Apollo Program as World Wonder and give it same ability.

HorribleHarald said:

Paya is just too late in the game, I agree that Space Elevator is quite unnecessary too because that hammers can use for building space ship. Better would be change Apollo Program as World Wonder and give it same ability.

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Wouldn't work as world wonder because only one Civ could build it.

I've never built Paya because I like OR and my diplomacy is usually set by the time I have hammers to build it.

As TMIT noted, Space Elevator needs very specific set of circumstances. There are a few that might arise in an OCC. I can't imagine it in a regular game. The problem for me isn't so much the hammers as the tech diversion.

Before BTS, I'd often build the Elevator when going for space victory. Now that I play BTS exclusively, I do not build it. It's a mystery to me why it was relocated on the tech preq. Makes no sense, as it is unarguably counter-productive; aquiring the tech to build it lengthens total SS construction time, it does not shorten it. I'd sure like to hear from the person responsible for making that call as to why it was done.

I agree with Peregrine. In Vanilla, the Space Elevator was a very useful wonder. In BTS it is worse than useless.

The Internet is a project, not a WW.
I'm going to choose the Hagia Sophia. By the time I got a chance to build that crap, all my tiles has been worked on. So much for the 50% improvement speed. What a load of crap! And it requires Theology, which is one of those techs I don't even bother building.

Don't get me wrong about the Chichen Itza. It is a garbage wonder, but I recall having the Itza saving my butt when I was playing a defensive war.

PreLynMax said:

The Internet is a project, not a WW.
I'm going to choose the Hagia Sophia. By the time I got a chance to build that crap, all my tiles has been worked on. So much for the 50% improvement speed. What a load of crap! And it requires Theology, which is one of those techs I don't even bother building.

Don't get me wrong about the Chichen Itza. It is a garbage wonder, but I recall having the Itza saving my butt when I was playing a defensive war.

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Chicken Pizza is very good for prophet points, and priest slots, when you're trying to pop a prophet for a shrine. So, it can be very useful.

The best thing about The Hag is the engineer points, as there are not too many sources of those.

Space Elevator has NO redeeming characteristics whatsoever.

Edit: Minor error. Chicken Pizza only gives Prophet Points, the extra priest slots are provided by Angkor Wat.

The Hagia Sofia definitely. When I first started playing I used to aim for it. That's when I also thought Serfdom was the best civic...

I voted for the Shwedagon Paya. Plenty of others aren't worth the hammer investment, but this is usually useless even when I conquer it (and not by design - holding that against the Taj Mahal would be unfair). For much of the game, I prefer Organised Religion over the rest anyway.
If I want Pacifism early, chances are I want to prioritise Philosophy anyway to steer the AI along a preferable tech path.
Very occasionally the ability to run Free Religion early is useful... but only if I don't have to pay anything for it. If I have gold, I'd rather take the failure cash.

Early FR is actually awesome when you're isolated by coast tiles and the AI are not about to galley over a bunch of missionaries. A flat 10% boost to commerce allocated to science is pretty big, considering most other decisions raise science by a couple of percent at a time. Compare with say university of sankore: that effectively adds 0-2-4 raw commerce/city, depending on how many hammers you invest in temples and monasteries. Say your 6 city 100AD empire pumps out 200 net as into science, thats +20 beakers. To get the same effect from UoS, you'd need to invest 840 hammers or so into religious buildings, can you afford that? Plus, FR scales with your net commerce, UoS doesn't.

I voted for the Space Elevator, because it actually hurts whoever built it if they weren't helped by a great Engineer. At least for Chichen Itza it's one of the top wonders for the AI, as they love to stay and defend in cities. It's like a non-protective leader being protective, or a protective leader becoming even scarier.

Hagia Sophia for me. Obsoletes too quickly, can use those hammers to simply build more workers if your land isn't improved enough.

Can someone explain how Taj has 5 votes? The only situation I think it would be poor in is if you have a tiny empire, no marble, and are spiritual. The number of hammers needed to build it should be recouped in the subsequent golden age, and being able to switch civics anarchy free is such a nice bonus. Maybe not the top wonder, but so so far from being the worst