Most overrated World Wonder?

I can go along with that. Although you might be building world's fair around that time.
 
Like was said: you really don't need to be making anything between unlocking the Big Ben and unlocking Flight, except for Factories.
Also with the modifiers Big Ben yields 8 gpt, so it covers at least a reasonable part of its own cost anyway.
 
Not a lot of Love for the GL, but what if you are "Japan"

I always blow by my ruins...Protect them as best I can, even if it means going to war!

Go Hard for GL, then take Iron Working (And normally settle 2nd city on "Iron" Resource)

Build quick swordsman, and hit all those ruins - Hopefully get a "Samurai"

Now I don't have to build any fishing boats, and it is only Turn 50 or so....Can't tell me...It's Overrated!!

Now build Terrocota Army, so I get a second Samurai...:) - The other frequently mentioned overrated Wonder;)
 
Accept when your neighbouring civ builds it and all your hopes of having a dominant religion goes down the drain.
 
Most overrated is the Pyramids. The wonder costs more hammers than the "2 free workers" it provides.

Who cares about the 2 workers....It's the 25% faster construction rate, I just played a Gauntlet on Marathon, (Do you know how long it takes to build at that speed)....it was one of my main targets!
 
I'm not getting how you have nothing better to build but Big Ben. What about archaeologists?
 
The math on Big Ben is more complex than some posters here are letting on. I would never just open Commerce for the Wonder itself as the opener isn't stellar on its own. Therefore, any time I open Commerce and build Big Ben I've also got Mercantilism for another 25% discount. As the discounts are additive, having Big Ben is at very least the difference between buying things at 60% cost versus 75% cost (.6/.75 = 0.8), not the difference between 85% cost and 100% cost (.85/1.0 = .85). Big Ben is only a flat 15% when captured without having Commerce yourself. In the above case it's actually a further 20% off, and in capturing the wonder it's a moot point.

Combine this with ideologies and the effects are even stronger. With Freedom, you'll likely end up buying at least one Spaceship part, and those are fantastically expensive.

For Order, Skyscrapers cuts costs of buildings by 33%: now Big Ben's the difference between buying at 27% or 42%. Your cash (on buildings) goes almost twice as far.

For Autocracy, Big Ben is the difference between buying at 27% or 42% of base cost. Like the combination with Merchantilism and Skyscrapers, this is almost an effective doubling of the value of your coin.

I disagree strongly. When playing Immortal/deity this is anything but overrated. The AI doesn't prioritize this so in games when I'm behind on high difficulty levels, I use this to slingshot me back into the game for a science victory.

This is the AI's fault for being dumb as bricks, not anything good about the Wonder. If it was smart enough to rush Satellites, its lead would be even harder to overcome.

I'd place a small wager that the leading AI in question was bee-lining Internet or Globalization without realizing that a small detour into Satellites can give them two free Scientists to bulb, speeding up any other tech.
 
If you get order skyscrapers and the commerce social policy tree done, you'll be able to purchase new buildings very cheap. This kind of reminds me of the autocracy social policy mobilization that gives you cheap units as well. The difference is that one gives cheaper units and the other one gives cheaper buildings.
 
Not a lot of Love for the GL, but what if you are "Japan"

I always blow by my ruins...Protect them as best I can, even if it means going to war!

Go Hard for GL, then take Iron Working (And normally settle 2nd city on "Iron" Resource)

Build quick swordsman, and hit all those ruins - Hopefully get a "Samurai"

Now I don't have to build any fishing boats, and it is only Turn 50 or so....Can't tell me...It's Overrated!!

Now build Terrocota Army, so I get a second Samurai...:) - The other frequently mentioned overrated Wonder;)

Overrated doesn't mean it has no value, only that so many, mostly lower level players, always go for it as part of a normal strategy, when it hardly helps at all in most cases and certainly hurts part of your development, at a critical time. Going for it strong like you did in your example, does not come without penalty.
 
You can capture Big Ben and still get its use, but not so much with Brandenburg.

I think Big Ben is better captured.

Captured from whom? The AI never builds it. If you want Big Ben you have to build it.

And the smallest opportunity cost time to build it is as soon as it comes available on the tech tree*. If you beelined Indust. there's nothing else to build. Immediate coal connection happens on less than 50% of my games. And hard-building factories is not an appealing tactic for wide play - it takes all your cities 20 turns. It's a burning 20-turn hole in your entire empire's hammer output. Among mid-game production buildings, factories have a much better gold-cost-to-hammer-cost ratio than Windmills and Seaports (this thread) - they're essentially already discounted.

On a typical Commerce->Autocracy game (Immortal/Large), I start Big Ben in capital, connect coal, rush-buy factory in just capital (which I probably would have wanted to do anyway), continue saving gold, finish Big Ben, rush-buy two more factories for Ideology bulb -> all faster than I could have connected coal then hard-built a factory in my slowest top-three city.

Now I'm done with the production rat-race. It's turn 200 and I don't need to work any more mines in any cities except for my two wonder cities.

I don't think a lot of posters in this thread know how to gold-assign their cities. No, you don't use Wealth production. You assign your citizens to TPs and completely off of mines.

Big Ben is in Commerce. If you are playing Commerce, then focus on gold. A gold-focused wide empire can rush-buy factories and RLs in every city and slow-produce all the non-critical extras. This is so much better than trying to whip under-performing 10-pop cities into shape by strapping every citizen to a mine. Not every city can build what it needs (unless you took Order; in which case, hammers are always better).

When it comes to wonders, you're still nearly guaranteed first dibs to Radio even teching Indust. before ST, and nearly guaranteed slow-building both even if you used a GE on Big Ben. Y'all are addicted to hammers and science. Go play some Commerce games.

For Autocracy, Big Ben is the difference between buying at 27% or 42% of base cost. Like the combination with Merchantilism and Skyscrapers, this is almost an effective doubling of the value of your coin.

This really lays it to rest.

*Though a near-end-game Freedom civ is fine opening Commerce just to knock out Big Ben for the rocket parts discount.
 
No, it doesn't lay it to rest, because after all that all you did was buff Big Ben from 15% to 36%. Okay, so you cut your break-even point in half.
 
No, it doesn't lay it to rest, because after all that all you did was buff Big Ben from 15% to 36%. Okay, so you cut your break-even point in half.

Yes, why would the opposition's math being off by half hurt their argument in any way.

Look, there's no break-even point if there's no opportunity cost. Apart from culture victory most wonders are built when they have almost no opportunity cost because none of them are actually essential. In the case of Big Ben, its availability is so reliable that it makes sense to plan a tech, build, and diplomacy path ahead of time that reduces the opportunity cost to 0 and maximizes the yields (ie Indust. beeline and settle a city with a Military Academy next to your first conquest target).

In domination games especially Big Ben is 0 opportunity cost as there's nothing else to build in your capital if you beeline Indust. (and no long-term downsides to delaying Scientific Theory). It's 0 opportunity cost if you use an engineer because you'll still be able to slow-build Eiffel, Broadway, and Prora later after having comfortably rush-bought all essential buildings in your wonder city. I had an engineer in my current game, despite having recently popped and bulbed one from Leaning Tower, because I wasn't spamming scientists. It's amazing how you can accumulate these resources when you actually work out a gold-focused strategy.
 
Great Firewall. And I say that with no great knowledge of who thinks it is great, but it comes so late that thieving a tech is going to take another CIV so long the spies are better used elsewhere.
 
Great Firewall. And I say that with no great knowledge of who thinks it is great, but it comes so late that thieving a tech is going to take another CIV so long the spies are better used elsewhere.

Denies Internet tourism bonus. That can stave off someone's CV for a good long while - preventing the player who built it (and all the others, I guess) from losing the game.

Anyway, it's hardly overrated as there aren't really scores of people lining up to sing its praises.
 
Big Ben + Mercantilism + Skyscraper allow you to purchase Research Labs for 400g only a piece. Especially useful in a wide empire. So good with jungle + trading post + Free Thought combo. Gold focus that also earns you science, then use the gold to buy all the needed buildings.


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Some ais make miraculous CV.. for example, I had an ai win a cv during the ~1600 once when I was isolated.. it was almost like the ai organized itself to have one ai win the cv.. the great firewall came in too late to stop cultural victories sometimes.
 
Denies Internet tourism bonus. That can stave off someone's CV for a good long while - preventing the player who built it (and all the others, I guess) from losing the game.

Anyway, it's hardly overrated as there aren't really scores of people lining up to sing its praises.

I think I mentioned I was not clear about if people were singing its praises.

In the time I have played the Internet tourism bonus has never been much of a factor as a science victory happens before then.
 
Great Firewall. And I say that with no great knowledge of who thinks it is great, but it comes so late that thieving a tech is going to take another CIV so long the spies are better used elsewhere.
What annoys me so much about Great Firewall - and I occasionally built it, if my tech path brings me by it, just because I can and because I hate AIs stealing techs so much - is that it doesn't really seem to work. I mean, it's supposed to reduce spy rate by something like 99.9 %, yet still I have had AIs steal multiple techs from me after I build it. As in, repeatedly stealing techs, the same AI, from the city with Great Firewall. How's that even possible? :scan:
 
Tourism really lights up right at that part of the game where you can build the Firewall. So if it worked, I don't think it'd be overrated. It is situational, though. I mean if you're going for CV I think you will be disappointed.
 
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