Wonders that can be relatively easy to build on higher difficluties?

Mesix said:

If you are playing on immortal or deity level, you cannot delay worker stealing.

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This is only true for situations like HOF and Stonehenge. For most Deity maps, it is a conscious choice, not a prerequisite.

LordBalkoth said:

I'm not sure if you're trying to deliberately miss my point twice?

1, I specifically said "without worker stealing" in the post you quoted.

2, you're still delaying a second scout, a shrine, and/or settlers with that. You could use the same chopping to speed up the settlers.

Hell, it's even possible to get Great Library on Deity if you get a great start...but the general consensus is that you have to sacrifice too much (including growth) in order to get it.

Is getting ToA worth losing the second scout, delaying the shrine (and thus potentially losing the pantheon you want and even possibly a religion), and starting settlers later? Possibly -- especially if you don't need to scout as much on that particular map, don't have a good pantheon, and/or have enough distance between you and the AIs that you afford delaying settlers.

ToA doesn't give much immediate effect -- if you have 10 food in your capital (from, say, 2 base, 2 granary, 2 grassland horses, 2 sheep, 2 stone) that's only 1 bonus food, for example..and you're probably only getting like 0.25-0.5 food in your other cities for a while. Longer term it gives a Great Engineer to rush a wonder or set up a Manufactory (at the cost of delaying Great Scientists) and eventually the food bonus is quite powerful -- a city producing 40 food gets an extra 4 food and your capital could be doubling that, so it winds up something like 20 extra food...and possibly even more very long term. And I realize you are aware of all this, but some people reading this thread might not be.

So yeah, it's a nice wonder and better than Great Library overall...but I honestly don't know if it's worth trying to build immediately. Is it your opinion that Great Library is too much opportunity cost (assuming you think your start is good enough that you're confident you'll get it) to build but Temple of Artemis (again, assuming you're confident you'll get it) isn't too much opportunity cost to build?

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The GL is a lot harder to get because it needs Writing. I guess if you have to make a worker it may be similar due to the delay implied by the worker. But really on Deity I wouldn't try either if I had to build a worker on top of scout and monument because of the risk.

If we assume I'll get it, whether or not it's worth it is debatable. So I won't give you a definitive answer. If you are going to add a worker in your BO no matter what then it doesn't really matter since both strategies would delay worker the same way:
Scout monument worker ToA Settlers
or
Scout monument ToA settlers (and steal worker)
would delay settlers by the same amount of time (approximately, since the first strategy has a better chance to use the benefit of +1 pop).

Sacrificing the second scout is not a big deal, especially if you do not steal workers. The main benefit of it being the additional steals.

The shrine is a more annoying loss. However if you have a faith NW available it's not an issue. Or you could try to compensate by getting 2 quick shrine after the first city. Maybe with a rush buy.

Finally it also synchronize pretty well with Liberty I think since these policies make settler a bit later than tradition.

Solutionfinder said:

Yup Honor is not the path you want to pursue. It`s just not that good long term compared to other policy trees. Even opener is just not that good.

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Honor is a completely valid choice if you're beelining for something like keshiks, camel archers, murderbows, CKNs, etc. The reduced cost of upgrading units is helpful and you can dump your earlygame worker-stealer scouts into cities for happiness and culture while farming up really high-quality units (IE you get stuff like 3 range 2 shot xbows that can take 50ish strength cities in reasonable time if you have 4-5 and maul units that are pretty far ahead, or kiting-god keshiks).

Honor is not so valid to just...open and leave. If you're picking and filling out honor you're looking to all-in several civs or win the game outright. Pedroelm has some amusing honor --> commerce --> autocracy style wins on deity. For this kind of game you're often building the "take other cities wonder", which will then acquire cities with wonders.

To be fair I hadn't gotten stonehenge at all after the fall patch. Maybe once or twice, when I had a godly start, stole a worker right on turn 19 and had forests to chop.

TheMeInTeam said:

Honor is a completely valid choice if you're beelining for something like keshiks, camel archers, murderbows, CKNs, etc. The reduced cost of upgrading units is helpful and you can dump your earlygame worker-stealer scouts into cities for happiness and culture while farming up really high-quality units (IE you get stuff like 3 range 2 shot xbows that can take 50ish strength cities in reasonable time if you have 4-5 and maul units that are pretty far ahead, or kiting-god keshiks).

Honor is not so valid to just...open and leave. If you're picking and filling out honor you're looking to all-in several civs or win the game outright. Pedroelm has some amusing honor --> commerce --> autocracy style wins on deity. For this kind of game you're often building the "take other cities wonder", which will then acquire cities with wonders.

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Honor is good for early rushes. The bonus xp can get you 2x shot ranged units which make minced meat of early era city defenses. Doesn't help much to build wonders (the subject of this thread) though.

Mesix said:

Honor is good for early rushes. The bonus xp can get you 2x shot ranged units which make minced meat of early era city defenses. Doesn't help much to build wonders (the subject of this thread) though.

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I was refuting the earlier position that honor is terrible. I agree that it would be silly to select it with the intention of building wonders yourself, though it could certainly help you acquire them.

Though IMO liberty is better for the really early stuff while honor is better for pushing out classical/medieval units to gain a commanding position.

Redaxe said:

Egh Stonehenge on Diety seems impossible since the last patch. I suppose you can fiddle with the game settings somewhat. I.e. reduce the number of civs on the map or select half of the civs to be warmongers and exclude the religious civs. Or you could try starting a game in the classical era. Otherwise I think you need a legendary start, worker steals and a lot of luck.

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Of all those, hand-picking opponents and excluding the religious civs is the only one that really appeals to me. Why would legendary start help? Doesn't that buff the AIs as much as the player? So SH would go even earlier!

TheMeInTeam said:

Honor is a completely valid choice if you're beelining for something like keshiks, camel archers, murderbows, CKNs, etc. The reduced cost of upgrading units is helpful and you can dump your earlygame worker-stealer scouts into cities for happiness and culture while farming up really high-quality units (IE you get stuff like 3 range 2 shot xbows that can take 50ish strength cities in reasonable time if you have 4-5 and maul units that are pretty far ahead, or kiting-gd keshiks).

Honor is not so valid to just...open and leave. If you're picking and filling out honor you're looking to all-in several civs or win the game outright. Pedroelm has some amusing honor --> commerce --> autocracy style wins on deity. For this kind of game you're often building the "take other cities wonder", which will then acquire cities with wonders.

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Just watching his Dutch domination vid. I`m quite impressed with his skills. I would still like to see if it`s possible on large pangea map with let`s say 13 civs and 23 CS where there is a lot of ground to cover. I suppose there would be a rat race to beat AI claiming SV.

The easiest wonders that could be easy are the ones that are available when social policy openers are opened such as big ben in commerce or great mosque of djenne in piety.

beetle said:

Of all those, hand-picking opponents and excluding the religious civs is the only one that really appeals to me. Why would legendary start help? Doesn't that buff the AIs as much as the player? So SH would go even earlier!

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Ahh sorry misunderstanding. I was more referring to the type of start where you spawn next to a KSM and having a heavy salt and marble start on a river.

Solutionfinder said:

Just watching his Dutch domination vid. I`m quite impressed with his skills. I would still like to see if it`s possible on large pangea map with let`s say 13 civs and 23 CS where there is a lot of ground to cover. I suppose there would be a rat race to beat AI claiming SV.

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I've seen most of his videos in this set and I was impressed. I have tried to do this myself but the AI somehow becomes too smart and eventually out techs me.

Solutionfinder said:

Just watching his Dutch domination vid. I`m quite impressed with his skills. I would still like to see if it`s possible on large pangea map with let`s say 13 civs and 23 CS where there is a lot of ground to cover. I suppose there would be a rat race to beat AI claiming SV.

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Who are you talking about? I did a search on youtube for "Pedroelm" and didn't find anything.

Honor->Commerce seems interesting to me, because I just started playing and can't get anything but Tradition to work so far.

I've watched a number of youtube videos, but it seems rare for anyone to do anything other than Tradition.

ToborajniN said:

Ok, here's the fact: The topic is called "Wonders that can be relatively easy to build on higher difficluties?".

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Yes, "relatively easy."

Question: if there was a wonder at the start of the game that gave +2 food for your capital and you could get it every game by spending the first 50 turns working on it (because the AI would never start until turn 30 or whatever), would you say it was relatively easy to build? If you say yes then we're using different definitions of "relatively easy."

If I just google "definition easy" the first thing that pops up is

"achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties."

Merriam-Webster gives the first definition as

"causing or involving little difficulty or discomfort."

I mean, having to spend the first 50 turns of the game on a wonder certainly then presents great difficulties and it also causes great difficulty as a result of spending that time.

In other words, you can be guaranteed to get something if you try but that doesn't mean it's "relatively easy" to get.

Mesix said:

If you are playing on immortal or deity level, you cannot delay worker stealing. Even on lower difficulties, I seldom build a worker. I also tend to rush/buy the settler for my second city.

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You absolutely can delay worker stealing -- in fact you can avoid worker stealing at all and still win easily on Deity.

If you can't, then you're simply a worse player, objectively speaking, because you can't function without that stolen worker or two.

Acken said:

The GL is a lot harder to get because it needs Writing.

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Sure, but my point is that it's still *possible* with an excellent start. Which obviously doesn't mean it's worth going for it regardless.

Acken said:

Finally it also synchronize pretty well with Liberty I think since these policies make settler a bit later than tradition.

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This I would agree with -- lot more feasible to try to grab a starting wonder as Liberty since you usually don't pump out settlers until the policy. Of course, usually you'd be going for Pyramids

sunbeam said:

Who are you talking about? I did a search on youtube for "Pedroelm" and didn't find anything.

Honor->Commerce seems interesting to me, because I just started playing and can't get anything but Tradition to work so far.

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It's "Peddroelm" hence the problem. Videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvDosx_OQs0

The idea is to be warring constantly, using highly promoted units to compensate for lower tech...and then use Autocracy spies to steal constantly to keep up in tech later on.

Yeah it`s double D. Here are his vids.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=peddroelm

As LordBalkoth has said it, the idea is warring all the time but at the same time maintaining peace with nearby AI who could be dangerous if DoW is made at the time. You can see(in Dutch domination) that he is practicaly fighting with 10 units through the medieval and renaissance era while neighbouring Russia and Songhai having almost no units there.

The idea is great but it`s the little things that either let you make it or brake it. Also very situational. As said I would like to see this on large pangea map with more civs in it...

Solutionfinder said:

Yeah it`s double D. Here are his vids.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=peddroelm

As LordBalkoth has said it, the idea is warring all the time but at the same time maintaining peace with nearby AI who could be dangerous if DoW is made at the time. You can see(in Dutch domination) that he is practicaly fighting with 10 units through the medieval and renaissance era while neighbouring Russia and Songhai having almost no units there.

The idea is great but it`s the little things that either let you make it or brake it. Also very situational. As said I would like to see this on large pangea map with more civs in it...

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He uses few good units that are of quality instead of using a whole bunch of units that aren't really good. These are usual bad habits that AI does.

reddishrecue said:

He uses few good units that are of quality instead of using a whole bunch of units that aren't really good. These are usual bad habits that AI does.

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I`m aware of that. What I wanted to point out was that while he is warring, his other cities remain open to an invasion so it`s not just combat but also maintaining good relations with neighbours.

AI doesn`t even bother to get barracks done so all units are always blank and uses promotions for healing.

Solutionfinder said:

I`m aware of that. What I wanted to point out was that while he is warring, his other cities remain open to an invasion so it`s not just combat but also maintaining good relations with neighbours.

AI doesn`t even bother to get barracks done so all units are always blank and uses promotions for healing.

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Yeah, that used to happen to me a lot when I used to try this strategy out myself. Keeping good relations with neighbors is good strategy for domination.

Okay. So you looked up the definition for easy on Merriam-Webster. Let's look at the definition of "relatively" using the same source: relatively = when compared to others.

So let's compare building ToA to building it's early ancient era counterparts.
Let's start with GL & Stonehenge: Both of these wonders are near-impossible to build since not only do you need an insane start to actually have enough hammers for it, but you also need to be extremely lucky with popping writing (and maybe even pottery) from ruins. You will also, just as with ToA, most likely need a worker steal and chop some forests. Thus we also need mining. As we know, the AI usually builds GL somewehere between say turn 20-25. (Gone on turn 18 for me in the DCL #28) Thus you really are on a race against the clock.

Do I consider ToA "relatively easy" to get taking these things into account? Yes I do. ToA is actually possible to build without too much effort. Once again: your argument about spending turns etc for it as making it harder to build, I disagree.

And regarding the said scenario you posted then absolutely yes, it would be easy. Because you have no competition for it, and you only waste time and hammers to build it. It takes no effort. It's not, according to your scenario, based on you getting a certain tech faster than anyone else. Neither do you suffer from a sort of 'deadline' since there will be none other going for it. Yes, it will take you time. And yes, it will obviously not be worth grabbing that wonder since it will severly impact the rest of your game in a negative way, but it's still 'easy' to get.

Maybe we are right though. Maybe we have different ways of looking at things. All that said however: I do consider ToA to be 'relatively easy' to get as it won't require all that much effort and won't be as nerve-wrecking as trying to go for either GL or Stonehenge (or petra/gardens etc if we want to move further along the tech path). It is a wonder that is possible to grab most of the times you go for it, and as such I consider it 'relatively easy'. Once again: is it worth building? Maybe not. But it is not that hard to get if you really want it. Maybe you want it for some OCC record breaking sized cap? Would you have to reroll the map a million times for not being able to get the ToA that would be considered a major part of you strat? No, you wouldn't. Since it is relatively easy to get. Imagine rerolling maps until you get GL or Stonehenge instead. How much more effort would it take? Do you still think ToA isn't relatively easy to get?

Would just like to add...

Recently I played Deity Zulu(epic pace) with liberty opener and had my sight on the Pyramids. But it was gone on turn 49(Elizabeth) before GL. Not something that usually happens but still I think it was quite funny

Basic question (BNW):
does chopping nearby forests still rushes Wonder/National Wonder production... or just Building and Units production?