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

First of all this thread is created for Immortal and Deity but I will only speak for Immortal since I`m kind of beginner on Deity and don`t have as many hours put into it. So I urge everyone who played Immortal or Deity to share your XP and thoughts.

From my personal experience on IMMORTAL I noticed that there are few wonders that AI gives you time to build.

Ancient Era - Pyramids

Pretty easy to build most of the time because AI usually won`t go straight into Liberty policy. It also saves time in your cities to fork out workers as well as saves time on improvements throughout the entire game. That`s not all. By the time when you enter Renaissance era, with the little help from workshop specialist you can generate GE before putting all efforts on generating GS since it has 1+ to GE generation and is built early on.

Classical Era - Oracle

Can be done most of the time. Free social policy, 3+ to culture and 1 point towards GS is always useful.

Medieval Era - Machu Picchu

Really depends whether you rush Guilds first(for AG) before going to Education and if any of the AI has a mountain within 2 tiles of the Captiol. Well that`s in general because I have seen civs such as Morocco and Portugal build it in their 2nd city. Anyway, it can be done most of the time in your 2nd city if you are blessed with mountains. It has good effect on your finances as you won`t have any problems after you build it and connect cities with roads.

Renaissance era - Porcelain Tower

Can be built most of the time since AI doesn`t go into Rationalism that early. Very powerful wonder that gives you free GS for academy and 50% more science from Research agreements. In addition it gives you 2 points for GS generation. If you rush architecture early you can even build Taj Mahal simultaneously although this wonder is very coveted by AI.

Renaissance era - Uffizi

Since it requires Aesthetics, you have plenty of time to build it before AI gets it since usually AIs that go into Aesthetics are behind in science. It`s a pretty decent wonder that can give you max 12 tourism if filled properly.

Industrial era - Big Ben

Easy to get it done most of the time since it is connected to Commerce. Gives you 1+ culture and 4+ gold and really works well with Mercantilism policy and Skyscrapers Order tenet. But especially with Mercantilism policy and Mobilization Autocracy tenet. It`s like hitting a jackpot while spamming units

Industrial era - Louvre

Unless you are playing against Elizabeth who will want to unlock exploration to enhance her UA, it`s pretty easy to get it done. Very powerful wonder for your culture and tourism(+16) once properly filled.

Modern era - Prora

If you went Autocracy you can get it done every time, in a coastal city ofc. AI just doesn`t go for it. Even if you chose another ideology but had to switch, you can still get it done. Gives you free policy + some happiness.

Modern era - Neuschwanstein

If you rush railroad, this practically yours since AI goes the other path in tech tree. Also if you managed to build Machu Picchu then you will most likely get it done unless you stuck with your scientific progress somewhere along the path. Now this is a wonder you really want to have. It gives you load of culture and gold and some happiness from all your castles and on top of that you get to fortify your cities.


This is it. These are the wonders that can be built almost every time on Immortal without GE. If you have different experience please share. Also Deity experts, I urge you to share yours as well, since I`m eager to hear about Deity wonders

The Uffizi is one of those awful wonders. It gives a Great Artist and 3 GW slots. Is that really worth it? It's a huge production drain, and highly competitive since the AI strongly favors Aesthetics. 12 Tourism isn't worth the huge production cost, since it's only marginally better than a Museum and is harder to fill for the Theming bonus.

The Louvre follows the same track in that culturally-inclined civs usually build it first. Again, it's not that strong (only slightly better than the Louvre) and takes a long time to build. Again, a free Great Artist isn't anything special. Since the Theming bonus doesn't apply to culture, it's not that powerful.

Big Ben, Oracle and Neuschwanstein are all powerful. A lot of people undervalue Neuschwanstein, especially for a wide Autocracy empire, or simply a wide empire. The AI virtually never goes for it, so it's yours for the taking. The local culture bonus is nice for newer cities, especially if you're on a Terra map and building cities late on the New World. Big Ben is one of the easiest wonders for its value; I'd say this is the best policy-based wonder. And the Oracle is a nice bonus to culture and no one ever objected to a free SP.

Prora and Machu Picchu are meh. Machu Picchu is good for wide Domination games, but of course, it's hard to pull off a wonder in a wide game. That said, you can always take it if need be. If you aren't playing a wide Domination game, it's not worth the hammer investment. Prora isn't as good of a bonus as you'd think (I think it's bugged?). I believe its bonus only applies to tenets or only to policies, I forget. Meanwhile, with Ideologies, you should have plenty of happiness.

For Deity:
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
This is a wonder that will either pop at turn 35 or turn 80 on Deity. It's like that for a reason, however. It's not a very valuable wonder. However, if you have 3+ stone/marble and are going to be generating lots of GPs, it's not the worst investment. That said, it's far from the best.

Great Library!
Just kidding, this is close to impossible.

Hubble Space Telescope
This one is really easy to get, and helps an SV along quite well. It's worth the investment of hammers for the double GS, production bonus and free SS factory. By this point you're so far ahead in tech, the AI should be teching to Satellites when you finish this.

Well I agree that Uffizi and Louvre are not worth it unless you are going for CV but it`s always good to know it`s there for the taking, simply because these cultural AIs are behind in science. Usually when I went for CV building Uffizi was no problem. Louvre was the same but I found out that Exploration path is, bar Naval tradition, pretty much useless in comparison to Rationalism, Commerce or even Aesthetics. I still find both wonders good combo with Aesthetics, hotels, airports and if possible some world congress tourism based resolutions.

Great library...hahaha I got used to not even consider it anymore. The faster you forget about it, the better...

As for Hubble, I agree but AI will go for it if having a chance. It`s more of a matter how you are doing in tech. You can still rush it with GE but yeah I agree that once you enter information era you are most likely 10 techs ahead of average(on Immortal at least) and only a matter of time before you win the game. Same can be said for CN tower which is also great to have...at least for looking at demographics after you`ve just won

Good to know about Mausoleum, thanks. I must admit that I have never even tried to go for it...

I'd argue that Uffizi isn't even important for CV. The Tourism output is less than ideal, and, unless you're Brazil, it's hard to find value in a single Great Artist.

As for MoH, I find that it's only useful in select locations. Only 5% or so of he spawns you will see are worth MoH.

As for Exploration, I'd agree: it's effectively the worst policy tree in CiV. Its bonuses are specializing toward a circumstance rather than a VC. I simply ignore it.

But, back to the topic, I enjoy CN Tower for the same purpose you do. It's one of those things I build when I'm using Space Procurements to get SS parts. It's by no means the best wonder, even for a Media Culture CV, but it's so much fun to build for satisfaction purposes.

You can usually get Hanging Gardens if you beeline Mathematics on Diety.
For a capital landlocked or lacking rivers it is very desirable. On large maps the AI tends to ignore tradition.

I've been beelining Colossus recently in Diety. Sometimes it can really pay off. With an early marketplace & East India Company you can attract heaps of AI caravans. My last game I was getting 50gpt from trade routes. But the catch is you delay National College so your science will really fall behind but with the extra trade route you can tilt the advantage in your favor.

Neuschwanstein and Machu Picchu like always if there's a mountain close to your capital. Big Ben and Pyramids are pretty easy to get as are a lot of the other social policy dependent ones. Petra depending on if you're the only civ with a desert around your capital it has happened in my games before. Mausoleum is almost always there for quite some time.


Stonehenge and Temple of Artemis have been hit and miss I seen them go quite late at times again depends on the AI I guess.

Most late game wonders are not very hard to get

Cristo Redentor is a pretty easy grab in almost every game. Like the Oracle, it shares a tech with an important science building, so it usually gets beelined.

Statue of Zeus usually goes relatively late in my games too. But of course, getting it yourself would require that you open Honor, which is usually a bad idea. And it's not a particularly good wonder anyway.

I'm currently playing a Immortal polish game, I got my HG and Oracle snatched by 1 turn... But I managed to build Borobudur, which I never do (I had nothing else to build so why not), and Petra.
Petra is doable since it's terrain-dependant.

Great Lighthouse is possible by beelining Optics, but risky by delaying writing.

Neuschwanstein is great for domination games, AI doesn't seem to be interested,.

Solutionfinder said:

Ancient Era - Pyramids

Pretty easy to build most of the time because AI usually won`t go straight into Liberty policy.

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I had a weird game once, where Pyramids were gone very fast, and HG built by Ahmad in Middle Ages, because he was the only one to pick tradition

Wait, Theming Bonuses aren't applied to Culture? I thought they were.

They are.

Here's a list of wonders I generally have time to build on Deity:

1. Oracle because it's usually available in the mid 60s, I have Philo by then
2. Mausoleum of Hali, but that one is mostly useless without a pair of stones and marbles worked
3. Pyramids yeah I guess but I've seen Pyramids built in mid 30s.
4. Sistine Chapel, its time is around 140 usually
5. Big Ben, pretty much every SV I had included a Big Ben
6. Neuch, nobody bothers with this hidden gem for some reason, and it kind of comes at a key moment, when you're in dire need for gold, culture and happiness
7. SoL, because nobody ever picks Freedom :/
8. CN and SOH because at this point only I have the tech for it

Lanijon said:

Statue of Zeus usually goes relatively late in my games too. But of course, getting it yourself would require that you open Honor, which is usually a bad idea. And it's not a particularly good wonder anyway.

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I have a question, or rather a statement, or both regarding this.

Is honor that bad to simply "open?" I usually open tradition and then open honor with my second policy before I continue filling Tradition. It feels like the extra culture I build from killing Barbs makes up for it in the end. 1 kill is usually 7-12 culture

I've usually already built Monument in my first city, so getting to Legalism isn't that big of a deal. In fact, most times I've gone straight Tradition, I've gotten that policy before I even have my 2nd city up so it feels like I'm buying something I'm not even going to be using for a while. And oligarchy is usually not used in my early games. I'm often protecting my first worker with my first warrior, so him staying garisonned is a no-go as he usually sits on the tile with the worker while the city blasts the barb. Or he's out exploring because I don't have my worker out yet.

I guess I just find the +33% combat bonus and +Culture per Kill more useful in the early game (and even throughout) than two bonus' I won't even use until about turn 50-60.

sixty4half said:

I have a question, or rather a statement, or both regarding this.

Is honor that bad to simply "open?" I usually open tradition and then open honor with my second policy before I continue filling Tradition. It feels like the extra culture I build from killing Barbs makes up for it in the end. 1 kill is usually 7-12 culture

I've usually already built Monument in my first city, so getting to Legalism isn't that big of a deal. In fact, most times I've gone straight Tradition, I've gotten that policy before I even have my 2nd city up so it feels like I'm buying something I'm not even going to be using for a while. And oligarchy is usually not used in my early games. I'm often protecting my first worker with my first warrior, so him staying garisonned is a no-go as he usually sits on the tile with the worker while the city blasts the barb. Or he's out exploring because I don't have my worker out yet.

I guess I just find the +33% combat bonus and +Culture per Kill more useful in the early game (and even throughout) than two bonus' I won't even use until about turn 50-60.

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As a general rule taking a policy only for its culture NEVER pays for itself. The maths are really easy to figure out and it's pretty easy to see that the cost of an extra policy on your 6th tradition policy or 3rd Rationalism is REALLY BIG.

A policy ALWAYS has to be about the bonus it gives or what it unlocks for future investment. When people like to open tradition to play Liberty it is because of the border growth, not the +3 culture (although of course the +3 culture make it better).

And then you'd have to ask yourself if +33% against barbarrians is really that interesting ? Wouldn't an extra archer just do the job ?

Pretty much what Acken said.

The Honor opener is only good if your plan is to fill out the rest of the tree. Otherwise, it'll just hike up the cost of future policies, and you'll never make enough from the opener to compensate. To elaborate -- If you're running a 4-city Tradition empire, with no modifiers to social policy acquisition (e.g. Representation), your 10th culture-earned policy will cost 2,050 culture. However, if you burn a policy on opening Honor early on, then what would've been your 10th policy will now be pushed back to your 11th policy, and will cost 2,400 culture. Your 15th non-Honor policy will cost 4,500 instead of 4,035. Your 20th will cost 7,115 instead of 6,550. And remember that your culture resets to 0 after each policy, so you need to rack up that few hundred extra culture for every single policy. You'll end up having wasted thousands of culture by the end of the game from adopting a policy that will realistically net no more than a few hundred culture. And this isn't even taking into account the negative snowball effects of getting to your key policies much later than usual.

I got the cost data from http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Mathematics_of_Civilization_V.

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.

All honor does is give statue of zeus and that's it. However you will miss out on hanging gardens if you don't open tradition.

Acken, Lani, thanks for opening my eyes.

Acken said:

As a general rule taking a policy only for its culture NEVER pays for itself. The maths are really easy to figure out and it's pretty easy to see that the cost of an extra policy on your 6th tradition policy or 3rd Rationalism is REALLY BIG.

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I disagree with this rationalization (hah!).

If you open with honor, (I'm assuming) your main reason for doing so is to gain the culture boost from killing barbarians in order to unlock early policies sooner. Obviously, adopting honor first isn't going to pay dividends without barbarians around. But given enough barbarians, then it's entirely feasible that you can get, for example, a tradition finisher faster by opening with honor and killing some barbarians than you could simply going straight tradition. The culture costs for the first few policies are rather low, as is. Therefore, if you CAN get tradition faster by opening with honor, then it becomes an issue of "would you rather finish X sooner now, or Y sooner later?". Yeah, it's going to fall off later game, but if you believe the opportunity cost to be worth it, and it definitely can be, then there's no reason not to adopt honor first.

Obviously, it won't be every game, but it definitely works.

And then you'd have to ask yourself if +33% against barbarrians is really that interesting ? Wouldn't an extra archer just do the job ?

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I would think that most people wouldn't be adopting tradition for the bonus against barbarians, but I could be wrong.

Bei1052 said:

I disagree with this rationalization (hah!).

If you open with honor, (I'm assuming) your main reason for doing so is to gain the culture boost from killing barbarians in order to unlock early policies sooner. Obviously, adopting honor first isn't going to pay dividends without barbarians around. But given enough barbarians, then it's entirely feasible that you can get, for example, a tradition finisher faster by opening with honor and killing some barbarians than you could simply going straight tradition. The culture costs for the first few policies are rather low, as is. Therefore, if you CAN get tradition faster by opening with honor, then it becomes an issue of "would you rather finish X sooner now, or Y sooner later?". Yeah, it's going to fall off later game, but if you believe the opportunity cost to be worth it, and it definitely can be, then there's no reason not to adopt honor first.

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Yeah well I'll let you display the maths on how much culture you need from the honor opener to get the tradition finisher faster than without the honor opener. With 4 cities.

Then same question with secularism.

Acken said:

Yeah well I'll let you display the maths on how much culture you need from the honor opener to get the tradition finisher faster than without the honor opener. With 4 cities.

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Without knowing when each city is founded, game speed and difficulty, it's hard to "do the math" (which I'm sure you understand). That is why I said "given enough barbarians". Obviously, if you're playing on a small map and/or you have no barbarians around you, then adopting honor is going to be a waste. If you're playing on a larger map and have open space around you, it's going to be more viable given there will invariably be more barbarians to kill.

Then same question with secularism.

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Why? Once again, it's about opportunity costs. You're comparing "opening with honor to getting secularism sooner", whilst ignoring the fact that such a view is overly simplistic. IF, for example, you CAN get a tradition finisher SOONER by adopting honor, AND you value finishing tradition SOONER MORE than getting secularism SOONER, then it MAKES SENSE to forego the future payoff of ultimately delaying the rationalism tree SOONER, whatever that might be, for payoff TODAY. If, for example, you'd rather get tradition finished "X" turns sooner than you otherwise could and you are able to, AND you believe that's worth more than adopting secularism a few turns earlier down the road, then it makes sense to do so.

Which is my point.

Policies do not exist in a bubble.