Power of Worlds Fair

joncnunn

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This is basically inspired by both a thread assuming it's always to get Worlds Fair in combo with my most recent game with a very hammer poor start (flood plains, very few tiles with hammers) in which the dumb AI proposed Worlds Fair in the first congress making it impossible to even get 500 hammers towards it, let alone the typical number needed.

I find Worlds Fair is worth a lot of policies, but can always get the most use out of it if it's proposed second. That additional 30 turns (can slip to 31 or 32 depending on world congress advancement) means that my base culture per turn will be somewhat higher for a bigger affect while still being early enough to get full use of.

Meanwhile there are some really horrid hammer starts that the map generator will give you when it's either raw food or gold heavy because at the end of the day it's placing you on a combined "fertility score". (Flood plains with a Calendar type primary luxury in particular will give you just as a high a score as a possibly more desirable high hammer low gold start.)

As that thread mentioned as a Freedom-Science victory could very well not be able to finish right side of commerce, complete Rationalism, and reach the level 3 tenet without hosting Worlds Fair. (By contrast child's play to do this with Worlds Fair)

The interesting though is that Order-Science can run into the same basic issue if they've invested too much into culture prior to Rean era and are forced to pick filler policies while waiting for it.

This also applies to the other ideologies and victory conditions. Worlds Fair allows timely completion of Rationalism and tenets that you just don't have without it.

Edit: Nothing above should be interpreted to say you can't win without World Fair, you still can, it's just that victory takes significantly longer.
 
Its nice to win it, but you don't have to win it. Even 1 free policy from coming in second can be nice. Just put in the 350 hammers or what ever and move on with your game. Then you can get another policy when you build the ideology wonder with a faith GE.
 
I have filled the entire ideology tree a couple times because of world's fair.
 
One technique that I picked up from the Forums is saving my Great Writers and see if I can pull off a World's Fair, Golden Age combo and then pop two+ Great Writers in the midst of them. One can indeed fill up a Tree.

That said, on Diety I find it very difficult to win World's Fair. I'll often stop at 350 to get the free policy. On Immortal, I can mostly win it. With saved Great Writers to pop, though, the World's Fair is super powerful.
 
I can see some combinations of poor map and deity making you lose the world fair. It can still be won most of the time for me if I focus all my cities on it as soon as it is available. Note that it's harder on huge maps if you stay at 5 cities while the AI is rolling on 15cities.

If you really cannot do it then you'd have to stop at 350 and find some culture elsewhere. Obviously not an ideal situation no matter what your strategy is.

Proposing it for second WC is fine if your game is long enough but like most things, you'll get more benefits out of getting your policies early than late.
 
One technique that I picked up from the Forums is saving my Great Writers and see if I can pull off a World's Fair, Golden Age combo and then pop two+ Great Writers in the midst of them. One can indeed fill up a Tree.

That said, on Diety I find it very difficult to win World's Fair. I'll often stop at 350 to get the free policy. On Immortal, I can mostly win it. With saved Great Writers to pop, though, the World's Fair is super powerful.

If your hammers are a bit low (check the demographics screen for manufactured goods) there is lots you can do to boost your production for the games.

-consider saving a great artist golden age to give the 20% hammer boost while you're working on the world fair.
-Also as you have plenty of time to prepare for it. consider rerouting all your trade routes internally to enhance production.
-Depending on where in the tech tree you are, then there is much more you can do. Chemistry is a big help so make sure you have it by the time the world fair is enacted.
-Prepare your cities by building lots of surplus mines/quarries etc around your cities even if they aren't being used all the time (so you can switch population from farms to mines).
-You can consider taking loans from friends to rush workshops/stables/windmills/factories.
-Railroad also enhance production by 25%. Religious Community is a very strong belief and will give you a 15% production boost.
-playing wide! - a 3-4 city tradition strategy even though popular with many players will slow your output. You will find by the renaissance/industrial era that 6 cities really does give a lot more kick to your national productivity. And yes 6 cities still works with Tradition.

This all takes preparation so obviously keep an eye on what is being proposed in the world council. You get plenty of notice about resolutions that will be voted on so that gives you lots of time to change your plans accordingly. So if a Civ proposes World Fair and you're busy beelining Scientific Theory then it's time to see where your Manufactured Goods sits compares to the global average and if its low then you need to consider grabbing chemistry ASAP.
 
You make good points, Red. Those are a helpful list. I tend to play on Large maps, and as Acken observed, sometimes a 15-city AI is too much. I'm a devout checker of Demographics

Admittedly, my wide play is not good enough on Diety. I'm by no means an accomplished Diety player, but I do win, and if I'm up against a strong AI, I yield World Fair.
 
Is it just me, or when you propose it on the very first world congress, you almost always get first place? No AI has 15 cities unless it's some crazy expansion civ on Pangea who also had military success.
 
Crumbs. My experience appears to be very different from OPs. I usually play domination and am therefore not usually the founder, or in any position to make much different to the votes. But when it passes and the fair begins, even with pretty poor hammers I've never found myself not winning it when I put all my cities on it. The cultural runaways usually have a fair crack, but they've usually been reduced to 2-3 tall cities by us warmongers by the time the congress is founded.

I suppose it's a question of meta. If you like to play more peaceful or balanced games, then there is less likelihood of enormous factions being drawn amongst the nations. But if you play with an aim to carve up the map ASAP then the WC is not really a big deal, unless you're Poland, in which case you can time it right so that you do incredible things when combined with other policy-generating things.
 
Is it just me, or when you propose it on the very first world congress, you almost always get first place?

I'd dare say it's near 100% if the human proposed it first because if the human thought there was a significant chance of failure (poor hammer start) he'd wait for the second council. (This will in part depend upon how risk averse the player is though)

What's more interesting to me is what's the ratio if the AI proposed it on the very first congress? On a random start, that's significantly greater than 50% as well, my best guess is about 67% success rate. (This will also be player specific though, a player who always choosing Worlds Fair first unless they have a bad hammer start only gives the AI the opportunity to propose it when there was a risk of failure.)
 
Edit: Nothing above should be interpreted to say you can't win without World Fair, you still can, it's just that victory takes significantly longer.

I don't have the same feeling. Maybe for Freedom, but not with Order. I made games on Deity where I never host WC and saw WF never proposed (or late, very late). I didn't feel slow, except by my player level.
Actually, I would rather say, you'll win word fair because you play as good as to finish early.

Sometimes I don't invest in Word Fair proposed by AI, or it's for a second place reward. If I think, I need to build something else.

I wonder if all sub T220 victory, except full domination, have a WF win.
 
Since you always get the choice to propose something in the world congress the Worlds Fair is usually a very good proposal. Not only because it gives you a good diplo hit with most others civs but also because it will give you perhaps 3-4 extra social policies and strengthen your defenece against others civs tourism.

If possible, save a a great artist to use during the worlds fair for that extra 20% in production. IF you can save 2, then use the other one once you won the worlds fair for the 20% extra culture (should double?). Then if you have a great writer at the end of those 20 turns with double culture you can bulb him and get another SP.

Worlds Fair is indeed a powerful tool to use and should be used early, in the midgame when social polices comes slower then in the early and late game. And as with everything else, the quicker you get to pick and complete SP trees, the more useful they are.
 
^ the AI on high levels don't have any happiness problems and can afford to grow cities as fast as they want (assuming good terrain and policies)

But having wide empires with 6+ cities are definitely much better for winning world's fair. one slight point about great writers is to pop them at least 8 turns into the world's fair after you win it, since the writer's treatise is equivalent to last 8 turns of culture.
 
I don't have the same feeling. Maybe for Freedom, but not with Order.

I almost always play Freedom, but I would agree that Order victories appear to "need" fewer policies than Freedom does.
(Freedom Science level 3 tenet synergizes from with bottom right side of Commerce, Freedom Diplomatic level 3 tenet synergizes with the bottom right of Patronage.)

I only mentioned Order at all due to the possibility of having been "forced" to take some filler policies after the free tree while waiting for Rean era to open. If "policy saving" was default I wouldn't have mentioned Order or Autocracy at all.
 
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