Tech path needed to build Petra and Colossus?

On Emperor and above my greedy ambitious self is struggling to build Petra (Currency) and Colossus(Iron Working). The reason I want to is because the extra trade routes mean somewhere around 50 GPT as early as T150 and/or the extra trade routes can diverted inward as food routes and the normal ones are for trade.

I usually build my capital where I spawn.
Scout, Worker, Settler

Settle second city and between the two cities have a petra city and a colossus city.

Tech Pattern: Pott -Calendar, Mining to Masonry, Animal, Archery and then either to Iron Working or to Petra.

After settler, I build granary and caravan and start feeding the second city. I steal a worker for the second city and grow grow grow until its wonder time. Problem is the tech path is split. So I always go in one direction and get a wonder but than the other is taken or Im too late.

On king I could get both but its King.

Don't build petra for the trade route. Build petra if you got one hell of a petra location. And you really gotta give up wonder spamming the higher you go in difficulty. It can be hard to accept at times, but that's what you are giving up.

The ONLY wonder I can reliably build on deity is Pyramids, and that's because it requires Liberty.

I did this on emperor in my first BNW game, random desert start.

1. Don't hard build any settlers. Until after.
2. Get a granary first, shrine second, library third. I build a worker after that, but you can worker steal instead and build a caravan if there's a civ nearby (for the beakers).
3. Tech to writing, then petra, then colossus.
4. If you start Tradition, use first gold on settler, second gold on worker/building (NOT another settler). If you start Liberty, use all gold on worker/buildings. Your first move when you meet a new civ is to sell your embassy to them for 1gpt, or if they don't have writing yet, keep checking until they do. This does not apply if they're an aggressive neighbor who hasn't found your capital yet (e.g. Zulu neighbor).
5. Manually reassign at least one guy to work a mine. Remember, river tiles don't do anything yet before Civil Service. You want to get that wonder built asap.

Make sure you have your second city up (with a worker) by the time you tech to colossus. You don't need this city to have any buildings. You should still be building Petra in your first city.

Should be quick enough for emperor every time. In fact, you'll likely find that your second city is up way before you tech to colossus, so you can even build a granary there (if you don't build it there, buy it later, or a watermill, you need the food).

I managed to do this on immortal as Venice. I went straight to libraries, then to iron working then to the petra i manged to finish the colossus, and worked on the petra. I was massively behind the other civs for awhile, but with the 4 extra trade routes i caught up quickly, and it was totally worth it.

well, what I do to get petra as Morocco on immortal is rush through the liberty tree, pick a great engineer, then use him to rush it, it tends to line up perfectly time-wise (marathon) so long as you prioritize monuments.

Or you could just build an army and take the wonders by force.

telekinetic136 said:

I managed to do this on immortal as Venice. I went straight to libraries, then to iron working then to the petra i manged to finish the colossus, and worked on the petra. I was massively behind the other civs for awhile, but with the 4 extra trade routes i caught up quickly, and it was totally worth it.

Click to expand...

both wonders requires a specific location. So if most ai's capital is off coast non desert,this is possible, but still an unreliable strategy. If i have a petra start, i always trade embassies right away, if no wonderhoard ai start on desert, then i'll beeline currency, same rule should apply to collosus.

Build your capital to be a research powerhouse. Build your second city on a coastal location near a desert if you want to get both Petra and Colossus in the same city. The from your capital will help you to research both techs in a competitive time. Should be doable on Emperor, but Immortal/Deity might be a stretch.

Early tech path:

Pottery
Writing
Calendar
Mining
Bronze Working

If you can manage the great Library in your capital, you can pick up either Iron Working or Philosophy with the free technology. Philosophy will help you to get the National College up ASAP, but Iron Working will allow you to build Colossus if you have found the coveted spot for the second city. If you are more concerned with the setup for the two wonders than in getting your rolling, go for the second option.

Use Liberty to help you expand faster. The free Worker, extra , and free Settler should be the first three policies (not necessarily in that order). Use the free settler to settle the second city. If you are close enough, build a trade caravan in the capital to supply to the new city to grow fast and then after the caravan finishes its first round and is renewed to get the wonders up faster.

So I tried three different iterations of this today.
In all iterations I had to go Liberty first because you need the free settler and capital city to grow grow grow.

I'll share the most successful one:

I spawned with MARBLE so great. My second city spot was a desert area on coast with marble. SO perfect second spot.

My start was on a river with forest luxuries. I did Scout Monument Shrine, Granary, Library.

Opened Liberty, Honor killed a bunch of barbs and then the one before free settler and then free settler

Meanwhile kidnapped a worker. improved tiles etc. My research was Pott - Calendar - Writing.

First Wonder Stonehenge and then infrastructure and then to Masonry Bronzeworking etc. Got Temple of Artemis along the way. and then Colossus and Petra.

Key Parts: Took Monuments to the gods pantheon, started Tradition for aristocracy, got the marble bonus to both cities. and yeah the rest is success. Not gonna lie I reloaded like three - four times to adjust production tiles to win wonder wars.

Thanks for the helpful comments. Never saw the value of researching writing and not building a settler but that really did the trick.