The 4 rules of Wonder addiction

im no expert at the game, and play at regent level. however i think there is an exception to the 'never build the great library' rule. if you start the game on an island away from the mainland with all the other civs, missing the chance to trade science or luxuries, your going to be way behind them when later you meet them. but ive found when beelining literacy and builing the GL, once you do meet them later in the game it can only be to your advantage to recieve 5+ advances in one go? perhaps there is a better way though. like i say i dont play at a high level
 
im no expert at the game, and play at regent level. however i think there is an exception to the 'never build the great library' rule. if you start the game on an island away from the mainland with all the other civs, missing the chance to trade science or luxuries, your going to be way behind them when later you meet them. but ive found when beelining literacy and builing the GL, once you do meet them later in the game it can only be to your advantage to recieve 5+ advances in one go? perhaps there is a better way though. like i say i dont play at a high level

Welcome to CFC, xSquire.

Even in the situation you described, I still wouldn't build the GL. Starting on an island should not inhibit your research pace too much. On an isolated island start, just make sure you jam out a bunch of suicide curraghs/galleys as early as possible and make sure you get your contacts early. You should be able to meet plenty of civs early enough so that having the GL would be a waste of time.

IMHO, if you have a horrible starting location, that is all the more reason that you should not be wasting shields on wonders. In that situation it would be wise to simply build galleys and attackers and go wack the nearest rival. Then, if you need to, spend those shields on building a new palace.
 
great job ision, wonderful statements. I agree with the great library statement, and a HUGE reason that i never rely on it is that, after you get education in the middle ages, you have to worry about researching tech, and the late middle ages and early industrial is where you get your most important things, well after the great library is long and forgotten.
I tryed to get all of the wonders on my first regent, getting a massive military, and cranking science to full. Guess what? Most of my units were disbanded, i ran into a deficit, and got my major rescource cities taken over by the gauls, who used galic swordsmen and owned me.
The only thing now i focus on is my most important, the great lighthouse (gotta love the early bonus of meeting new civs), and gradually weening myself off of that too.
I see no point also in getting shakespheres theatre, okay, culture is great, after the middle ages, most of your expansion is over, and the only cities that can build it before the AI has already expanded most of what it can, and are in the core of your empire, and for just getting a metro, you are only a few techs away from hospitals, and by the time you get it done, you have the hospitals to build in like 10 turns.
 
Ah, the article that changed my Civ life. Added to the tight city spacing advice the single thing that completely changed my way of playing. I am indebted.

But here's the real shocker: I am a first generation gamer, meaning I started of with Civ I at the age of thirteen, playing each vanilla version, as well as Civ: CTP. Never once did I go further than Regent level and that only in CTP. Never occured to me to change my inherent strategies, basically playing for hours and hours for the heck of it. Thanks for opening my eyes. :D
 
I am a novice player, just recently getting comfortable playing at the Warlord level (vanilla). I, of course, fell in love with the idea of a wonder monopoly. As I am learning the basic early expansion strategies, I definetely look at this piece of wonder advice as crucial improvement to my gaming skills.

There is something I would like cleared up though...

Your skills at tech research, tech trading, diplomacy, and the use of the luxury slider will be TREMENDOUSLY hampered.

I understand how this wonder will DIRECTLY relate to hampering one's tech research and trading skills, as well as how to build friends through trading with diplomacy skills. However, I'm not really sure how it will effect the use of the luxury slider. (I can only assume it is meant INDIRECTLY as use of BOTH sliders will improve)

I sort of 'skimmed' through a majority of replies in the thread and couldn't find any discussions of this. Could someone help clear this up for me?

[Side Question: Is there a benefit (besides 'we love the --- day') of having happy citizens, or is it just to prevent them from being unhappy?]
 
Well, they act as equalisers to your unhappy people, the content ones staying out of the equation. So as an example, when you're Rep or Dem and want to war, and you've got the encreasing issue of war weary citizens, a higher number of happy people will prolong the number of turns the city NOT ging into disorder. The same goes for all the things that will make them unhappy, such as pop rush and drafting.
 
However, I'm not really sure how it will effect the use of the luxury slider. (I can only assume it is meant INDIRECTLY as use of BOTH sliders will improve)
I think that's correct. Ision was pointing out that, while you are relying on the Great Library for techs, the only slider you have to worry about is the Lux one, and you may not bother to manage that very carefully either at a low difficulty level. So you won't learn some essential skills to enable you to move up the difficulty ladder if you depend on building the Library.

[Side Question: Is there a benefit (besides 'we love the --- day') of having happy citizens, or is it just to prevent them from being unhappy?]
You need at least as many happy people as sad ones in each city to avoid city riots. The more happy people you have in excess of sad ones, averaged over the turns of the game, the higher your score. If you manage to get no sad people in a city it will go into WLTKD mode, which will reduce corruption. This can be worth doing in special circumstances where you need that "one more shield per turn" to finish a project faster.
 
Thanks ALL! That all really helped to clear my vision of how the game should be played.

Now back to the newbie questions/quick answers thread for me :sad: ;)
 
From now on, I'll just hit the random button and roll with it.

I am very guilty of swearing loadly and breaking a couple of household objects for not achieving adam smith's stock exchange... but then again it pays for ALOT of stuff... :)
 
I focus on having FUN at this game. That's why I get Pyramids and Sun Tzu's with Germany on Warlord and fight the entire world at once with panzers, because that's the most fun.

Although that has been getting a little easy of late. I may switch to the third difficulty level soon.
 
I don't think anyone is saying don't build ANY wonders. I think the point is that your play will be stronger if you build just the one or two wonders that are most important to your overall strategy.
 
This threads almost 4 years old and Ision left along time ago. Just find its funny that this thread and our civilizations thread reviews still get replies.
 
And it totally depends on the situation. I will always build the SoZ if I have Ivory, its self defense and I like Ancient Cavalry. Some of the games I've played successfully would have been impossible without the Lighthouse because of the spacing of islands. ToE is useful because of the bounce to Hoover Dam and gives a massive leverage in tech trading. What other use is there for an SGL, I suppose I could stack them on a shelf and dust them every few turns. Overall I agree with not building them as habit. The shield investment is a lot for little return and if you turn those shields into units then the wonders are yours by right of conquest anyway.
 
Hmm, once I get Conquests I think I might be getting lots of SGLs! I luv science! :love:
 
This threads almost 4 years old and Ision left along time ago. Just find its funny that this thread and our civilizations thread reviews still get replies.

This game is over 6 years old and we're still playing it like crazy. Your threads are still very relevant for Civ 3 fanatics. I have read them all and still browse them occasionally.
 
This game is over 6 years old and we're still playing it like crazy. Your threads are still very relevant for Civ 3 fanatics. I have read them all and still browse them occasionally.

I don't play it so much now. Currently addicted to Xbox 360:cool:
 
Hmm. I don't think I ever built the Great Library in any game unless I was already winning. I think the first three wonders I (used to) always shoot for were Pyramids, Sun Tzu's, and Adam Smith's. I haven't built the Pyramids in ages, though if I play a Scientific Civ I'll usually work on Sun Tzu's because I get Feudalism as my free tech. I still like to go for Adam, though I've skipped it a couple times. Course, I'm still playing Warlord because I want to get used to different starts - I'm currently playing a Pangaea as the Vikings, but got stuck on an island with the Romans. I didn't beeline and still got the Great Lighthouse ....
 
This would make a bit more sense if my experience with tech trading were better. I cannot recall a single case of successfully trading the AI for ANY tech, and that includes the War in the Pacific scenario in the Conquest game. In theory, the Allies are in a locked alliance, but I could not make any tech trades at all. I finally gave up on the idea and now play it hot seat so that I can trade with myself to progress faster. I play the game for relaxation and fun, not to see how high I can go. I modify the units as I see fit to try for more historical accuracy, as I am a mlitary historian, and do my best to eliminate corruption as a factor in the game. Shocking though this may be, I will keep building my Wonders, and have fun doing so.

My major regret is not having a full editor for my Macs, so that I have to do editing either on my son's Windows laptop, or on the Dell desktop that I picked up cheap specifically for game editing. Then transfer to my Mac laptop and hope that it works. Roughly 90% of the time it does.

Oh, and ChaosArbiter, the problem with the flyboys is that ALL ground troops are targets, including their own side. The USAF official vehicle recognition manual for the First Gulf War did not have any modern Marine vehicle in it, so the zoomies were killing Grizzlies as well as BTR60/70. I have heard anecdotal evidence to Marine units firing as USAF planes that were attacking them. Credit the USAF public relations that more friendly fire incidences were not reported.
 
I think the point of the article was that at higher difficulty levels wonders are a waste of time. I rarely build them now or only when already no 1 on the map. YOu don't need them to win the game.

I'm no major expert at this game as I tend to play on emperor difficulty and I've managed to beat the game on deity. For the price of most wonders you can add to your army and go seize them off the AI.
 
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