The World Fair, ATM, is simply incredible.

ahawk said:

ISS for the reason that scientists giving production and engineers giving science is amazing in-and-of-itself regardless of going for a science victory.

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ISS is absolutely worthless for a planned strategy. It requires Satellites, that is far too late. If you are going for Space Victory, you will get to this tech first to grab Hubble. This is last place where you get GS, so after it's build, you pop all your saved Einsteins and use up your faith for rest. That alone is usually enough to bulb yourself through most required techs and you should win within 10-15 turns.

Meanwhile, to get ISS project, you need to wait for current proposal to finish (can take up to 20 turns), then be one of two civs to propose it, then wait 10 turns (I believe) to get it to voting stage, pass it, then focus all your cities for production and hope for best (as in, if runaway Civ decide it's worthwhile to go for it you might not even get it).

The only time I ever would see it useful if you can propose new resolution within ~5 turns of you just getting Satellites or if you haven't been actually planning for SV before.

No way to know if you are in the lead until it completes that I know of

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not totally true.

during the AI turn, let your cursor over the WF production icon of one of your city, and look at the percentage move up a each AI turn, you can gess pretty well which AI is putting lot of effort into the WF.

As Venice, you can also set some of your copious trade routes to feed production to Venice for the World's Fair.

TLHeart said:

No way to know if you are in the lead until it completes that I know of

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You just have to keep track of how many hammer's you've invested. If it matches with the leader's investment than you're it. Also worth noting is that usually WF gets completed during AI's turn so A) you need to build a margin and B) if you believe it will get completed at the end of the turn there's no point spending any hammers on it. Note that the hammers you invested are added to the project immediately before you begin your turn so if the project is already completed they will just go to waste and not count to your tally. Learned that the hard way

Also my favorite strategy for getting gold medal with minimum hammers:
1) the first turn invest all your hammers (almost guaranteed lead lets you keep track of the competition)
2) after two or three turns invest none - if you're still the leader than there's not much competition and you can safely spend only some of your hammers. In the other case go full speed towards the project.

As mentioned, the Civipedia tells you how many hammers are required (eg 350 per civ for WF) and your city production screen will show you how much you've contributed. Basic math out what 50% is (eg 8 civs @ 350 = 2800, you need 1400 to "GUARANTEE" you are the max contributor) and you know your goal. I tend to put EVERYTHING into these projects and 50% is always my aim. Also, the 350 per civ is *how many civs started the game* even if someone is wiped out by then.

Also, regarding Venice, I had some CSs not building WF so I purchased the building they were currently making and their production re-prioritzed to WF... may require multiple purchases but its worth it... In my last Venice game I got 1st place in both the Fair and Games (game over before ISS)

BShaftoe said:

This is one instance where Venice is at a disadvantage because of its limit to only one city with a relatively low production coastal bias. Simply put, production from a single city cannot compete with an AI setting all of its cities to focus production with the aim of getting first place. The gold-focused CS puppets rarely focus production on the World Fair or International Games in my last playthrough. Venice definitely has the production for second and third place awards, but first place seems to be a bridge too far for them production-wise.

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Exactly. I just played my first Venice game, and experienced just that. Came in #2 on both the fair and the games. Venice is extremely powerful for gold output and expansion, but I'll never play it again with any intention of winning a culture game. I'm sure it can be done, but it seems a lot harder than for any other civ.

Edit: just read some of the follow-on replies to this, and got some great ideas to alleviate this problem with Venice. Love this forum

what are you people talking about the Venice puppeted states always switch to the projects when in the capital I am putting production toward that project. Came in first place international games on Kings.

I think u should be able to burn engineers for these projects. Now it is just who got the best production -> wins.

I've snagged five social policies from world fair + gotten over 2k tourism with international games. I say they're well worth the price. If it was irrelevant, everyone would just ignore it.

kevytmaito11 said:

I think u should be able to burn engineers for these projects. Now it is just who got the best production -> wins.

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How would that make sense?

Last night I had the bad luck to propose World Fair only to find out that the Inca proposed International Games at the same time. Couldn't win them both.

Yzman said:

How would that make sense?

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I think he meant manufactories.

sendos said:

I think he meant manufactories.

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No he said burn them, meaning he wants to use them to "rush" like you would any other wonder.

ok here is a tips (and a spear behind it)

Hover your mouse on the small icon that indicates what your city is producing (the one on the right of the city name), a city that is currently building the project that is, the tooltip will appear indicating how many % it s done blabla

Now do it DURING the AIs turns and you will see the % increase PER CIV , look at it again at the start of your turn , u see how many % you contributed , compare . Do it during a few turn and you ll get a rather good estimation of your chances of succes.

These wonders are good but I don't think they are overpowered. They are great if you win them, but only if. Unlike standard wonders, you can't tech ahead to them to get a lead on everyone else. They often pop up at inconvenient times.

The only thing I think kind of "wrong" about them is AIs with low production should be against it. Instead they tend to be in favor of it, which goes against their rational interest.

Glassmage said:

what are you people talking about the Venice puppeted states always switch to the projects when in the capital I am putting production toward that project. Came in first place international games on Kings.

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King being the operative word here. With their gold focus puppets aren't going to be able to compete production wise with the big boys on campus (or Catherine) on Emperor or above.

isau said:

These wonders are good but I don't think they are overpowered. They are great if you win them, but only if. Unlike standard wonders, you can't tech ahead to them to get a lead on everyone else. They often pop up at inconvenient times.

The only thing I think kind of "wrong" about them is AIs with low production should be against it. Instead they tend to be in favor of it, which goes against their rational interest.

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Absolutly right, and dont Forget civs at war which cant contribute alot of Production to
Civil projects. Atm These wonders only work in mp in sp They Often Never get any nay vote.

Someone else mentioned not wanting to waste hammers on the project. Does anyone else try to scrimp together just enough to get first, or do you employ my strategy and build so much of it youre depriving others of their silver award?

This might seem crazy but at any point in the game where these projects are available a free SP can mean well over 10K in raw culture. If you dump enough production into the project you can overachieve on it blowing way past the total you need to win but also forcing the projects completion before other civs can get their foot in the door. In my current game as portugal I did this and found that I had cheated persia, my closest competitor, out of his silver placement award by a mere 20 production points! Another civ fell similarly close, it may be wasteful of my production to do this but at least I get all the benefits while two other guys got screwed. Some guy on the bottom was even like 50 points away from the minimum needed for the bronze award lol that was truly wasted production.

On a side note I did find most of my venice puppets helped me build the wonders but i still narrowly won one of them and I imagine it gets more difficult as the challenge level rises I was playing on king

isau said:

The only thing I think kind of "wrong" about them is AIs with low production should be against it. Instead they tend to be in favor of it, which goes against their rational interest.

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Has anyone even seen an AI vote against these things?

These projects are very difficult to get on immortal and diety. In my last game with 8 civs, I put all 4 of my cities on production focus with specialists and got 1100 toward the tourism one, but Hiwatha jumped in the last 3 turns and put like 1500 toward it. The chump didn't even have any tourism.