Most overrated World Wonder?

fallout3dc said:

new one...Temple of Athemis. It suffers Great Library syndrome. As in, it costs too much early to build, and not guaranteed, and limiting growth for the first 100 turns isn't going to pay off in the end. If you want more growth, focus on growth. I'll throw the Hanging Gardens in this mix as well.

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It's pretty much guaranteed on anything but deity. You may need a forest to chop on immortal, but you want that just to free the queue sooner. I will invest 15 turns at the beginning to get +1 food per 8 in every city. Further, unless you are super quick to education (turn 100), the temple will give you a great engineer around turn 130, as you are unlocking printing press or banking.

Hanging gardens is situational. Playing science or culture but have a non freshwater capital? You want it because it's the only way to get a garden. Got a river coast start? Skip it and build the colossus, and use the ship to send food to your capital.

notyourtypical said:

It's pretty much guaranteed on anything but deity. You may need a forest to chop on immortal, but you want that just to free the queue sooner. I will invest 15 turns at the beginning to get +1 food per 8 in every city. Further, unless you are super quick to education (turn 100), the temple will give you a great engineer around turn 130, as you are unlocking printing press or banking.

Hanging gardens is situational. Playing science or culture but have a non freshwater capital? You want it because it's the only way to get a garden. Got a river coast start? Skip it and build the colossus, and use the ship to send food to your capital.

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No freshwater capital? Go liberty already.

If you try to quantify the benefits of the Big Ben in that way, then it's probably going to be overrated yes, but that's not what you should be looking at. First off, this benefit stacks with other cost reductions, which already throws off your math entirely.
Second: If you get the Big Ben, you can change current production into future gold.
If you want to buy 12 GW bombers the turn you get Flight, you are going to save yourself 2000 gold, but more important you will have more bombers *now* versus more bombers later.
Third: Once you start buying one unit per turn, the Big Ben becomes something that generates 150 gpt (virtually). That may not seem like much but it is really the difference between buying a unit every turn and buying one every other turn or so.

Not going to claim this wonder is crucial, but it's difficult to overrate when you use it in the proper circumstances.

And if you're going to get the Big Ben, you have opened up Commerce, and will eventually get the policy that gives you a 25% redutcion in buying from all your cities. Although Big Ben does bump it up to 40%, but if you're also going either Order or Autocracy, there are tenets that will cut the gold cost of buying either buildings (Order) or units (Autocracy).

I wonder how much that 15% really helps from Big Ben. One could say it could help a Freedom player when going for a SV to cut the cost of buying the parts...

Well yes but that only speaks in favor of the Big Ben.

Let's say a bomber costs 1000 (just for ease, in reality it's I think 1050 or so on standard settings), and I have 10 000 gold to spend.

The costs would be as following:
No reduction: 1000
Big Ben: 850
Mercantilism: 750
Mercantilism + Big Ben: 600
Merc+Mobilization: 500
Merc+Ben+Mobilization: 400

So, Big Ben effectively allows me to buy 25% more. (On top of generating extra gpt)

Instead of building Big Ben in the first place, you could have had 2 free bombers. And you are going to offset that because you paid 436 gold for one instead of 545? That's a lot of bombers.

Big Ben is nice for Wide empires with lots of gold to spend. It stacks nicely with Mercantilism, and even more so with Order's Skyscraper tenet. Buildings build FAST. It's nice with Autocracy too to further shave off costs to buy units.

The other nice thing about Big Ben is it's locked to Commerce, which isn't that popular with the AI. They'd rather throw SPs into Piety, regardless of common sense or good results.

tetley said:

Instead of building Big Ben in the first place, you could have had 2 free bombers. And you are going to offset that because you paid 436 gold for one instead of 545? That's a lot of bombers.

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Yeah, two WHOLE bombers. That's thinking small. Play a game of all-out war, and buy entire armies at a time.

I think we might have to re evaluate the hammer cost of the big ben. Comparing it to bombers might not be the best thing. By the time Benny is available, Factories are available. And you really do want those factories up ASAP if you have the coal unless you slingshotted into Modern Era using Radio.

Then there are other buildings you may want to build, such as stock exchanges, windmills, public schools. Big Ben is useful, no doubt, but I think the subject is about how much it is worth sacrificing growth for those hammers when you could've spent hammers on other things.

I like Big Ben, but I don't build it too often because there are other things I want built in my cities first, such as other infrastructure or a standing army in case it's getting too cmall again.

EDIT: I'd say that it could be at its most usefulness with Freedom, since that tree doesn't have any cost reduction on buying things. And a 40% gold reduction on SS parts could help things a little bit. Although that can be argued with since if you're going for a Freedom SV, you will be stockpiling a good amount of gold anyway. Who doesn't love having 6 cities and buying all the SS parts the same turn you completed the Apollo project?

Then again, I only play Emperor at best so my opinion might not hold much water...

Doktor Vic Tim said:

I think we might have to re evaluate the hammer cost of the big ben. Comparing it to bombers might not be the best thing. By the time Benny is available, Factories are available. And you really do want those factories up ASAP if you have the coal unless you slingshotted into Modern Era using Radio.

Then there are other buildings you may want to build, such as stock exchanges, windmills, public schools. Big Ben is useful, no doubt, but I think the subject is about how much it is worth sacrificing growth for those hammers when you could've spent hammers on other things.

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Big Ben vs a stock exchange? I think that's pretty clear who wins that one. Windmills are kind of bad, honestly. Plus can't be built on hills, which you built your city on if you had a choice.

Public schools come the tech before, so those should already be basically built, and you often times can't build factories immediately and instead of a 10 turn lag time on getting workers to the coal and getting it improved. So I think there's plenty of time to get a wonder going with those options.

People are missing the point about Big Ben. It allows you to shift production from a city with a lot of hammers, where you build it, to cities with fewer hammers, where you buy things with a discount.

Also, the calculation above ignores wonder specific bonuses (Marble, Aristocracy, Egypt UA) that lower the effective hammer cost of Big Ben, as well as the gold that Big Ben generates. And you couldn't have had two bombers instead of Big Ben, considering bombers don't become available with Industrialization.

It reminds me of when I was evaluating terra cotta. I could really get the TC to put out a killer army, but I had to revolve my entire game around getting it. Even then, I wouldn't call TC overrated, because people don't think it's sliced bread.

I will give this much: comparing to bombers is better than comparing to land units. Unless you're playing a no-CS game, gold purchasing land units on a wide scale simply shouldn't happen.

I've stopped making the Great Library a must-get.

Mine is the Terracotta army, I just don't use it often at all. And it's hard to use it early game and not kill your economy. You want to get the most use out of it by building a ton of units then getting several copies of the individual types but it kills your gold income. And if you don't have many units it doesn't give you all its potential.

45-Angkor Wat
44-Pentagon
43-CN Tower
42-Terracotta Army
41-Parthenon
40-Cristo Redentor
Red Fort
Taj Mahal
Statue of Zeus
Kremlin
Great Firewall
Great Wall
Great Mosque of Djenne
Himeji Castle
Great Lighthouse
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Pyramids
Brandenburg Gate
Great Library
Hagia Sophia
Sydney Opera House
Alhambra
Globe Theater
Big Ben
Borobudur
Prora
Broadway- Overrated- Realisticlly, you are wasting Musicians at this time for late game where Tourism Bombs are worth so much more.
Uffizi
Louvre
Porcelain Tower
Forbidden Palace- Underrated. I believe is because this poll was close to release of BNW and players did not fully understand the Congress control value.
Hanging Gardens
Temple of Artemis
Stonehenge
Notre Dame
Colossus
Chichen Itza
Machu Picchu
Petra
5-Hubble Space Telescope
4-Statue of Liberty- So many things to build still. I dont understand how there is little to build from here on. Spaceship Parts, late game units (nukes), Wonders, even Wealth for money for bribing/buying.
3-Eiffel Tower- Effective for happiness. Tourism definetely helps with Ideology Pressure, so this is a excellent wonder. Not a "culture only wonder like Globe Theatre and others.
2-Sistine Chapel- Same as Eiffel. Who dosent want more policies?
1-Leaning Tower of Pisa

Tabarnak said:

Here is the final result of best wonders from a past elimination thread for BNW:



From that list, my vote automatically go for Sistine Chapel and Eiffel Tower. They are only good for culture games. So they aren't for mp...big hit there too.

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Where did this list come from? this is way way out of whack. I agree with Pisa being first but come on. Great wall and petra should be at the front. It's more like Pisa, Hubble, Great Wall, Petra, Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Machu Pichu. IMO

GL is overrated I think.

CraigMak said:

Where did this list come from? this is way way out of whack. I agree with Pisa being first but come on. Great wall and petra should be at the front. It's more like Pisa, Hubble, Great Wall, Petra, Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Machu Pichu. IMO

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Click the link. The original thread link is situated in the upper right corner.

Based on a lot of votes and commentaries. I think that situationnal wonders should stay away from the top. Which is mostly the case here.

Another wonder that just doesn't compute is tbe Pentagon. 1250 hammers to save 33% gold on upgrades. Assume the same 3:1 gold/hammers ratio--which I justify by saying I would take that 33% gold and use it to purchase something else. You have to save 3750 gold in upgrades to recoup the 1250 hammers, which means you have to spend over 10000 gold in upgrades to save that 33%. It's too late in the game; it's not going to happen. Spend the gold. And if you're lucky, maybe you will capture it from someone else.

Petra might be situational, but with the right situation it will be the most powerful wonder. Imo The wonder I never get is Pentagon.

tetley said:

Another wonder that just doesn't compute is tbe Pentagon. 1250 hammers to save 33% gold on upgrades. Assume the same 3:1 gold/hammers ratio--which I justify by saying I would take that 33% gold and use it to purchase something else. You have to save 3750 gold in upgrades to recoup the 1250 hammers, which means you have to spend over 10000 gold in upgrades to save that 33%. It's too late in the game; it's not going to happen. Spend the gold. And if you're lucky, maybe you will capture it from someone else.

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0 hammer if you have a GE. Which you will have plenty by then.