Question about Petra

T

Tiber4321

Prince
Joined
Feb 8, 2012
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350
I've played about 20 or so games recently with standard every thing, Continents, Emperor, Conquest. The thing I've noticed is that Petra is ridiculously powerful, and that the Civ that builds it generally ends up being a runaway.

I've only built it when I have a great desert map near my capitol, and when I do, I win very easily. But recently, I've experimented with having my second or third city building it in any desert environment. This, just to keep it away from the AI. I do this by rush building it with the Liberty finisher GE, and teching to Currency after researching writing.

Is this a plausible strategy? Am I overrating Petra?
 
Yes, you are overrating Petra, particularly if you act like the AI and build Petra in a city that can't put it to good use -- there are much better uses for the Liberty finisher.
 
I disagree, I think Petra is a very powerful wonder for two reasons.

A. The fact it boost the desert tiles making that city able to grow like any other one. HOWEVER, don't plop a city down for the sake of having Petra though.

B. The free trade caravan and boost to incoming/outgoing gold isn't bad either right?

and C. it depends on what difficultty you are playing, as you go higher certain strategies become just bad ideas.
 
Just because something might be powerful on the right map, doesn't make it an "I win" button.

Also, the OP labeled this thread as G&K, so no caravan, just tile gold.
 
Like others have said, it's pretty situational... Good to have if you just happen to have a city that can make real use of it but I wouldn't go out of my way to build a city just to build this.
 
Petra, whether it's GnK or BNW, can be crazy good if the city in question has a lot of hill rivers. Of course you want some floodplains for growth, naturally. But think about it, 3 food 3 production tiles? That is some yum yum yields right there! ESPECIALLY if you get lucky and get gold/silver luxes! WHOO-WEE!

I may only play at Emperor at the highest, but man can a really good Petra city change a game IMO. Even more so if you have desert folklore.
 
How much dessert tiles must there be for it to be reasonably worth it? It seems like in BNW 3 petra hills would practicly be enough. +3 food and +3 hammers wouldn't be to bad, you woudl have to work the tiles but why wouldn't you? The extra cravan given in BNW even increases that food yield, so 3 desert tiles and the caravan would at the least gie +6 food and 3+ hammers, if you compare that to the hanging gardens then it would seem that even with 3 petra hills it's worth it in BNW.

You'd need a few more tiles in G+K. 5 or 6? In the past i had only thought a city that was about smack dab in the middle of all dessert to be good for Petra, but it seems you don't really need that much dessert to make it worth it.
 
TheDuckOfFlanders said:
How much dessert tiles must there be for it to be reasonably worth it? .
Click to expand...

It is always enough. It not only give you a free caraval, but a free trade route. For that reason the Colosus is also very good.

We can see the trade route value as +3 or +6 food (depend if you have cargo route), the food from the Petra is another about average +3 more. All these get multiple by policy or relligions. Or just have these food concentrated on the Capital is a multiple of itself!
 
Tiber4321 said:
I've played about 20 or so games recently with standard every thing, Continents, Emperor, Conquest. The thing I've noticed is that Petra is ridiculously powerful, and that the Civ that builds it generally ends up being a runaway.?
Click to expand...

The reason that AI is runaway is that they often have desert start (best condition), leading tech (so they can build Petra first). And all the food from Petra and trade route from Petra will leverage their capital, let them build quickly and research faster.

I suggest to use the first two caravals or prefer cargo ships, to send food to your capital and see for yourself!
 
Doktor Vic Tim said:
Petra, whether it's GnK or BNW, can be crazy good if the city in question has a lot of hill rivers. Of course you want some floodplains for growth, naturally. But think about it, 3 food 3 production tiles? That is some yum yum yields right there! ESPECIALLY if you get lucky and get gold/silver luxes! WHOO-WEE!

I may only play at Emperor at the highest, but man can a really good Petra city change a game IMO. Even more so if you have desert folklore.
Click to expand...

Agree, and for the record, I wasn't suggesting building Petra in a marginal desert secondary city, I was talking about building it in a non-capitol city with a large desert.

In my current game, I built it in my third city, and I had +100 hammers there by turn 250ish.

I'm thinking Petra is simply too powerful, and the idea that barren desert could produce food, gold and production is silly.

Based on what I've read, I think it probably is worth rushing Petra in a secondary city, provided that city has a large desert, with at least some resources. It seems you can still hard build Notre Dame in your capitol.
 
Yeah, Petra is powerful, but it's also rather high risk high reward. Imagine the disaster of not getting it. Now you're stuck with a desert city on your own. Even if it does work fine, you will forever think of how much better it could have been.

Though I admit I'm sometimes a jerk and build it when I only have one desert tile to deny someone else. Free caravan is still good. I've caused someone to rage quit doing that. What, so I should let someone become more powerful and threatening than me? As if!
 
Doktor Vic Tim said:
Yeah, Petra is powerful, but it's also rather high risk high reward. Imagine the disaster of not getting it. Now you're stuck with a desert city on your own. Even if it does work fine, you will forever think of how much better it could have been.

Though I admit I'm sometimes a jerk and build it when I only have one desert tile to deny someone else. Free caravan is still good. I've caused someone to rage quit doing that. What, so I should let someone become more powerful and threatening than me? As if!
Click to expand...

You can take the money... you dont always have yo keep a wonder as long as you continue to keep up with ai in technology.
 
I would only consider it if I started very near a desert or on a desert. I won't go out of my way to settle a city just to build this wonder.
 
I don't get it? A desert tile yields nothing. With petra you get 1 food 1 production, whoopedy do? What's the fuss?
 
Calz said:
I don't get it? A desert tile yields nothing. With petra you get 1 food 1 production, whoopedy do? What's the fuss?
Click to expand...

Fresh water hills. A farm instead of a mine on a hill with fresh water will give +2 food after civil service and thus become a 2 food/2 hammers tile. These are valuable tiles because you can work hammers while still working growth. With petra such dessert hills become 3 food/3 hammer tiles, or alternativly with a mine (in case of no fresh water) it would become 1 food/4 hammers. But certainly the combination of high food and hammer yield per tile is very usefull.

And it's also true what you say that the pure dessert tiles don't become very usefull. Really when one evaluate's a "good petra spot" one will look how much "petra hills" it could have, especially fresh water ones, especially river side ones that can be further buffed by a hydro dam.

Or alternativly, if youre inca, you can go entirely crazy on dessert hills being bordered by mountains and even rivers. Wih the right land Inca can have like 5 to 10 tiles with an average 5 food/ 3 hammers after petra, thanks to terrace farms and buffs like the mountains and maybe even a river.
 
TheDuckOfFlanders said:
Fresh water hills. A farm instead of a mine on a hill with fresh water will give +2 food after civil service and thus become a 2 food/2 hammers tile. These are valuable tiles because you can work hammers while still working growth. With petra such dessert hills become 3 food/3 hammer tiles, or alternativly with a mine (in case of no fresh water) it would become 1 food/4 hammers. But certainly the combination of high food and hammer yield per tile is very usefull.

And it's also true what you say that the pure dessert tiles don't become very usefull. Really when one evaluate's a "good petra spot" one will look how much "petra hills" it could have, especially fresh water ones, especially river side ones that can be further buffed by a hydro dam.

Or alternativly, if youre inca, you can go entirely crazy on dessert hills being bordered by mountains and even rivers. Wih the right land Inca can have like 5 to 10 tiles with an average 5 food/ 3 hammers after petra, thanks to terrace farms and buffs like the mountains and maybe even a river.
Click to expand...

On many desert, river starts, there are 1 or 2 wheat tiles, 1 or more gold luxs, other luxs such as incense or sugar, and stone and/or marble, all on desert terrain, and within workable range for a capitol city. Petra becomes prohibitively powerful under these circumstances. You can spam wonders in 6 turns per.

I had a city like this in a recent game, and the two closest AIs DoWed me immediately after I completed Petra.

Desert Folklore makes this start even more powerful.
 
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