What is your favorite wonder?

How is it so important for culture ?

I see its significance for tourism as that is what those great works and musicians are good for. But just for culture when you are not going for a cultural victory ?

If i want culture i ally a bunch of cultural CS and everything i can do to generate culture on my own pales in comparison to that. (which imo is a game design flaw, cultural CSes are too OP)

WackenOpenAir said:

How is it so important for culture ?
If i want culture i ally a bunch of cultural CS and everything i can do to generate culture on my own pales in comparison to that. (which imo is a game design flaw, cultural CSes are too OP)

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Completely agree, especially in the early game cultural CS are way out of hand. They're always the first thing I'll invest in after rushbuying the key science buildings.

WackenOpenAir said:

How is it so important for culture ?

I its significance for tourism as that is what those great works and musicians are good for. But just for culture when you are not going for a cultural victory ?

If i want culture i ally a bunch of cultural CS and everything i can do to generate culture on my own pales in comparison to that. (which imo is a game design flaw, cultural CSes are too OP)

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It's important for culture in a number of ways:

- Provides 1 Culture (fairly insignificant)
- Gives you a free GP of choice
(This is so important because a lot of times you will get CS quests for Musicians or Artists before you even built the respective guilds, so often times you can ally or befriend a CS without setting back your GS counter)
- Gives you the possibility of getting an early GW/GA for a Great Work or, if you are building it late, a GW for a one time culture boost
- During the course of the game amounts to probably one additional GW and GA
- Makes all of your GP spawn a few turns earlier
- Can be used for a GE, which can give you either Globe Theatre (huge culture boost and a GW to boot) or Sistine (even bigger culture boost)
- Those are wonders you would normally never built for anything but CV
- You can use LToP the generate a GW after generating a natural one, save them for World's Fair and have two insanely strong culture bulbs

That being said I think by far the best uses for LToP are getting two (or more) CS quests for a GP (if there are any of course), getting a GE for Sistine (Globe is okay but often times not worth the later GS) or just using it for utility, eg getting a Prophet because you've only founded and spread, but not improved your religion.

Probably hanging gardens because, no matter what difficultly they never build it. This wonder does wonders for my on deity. Another favourite is Notre dame which can make your population, therefore your science and production colossal.

My favourite for the fun possibilities in some games is the Great Mosque of Djenne. If you capture the right foreign Gt Prophet you can convert the Djenne city and churn out missionaries to convert your cities to a religion that has Jesuit Education and/or pagodas, cathedrals etc.

Djenne is one of the best wonders to capture. I once captured an Islamic Holy City with Djenne and the follower beliefs were mosques and cathedrals. My religion had pagodas. Cities with pagodas, cathedrals and mosques generate good culture, faith and happiness! I wish I had been playing sacred sites!

yung.carl.jung said:

"Didn't come here to argue, just wanted to make a bold post."

Don't take everything in life so serious my friend

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Okay, Mr. It's-not-even-a-debate. I don't think I'm the one taking oneself to seriously.

sixty4half said:

Okay, Mr. It's-not-even-a-debate. I don't think I'm the one taking oneself to seriously.

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There is no debate because the entire premise of the thread is inherently subjective:

SoonerJBD said:

Not the most optimal or the one you like most that you can usually get.

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It's a joke post, no reason to be salty

yung.carl.jung said:

There is no debate because the entire premise of the thread is inherently subjective:



It's a joke post, no reason to be salty

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I'm not salty. I was just trying to explain to you why you got the reaction that you did. And I'm not the only one that said something about it so you singling out my comment makes it seem like you are.

If you don't care that you got the reaction that you got, that's fine, just say so. But don't try and turn this around on me like I'm being salty/butthurt/emotional or whatever other phrase makes you feel better about it.

Here's my summary of my thoughts when it comes to wonders which of-course is only really appropriate to Immortal or Diety level

Ancient era wonders have a heavy opportunity cost - usually to build them means delaying settlers so there is a high price.
Temple of Artemis is great but if it slows your expo's down by about 15+ turns to build that is essentially delaying all your expo's by that many turns. You might miss the best expansion spots if the AI gets them and you'll be sacrificing 15+ turns of growth and productivity in each city. That is a pretty steep cost.
Pyramids is a good choice for Liberty but even that can be a gamble.

Classical era wonders give you the time to have your expo's out beforehand so the cost to your empire is much less.
That said most of the classical wonders aren't all that good. Oracle is always useful, Hanging Gardens is also achievable. Petra is very hard to get and the others don't have very good bonuses or require focusing on technologies that are not very important.

Medieval era wonders are largely lucklustre and usually not worth the effort to build. None of them will make-or-break your game and it is usually better to ignore these and focus on the better renaissance wonders (see-below) and do everything you can to increase your population and productivity in the meantime...

The AIs tend to get to Alhambra and Notre Dame very early so there is stiff competition here. Both of those wonders means delaying Education which most people won't do. It may be possible on wide but generally your science hasn't caught up to the AI so you'll probably miss out on these anyway. Notre Dame is inferior to Forbidden City anyway.

The religious wonders can be helpful but are usually situational - that said I do think the Great Mosque is a great Wonder for a religion focused civ. It really does provide tonnes of faith and synergises well with the Piety tree.

Machu Picchu is very good for a wide or domination civ and is arguably one of the better Medieval wonders if you aren't playing Tradition although it is useful for any civ.

Renaissance era Ok now we're talking. The Renaissance really has the first Wonders that will really start to help your victory strategy. If the opportunity cost for earlier wonders is too high it's a safer option to focus instead on getting to these.
Leaning Tower - already discussed. It's unique bonus is the extra +25% to Great People generation. It has usefulness in virtually every strategy although I'd argue that culture victories probably stand to gain the most. It's well worth taking an extra engineer if you are able to get another powerful renaissance wonder. You'll increase the counters for scientists but at the same time the extra +25% will help cover this cost.

Sistine Chapel - I'd argue to say that this is the closest to a mandatory wonder to get if you are playing a culture victory. If themed it adds enough tourism that effectively counts as a museum which is decent. It works out better than Globe Theatre because you probably want to make no more than 2 Great Works of Writing (for Oxford university) and bulb some of your great writers to get the extra social policies you'll need. Artists on the other hand are best used for Great Works of Art unless you are Brazil.
But the real selling point to this wonder is the bonus culture. While that bonus culture doesn't add to tourism it does prevent other players from getting this Wonder. As culture defends against Tourism you absolutely do not want this in the hands of a competitor. The Sistine Chapel In the hands of a really wide AI civ that is a cultural powerhouse and you'll struggle to produce enough tourism to overwhelm them.

Forbidden City - Also a very powerful and gamechanging Renaissance Wonder. The happiness bonus is pretty powerful and will quickly exceed the value of Notre Dame but that's not all. The 2 world congree delegates is where it gets interesting. While that is seemingly specific for a civ pursuing a diplomatic victory it actually has much more use than that. Since CityStates alliances don't count towards delegate numbers until the Industrial era that means you'll be guaranteed to able to propose 1-2 resolutions. With this you can propose an early World Fair. This act alone will improve your relations with most if not all civs and is easily winnable so you can use the bonus culture to slingshot through a policy tree.

Porcelain Tower - Powerful for a SV but I've never really learned to get optimal value from it. Though the extra GS points and extra science from RAs will certainly help to speed up a SV you have to be proactive to get the maximum benefit from it. RAs do cost a lot of gold so it requires prudent economic management.

Indutrial era There's only 3 choices here all have merit to support an existing strategy.

Big Ben is great but really only starts to shine when you get the right side of Commerce. It's only of value if you purchase items with gold - remember that.

Brandenburg Gate - I like this Wonder but its not essential. It gives some great military bonuses which is great for domination or any civ that is at war frequently. The extra 2 Great Scientist Points is also very desirable and even might get a SV player to take notice. Essentially it provides 2/3 the Great Person Points of a Scientist Specialist - not bad at all

Louvre - This can provide the most tourism of all the wonders but requires a point in Exploration which stretches the policy requirements of a culture victory out even further. For that reason I have mixed feelings about this. Typically as a CV player you'll need at least Secularism to be able to stay technologically competitive, you'll also probably need Aesthetics to boost tourism and to be able to buy muscians with faith and then you also need Ideology tenets. Trying to fit a point in Exploration in here is a tough squeeze.

Modern era There's lots more choices here which can support a variety of strategies
Obviously Statue of Liberty is very powerful for Freedom
Eiffel Tower is very strong for CV and highly recommended
Neuschwanstein - best suited for a wide civ
Cristo Redentor - actually a bit underrated, The flat culture will convert to tourism with a hotel and airport so a CV player should take notice of this

None of the later wonders are really essential except
- Hubble if you are losing the space race
or
- Great FireWall to stop an AI from getting to this to derail your CV or if you need it to stop someone gaining tourism over you.

Def Hanging Gardens. I've found there's very little you can't do with a city that's twice as big as everyone else's in the Medieval era

Ancient era: Pyramids for reasons already mentioned in here.

Classical era: Petra if you have good desert and if you can get it. Oracle is the easiest to get though and quite useful if you can afford the hammers.

Medieval: Macchu Picchu so you can start collecting gold.

Renaissance: Sistine Chapel, LToP, Forbbiden palace...all very useful

Industrial: Big Ben and Louvre. I`d argue that Brandenburg is not worth it if you go for DomV autocracy because the bonus is replaced by Total war tenet. Don`t know why else build Brandenburg

Modern: Effiel Tower and Neuschwanstein.

later eras I`d go for Sydney Opera in a cultural game. CN is decent but you would want those broadcast towers earlier. So if there is nothing else to do and you want to improve demographics, then go for it. Hubble is good for SV game.

Regarding ideology wonder I think there is no question about which one wins the title

I like the Mausoleum. I seem to wind up starting near a bunch of Quarries a lot, and it's not heavily contested.