Warning: incoming wall of text
Using faith for GE and using faith for GS are NOT mutually exculsive nor is completing Tradition, Aesthetics, and Rationalism. They increase separately. There is plenty of faith to use two faith GEs for great wonders providing tourism bonuses and have two faith GSs for even later techs (when your base science rate is much higher.)
It only costs 1 GS (the 3rd one) to first have gone 2 GE due to separate faith counters.
First and foremost, you ignored what I just said about skipping tradition. No tradition, no GEs, that simple. Second, it's not unusual (especially if you're staying small and tall) to have a faith poor civ when you're prioritizing other things (read: you don't get a religion of your own and the AI decides to spam missionaries in your direction, leaving your cities between religions most of the game), meaning you only have enough faith for 1 or 2 great people at key times in the game. Again, much better to spend limited faith in GSs for techs, not GEs for crappy wonders. Even in the event you went tradition and have faith for days there are better uses for 1000 faith than making up for rushing the Globe.
Yes the AI completes Globe before Leaning Tower. That doesn't matter though since the timing for this is to research Printing Press BEFORE the AI does and with enough of a lead to complete Leaning Tower before the AI can build Globe.
And we are having different experiences with the AI, mine takes Astronomy, Banking, and Acoustics before Printing Press.
You're still wasting a GE on a crappy wonder instead of saving it for something useful. Even if the AI treated the Globe like Neuschwanstein it still wouldn't be worth rushing out to complete because it just plain ol' doesn't do much.
Of course I pay attention to the ruins, but it's often the case that the AI founded an city near all those spots and it would require conquest to get them (which isn't peaceful culture victory)
And run into severe happiness problems from skipping Monarchy? (50% reduction in pop based happiness from the capital), and also NOT have the cities be tall enough (from NOT having Free Aquducts from completing Tradition?
That's an issue with your play, nothing more. Believe it or not, as badly as the SP trees are designed the game isn't so unbalanced that you HAVE to take Tradition to win on diety. You can manage growth and happiness without tradition, you just need to plan ahead for it. Liberty is just as viable for a CV as Tradition, perhaps more so as it allows you to REX early and get those attractive city locations the AI would otherwise snag. It's dirt dependent (ie: enough space/luxuries in your neighbourhood to sustain it), but then so is an optimal tradition start.
In addition Tradition carries with it a policy increasing wonder speed.
Zero hoots given. Wonders are optional, and frankly more unreliable than dig sites (it just takes one run-away Incan or Egyptian to ruin the best laid wonder-spamming plans).
It's easy to hand build Uffizi with enough production in the capital.
Dunno what AIs you're getting when you play but Uffizi is rarely easy to hard build at diety in my experience. +see above
I simply cannot see how the extra dig sites you're getting will make up for the theming bonuses, great work slots and free GWAMs you get from spamming culture wonders.
First, the theming bonuses from all those wonders with full Aesthetics is essentially giving you +2 tourism per great work in those wonders. That can really get you a lot of tourism, perhaps upwards of +20 (just a guess, depends on how many wonders you get) and it seems like you'll need quite a lot of dig sites to make up for that.
Not really. A dig site is probably going to be worth 6-8 culture (barring weird late era digs of course), +4 beyond that if you were able to safely go freedom (unreliable, but often possible). If I have 4 more cities than you working 4 more dig sites (conservative estimate might I add, not uncommon to get more) does it really matter that you have the theming bonus for a wonder like the Globe? No, no it does not.
Also consider that some of these wonders give you a "free" GWAM to create another great work, each one of these is itself worth as much as an artifact from a dig site.
Uh, right, OR you could just dig up artifacts and put them in museums. What's your point? The issue with this is that getting free writers isn't very impressive given how easy it is to max out great writing slots if you only have 3-4 cities, and free musicians aren't that great given that the more you pop early the fewer you have later for tours when it actually counts.
Next, wonders also generate culture. With hotels and airports, each point of culture from a wonder generates +1 tourism; with the NVC (which is considerably harder to build if you're building very wide) [editor's note: no it isn't, prioritize hammers and spend them dolla-dolla bills on hotels 2 eras earlier than the internet, build NVC, ta-da] it's 2 tourism per wonder culture. That's something you're also missing out on with wide pay.
Again, no, not really. How many wonders are you going to build in a diety game? Maybe I missed a memo on how Poland can get every wonder in the game using some super science overflow, magical hammer trick, but if we're talking about skipping out on the globe (which I was), that's all of 2 culture for the wonder, and 2 themed writing slots which I'm not missing if I have 4+ amphitheatres more than you for those great works on top of the museums and landmarks. Again, zero hoots given.
Lastly, the extra great work slots mean that you can stock more great works into one city, which you'll put the NVC in. Every great work in that city (probably your cap) will be generating an extra +2 tourism, and a great work in a city with NVC and in a wonder providing theming bonuses will be twice as valuable as one in a normal city with just a hotel and airport.
I really don't think you understand what I wrote. I'm not saying skip every single wonder in the game (although they are ultimately optional, ie: it isn't inherently an instant "game over" if the AI beats you to them) which is what you seem to think I'm saying. I'm still working under the assumption the player is going to try to snag the bigger cultural wonders, and only particularly saying that the Globe is a crap wonder to be ignored.
Lets frame this a different way: lets say I'm playing a rough game where between runaway AIs, too much whiskey, and perhaps the interference of space aliens I only manage to grab the Louvre and Broadway for cultural wonders with great work slots, but have managed to pop down 8 cities in the process. Meanwhile, you're playing a tall 4-city tradition game where you're wonder spamming. First, what wonders with great work slots do you honestly feel at diety you can reliably get most games? It's wonderful to theorycraft and say that with the Great Library, Parthenon, SC, Globe, Uffizi, and SOH on top of the two I already mentioned you'd have x much more tourism but it's more than a little dishonest to pretend you're getting all those wonders no problem in 99% of games. Even if we're going to be generous and say you're getting, say, four of those six does it really matter? If I'm investing more heavily in archaeologists to fill all my museums, and am getting more landmarks it really doesn't matter if you're getting those extra wonders, you're still probably going to end up behind come the internet.
