Most overrated World Wonder?

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

I find Petra to be worth it even if you only have 1 desert tile. The free caravan plus an extra trade route is a big bonus. If you actually have desert tiles around to improve it's absolutely incredible. If you have more than 6 desert tiles it actually yields more extra food than HG as well as hammers. Petra is insanity.
 
0 hammer if you have a GE. Which you will have plenty by then.

Nothing is ever 0 hammer. You always lose at least one turn worth of production.

Also, no, you won't have that many GE laying around. Why would you? They share a spawn timer with Scientists, and you're working a ton of science specialists no matter what victory you're pursuing. Certainly not enough to say "Yeah, you know what, this Pentagon is totally worth this GE."
 
There might be an oddball situation where you are behind in science and Pentagon is all that's left.
 
A lot of the sort of weak late-game wonders can still be useful if you have Aesthetics: any Wonder, no matter how lame, will trigger the extra Culture. Chuck the Pentagon in some city that hasn't got any Wonder & hope for the best.

Besides, if you have a middling-sized army and you've had some obsolete stuff kicking around, the Pentagon's not horrible.
 
I don't think the hammer argument for Big Ben is at all valid. As I explained before: it allows you to use production now for gold later. If you rush Industrialization, you can often build factories first easily (or buy them for a very early ideology) and have plenty of time to build Big Ben before you even have to build a Public School (I think Maddjinn's Venice let's play used that path, so don't come telling it's not "viable", and I've used it often enough myself).

Another thing for both Prora and Statue of Liberty is that people seem to ignore the free policy as if it's some minor side-effect, but that is very far from how it really is.
 
Producing gold with hammers and then purchasing hammers with gold makes even less sense. You want to screw yourself on the exchange rate twice?
 
Most overrated I suppose is the Hubble Space Telescope. I frankly wish it would get removed from the game. The first player to reach Satellites gets two free scientists and a free spaceship factory. This catapults them a further two techs ahead and puts two nails in the coffin of second place in the science race.

I disagree strongly. When playing Immortal/deity this is anything but overrated. The AI doesn't prioritize this so in games when I'm behind on high difficulty levels, I use this to slingshot me back into the game for a science victory.

I'll fall into the majority's camp and say the great library is the most overrated at least on higher difficulties. If you want to complete it on immortal/deity you have to sacrifice everything to have a CHANCE at getting this wonder. And even if you manage to nab it you won't be far enough in the tech tree to get something good. And if you don't get it, you're wayyy behind.
 
I've thought of getting that tier3 Order tenet that gives you a free GS+GE. The idea being to slingshot to Satellites and steal the Hubble. I've just never had a game that close to try it yet.
 
Hubble could be or. .. sometimes you don't have to have all the science only what you need.
 
Producing gold with hammers and then purchasing hammers with gold makes even less sense. You want to screw yourself on the exchange rate twice?

Until that moment where you really need that submarine now and you only have 400 gold instead of 500. The only thing in question is the number of things you are going to buy. In conquest-autocracy, I will probably buy 30-40 units with gold and multiple buildings (barracks, courthouses). As long as you play to maximize the benefits of the Big Ben it will be about the best wonder you can wish for money wise. So it's situational, yes, but that's not the same as overrated.
 
You said that Big Ben lets you build a gold stockpile with your hammers and then spend it when you need it. But it doesn't--you could always do that without Big Ben. Big Ben only gives you a 15% discount on it. You're getting about a 1:12 exchange rate on your round-trip. And you're getting a 15% discount on that completely raw deal.

Hence, I think it is overrated: because multiple people on these boards think it is great, for reasons that are not entirely true.
 
Big Ben is a wonder that is either very good or completely useless depending on what you want to do.

Brandenburg gate is another one. If you are not going to war you don't get much use of it but if you do, it's powerful.
 
Brandenburg is harder to quantify, because you're spending 750 hammers but getting a GG and xp back. Big Ben is gold savings, which you translate directly to hammers. What sells me on Brandenburg (especially for Zulu) is that the promotion can mean the difference between a unit living or dying. It takes hammers to rebuild a unit--let alone the xp lost. I don't value the GG too much at that point in the game, but I do expect to build enough units to break even on the hammer cost of Brandenburg. Plus you're getting 2(!) GS points, as opposed to the 2 GM points on Big Ben I don't even want. (Although a Venetian arguably would see things differently). You can capture Big Ben and still get its use, but not so much with Brandenburg.

I think Big Ben is better captured.
 
Brandenburg is harder to quantify, because you're spending 750 hammers but getting a GG and xp back. Big Ben is gold savings, which you translate directly to hammers. What sells me on Brandenburg (especially for Zulu) is that the promotion can mean the difference between a unit living or dying. It takes hammers to rebuild a unit--let alone the xp lost. I don't value the GG too much at that point in the game, but I do expect to build enough units to break even on the hammer cost of Brandenburg. Plus you're getting 2(!) GS points, as opposed to the 2 GM points on Big Ben I don't even want. (Although a Venetian arguably would see things differently). You can capture Big Ben and still get its use, but not so much with Brandenburg.

I think Big Ben is better captured.

I nowdays like to play peddroelms honor/commerse/autocracy-style in witch big ben has a big part. I can see that is' not a useful wonder in many cases but in this one it acutally is. Every :c5gold: counts!
 
Are you funnelling over $10k in gold purchases through Big Ben? Because that's around the break-even point. That's half the reason I don't like it: because the break-even point is so high. And I don't want to just break even; I want to sink in 1000 hammers and get some crazy good bonus.
 
Big Ben is pretty good if you plan to rush buy ship parts

Right. The fact is, I always use it in a science game, at the very least for the last part. I cant get the timing down on Order GEs.
 
Are you funnelling over $10k in gold purchases through Big Ben? Because that's around the break-even point. That's half the reason I don't like it: because the break-even point is so high. And I don't want to just break even; I want to sink in 1000 hammers and get some crazy good bonus.

If you are buying spaceship parts with freedom it breaks even. Plus, a direct translation doesn't make much sense. After you've built your factory and public school there's not much else to build for a short while, Big Ben is a cheap wonder for it's placement. I can usually build it when I have nothing else to do with venice in about 7 turns while researching electricity. Then it discounts buying the rest of my factories, hydro plants, research labs, etc. Remember a lot of useful buildings are over 1k later and Big Ben Discounts them all. Spaceship parts are over 2000 and there are 6 of them. What else would I have done with the hammers at that time that was as valuable? It's not as if hammers translate directly into gold every time. I think with anyone other than venice you might build it and not spend over 10k though, but htat doesn't make it worthless if you had nothing else as valuable to build. Stacked with a commerce secondary tree the savings are ludicrous. I end up buying almost twice as much.
 
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