The useless Wonder.

What`s the worst wonders,you think? I just find most of the wonders in Civ4 is not worth building.
Most useless: Chichen Itza (+25% defense in all your cities
) I never build walls let along this......Wonder?
The Pyramid (Enables all government civics) You`re making me laughing for spend 450 in early for not gov civics(Dare you use some other civics instead of Hereditary in Early game? ). If, it enable Bureaucracy, Free Speech, Emancipation, State Property, Pacifism or Free Religion......The only useful is Representation - maybe it`s useful, but worth 450?
The Kremlin(-33% hurry production cost ): HURRY PRODUCTION? If I have the money( Slavery? Crazy...... ), I`ll boost my tech researching.

The Pyramids are great.
Representation is one of the best civics and you have the option to adopt Universal Suffrage for rushing (but without towns it's only worth it for Spiritual civs).
And the engineer points are quite nice...Great Enginners are also the only reason to build the Hagia Sophia.

chicken pizza is probably the worst wonder IMO. i got it for free the other night, peacefully flipped the city that had it by culture, and i still didn't care *giggle*. that's what i consider useless, if you spend no hammers making it yourself and still don't really see a point to having it . then again everybody liked me, i might have appreciated it more if folks had DoWd me in that game. i culture-flipped hagia sophia in another city, and that was really nice, since it never went obsolete (cultural victory, i was never going to research chemistry or steam power). not usually a wonder i care about, but in that situation, it was the only way my workers would ever get faster!

pyramids, i totally disagree with you. they're fantastic, one of the most powerful wonders out there. rep is awesome, and the road to constitution is long without it. if you're running SE, you're gonna get enough beakers back by the time you learn const to justify the 450 hammer cost of building it. and it can let you focus your research differently--since you have rep, you have the freedom to concentrate on the bottom half of the tech tree (guilds/banking/etc) if that's your sort of thing earlier than you could if you felt that you had to rush to constitution for representation. police state can be spiffy too if you like to clobber people over the head.

what's very very nice if you can swing it is to get an early GE by building great wall and/or a forge from early metalcasting and use him to build pyramids free, so that you don't spend the 450 hammers. that method does not always work out. hoping a neighbor builds it, and that you can capture it early, sometimes works; sometimes the RNG defines "neighbor" as somebody overseas, or shaka with 4 metal sources all directly underneath cities when you're playing egpyt and have horses, but no metals of your own, that sort of thing ... those don't always work out either.

Chichen Itza is the worst. Increasing the defensive bonus by 25% doesn't increase the number of siege units required to reduce defences to 0%. A much better bonus would be a 25% reduction in bombardment damage (similar to that provided by walls and castles).

Another disagreeing with the idea that the Pyramids are a bad wonder. It's certainly expensive and I won't go for it often but it provides so much freedom in the early game that I have to rate it as one of the most fun wonders in the game.

I know it's a popular wonder but, unless I really want that opening great prophet, I don't think that Stonehenge is worth the effort. I don't go for religeous strategies often but when I do, I often pick Egypt or the Arabs for unique building prophet points. Alternatively, any spiritual civ comes with cheap temples.

By far the worst wonder, is the Hagia Sophia, as even on huge maps, you just don't need the workers to do 50% more work at that time of the game, there isn't (or shouldn't) be much left to do.....Chichen Itza is most probably 2nd worst.

Edit: And to my utmost glee, one of the ais always seems to pop an engineer around that time, and uses him to rush said Hagia Sophia...a horrible, horrible waste

Hagia Sofia and Chichen Itza are definetley the worst. The worker bonus for Hagia Sofia is nothing spectacular, certainly not worth the productions costs, and the defence bonus that Chichen Itza gives is worthless. It doesn't take any longer to bombard the defences then it would if it wasn't there.

The Kremlin isn't much better though. The sheer fact that you need to be running Universal Sufferage in order to get the bonus makes building it seem pointless.

Finally, whilst not a bad wonder, the Hanging Gardens can be a double edged sword. The extra health is obviously great, and the extra population points is very useful towards your score, but this can sometimes drag your city into unhappiness. Not a bad wonder, but it's not always that beneficial.

@bongo-bongo: kremlin "hurrying" counts for pop-rushing too. hanging gardens i often prefer to capture, the instant growth spurt can be a hassle.

I'll agree with the Hagia Sofia. I never persue great engineers - to me they are the downside of the Pyramids - and I only ever consider switching to serfdom when I'm a spiritual civ. I don't often make such a switch during the pre-steam power lifetime of the Hagia Sofia.

I'll disagree about the double-edged sword affect of the Hanging Gardens. If it does increase a city's population above the happiness cap, then the only real difference is that an extra 2 (or possibly 3) are consumed. You don't have to increase your food output to meet this extra demand since the citizen is useless. You can also whip away the extra citizen.

Sorry to butt in again, but the Gardens (for a huge map / marathon ) player like myself, are one of my fav wonders. As Thedrin said, you can almost always do something with the extra populace, and since I generally get Monarchy first, happiness is not an issue at that time, but health often is.

And The Kremlin in a recentish game was a huge boon. It was a tiny islands / huge map, with most cities having very little land area, and hardly any production, but I had a huge amount of commerce and hence lots of gold to spend rushing. Since many cities started very late (as I said because of the map type, 60% of the world land was vacant until Astronomy), in a lot of cities, I bought most buildings.

And last point, what on earth's wrong with running Uni Suff anyways? In many games it's a no-brainer.

The Pyramids is the ONLY must-have wonder.

Most of the time, depending on the leader, I'll play a specialist economy. It is suggested that in order to get past the lower levels such as noble, you should try playing without going for any wonders at all, because then you'll learn how to actually manage your economy. I agree, and some expert players have said that it is possible to get a wonder on Deity if you devote yourself to it, but not multiple wonders. I believe Pyramids is the only must-have wonder, unless you're actually a financial leader.

Boy, that takes me back. "The Useless Wonder" is what my football coach always called me in junior high.

For my money, you can't get much more useless than the Internet. I built it in a few of my early games out of some misplaced nostalgia for the Great Library, and I've never managed to get more than two techs out of it. Plus, I always suspect there's some hidden production penalty because half your citizens are wasting all their time in forums.

The Pyramids is the ONLY must-have wonder.

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You don't have to run a specialist economy if you're not financial, a cottage economy will do fine. The award goes to either the Great Library or the Oracle.

Moon Pine said:

What`s the worst wonders,you think? I just find most of the wonders in Civ4 is not worth building.
Most useless: Chichen Itza (+25% defense in all your cities
) I never build walls let along this......Wonder?
The Pyramid (Enables all government civics) You`re making me laughing for spend 450 in early for not gov civics(Dare you use some other civics instead of Hereditary in Early game? ). If, it enable Bureaucracy, Free Speech, Emancipation, State Property, Pacifism or Free Religion......The only useful is Representation - maybe it`s useful, but worth 450?
The Kremlin(-33% hurry production cost ): HURRY PRODUCTION? If I have the money( Slavery? Crazy...... ), I`ll boost my tech researching.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the Chicken Itch/Chicken Pizza is the most useless in my opinion.

The Pyramids do what they did in Civ I, allow you to change gov types to suit the circumstances before you've researched the nescessary techs. There it was considered a gamebreaker. I think it's one of the coolest wonders in history, IRL and in the various versions of Civilization. Granted, it's handier if you draw a leader like Brenus, so that it doesn't cost you any anarchy if you want to use Police State during a war, or switch to a cottage economy early for example.

The Great Wall? It's quite useful against the Black Ax Crush on a Huge, Marathon Plains map. I don't normally build it, but I do love the way it builds itself right off of the plans in the video.

The Kremlin is handy when you suffer a surpise attack and can't switch to slavery without some turns of anarchy to rush some wartime production.

I don't like slavery as a civic because I don't like slavery in history. The idea of whipping people to death because you lack patience is so disagreeable to me that it drains fun from the game. That probably makes The Pyramids and Kremlin more important to me.


Sometimes , though, I just build wonders to keep others from getting them.


Hagia Sophia at least gives Great Engineer points.


One I personally consider of little use is The Oracle because compared to a pair of scouts, it's an expensive way to get a tech in the early game.

The Kremlin CAN be a powerful wonder. It comes in late, but so does UniSuf (I think that's the one that lets you spend the gold). Without Pyramids, of course. -33% is great, especially if you have a lot of low-production cities.

Thedrin said:

You don't have to run a specialist economy if you're not financial, a cottage economy will do fine. The award goes to either the Great Library or the Oracle.

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...*cough*

Defiant47 said:

...I believe Pyramids is the only must-have wonder, unless you're actually a financial leader.

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Rusty Edge said:

One I personally consider of little use is The Oracle because compared to a pair of scouts, it's an expensive way to get a tech in the early game.

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O RLY? I always grab Theology or Feudalism with it, each at that point take about 27 and 45 turns respectively to research.

I Oracle slingshotted Feudalism once. The Oracle is a powerful wonder.
Running around with Longbowmen vs Warriors is fun.
And Vassalage is a wonderful Civic. After two military instructors, you've got longbowmen with Drill 3 (or Drill 4 for Protective civs) coming out of a city.

Defiant47 said:

Thedrin said:

You don't have to run a specialist economy if you're not financial, a cottage economy will do fine. The award goes to either the Great Library or the Oracle.

Click to expand...

...*cough*

Defiant47 said:

I believe Pyramids is the only must-have wonder, unless you're actually a financial leader.

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I don't see what you're alluding to.

mythmonster2 said:

O RLY? I always grab Theology or Feudalism with it, each at that point take about 27 and 45 turns respectively to research.

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I'm probably teching differently than you. For Feudalism? Go for it!

I usually think of it as I can't have everything, go for pyramids.




Oh, and Haga Sophia is handy for workers rebuilding stuff that's been pillaged,
especially if you have a vassal that's only pillages your enemy and settles in the culture gaps between conquered enemy cities.

Hagia Sofia, right. I forgot this giantic fake^^

One I personally consider of little use is The Oracle because compared to a pair of scouts, it's an expensive way to get a tech in the early game.

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......It`s most the best wonder, I think, 150= 1 free tech + 2

Representation......Really worth 450? And for , just one Engineer. Maybe, I built the Pyramid too early^^.

The Kremlin is handy when you suffer a surpise attack and can't switch to slavery without some turns of anarchy to rush some wartime production.

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I prefer Nationhood -> Drafts.