Cristo Redentor - most powerful wonder ever?

Seriously, is this the most powerful wonder Civ has ever seen? I think it might even be better than Leonardo's Workshop from Civ II. (OK, maybe not) But let's see what you can do with this wonder...

Start off a turn with your normal civics. Switch to Slavery to whip a few buildings (make sure you switch to Organized Religion if you're whipping a building or Police State for a unit). Switch to Univeral Suffrage to rush buy stuff. Switch to Nationhood to draft a few units. Switch to Serfdom and perform all of your Worker actions. Now switch back to your "End of Turn" civics. Rinse and Repeat.

If a rival Civ asks you to switch to their civic, you can do so and then immediately switch back for a diplo bonus and no harm done. You can switch religions to facilitate trades and then switch right back again. The possibilites are almost endless.

Should something be done about this? I know it's a late-game wonder, but Radio isn't all that late anymore with the longer Modern Age, and BTS is all about the late-game anyway.

Well, IMHO it's an exploit that will probably (and better be) fixed in the next patch. I think that, in each of the five categories of civics you should only be able to switch once and once only. Which means you could change ALL you civics but, only one switch in the government part, one switch in the religion part, and so on.

As it is, Cristo Redentor is an exercise of micromanagement and exploitation...

If it is a mistake that you can switch civics multiple times per turn, I don't understand how the testers/programmers overlooked this one. I noticed it in my first game.

I don't think it's quite that powerful because it's available at quite a late stage of the game. Normally by the time I can build it, I'm already cruising to victory. Maybe I should try a higher difficulty.

Edit: I think the most powerful Wonder I used on a regular basis was Sung Tzu's Academy in Civ3.

I just used it in a Future Advanced start. It was wonderful when I was attacked. I had 10000+ gold in the bank, and just went on a rush buy festival.

You should be only able to make 1 switch per turn.

Empiremaker said:

You should be only able to make 1 switch per turn.

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QFT

I refuse to micromanage that much anyway, but I think it must have been an oversight.

Don't you still have to wait the five (or whatever) turns between civic changes (like spiritual civs do)?

^^ Nope, instant and no wait time.
Cristo Redentor needs this ability to be of any advantage to spiritual civs. Building to prevent is ok, but I'd still like their to be some benefit. I've used it, it doesn't break the game for me, bear in mind I still have costs to deal with if I whip and spend just because I can.

seasnake said:

^^ Nope, instant and no wait time.
Cristo Redentor needs this ability to be of any advantage to spiritual civs. Building to prevent is ok, but I'd still like their to be some benefit. I've used it, it doesn't break the game for me, bear in mind I still have costs to deal with if I whip and spend just because I can.

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Well, that's arguable. You *DO* get benefits: GPP and Culture. Still, I think that it was clearly designed to be an advantage to all the leaders in the same fashion, and yes, it would be quite unfair to Spiritual leaders. Still, a bit of tweaking is necessary. I'm pretty sure this was overlooked or somehow unnoticed by Firaxis -- although I have to admit it's a bit awkward, given they usually do a lot of playtesting and this exploit is a major one.

I'm expecting to see this issue resolved in the forthcoming patch, announced to be available in about 3 weeks.

Yeah? It's the most powerful. And guess what. We GOT IT. So, I recommend all of your countries to surrender to Brazil right now.

well the only really 'micromanagy' part is Worker actions (something that isn't a 1 turn deal)

The only thing that stops this wonder being incredibly overpowered is how close it is to mass media in the tech tree. If the AI get the UN then you end up getting your civic options limited pretty quickly.

Though microing that much is ridiculously boring, I think that they should make 1 turn of waiting between civic changes instead of none.

Orion071 said:

If a rival Civ asks you to switch to their civic, you can do so and then immediately switch back for a diplo bonus and no harm done. You can switch religions to facilitate trades and then switch right back again.

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that alone would make it worth the hammers to me!

InvisibleStalke said:

The only thing that stops this wonder being incredibly overpowered is how close it is to mass media in the tech tree. If the AI get the UN then you end up getting your civic options limited pretty quickly.

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well, we can veto UN votes now can't we? i haven't seen UN built in BtS yet, but i know that a "Never!" vote on an AP issue doesn't pass the vote and simply not apply it to the guy that vetoed. it makes the issue not pass at all. i was assuming the UN was the same way? of course it pisses your people off but there's always gotta be a downside.

cristo redentor is obscenely beautiful and wonderful. being able to whip in police state and swap to US to buy stuff in other cities? draft a few volunteers to babysit my cities, then stay there for barracks + and no upkeep or end the turn in free speech for culture to slow down the bad guys, or vassalage if i want more exp? sign me up!!! "i am woman, hear me change my mind" as they say. add in that i sometimes get really perfectionist (hubby says incredibly absurdly obsessive) and will sit there micromanaging to get everything just right when i'm in one of those moods. yes sometimes my turns take a very long time to play in late game wars, but i have fun doing it . and it's single player so at least i'm not making anybody wait around.

i absolutely think CR is the most powerful, and most broken, wonder evah. even considering how high it is in the tech tree, the benefits as implemented are just gamebreaking if you're as insane as i am. but you bet i'm gonna use it until they patch it! i am having way way way too much fun *giggle*

on the obsessive MMg front...

Krikkitone said:

well the only really 'micromanagy' part is Worker actions (something that isn't a 1 turn deal)

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well, at the start of your turn, swap to serfdom. hit ctrl-a. that makes all units that had actions queued, do them. then you hit the / key, which makes your next available worker active. give him an order, keep pressing / until all workers have their jobs. bingo, all workers that were doing something, and that you just gave orders to, did them at quicker speed! now go back to F3 and go to slavery/etc and go thru cities ... yeah ok, admitting i have a problem is the first step isn't it?

Frankly, I don't think it's overpowered for the simple reason that you CAN'T win a game with it.

Heck, you can win a game with the Pyramids if you get it early and you're philosophical and you run representation.

This wonder is fun and nice but it's not overpowered. I actually happen to think that the best use for it is giving it to switch civics demands.

And like someone said if the AI gets UN, this will become of little use.

Also you don't want to be switching around late in the game anyway. Why would you want to whip and draft so late in the game when you can get units every turn from high production cities anyway?

By that stage, I never run slavery even if I can.

personally i find the exploitative use of it to be quite lame.....and i never bother building it...my usual tech paths pretty much make it obsolete as soon as i build it, not worth it.

I personally think it is overpowered and will be nerfed in a patch.

I agree that Cristo Redentor is a very powerful late-game Wonder. Ever since I discovered what it does I prioritize it. Although it is quite useful, I still don't think it's as powerful as the United Nations.

Although I haven't exploited the CR like the OP described, I don't think that it's a serious problem. Switching to Slavery or Nationhood to either rush buildings/units to completion or draft units have their own inherent consequences, so if the Player tried this repeatedly they'd quickly depopulate their cities and/or cripple their cities with unhappiness.

As for adopting the Civics that your rivals request, sure you can do this, but in the late-game usually the Civs adopt the same Civics on their own; and even if they don't, UN Resolutions force them to anyway.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the CR was patched so you could only change each category of Civic once per turn -- but I don't think this is an urgent problem that needs fixing.

KMadCandy said:

well, we can veto UN votes now can't we? i haven't seen UN built in BtS yet, but i know that a "Never!" vote on an AP issue doesn't pass the vote and simply not apply it to the guy that vetoed. it makes the issue not pass at all. i was assuming the UN was the same way? of course it pisses your people off but there's always gotta be a downside.

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You can vote NEVER, but its a big hit to happiness. I've voted NEVER on a series of AP resolutions and had cities at -15 happy. Luckily it was just a couple of cities that had that religion. But no way would I sustain that empire wide if its the same -5 per vote.

Last game it happened to me - I built CR and then steadily lost my options for switching. I was lucky in that my self-sacrificing vassal decided to vote NEVER against a Universal Sufferage switch - that would have been pretty painful for me.

I love the wonder, and the exploit options are fun, but I think they aren't quite as gamebreaking as they first appeared now. If you have a big lead on the AI maybe, but if you don't you may lose its capabilities fairly quickly. And if you do have a big lead, then you've won already.

Drafting troops quickly isn't quite so devastating when you can build or cash rush them at the same speed without losing pop or happiness. Having slavery was useful for my island cities to pop rush improvements with OR, but if I think of the total hammers I gained through that compared to the hammers invested I don't think its gamebreaking.

You can gain the benefits of being in Theology while drafting - but building the Pentagon does the same thing and affects your non draft production. You can pop rush buildings, but important late game improvements are too expensive on population to be worth it. I'd rather spend cash.

It does definitely help diplomacy and will probably shave a couple of turns off a spaceship win or let you respond more quickly to a military crisis. So its good. But coming at Radio, its not gamebreaking unless you have already won.

KMadCandy said:

well, at the start of your turn, swap to serfdom. hit ctrl-a. that makes all units that had actions queued, do them. then you hit the / key, which makes your next available worker active. give him an order, keep pressing / until all workers have their jobs. bingo, all workers that were doing something, and that you just gave orders to, did them at quicker speed! now go back to F3 and go to slavery/etc and go thru cities ... yeah ok, admitting i have a problem is the first step isn't it?

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Yeah, but what do workers have left to do by the time you have Radio? I'm already at the stage where they are carpeting the desert with railroads just to pickup their monthly paychecks.