Top 5 Wonders

[Piemaster]

Did a search but couldn't find that this thread had been done before, so I'll run with it.

What, in your opinion, are the 5 most powerful wonders in the game?

Note that we're not just talking about raw power here. If a wonder has a game-breaking ability, but comes too late to be useful or costs too many shields to be economical etc then it should lose points. Alternately, if a wonder has a modest ability, but is cheap or can be built at a time where its effectiveness is maximised, then it should gain points.

Go to town

[Thanny]

1) The Pyramids (early Representation)
2) The Kremlin (everything's cheaper)
3) The Space Elevator (for space victory) or The Pentagon (for conquest)
4) Hollywood/Rock N Roll/Broadway (trade for resources or money)
5) The Three Gorges Dam (if you can build it in time to be useful)

The one that would be killer, but for the fact that you can't build it until it's entirely useless, is The Internet (what the Great Library used to be in the original Civ).

[volfan37132]

I generally attempt 2-3 from

Stonehenge
Great Library
Great Lighthouse
Oracle

depending on the map and availability of coastal, stone and marble.
I might try Great Wall, Pyramids or Hanging Gardens if I'm industrial
for engineer points. From there I usually do not try another until

Statue of Liberty
Three Gorges Dam

Wonders are not quite as game changing as they were in Civ 2 and Civ 3.

[Blaarg]

1. Pyramids - The ability to switch to repsentation so early is very powerful.
Works extremely well with the Great Library.

2. Cristo Redentor - Not only takes away anarchy, but makes it so you can switch civics as many times as you want per turn. Need to whip a unit? Switch to slavery, whip it, switch back, all in one turn.

3. Statue of Liberty - Gives you a free specialist in every city, a very powerful, and always welcome bonus.

4. Great Library - 8 Science GPP per turn for most of the game is the reason this is so nice, combined with the Pyramids and it's also 12 beakers per turn. A very nice building in either your science city or your GPP farm.

5. Oracle - Being able to rush a tech that would normally take 20 or so turns can be a huge advantage if played right. This wonder is the center piece of some strategies.

[Sisiutil]

1. The Great Library: The GL boosts your research, granted, but its real power is based upon the Great Scientists it generates. You can lightbulb your way to Liberalism while researching other technologies. I many games this is the only early wonder I build. It practically guarantees I'll have the tech lead by mid-game. Useful for either the CE or SE.
2. Apostolic Palace/United Nations: Either one of these wonders is hugely powerful for a very simple reason--you can win the game with them. Why aren't they #1? Well, you don't necessarily have to build them yourself; in fact sometimes it's advantageous not to.
3. The Oracle: The early-game version of Liberalism; gaining a free tech that early can be huge in so many ways, and the Great Prophet points may come in handy as well. However, you have to divert research to get to it. I usually only bother these days if I start with Mysticism.
4. The Pyramids: Early Representation, natch, to boost research and happiness. However, I usually only build the 'mids if I'm going to run a specialist economy. Otherwise I get along fine without them. They're expensive. I usually get along fine without them, but if I have them, the game's as good as won.
5. Mausoleum of Maussollos: A bit of a surprise, perhaps? This one is huge especially if you're not playing as a Spiritual leader. Golden Ages have been improved immensely in BtS and this wonder makes them even better. Two Golden Ages with this wonder amounts to a free, bonus Golden Age. The MoM, three Great People, and the Taj Mahal will give you a whopping 45 turns (Epic speed) of boosted production, commerce/research, and GP points, and allow you to change civics with no anarchy. 15 turns of boosted production is usually enough to queue-build a huge army (especially if you start queue-building before the GA), switch to the war civics to produce the units with more XPs, then switch out of them before it's done. The downside is that there might be better uses for those Great People, and you may not beat the AI to the Taj.

[DigitalBoy]

The Pyramids
The Great Library
The Hanging Gardens (seriously)
Mausoleum of Maussollos
The Great Lighthouse (if you have a lot of coastal cities)

[Orion071]

5. Stonehenge - For a non-Creative civ, this is extremely useful for popping borders of new cities. It's even more useful now in BtS since it doesn't obselete until Astronomy.

4. Pyramids - One that I normally don't build, but the Representation civic is oh so useful early in the game.

3. Oracle - Getting a powerful free tech so early in the game is a major boost. The Great Prophet points are good if you've founded an early religion too.

2. Mausoleum of Maussollos - I just started building this and wow is it powerful. I normally have 3 golden ages in a game (1 from the Taj and 2 from 3 GPs) and the Mausoleum means an extra 1 1/2 golden ages for me.

1. Cristo Redentor - As I said in this thread, I think this may be the most powerful wonder in all of Civ history (OK, 2nd to Leonardo's Workshop). The nerf to have a 1 turn wait between civics changes will probably drop it down the list. But right now, it let's you run almost every civic and all religions simultaneously. Micromanagement hell? Most certainly. But some of us enjoy that sort of thing.

[DrLaban]

1) The Great Library. For the reasons Sisiutil brought up.

2) The Great Lighthouse. This is unconcentional but in a civ with a bunch of coastal cities those +2 commerce per town kickstarts the economy, especially considering that it is a cheap wonder. If you have some small islands close to your border those cities brings in 7 commerce from round 2 at size one. I think this is one of the more underestimated wonders.

3) The Pyramids. Hugely powerful, powerful enough to change the direction of an entire game. Expensive, though.

4) The Oracle. For the reasons Sisiutil gave above.

5) I don't know really, I don't like the other wonders so much.

[CyberTyrant]

I can't believe nobody hasn't mentioned the Statue of Zeus.

My five:

The Oracle
United Nations
Statue of Zeus
Cristo Redentor
The Pyramids

[Diamondeye]

1: Pyramids; GE points and an insane ability, especially concerning . And that so early in the game.
2: The Great Library; 8 GS points before modifiers, and 12 beakers before modifiers can help a lot so early in the game.
3: The Statue of Liberty: Most useful on large maps, but nevertheless powerful. Every city can have an extra output of //// with this.
4: Uhh... oh... If nukes had been more powerful, Manhattan might have got in here. Instead, I'll choose The Oracle. See Sisiutils reasoning on this.
5: That'll be a randomer... Something useful, like... The Spiral Minaret - great for output

Originally Posted by DigitalBoy

Hanging Gardens (seriously)

Explain why this is better than SoL, please?

[DigitalBoy]

Originally Posted by Diamondeye

Explain why this is better than SoL, please?

For one, Statue of Liberty comes fairly late in the game. I sometimes have Rifling before I even have Constitution, let alone Democracy. In my current game, I have Assembly Line and don't yet have Democracy. It's a very large investment of beakers and hammers at a time in the game when I'm usually concentrating on military and industrialzation. Mathematics is an earlier and more important tech (more important for its time, that is), and the wonder itself is pretty cheap at 300 hammers (or 400 with aquaduct included). The Statue of Liberty was something I always used to try to build, but I consider it a luxury now.

Second, while the free specialist is a useful effect, your cities are so well developed by that point that the impact is not nearly as large as say, adopting mercantilism 500 years earlier. The extra GPPs are negligible by the time SoL is constructed, while Hanging Gardens can be built when the GPP threshold is still pretty low, and it gives great engineer points, which offers a slim chance at getting a great engineer.

Finally, the extra population can be a boon to growth or can be whipped for production should the need arrive, and the extra health starts to become useful around the middle ages and remains useful for the remainder of the game.

[Polycrates]

Great Library - 8GPP/turn is so sexy
Great Wall - In BTS the early Great Spy points are so powerful as to be borderline broken
Pyramids - early rep. Too expensive and risky to be worth building most of the time though, even when specialist-heavy, but a wonder you can base your whole game around has to be on the list
Shwedagon Paya - Pretty ordinary for non-spiritual, but possibly the best wonder for a Spiritual civ.
Kremlin - not too pricey, and the bonus for rushbuying is nice, and comes at about the point where rushbuying becomes very useful

[jagdtigerciv]

Is the Shwedagon Paya that useful for spiritual civs? It's only really good for an early Free Religion, as every other religion civic is available pretty early on. Free Religion isn't all that great for Spiritual civs, as religious wonders require a state religion.

[Silence101]

1) The Great Library (Two free scientists this early in the game is about as good as it gets.)
2) The Great Wall (No barbarian troubles... and, this early, a great spy can do wonders.)
3) The Statue of Liberty (One free specialist that never leaves... unless you lose the SoL. It does come too late, though.)
4) The Oracle (One free, early, expensive tech... juicy...)
5) The Pyramids (Powerful if you're running an early SE... and you should be.)

Honorable Mentions:
The AP (Production bonus anyone?)
The University of Sankore (The more research, the merrier... more for religious Civ's though.)
The Statue of Zeus (Domination Victory / Conquest Victory / War-happy Loon / Peaceful Defensive-minded Builder)
The Spiral Minaret (We all need money... again, more for religious Civ's.)
The Sistine Chapel (Two words... Cultural Victory.)
The Space Elevator (Two more words... Space Race Victory... There are three types of people: those who can count and those who can't.)

[Polycrates]

Originally Posted by jagdtigerciv

Is the Shwedagon Paya that useful for spiritual civs? It's only really good for an early Free Religion, as every other religion civic is available pretty early on. Free Religion isn't all that great for Spiritual civs, as religious wonders require a state religion.

Hell yes! The only exceptions are Egypt and Arabia with their easy early prophets, and I guess maybe on lower levels where you have a chance at founding Buddhism or Hinduism.
Ignoring the religious tech line saves a lot of teching that can be better spent elsewhere. Plus you can delay bulbing Philosophy in favour of something else. You'll be getting theocracy and pacifism quite a bit earlier, and you'll have other nice techs to boot (eg currency/col). FR is nice to have early as well, and you can do something else other than the liberalism beeline.
One of the biggest strengths of Spiritual is exploitation of the religious civics by constant back-and-forth switching, and Shwedagon Paya makes that much earlier and easier.
Plus early aesthetics is a really nice trade tech, and leads quickly to literature to boot.

[Algeroth]

1)Pyramids GE points + early representation? Marathon Win.
2)Great Library Gimme my great scientists.
3)Sistine Chapel Not so good before BTS, but the +5 from state religion buildings if easy culture victory.
4)Oracle Free tech can't be bad.
5)Christo Rendetor Comes too late, But it's too powerfull.

Honorable Mentions:
Apostolic Palace Don't uderestimate the power of crusade or forced peace.
Great Wall Early great spy is nearly broken and getting rid of brabs is nice too.
Hanging gardens GE points, health and extra population. Good for me, good for you.

[troytheface]

Great Wall - nothing does as much so early- free protection -free settling,
free great spies- great general ease...for the price nothing can match it in me opinion. I say Lincoln with the Great Wall and the ....

Parthenon- not sure what the hell it does but i read a "synergy" post in the war academy and the writer suggested it for Philosophical leaders- i think birthrate=more great people
(same writer suggested the Great Wall for Charismatic leaders- so Lincoln with GW and Parthenon is the logical choice)

Chitza Itza - The step child of the wonders! But i say if your playing the Aztecs it is a must- go for Code of Laws- which enables the aztec courthouse UB and a defensive wonder that can't hurt and it matches the civ. And if your not playing the aztecs you still need courthouses - when i first started playnig using "religions" as a new aspect of the game i instinctivly went for Code of Laws to found Confucionism and soon learned about how you can't settler spam - a strategy that was almost a neccessity in Civ3.
Since one has to get courthouses to expand- and since its nice to found a religion- which you can pop - and since you get Caste System (new Civic) and since while your there this wonder comes up-....i rank it #3. even tho i am not sure what it does. i think 25 percent defensive bonus for all cities. Which is to say...u need to expand at some point- u need courthouses to expand, having an auto defense bonus for those new cities provides a nice flow, pattern, that is logical. Seems like GW with ChitzaItza would also be good for protective civs.

Manhatten Project- When u play like i do your second or third near the end and u may have to nuke your way into the lead, or stop a space race win.
ol nukes- the fastest- least amount of units needed ect. - way.
And you need the Manhatten Project to do it- and i ain't wait'n on someone else to build it. Also nice if ur playing America cause the nuke should be their UU anyway if you ask me.

The Unknown- really depends on ur civ doesn't it? If i was Russia i would try for maybe the Great library, but as Babylon i'd go for the Hanging Gardens for the fun of it. So for the 5th wonder i vote relativity. (Seems like this should be #1 but i will stand by the Great Wall and the others because they overide civ specifics- France with Versaille is no match against a civ with the Manhatten project and 4 nukes aimed at Paris. However, if immersion is the name of the game then the "Unknown" would be #1.

And in an earliier "Top 3 " choices i listed the Shadogan Paya so i changed my stand obviously- but i give it an Honarable Mention because it was noted in a couple of above threads and i personally like it for reasons written and because it allows one to skip religion founding altogether and ride on free religion- and pick up Zeus while ur there.

Two last points - on another thread about this someone mentioned combos - Artimis and Great Lighthouse as a duo is better than lets say Pyramids and Kremlin. Wonder combinations (in this reasoning) outweigh the parts-

And too- Apocolyptic Palace/U.N./Apollo Project could all supercede everything else if your aiming for a specific kind of win.

[Party]

I just realised how much I miss Leonardo's Workshop from civIII.
I say Manhatten project, Christo Redentor, Pyramids, Pentagon, Kremlin, and the The Spiral Minaret.
(whoops more then 5 )

[Shoot the Moon]

1. Oracle: So many slingshots
2. Great Library
3. Great Wall
4. Parthenon
5. AP

In regards to the Pyramids, I would rather have the 4.5 Settlers or the 13 Axemen that it costs. It is way too expensive for that early a wonder.

[GVBN]

1. Oracle
2. Great Library
3. Great Wall
4. Parthenon
5. Pyramids