Favorite Wonder -Industrial

Vote for your favorite, whatever level or settings you play.

This one is not so clear.I'll take Leo's for the settler>engineer and boats upgrades

leo/adams/darwin are all awesome but my vote goes to leo

I love Adam Smith's also, but if I had the choice between the two, I'd have to choose Leo's upgrade capability over the boost in income of Adams

I have voted for Leonardo's Workshop since it upgrades the units at no cost.

But Darwin's Voyage gives two immediate advances and Adam Smith's Trading Co pays the bill for most of the cities improvements.

I voted for Smith's although I always get Leo's too. The upgrade of ships and engineers are the most important because the line of upgrades stops before howies and planes and tanks but it can really transform your whole civ. But Smith's just means that you have an enormous cash explosion and can start rushing troops if you need to. I love the few turns after you get it and find yourself with hundreds and hundreds in the bank. Mmmm....... rushbuying!
I'd much rather have Bach's than Darwin's though. It can make a big difference on higher levels and allow you to reduce lux % by ten or so - more money!

Leo definitely! However, isn't it ironic that LW is considered an industrial wonder when DaVinci himself was a "Renaissance man"?

What's up with that?

J.S. Bach's.

Given a choice, I've always choosen Adam's. The cash flow is just too much, I can't resist. Leo's is good, but I preper clandestine bribing operations as opposed to all-out war. It's just more satisfying to take a lot of cities intact instead of have to go through dozens of turns on reconstruction and development. It sucks to reconstruct all those improvements.

Adam Smith..saves lots of coins! Starlifter has a post somewhere on this one that quantifies the actual savings over time.

Most of the wonders here are important, but Adams first, than Leo's and J.S. Bach, and whatever else you can grab!

JS Bach, easily. At least at higher difficulty levels. nothing can duplicate the effects of JS Bach, and it allows an early growing, warlike Democracy, and will allow a very militaristic late gaem democracy.

Leos is nice, esp. for upgrading NONEs and captured city contents, plus units in the field. But losing it just means one must deliver a few extra caravans, and take a delay for replacing naval units. Settlers simply found the new cities (or join), but NONE engineers from Leos are nice!

Adam Smith is good, but losing it just means delivery of an extra caravan across the world every few turns.

I have to disagree with you here, Starlifter, and go with the majority. Bach's Cathedral is very nice to have -- and with the "Pre-Modern Triad," its always mine for the taking. It is especially important to have between the expiration of the Gardens with the Railroad and the "building" of the Cure for Cancer; and it also minimizes the impact of developing Communism. And while I've never NOT had Bach's Cathedral -- thanks to the first "Triad" of the game, and since the AI always places such a low priority on obtaining Theology -- I'm not altogether sure that Bach's Cathedral is absolutely essential to a militaristic Power Democracy. A well-established Power Democracy should generate enough Freight to allow a high loss to Luxury expenses to avoid Civil Disorder during the prosecution of global war as a Democracy.

And it is as an advocate of Modernization that, for me, Leonardo's Workshop comes into play. Smash has already mentioned the transformation of Settlers into Engineers, an important part of my entire Modernization schema (the "Early Modern Triad"). Leonardo's also allows the "hey-presto" transformation of Caravans into Freight, another integral part of the Modernization schema (the "Modern Triad"); and I usually have built up a substantial surplus of quality Caravans just waiting to become Freight, to be used for the "Take Off" period of Modernization (a la Rostow).

It is worth noting that Darwin's Voyage is also integral to the Modernization strategy, since it can shorten the period between the aquisition of the Railroad (-50% to trade bonuses) and the Corporation/Freight unit (+50% to trade bonuses) to two turns, allowing the continued maximization of Trade bonuses.

I like all three of the suggested ones and I also like Newtons!

I voted for JS bachs cathedral though...

It is worth noting that Darwin's Voyage is also integral to the Modernization strategy, since it can shorten the period between the aquisition of the Railroad (-50% to trade bonuses) and the Corporation/Freight unit (+50% to trade bonuses) to two turns, allowing the continued maximization of Trade bonuses.

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If trade is working, I often find the Darwin hurts production, since it costs gold at a critical point in the game. This is because I have one turn per tech going at this point, via caravans. This yields about 1800 gold per turn. To build darwin uses freight that are worth 200 gold (4x each shield in the wonder), but my delivered freights get 500 to 700 gold and 500 to 700 science each, at this point (typically). I suppose I could both deliver the freight (wasting all teh science) and build the Voyage, but I find it is better to build the Voyage when I must suspend trade for one or two turns from flight to radio (I usually refuse to waste freight at 33% trade value until the Airports are rushed). This is where I try and come in with Mr. Darwin... to bridge the 2-turn science gap.


If you have tons and tons of caravans/frieght, I suppose it does not matter when Darwin is built..... it's going to waste an advance somewhere, no matter what. But it "give" that extra advance, too.... so you actually come out only one advance "ahead", vs. if you never built it at all.

Originally posted by starlifter

If trade is working, I often find the Darwin hurts production, since it costs gold at a critical point in the game. This is because I have one turn per tech going at this point, via caravans. This yields about 1800 gold per turn. To build darwin uses freight that are worth 200 gold (4x each shield in the wonder), but my delivered freights get 500 to 700 gold and 500 to 700 science each, at this point (typically). I suppose I could both deliver the freight (wasting all teh science) and build the Voyage, but I find it is better to build the Voyage when I must suspend trade for one or two turns from flight to radio (I usually refuse to waste freight at 33% trade value until the Airports are rushed). This is where I try and come in with Mr. Darwin... to bridge the 2-turn science gap.


If you have tons and tons of caravans/frieght, I suppose it does not matter when Darwin is built..... it's going to waste an advance somewhere, no matter what. But it "give" that extra advance, too.... so you actually come out only one advance "ahead", vs. if you never built it at all.

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Actually, I usually throw food caravans into Darwin's, (and sometimes a Salt or Hide caravan that failed to reach a given city before the infernal demand toggled.); I never throw a valuable commodity caravan into Darwin's Voyage. And usually with my Modernization process, I've already reached the point of the game where I've got to gold to burn, so the incremental building of food caravans can be afforded.

And if you apply your caravans correctly, you don't need to waste either a caravan or an advance. Our current Succession is an example: In 1774, I delivered 9 Caravans to various cities to complete the Railroad advance; in 1776, Scientific Research completed just over half of the Industrialization advance with our Science maxed at 90% (the other 10% in lux to keep everyone content); our anemic Colossus city was producing only 232 in science, so to be on the safe, I wasted one caravan at -50% due to the Railroad to ensure that research on Industrialization would be complete before the game reached DC; thus, in 1778, Industrialization was discovered; and then Darwin's Voyage was completed with the use of IRB'd Food Caravans to yield Communism and the Corporation in the same turn. Hence, in this game, only one commodity caravan was used at the -50% "penalty" for the Railroad before the Corporation upgraded all our caravans to freight.

As for the Airport, as long as I have the ability to Incremental Rush Build a Freight unit (for 235g) and deliver it for a profit in excess of 1000g, and do so in a single turn, I don't really worry about losing that Airport bonus. That is one concrete measure of Power Democracy in action: the ability to be wasteful and still make economic killing.

Leo's.

J. S. Bach is a close second, but is less urgent. If one is forced to choose, then it is a time of trouble -- safety first.

A good question that might be available for a computational answer is the value of the tradeoff between JSB & Adam Smith. Since one can toggle the Lux/Tax up or down a notch, which wonder would yield the better payoff? Quantity of cities may not be as much a factor as infrastructure intensity. Also city size/game level may come into play, but for argument's sake assume that all of the cities are at the stage where the next citizen is unhappy & JSB is fully effective. Will JSB allow a toggle notch of -1 Lux, +1 Tax? Will JSB generate one or two more tax paying citizens with WLTPD?

Similarly if Adam's allows a few more coins per city per turn, this could make the difference of RB better infrastructure or more caravans (and more money).

Final thought -- if all of the rest of the SSC is in place, what is the value of Newton's? -- I figure in a good SSC, we're talking about a few hundred beakers+ -- pushing Adam's down to fourth or lower in my book. (Again we could figure the toggle between Sci & Tax and the tradeoff of beakers with coins.) :yinyang:

That is one concrete measure of Power Democracy in action: the ability to be wasteful and still make economic killing.

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Very true!

A good question that might be available for a computational answer is the value of the tradeoff between JSB & Adam Smith.

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In almost all my games, JSB hands down. It allows Democratic cities to grow fast, and allows aupport of Mil units while still growing. No other wonder duplicates the effect of JSB, and you can't do anything at all withthe slider or production to compensate for it's loss. The overlooked thing is that it's a "line 5" content maker..... any 2 red/black dudes are made content, and it occurs after the Unit away from Home occurs. This wonder is more valuable than Leo's, if you fight in a strong (esp. early) Republic or Democracy... particularly if you want to continue growing while you are destroying your neighbors.

With Shakespeare & rehoming, you can mitigate some effect fo teh loss of JSB, but not all.

Since one can toggle the Lux/Tax up or down a notch, which wonder would yield the better payoff?

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In Demo/Rep, JSB. You need only deliver a 700 gold freight to make up for 10 turns of Adam Smith loss. Nothing can make fully up for the loss of JSB.

Will JSB allow a toggle notch of -1 Lux, +1 Tax? Will JSB generate one or two more tax paying citizens with WLTPD?

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1. Depends
2. It will often generate way more than two, due to the way the Lux cap is computed, esp. with MK, BN, & SE.

I like the automatic unit upgrade of Leonardo's Workshop. It saves a lot of time and shields.

Leo's wins this hands down. I love getting that warriors/pikemen to musketeers and then riflemen upgrade. SoL running a close second, for quick and painless govt change late in the game.

All the votes aren't in yet to declare leo's the winner.