Wonder-Spamming Choices based on Game Strategy

dalamb

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I'm planning to play an IND leader soon and give in to my inner wonder-spamming builder somewhat, but only somewhat: I'm planning to pick a strategy and victory condition, and fiercely resist building anything not on that path. I found the strategy article on Knowing When to Build Wonders and madscientist's summary, plus several on specific other wonders, but decided I needed to group things by strategy. Here's what I found so far; I plan to edit in response to comments. Since I only play at Noble or below, I've tried to base everything here on other people's strategy articles rather than my own opinions where possible, but wound up posting a few of my own where I didn't have a link handy to something else.

Most wonders are just as beneficial if you conquer them instead of building them, though for pre-Astronomy wonders you're counting on them being on your own continent. Any wonder becomes more attractive if you have the appropriate accelerator -- or less attractive without. For example, some people consider that building the Pyramids or the Taj Mahal depends more on having stone or marble than on the victory condition.

National Wonders are in blue; World Wonders are in red.

Widely Useful

Several wonders are suitable for many or most victory conditions and economies.
  • The Great Library advances your research in the mid-game; even conquest/domination victories could benefit by getting to critical military technologies faster.
  • Heroic Epic: even peaceful strategies require defenders -- as long as you manage to get a 4th level unit somehow.
  • The Mausoleum extends your golden ages by 50%, which can be a huge boost. However, many people prefer to capture it and don't try to build it without marble.
  • National Epic: If you expect to get any Great People at all, getting them faster should help.
  • The Oracle gives a free technology.
  • The Taj Mahal gives a free golden age, good for production, GPP generation, and free civic changes.

Useful for Long Games

Some wonders are useful only for games that advance far along the tech tree and into the late game, but not useful otherwise. In particular, many conquest and domination games are finished before they become available or have enough time to pay off the investment.
  • The Internet project helps a lot when your technology is behind several AIs late in the game.
  • Oxford University speeds research if you expect to continue tech'ing past Education.

Victory Conditions

Conquest: Heroic Epic; possibly West Point and Pentagon if pursuing late-game conquest. The Globe Theatre in a high-food city gives you a powerhouse for whipping and drafting troops. Also wonders that reduce war weariness (Mount Rushmore; possibly Statue of Zeus to deny it to the AI though it might be attractive to let the AI spend the hammers on it instead of something more directly beneficial). In the late game, those that generate happiness resources might reduce help mitigate war weariness also (Broadway, Hollywood, Rock'n'Roll). The Kremlin can be useful for whipping military units in late-game warfare.

People don't seem to like the Red Cross (Medic I promotion) and usually don't expect to fight within their own borders, reducing the value of the GG-generation aspect of the Great Wall.

Cultural (mainly via jesusin): Hermitage, National Epic. His Wonder segment says "incomplete" so I'm guessing you might possibly go for:
  • Globe Theatre, for the 3 artist specialist slots; however, this is a less attractive investment if you're running Caste System.
  • Sistine Chapel, which also gives +2:culture: per specialist.
  • Taj Mahal, for the Golden Age (+100% GPP) and the +2:culture:
  • Maybe Statue of Liberty for the free specialists in every city, but because of the GP pool pollution (Great Merchant) maybe in a city producing very few other GPP.
  • some other wonders that generate GAhttp://www.garath.net/Sullla/pahatty_1.html points (though most are post-Nationalism, so come after jesusin's strategy requires shutting down research): Broadway, Hollywood, Mausoleum of Maussollos (though increasing Golden Age duration maybe more important), Notre Dame, Rock'n'Roll,

Diplomacy: You obviously benefit from building the Apostolic Palace or United Nations since you get a chance to be leader. For a UN victory some of the 'long game' wonders might be appropriate depending on what you need to do to secure the approval of enough AIs.

Domination: Since warring is the usual way to gain domination, the Conquest wonders help. Also those that help run a big empire: Forbidden Palace, Versailles. However, there's also a rare Cultural Domination approach (take over cities only via culture flipping) that requires certain culture buildings instead; see Sulla's "Passive-Aggressive Hatty" for an example.

Space Race Since this VC requires researching most of the tech tree, those that accelerate progress in science or generate GS points might help: Great Library, Oxford University, University of Sankore. Red Cross gives one GS GPP but isn't worth the investment for the six required hospitals and its own :hammers: cost. Space Elevator seems attractive at first, but people have calculated that the :hammers: investment and diversion to Robotics aren't worthwhile.

Economies

Economies are hybrids of different strategies, often specialized by cities; certain wonders help with certain aspects of the economy.

Cottages: I can't think of any.

Espionage: Those generating Great Spy points: Forbidden Palace, Great Wall, Kremlin, West Point.

Religious: Those that give benefits per state religion building: Sistine Chapel :)culture:), Spiral Minaret :)gold:), University of Sankore :)science:). Ankor Wat, Apostolic Palace :)hammers: per priest specialist). Those others that generate Great Prophet points: Chichen Itza, Moai Statues, Oracle, Stonehenge. Wall Street in a shrine city.

Specialists: Anything that gives free specialists of a type you already want: Great Library (scientist), National Park (any, per Forest Preserve), Statue of Liberty (one, of any type you can already run, in every city), Temple of Artemis (prophet). Possibly Pyramids for early Representation. If you expect to start several Golden Ages, the Mausoleum of Mausollos gives them a 50% boost

Trade Routes: The Great Lighthouse (+2 trade routes in each coastal city). Possibly Temple of Artemis, though people consider it weak and advise leaving it to an AI, in which case you send your own trade missions there. Perhaps buildings likely to generate Great Merchants (if you want to bulb trade-related techs or send them on trade missions): Colossos, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, United Nations, Versailles (though unlikely to be built in a city where you already have GM GPP buildings, unless you capture one), Wall Street.
 
Reserved.
Spoiler changes since original posting :
  • Change highlighting from orange/green to red/blue.
  • Revised language to reflect that economies are mixed.
  • Added a section on "generally useful" wonders, which also mentions the Internet.
  • Added Mausoleum under "specialists".
  • Added Globe Theatre to Conquest section.
  • Deprecated Space Elevator and Red Cross.
  • Added Oracle to "generally useful"
  • Added comment to the opening about conquering, and the effect of accelerators.
 
Even if you got a GM from the SoL, Sid Sushi is a nice thing to have if you're going for cultural victory. The Eiffel Tower is also nice for going cultural, although on noble and below, you've probably won the game by then.

It's a constant battle to keep my wonderspamming tendency under wraps. :lol:
 
National wonders you need for any strategy. You need units to protect you no matter what VC you pick (so you need HE). GP are always useful (NE). Always need some extra production (Moai, Ironworks). Always need science (Oxford). The only one that's not really directly helping every VC is Hermitage, which is needed for culture (or if you have tight borders).

With that, national wonders have been chatted at length, but the Globe in some games is the most important warring wonder, using it for drafting.

And obviously there's wonders like the Oracle or Colossus which don't really go too much towards one victory condition or another, but matter more about the map or the opponents or whatever the best strat to get a bit ahead is.
 
Readability suggestion: those color choices are hard to read, even for those of us not red/green colorblind.

Red and blue are probably better. Failing that, try using bold text.

Orange is probably a bad idea - the background of the message is a very faint gray (0xECECEC), which weakens the contrast.
 
@VoiceOfUnreason: I've edited for blue/red.
@UWHabs: Hmm. Maybe add a section on stuff not specific to any strategy? In the case of some of them, like Oracle, I've seen strategy articles specific to the wonder, so I could link to those.
@dirtyparrot: Not sure why you mention Sid's Sushi; because they're build-once stuff like world wonders? I know about the "Power of Sushi" article, but are there others that point to synergies with specific strategies?
 
There are a few national wonders that are reasonably justified in every game under every victory condition. Both the Heroic and National Epic can and should always be built. Even if you're going for the most peaceful of peaceful victories, it still makes a lot of sense to have one city crank out a ton of units, even if they are purely defensive. It's pretty hard to come up with a good reason not to build Oxford. Wall Street would be required in any game where you found a corporation.
 
There are a few national wonders that are reasonably justified in every game under every victory condition. Both the Heroic and National Epic can and should always be built. Even if you're going for the most peaceful of peaceful victories, it still makes a lot of sense to have one city crank out a ton of units, even if they are purely defensive. It's pretty hard to come up with a good reason not to build Oxford. Wall Street would be required in any game where you found a corporation.

It's not that uncommon for me to never get a L4 unit in an entire game, so no HE then in those "most peaceful of peaceful victories" ;)

Oxford is the only one that's absolutely needed for any game plan IMO. With the possible exception of a Pangaea domination spree.
 
Also, Stonehenge can be considered for Cultural and Domination victory conditions- Free Monuments provide instant culture that get you started and give you border pops to get the land under your control. It also frees up an early build slot so you can build a temple, granary, axeman, ect.

Scotland Yard should also be under Espionage Economies as it is an incredibly useful National Wonder that doubles that cities EPT.
 
It's not that uncommon for me to never get a L4 unit in an entire game, so no HE then in those "most peaceful of peaceful victories" ;)

Oxford is the only one that's absolutely needed for any game plan IMO. With the possible exception of a Pangaea domination spree.

There are many games where I do not build Oxford (on immortal)... Often If I know I am going to just roll over the world with cannons and I have relatively low production I will build trebs to upgrade/stuff to clean up after cannons instead of universities so that I can conquest faster. That being said if a game will last past the renaissance era I will build oxford.

Meanwhile, National epic is probably the closest to needed for any game plan.
 
Revised language to reflect that economies are mixed. Added a section on "generally useful" wonders, which also mentions the Internet. Added Mausoleum under "specialists".

Still thinking about Korias' comments. In BtS Scotland Yard has to be built with a GSpy, and you can get many of them. I'm happy to put it in, but I think I need to find an article I once read that discusses the best uses of GSpies.

There are a bunch of "perhaps" and "possibly" that were my own guesses; I'd feel happier if someone would confirm or deny.

I plan to track down and link to various threads about specific wonders; I think madscientist had a bunch a few months ago.
 
I'm planning to pick a strategy and victory condition, and fiercely resist building anything not on that path.

Then I suggest building only national wonders.
For instance, thinking Versailles and Forbiden Palace will help you for domination is a false good idea. For that, you need troops (obviously), and in order to have that, you need production (more cities/forges). To support that, you need currency, courthouses, and if you are not done by then , state property. No Versailles/FP here... those are just waste of hammers. Though it's a good idea to aim for AI wonder cities first :goodjob:

Cheers
 
I used to approach wonders this way as well. Primarily, I was interested in SE wonders (Pyramids, GL, NE, Parthenon, SoL, etc.). However, there are also the TRE wonders (GLH, ToA).

If you are playing an ind civ though and you spot stone and/or marble nearby, there had better be a good reason to not spam wonders (e.g., aggressive civ on your doorstep, REXer threatening to box you in, etc.)
 
Then I suggest building only national wonders.
For instance, thinking Versailles and Forbiden Palace will help you for domination is a false good idea. For that, you need troops (obviously), and in order to have that, you need production (more cities/forges). To support that, you need currency, courthouses, and if you are not done by then , state property. No Versailles/FP here... those are just waste of hammers. Though it's a good idea to aim for AI wonder cities first :goodjob:

Cheers

Well, Domination requires you to actually HOLD those cities. Hence, the reduced maitnence, increased culture, and general benefits the FP and Versailles provide will help you conquer the world.
 
:lol: Thanks you to remind me the basics :)

My point is that Versailles and FP are unefficient ways of reducing maintenance. Courthouses (120 hammers) /currency together with adequate empire management are enough. I have yet to see good domination games where the two mentionned wonders play any role. :)

Cheers,
Ras

edit: if the OP plays an industrious leader for domination, he should focus on spamming forges, not wonders. I posted in the first place because the OP speaks of being efficient with buildings, but then start to consider crappy wonders that are just waste of hammers. I spoke about domination, but the same applies for space race. Space elevator is mentionned while it's just bad. Labs should be in place everywhere when you got the tech unlocking this...
 
Well, an effective combo I found when doing Domination is to conquer a city in a cluster of enemy cities, and then build the Hermitage and Versailles in that city to get the boost to those cities and culture flip them. This is especially true if you're fighting a war on two fronts and need the reduced maitnence to pay for your troop costs.
 
We haven't the same idea of efficiency I think :) How many troops can you build with the hammers you sunk into Versailles and Hermitage? Think about it...

And not to be annoying, but from a certain level, it's just impossible to flip AI cities... they spam so much troops that this idea is just an utopia...

Cheers
 
For a Diplomatic win there's the obvious Apostolic Palace and/or United Nations. Over and above that:

Cristo Redentor (if not Spiritual) -- allows you to temporarily adopt civics/religions for diplo bonus without anarchy.

The Hanging Gardens -- free population for more votes

And in particular for an AP win:

* Possibly those that improve chances of GProphets, if you plan on actually founding the AP religion -- Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza, Shwedagon Paya, Stonehenge, any shrine.
* Sistine Chapel, Spiral Minaret, University of Sankore -- for synergy with state religion
 
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