How do you normally pair up your national wonders?

[amit9up]

For me, most likely my capital is highest producer of gold. So it gets Oxford and Wall Street. After that well its fuzzy. I can never decide which city gets heroic epic, national park etc

 

[brianb1974]

Heroic epic eventually gets west point if I can afford to give it a break from pumping units. That's the only pairing that I often do.

National Epic goes on either a wonderspam city or a super-food specialist city. In the case of the former, I often settle great people in the city. Under representaion, that sometimes gives the city enough science to justify an academy and Oxford. In the case of the latter, I may jack up the population enough to want globe theater.

I like to put Wall Street in a shrine city if I have a half-way decent one. Otherwise, I'll pair it with Oxford in an all-cottage riverside city. Either way, corporations get founded there eventually.

National Park usually ends up in a foreign capital. You know the all-forest starts. The AI gets them, too. If you can lay a choke on an AI and keep it from chopping its forests, that capital will eventually make a wonderful park. If I'm going cultural, I have been known to put my Hermitage in the great park. The city usually gets a late start building culture, but if you can score Sistine Chapel (which can be anywhere), those 15-16 free specialists (including some artists) can catch up quickly and go legendary.

As with National Park, geography dictates the Moai. I have been known to put it in a wonderspam capital and pair it with national epic. I have also paired it with heroic epic (which should usually be coastal in any case to help with Navy).

Forbidden Palace goes in some far-away (usually another continent) capital city.

Ironworks goes in the best production city that has room for it--maybe paired with heroic epic. Maybe paired with Moai. Maybe even paired with national epic in wonderspam city if its production is really excellent.

Mount Rushmore's placement is pretty much irrelevant

I rarely bother with RedCross.

My only absolutely general advice is that once you have explored your surroundings and are dotmapping your empire, you should make tentative plans for your national wonders. This lets you wisely set your other priorities--what cities to settle in what order and what to build in them. Secure helping resources like stone and marble in time for building the appropriate wonders if possible. Don't wait until you CAN build a wonder to plan it. You don't want to decide where to start building the heroic epic and then realize that the city has been building libraries and cultural stuff and doesn't have a barracks yet. Your ideal Moai city often has really poor production. You don't want to choose the city and then realize you already chopped all the forests for other stuff. If you planned in advanced, you'd have the forests pre-chopped (worker stops just before finishing), and have your builds set up and population built up to apply whip overflow to the statue build (or maybe whip it outright). It's never too soon to farm and build up the population of your GlobeTheater city. You can feel free to accumulate whip unhappiness there, because it won't matter. And obviously, you plan your national park thousands of years before it gets built. You accept that the city sucks for a while because you don't chop the forests (maybe farm over 1 or 2 at the most if you need food). It becomes solid when you can build lumbermills, then you build the preserves when you're close to biology, and then you build the park and it's one of your best cities. Early on, what productive power you have in the future park is focused on specialist-enabling infrastructure. 15 specialists aren't as good if half of them are citizens (even if the dudes make 1 , 3 , and 2 , they aren't ideal).

 

[Bandobras Took]

The most common pairing for me is actually National Epic+Ironworks.

I like Industrious and Wonders.

Slightly behind that is Oxford and Wall Street, since my highest research and gold town often coincide, but not always.

I'm also a sucker for Heroic Epic+West Point.

Globe Theater+National Park sometimes occurs, but usually I've put the Globe Theater somewhere else by the time National Park occurs.

The others often don't get paired at all, instead going into whatever city seems to be most suited.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

I like National Epic & Oxford.

 

[Skallagrimson]

1. Oxford and Red Cross in highest beaker city. (RC because I don't need bajillions of medics, after all! Late game this city also builds low-hammer-cost units like missionaries, spies, and guided missiles)

2. HE and Moai in a good productive coastal city (preferably a peninsula with enough food, some plains hills, and lots of sea tiles). Can rapid-pump navy or land units or both.

3. GT and WP in the highest-food-yield city without lots of trees. Drafting decent-quality gunpowder troops (usually my late game CGs).

4. WS usually goes in a conquered shrine, and corps go there as well. If it's far away from the cap, it also gets FP or Versailles.

5. NE and NF in the highest-food-yield city that *also has a lot of tress* (and jungles count). No chopchop there, boss.

6. IW in the riverside city with the most forest. No chopchop there either. (Lumbermills for , trees for counterhealth for IW, coal, etc.)

7. Hermitage on the border of the civ I'm least likely to go to war with (or the one you'll conquer last). Or wherever culture is the most critical.

 

[tycoonist]

HE + WP = yum

 

[JammerUno]

NE and WS is great, since you can run merchants and still benefit from the wonder while running high science.

 

[UWHabs]

Really, the pairings depend on when the city gets online. Currently, my pairings are:

My capital: NE + Oxford (it's got a lot of food, for a lot of specialists).
Hannibal's Capital (hehe): Ironworks + West Point
Then none of my others are paired up. Globe in a high food city which ended up doing a lot of drafting. Moai in a city that has about 17 water tiles. HE in my early production city (where my GG got settled). National park in a small space that has about the only 7 forests left on the continent. Forbidden palace in a city somewhat centrally located away from my cap. Wall Street in Charlemagne's capital, which founded the dominant religion on the continent. Nobody has hermitage, since the time since I've been able to build it, I've been conquering everybody. I'll unlock Red Cross soon. It'll either go in my Moai city or my HE city. HE city isn't coastal, so I don't get boats from it, but it does make lots of units, and probably not a bad thing to have them all come out with M1.

It's probably not optimal, but you do what seems right. High production cities will tend to get HE (early production city) or Ironworks (late one). If it's coastal, then it definitely needs a second NW - either load up on production and have HE/Ironworks, or make strong units with HE/WP, or good ships with HE/Red Cross. Or one game recently I did Moai/Ironworks, with HE/WP as an inland military production city.

 

[Gwynnja]

One of the things to think about is getting the National Wonders online EARLY! By the time you have finish researching literature you should know where to put the HE, and if you're going to have a go at the Great Library rather than a high-food, specialist great person pump for NE. I rarely bother with moai, unless the city has an overabundance of seafood, and even then it's pretty low on the list of priorities. Usually, the capital is going to be the best place Ox U and should have bureau-cottages being worked. I like to throw IW in a captured AI city, hopefully with a lot of riverside tiles to put state property/leveed watermills and workshops on. Globe Theater is one of my biggest deficiencies; I hate running Nationalism because it means I can't run bureau or FS. Forbidden Palace and Mount Rushmore (if necessary) go in the highest production city that isn't HE/WP/IW/Capital, but as soon as possible.

 

[Belisar]

3. GT and WP

Hmm... no.

 

[popejubal]

For me, most likely my capital is highest producer of gold. So it gets Oxford and Wall Street.

I used to do that too since I got most of my gold from commerce (using the %gold slider setting) and I also got most of my science from commerce (using the %science slider setting). With Bureaucracy pushing your commerce up by 50%, it was pretty obvious to put those two in my capital.

...especially since my capital usually had a couple of good food resources and lots and lots of towns.


As I've played the game more and more, I've seen that I get a lot more effectiveness out of pulling most of my empire's gold needs from one city and leaving my science slider as high as I possibly can. That means I'm getting most of my gold from a religious shrine, settled Great Priests (I don't usually settle Great Merchants) and from corporations late in the game. That one city can produce such a rediculous amount of gold that I can get all of my empire's needs from that city, so Wall Street goes there. Amusingly, I find that is often a neighbor's Buddhism/Hinduism shrine, so I do end up putting Oxford and Wall Street both in the Capital. It's just that Oxford is my capital while the Wall Street city is someone else's former capital instead of my current one.

The biggest reason why I find this effective is that I like to use the larger maps, so getting an extra +100% on the 1 per city that has the religion is a lot more substantial than the gold I would get from even a great cottage/town city.

Other combinations that I find very effective are Heroic Epic + Settled Great Generals and NO OTHER NATIONAL WONDER. Once I build Heroic Epic, that production boost to units is so important that I can't afford to "waste" hammers building things that aren't units in that city.

Japan can get power from Shale Plants without Coal, so a Shale Plant with your factory in the National Park city makes an absolutely amazing production powerhouse because it still gets the +50% production bonus for power (which most empires' National Park cities will never see because National Park keeps coal out of that city as a side effect from the wonder). This is actually such a good production city that I'll even put the Iron Works in the National Park city for Japan sometimes. (The extra Engineer slots make this worthwhile for me.)

I never put the National Epic in the same city as the National Park even though it is such an obvious combination. That's because I have the National Epic complete in some other high food city centuries before my National Park city will even be possible.

 

[mirthadir]

1. Maori/RC. My major production powerhouses don't need medic promos but Maori is good enough spam mass paratroops to keep the CR troops from getting targeted.
2. IW/Oxford for the WE/SEE cap. Settling masses of priests, engineers, and scientists gives me me huge and counts which only make sense to mod further. Otherwise I like IW/WP; more rarely IW/FP in an overseas conquest (normally ex-AI cap).
3. NE/SP. Either to fight the healthy cap in high food cities or to actually use those left over trees.
4. NE/Oxford. If I'm playing caste SE, then this often works quite well with early rep scientists.
5. WS/NE. If you are running high slider then building WS to mod just the tile is a waste. 10% of even 20 towns is only going to be 16 if you are Fin with the correct civics. If, instead, you put WS into some minor backwater that can work only one pig and 3 farms your empire comes out ahead with merch specs. If this is the vast majority of the GPP being generated in game it makes sense to NE there if you haven't already.

 

[CivCorpse]

I like to put Wall Street in a shrine city if I have a half-way decent one. Otherwise, I'll pair it with Oxford in an all-cottage riverside city. Either way, corporations get founded there eventually.

I used to do this as well. Usually in a bureaucracy capital until I realized that any time I moved the slider in either direction of 50% I was limiting the effectiveness of one of the National Wonders. High science limits the amount of commerce being affected by Wall Street and high gold limits the effectiveness of Oxford. Bt the time Wall Street is available a shrine city has usually been secured in one way or the other. Shrine cities are by far the best choice for Wall Street as they are completely independant of civics/specialists or the slider.


My own pairings:
West Point and HE. More troops and better troops.

Maeiou(and sometimes Y) statues and Redcross. This will be my naval yard. Having all ships with medic1 is pretty useful as many times they travel in small groups so they always have an opportunity to heal. When I have a sufficient number of naval units I will switch it to building garrison troops for newly captured cities. Having defenders healing quickly can sometimes be the difference between keeping and losing a city. This city gets one settled GG. When running vassalage or theocracy it can produce 3 promo ships with a drydock. When not in those civics it becomes a garrison troop pump producing CG2 defenders.

Iron Works goes in my biggest production city. It must be riverside for a hydroplant and a shot at 3G dam. Once I have enough towns to make Free speech a better option than Bureaucracy I will move the capital there. For late game wonders I then have the option of switching to Bureaucracy for the mega hammer boost.
I usually don't pair IW with anything except for rare occasions I will pair it with National Park. National Park removes 1/2 the benefits of IW so these situations are indeed rare.
A. No coal. None on the entire continent. Or in a nearby continent controled by an AI I can beat up on without having to fight all his buddies.
B. Severe shortage of health resources. Usually this means plenty of food but not a lot of variety. Late game health issues are usually caused by production buildings becoming available before health buildings. But there has to be a severe lack of resources.

Oxford and NE if I have a heavy food city with lots of cottage land and 3 food sources.

Otherwise NE and NP if i have capture an enemy capital with lots of tree left. Important note: When capturing said capital be sure to pilliage every improvement and road so that trees can grow there.

If options 1 and 2 are unavailable then NE and Globe. Once I have gotten so many GP's that it takes eons for the next one I start the whipping to oblivion cycle.

Hermitage and Rushmore in a border town that won't be seeing action soon. Neither National Wonder requires anything from the tiles being worked. So if it is a back and forth war for the tiles it won't affect the wonders. Really doesn't matter where I build Rushmore but the extra 4(8 with hermitage) can help.

And occasionally Globe and National Park just to see how enormous a city I can grow.

Pairings I DON'T like.

Wall Street/Oxford...as explained above.

Iron Works and National Epic. I usually like cities that can work as few farms/resources as possible to enable the maximum number of production boosting tile improvements. Even in a Wonderspam city I don't like the NE because it severely limits my control on what flavor of GP is produced.

Iron Works and HE. Using your Ironworks city for producing your best quality troops means being forced to lower your quality of troops temporarily while building a late game wonder or potentially losing out on the wonder by farming it's building out to a city with lower production.

 

[DarkFyre99]

hmmm...

my normal pairings...

West Point and Maori Statues

West Point and Heroic Epic

Red Cross and West Point

Red Cross and Iron Works

Red Corss and Maori Statues

Iron Works and Maori Statues

Iron Works and National Epic

Wall Street and National Epic

National Park and...

Hmmm...

You know, when I think about it, I guess I really don't have "standard pairings." What wonders I put where really depends upon my strategy.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

3. GT and WP in the highest-food-yield city without lots of trees. Drafting decent-quality gunpowder troops (usually my late game CGs).

I'm a bit skeptical about putting West Point in a draft center. It seems odd to throw away the extra XP that it is giving you. Of course, the troops that you train get their full promotions, but if you are drafting your production suffers (citizens need to work food tiles to recover the population).

If you aren't going to use the Heroic Theater, what about GT plus Red Cross? - drafted troops get half an XP, but they get the whole promotion. It seems to me that a steady stream of troops that are one promotion away from March is a good thing

 

[nanomage]

like this:

HE: IW(if it is not in capital), else WP
Moai: IW(if in capital), Rushmore(if somewhere else)
OU: IW(if in capital), NE(if under SE), WS(if under CE without holy cities)
WS: OU(if under CE without holy cities), else it goes to holy city.
IW: monstrousity simply goes to the city that builds it faster. I only avoid pairing it with NP/NE
WP: HE (if IW is built elsewhere), else RC
RC: WP(if other pump HE+IW), else anywhere
GT: alone for draft (if i actually bother with draft city), else NE
NP: NE(if GP farm happens to retain 2-3 forest), else to some newborn heavily forested city.
Rushmore: Moai, if no place there then anywhere
Hermitage: i rarely build it. If for culture victory then to the city with least culture of 3.
FP: Place for this is determined geographically, so it can end up paired with anything (or alone)
can't remember any more, if i do, i'll update!

 

[Cashew]

Heroic epic naturally goes to the city with highest hammer output. Naturally, those cities tend to be capitols. However, since the HE with bureaucracy is overkill I will usually build the HE in a captured capitol or highly productive city. Really the majority of it is case by case and you can pair anything as long as it's not an illogical pairing like a NE with a HE.

 

[carl corey]

I have done NE+NP in some games, and had four-five forests with preserves on them. It's a crazy city, still giving you lots of specialists in the end.

NE+OX is somewhat common in a full SE, where I have literally no cottages.

HE+WP and NE+GT are the other "usual" combinations. Also GT sometimes goes in a drafting city, in which case NE isn't useful there.

OX goes into high commerce cities, I see no reason to pair it specifically with anything else. Maybe IW if going full cottage economy and getting hammers from towns under US instead of having a workshopped/watermilled city, but I dislike that approach.

IW is usually alone in a late-game production monster.

WS goes into shrine/corporation HQ city. Again, no reason to pair it with anything.

MS - coastal means not necessarily having great production, so it's usually a different one from HE city. Maybe I could pair it with Red Cross if I ever built RC...

The rest of the wonders really have no ties with what the city actually does, so pairing them with anything is not a necessity.

 

[PhroX]

About the only combo that I nearly always have is Ironworks + West Point. WP takes ages to build, so having the boost from IW gets it up and running quicker. My HE city is too busy churning out units to afford to run at half production for the length of time it takes to make WP.

I used to often put OU and WS together if I didn't have a shrine, before I understood the effect the slider has on the combo - only one of the buildings is likely to be running at high effectiveness. Now, when I'm running a CE, then if I don't have a shrine, I'll quite often put OU in my best commerce city, and WS in a high food city, and run 7 merchants (slider independant gold, wooo), plus probably some settled GMs produced from the merchants, and settle any GPs I've gotten. Plus Corps of course.

 

[brianb1974]

Pope--I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. Hence my first sentence. It's only if I fail to secure a city with a shrine (or two) that I'll stick Wall Street in a super-commerce city.