Favorite Natural Wonders

[Halcyan2]

I am thinking of creating a custom map for a fun game. I plan to handpick the Natural Wonders which will be in the game (by changing their Occurrence Frequency). Just wondering which Natural Wonders you like the most (not necessarily the best or strongest). My thoughts:

1. Mt Kilimanjaro
2. Fountain of Youth

both provide special promotions. I like Marathon games but sometimes it can get boring. Having these wonders makes it more interesting because all of my units have to make a one-time pilgrimage across the map to get the special promotions.

3. Uluru
4. Sri Pada

Faith is really good and these two provide food so the citizen can feed him/herself.

5. King Solomon's Mines
6. Lake Victoria

Hammers and food is like bread and butter. Always helpful.

7. Great Barrier Reef

Comes with 2 tiles. Early science is good, and they both feed themselves. (Extra cool if they come with fish!).

8. Mt. Sinai
9. Mt. Kailash

Good faith output. Weaker than Uluru and Sri Pada due to the lack of food.

10. Rock of Gibraltar
11. Cerro de Potosi

The Rock is great early on and it feeds itself. However, by mid-late game, it's not much better than a grasslands plantation. Early on, it's comparable to a free Customs House, but later on it is worse than an actual Customs House. Cerro only provides gold, but 10 gold is pretty good for one tile.

12. Mt Fuji

Much lower faith output than the G&K natural wonders. Also the placement criteria (not on largest land mass) makes it much harder to utilize effectively

13. El Dorado

Yes, the 500 gold can be powerful (and good for the player) but it feels too unbalancing to me (regardless of whether I get it or the AI's). Culture is nice, but it doesn't provide anything else besides that.

14. Krakatoa

The placement really hurts this one. A good chunk of the time, it is unworkable (not within 3 tiles of a land tile). There does seem to be a mod that addresses this. In the early game, 5 science is HUGE. But by mid/late game, it provides the same amount of science as a science specialist under secularism, but is worse since it doesn't provide great scientist points.

15. Barringer Crater

Provides a decent amount of science. Worse yields than Krakatoa (2 science > 2 gold). Also, the Crater has a high tendency to be in terrible terrain.

16. Grand Mesa

Shows up really often in my games. Just lackluster. 2 hammer + 3 gold is nothing to write home about. It's like a mined luxury on a hill, but without an actual luxury.

17. Old Faithful

Weakest natural wonder IMHO. It's hard to justify working the tile for a mere 2 science (a bit better in BNW due to Natural Heritage Sites). Might be okay with Spain. Only decent upside is that the nearby terrain isn't as bad (compared to Barringer or the Mesa).



Those are my personal assessments. What do you think?

 

[ahawk]

11. Cerro de Potosi

Cerro only provides gold, but 10 gold is pretty good for one tile.

Cerro de Potosi is, in my opinion, better than it's listed here. +10 gold is essentially an average early-Renaissance trade-route in terms of gold, and it's +10 gold in terms of raw yield, which means it's even better than an average early-Renaissance trade-route once any %-bonuses are added via buildings, wonders, and the like.

Cerro de Potosi can now basically help fund an early war (providing gold for unit maintenance once you DoW your neighbor and can no longer count on as many -- or any -- trade-routes being safe or available). That is, if you get it settled quickly.

Cerro is an early-game monster if the city that works it doesn't need to grow or has a couple wheat tiles. Even by mid-game and later, it's a raw-yield, which means it stays fairly powerful as economic buildings are built.

 

[Halcyan2]

Cerro de Potosi is, in my opinion, better than it's listed here. +10 gold is essentially an average early-Renaissance trade-route in terms of gold, and it's +10 gold in terms of raw yield, which means it's even better than an average early-Renaissance trade-route once any %-bonuses are added via buildings, wonders, and the like.

Cerro de Potosi can now basically help fund an early war (providing gold for unit maintenance once you DoW your neighbor and can no longer count on as many -- or any -- trade-routes being safe or available). That is, if you get it settled quickly.

Cerro is an early-game monster if the city that works it doesn't need to grow or has a couple wheat tiles. Even by mid-game and later, it's a raw-yield, which means it stays fairly powerful as economic buildings are built.

You're right. I'm still sometimes using my pre-BNW mindset when gold was more plentiful. Now that early gold is harder to come by, Cerro should be that much more useful. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[ahawk]

I agree with most of the rest. The only other one I'd go so far as to maybe rate differently is Mt Fuji... IIRC, Fuji provides culture in addition to the faith yield. I think it's around 2 food, and 3 each for culture and faith, or there-abouts. Which is not great for faith, and I agree that I'd usually rather have a higher-faith-yield Natural Wonder than Fuji, but the saving grace is that 3 extra faith is still enough to help found a religion up to at least Immortal (assuming shrines and temples are built speedily in a city or two) and 3 culture is a bigger help than it would've been in G&K. After all, no more culture specialists for basic culture buildings.

So I'd maybe also give Fuji a slightly higher rating, but only slightly. As you stated, from a faith stand-point it's not as good as Uluru or Sri Pada, but raw culture makes it (and Kilimanjaro, and El Dorado) a reasonable aid to early culture should you settled it with a 2nd, or maybe 3rd, city.

 

[Halcyan2]

I agree with most of the rest. The only other one I'd go so far as to maybe rate differently is Mt Fuji... IIRC, Fuji provides culture in addition to the faith yield. I think it's around 2 food, and 3 each for culture and faith, or there-abouts. Which is not great for faith, and I agree that I'd usually rather have a higher-faith-yield Natural Wonder than Fuji, but the saving grace is that 3 extra faith is still enough to help found a religion up to at least Immortal (assuming shrines and temples are built speedily in a city or two) and 3 culture is a bigger help than it would've been in G&K. After all, no more culture specialists for basic culture buildings.

So I'd maybe also give Fuji a slightly higher rating, but only slightly. As you stated, from a faith stand-point it's not as good as Uluru or Sri Pada, but raw culture makes it (and Kilimanjaro, and El Dorado) a reasonable aid to early culture should you settled it with a 2nd, or maybe 3rd, city.

After G&K, Fuji provides 2 gold + 3 culture + 3 faith. It would be great if it provided food!

You are right again. With BNW making both gold and culture scarcer, Mt Fuji's yields are better. As mentioned, the biggest downside (to me) is Mt Fuji's placement criteria. (Same with Krakatoa).

 

[ahawk]

Oh, Krakatoa is abysmal as a NW, and entirely because of placement. I've worked it as a tile perhaps twice in almost 2,000 hours of play (from Vanilla to BNW, though, as far as the hours). Fuji, conversely, depends on the map type: on Continents, it's actually got pretty solid placement options (namely, being on the smaller continent of two large ones). On the other hand, Fuji on Pangaea is awful as it may end up on a small island in the middle of the giant ocean. So Fuji varies, but ultimately I feel the placement for Fuji is acceptable on Continents, while on Pangaea and some other types it's at least not the greatest.

As for the yield: Ah! 2 gold, not 2 food. I don't encounter Fuji as often as the other Mountain NWs, so it's one I tend to forget. Thanks for pointing out that it's gold, not food.

 

[MarshalN]

I'd actually argue that Old Faithful is better than Barrington - it yields less as a working tile, but it's a +3 smiles mountain, basically, if you have it in your borders. That's worth quite a bit more than Barrington's output if you also consider you don't have to work to get the smiles - and yeah, Barrington always spawns in the middle of a desert or tundra.

 

[ahawk]

I'd actually argue that Old Faithful is better than Barrington - it yields less as a working tile, but it's a +3 smiles mountain, basically, if you have it in your borders. That's worth quite a bit more than Barrington's output if you also consider you don't have to work to get the smiles - and yeah, Barrington always spawns in the middle of a desert or tundra.

Yeah, to me Barrington and Old Faithful are interchangeable though:


One provides a better yield and no happiness while being in desert or tundra

while

One provides a worse yield, some happiness, and also often spawns in bad spots (I often see Old Faithful in even worse spots, like in a desert by a bunch of mountains, IIRC).


So I'd argue both are just about equally bad, but in different ways. Depending what you need in a given spot, one may be better than another, but IMO, both are back-of-the-pack as far as NWs.

 

[aljung]

My favourite is still the Great Barrier Reef. Those two tiles just sparkle

 

[yuguna]

imagine spain with lake vic + mines + reef + cerro
automatic win.

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Heck, Spain with ANY NW is awesome. Maybe even Grand Mesa and Old Faithful (That +6 happiness).

the Rock of Gibraltar sometiems tend to spawn weirdly, since it has to be next to a coastal mountain. IT can be both a good and bad thing. The good thing is that you have a city next to a mountain, and good early gpt. As Spain, it's a Cerro with the extra food.

Also, which NWs has special spawn criteria apart from Fuji, Gibraltar and Crapatoa?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I think if you say that El Dorado is marked down for being unbalanced, then surely Fountain of Youth should be in the same category? If you are first to find it and put a settler down there its basically a massive early expansion bonus, easily on par with the 500G of El Dorado... and the icing on the cake is that your units just got a heap better...

 

[Halcyan2]

My favourite is still the Great Barrier Reef. Those two tiles just sparkle

They are even better when they have fish inside them!

imagine spain with lake vic + mines + reef + cerro
automatic win.

Don't forget One with Nature (+8 faith to each) and Natural Heritage Sites (+10 culture to each).

Also, which NWs has special spawn criteria apart from Fuji, Gibraltar and Crapatoa?

Most do.

Barringerm, Mesa, Old Faithful, and Kilimanjaro care about region type and number of hills/mountains nearby.

Fountain of Youth and Lake Victoria are pretty flexible - it mainly avoids the ocean.

Potosi cares about nearby hills.

El Dorado cares about a nearby Jungle.

Solomon's Mines avoids mountains

Sri Pada avoids Desert, Tundra, and Marsh.

Sinai avoids Tundra, Marsh, and Grassland.

Kailash avoids Desert and Marsh.

Uluru avoids Tundra, Marsh, and Grass and looks for Plains.

Etc.

I think if you say that El Dorado is marked down for being unbalanced, then surely Fountain of Youth should be in the same category? If you are first to find it and put a settler down there its basically a massive early expansion bonus, easily on par with the 500G of El Dorado... and the icing on the cake is that your units just got a heap better...

Yes, the +10 happiness from Fountain of Youth is overly strong, but the main selling point (to me) is the special promotion.

I do have it ranked below Mt Kilimanjaro for balance reasons....