Is the Petra basically a "luxury wonder"?

[Athenaeum]

By "luxury wonder", I basically mean a wonder that is impossible or extremely improbable to build on higher difficulties (Immortal, Deity) without deviating too far from the fundamental research path that is necessary to keep pace and win at these levels.


In my opinion a lot of people have overrated this wonder a lot. You have to rush currency to get it (which is not on the way to education). The yield bonus it gives only applies to tiles that are already completely useless by themselves (desert).

What are you going to do with a bunch of tiles that only give 1 food and 1 hammer? That is still useless terrain, the same as an unimproved plain. The fact that you'll get an extra 1 faith from each desert tile doesn't change the fact that you will reach stagnation or starve very quickly.

If this bonus applied to flood plains as well, then I might change my mind about this wonder.

The 6 culture per turn after archaeology and the extra trade route are nice bonuses, but obviously the main feature of the Petra is the +1 food and +1 hammer.


The only way I can see this as being a worthwhile bonus is if combined with the Kasbah. And even then, your desert terrain would depend far too heavily on having the Petra to be of any use to you.

 

[A.J.K.]

Yeah, I don't really get why people seem to like Petra so much. As you said, it makes useless tiles slightly less useless.

 

[BruinBound]

Desert hills are not useless.

 

[Athenaeum]

Desert hills are not useless.

Most desert is not hills, and you will probably not have enough desert hills for Petra to make much of a difference.

 

[BruinBound]

You only build it if you have the desert hills.

 

[Aheadatime]

Petra is a wonder that can either be near useless or completely game changing. What you're looking for is desert hills, rivers, and oases. Desert hill farms on river/oasis give 2 food/3 hammers, while desert hill mines without fresh water give 1 food/4 hammers. These yields get amplified by chemistry (+1 hammer/mine), hydro plants (+1 hammer/river), and civil service (+1 food/fresh water). Oases end up giving you 4 food/1 hammer/1 gold, and provide fresh water to all of the adjacent tiles, meaning even flat desert with a farm and civil service will give you 3 food/1 hammer.

If you build petra in a city with no river, no oases, and only a few hills, then yes, it's pretty much useless. City placement is key, and thus, you sort of have to plan your entire early-game strat around getting petra. I've had many games on Deity where getting petra meant winning without issue.

Oh, and obviously, this synergizes very well with desert folklore. Add +1 faith to all the above tile yields and you have absolutely dominant faith generation.

 

[Athenaeum]

Desert next to river = flood plains = not affected by Petra bonus.

 

[Athenaeum]

Maybe the hills next to river will benefit but not flat desert terrain, that is flood plain.

 

[Aheadatime]

Desert next to river = flood plains = not affected by Petra bonus.

If this was directed at me, then I'm confused. I never mentioned flood plains in my post at all. I mentioned hills on rivers, which are not flood plains and absolutely get the benefit from petra.

 

[Athenaeum]

Yeah but flat desert next to river doesn't get it.

Usually when I'm in desert I don't seem to have very many hills.

 

[Aheadatime]

Yeah but flat desert next to river doesn't get it.

Usually when I'm in desert I don't seem to have very many hills.

Yeah this is why I said that petra can be near useless. It's not a "every civ will rush and compete for this wonder". It's more of a "if you have the right lands, this will skyrocket your civilization" wonder.

 

[Acken]

By "luxury wonder", I basically mean a wonder that is impossible or extremely improbable to build on higher difficulties (Immortal, Deity) without deviating too far from the fundamental research path that is necessary to keep pace and win at these levels.

While it's dicey on Deity (can't do much if an AI get it on turn 60), it's pretty reliable to get it on Immortal even after philosophy. You also have the option of getting it with the Liberty GE. DCL 6, 20 and 28 are all examples of incredible Petra locations.

In my opinion a lot of people have overrated this wonder a lot. You have to rush currency to get it (which is not on the way to education).

What ?

The yield bonus it gives only applies to tiles that are already completely useless by themselves (desert).

You need some desert hills to make it really interesting. If you do have a handful of them it is not overrated at all. It also makes flat desert around oasis as good as freshwater plains.
And finally you get a free route so 4 free food just for that !

What are you going to do with a bunch of tiles that only give 1 food and 1 hammer? That is still useless terrain, the same as an unimproved plain. The fact that you'll get an extra 1 faith from each desert tile doesn't change the fact that you will reach stagnation or starve very quickly.

Don't build it for flat desert. Problem solved.

The 6 culture per turn after archaeology and the extra trade route are nice bonuses, but obviously the main feature of the Petra is the +1 food and +1 hammer.

It's still part of the bonus. And the 6 culture are worth a good amount of tourism for CVs.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Usually when I'm in desert I don't seem to have very many hills.

Then build it where you have desert hills. If you have like 8 desert hills and 2 oases, that's essentially 10 extra food and 10 extra production from the wonder. Petra can make a city absolutely insane in the right location.

 

[Handsome_Champ]

Maybe the hills next to river will benefit but not flat desert terrain, that is flood plain.

Hills, next to fresh water or not are excellent tiles with Petra. If you're Inca and next to mountains, you get the civil service bonus for your terrace farms, too.

I recently had my second city with six desert hills (and other desert was flood plains) and nabbed Petra with a GE that popped from either the pyramids or liberty finisher. On deity.

I still lost because I suck.

 

[Athenaeum]

Oooohh....terrace farms with Petra, I never thought about that...

 

[FrostK]

Built Petra on Immortal plenty of time, but you should focus on it. On Deity you can build it only if none of AI wants it even if none of AI has desert near capitals - as far as I remember usual time for Petra in AI's non-cap city is below 60 turns.

P.S. Lets say u have only 2 oasis near city. Then what u get from Petra? 2 food and 2 production (since oasises is 99% worked by city) and 1 caravan which can bring u ~4 food at that time.
This is already more than HG. Is Petra good -- ofc, it is. But should you delay settling, NC, ... and rush it -- decisions, decisions.

 

[NukeAJS]

Petra on a city with 3-4 desert hills and some flood plains is godly. You make so much food and hammers that it can single handedly make your entire military AND have every building in it. Plus, when you add sheep and/or being next to a mountain -- that's just a huge bonus.

But yeah, if you rush it with an engineer in the middle of a completely flat desert, you basically have a city that's in the middle of flat plains (unless you're Morrocco )

 

[Peter Sagan]

Can't believe how people can underrate Petra. Even if you've only got 3 dessert hills and 1 oasis, it gives you 4f4h + a trade route which gives another 4f, so do the math. Or just compare it with HG, which is another great wonder, but not nearly as strong as Petra on terrain that I took as example.

 

[kaspergm]

Also many dessert cities suffer from the fact that flat dessert tiles with resources like Incense or Ivory or even Iron aren't very interesting to work as they are, however with Petra, you get a quite good tile.

 

[stormtrooper412]

When you see an Oasis and at least 3-4 hills around it and a river, you have to go Petra, no contest. Kinda like if you're a mage in an MMORPG and you see people bunched closely together, you have to go Rain of Fire.

It's a reflex thing