Stonehenge: the wonder I'll never build!

[Gurra09]

Stonehenge has been pretty helpful when I play Byzantium.

I second this. In a recent Byzantium game I opened in a starting spot which was quite terrible from a faith perspective but had a lot of camp resources. So I built a Shrine to get the Goddess of Hunt pantheon and then Stonehenge pushed me towards the religion I needed to make use of the Byzantine UA. Although I have to mention that the reason this was all possible was because the start was isolated (cut off by a mountain range) so no Scout was needed which allowed me to go Worker => Shrine => Stonehenge for my build order.

Generally, I very rarely go for Stonehenge, or any of the early wonders for that matter, but every once in a while you end up in a situation where it can be useful. Like most things in Civilization, I'd say.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Ancient Era wonders by OBJECTIVE VALUE (in my opinion, so not really objective )
Disregarding opportunity cost
1. Temple of Artemis
2. Great Library
3. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
4. Stonehenge
5. Statue of Zeus

I can definitely agree with that list. Artemis and Halicarnassus are the only ones I will ever attempt, mostly because Halicarnassus has such a low flavour with the AI that they rarely build it before let's say T60.

 

[inthesomeday]

I actually forgot about Pyramids, I would put that at 2nd.
But yeah, in that other thread I mentioned I absolutely adore Mausolleum, I like the gold from the great people and as a wide player early gold from both the Liberty great person and all my stone and marble (I love quarry resources) can be a massive lifesaver. I may even revise to say it's a little better than the Library; even disregarding opportunity cost, the best effect of the Great Library is 3 beakers.

 

[sixty4half]

Also, the bonus of the SoZ isn't all that useful. Compared to production on ranged units, from the ToA? I mean attacking cities happens but is not nearly as important as clearing ground forces, whether you're talking about multiplayer spams or AI carpets. By the time you're attacking the actual city a bonus to doing so is moot. If it was something like "15% bonus outside your territory", like in a lot of mods, it might be useful, I've just never found much use for it in actual attacks. Maybe it could be good for later era bombers/paratroopers fighting but it comes too soon for that

Good point. By the time I've wiped their army out the taking of the city is pretty much inevitable. I don't always build it, but now, I may never build it. Except for the achievement, I still need to get that (Zeus/Artemis in same city).

 

[adsin15]

The great thing about stonehenge is it pretty guarantees you will found a religion without having to build a single shrine in any of your expansions. Plus it grants 1 Great Engineer point which means 100 turns after completion you pop a GE.

On immortal I get Stonehenge if it's done before turn 50. I use the "No AI Pottery" mod though.

 

[beetle]

5 faith seems pretty underwhelming given how much you give up going for it early. Seems like a great way to just nerf religious AI by tempting them to build something way too early. Despite the huge opportunity cost it feels weak.

No one has pointed out that the hammer:faith ratio is actually decent -- cheaper than 5x Shrines (and much better than Temple). Plus you get culture and GE points.

I think one could make the argument though that the opportunity cost is still too high.

But the point is moot -- since at higher difficulty levels an AI will beat you to it at least 19 times out of 20 attempts.

 

[danaphanous]

yeah I made the same point. It is 37 hammers for each point of faith vs. 40 for each shrine and no maintenance. On low levels the investment makes sense for this reason, I will admit I was only thinking for immortal and deity which is what I play with AI. there is a chance you get it at these levels, esp. on standard and small worlds if you get lucky to have few AI with religious flavors but on large and huge maps which I often play there is virtually no chance. Someone like Celts, Ethiopia, Egypt, etc. is there and they always build it way earlier then I get the chance. Plus beelining calendar is a poor choice anyway. There are more important techs like animal husbandry, writing, and mining.

However, the hammer savings of 3 hammers neglects a few things that would make me still opt for shrines in some games:

1. You build shrines in 5 different cities meaning you can get a shrine in your first 2 far faster then stonehenge. Esp. in capital.
2. If you opened liberty the extra hammer applies in each city as does the 5% bonus to buildings from republic making shrines the cheaper option. Also you are pumping out settlers so no time for stonehenge not to mention risk of losing.
3. Early faith is arguable far stronger then late faith bc of the way pantheon costs scale. The delay on stonehenge will mean a lot of lost pantheon choices and extra faith spent on the pantheon since the cost goes up with each prior pantheon.
4. If you go piety opener shrines AND temples are by far the cheaper hammer investment compared to stonehenge but you do have to pay maintenance.

In summary, even on the lower levels I'd still build shrines preferentially with both the liberty and piety strategies. You get the opportunity a lot earlier and all those turns of an extra 1-2 faith matter a lot because of the way the pantheon race works. Alternatively, for a tradition opener stonehenge is attractive since you've focused on growing you city and get a 15% cost reduction on wonders and don't have to produce as many early settlers to be competitive. If you have solid production and some forest to chop it could be done with no threat from AI pretty quickly emperor and below. I could see it being very valuable in this situation. And you could always still build shrines for even faster religion.

 

[Redaxe]

Its fantastic if you can manage to squeeze Stonehenge and the Pyramids in when you play Liberty as you can get a an early Engineer and then another Great Person when you finish Liberty. 2 Great People in close succession is pretty damn decent

 

[danaphanous]

yeah that would be fantastic, but wouldn't building 2 early wonders really mess with your early build orders? The whole point of liberty, for me, is to quickly settle, if you stop for 20+ turns to build wonders you'll lose lots of potential settling spots to the AI. I doubt it results in a better game. This reinforces my earlier statement that stonehenge is really only a decent option if the AI are playing without their advantages: aka Prince. I build pyramids on immortal and deity because the AI rarely compete with me and the faster and extra workers are something I needed for a wide empire anyway, but I rarely have time for more then that before the settler phase. Even that can end up delaying settlers for a few turns unless I get some nice forest and early workers to chop.

 

[beetle]

^^That's what I like about Pyramids -- I build it when I would otherwise be building two workers. So close to zero opportunity cost. (So long as I get it.)

I would like to know what Deity civs leave Stonehenge as an option. For my Byzantium games, I was deliberately avoiding religious civs -- and Stonehenge was still never viable!

 

[danaphanous]

The are a few civs which never seem to focus on religion but I'll admit that it seems a little random with a lot of them wether they go for a religion. Your best bet, in my opinion is civs known for early rush. They delay religion if they go for it as they are focusing on military. Anyone that is pretty peaceful has a somewhat random chance of going for it in my experience. Civs that always seem to go for it in my games are:

Ethiopia, Celts, Songhai, Egypt, Maya, and Byzantium. Interestingly these are all guys that get faith from building their UB or abilities with exception of Byzantium which is probably just programmed that way to take advantage of their ability. So my guess is AI shift focus to religion if they happen to get an early pantheon. Though some open straight away with Piety, I'm not sure what determines this choice as the UB for a few of these guys is a bit late to be making that choice.

 

[lindsay40k]

Stonehenge is amazing. Given the choice, it's the first Wonder I conquer.

 

[beetle]

Given the choice, it's the first Wonder I conquer.

Blah, too late to help you found at that point.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Its fantastic if you can manage to squeeze Stonehenge and the Pyramids in when you play Liberty as you can get a an early Engineer and then another Great Person when you finish Liberty. 2 Great People in close succession is pretty damn decent

Let's do the math: The first GE comes at 100 GPP. Let's say you get Henge really early, maybe T30. That means from T30 on you are getting +1 GEP. So on T50 you finish your Pyramids. Let's just ignore that you haven't build anything beyond your standard Scout (Scout) Monument Shrine build order, which means you are really behind in terms of expansion, you have no units and therefore can't do CS quests and you don't have a granary or library in your cap. So until T50 you have generated 30 GEP. After T50 you are generating 2 GEP per turn. You need 70 more, so that's 35 turns. This means you're getting your GE at turn 85 under optimal conditions.

T85 is not a horrible time to finish Liberty, but not a good time either. Also keep in mind for this to work you have to delay settling until past T50, (aside from the free Settler of course) which is terrible.

 

[docbud]

I don't even try for it anymore, and haven't for a long time. For example:

I WAS playing a game as Spain tonight. Great salt start.

Stonehenge gone on turn 32 and Great Library on turn 34.

And I was playing on King level.

 

[inthesomeday]

On quick speed rushing a wonder on the second tier of tech normally gets it done around turn 20-25, then if you wanted Pyramids too you'd get it ideally around turn 40 after 3-4 more settles and some infrastructure. That means you'd be at ~20/67 by the time you finish Pyramids, so another ~20 turns all around, meaning engineer around T60, close to when you're soon to finish liberty or already have, probably a little before. Meaning in quick it's perfectly simple, don't know why it's harder on standard. Building a wonder in your capital on turn 30 usually means ~8 turns to finish on quick, and standard's supposed to be something like 1/3 faster right?

 

[SamFissure]

Sure, diss Stonehenge, here's the deal, grab The tradition track and next the wonder bonus, at this point you have the Great Library available to build (build it first, always first) then Stonehenge, I use it to get a religion without building a single shrine. It's free faith ,the equivalent of 4 cities' output without upkeep costs of 4 shrines.
Pantheon bonus?
Monument to the Gods.

If you have Marble access this is a seriously valid approach.

The gold savings from 4 shrines and a Library (free) along with the free library upkeep gold and other savings, will be handy for buying a settler down the road (why build if you can buy?).
You can get your religion third perhaps, but without building excess crap.

Papal Primacy and Consulates (which the AI doesn't do?!?) Along with rapid spread to friendly city states.... basically every city state is yours for no money down.

I get that combo every game, but I play Prince often.

 

[SamFissure]

I also build 1 shrine so I can get Monument to the gods early enough to enjoy it... but yes, the rest of my cities don't get a shrine until I have temples as an option and the breathing room to build them.
Heroic Epic also doesn't get built in the Capitol so that I have that city available for my wonder-gluttony

 

[yung.carl.jung]

On quick speed rushing a wonder on the second tier of tech normally gets it done around turn 20-25, then if you wanted Pyramids too you'd get it ideally around turn 40 after 3-4 more settles and some infrastructure. That means you'd be at ~20/67 by the time you finish Pyramids, so another ~20 turns all around, meaning engineer around T60, close to when you're soon to finish liberty or already have, probably a little before. Meaning in quick it's perfectly simple, don't know why it's harder on standard. Building a wonder in your capital on turn 30 usually means ~8 turns to finish on quick, and standard's supposed to be something like 1/3 faster right?

...what? how would you possibly be able to finish stonehenge on turn 20? even if you forego animal husbandry, mining and archery, which is terrible, you still need at least like 10, more like 12 turns of research to even get to the tech... how is a three or four pop city ever building stonehenge in 8 turns? and how are you building four settlers and infrastructure in less than 12 turns, if we assume pyramids are ~8 turns? I play multiplayer every now and then so I'm fairly used to quick speed.

you say that on turn 30 a capital will need about 8 turns to build pyramids. would that not mean that on turn 12 you would need way, way more to build stonehenge, since you are lower pop and hammers? like twelve or thirteen? how would it be possible to get stonehenge around turn 20 then? of course you can pop the respective tech ruin, of course you can get three pop ruins, or have unlimited chops and four improved salt tiles, but unless you get an amazing start those numbers are just way, way off.

 

[zxcvbob]

Maybe he's starting in the Classical era?