Wonders that can be relatively easy to build on higher difficluties?

[Browd]

There are never enough barbarians to justify taking the Honor opener on the theory that it will speed up the Tradition finisher.

 

[Acken]

Without knowing when each city is founded, game speed and difficulty, it's hard to "do the math" (which I'm sure you understand). That is why I said "given enough barbarians". Obviously, if you're playing on a small map and/or you have no barbarians around you, then adopting honor is going to be a waste. If you're playing on a larger map and have open space around you, it's going to be more viable given there will invariably be more barbarians to kill.

Take standard settings...
It's pretty easy to assume all 4 cities will be settled before the tradition finisher in both cases (with or without honor opener). That is all that matter regarding cities.

Hint: you only need the cost of the 7th policy with 4 cities. (since the finisher is the 6th in one case and the 7th in the other case)

Why? Once again, it's about opportunity costs. You're comparing "opening with honor to getting secularism sooner", whilst ignoring the fact that such a view is overly simplistic. IF, for example, you CAN get a tradition finisher SOONER by adopting honor, AND you value finishing tradition SOONER MORE than getting secularism SOONER, then it MAKES SENSE to forego the future payoff of ultimately delaying the rationalism tree SOONER, whatever that might be, for payoff TODAY. If, for example, you'd rather get tradition finished "X" turns sooner than you otherwise could and you are able to, AND you believe that's worth more than adopting secularism a few turns earlier down the road, then it makes sense to do so.

First, you'll have to prove that getting the tradition finisher sooner with the Honor opener is a realistic scenario. For that to happen honor has to generate a calculable amount of culture. See exercise one.

 

[Lanijon]

With 4 cities and standard settings, the difference in cost between policies 6 and 7 is 250 culture. You'd need to kill something to the tune of 30 brutes or 20 spears just to be breaking even. It's highly unlikely that you'll rack up that many kills before finishing Tradition.

 

[Acken]

No it's actually worse than that.

To make your tradition finisher faster (or at the same time) with the honor opener you simply have to generate a 7th policy in the same time window. So that your 7th comes at the same time than your 6th without honor.

The cost of the 7th is 885 culture for 4 cities IIRC.

So for honor to generate enough culture so that you get the trad finisher BEFORE the alternative (straight in tradition) you have to generate 885 culture before around T80-85 (the time you usually can finish trad).

Considering yo will probably not farm barbarrian before T30ish there is no way you're going to generate 885 in 50 turns

 

[Lanijon]

Whoops, yeah, you're right. I failed to use my own math from my other post. My bad. Just goes to show how awful it is to take Honor for the culture -- even if its bonus was quadrupled, it would still be unlikely to help.

Considering yo will probably not farm barbarrian before T30ish there is no way you're going to generate 885 in 50 turns

Are you suggesting 110 brutes is an unrealistic goal? Just turn on raging barbs.

 

[Mesix]

I agree with the statements that it only makes sense to open a policy tree if you are planning to take policies in the tree. The culture opener alone will generally not make sense in the long run. That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to take policies in only one tree at time. I often open Tradition first for the opener, then take 1-2 policies in another tree (either Liberty or Piety depending on the game) and then return to finish off Tradition.

As for the OP question about which wonders to chase on higher levels, I find that it can be useful to check which policies the AI players have taken in the Diplomacy screen.

 

[Myth and Legend]

Back to the topic at hand, my experience for Deity:

Oracle: 90% chance to build it by turn 80. If the Maya are in the game it's gone by turn 60-65.

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: either gone around turn 35 or much later (if nobody but you has stone near their capital). Beware that the AI likes to deny you stone circles and this wonder, so if you get one then the other one gets prioritised AFAIK.

Great Lighthouse / Colosssus: both are possible if you beeline them. Colossus more than the GLH.

Petra: very hit and miss, depends on desert terrain for the enemies. Try to finish it before turn 85.

Hanging Gardens: sometimes gone by turn 40, sometims turn 80. Generally unreliable unless you are Babylon. Easy to secure for Babylon though.

You can get the Hagia Sofia or Borbodour depending on your startup or if you reload. Alternatively any of the 3 religous wonders you can secure with a GE from Liberty.

You can get one Renessaunce wonder of your choice. Leaning Tower is the hardest to secure, while Sistine Chapel is probably the easiest. Uffizi might just sit there if nobody goes patronage. Big Ben and Louvre share a similar fate.

Porcelain Tower should be yours unless youv'e fallen behind in tech. Korea, Russia and Germany like going for Rationalism, so beware.

Anything past that you can get with a tech lead, bar the Brandenburg Gate which is hard to secure without a GE.

 

[ToborajniN]

No love for Temple of Artemis? Quite possible to grab on a good start. Sure, it's a bit hit and miss, but not as impossible as GL etc

 

[beetle]

EDIT: Sorry, I missed that there were several replies to this already.

Without knowing when each city is founded, game speed and difficulty, it's hard to "do the math" (which I'm sure you understand).

No, it is not hard to do the math. Acken is challenging you to pick any circumstances where the honor opener would pay for itself in turns of culture cost.

From the Mathematics of Civ 5, for the fifth policy (Tradition closer) in a 4 city empire you need 660 culture. For the sixth policy (Tradition closer after opening Honor) you need 885 culture, and that is after the 660, so not just 215 culture but the full 885. I forget how much culture you get, but I estimate that you would need a sustained kill rate of two barbs every turn! That is not feasible, even with the most optimistic settings, and assertions to the contrary are not credible.

 

[LordBalkoth]

No love for Temple of Artemis? Quite possible to grab on a good start. Sure, it's a bit hit and miss, but not as impossible as GL etc

Except you need to be settling at the time when you'd have to build ToA.

Without worker steals, you're usually looking at something like...

1. Scout

Order of next three may change depending on game, Shrine may not be built if there's not a promising pantheon.

2. Scout
3. Monument
4. Shrine

5. Worker
6. Settler
7. Settler

Even if you remove the hard built worker and have an amazing start and have amazing luck with ruins, you're probably not able to start ToA until turn 30+.

 

[reddishrecue]

Except you need to be settling at the time when you'd have to build ToA.

Without worker steals, you're usually looking at something like...

1. Scout

Order of next three may change depending on game, Shrine may not be built if there's not a promising pantheon.

2. Scout
3. Monument
4. Shrine

5. Worker
6. Settler
7. Settler

Even if you remove the hard built worker and have an amazing start and have amazing luck with ruins, you're probably not able to start ToA until turn 30+.

Would you replace granary for shrine since you get even more food that way?

 

[ToborajniN]

Would you replace granary for shrine since you get even more food that way?

If you have enough granary resources in your cap and no good pantheon tiles, I guess

 

[LordBalkoth]

Problem is that an early granary often doesn't help much because only a limited amount of food can be applied toward Settlers (and you're not actually growing when making settlers). Theoretically if you had all pure production tiles available (like all hills) then maybe the granary would provide a reasonable bonus to building Settlers...but I'm hard pressed to see that being worth it. Better to get the settlers out and THEN build the granary in most cases.

 

[Acken]

Are you suggesting 110 brutes is an unrealistic goal? Just turn on raging barbs.

Hehe, even if you would consider that realistic my next question would be:
How are you justifying this investment in gold maintenance and production costs for the units just to come even ?

Except you need to be settling at the time when you'd have to build ToA.

Without worker steals, you're usually looking at something like...

1. Scout

Order of next three may change depending on game, Shrine may not be built if there's not a promising pantheon.

2. Scout
3. Monument
4. Shrine

5. Worker
6. Settler
7. Settler

Even if you remove the hard built worker and have an amazing start and have amazing luck with ruins, you're probably not able to start ToA until turn 30+.

Actually an early ToA can be achieved by turn 30 with quick worker steals. Just go Scout Monument ToA. With a fast enough worker stealing you can chop some forest to speed it up.
Got it on turn 26 in the Aztec DCL for example.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Actually an early ToA can be achieved by turn 30 with quick worker steals. Just go Scout Monument ToA. With a fast enough worker stealing you can chop some forest to speed it up.
Got it on turn 26 in the Aztec DCL for example.

I'm not sure if you're trying to deliberately miss my point twice?

1, I specifically said "without worker stealing" in the post you quoted.

2, you're still delaying a second scout, a shrine, and/or settlers with that. You could use the same chopping to speed up the settlers.

Hell, it's even possible to get Great Library on Deity if you get a great start...but the general consensus is that you have to sacrifice too much (including growth) in order to get it.

Is getting ToA worth losing the second scout, delaying the shrine (and thus potentially losing the pantheon you want and even possibly a religion), and starting settlers later? Possibly -- especially if you don't need to scout as much on that particular map, don't have a good pantheon, and/or have enough distance between you and the AIs that you afford delaying settlers.

ToA doesn't give much immediate effect -- if you have 10 food in your capital (from, say, 2 base, 2 granary, 2 grassland horses, 2 sheep, 2 stone) that's only 1 bonus food, for example..and you're probably only getting like 0.25-0.5 food in your other cities for a while. Longer term it gives a Great Engineer to rush a wonder or set up a Manufactory (at the cost of delaying Great Scientists) and eventually the food bonus is quite powerful -- a city producing 40 food gets an extra 4 food and your capital could be doubling that, so it winds up something like 20 extra food...and possibly even more very long term. And I realize you are aware of all this, but some people reading this thread might not be.

So yeah, it's a nice wonder and better than Great Library overall...but I honestly don't know if it's worth trying to build immediately. Is it your opinion that Great Library is too much opportunity cost (assuming you think your start is good enough that you're confident you'll get it) to build but Temple of Artemis (again, assuming you're confident you'll get it) isn't too much opportunity cost to build?

 

[ToborajniN]

LordBalkoth, I think your posts are quite pointless. Do you want to know why? Ok, here's the fact: The topic is called "Wonders that can be relatively easy to build on higher difficluties?". ToA is one of those wonders. You can argue for or against its value all you want, but it's still a bit like bashing your head against a wall. The topic still remains the same and the fact regarding the possibility to build ToA on deity still remains the same.

I do agree with you though, so don't get too upset. I don't try to go for ToA in most cases, but when/if I do, I usually get it. And that's the whole point of this topic.

 

[Myth and Legend]

ToA is my favorite earlty game wonder, but it's very hit and miss. Provided a good start and reseraching archery first, you can get it... Sort of. Sometimes it's gone by turn 33.

Similarly Stonehenge is one of the first to go as well. But I've built both on Deity multiple times, but iv'e been lucky and/or save scummed. I wouldn't bet money on their reliability on anything but a salt start.

 

[beetle]

Similarly Stonehenge is one of the first to go as well.

How many times have you tried Stonehenge since the fall patch? I used to get it pretty regularly, but not since this past Halloween!

Other than a Salt start, do you have any tips? I think I would need a worker steal and three forests for chopping to have any chance.

 

[Redaxe]

How many times have you tried Stonehenge since the fall patch? I used to get it pretty regularly, but not since this past Halloween!

Other than a Salt start, do you have any tips? I think I would need a worker steal and three forests for chopping to have any chance.

Egh Stonehenge on Diety seems impossible since the last patch. I suppose you can fiddle with the game settings somewhat. I.e. reduce the number of civs on the map or select half of the civs to be warmongers and exclude the religious civs.
Or you could try starting a game in the classical era.

Otherwise I think you need a legendary start, worker steals and a lot of luck.

 

[Mesix]

If you are playing on immortal or deity level, you cannot delay worker stealing. Even on lower difficulties, I seldom build a worker. I also tend to rush/buy the settler for my second city.