Making a tier list of natural wonders since there has been some discussion about this lately, and a suggestion from a forum member.
since we can all agree that the rating of natural wonders depends on what type of game you are playing. e.g.: More production is better when rushing, etc. This list will try to rank each wonder by the average usefulness of a players game, keeping in mind that the most normal games last past turn 200 and are played at immortal om pangaea for example.
1. Fountain of Youth 10
10 Happiness just for having this in your borders, this alone mean you can settle an extra 2 cities early on which is very powerful, the double healing is useful for domination games
2. Eldorado 5
500 gold means an extra free settler which is a big deal, the tile itself is okay but one strong part about this wonder is that you dont really need to settle it, you just reap the 500g for finding it.
3. Great Barrier Reef (x2) 2c5food:2 1 1 2)
Getting one with nature with this means the highest combined stats of any NW, you dont give up any food or production to get extra faith, science, and gold, strong.
4. Sri Pada 2 4 2
The best of the faith wonders. all of which are strong, since early religion is so key to have. Gives enough faith that you can found a religion guaranteed with it alone, food early on so you can work it and still grow, and 2 happiness really helps early on.
5. Uluru 6 2
Only NW apart from sri para that gives both food and faith, making it easily workable early on. Getting free faith early on gives a high chance of getting one with nature, a good feature of all the faith NW and that makes them very strong. Though sri para trades 2 of that faith for happiness, which is a good trade considering that the 10 happiness wonder is at top, so a flat trade of faith for happiness seems in favor for the happiness
6. Mt. Kaliash 6 2
Good Faith wonder. Faith and Happiness is great, if you can send this city a food caravan early, this wonder becomes better than Uluru and possibly sri para.
7. Mt. Sinai 8
2nd worst of the faith wonders, the pure 8 faith is just over the top, and does not compete with the trade off of a little extra food and or happiness of those faith wonders above.
8. Mt. Kilimanjaro 3 2
This wonder gives a little food to be very workable, and pretty decent culture which can be nice especially in domination games, where the flat culture bonus is a lot. The real bonus of this wonder comes from the buff it yields, which allows units double movement in hills. Great for domination games, not required to settle it but its often a good idea to have at least a road from cap to this. Ranking it 8th because its not very good in peaceful games.
9. King solomons mines 6
The production is nice, and the reason i put this higher than Lake Victoria is that you can get big amounts of production from this with just a little population and this does not require a city placement with good production tiles, and big worker commitment early on in order to get things rolling fast, for example its great to work this tile from pop 1 and hard build a granary, while with Lake Victoria, you have to grow, wait for workers to come and improve hills nearby (if there are any) and you can't really build anything until all that is done. King solomons mines is better in more city spots, since it does not require additional production tiles for a city in that location to be useful
10. Mt. Fuji 2 3 3
The worst of the faith wonders. This wonder gives a bit of gold which is the weakest yield in most situations, and culture which is okay but happiness faith and food is probably better. Its one saving grace is that it does give 3 faith which does allow you to settle it early and pick up one with nature for a nice 7 faith tile with some culture.
11. Lake Victoria 6
Okay wonder, very situational though, if this wonder is just surrounded by flatland it is questionable if this is even worth a settle, since every city preferably needs some production. With hills or horse tiles or such this becomes pretty good, but still requires a lot of workers early on if you want to make use of that extra population, which means that you need quite a few worker steal in order to make this good. and even in the best of cases i would still rather have KSM since its less invested resources early on and you can use the hammers faster.
12. Old Faithful 2 3
3 happiness for having this in your borders is okay, never work this tile though unless you have no other source of religion and can take one with nature.
13. Krakatoa 5
Useful if a city has a lot of early food and or if you want to rush your science to get a specific wonder like petra or CI, working the extra science otherwise is questionable before pop 3 otherwise, with caravans this can become nice though. One downside of this wonder is that it is often very unworkable and you often have to go out of your way and buy tiles to even work it.
14. Rock of Gibraltar 2 5
Food and a decent amount of gold makes this an okay tile to work, dont go out of your way to settle this though as the gold is not extremely useful.
15. Cerro de Potosi 10
10 gold straight up is very situational. Its good to work in the middle game, or very early if you want to buy something like a city state or a settler even, this becomes higher ranked in domination games where you can go broke easier
16. Barringer Crater 2 3
Bad wonder. only work this pretty late, or when you absolutely need a tech a few turns faster, not worth it otherwise.
17. Grand Mesa 2 production 3 gold
Bad, without one with nature this is definitely worse than any resource tile, and probably worse than a straight up hill which can be improved with a mine.
Discuss
since we can all agree that the rating of natural wonders depends on what type of game you are playing. e.g.: More production is better when rushing, etc. This list will try to rank each wonder by the average usefulness of a players game, keeping in mind that the most normal games last past turn 200 and are played at immortal om pangaea for example.
1. Fountain of Youth 10
10 Happiness just for having this in your borders, this alone mean you can settle an extra 2 cities early on which is very powerful, the double healing is useful for domination games
2. Eldorado 5
500 gold means an extra free settler which is a big deal, the tile itself is okay but one strong part about this wonder is that you dont really need to settle it, you just reap the 500g for finding it.
3. Great Barrier Reef (x2) 2c5food:2 1 1 2)
Getting one with nature with this means the highest combined stats of any NW, you dont give up any food or production to get extra faith, science, and gold, strong.
4. Sri Pada 2 4 2
The best of the faith wonders. all of which are strong, since early religion is so key to have. Gives enough faith that you can found a religion guaranteed with it alone, food early on so you can work it and still grow, and 2 happiness really helps early on.
5. Uluru 6 2
Only NW apart from sri para that gives both food and faith, making it easily workable early on. Getting free faith early on gives a high chance of getting one with nature, a good feature of all the faith NW and that makes them very strong. Though sri para trades 2 of that faith for happiness, which is a good trade considering that the 10 happiness wonder is at top, so a flat trade of faith for happiness seems in favor for the happiness
6. Mt. Kaliash 6 2
Good Faith wonder. Faith and Happiness is great, if you can send this city a food caravan early, this wonder becomes better than Uluru and possibly sri para.
7. Mt. Sinai 8
2nd worst of the faith wonders, the pure 8 faith is just over the top, and does not compete with the trade off of a little extra food and or happiness of those faith wonders above.
8. Mt. Kilimanjaro 3 2
This wonder gives a little food to be very workable, and pretty decent culture which can be nice especially in domination games, where the flat culture bonus is a lot. The real bonus of this wonder comes from the buff it yields, which allows units double movement in hills. Great for domination games, not required to settle it but its often a good idea to have at least a road from cap to this. Ranking it 8th because its not very good in peaceful games.
9. King solomons mines 6
The production is nice, and the reason i put this higher than Lake Victoria is that you can get big amounts of production from this with just a little population and this does not require a city placement with good production tiles, and big worker commitment early on in order to get things rolling fast, for example its great to work this tile from pop 1 and hard build a granary, while with Lake Victoria, you have to grow, wait for workers to come and improve hills nearby (if there are any) and you can't really build anything until all that is done. King solomons mines is better in more city spots, since it does not require additional production tiles for a city in that location to be useful
10. Mt. Fuji 2 3 3
The worst of the faith wonders. This wonder gives a bit of gold which is the weakest yield in most situations, and culture which is okay but happiness faith and food is probably better. Its one saving grace is that it does give 3 faith which does allow you to settle it early and pick up one with nature for a nice 7 faith tile with some culture.
11. Lake Victoria 6
Okay wonder, very situational though, if this wonder is just surrounded by flatland it is questionable if this is even worth a settle, since every city preferably needs some production. With hills or horse tiles or such this becomes pretty good, but still requires a lot of workers early on if you want to make use of that extra population, which means that you need quite a few worker steal in order to make this good. and even in the best of cases i would still rather have KSM since its less invested resources early on and you can use the hammers faster.
12. Old Faithful 2 3
3 happiness for having this in your borders is okay, never work this tile though unless you have no other source of religion and can take one with nature.
13. Krakatoa 5
Useful if a city has a lot of early food and or if you want to rush your science to get a specific wonder like petra or CI, working the extra science otherwise is questionable before pop 3 otherwise, with caravans this can become nice though. One downside of this wonder is that it is often very unworkable and you often have to go out of your way and buy tiles to even work it.
14. Rock of Gibraltar 2 5
Food and a decent amount of gold makes this an okay tile to work, dont go out of your way to settle this though as the gold is not extremely useful.
15. Cerro de Potosi 10
10 gold straight up is very situational. Its good to work in the middle game, or very early if you want to buy something like a city state or a settler even, this becomes higher ranked in domination games where you can go broke easier
16. Barringer Crater 2 3
Bad wonder. only work this pretty late, or when you absolutely need a tech a few turns faster, not worth it otherwise.
17. Grand Mesa 2 production 3 gold
Bad, without one with nature this is definitely worse than any resource tile, and probably worse than a straight up hill which can be improved with a mine.
Discuss