Best Ancient/Classical wonder: Post G&K

[GAGA Extrem]

But the most telling bit is the phrase "Provides a free amphitheater in the city where it is built" in the description...

Was hidden under the wall of text, so I guess I forgot it. But, makes Petra even better. =)

 

[_megafone_]

Petra is far and away the most overpowered one IMO, but it is really situational (duh). I'd go as far as to say it is the best Wonder in the entire game if you get the exact right setup - something along the lines of what I got in my last Immortal win: a long hilly range with 3 sheeps, and 2 Oasis (yeah, that was luckier than getting a Skilldorado turn10, I know). Being situational, though, I'd not vote for it.
Playing mainly on Deity now, I basically forgot Great Library's existence. You simply will NOT get it. Same with the Lighthouse on water maps.

That out of the way, I'd vote for Stonehenge, since it pretty much assures you to be a religion founder, even if you are unlucky and get a game with a bunch of pious leaders. Oracle is a close second - not only getting an early free policy is powerful, but you usually get a Great Scientist out of it alone by the time you reach Education, specially now that the beeline to it is a bit longer.

 

[PhilBowles]

Was hidden under the wall of text, so I guess I forgot it. But, makes Petra even better. =)

With +1 inherent culture and +6 more when you reach archaeology, it's a pretty massive culture generator too - +10 in total.

 

[ahawk]

I originally voted for Petra. I still do.

But the Great Wall in G&K is ridiculous, given the boosts to city health. As of the time stamp on this reply, Great Wall only has 6 votes. I'm surprised it doesn't have at least a couple more than that.

 

[Bezhukov]

I've been having some good luck building Pyramids almost immediately at the beginning of the game. Maximizes the benefit of the Tradition tree (and makes up for missing out on the free worker/25% rate bonus of Liberty). The growth bonus of filling out Tradition is so much stronger throughout the game than anything Liberty offers that this is a major plus.

Definitely need monument first - debating cutting out the scout, maybe going monument->worker->pyramids. Waiting to buy the first worker is a little late. Once you get the three workers, your capital will be fully improved in no time, and you'll be struggling to get enough cities up to keep your workers busy. This is good thing.

Civ has always been about working the most improved tiles, and the Pyramids are the best way to make sure you're doing that. The Great Engineer points super early is a big plus too for grabbing a key Classical wonder.

 

[Tyxerxa]

I think Stonehenge is the best, because it means you have a chance to found a religion on Deity, unless you get lucky with ruins / city state quests or play the Celts. It's pretty much the only wonder I go for in any game.

 

[Mesix]

While there are a lot of valid points of view as to why one wonder or another is good, the question isn't which do you go after an a particular situation, but which wonder is the best. There is only one wonder which is potentially game breaking.

The Great Wall

Not only is it good to slow down a warmonger AI, but building it prevents an AI opponent from slowing down your units as well. With the stronger city defenses in G&K, the Great Wall is a must have while all others are a nice to have.

 

[Babri]

Great Library is the probably one of the most strongest but Petra is my favourite because of its unique bonus which can make a pathetic & useless city into a legendary one. I voted for Petra.

 

[merubhanot]

I voted GL, but there are a number of good ones here that arent getting enough love.

First off, stop saying Petra. Yes, we all understand that if you're stuck in a giant desert, petra is insane. That doesn't make it the best wonder of the ancient/classical era, and it's one that you'll build far less often than many of the others (unless you aggressively reroll your starts..). I find the Oracle to be generally pretty overrated and Terracotta has been similarly lackluster. The Great Wall is good, and I should probably build it more. The Hanging Gardens though are my pick for 2nd to the GL. The 6 food boost is INSANE, and can easily set a city up to be a powerhouse for the rest of the game much faster.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

Has to be GL. It's more difficult to leverage properly now than it was in vanilla but it's still doable. Invading my neighbors with Comp bowmen, swordsmen, and/or catapults while they are still stuck on spearmen and regular bowmen makes it rather hard to lose and sets you up to snowball your way straight to the end of the game.

 

[Arilian]

Petra with desert hills is über awsome.

 

[Arilian]

GL is going away in standard deity around turn 30-35. I might be good, but you are better build 3 more city instead of GL.

Even if you succeed, you cant have a second city fast from policy, so deity AI will take all good city places.

 

[Linkie]

I think Petra is the wonder with the highest potential, but that is not necessarily the same as the best one. I think I'll have to play a little more before making a final decision, but Oracle, GL, GW and Statue of Zeus are probably my biggest contenders.

 

[PhilBowles]

While there are a lot of valid points of view as to why one wonder or another is good, the question isn't which do you go after an a particular situation, but which wonder is the best. There is only one wonder which is potentially game breaking.

The Great Wall

Not only is it good to slow down a warmonger AI, but building it prevents an AI opponent from slowing down your units as well. With the stronger city defenses in G&K, the Great Wall is a must have while all others are a nice to have.

The fundamental limitation with seeing the Great Wall as "the best" is that it does nothing to advance your strategy - and is not useful if you don't go to war or are successful enough at it that you don't get attacked. Everything else (except Lighthouse) provides some kind of actual boost to some element of the game that improves your prospect of victory, not just your prospect of not dying.

It's a strong Wonder, but a couple of things in G&K make it weaker - the AI is less predictably aggressive, so you're simply less likely to get into wars when you're on the defensive. And the greater difficulty taking cities that people suggest makes them nearly unassailable with the Great Wall actually makes the wall utself less useful, since it simply isn't needed to hold your cities. Add to that the AI's somewhat improved force organisation, and the AI will only ever attack your cities with a swarm - costing their attackers a movement point in your territory isn't going to keep your cities alive against a large number of attackers unless you already have an army of your own in place. In which case, what's the wall needed for again?

As I mentioned above, the Wall can be very useful against human players. It may be on Immortal and Deity, but at least up to Emperor its effects are hardly noticeable - and that goes for AI civs that build/capture it as well. In one game Siam took Washington, which had the GW, while I was attacking Sukothai. The attack was not noticeably slowed or impeded, and the city fell readily enough. So even as a way of denying it to an (AI) opponent there's not a huge incentive to go for it.

The Wall is a fantastic Wonder in theory, but not so much in practice. I stand by the Oracle, but if it has a serious contender that's the Hanging Gardens, and possibly Stonehenge, not the Great Wall.

 

[Vatras]

@PhilBowles:
The Wall is useful, if you are playing at war. It kicks in when you take a city and prevents a relief force to swarm it while the place is down - at least that was what happened to me. Not that I picked the Wall as my choice, though, I went with Petra.

 

[Khadroth]

Like others have said, I think GL is the best all around. But I don't think any Wonder can stand up to Petra in terms of it's ability to turn your game around when starting in the desert. As such my vote goes to Petra.

 

[Gucumatz]

People underrate the Great Wall too much.

Its not a wall, its a weapon.

Still didnt vote for it though

===========

Its gotten buffed in Gods and Kings. Let me tell you what I mean...

You can ignore teching artillery for so long and go bombers/infantry to kill anything in your path. Once your bombers capture a city, any units left in it can't run due to Great Wall and you can pick them off one by one. You can use Paratroopers to drop behind enemy lines to snatch a city without an issue as soon as its hp is low enough. You can use the great wall to win any war (its better on multiplayer though)

 

[PhilBowles]

People underrate the Great Wall too much.

Its not a wall, its a weapon.

Still didnt vote for it though

===========

Its gotten buffed in Gods and Kings. Let me tell you what I mean...

You can ignore teching artillery for so long and go bombers/infantry to kill anything in your path. Once your bombers capture a city, any units left in it can't run due to Great Wall and you can pick them off one by one. You can use Paratroopers to drop behind enemy lines to snatch a city without an issue as soon as its hp is low enough. You can use the great wall to win any war (its better on multiplayer though)

That would only constitute a buff if it either came with no cost, or was benefitted by strategies it's a good idea to employ anyway. Do you want to tech late to, or completely forgo, artillery in the general scheme of things? No, not really - that forces you to create rocket artillery from scratch when you get that far, and so lose all the promotions from your existing siege units. It's probably not optimal simply as general tech progression. So you don't get this "buff" without a rather severe cost. And it's hardly worth designing your teching strategy around the Great Wall when you have bombers and infantry in sufficiently dominant numbers and positions that you can reliably capture cities anyway. The AI really isn't very good at taking them back.

 

[Mesix]

If you let the AI build the Great Wall, you have to wait for artillery to take them out. It really slows down a conquest game.

 

[Wuddel]

Stonehenge. Screw the free tech. It basically enables you to be the dominant religion in the game because you will probably get "Religios Texts". Getting rid of your Gold or Happines problems. GL is awesome, but the AI always goes for it (Immortal/Deity). Petra is awsome, but situational.