Best national wonder combinations

[Addran]

I wonder which national wonder pairing is most popular among players. There has been some discussion (check http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=238469&highlight=national+wonder), but I haven't found a poll yet. Since there are so many possibilities, the combinations must have been restricted as follows:

 

[King of Town]

National park and anything is awesome

 

[AfterShafter]

Heroic Epic + West Point is the winner... National Epic + National Park and Heroic Epic + Red Cross are the runners up IMO. Some of those combinations just suck

 

[kniteowl]

^ I agree, like National Park and Ironworks... National Park Removes Coal from that city so Ironworks is only running at 50%

 

[Powerslave]

West Point and Red Cross, for my vote.

I usually do the following:

Heroic Epic/Moai Statues (for a decent navy)
National Epic/Oxford (settle Great Scientists and Great Spies here)
Ironworks/Wall Street (settle all my Great Prophets, Great Merchants, and Great Engineers here)
Hermitage/Globe Theater (settle Great Artists here, if I'm going for cultural victory)
West Point/Red Cross (settle all my Great Generals here)
And National Forest usually goes in the city that still has 3 forests in it, if any. I am an unrepentant cottage spammer, though in real life I like a few trees in the neighborhood.

Occasionally, I'll switch things around a bit, so that Oxford/Wall Street are in my capital, Heroic Epic/West Point are in my best land-locked city, Moai Statues/Ironworks are in my best coastal city, and National Park/National Epic are in the first AI capital that I steal. At that point, I'm usually at a loss as to where I should put Red Cross, so I put it in some random city that can produce units relatively quickly.

 

[18lama]

This one really should be Multi choice.

 

[Mesix]

The national park and national epic combo gets my vote.

This is the only combo that I use in every game (at least the ones that get far enough along for me to build the national forest). I plan the city early on, leaving 10+ forests intact and building the national epic early. Getting all these free specialists (as well as no unhealthiness and all the bonus happiness from the preserved forests as a bonus) makes a great GP farm for the late game. With the right civics/buildings, it also becomes easy to choose what type of GP you want the city to spawn each time. The city often doubles as a great production center since all the forests generate hammers and the national forest allows you to build every production building without worry.

 

[Iranon]

National Park + National Epic gets the vote for my favourite combination that I never build, because I like to get my Great People early and by the time National Park is available my GP farm is a tree-free zone. Grr.

If it's only flood plains+ and forests, I might pull it off.

 

[Andraeianus I]

I like the great artist farm. By the way: the red cross is very good for coastal cities: this way you can give your ships a medic promotion!

 

[ese-aSH]

globe theatre + heroix epic + slavery.

using nationnal park in a production city (ironworks) is a great thing too for me in the end game

 

[ese-aSH]

The national park and national epic combo gets my vote.

This is the only combo that I use in every game (at least the ones that get far enough along for me to build the national forest). I plan the city early on, leaving 10+ forests intact and building the national epic early. Getting all these free specialists (as well as no unhealthiness and all the bonus happiness from the preserved forests as a bonus) makes a great GP farm for the late game. With the right civics/buildings, it also becomes easy to choose what type of GP you want the city to spawn each time. The city often doubles as a great production center since all the forests generate hammers and the national forest allows you to build every production building without worry.

1 forest = 1 free specialist
defrich the forest, you ll get +2 food (==> +1 specialist)

so the only use of nationnal park in this combo is the "no pollution" stuff.

I think this is a waste, since the free specialist could be usefull (for example in a producution city whose forest + lumber mill + free engineer are far more valuable than workshop)

 

[Ricci]

I can't believe you didn't include the excelse... Heroic Epic and Globe theatre.
True, there are very few city locations where this can actually be amazing (mayor food quantities). But, if you manage to pull the Globe theatre by the classical era there is no match to the amount of units you can whip out. With a city growing every two turns, very difficult in marathon but still plausible, and with a forge you can get up to 202 hammers for each pop point enslaved. This means one H Archer every turn for instance. I think though this combination works better in marathon speed, were the whip/military units ratio is favorable to other speeds.
Needless to mention, this city will become a drafting barracks with nationhood as well.

 

[Addran]

First of all, I'm truly sorry to have forgotten the multi-choice option! Nevertheless, we can still collect the most popular and disjunct pairings easily. I also agree that Heroic Epic and Globe Theatre makes more sense than some strange combos above. We always learn different strategies...

I often tend to build National Epic and later Oxford University in the capital, although it's not necessarily the strongest combination in the late game. Oxford and Ironworks could work better, especially with bureaucracy and lots of settled great engineers and scientists. I'm trying to come to this situation in the actual game, where the palace will be moved to a second city in mid-game, allowing to realize both National Epic + National Park and Oxford + Ironworks combinations. Besides I used to have Heroic and West Point in a third city.

 

[digitCruncher]

1 forest = 1 free specialist
defrich the forest, you ll get +2 food (==> +1 specialist)

so the only use of nationnal park in this combo is the "no pollution" stuff.

I think this is a waste, since the free specialist could be usefull (for example in a producution city whose forest + lumber mill + free engineer are far more valuable than workshop)

Ummm... your maths is a LITTLE wonky...

The +2 food is ONLY AFTER Biology, and with a farm. If you kill the forest and add the farm, even with Biology, you get +2 food, -1 prod, -0.5 Health. Also, National Parks give +1 , so once you can build a national park you get +1 Health. So, in a national park city, by clearing the forest you get +2 food, -1 prod, -1 (if its beside a river), -1 , -0.5 -1 specialist. So... even if you use the +2 to turn into a specilist, by replacing the forest preserve with a farm you "gain:"

-1 , -0.5 , -1 , -1 (beside a river).

So, with the national park, even with biology, you lose ALOT by replacing preserves with farms...

My fav. combo is Heroic Epic + West point, closely followed by Heroic Epic + Ironworks... but I only use the latter when I have TONS of ready...

Actually, I just realised I voted for the wrong thing >.<. Take off one vote for Heroic Epic + Ironworks, and chuck it in Heroic Epic + West Point That will give the proper results.

 

[Leo Tang]

National park + Ironwork?? Not only it is ironic, it is also inefficient use of Ironwork. Never mind those engineerers

 

[dragodon64]

I prefer to have a primary and a secondary military city. In the primary, I put Heroic Epic and West Point, and in the second (coastal if I can manage), I put Ironworks and Moai Statues. I settle GGs appropriately. With Barracks, Stable, Theocracy and 2GGs, normal units will come out with 11xp and mounted units with 13xp. Add Pentagon and West Point for 17 and 19, respectively! And its not quality over quantity, either cause of Heroic Epic!

 

[azzaman333]

National Epic + National Park.

Gives me an equivalent number of GPs as I would if running an SE rather than my standard CE.

 

[ese-aSH]

Ummm... your maths is a LITTLE wonky...

The +2 food is ONLY AFTER Biology, and with a farm. If you kill the forest and add the farm, even with Biology, you get +2 food, -1 prod, -0.5 Health. Also, National Parks give +1 , so once you can build a national park you get +1 Health. So, in a national park city, by clearing the forest you get +2 food, -1 prod, -1 (if its beside a river), -1 , -0.5 -1 specialist. So... even if you use the +2 to turn into a specilist, by replacing the forest preserve with a farm you "gain:"

-1 , -0.5 , -1 , -1 (beside a river).

So, with the national park, even with biology, you lose ALOT by replacing preserves with farms...

My fav. combo is Heroic Epic + West point, closely followed by Heroic Epic + Ironworks... but I only use the latter when I have TONS of ready...

Actually, I just realised I voted for the wrong thing >.<. Take off one vote for Heroic Epic + Ironworks, and chuck it in Heroic Epic + West Point That will give the proper results.

well ill answer :
+2food comes with biology. correct, but so does nationnal park.... so whats the point ?

All im saying is that the combo nationnal park + nationnal epic is a poor one, because you can get a very simlar result in the same city only with the nationnal epic (okay, you will have 2 or 3 less specialist.. but do you really want to use nationnal park only to get 3 more specialist in a GP farm ??? this is a very poor use of a nationnal wonder... same as building MOAI in a 3 coastal tile city ^^)

loosing prod & commerce is absolutly not a pb in a GP farm, the only issue is to make sure you have many specialists.

nationnal park does not give +1 happyness/forest, this is environnementalism, so the only point where nationnal park reveal usefull is the "no pollution" (which most of the time is useless in your GP farm because you have already kept a huge number of forest to maximize the effects of nationnal park... these 2 effects overlap each over when you try to use nationnal park in a GP farm...)

National park + Ironwork?? Not only it is ironic, it is also inefficient use of Ironwork. Never mind those engineerers

i guess you didnt notice that ironworks give +3 engineer slots ? do you really think that an optimal use of ironworks is to ignore those hammers ?
remember : engineer : +2 hammer, with IW : +4 hammer, as good as a watermill, a lumbermill (with railroad !), a mine on grassland colline etc..

let say you have 6 forest in your IW city.
what is the best use of this forest for you ?
lumbermill ?
workshop ?
farms ?

I think it is lumbermill + national park, it will give you :
1food / 4hammer / 1 engineer (plain) --> 6 base hammer
or
2food / 3hammer / 1 engineer (grassland) --> 5 base hammer
(can even be better if your forest are along a river))

with only 6 forest you get an average 33 base hammer
+ IW + factory + forge + electricity, you'll easily get 100 hammer from these 6 forests.

edit : + the fact that health is a common issue is production cities

 

[JujuLautre]

National park gives free specialists for each forest preserve in the city, not each forest. And also, national park removes access to coal, thus making IW 50% less efficient.

I hardly see any synergy between national park and IW I must say :\

 

[King of Town]

every forest preserve you build gives you a happy face right?