Building Petra on Immortal+

[Izmir Stinger]

Say you have a desert start with lots of desert hills, maybe some sheep copper or gold on them, desert incense and/or wheat tiles and maybe an Oasis. Desert folklore will give you a huge amount of . Obviously, you really want Petra to super charge those hills and make the incense/wheat tiles worth working, and the extra trade route is nothing to sneeze at, either, especially if you are Arabia or Morocco (which is likely, given their start biases). Petra/Foklore/Kasbah hills are 2411 tiles. Not something you should pass up lightly. Also, the splash screen has an Indian Jones quote.

On Immortal, however, getting any pre-medieval wonder is a crapshoot. I usually see it go before turn 100. Beelining is obviously necessary. Currency is deep enough in the tree that going for writing to get a library might actually be faster than going straight there. How many worker techs can you detour to? Calendar and Mining are not in the path, but skipping them can be a painful delay if those are your luxuries. For that matter, neither is pottery, but skipping it doesn't seem feasible. Does lack of mines from skipping mining actually makes it take longer due to less ? You have time to squeeze out a settler, but does the halted growth cut too deeply into your / to make it to Petra? Can it be done on Deity at all? Anyone done the math on any of these questions?

Most important question is, obviously, is it worth it? Turning several desert incense into plains incense and several hills into 4 yield tiles (before improvements) seems worth it, but it plays hell on conventional early tech/build orders. Discuss.

 

[Buccaneer]

In my last two Immortal games, I had a big desert start and obviously grabbed Desert Folklore. But apart from Petra going fairly early, I would not have prioritized it because Currency ended up being one of those backfilled techs. I was much more concern with the top lines (since I was going cultural) as well as Construction and Machinery (for needed defense) - Currency is just a detour from both. Additionally, I didn't think it would've helped that greatly to make it worthwhile. It certainly can help but six of my desert tiles were Floodplains, where Petra does not affect.

 

[budweiser]

You cant spin up a game and with the intention of building Petra. You have to know when you can build it.

 

[kb27787]

because Petra + desert hills (esp with sheep) or oases are so powerful, I intentionally locate my first settler (right at start) to the location even taking several turns if I must (if the city location is defensible).
Deserts also tend to have more NWs than other terrain excluding ocean and sometimes NWs do stack with Petra's bonus.
If you build Petra in your capitol, it can be done around turn 70-80 or so and is reasonable even on immortal.

Imagine petra + sheep hill + stable + river and hydro plant + fertilizer tech + pantheon belief, and you're looking at 4 food 4 production (8 tile yields, which is basically double of the standard 4) + faith or culture, and you might have up to 3 such tiles in your city.

 

[kb27787]

When I beeline I go pottery, writing, archery then animal husbandry, the wheel, math then currency. While researching currency you have more than enough time to train a worker (and on lower player games or lower difficulty, you can steal hanging gardens along the way if the AI players all go piety first) No luxes are a pain, but if you adopt tradition, your empire should not be unhappy thanks to that 0.5 happiness per citizen in the capitol.

This works only if your city needs no defense whatsoever; sometimes a wall and + 50% combat bonus is enough if you utilize chokes (or spawn with Mt. Sinai then you can get holy warriors)
This is suicidal to do on open flood plains as no AI will be stupid enough NOT to attack when you have two archers and a warrior at turn 70. Once petra is done though you can crank out units at one-two turn per archer, and it should be downhill from there.

 

[djpigeon]

To get petra it is worthwhile to get a library first, it doesn't get you to currency faster, but neither make it really longer (obviously it depends on the starting location).
However with the trade route now you may skip it if you have close neighbours.

Also mining is very important to take, because since you will not have a big population, you will need to have a good production on the tiles you will work. It is one thing to get currency, but you still need to build the wonder ^^

When I tried to get petra I usually didn't build a settler, but that was because I was triying to get the hanging garden on my way. But now with BNW, if I was to try and was going for liberty, I think I would get one (after the free settler of course).

For the question whether it worth it, well... if you are on a flat desert I'd say no, unless you grab it with the free great ingenieur from Liberty. If you are on hills with fresh water, and even better sheeps all around, I'd say Hell Yeah !

I play on deity btw, I didn't get it every time I tried (was in G&K though) but still a fair amount of time. Also the good thing with that wonder is that is one AI is going for it, he finish it even before you get currency, so no wasted production... olo

 

[cAtlas]

I managed to pull off Petra on Diety, but I had to take ancient wonders pantheon and worked 3 mines, and even then it was very close since it's usually gone turn 70-ish. Early caravan is obvious, but apart from that you might have to spend money and buy necessary tiles, chop some forests and what not. It's a big investment.

 

[adwcta]

I managed to pull off Petra on Diety, but I had to take ancient wonders pantheon and worked 3 mines, and even then it was very close since it's usually gone turn 70-ish. Early caravan is obvious, but apart from that you might have to spend money and buy necessary tiles, chop some forests and what not. It's a big investment.

Yeah, I don't know.... I'm 6/6 getting Petra now on Immortal (about half those games had Arabia/Morocco so, I know they had shots at it). Haven't had a start to try it on Deity yet in BNW, but it was definitely doable in G&K.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

Yeah, I don't know.... I'm 6/6 getting Petra now on Immortal (about half those games had Arabia/Morocco so, I know they had shots at it). Haven't had a start to try it on Deity yet in BNW, but it was definitely doable in G&K.

What did your tech/build/policy order look like?

 

[Aaron90495]

Yeah, I have no idea how people manage to regularly snag Petra on Immortal+. My last game I only went to Writing, then straight to currency. I had a perfect location (plenty of flood plains and hills), but it was built before I got to Currency. It probably comes down to this: if an AI has a desert start, there's no way you're getting it. If you beeline and an AI has a desert second city (highly likely), then you'll get it if you have a very good start.

 

[Walter E Kurtz]

I can't seem to build Petra before turn 80. If someone couild give me a detailed description of how they managed to build it at turn 70 or so that would be appreciated.

I assume you need to connect trade routes for science, scout other civs and hope for the right ruins?

The problem is balancing your game progress against this one wonder. Having less luxuries, less tile improvements, no writing and no NC before turn ~100 seems like a steep price to pay. All in all I think it's better to skip Petra if you're planning a peaceful game. You might get it later if there's no competition for it. And If you're going for domination there's no need to build it anyway.

 

[3drawegroeg]

This doesn't really answer the question, but does apply to the topic. I tried Morocco on immortal for the first time and figured WTF not go for Petra? First attempt and I missed it by seven turns on T86 to my neighbors the Shoshone (who didn't appear to have desert access???). I was a bit annoyed because I realized I had been a little lazy about it. So I reloaded and tried optimizing things to shave turns off the build time. I reloaded multiple times and tried several different things, all of which would have gotten Petra built sooner, but Shoshone were evidently using the reloads to optimize as well because each time through they also built it faster than the time before. I don't much care for reloading, but I kind of considered the game a throwaway at this point and wanted to see if it would be possible to build the thing.

 

[Alphons Rodulfo]

You could try to focus on early culture, fill up the Liberty tree fast and get a Great Engineer to hurry Petra in one turn.

 

[kb27787]

You could try to focus on early culture, fill up the Liberty tree fast and get a Great Engineer to hurry Petra in one turn.

unless you get Mt. Kilimanjaro or El Dorado, or sacred path (and what kind of desert city has jungles?) 5 culture policies (6 if taken tradition opener) is usually not fast enough on immortal if one AI has a desert start.

 

[red_doctor]

I managed to get it a few games ago, but I was Babylon, and the GS from writing really boosted my tech pace. I went straight for Currency and managed to get it. But yeah it's not something you can do every game.

I had however many Flood Plain tiles, and it wasn't that good in the end. In fact rushing Currency is not good imo on Immortal+.

TLDR: Petra demands both luck and too many resources that I doubt it is worth, unless you have a really good location.

 

[maupa]

Managed to get petra for my cap in my last deity game on turn 77. I was kinda lucky in more than just one way, though.
Stole a pretty early worker from one of my neighbours and was able to send an early science boosting caravan in the other direction + had 2 caravans incoming as well.
My techpath was pottery, mining, BW, AH + beeline currency (found archery). I slid BW in, because i played persia and wanted some immos for barbs + early war. Luckily found iron on an already improved hill.

 

[afungus amongus]

If you really want Petra pre-80, especially if desert is in expansion city:
-Oracle to finish Liberty, take GE
-GE builds Petra

Only worth if desert is big; most of the time GS from Liberty is better. Also you miss out on Pyramids while you build Oracle.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

If no other civ has desert near his capital, you can build it, maybe

 

[Memoryjar]

Build Petra in Immortal is a question of timing as write before.

Fall of Hanging Garden is a clue. You can estimate if you are able to complete Petra. Sometimes, I build with success both. I don't remember fail to build Petra.
In my opininon, except if Ramses is on the map a simple beeline of Currency through Writing is enough. Sometimes I need to have calendar or masonry for Lux tech.
Aristocracy is necessary in my opinion.

 

[szcott]

If you can tell if an AI is building it, declare war on them and they will sometimes stop building to make units. This works with most wonders.