Favorite Ancient World Wonder

What your your favorite Ancient-Era World Wonder

  • Temple of Artemis

    Votes: 28 16.6%
  • Stonehenge

    Votes: 35 20.7%
  • The Great Library

    Votes: 66 39.1%
  • The Pyramids

    Votes: 30 17.8%
  • Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

    Votes: 6 3.6%
  • Statue of Zeus

    Votes: 4 2.4%

  • Total voters
    169
Stonehenge is better the earlier you get it (and not as good if gotten later). It's an almost guarantee of getting a strong religion. But if I can't get it early enough to get, let's say first or second religion, I would go for ToA or Great library instead. Probably ToA.
 
My vote goes to the Pyramids. It's viable on higher difficulties and I normally get masonry pretty early on anyway (either to clear marshes or for stone/marble). Occasionally I can start building it around the time I would build my first worker (assuming I don't go for the free one from Liberty).

Combined with Liberty, the 50% build bonus can just be extremely helpful. 2 turn roads and 1 turn repairs are amazing (standard speed). Having fewer workers who work faster will decrease your maintenance costs over time and get your improvements up quicker.

A couple weeks ago I would have voted GL, but being on the verge of breaking into Immortal after playing Emperor forever, I've weened myself off of it because it's a big risk. Sometimes I will still use it to jump to Philosophy/NC.

Stonehenge is nice, and still fairly viable, but I prefer saving my hammers and using the other methods of obtaining faith.

Honestly, I haven't really toyed around with ToA that much since it comes much too early and I rather focus production on other things. Mausoleum can be nice to have, but I usually will only get it if I have 3 tiles to benefit from, or it's so late in the game that I can build it in like 6-8 turns.

And finally, I find that the State of Zeus is more of a luxury than anything else. With appropriate military composition, you are going to take cities with or without it, and the lack of GP points (I'm pretty sure) makes it a much lower priority.
 
For my game, generally on King, I tend to make the Pyramids my first Wonder. If I remember correctly, it's on the path to Construction (for CB's) so it falls in line with my other strategies.

I usually steal one worker, get the free one and then get two from the Pyramids; by which time I generally have 3 cities and need to develop the food for them to grow.

I very rarely build an other workers unless I don't get any from any pupeted cities I take.
 
It really depends on the civ. For the Mayans, GL can't be beat on Emperor and below, because you can use it to snag Theology asap, which gets you more and earlier GP. For Byzantium, Stonehenge is a beast, but it's not worth the hammers for Ethiopia, the Mayans, the Celts, and the Polynesians. For most other civs, I'd say that TOA is generally the best early wonder due to the huge 10% food bonus.
 
This is a tough one. As with others here, I'm sort of in a three-way between ToA, Stonehenge and Pyramids. I ended up voting Stonehenge because like other, I almost never get ToA (AI starts with Archery and will build this wonder very early) and Stonehenge does seem to have a greater impact than Pyramids if I don't start near a religious NW, although the extra worker speed is quite sweet (and is the reason why I go for Pyramids, along with the GE-point, rather than the free workers who are just sort of icing on the cake).

GL is also great, but hard to get. Mausoleum is actually quite nice if you start around a couple of stone/marble, and it's easy to get. Statue of Zeus? Never get it, AI builds it way early, and admittedly I don't go for it either because of the lack of GP points.
 
I like TOA (10% more growth, 1 GE Point, and +15% ranged unit production - great for going tall)
Stonehenge (That extra faith is nice for getting a religion if you want to go tall. I will normally build this instead of great library in multiplayer because its slightly less risky and comes with a GE Point)
I like building Pyramids because of the GE Point, 2 workers, and on quick pace allows me to build roads in one turn. Playing as Carthage and or other warmongers in multiplayer it allows me to build roads rapidly, repair pillaged tiles instantly [Giving me a free heal when on the assault each turn], allows me to build rapid roads through the mountains as Carthage allowing me to blitzkrieg everything.
 
1. I belive Pyramid Workesr are FREE

2. Pyramids speed up your improvement build time, which stacks very nicely like Gucumatz has said.

Mausoleum is great for an early money boost, but it's simply terrain based, if you got no Marble/Stone, it's useless.
 
I don t build any , I wait for hanging garden.
 
Of those listed, for me it's Pyramids followed by ToA.

Machu Picchu is a must have for me though because of the gold boost I get.
 
I voted ToA. I love it, especially because it gives +10% food (NOT growth!), which is much better than the 10% growth mentioned in the description of the wonder.

Contrary to what others say, I think it's most often quite doable to build it, even on Deity. With a decent start (city on hill, a few more hills, and 2 or more granary food sources), I build it somewhere around turn 36-42 (standard speed), which gives you ToA 7 or 8 times out of 10 on Deity, and almost guarantees ToA on lower levels.
 
I love the GL, and I try to build Stonehenge when I can. However, for many of my games, the pyramids have a far greater impact, especially if I can expand to or conquer a lot of cities. This translates to lots of worker action required, which is speed up massively by the pyramids. So my vote goes to the pyramids.
 
Had to vote for ToA. I find myself building it more and more recently, as it is a double-edged sword.
 
I don't get the love for the Great Library, its a crapshoot at best to get, and if you conquer it, its a piddly 3 beaker bonus.

Psychology. It gives 2 free things, and people love free stuff. Also, just as in CivIII it acts as a crutch for a lot of players, many of whom don't even recognize it as such. A lot of players just get used to always getting it and popping a tech so much so that the game is much harder for them if they lose it (some rage quit) or if it was disallowed. They depend on it so much that it becomes the defacto best simply because they cannot imagine playing without getting it. I say this as a player would went through this phase as well (much more in CivIII than CiV).

I don't think I've ever built the pyramids.

The problem is, they come too late to be your 1st worker, so you need to have built/capture one (or two) before. When it does come around, I really dont need three (or four) workers total. Not that many citizens to build improvements for, can't build a lot of stuff like TP or lumber mills, so they just sit around costing maintenance money.

How exactly is it useful?
It is situational. There are games where by turn 40 I have 4 cities so the workers are much needed. In an expansive the 25% speed boost is wonderful. The speed boost is the real prize IMO, so much so that I've deleted the workers if I didn't need them for the forseeable future.

My vote went to ToA. The more I play CiV the stronger growth seems in nearly all win conditions (speed non-ocean domination being the exception). SH is nice, and I often build it, largely because it is cheap. However I don't often notice the AI's going for the growth based beliefs, or really any of the good ones, so SH doesn't beat ToA for me.
 
Psychology. It gives 2 free things, and people love free stuff. Also, just as in CivIII it acts as a crutch for a lot of players, many of whom don't even recognize it as such. A lot of players just get used to always getting it and popping a tech so much so that the game is much harder for them if they lose it (some rage quit) or if it was disallowed. They depend on it so much that it becomes the defacto best simply because they cannot imagine playing without getting it. I say this as a player would went through this phase as well (much more in CivIII than CiV).

I completely agree, It annoys me if I miss it, and I often seem to fall out of tech race (although, on Warlord, I would eventually make up the lost techs one way or another).

I also completely rush Library, First Tech, Pottery > Writing

If I completed my Scout/Worker method before Writin I usually build a Shrine, if not, I just start building the library, and just buy the Shrine with money found around the world.
 
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