Favorite wonder

[blitzkrieg1980]

Oracle. It's a gamebreaking wonder. In every game you can do it without the mids or the great library. But in some games the Oracle is the difference between victory and defeat. Check Mads fickle Isabella for more details.

btw AW is a great wonder, but is very situational.

The Fickle Isabella game is not a game to be measuring anything by. It's an RPC where you have to get all the shrines an continuously change religions whenever you first get a new one!

Mad's RPCs are awesome ways to explore different economies/strategies and have fun, but in no way should you measure whether or not a wonder will make/break a [normal] game by an RPC. Oracle is in no way a game maker/breaker unless you're playing a duel pangaea map and you Oracle HBR or something.

EDIT: In fact, I hardly ever go for the Oracle and I have no problem winning my games. Even in games that I lose on the level I'm breaking into, the Oracle isn't a factor in my loss. I lose in the industrial era or later (never earlier) and I'm usually doing a good job until the late renaissance era.

 

[Bleys]

I have noticed myself adding the AW to my list of things I plan lately. I like having access to lots of religions, and I spread them regularly. A Missionary is a great 1-pop whip unit when you dont want any more military units at the moment. Even without the Mids, eventually, I am likely to find them and capture them, or I will open up Rep myself, and those Super Priest Specialists rock. Hammers, beakers and cash, whats not to like.

The AW is also the best way to generate a GProph late in the game if you skipped the early wonders. Quite often I capture unshrined enemy Holy Cities, and want that Prophet for a shrine.

Getting it isnt hard either, especially if you are good at generating GSs. Once you bulb it, if no other AI has it, you can hold that monopoly past Lib, because the AIs just dont prioritize it once the religion is gone.

The AW is a very underrated Wonder.

 

[Krill]

There are quite a few wonders that can break a game when used in the correct manner. That's not part of this thread though, unless you are trying for a threadjack.

Favourite wonder is quite difficult. Most fun to abuse, excluding National Wonders (which would be West Point...) is possibly Stonehenge on a small map: get a settler out early (before a worker), settle next to a capital city, then build it in the second city, chopping it with a worker after the settler.

Yeah, contrived, ain't it. Alot of the wonders are quite boring when the game has been played for 3.5 years

 

[semirami]

The Fickle Isabella game is not a game to be measuring anything by. It's an RPC where you have to get all the shrines an continuously change religions whenever you first get a new one!

It's just an example. RPC or not you can't survive with Shaka as your neighbour and no metals...
In some games you really need a key tech to survive, altough not very often.

 

[Krill]

Is Oracling fued that much of an unknown?

It's been standard play in an MP setting since vanilla.

 

[CLST]

It changes every game, although I find that the great wall can usually be leveraged into several free techs, and is as such, a good nab.

 

[kooboo]

I voted:
- Stonehenge - Obelisks are far to expensive
- Colossus - Maybe it's me, but I happen to build quite a lot of sea cities.
- University of Sankore - I just love the effect of having extra science bottles in practically every city.

 

[Dirk1302]

Mids are almost twice as popular as the GLH . Also GL is more popular than either of these. GLH is hardest to get, GL easiest. I assume voters have a bias for the wonders they can get. In this case i'd have expected to see parthenon better ranked, not so easy as GL but definitely doable with marble on any level. It's a good one too if you're not philosophical. If you have enough food it can easily be stronger than GL.

 

[Zack]

Mids are almost twice as popular as the GLH . Also GL is more popular than either of these. GLH is hardest to get, GL easiest. I assume voters have a bias for the wonders they can get. In this case i'd have expected to see parthenon better ranked, not so easy as GL but definitely doable with marble on any level. It's a good one too if you're not philosophical. If you have enough food it can easily be stronger than GL.

I forgot where I saw it, but I remember a post that explained how the Parthenon will only get you 1, maybe 2 extra great people. It's really not that great of a wonder if you actually consider the effects. Sure you get your GP quicker, but is it worth spending all those hammers on? IMO, the answer is no.

 

[Krill]

I forgot where I saw it, but I remember a post that explained how the Parthenon will only get you 1, maybe 2 extra great people. It's really not that great of a wonder if you actually consider the effects. Sure you get your GP quicker, but is it worth spending all those hammers on? IMO, the answer is no.

Ooh, please find that thread. The maths behind that reasoning really sounds exciting. OK, maybe not, but I stil want to see it.

Your opinion is completely subjective and therefore irrelevant though, unless you give reasoning..? or the thread link, either works...

 

[Dirk1302]

I forgot where I saw it, but I remember a post that explained how the Parthenon will only get you 1, maybe 2 extra great people. It's really not that great of a wonder if you actually consider the effects. Sure you get your GP quicker, but is it worth spending all those hammers on? IMO, the answer is no.

Well parthenon is 1/2 of philosophical, it's not very expensive with marble, if you have food especially in multiple cities and you run caste you can get lots of gp this way. It's also powerful in a GL/NE combo.

And come on getting gp quicker is what the philosophical trait is all about in the first place.In other words the answer is imo a firm yes if the circumstances are right. They are often right with marble.

 

[Ghpstage]

Mids are almost twice as popular as the GLH . Also GL is more popular than either of these. GLH is hardest to get, GL easiest. I assume voters have a bias for the wonders they can get. In this case i'd have expected to see parthenon better ranked, not so easy as GL but definitely doable with marble on any level. It's a good one too if you're not philosophical. If you have enough food it can easily be stronger than GL.

For me the GLigH is one of the easiest wonders to get I can get it in 90%+ of the games I want it while not being Industrious, much easier than GLib and the Parthenon is even harder to get, a total no go without marble. Although I only play on emperor atm.


I'm not a big fan of the mids, too expensive unless I'm using an Industrious leader AND have stone and then to get a good return on it I'm gonna need to do quite a lot of tile micro to get as many specialists running as I can sustain. I see its power, It's just not me


I don't understand why someone picked ToA I don't rate it at all really, it gives a polluted GP pool, it only affects one city and without GLH that effect is barely noticeable, it gets built really, really early on what I personally consider a pretty weak early tech route. The only reason I actually bother to notice it exists is that when I have a Great Merchant I will get a nice bonus for a trade mission conducted in the ToA city....

 

[Dirk1302]

Well then your path is clear imo .

 

[Zack]

Well parthenon is 1/2 of philosophical, it's not very expensive with marble, if you have food especially in multiple cities and you run caste you can get lots of gp this way. It's also powerful in a GL/NE combo.

And come on getting gp quicker is what the philosophical trait is all about in the first place.In other words the answer is imo a firm yes if the circumstances are right. They are often right with marble.

Philosophical actually gets you a few extra GP too. What I meant to say was that Parthenon isn't that great if you're a Philosophical leader, which is totally different. This is basically what the thread was stating, not my personal opinion. This is all very confusing I'm sure, but I REALLY wish I could find the post. I think it said something like the Parthenon doesn't get you half of the GP Philo does, something very confusing and probably silly, so just ignore me on the Parthenon above. I'll possibly build it if I have Marble, but I seem to never have Marble/Stone.

 

[Banana Bunny]

My first reaction was Mids too. I now play on monarch, and getting mids is not always possible. The funny thing is that with Mids, the most noticeable benefit for me in switching to reps is the increase in the happy cap for my 3 major cities. No votes for Statue of Zeus? I love this.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

My first reaction was Mids too. I now play on monarch, and getting mids is not always possible. The funny thing is that with Mids, the most noticeable benefit for me in switching to reps is the increase in the happy cap for my 3 major cities. No votes for Statue of Zeus? I love this.

I grabbed 'Mids on my Japan game last night on a food-poor map. Instead of switching to Rep (don't really have many specialists ie. cottage heavy economy) I switched to Her.Rule (quite early). It allowed for size 9 cities in the 1000B.C. and I didn't have to worry about researching monarchy and went down the military tech lines while maintaining very high caps.

It's not always needed for Rep. I'll probably switch to police state tonight after whipping up a huge army and DoW on my 2 neighbors Shaka (waited too long for him IMO) and Joao (getting close to optics in tech tree)

 

[Antilogic]

Not to sidetrack the poll, but it's my understanding that an AP victory requires that all civs in the game must have at least one city with the AP religion. Somehow I never get the option for this victory even when these requirements are met, and I'm not playing with any special settings or mods.

That's right everybody must be able to vote. Of course, if the religion is well-spread within your borders and some empires have a wussy size 2 arctic outpost, then your voice is much louder.

I just won an AP victory through these means around 1500 AD last night (no records set, I know). It was a Hemispheres map, and I had to send out caravels with missionaries to the other continent to convert a few small cities (even had to give away a tech or two for Open Borders...glad there were no theocracies at the moment, although Boudica switched literally 6 turns after I dropped my missionary). Unfortunately, I had to invade my religious allies afterwards and vassalize them to ensure they voted for the right candidate.

 

[Flying Pig]

Vassals always vote with you? Interesting...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There are quite a few wonders that can break a game when used in the correct manner. That's not part of this thread though, unless you are trying for a threadjack.

Favourite wonder is quite difficult. Most fun to abuse, excluding National Wonders (which would be West Point...) is possibly Stonehenge on a small map: get a settler out early (before a worker), settle next to a capital city, then build it in the second city, chopping it with a worker after the settler.

Yeah, contrived, ain't it. Alot of the wonders are quite boring when the game has been played for 3.5 years

IMO going worker ---> Improving 5 yield tiles and growing onto them, then making/chopping a settler ---> have worker chase settler and chop out SH immediately in 2nd city offers a better look. You have improve tiles to make more workers/settlers/units in the capitol, and you probably don't lose many/any turns on SH .

I like ToA a lot and considered picking it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it especially POWERFUL, but we're talking favorites after all .

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I like ToA a lot and considered picking it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it especially POWERFUL, but we're talking favorites after all .

Why ToA, TMIT? AFAIR, it's a pretty weak wonder that only affects 1 city and provides a mixed GPP pool (with artist, bleh!)