Favourite Wonder

[Diviner]

Secondly, you get nothing by building a single Cathedral. To get something out of this improvement you need a coverage for all your core cities. Only then can you lower the lux slider.

Sounds sensible. But sooner or later you will build cathedrals eventually don't you? and then +3 happy face, sweet i love it. 'course instant effects are close to none, but hey it doesn't get obsolete, so in the long run it HAS an effect. well, i guess if you want to play aggressive in the middle ages, you should not consider building sistine chapel. maybe it is only me, but i find middle ages warfare very expensive (knights, musketman), expensive enough to avoid.

 

[Empiremaker]

But sooner or later you will build cathedrals eventually don't you?

Not unless I'm bored. 160 shields for 3 happy is too much. Especially if you consider the 2gpt it costs in upkeep. The lux slider and/or markets are better.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Sounds sensible. But sooner or later you will build cathedrals eventually don't you? and then +3 happy face, sweet i love it. 'course instant effects are close to none, but hey it doesn't get obsolete, so in the long run it HAS an effect. well, i guess if you want to play aggressive in the middle ages, you should not consider building sistine chapel. maybe it is only me, but i find middle ages warfare very expensive (knights, musketman), expensive enough to avoid.

When I build happyness improvements then it is for the culture and not for the happyness. I think the best way to deal with unhappyness are luxury goods and JS Bachs (they have a lot in common), followed by the luxury slider. Only after that would I rank happyness improvements.

And since I will only go for size 12 cities I can make do with what luxury goods and the luxury slider provide easily.

 

[Bllasae]

Even though I've never built them before lol, my two favorites would have to be:
1.)Apollo Program
2.)The Manhattan Project

 

[Diviner]

apollo program is not even a great wonder

 

[lucashp]

1. temple of artermis

Allows you to have a temple, in every, single, city. This means no culture flips from other civs, (or atleast on my lvl ) a chance to get those dyes those frenchies have had for the past 200 years, and ofcourse more land.

2. Shakespear theater
I always build this in my capital city, since its usaully the first most productive city, and this will make it more productive.

3. Manhatten project

I know this sounds silly, but in some games, nukes are awesome! and others every single civ will declare war on you and this wonder will be the worst.

 

[BlueStar]

Hoover Dam-great production and goog for the ecology-it feels good-and i like the movie-oh yeah-wrong game-except i,ve been playing monarch abd above and you dont really get to build many wonders-you have to capture them-

 

[fishjie]

Sounds sensible. But sooner or later you will build cathedrals eventually don't you?

this has been said before but.......

NO

complete waste of money

only useful for cultural victories.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Cathedrals are not completely useless.

They are OFTEN useless, but not completely.

In fact, I'm playing some SID games where I build a bunch of cathedrals... why?

well, they are 20K games and to keep from getting run over by the AI, I'm playing on arch maps and, quite often, I can't trade for luxes until navigation or magnetism, and by then, the AI is often trading with each other.

several cases where caths are useful:

1) Milking games where you want to maximize score.
2) 100K games.
3) 20K games (at least in the 20K city)
4) when you don't have access to luxes for a variety of reasons, especially if you have Sistine Chapel.
5) When you plant a city on a resource and need as much culture there as you can to counteract flip-pressure.

besides that, not so useful.

 

[Nergal]

I dont like Temple of Artemis, had it once and when it expired half my cities went critical. Wonders that dont have a sell by date are the best in general.

 

[Diviner]

this has been said before but.......

NO

complete waste of money

only useful for cultural victories.

i like to have the possibility for 100k victory. and yeah happiness is a concern (at least for me), once you have mass cathedrals it enables you to lower luxury slider and get purely money. sometimes large luxury does not worth it imo, because its effect are close to none in a bunch of low-pop cities.. well everything's worthiness depends on the actual game, isn't it? true for the wonders, true for the general military strategies and i guess its also true for buildings.

 

[Night Crawler]

Temple of Artemis, Statue of Zeus, and The Great Lighthouse are some of my more favorite wonders... just wish Temple of Artemis wasn't so expensive, and i started near ivory more often

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Cathedrals are not completely useless.

They are OFTEN useless, but not completely.

In fact, I'm playing some SID games where I build a bunch of cathedrals... why?

well, they are 20K games and to keep from getting run over by the AI, I'm playing on arch maps and, quite often, I can't trade for luxes until navigation or magnetism, and by then, the AI is often trading with each other.

several cases where caths are useful:

1) Milking games where you want to maximize score.
2) 100K games.
3) 20K games (at least in the 20K city)
4) when you don't have access to luxes for a variety of reasons, especially if you have Sistine Chapel.
5) When you plant a city on a resource and need as much culture there as you can to counteract flip-pressure.

besides that, not so useful.

In milk runs you have to watch out very, very carefully that you do not accidently trigger a premature 100K win (or domination for that matter). You might actually be better off with clowns for once.

 

[AznWarlord]

Statue of Zeus. The Calvary are strong and can be used for war, and for disband rushing.

 

[dariusII]

The Great Library, ToE, and the Hoover Dam are the wonders I zero in on my games for reasons already nicely exponded upon before me.

 

[mr_lewington]

mine is definetly the smith trading co. just totally makes my day when i get all my banks, markets and stuff for free

 

[Spoonwood]

A lot of this will depend on desired victory condition and such. Even though I don't warmonger for a small wonder I'll pick The Military Academy. O.K., now that someone has said that I'll move on to what you meant by your question.

For a great wonder I'll pick The Colossus. In an OCC game it really seems like a whole extra-variant not to build it. One variant consists of an OCC game. The other consists of an OCC game without The Colossus. You can get three whole ages of extra commerce from the thing... throw on Newton's, and Copernicus's and you've got a ton of beakers there. In a 20k game it'll produce you 3 cpt for not too many shields and can produce 6 cpt easily by 1000 B. C. E. if you built it early enough. If I can't build The Colossus, because of the game difficultly level, then I'll almost surely pick The Great Library, since it seems once you have trouble building The Colossus in your first or second town, The Great Library comes as more desired. If I can't build The Colossus, because of location instead of difficulty, I'll pick Copernicus's Observatory since it comes earlier than Newton's. Then again, that The Theory of Evolution provides two free techs to your tribe I think pretty cool *in concept*.

 

[timerover51]

My favorite unmodified Wonders are the Knights Templar and the Great Lighthouse. The Knights Templar for the Crusaders and the fortress building, and the Great Lighthouse because of my playing on water maps.

 

[darski]

My favourite is and always has been the Pyramids but after reading a strategy article I have switched to building TGlib lately but it is not as satisfying and is pretty much useless at warlord level.

I think it is time to "return to my first love" and build that pointy mound of sand.

 

[Rodent]

Hoover Dam, Theory of Evolution, The Great Library are the only wonders I will ever build (in a non culture game) .

Hoover Dam for the Obvious Benefit to the Pollutution control, saving upkeep costs.

Theory of Evolution for 2 Free Techs

The Great Library for Free Techs until Education.