Great Wonders Elimination Thread

[Leucarum]

If there was a prize for most improved wonder it would go to the Mausoleum. It's gotten as far as it should however. Fun to build but there are more impactful choices here. Such as the pyramids. More builder charges is the best effect on this list IMO. Not flashy but it gets the job done empire-wide.

Big Ben [14]
Colosseum [2]
Forbidden City [26]
Kilwa Kisiwani [22]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [19]
Oracle [29]
Potala Palace [1]
Pyramids [32]

 

[JhGf_123]

Potala Palace: Ridiculous that it outlasted such wonders as Temple of Artemis, Ruhr Valley, and Oxford, and very nearly outlasted Colosseum. Should have been eliminated ages ago, alongside Alhambra.

Oracle: I build it in more games than the Pyramids, probably because desert is something you want to avoid not settle near; so Oracle gets my no. 1 spot out of the remaining candidates.

Big Ben [14]
Colosseum [2]
Forbidden City [26]
Kilwa Kisiwani [22]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [19]
Oracle [30] (29+1)
Potala Palace [ELIMINATED]
Pyramids [32]

 

[bengalryan9]

Big Ben [11] (14-3) Sorry, but it's placement at Economics really hurts it in my eyes. I also tend to build more harbors than commercial hubs for my trade route needs, personally.
Colosseum [2]
Forbidden City [26]
Kilwa Kisiwani [22]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [19]
Oracle [30]
Pyramids [33] (32+1) Haven't upvoted it yet, but it's definitely the best in my eyes. Pretty easy to build + effect that lasts the whole game across your entire civilization = a winning combo.

 

[Hokie Fan]

Big Ben [11]
Colosseum [2]
Forbidden City [26]
Kilwa Kisiwani [23] (22+1). When you're considering Forbidden City versus Kilwa, you're basically comparing whatever your 4th best economic policy/2nd or 3rd best military policy/2nd best diplo policy would be versus whatever bonus you're going to get from Kilwa. In my experience, I can usually get at least two empire wide +15% bonuses with Kilwa, which is better than the bonus the extra policy card would give me.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16] (19-3). I hate to keep down voting wonders that I previously voted for, but I think fifth or sixth is the correct place for MoH. When I build MoH, which is every game, I always combine it with Liang and fisheries to give me a high food, okay production and high yield city. On average, I can usually build 10-14 fisheries, which I'll round off to 12. This means I'm getting +12 science, +12 faith, +12 culture from the MoH. That's decent but not game changing. For the Great Engineer bonus, the only Great Engineer extra charge bonuses that you really care about are the extra wonder charges, which would an extra charge of +215 production early game, +315 production mid-game and possibly +480 production late game. I don't think these two bonuses are better than Oracle, Pyramids, Forbidden City or Kilwa.
Oracle [30]
Pyramids [33]

 

[MrTans]

Completely agree with the poster three above about Potala Palace really outstaying its welcome. One of the only placements in this list I really disagree with.

Pyramids - Very easy requirements to build, very rarely beaten to it by the AI and a very powerful effect which is carried across your empire for the entire game. Its only contender is the Oracle in my opinion.

Colosseum - Time to eliminate this bad boy. I don’t think anyone will argue that it has the potential to be a very powerful wonder. That is if you want to risk it being sniped by the AI leaving you with the worst district until neighbourhoods make an appearance, and only then able to make the most out of it by having terrain kind enough to settle 6+ cities to really get the most from it. I feel this is a good position for it to finish given the opportunity cost.

Big Ben [11]
Forbidden City [26]
Kilwa Kisiwani [23]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [30]
Pyramids [34]

 

[xaiviax]

I find it difficult to down vote anything left.

Big Ben [11]
Forbidden City [23] (26-3) Guess I'll down vote here due to the existence of the other policy wonders. You don't need them all.
Kilwa Kisiwani [23]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [31] (30+1) Acharya Pingala and Pythia of Delphi belong together. Where else would the Indian mathematician live?
Pyramids [32] (34-3+1) Down vote from post 317 was ignored by following posters, Up vote from post 321 was not properly added in.

 

[Francel]

Big Ben [11]
Forbidden City [23]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24] (23+1) - It's the best wonder. What more can be said? People saying it's hard to use, I just don't understand. Maybe you play small maps and turn down the number of city-states? Otherwise, go out and make an effort to find them, liberate them, protect them, do the envoy quests, and use spies. It's incredible. A tier of it's own.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [30]
Pyramids [29] (32-3) - I do get the appeal, since it basically pays for itself (and more), but it's not the best wonder. You can always make more builders if you need to, or just buy them. Pyramids is good but not that good.

 

[hhhhhh]

Pyramids should be +2 (the downvote in #317 and upvote in #321 are missing). Ah was beaten by @xaiviax on saying this.

One more word on Colosseum since I never upvote nor downvote it - it's a medieval wonder in classical wonder's disguise. The real cost is a district slot, a district, an arena, and then the wonder itself. At 10 civic it costs 131 production to build the Entertainment Complex (getting discount is hard on this case), and then 150 for arena, finally 400 for Colosseum - so the real cost is 131 + 150 + 400 = 681 almost the cost of Kilwa Kisiwani (710). So I'm not rating it as good as some of the people here. Meanwhile it's super useful for domination games, but people never mentioned it when they upvote it.

Pyramids [30] (29 + 1) As I said, this is the only wonder that you can reliably get and immediately benefit from in the ancient era. You only need one flat desert tile, and a sporadic one will do. It's just so good if you are able to get a lot of builders (I suggest the downvoters check the number of builders you get in the game (compute that by (production cost of builder - 46) / 4), maybe you don't get enough, but for me I got 40-50 prior to industrial era so... yeah Pyramids are super useful).

Big Ben [8] (11 - 3) It comes so much later than the Forbidden City. How often do you enter Industrial Era with Scientific Theory and then Economics? Plus you have to build a useless bank (290 production for 5 gold + 1 Great Merchant Point) for this. And to maximize its benefit you have to freeze your spending for a while.

Big Ben [8]
Forbidden City [23]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [31]
Pyramids [30]

 

[JJOne]

Big Ben [9] (8+1) It's better than Forbidden City in my opinion. That gold will get you 1-2 great persons, or help you put 1-2 late cities on track.
Forbidden City [23]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [28] (31-3) I almost always build it in a food strong city, but I don't think it is the best wonder out there. If you're faith poor but play really wide / large maps, the GP contribution of the oracle is less and less significant after medieval. Example:
5 cities with campus/lib get you 12GS points (one of them with Pingala). The Oracle in the Pingala City will get you 4 points more or 25% of your GP income. But later 10 cities with campus/lib/uni get you 33 GS points (one of them with Pingala). The Oracle in the Pingala City will get you the same 4 points, but that's now only 11%.
Pyramids [30]

 

[Archon_Wing]

Upvote: Big Ben. 10 (9+1) Economic slots are almost as good as wildcard ones, unless you really like slotting those extra reds/greens. Actual wildcards are nice, but not as important. The extra gold from Big Ben helps a lot to finish off any victory faster (mostly so I can buy spaceports and Research Labs) and I feel the worst when I lose it. It's easy to go on a favor fundraiser a few turns before it finishes. I usually don't even hoard my gold

Downvote: Forbidden City. 20 (23-3) I mean, I always try to build this every game, but honestly it's much more of a long term investment than people think. When this wonder comes out, there really isn't that many good cards available. What extra card can you think of taking? Veterancy? Craftsman? That silly envoy card? Is that worth building a whole wonder over?

Now once cards like Rationalism and Wisselbanken appear , the Forbidden City starts to get a lot more effective, but you still need to be able to use these cards. Also you could have accomplished the same thing as Potala Palace and maybe even Alhambra but those were already yeeted.

Of course, Forbidden City is an excellent warmonger wonder simply because you can slot many more military slots and still maintain your economy. But then that seems to be overlooked.

Big Ben [10]
Forbidden City [20]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [28]
Pyramids [30]

Btw, an ode to the fallen Temple of Artemis in a recent game. I didn't want to post it because I didn't want people to vote for it



Although if you look carefully, there's some subliminal messaging in there.

 

[Jewelrunna]

I still can't help but feel we've done Colosseum dirty, despite a top 10 finish. It's my second favorite wonder in the game. Gonna upvote my favorite this time, which I've sort of been holding off on because it's been set up pretty nicely...

Big Ben [7]
Forbidden City [20]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [28]
Pyramids [31]

Big Ben [7] (10 -3): Big Ben gives you a lot of passive gold per turn, a lot of great merchant points, a crap-ton of gold for a one-time bonus, and an extra economic policy slot. All of these abilities are very, very good; I'm not about to debate that. However, there are two qualifications on Big Ben. One, it's a very costly wonder to produce and because of its placement requirements (basically next to an optimal CH), it's one that the AI will often try to beat you to. Out of all the wonders remaining, Big Ben is easily the least reliably built here. Secondly, this wonder is built in the Industrial Era, the latest wonder here as well. Generally speaking, the earlier a bonus comes in Civ VI, the better, since it better sets you up for the rest of the game. By the time you successfully build Big Ben, it's really only going to be around to push you over the finish line; you're already set up for success. Now granted, it's a very strong push, but I feel like it's not as useful compared to the rest of the wonders left, even if it's very useful. However, that smaller window is what separates a top 10 wonder from a top five wonder.

Pyramids [31] (30 + 1): Come on now. Was there EVER any doubt what wonder was going to finish first when we started this thread. No wonder is as powerful, pays for itself, and is consistently useful like the Pyramids. Getting a free builder on completion is decent enough, but getting EXTRA BUILDER CHARGES FOR THE REST OF THE GAME is just so absurdly powerful, and also consistently powerful, that there's no situation in which I wouldn't want to rush this wonder. I will build this wonder every game without a second thought. I will settle cities nearby at least one desert tile just to build this wonder. And getting a single desert tile is a limiting factor, but it's really not that hard to have at least one stray desert tile. It's the best wonder in the game. Hands down. It's just too good.

 

[ADHansa]

The top 3 here is also how i rate wonder, but Kilwa over Oracle. Then Artemis and Colosseum had come before the other 3.

Moderator Action: If you cannot provide reasons, your vote is deleted. leif

 

[lotrmith]

I'm reading the previous votes as perhaps "this is how I rate them personally so I'm upvoting my #1 and downvoting the bottom one" ... if a mod cares to exclude them that's not my call to make.


Meanwhile I think City clearly beats Ben. It comes earlier, on a tech that's not far out of the way, costs a lot less, and has a very easy placement. Ben has an achievable but very specific placement requirement and also forces an extremely difficult analysis of saving gold vs spending now, and so is mostly relegated to late game when you're saving gold for spaceports anyways... and so you get limited time of use for the policy slot and it may also be sniped while you're waiting around padding your gold reserves.

In that respect I also think City beats out anything left except Pyramids. Kilwa would beat it but for that it can be limited in its bonus to only the city its built in based on random CS generation or uncontrollable CS eliminations.

Mausoleum is also great under the right circumstances but I've had times where I haven't recruited a single engineer with it because I never built any IZs (didn't need them / not SV / won before relevant) and/or had better things to spend my faith/gold on, and/or had no AI competition to cycle through them (and there's a LOT of garbage engineers to get through).


Big Ben [4] 7-3
Forbidden City [21] 20+1
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [28]
Pyramids [31]

 

[Foulweather]

Big Ben [1] (4-3) A fine wonder, econ slots are powerful, but it just comes so late in the game, it's a 'winning by more' thing.
Forbidden City [21]
Kilwa Kisiwani [25] (24+1) Yes, it's dependent on game type, and whether you have a lot of envoys to groom city states. But if you are, the bonuses can be so huge. Honestly, I really do build the Pyramids more often, but I want to put a word in for Kilwa here, I don't think it deserves to be behind the Oracle right now.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [16]
Oracle [28]
Pyramids [31]

 

[The Civs 6]

Big Ben [1]
Forbidden City [21]
Kilwa Kisiwani [26] (25+1) This isn't a wonder about having "the right city states". KK is a wonder I strategize around. In games where I have good city states, it's an integral part of my game. For games where I don't, I still want it because there is almost always at least one good city state type out there.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [13] 16-3 = 13 I mean I've played games where I don't have a single coastal city where I want to build this. Situational.
Oracle [28]
Pyramids [31]

 

[enKage]

Big Ben [1]
Forbidden City [22]
Kilwa Kisiwani [26]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [13]
Oracle [25]
Pyramids [31]

Shouldn't BigBen ne brought back as there was no reasoning?
Moderator Action: Done. leif

For now I would keep current score with that downvote and upvote included, it is not my job to decide.

Oracle -3
Expensive
Can do great job for early great people generation, but it is secondary for me. The real power is cheaper patronage. Also not the best place on techtree to unlock - I have many games without pantheon in ancient era and I see no reason to detour on mysticism before PP. These 2 reasons make Oracle kind of civ specific.

F. City +1
Mids and FC are not civ specific and both independent from city states present in a game. That make these two wonders obvious first and second place in this thread.

 

[xaiviax]

Kilwa Kisiwani should be at 26, Mausoleum should be at 13 from post 336.
Moderator Action: Done. leif

 

[lotrmith]

Formatting! Scores should be:

Big Ben [1]
Forbidden City [22]
Kilwa Kisiwani [26]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [13]
Oracle [25]
Pyramids [31]

Moderator Action: Added Big Ben. leif

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Think I got all the corrections. Can we please pay more attention to votes and get the math correct. We should not have to do this.
If you cannot give a reason, please do not vote!
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[monikernemo]

Big Ben [Eliminated] (1 - 3)
Big Ben comes alot later than FC so you reap benefits of FC much earlier than BB.
1.5x gold is nice but it is not without opportunity cost of not spending your gold for some turns leading up to completion of Big Ben.
Forbidden City [22]
Kilwa Kisiwani [26]
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus [13]
Oracle [26] (25 + 1)
In the early game, a tall Pingala - Grants + Oracle city gives you many great people points early on. It allows you to stay competitive with GPP with relatively few cities in the early game.
While its passive effect diminishes later into the game, a high stockpiled faith can allow you to purchase a couple of crucial in the game GP.
Pyramids [31]