Great Wonders Elimination Thread

Forbidden City [7]
Kilwa Kisiwani [23] (22+1) This all comes down to personal playstyle at this point. I can see why if someone plays small maps they might not find much use out of this. But I always play on standard size maps and I find I can always get some great yields from this, even if the AI eats up a few city states. I can just imagine how much more powerful this would be on a huge map and so many more city-states. Personally, I find the increased culture, science, faith, gold, and/or production yields across my empire more helpful usually than extra GPPs or +1 builder charge. For example, if you're going for a SV and you suzerain at leas two science states and two production states, your KK city has 30% science and 30% production (and 15% across all other cities). Perfect for an SV. That will get you further than just a boost to Great Scientists or an extra builder charge.
Oracle [25]
Pyramids [22] (25-3) Again, personal playstyle, but I don't build the pyramids that much. In games where I've built it, I've found it a nice handy bonus but nothing I would go out of my way over. I'll build Oracle and KK more often than this. Typically I don't try and build too many workers until once I get serfdom and five charges. The lack of a sixth pyramid charge has never held me back.
 
Upvote: Kilwa Kisiwani. 24 (23+1) It's one of the largest potential boost in the entire game and also immediately awards 3 envoys which is a big deal.

The first misconception is you need a good combo of city states but this is false. You just need 2 pairs of the same yield (eg 2 brown 2 yellow). The actual CS's are not a big deal. The only bad combo is if the game is mostly white CS's and you're not investing in faith, but if you see so many white CS's, you should start building Holy Sites even without a religion. Faith is pretty good.

You should also note Red CS's also improve civilian unit production, so you can't say any military CS's are bad unless you don't expand or something. Brown CS's make you build buildings faster. I guess trade CS's are sorta weak with gold, but most of them aren't bad. If you have any paired blue or purple CS's, why aren't you building it? Even one is good.

The second misconception is that CS's falling is a bad thing. False. This is a GOOD thing because it wipes out ALL rival envoys, so once you come in to liberate them, you will almost never lose Suzerain again. Consider a AI meets a CS early that's far away from you and puts envoys regularly into it. You would be hard pressed to grab these CS's anyways. If anything having the CS fall increases the likelihood that you can become suzerain because you usually cannot win the envoy race early on anyways.

Remember, there is no benefit to having more than 6 envoys unless someone has more than you. So 6v 0 is better than 10 vs 8. The only exception is if you were running Merchant Confederation, but you still kinda need to defend CS's if you want to use it at all.

Also, there's a good chance you can declare a protectorate war or there will be a emergency so you can sack whoever took your CS's or just flat out destroy them.

"But, I didn't have an army, I'm not going for domination" is not an excuse. We understand that not everyone likes conquest games. But, just because you don't want to conquer the world doesn't mean you should just be passive and not pay attention to anything. A world power that can't protect its interests is not a world power at all.

Plus you don't really need an actual army; just enough to snipe the city and maybe send mobile units on pillaging runs. The game rewards being active in other ways. Btw, this also applies simply not being able to find CS's. You have to explore too.

In any case, the only real disadvantage of it is the AI actually targets it pretty aggressively. Everything else is mostly just user error in failing to adapt.

Downvote: Oracle. 22 (25-3) Compared to the other wonders it doesn't give much of an immediate benefit and is more of a long term investment. While strong, you should note that GPPs mean nothing until you actually recruit Great People while all the other wonders give huge effects to your empire after you build them right away. And snowballing is what matters in Civ. While certainly there are some tactics like a writer or merchant push, there is more nuance than just slamming it down every game.




Forbidden City [7]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24]
Oracle [22]
Pyramids [22]
 
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Oracle has slipped by too long at this point, IMO. It's helpful for cultural games to start earning all the great writers early, but I question its utility in most other games. Even with Pingala and grants, you're only talking about 4 extra GPPs of each type of district you have constructed. In terms of GPPs, this is ultimately equivalent to building one extra city with fully developed districts. Now, the benefits are front-loaded so you have a better chance of earning some early great people, but you also don't get the extra yields from an additional city. Oracle is early enough that the opportunity cost of building it vs another settler is fairly significant and, unlike the Pyramids, it doesn't necessarily pay itself off over time. Patronage of great people with faith is something I only do a couple of times per game max.

Though I think the rightful top 2 are Kilwa and Pyramids, I'm upvoting Forbidden City to give it a shot of finishing 3rd. An extra wildcard policy slot is worth a lot, in terms of yields and flexibility. Let's say you're in classical republic going for a science victory. You have 2 base economic slots, which need to be used for rationalism and natural philosophy. The 2 wildcards are where you can cycle serfdom/land surveyors against policies like triangular trade/aesthetics/scripture/republican legacy, depending on your strategy. An extra slot means you can run an extra one of these for the duration of the game. Unlike Oracle, the benefits of Forbidden City do scale up to be relevant throughout the game, as the yields gained from policies scale up as you unlock better policies, build more districts, and improve adjacencies. The value is even higher if you're going with a domination-infused science victory, where you also want to have raid, discount upgrades, and unit maintenance at different points in time. For culture games, Forbidden City makes sticking in theocracy for the faith buying discount more palatable, as you can continue to run an economic policy as you fill the rest of your government with the tourism cards.

Forbidden City [8]
Kilwa Kisiwani [23]
Oracle [19]
Pyramids [22]
 
Forbidden City [8]
Kilwa Kisiwani [24] (23+1) Didn't vote for Kilwa yet, and I will pursue it most of the games (the land-locked ones being the only exception, really). It comes at a perfect time when the production should free up enough in your capital (or top city with a coast if capital has none) and as others have said, even on Deity there is enough city states left to suzerain, or to liberate somewhere nearby, if conquered. The bonuses are massive.
Oracle [16] (19-3) Oracle is pretty great, and top four position reflects it. At this point it's time to start docking some points off it, though - it fits multiple victory paths, but is not universally great, it competes for your production against settlers, soldiers, or the early districts it would buff, and the benefits eventually taper off as you expand wider.

Pyramids [22]
 
Forbidden City [9] 8+1
Kilwa Kisiwani [21] 24-3
Oracle [16]
Pyramids [22]

So many upvotes for Kilwa and all of them refer to a situation, when you have at least 2 sci cities allied, at least 2 culture cities allied and so on.
Reality is far more complex. Kilwa is absolutely devastating wonder
IF there ar enough sci / cilture city states in game, and maybe something is wrong with my map generator, but it is not guaranteed!
IF they are close enough to protect them from AI aggresion
IF there are no Greece / Teddy / Hungary / Georgia (...) in game stealing suzereins
IF you can reliably complete quests
and final IF refering to possibility to build it, inland Pangeas starts, some scripts make it impossible and AI pretty always would unlock it before a player.

Some of those IFs can be easy overcome, some are impossible, but it still makes too many IFs for me as for this stage of a thread.
Of course in these cases you will not rush Kilwa, but what I expect from absolute top wonder is being totally independent on any RNG. I can always build Forbidden Palace, just to place a card I would not use otherwise - f.e. 50% from buildings in theatres, granting me more culture than I would get from KK with 2 allied city states or one more ammenity card to increase all yields from rising happiness.

So sincerely... how often do you have both bonus culture and science from Kilwa?

My upvote goes to Forbidden Palace, as the only wonder left which is 100% independent from any random factors and the only wonder I can get in 100% games if I want.
Kilwa is the opposite - the most RNG dependent of any wonders left. Yes, it is a monster wonder. But not in all games it is worth to buuild it and not in all games you would even have a chance.
 
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Pyramids [23] (22+1) +1 charge for builders is an awesome bonus, and one can benefit from Pyramids very early on. Claiming that the Pyramids' effect can be partly replicated doesn't seem compelling to me. Liang's bonus is localized a single city, it's troublesome to micromanage Liang to multiple cities, and hiring Liang requires a gov'r title. Serfdom takes up a policy slot that can go to another yellow policy. Pyramids' benefits can go to any builder anywhere, during any era after it's built, and without having to dedicate policies to be similar. Liang's an okay gov'r, but there are other gov'rs I'd usually hire first, and I'd rather not have to use Serfdom at all if I'm being honest.

Oracle [13] (16-3) Tbh I'd be happy to get any of the remaining wonders, including Oracle. But the Oracle's greatest benefits are its +2 GP (to each district with a building) to one city, whereas all the other wonders' bonuses can apply across one's empire, which means their benefits will likely scale much better. Well, KK's benefits can potentially be relegated to 1 city in unfortunate circumstances, but the Oracle's bonuses are always mostly specific to 1 city.

Forbidden City [9]
Kilwa Kisiwani [21]
Oracle [13]
Pyramids [23]
 
Forbidden City [9]
Kilwa Kisiwani [18] (21-3)
Disagree that kilwa is good for all games, it is the most useful when you have at least 2 sci and 2 cultural CSes. It is less useful when you have too many non-sci and culture CS in games. Empire wide +15% gold/faith or production to units is less than impressive because these are things that have less impact on end game timing compared to sci/cultural CSes.

Oracle [14] (13 +1)
The Oracle is strong for every victory type, even for domination. You get 1 (base) +2 GG (oracle) points every turn for base encampment and pingala multiplies it by 2, so 6 points for having base encampment. That means 10 turns for an ancient/classical era GG. Now apply the same logic to great scientists and other great people. You get 2 to 3 city worths of GPP by building one wonder.

In the late game, oracle helps to speed up your end game provided you have high stockpiled faith. You can cycle through great people faster (if you know what you're doing) and snipe the essential ones.

Pyramids [23]
 
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I'd be happy to get any of these wonders so the margins are fine now but I agree with @enKage - not being subject to random factors is important at this stage. I did consider downvoting Pyramids or Oracle due to the fact they come fairly early when you should probably still be expanding but they have strong effects which last the whole game. Kilwa has very specific placing requirements and which CS you will have in the game is RNG and AI dependent (I also normally play on Small or Tiny so there are less CS to start) whereas FC suffers from none of that.

Forbidden City [10] 9+1

Kilwa Kisiwani [15] 18-3


Forbidden City [10]
Kilwa Kisiwani [15]
Oracle [14]
Pyramids [23]
 
Forbidden City [10]
Kilwa Kisiwani [16]
Oracle [14]
Pyramids [20]

I just don't agree with @enKage. If you're on a small map, you are near enough most City-States to police them and make sure the AI aren't going for them. @Archon_Wing gave a really good explanation of how City-States being conquered isn't even that bad - you just free them for basically no grievances and now you are definitively the suzerain plus set back your opponent with a good old invaderoo. If you're on a larger map, Kilwa is outright broken.

Even on a Small Map (9 City-States), the chance of having two Science City-States on start is 46% (binomial probability where chance of success is 1 in 6, 9 tests are run, and 2 successes are needed). The chance of having either two Science City-States or two Cultural City-States or both is 74%. That's on a Small Map! On Standard (12 City-States), the chance of having two Science City-States on start is 62%. The chance of having either two Science City States or two Cultural City-States or both is 88%. In fact, these percentages are actually slight underestimates because I've done the calculations without replacement. On a Huge Map? Approaching 100%.

This is also completely ignoring the enormously useful Industrial City-States, and the fact you get 3 Envoys from this, which should be enough to guarantee a Suzerainty, and some of the City-State effects are powerful enough to be almost as good as Wonders anyway - Yerevan is better than Mont St Michel, for example, and Bologna is half an Oracle.

Also, I can't be bothered to empirically test this, but given that we are playing Shuffle Maps here to ensure a fair weighting of naval and land, I am pretty sure that it is on average it is more likely you'll be able to access coastal tiles than desert tiles.

As for Pyramids: no, I don't wait til Feudalism to make Builders. However, people saying "oh just don't slot Feudalism" are emphatically wrong on every count. Even when you have the Pyramids, Feudalism is one of the best cards in the game. I will always rush Feudalism every game, with basically no exceptions (maybe Religious Victory). Once you have Feudalism, Pyramids starts having sharply diminishing returns compared to other Wonders here.

Your main source of pre-Feudalism Builders are from Ancestral Hall. But this is dependent on there being lots of free space to expand into. If you're cramped, I find early on I don't really make many builders or get Ancestral Hall. Instead, I focus on Agoge, Units, early Warfare, etc. Very early warfare like this is maybe a third of my games. Here, Pyramids' impact isn't really felt until later on, when it is a smaller relative boost.
 
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Kilwa Kisiwani +1: I recently downvoted Kilwa, as I think she's a bit overrated. It doesn't help that Kilwa's proponents seem to claim that they always get "at least 4-5 suzerainties" and that "Kilwa is a flat 15% empire-wide buff of X stat across your empire". I do frequently end up in games where I can at max suzerain at most 2 city states (of different and/or uninteresting yields) as the AI just loves to shove 14 envoys into a CS for no reason, or because they conquer the really good ones. And yes, while you can use spies and liberate city states, those opportunities mostly arrive rather late in the game, making the bonuses come later than what the most overoptimistic proponents of Kilwa claim. Yet, I'm still going to upvote Kilwa this time, for the following reason: I always build Kilwa in my games. Yes, worse case I might only get +15% gold and +15% faith in my capital, but that bonus is still a decent bonus from a wonder. I will still build Kilwa because (by the time I build it), even if I still don't know what opportunities there will be for suzerainties in the game. That's because the mere POTENTIAL of there being 2x scientific/cultural CS available for me to suzerain is enough of a reason for me to pay the opportunity cost. And considering that the map is set to "shuffle", you are likely to get more coast, which also means more city states locked away on an island somewhere, ripe for suzeraining and generally safe from the AI. Bottom line: In sub-optimal conditions, this wonder is good. In optimal conditions however, this wonder breaks the game right there and then. My reason for upvoting Kilwa is therefore derived from the rhetorical question: Why would you ever want to risk not NOT building Kilwa?
Pyramids -3: This is a proper overrated wonder, and I'm kind of disappointed that it keeps making the top 3 list in tier list after tier list. The wonder IS good and always pays back the investment, don't get me wrong. But that's not to say that it's a wonder you MUST have, as it does not offer anything game breaking by it's own accord, or help you reach an important breakpoint where your power skyrockets afterwards. It's hard to quantify the benefit of Pyramids, but I'll make an attempt here to shed some light on why I think it's overrated: Let's assume that a player never slots in Serfdom or Liang. This is the optimal scenario for the Pyramids, because it means that you essentially get 33% more efficient builders whenever you get one (on the other hand, having Serfdom slotted would make your builders only 20% more efficient). This can be translated as very roughly, a 33% increase in production (as you over time would have to build 33% more builders to make up for the Pyramid increase, or 20% if you were to run Serfdom). BUT, this is NOT to say that your cities gain a 33% production increase. This bonus (if you were to convert it into production) is ONLY active when you build builders (like the Ilkum card, +30% production towards builders). This is to say, if you don't use Ilkum early, Pyramids can be roughly thought of as a "free economic policy card" (Ilkum), which is certainly good, but not game breaking. Now, I know you can stack Pyramids and Ilkum, but hear me out. In my games, I build (or purchase) AT MOST one builder for every two or three buildings that I produce (for example, getting a campus with a library up, then finishing a monument before I get another builder), as newer cities cannot always benefit from more builders (or builder charges) until you reach a certain population number. Taking that into account, we're perhaps talking about an 8% production increase in your cities early on. Good? Absolutely. Game breaking? Absolutely not. You can of course argue that you faith-purchase builders from an early monumentality, at which point you could argue that it's a 33% faith increase (IF, and only IF, you buy nothing but builders for that faith - but again, most buy settlers). So assuming you buy 1 builder for every 2 settlers, this bonus is reduced to something more like "+10% faith" IF, and only IF, you get monumentality and have a decent faith income. You can of course also use the extra charge to chop in a building faster, but does this really count as a "game-breaking" effect? And once you start running Serfdom (+2 builder charges compared to Pyramids +1), this can essentially be thought of as only "half an economic policy card", which is still good course, but by no means game-breaking. The free improved builder from Ancestral Hall is of course nice, but personally I don't always build the Ancestral Hall (for example with close neighbours on Deity, that either forward-settle me or surprise war me, forcing me to spam units). And even with the AH, I find that I don't really always need the extra builder charge as the city is at pop 1 anyway, at most only benefiting me with extra chops (which I may or may not always do). And while on the topic: As @hhhhhh claimed with his example of "settling 30 cities for 27 improved builders". This is just ridiculous. When do you ever get to settle THIRTY cities? Are we even playing the same game?
Bottom line is: Even if you (under optimal) conditions compare to the Pyramids to a civ without Pyramids, the benefit is not by any means game-breaking. Yes the Pyramids pay off, and it's generally better to have the Pyramids than not having them, but that doesn't by itself mean that the Pyramids are the best wonder you can possibly get. The Pyramids are just "nice", and nothing more once you start looking into the actual numbers behind it. And all this is before even considering whether or not you have a desert tile available to begin with.


Forbidden City [10]
Kilwa Kisiwani [17]
Oracle [14]
Pyramids [17]
 
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Even on a Small Map (9 City-States), the chance of having two Science City-States on start is 46% (binomial probability where chance of success is 1 in 6, 9 tests are run, and 2 successes are needed). The chance of having either two Science City-States or two Cultural City-States or both is 74%. That's on a Small Map! On Standard (12 City-States), the chance of having two Science City-States on start is 62%. The chance of having either two Science City States or two Cultural City-States or both is 88%. In fact, these percentages are actually slight underestimates because I've done the calculations without replacement. On a Huge Map? Approaching 100%.

These are some very interesting figures, thank you for providing them. I suppose the next step to fully appreciate / qualify the power of Kilwa is that someone needs to find an average of 'how many city-states get taken by the AI per game?' – because that's equally important, especially on the small map size that I usually play.

I'm honestly happy for any of these wonders to win. I'll upvote Forbidden City because I build it the most, probably 8 out of every 10 games – it's never not useful. And I'll downvote Oracle because, while extra GPPs are great, there reaches a point that it becomes kinda redundant: in my standard science or culture game, I'm usually monopolising all the great scientists, great merchants, great engineers, and great writers by the time I reach the Renaissance or Industrial eras, especially if I also picked Divine Spark (my go-to choice if I miss out on the settler pantheon). So Oracle has a great return early-on but trails off, whereas the other options remain relevant throughout.

Forbidden City [11] (10+1)
Kilwa Kisiwani [17]
Oracle [11] (14-3)
Pyramids [17]
 
Forbidden City [11]
Kilwa Kisiwani [17]
Oracle [8] (-3) One city only effect and that city needs lots of districts+buildings, never feels that impaction to me. As for faith buying great people, I always seem to have better things to spend faith on.
Pyramids [18] (+1) The wonder that keeps on giving. In every game I play I get more builders that any other unit, in most it's more that all my other units.
 
Forbidden City [11]
Kilwa Kisiwani [17]
Oracle [5]
Pyramids [19]

The Oracle
makes for some fun pingala time and is clearly a very potent wonder, but it's limited to one city and less impactful than the empire wide Pyramids.
 
Forbidden City [8] (11-3) For Forbidden City, in the mid-game, you're essentially comparing whatever your 4th or 5th economic card or 2nd diplo card would be versus the benefits the other wonders give. Compared to Kilwa, the empire wide bonuses that you'll receive in 90% of your games are better than whatever 4th or 5th economic card or 2nd diplo card. There are usually ~3 economic slots that I actually care about and the rest are just okay. Compared to the Pyramids and Oracle, both of those come super early and are cheap. Pyramids can typically be built with three Magnus chops, immediately pays itself back with the builder and then allows your empire to develop much faster. Oracle let's you claim all the GPs early. I don't think the Forbidden City's extra slot is as good as any of the three remaining.
Kilwa Kisiwani [18] (17+1) Unless you're playing on a small map or you intentionally choose to play with fewer city states, I find it hard to not suzerain at least 4 city states and often far more. As long as you focus at least a bit on the quests and plugging in the first envoy counts as two card when you actually want to dole out envoys, it's not hard to claim a bunch of CSs. Plus, with the three envoy bonuses from building Kilwa, that should allow you to take over another one.
Oracle [5]
Pyramids [19]
 
Forbidden City [8]
Kilwa Kisiwani [15] (18-3)
Oracle [5]
Pyramids [20] (19+1)

I don't get why those who cannot sufficiently benefit from the Pyramids are so confident that they can sufficiently benefit from Kilwa Kisiwani, which is more map dependent. 30 cities may be a bit extreme for some, but if you have problem setting 20 cities then you'd better do some settling exercises (and my argument of benefiting from settling 20 cities still apply). I suggest do it on Lakes map where you will have sufficient space to settle. If you need a hint to the exercise - let's mark settlers by the production they need (so the nth settler is 50 + n * 30) - you build (or get from pantheon) the settler that cost 80 and 110. You can chop all the way from 140 to 320, 350 or even 380 (the 140 and 170 are probably just 1 chop). After that on Theocracy and Monumentality Golden Age you can buy settler at 400 - 700 faith each. (You can do this all the way till industrial era come.) And meanwhile you can still chop out some more in your frontier cities.
 
Forbidden City [8]
Kilwa Kisiwani [15]
Oracle [2] (5-3) I build it often, but I suppose there’s no avoiding the fact that it only affects one city whereas the others are empire-wide.
Pyramids [21] (20+1) Because I don’t think Kilwa deserves to win but I’ve downvoted it enough already. Just as Bologna won the CS elimination thread, so should Pyramids win this one (at least, out of these contenders) - it’s always useful.
 
Forbidden City [5] (8-3) Not that a wildcards isn't nice, but I often can come by with the cards that available at the time, the 5th, 7th, 9th card doesn't add that much at the time.
Kilwa Kisiwani [16] (15+1) Adds a lot of resourses, so much so it can affect what victory type is preferable. No wonder can compete with what this add.
Oracle [2]
Pyramids [21]
 
The end is nigh

Yes, no wonders at all are a must have or needed for any victory at any level.
All the pyramids do is essentially give an empire wide +X% production increase, big deal. And it just starts early in the game, not compounding or anything. And you can use other things to boost the same production, so why add more of what's most needed?

Forbidden City [2] (5-3) Redundant and less needed with skillful timing and planning.
Kilwa Kisiwani [16]
Oracle [2]
Pyramids [22] (21+1) Sarcasm aside, this allows you to get to Kilwa and everything else faster.
 
Forbidden City [2]
Kilwa Kisiwani [16]
Oracle [Eliminated] (2-3) Only affects one city, and outside of Hypatia (which I never get anyway) and Newton, the Great People never seem game-changing to me early on. Great wonder, but #4 seems like a good place for it. I've enjoyed reading the pro case for the Oracle, and I want to try building it more, but I can't vote for it over Forbidden City, Kilwa, or the Pyramids.
Pyramids [23] (22+1) Useful for any victory type, any style of play, comes early, is easy to build (I can almost always find one tile of desert somewhere), is cheap enough to build even in frontier cities (isn't too much more expensive than a single builder at that time), and it's one I try to build in almost every game. I'm usually in the position of only building one of Pyramids or Oracle, and this is the option I always end up choosing.
 
Time to extend the king’s lead.

Kilwa is undoubtedly a great wonder, when you have the opportunity to build it and make a success of it. In my current game Scythia has taken out Bologna on the other side of a mountainous continent, and the other five city states are all of different abilities with tons of envoys pumped into them already by the AI, leaving me with still an okay Kilwa, but not that powerful should I wish to build it. I also feel secret societies makes it a bit harder to get suzerainty as the AI pick up Amani so much more often and so much earlier so a lot more work has to go into being suzerain of 4+ city states.
Moderator Action: Please remember - "Secret Societies and Apocalypse Mode are assumed to be off." --NZ

Pyramids on the other hand is rarely contested, gives the same powerful effect every time you build it and has a very easy placement requirement.

Forbidden City [2]
Kilwa Kisiwani [13]
Pyramids [24]
 
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