Is the Petra basically a "luxury wonder"?

[Solutionfinder]

yup, deity only.

But obviously, this is true when you get decent dirt. And i've only recently started to be way more agressive with settlers, worker stealing and dealing with early unhappiness. Never suspected even a year back how much those 10 first turn can be decisive and strategic.

To practice this petra start, i'd say the DCL#28 with russia is a very sweet one. It's so obviously OP lol

LoL, that`s not even a fair start for Petra....Russia with hill river salt start + 2 horses, 1 iron and marble on hill...Cmon...

I would agree on how each early turn counts though..

 

[shaglio]

I've seen the AI build it with nothing but a single Flood Plains tile (I mean, it still gets a bonus Caravan and 6 culture later on but it literally doesn't get a single food or production yield bonus).

OT: I find that happens a lot for me with the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The AI always builds it when they don't even have a single Stone or Marble . . . and my capital has 3 - 4 of them Sure they get the 100 gold per GP spent, but still, it's very irksome.

 

[Redaxe]

I remember building Petra at turn 130 on Diety in an expo city when I realized that no AIs had built it! Apparently none of the AIs had a desert start.

 

[Tiber4321]

Depending on the map, Petra can be a game changer at Immortal, especially when paired with Desert Folklore.

 

[reddishrecue]

Desert folklore with petra is a good start with more than one desert tile. If there's only 1or 2 desert tiles available then it would be worth it but not as much as 3 or 4.

 

[twilson1972]

It can be insane

I played an archipelago map ages ago and spawned on a smallish island that was completely desert hills, with 2 x gold + sea resources.

Desert folklore + petra made it an utterly crazy start (god of the seas plus petra would have been too).

However a lot of desert starts are horrible, and as others have said petra will just make it average.

 

[GoStu]

Petra is NEVER bad. Even if all you have is some flat desert, it turns this tiles into some workable Plains equivalents, while giving you an extra trade route AND a caravan. You can immediately use that caravan to pull in gold and science, or more food somewhere.

Let's be realistic though. You don't settle or get to build Petra in a mediocre or lousy desert spot. It gets built (by the player) in a desert city location that was already good enough to live in. This probably means a couple Oasis tiles, maybe a bit of desert Wheat, Incense, and Stone, and certainly a couple hills.

 

[sunbeam]

They very seldom get it when I play Venice, but the extra 2 trade routes is really great for them. If they can possibly swing it, it is worth a great engineer, regardless of whether they benefit from it much enhancing tiles. Not sure that angle means as much to any other civ though.

 

[reddishrecue]

That extra trade route slot is great. Who wouldn't want a extra trade route slot?