Keep getting beat on building wonders

[oPunchDrunko]

I keep getting beat by the AI in the early game on wonders. It seems like the AI sacrifices production or military by building all of the early and mid-game wonders. When I start expanding I try to focus on building the buildings and units in my cities and no think of wonders. However when I get in the Renaissance era and beyond, I actually start to be capable of getting some wonders.

So, do you guys go after the early wonders or do you go after the late game ones?

 

[strhopper]

I usually just pick one or two early wonders that I want(depending on a few varibles) and research ASAP and build them. Sometimes then you still get beat.

 

[Helmling]

I keep getting beat by the AI in the early game on wonders. It seems like the AI sacrifices production or military by building all of the early and mid-game wonders. When I start expanding I try to focus on building the buildings and units in my cities and no think of wonders. However when I get in the Renaissance era and beyond, I actually start to be capable of getting some wonders.

So, do you guys go after the early wonders or do you go after the late game ones?

What difficulty?

It's hard to snag wonders at Immortal and Deity (though not impossible).

 

[oPunchDrunko]

What difficulty?

It's hard to snag wonders at Immortal and Deity (though not impossible).

Prince

 

[joncnunn]

Some of the AIs do love wonders.
When Egypt is in the game, they are one of them.

At Prince, if you be-lined to the tech and started the wonder right away you should normally be able to build if you start it in your best production city.

 

[Derpy Hooves]

I'm a complete wonder addict and will generally forgo a lot of other things just to get the early wonders out, with the ancient wonders DLC I can't get all of them, but I'll always be able to get either the 'Henge or the Great Library, I don't think I've ever forgone the Oracle, I do usually miss the Hanging Gardens and Chichen Itza but I'll generally just conquer these from whoever does.
From there on out I get pretty much everything, I'll usually miss the Angkor Kwat because I don't care much for it and I usually want the free GE from Hagia Sophia so you can rush the Porcelain Tower or Notre Dame, depending on how happiness sufficient I am at that point and I'll usually get the other by starting it right after the GE'd one finishes in my capitol.

Couple of things that are very important:
Policies, obviously you'll want the tradition policy that boosts wonder production, but the other ones are a good idea as well, having a really strong capitol with a lot of food and population, the main place where you will be producing the wonders, is an absolute must and the production boost from liberty can also be useful, especially if you want to build wonders in multiple cities to get the 33% culture boost from piety, and you'll want to finish the liberty tree anyway for another free Great Engineer.
Citizen management can also be quite important, often times the computer prioritizes a mix between food, gold and production, the default setting, ofcourse you can switch it straight to production but I personally prefer to choose the tiles manually, look at the food counter when your doing this, if it goes in into the negative you'll start losing population so only do this if you really need to, just prioritize hammers, and if you can, try to keep the city growing, if you have a lot of production tiles for a lot of hammers it might even be useful to wait until you have a bit more population to switch over, especially if you have only like 2 of 3 turns to go until a new citizen.
If someone else builds it and you want it, take it, the AI is terrible at warfare and it's better then losing population.

Oh and I've done this from Prince to Emperor without having to do any real adjustments in my strategy, just a bit more focus.
To go to citizen management, enter the city screen and expand the citizen management bar at the top right.

 

[qec]

One thing I used to do is save before starting each wonder and reloading if I miss it. It's really frustrating if you 1 or 2 turns from getting it and you lose out. I've even had it before where it was on the last turn and the A.I still got the wonder, I don't know what decides that but figure it must be they had more production towards it i.e mine was 190/200 with +11Prod/trn and they had 195/200 with +11. Or maybe even matched like both of us had 190/200 but they had +12/trn and I only had +11 or something like that.

My strategy now, because its a personal goal not to reload turns, is as soon as you choose your wonder focus completely on Production. Plummet your city into stagnation if you have to, don't starve them obviously, but get as much prod as you can. Also, If i go for the early wonders I don't settle until I have which wonders I want and try not to start building them until I have a worker out and at least 4 or 5 population. And if you have hills nearby then build as many mines as you can to up the production, or possibly even chop forests but I don't usually do that myself. I'm sure on some games that early mines were what got me the wonder instead of the A.I.

Hanging Garden is one of the toughest to beat the A.I to I think. I don't know why they get such a love for the Gardens but they've beat me to it so many times.

 

[FeiLing]

I'm pretty sure you'll get to build 99% of the wonders on prince difficulty unless you are going to war early. But you don't have to. The AI won't be a thread for you even if you don't build any units (well, have 1-2 at least to protect your workers/settlers and get rid of barbs) apart from 1-2 scouts. The AI won't dow you if you are weak like it does in higher difficulties and even if it does, it's pretty harmless. And it is even less likely to do so if you actually traded with her already (which you should do as you don't need the happiness but the cash is pretty nice (to rush units or ally up with city states)).

 

[Burberry Man]

Yeah if you bee line a wonder and chop trees you should be able to snag many wonders early in the game, especially on Prine.

 

[Nevyn]

Like Derpy, I am also a total wonders addict. This is also why I mostly play on Prince and King, as I found it harder to build a pretty civ with so much waring going on.

This is what I have done in many games.
First I make sure to play with raging barbarians. Until I need to expand over a barbarian camp, I make sure I don't take the camp. Instead when I get social policies, and are very happy if a scout stumbles over +20 culture, I open Tradition, and next I open Honor. Now I get +6 culture for every barb I kill, so I can continue milking the barb over time. Focusing on Tradition

As for my Capital, I start buildning a scout, and then a worker. and then a scout, and then a settler. I never automate my worker but makes sure he build farms for fast growth but also at least one mine.

For research I go directly for mining and masonry. There we have the pyramids. And I start buildning on that as soon as my settler is done. I find the pyramids key, and so I don't mind chopping forest to get it. And the reward is two speedy workers that can help buildning improvements and road my second city. But it also gives +1 engineering points.

Then I go for library to get the great library and national collage and continue with Stonehenge and The Great Wall. With those two I now got +3 engineering points and that will give me a great engineer pretty fast which I turn into a manufacture on a hill giving me +6 hammers.

I try to make my second city my science city and as the capital will get a lot of food from policies and city states, I save and try to build the hanging gardens in my second city. Sometimes I am to late for that one, and it hurts. If so, I reload and try to build it my capital instead. I want it!

My current capital have the following wonders. Note the absence of science wonders:

Big Ben, Chichen Itza, Cristo Redentor, Eiffel Tower, Ironworks, National Treasury, Notre Dame, Sistene Chapel, Statue of Librerty, Taj Mahal, The Great Wall, The Hagia Sophia, The Hanging Gardens, The Louvre, The Pyramids

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

when things like finishing Writing unlocks access to the Great Library, you shouldn't wait the extra 8 turns (or whatever) to let your worker or settler complete to start on it. you immediately switch production to the Great Library if you want it. If that happens when you only have 1 or 2 turns left to complete something then its a little easier to take your chances just to finish something so close to finishing, but in general you go ahead and switch to the wonder you really need.

a lot of players ALWAYS go the first 3 social policies in Liberty for the free settle and worker so they dont have to make one. when you get your free worker and you have forests around you can chop them down for the immediate production to hasten the wonder. it pretty much works all the way up to Emperor. Immortal and Deity sometimes require luck though.

 

[Nevyn]

When I started playing Civ V I also found the liberty tree seductive. Especially for the free worker and settler. But then I once just tested building my settler and go for the pyramids to get two workers, and that worked out so much better for me.

Nowadays I don't even bother to open Liberty. There is nothing there for me. But I most often play tall empires.

On the other hand, it was long ago I tested that strategy and I have become much better at the game. After my super game I love now, maybe I'll try to build a semi-wide empire that explores the liberty tree.

And I very much agree that without The Great Library and National Collage it feels like pending doom. I actually quit and restart if someone else gets those first. Feels like game over for me.

 

[Nevyn]

What I did wrong in my current great game was that I usually open Piety and pick the one that pushes excess happiness into culture. And then see my culture get a huge bonus.

If you do that early all the extra happiness is just free social policies that I have now missed out on. It is of course two policies gone once you reach rationalism. Now I am +77 in happiness and have rationalism, but back in the days I was still churning out between 12-50 i happiness. Having half that going into culture per turn would have been nice. But now at +379 in culture per turn, I feel it is going quite well anyway. =)

 

[Derpy Hooves]

I suppose it might be rather relevant to choose what style you want to play, I personally find wonder-spam games to be most relevant to either Cultural or Warmonger games as that's where you can make most use of the massive policy boosts you get, sadly enough, apart from food bonus and the rationalism tree there is not much to actively boost a science VC.

If you want policies fast, ALWAYS get the Oracle, I believe it was calculated that it was about the best culture boosting building you can get, the free policy and the +3 culture from the building itself will beat the 'Henge any day.
Due to the AI getting a flat science boost you'll most likely have to decide which side of the early game wonders you want, tech tree wise, the top, with 'Henge, The Great Library and the Oracle or the bottom, with the Pyramids and the Hanging Gardens, I personally prefer the top due to it fitting more cultural games (and the Great Library being absurdly strong) but it's mostly a matter of how you want to play your game.

I should note that I'm a pretty active warmonger, start out tall with 3 really strong cities and when you get Iron connected I generally have enough money to rushbuy and upgrade my army to get a rough composition of swordsman, archers and if I can get it before I need to start warring, catapults, 2 swordman and 2 catapults can reduce any early game city to rubble, often times the city that was stupid enough to build the Hanging Gardens.
And in the case of the Oracle and GL you lose a great part of their effect if you conquer them from someone else while the Hanging Gardens retains it's use and I never have a need for extra workers in the beginning via Pyramids because I just steal them from city states or someone I'm at war with (you can make peace the same turn that you declare war and steal their worker in the case of city states).

 

[Nevyn]

I'm learning a lot from you Derpy. Thanks. And I like you a lot more when you are in a creative-mood, than in complaining-mode.

 

[Helmling]

I'm an unrepentant wonder-whore myself; that's why I don't play above Emperor.

My latest schtick is this: When I get a start with marble and stone, I beeline to Masonry first. Scout (who goes forward with prayers for tech or culture boosts), Worker (start improving the stone and marble), Monument (to accelerate policies: first 2 in tradition to get the capital Wonder bonus, then start filling in Liberty), Mausoleum (ka-ching), Buy a Stone Works ASAP, Great Library (jump to philosophy), Free Settler from policies (stake out the best luxury site within defensible range; preferably with multiple luxuries that can be brokered), Oracle (should be almost closing off liberty by now), Hagia Sophia, Chichen Itza with the free Great Engineer from Hagia Sophia, Notre Dame (available because the GL and Oracle will pop you a Great Scientist by now and with luck, you'll finish out Liberty and get the Great Engineer to rush it), Porcelain Tower...

Yeah, the game's pretty much won by then. Sometimes I miss out on Chichen Itza, but if I've got that obscene marble/stone combo at the beginning, I can usually count on the rest. At Emperor, there's usually an early rush war to deal with, but if I've got river tiles I can usually afford to rush the requisite defenders and still pay for Stoneworks. The good thing about an early rush is that the AI will send its entire force of archers and warriors at you and if you can slaughter every last one, they're usually powerless and will pay you for peace.

After that set of wonders is done, I tend to favor the top of the tech tree first to get to Astronomy and go meet people. I never use Research Agreements until I can open up Rationalism (count on the Great Scientists and wonder bonuses to keep me at tech parity with the AI). With the tower and Rationalism opened up, I can RA with civs all over the map I've met with caravels. With luck I can nab a couple of the wonders from the lower part of the tree.

Once the RAs kick in (I play Huge with 22 players, so exploration really pays off), I surge past the AI into spitting distance of the Modern Age. Occasionally someone stays up with me and steals the Statue of Liberty, but the rest of the wonders (Cristo Redentor, Sydney Opera House, Pentagon, Eiffel Tower) are mine for the picking.

My current quest is a start so good that I can build all the Greek wonders (including the Mausaleum since it was designed by Greek architects). So far, it's just too danged hard (The AI has Artemis really early and is not shy about building Zues). I'm going to keep trying...

 

[UWHabs]

I had one game at Emperor where I'm pretty sure I only missed out on about 5 wonders all game in my capital. But I've had other games where I never got more than about 4 turns into any wonder before someone else built it. Really varies.

 

[Lay_Lay]

Prince level with raging barbarians.
The AI is so crippled by those game settings, yeah I think you will get some wonders

 

[Derpy Hooves]

To my surprise it works quite well in immortal as well, started off with the GL and the Oracle, got Chichen Itza, PT(GE rushed), ND and I expect to be able to get the Sistine Chapel ans Big Ben pretty easily as well, bastard Ghandi made the HG, 'henge and the DLC wonders, he won't be long for this world though.

I'm a bit behind in tech but I expect to be able to fix that with the vigorous conquering I'm doing right now, might post a replay once the whole debacle is over, mind you I'm also playing Monty, so nothing really to help me with the wonder building or science apart from the food boost from floating gardens.

 

[Nevyn]

Helmling: Neat! I can understand how that might work. Shall try when I am done with my game. But before that I just have to play Siam and build a lot of elephants. That seems like so much fun I just have to try that.

Lay_Lay: Some play to beat deity learning different tactics/exploits. Others just want to build a pretty nice empire and win. I play for fun. It is not a competition. But when I play with raging barbarians, I want a tall empire, and that means cutting down on military. So it is a struggle anyway. I am fully aware that my way would stand no chance on the higher difficulty levels. Also why I am not playing on those levels.