Key Ideas

[lastchance]

Just looking around on the forums and playing the game, there's a few things I've figured out that might be wrong, but hopefully are right:
1. Great People are Great. Academy, Shrine, Culture Bomb, Wonder, Trade Mission. Academy and Shrine seem particularly good. Great People are the must-have wonders of Civ IV. You need them to win.
2. This game is much more balanced than Civ II or III. In those games, there was pretty much one strategy that you had to follow based on your preference. This game, you can't go in expecting to do a certain thing to win. You need to adapt to your surroundings, which I think makes for a much more interesting game. It also should make the learning curve more difficult.
3. Resources. Without the strategic ones, you lose. Civ IV requires a player to go after and ensure that he has resources, especially iron and oil. Without iron, you're going to lose every single early-game war you fight, and without oil, you can't begin to fight a mid to endgame war. Other strategic resources are also very useful/important, as stone doubles production rate on a lot of important wonders, horses can be a godsend early.
4. Number of must-have wonders: 0. In previous games, certain wonders could decide who won and who lost. In this game, there's no wonder that has the capacity to decide a game by itself.
5. Liberalism is very, very good. +100% culture from free speech, +10% science and huge amounts of coin if you have multiple religions from free religion.

 

[Paradoxus]

Well since many wonders grant GP's upon completion your statements about Great People and Wonders dont mix.
If you grab all the GP making wonders it can greatly turn the tide of a game. Also Wonders all add to your GP points and decide how fast you can make them.

 

[lastchance]

Wonders do add GP points, which is important. But in previous games of Civ, certain wonders were so much more powerful than that. All some wonders are good for is culture and GPP. That's certainly useful, but it's also pretty common. Every wonder helps you on your way. It's nowhere near as game changing as something like Civ II Hoover Dam which allows one country to nearly double it's production for a bit of shield.

Compared to previous CIV's, every wonder is good for culture and GPP, but no wonder allows you to singlehandedly win a game.

 

[Headline]

Does anyone have any suggestion on what wonders one must build?

I spent so much time building Pyramid, Oracle and Stonehedge that I am technologically backward and my expansion is halted. The only great thing about this is the culture expansion. I noticed that the AIs do not build any wonder at all, and this is when I reached the classical era.

 

[Path]

I think he was saying no single wonder really turned the tide, and that seems to be more true now. I'm pretty sure if you can snag enough wonders to pump massive great people out you've already pretty much won!

 

[Path]

I spent so much time building Pyramid, Oracle and Stonehedge that I am technologically backward and my expansion is halted.

Every wonder is a sacrafice. You lose military, land, science, and growth in terms of opportunity costs when you build them. If you can play a strategy around a wonder, it can do great things. If you barely use the advantages, and the wonder is more of a novelty, you just lost some ground.

Trying to build ALL of the wonders means your not gaining a strategic advantage with any of them. Stonehenge does you no good if you only built a few cities, and the pyramids are only as powerful as your civilization overall. Try to imagine how just one of those can boost your particular style of play, and make that sacrafice a strategic advantage your enemies wont keep up with.

 

[tolbox]

building wonders in early game depends on whether you have stone or marble.
Now that you can't switch production anymore, losing a wonder race is really painfull, so you'd better be sure you can have it.
Go for the wonders you have the appropriate ressources for.

Btw, I've found a good recipe for GL factory (great scientist) for late classical era: make the great Library(2 free scientist +GP scientist points) and choose pacifism civic ( obtained with philosophy) which give +100% GP points.
suggestions?

 

[Dairuka]

Wonder Building in the earlier Difficulties is a must. It's much easier to win if you own pretty much every wonder in Noble Difficulty. Which really is not that hard to do anyways as the AI rarely builds wonders then. =D

On Monarch, only build the Early Wonders if you have access to stone or marble. The Oracle is nice, but it's 1 free technology benefit doesn't offset the loss of defense and infrastructure during a crucial period. If you fall behind in military production. You WILL be attacked early on in the game. Which can be devestating. Nothing hurts more than 5 Horse Archer's overrunning your cities leaving you playing catch up, or just plain dead. All of those hammers could've been put to use building up spearmen and axemen for defense.

Later on in the game. I'd suggest beelining for key wonders such as The Pentagon and The Three Gorges Dam. Trust me when I say this, these two wonders will vastly increase your chances of winning. The Pentagon gives you 2 free XP points to your units, and the Three Gorges Dam gives all of your cities on one Continent Hydro Electricity. Which is a 50% bonus to production to cities with a Factory, without the chance of them nuclear boom-boom's, or the added unhealthiness of Coal.

Yes I've had one of my Nuclear Plants go boom... It's not pretty. Especially if you don't have the improvements that shrink the damage of a Nuclear Strike.