Natural Wonder Elimination Thread

Eyjafjallajökull [16]
Giant's Causeway [8]
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [11]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13]
Piopiotahi [17] (16+1) You get 3 great workable tiles here.
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [10] (13-3) those yields are spread really thin, much too little ROI on your citizens.
Yosemite [12]
Zhangye Danxia [7]

 

I have yet to see one person give a single good reason why Giant's Causeway should outlast Zhangye Danxia - which can match Causeway's combat bonuses AND give you a whole bunch more benefits - yet here we sit with Causeway having a score above Zhangye. I'll fix that, but this shouldn't even be a discussion at this point.

If you're using Zhangye for a CS advantage, that advantage is yours and yours alone. If you're relying on Causeway for a CS advantage, any unit from any civ can gain the exact same bonus you're relying on. Maybe Causeway is better later in the game, but as the game goes on +5 CS becomes less and less impressive anyways. Not really buying it TBH.

Eyjafjallajökull [16]
Giant's Causeway [5] (8-3)
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [11]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13]
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [10]
Yosemite [12]
Zhangye Danxia [8] (7+1)

 

Zhangye Danxia only guarantees early GG, whereas giant causeway combat bonus is independent of era, and it is more or less immediate if your troops spawn adjacent and you do not have to wait for GG to earn combat bonus. For early wars Zhangye Danxia has an advantage since early GG gives extra movement. However, Giant Causeway is better solely for the combat bonus since it is independent of GG. Also, Bottomline is that there can be a case for Giant Causeway and it is not clear that it is completely outclassed by Zhangye Danxia.
Anyways, the next 3 to go should be amongst Matterhorn, Giant Causeway and Zhangye Danxia.

You do realise that GG only boost movement and CS of units of a particular era right? So the first few GGs only grants additonal combat strength and movement to ancient and classical units, and that in itself, is more restrictive than Giant Causeway. And Zhangye Danxia only guarantees first few GGs, the rest of the GG in the remaining eras would take more effort. I mean sure, by all means say that Giant Causeway's combat bonus is not exclusive, but for other civs to use the bonus they have to move near it and that would take many turns, so it is as good as being exclusive. moreover, in single player context, the AI won't be clever enough to utilise a Giant Causeway wonder that is near you.

I am not saying that Giant Causeway is definitely better than Zhangye Danxia, I am just illustrating a counterpoint to why I think the nuances between Zhangye Danxia and Giant Causeway is more pronounced than what you perceive.

Eyjafjallajökull [17] (16 +1)
I think this deserves a higher spot. Volcanoes can also give science in addition to food and production. Eyja also gives culture as a base yield.
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [8] (11 - 3)
Ignoring hills is nice, but the yields, just giving 1 culture is nothing to brag about.
It suffers from same issue as Giant Causeway since one has to move adjacent to it to earn bonus.
Often matterhorn is buried within some mountain range giving fewer culture than it should.
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13]
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [10]
Yosemite [12]
Zhangye Danxia [8]

 

Danxia outperforms Causeway militarily only during the relatively narrow window between the time you earn a Great General with Danxia (30 turns after settlement) and the time you would earn one without it. Before or after this window, this window, Danxia has essentially no military benefit. Causeway gives a much smaller military benefit, but it gives it as soon as you're able to move units there, and it stacks with Great Generals once they come into the picture. There's still a solid argument to be made in Danxia's favor, especially once you factor in the economic benefits, but it's definitely not a case of one wonder being strictly better than the other.

Yosemite (12+1=13) I feel like the food added to this wonder with Gathering Storm may be underrated a bit. Food is a resource with strongly diminishing marginal returns, but the flip side of this is that it can be highly valuable at lower levels. There's a reason Pantanal finished significantly ahead of Ubsunur and Chocolate Hills, which finished significantly ahead of Gobustan. Yosemite hits a very good balance in this regard, providing enough food to make its tiles easily workable but not going overboard at the expense of its (quite significant) other yields.

Pamukkale (13-3=10) For any of remaining wonders that boost yields on adjacent tiles, think about how often you'd be happy to put a +2 campus or theater square on one of its single adjacency tiles or a +4 district on one of its double adjacency tiles (keeping in mind that the alternative is the next best adjacency in the city, not no adjacency). That's not a trade off I think I'd usually want to make, so I'd rank the wonder that gives only the district adjacencies below those that give only the adjacent yields.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [8]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10]
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [10]
Yosemite [12]
Zhangye Danxia [8]

 

Tsingy de Bemaraha [7] (10-3) Completely agree with @JJOne, I value dense yields over thin ones. It’s the same reason I downvoted Pantanal (in response to someone’s rather catty remark earlier): I don’t undervalue early culture per se, but I would rather my city grows & is productive than gets locked into working one or two thin wonder tiles purely to gain a handful of yields.

Pamukkale [11] (10+1) One final argument in defence of Pamukkale: alongside the adjacencies and the amenities, there’s also the era score it gives. If you plan correctly, you can successfully use Pamukkale to time two or three ‘splendid district created’ moments, each of which grant +3 era score; and this can be an easy way to launch into an all-important Classical Era golden age.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [8]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [11] (10+1)
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [7] (10-3)
Yosemite [12]
Zhangye Danxia [8]

 

The Blue Towers vs where one cannot walk barefoot

For today, I'm down with yield density.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [21]
Matterhorn [8]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [11]
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [23] (22+1) High density
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4] (7-3) Low density
Yosemite [13] Corrected from post 204
Zhangye Danxia [8]

 

So I'm thinking, which natural wonders would I try and settle even mid-game?

Ik-Kil [22] 21+1 Quicker wonders (or districts) is always a great boon
Zhangye Danxia [5] 8-3 I love it (and upvoted it earlier), but it's really only a boon if you start near it. A few cities in, and the bonus GPP points don't make the same amount of difference.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [8]
Mount Kilimanjaro [3]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [11]
Piopiotahi [17]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [5]

 

Mount Kilimanjaro [3-3=0] ELIMINATED. Let's just kill this one off. No culture, science, or even production, and a chance of population suffering pyroclastic annihilation counteracts some of the bonus food.

Piopiotahi [17+1=18]. Harder to figure out what deserves to go up the order, but density of culture yields are very nice, and should allow borders to expand to the other tiles easily for earlier benefits. I'd rather have this than Eyjafjallajökull.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [8]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [11]
Piopiotahi [18]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [5]

 

People are being very disingenuous when they say Zhangye Danxia is not as good once you have a few encampments up. That's not how opportunity costs work, Zhangye Danxia doesn't stop doing what it does just because you can now get Great General points in other ways. Zhangye Danxia gives you +2 Great General Points, which is equal to an Encampment with a Barracks. That means that if you have Zhangye Danxia, you can have one less Encampment with Barracks compared to if you didn't have Zhangye Danxia, and still have the same Great General output. If you have one less Encampment with Barracks, you can have one more Campus with Library, or one more Holy Site with Shrine, or one more Theatre Square with Amphitheatre. In other words, you can think of Zhangye Danxia 'converting' from +2 Great General Points to +5 Science for a reasonably well-placed Campus with Library; because if you didn't have Zhangye Danxia, you'd have had to have built another Encampment and Barracks instead of that Campus and Library. That's really powerful, especially because Districts and District Buildings give those yields without actually being worked. You can only get +5 Science from Yosemite by working 3-4 otherwise mediocre tiles, which is a huge commitment.

Secondly, Giant's Causeway is also limited to very early military stuff. Saying 'Zhangye Danxia gives a boost early, Giant's Causeway gives one consistently' is just super misleading about how the military game in Civ VI works. If I took the time to march my units all the way from Giant's Causeway to the frontline for the whole game, I would be slowing my Domination Victories immensely - once I've finished warfare in the immediate vicinity of the Giant's Causeway, it can take 10-15 turns to march troops all the way over. I value a unit immediately on the frontline when I need it much more than a +5 combat bonus. Giant's Causeway is good if you find it early and it can help your initial starting war, but any later units are probably going to be purchased by Gold on frontline cities and have nothing to do with the Giant's Causeway. I think if you are still wasting time to do a big "stand next to Giant's Causeway" circuit, you are playing very inefficiently and are not actually seeing half as much benefit as you think you are.

Finally, the early Great Merchants are being underplayed. Zhang Qian and Marco Polo provide an extra trade route, which can be very powerful early on, Irene of Athens an extra government promotion, and from my experience you will get all the early Great Merchants if you lock down Zhangye Danxia. "+2 trade routes and +1 government promotion" is a huge "yes pls much powerful".

For the downvote, I want to do Yosemite again because it is still being disgustly overrated for something that provides a thin smattering of Science and Gold, but to avoid a double downvote, I'd like to move to the Matterhorn. I agree with some posters above re: thin yields starting to be a problem for Natural Wonders like Tsingy de Bemaraha, and if it wasn't for Yosemite, Tsingy would be nearing the bottom of my list. However, there's one in-between Tsingy and Yosemite for me, and that's the Matterhorn. Why? 2 reasons. Firstly, Tsingy tends to be free-standing and all the adjacent tiles are workable. Matterhorn spawns in Mountain ranges predominantly, which means that it often ends up providing benefit to only 3 or so adjacent tiles, which is a lot less. Second, it adds less to its tiles than Tsingy, and supposedly makes up for it with the Hills movement bonus. However, this has the same problem as Giant's Causeway - I'm just not moving all my troops over there in the mid-game - but isn't as good as Giant's Causeway because your foe won't necessarily have hills predominating early on. My mental picture of the bottom Wonders now includes Giant's Causeway, Matterhorn, Roraima, Yosemite, and Tsingy de Bemaraha, so I want to draw some attention to Matterhorn and put it in the fight with GC and TdB.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [5]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [11]
Piopiotahi [18]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [6]

 

Matterhorn [2] (5-3) Yeah sure. I don’t rate Tsingy much, but it’s true that it’s eversoslightly superior to Matterhorn.

Pamukkale [12] (11+1) I like the era score argument mentioned above. Most of these wonders grant maximum 6 era score (first discovery, then founding a city nearby). But Pamukkale can go on to provide 6 more era score for no effort (3 for a +4 campus and 3 for a +4 theatre square) and, if I’m not mistaken, can even provide up to 12 if you get lucky with adjacent woods or mountains (ie. you can place the campus and a holy site by the single tiles for 6 score, then a commercial hub and theatre square in the middle for 6 more). That’s potentially 18 era score in total, on top of the amenities and the fresh water it also provides and, of course, the actual adjacency yields.


Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [5]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [2] (5-3)
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [12] (11+1)
Piopiotahi [18]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [6]

 

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [2] (5-3) If it's close to your most productive city and front line, then good. Otherwise by the time you reach it and then bring your units to frontline they are out of date. Yeah you can upgrade but still you may have lost a window of domination.
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [2]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13] (12+1) The era score argument convinced me. The only grudge I have about this is that it is too rare to appear.
Piopiotahi [18]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [6]

 

ZD suffers militarily because, at minimum, you first have to wait to acquire the general(s) then you have to tech up to the appropriate units. Then the generals and the units around them require micromanagement. Meanwhile Causeway and even Matterhorn require no waiting, as you can per upgrade your units as soon as you discover, and they can apply to warriors, scouts, slingers, archers, spearmen, and heavy chariots (and all ancient land UUs or equivalents), something a general just can't ever do. Then those units are free to upgrade to higher era units and not lose their buff or micromanage further around other generals (which you will be competing against other civs for such that +2 general points no longer mean much).

Then ZDs merchants are being overvalued especially when compared to the yields other wonders will give you. You could get lucky and get Zhiang first, but then you have to navigate through Colaeus and Crassus before MP can even show up. Okay. Crassus is mediocre (and best put to use in the final turns of a science victory). Colaeus is trash. Alright, so let's consider what two "early" additional trade routes can do for you ("early" becuase you still need to build a commercial hub to activate them)... domestically that's a couple extra food and production (literally a couple, usually 1-2f, 1-2p). Internationally that's 3g/1<other>)... seriously? I'll take the yields the other wonders provide any day. They're immediate and, frankly, better. Working 6 Torres tiles is like having up to six extra early domestic trade routes. Working 6 Tsingy tiles is like having 6 extra early International routes trading the gold for a far better culture or science payout.

I'll upvote Pio as one of the only remaining Culture wonders that is 'dense enough' to still be strong (density only matters if the individual yields themselves are strong. I value a single culture early over science at minimum 2:1. Rip Pantanal.)

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [2]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [2]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13]
Piopiotahi [19]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [3]

 

Ok, that's great and all, but if we're comparing GC and ZD (which I am) none of that matters. These ancillary bonuses are just icing on the cake for Zhangye that Causeway can't match.

I suppose if the placement is perfect GC's combat bonus might be more effective than ZD's, but I think the odds of that happening are just too low to really matter. You need it to be close enough to the frontline that you can get your units buffed and to the front in a reasonable amount of time, but at the same time you don't want GC *too* close to the front because then enemy troops will also get the CS bonus and completely negate your advantage.

Besides all that, what if there's noone nearby to use that CS bonus on? With ZD you at least get *something* else - you'll probably get some free troops (Boudica) or a great writing (Sun Tzu) plus a couple of trade routes from ZD, and you'll get NOTHING from GC. ZD also gives your cities mountains to boost your early campuses or holy sites, while settling GC early means settling on the coast. I'd take ZD every single time and it's not even close. I'm honestly surprised Causeway lasted this long TBH.

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Giant's Causeway [eliminated] (2-3)
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [2]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [13]
Piopiotahi [19]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [4] (3+1)

 

Eyjafjallajökull [18] (17 + 1)
Gonna upvote this guy. I still think he is rated too low.
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [2]
Mount Roraima [23]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10] (13 - 3)
While I think the era score argument has its merit, but however in reality, Pammukale only provides an effective + 6 era score over other NW; 3 from +3 theatre squares, and 3 from +4 commercial hubs. Let me explain: +3 HS is doable for almost every NW in the game, +3 campus are not that rare nowadays because of geotherms and reefs. Even +3 theatre square, while requiring some work, can be done in the pyramid city. So suppose +4 TS are difficult, Pammukale really effectively, gives only +6 era score and one of them is from building commercial hubs, which I think it is not the most desirable district to build in the early game. (I do think +4 CHs are hard because its dumb building CH + Harbour and and while rivers confer + 2 gold, you need to hug 4 districts to gain +4 CH).
Piopiotahi [19]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

 

Matterhorn [2-3] (ELIMINATED). Absolutely nothing wrong with early culture, but it's not uncommon to see two or three of Matterhorn's culture tiles negated by adjacent mountains. That alone places it below the remaining candidates.

Mount Roraima [24] (23+1) My candidate for second place behind El Dorado. Some of the densest yields available of the non-mythical wonders and, from my experience, never seems to spawn next to mountains like Matterhorn can.

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Ik-Kil [22]
Matterhorn [ELIMINATED]
Mount Roraima [24] (23+1)
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10]
Piopiotahi [19]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [4]
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

 

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Ik-Kil [22]
Mount Roraima [25] (24+1) A very flexible and fun wonder. It's shape provides dense yields. It gives you early, easy faith. My second favorite NW behind Paititi.
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10]
Piopiotahi [19]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [1] (4-3) My favorite natural wonders are the ones that have dense yields or that allow you do something unique (i.e. ZD gives GGs and GMs before you otherwise could, Ik-Kil gives you quicker districts/wonders). Tsingy is fine, but not as good as the remaining wonders.
Yosemite [13]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

On a side note, while the Cliffs of Dover is a terrible wonder, it is way better than the Grand Mesa from Civ V, which was worse than a mined hill or even an unimproved gems tile. That natural wonder was incredibly uninspiring.

Edit: Sorry for not actually updating the counts. Thanks for flaggin @hhhhhh

 

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Ik-Kil [22]
Mount Roraima [25]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10]
Piopiotahi [20]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [1]
Yosemite [10]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

Same logic as my vote before last on Yosemite. Up-vote is for Piopiotahi to try and put it back ahead of Mt Roraima again; Culture beats Science for most of the game given equal yields of both.

 

Torres del Paine [24] 23 + 1 - Usually hits at least a few non-tundra tiles to double for a huge new city kick start of food and production.

Yosemite [7] 10 - 3 Definitely a top 10 wonder, but not a top 5. Nice boost of science to the surrounding tiles (and can do a +4 holy site) but nothing crazy.

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Ik-Kil [22]
Mount Roraima [25]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [10]
Piopiotahi [20]
Torres del Paine [24]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [1]
Yosemite [7]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

Lol, I totally forgot about the trash that was the 'Grand Mesa' in 5. Which they never buffed. Only useful for Isabella and the first discovery gold.

 

Top 10

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Ik-Kil [23] (22+1) Early, it gives speed boosts to important components of your preliminary strategy. Late, it provides a ludicrous amount of production. I also very much enjoy the fact that it significantly affects my city layout planning, one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.
Mount Roraima [25]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [7] (10-3) Have been a supporter of the Cotton Castle and glad to see it make the top 10. At this point I see less of an overall impact here as the rest. As far as the "extra" era score, I've never had much trouble with golden ages even at deity level.
Piopiotahi [20]
Torres del Paine [24]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [1]
Yosemite [7]
Zhangye Danxia [4]

 

Eyjafjallajökull [19](18+1) I don't think I voted for this yet. It's not gamebreaking, but it's really nice to have in one or two of your cities.
Ik-Kil [23]
Mount Roraima [25]
Païtiti [30]
Pamukkale [7]
Piopiotahi [20]
Torres del Paine [24]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [1]
Yosemite [7]
Zhangye Danxia [1] (4-3) Sorry, but this one really doesn't matter if you don't get it with your capital or second city. Settle it later and it won't help you to one GP.