Natural Wonder Elimination Thread

[Noble Zarkon]

Totally agree about Giant's Causeway - [14] (13+1) - it's a game changer, if I find it I'm looking to build an encampment near it ASAP. Also agree that the damage Mount Vesuvius - [3] 6-3 - does is just too much of a hindrance to overcome at this stage of the contest.


Eyjafjallajökull [20]
Fountain of Youth [19]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [14]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Lysefjord [4]
Mato Tipila [5]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [3]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [21]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[xaiviax]

The Cold War

Eyjafjallajökull [17] (20-3) Decent wonder I would rather have than not. It still has drawbacks though. And as much as I love Russia, I won't let that influence my opinion on the fact that this wonder's tundra/snow love is one of those drawbacks.
Fountain of Youth [19]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15] (14+1) Not needed, but no natural or man made wonder is needed. My peaceful scouts love it. Kilwa Kisiwani lovers should like it. Small defence forces support it... Not top tier in my book, but still definately upper half. And if war drums are beating, well....
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Lysefjord [4]
Mato Tipila [5]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [3]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [21]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[bengalryan9]

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Fountain of Youth [19]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Lysefjord [1] (4-3) I'm sure it has it's occasional uses, but how often are you really getting any mileage out of this?
Mato Tipila [5]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [3]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [22] (21+1) Every time I see this one it's giving a lot of extra food, and then you usually get some production on top of that. Even if it shows up in tundra it's going to help nearby cities a lot.
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[Leucarum]

Eyjafjallajökull [17]
Fountain of Youth [19]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Lysefjord [0-3] ELIMINATED
Mato Tipila [5]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

Agreed that Lysefjord isnt really going to he impactful very often. This is more favouritism on my part with Vesuvius than a vote on power. A strong yield generator, it is a solid pick to settle a Liang next to which can be a fun deviation from normal strategy.

 

[enKage]

Eyjafjallajökull [18]
Fountain of Youth [16]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Mato Tipila [5]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

I don't like wonders which want me to move units toward it for a bonus. As far as i know civ philosophy, winning is being able to do everything earlier than opponents, so wasting turns to move units for a bonus, especially with little influence on road construction, is a clear waste of time advantage. Volcanos, yield givng wnders and ZD are less engaging.
There are 3 such wonders, fountain, causeway, maternhorn. Matterhorn gives culture too, so can be used in a passive way. Yield from fountain is food negative, so does no t impress me too much. I have a felling game wants me to settle a city next to it with an encampment, so I can send out units with a promotion. In such a case I take strength over healing, because it is more impactful early game. Late game if you go for domination, you buy units in the frontline anyway.
Fountain of youth -3

The problem with other volcanos is that they are afecting 6 tiles only while eruption and especially Vesuvius tend to have mountains around, so often makes more damage than gains. Eyjafjallajökull fertilizes more tiles at single eruption and alone can justify taking goddess of fire pantheon. And no mountains around.
And mainly - when all other wonders are settled, you can usually still setlle it for erascore. + allows obtaining arctic strategic resources less painful/ + opens Amundssen for most civs
Eyjafjallajökull +1

 

[monikernemo]

Eyjafjallajökull [19] (18 + 1)
Very bountiful yields. Even if you're not playing a tundra centric civ, it is still nice to settle in the snow or tundra for this volcano.

Fountain of Youth [16]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Mato Tipila [2] (5 -3) Next on the chopping block. +1f+1p per tile becomes irrelevant quickly.
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [15]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [19]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[Amrunril]

I'll go for another pair of similar wonders, this time looking at two multi-tile, adjacency-based wonders, each providing gold and one of the game's two "research yields": Piopiotahi and Yosemite.

Piopiotahi is slightly larger than Yosemite and so provides yields to more tiles- but not actually very many more. Piopiotahi gives 3 stacked adjacency tiles and 6 single adjacency tiles. Yosemite gives 2 and 6. Piopiotahi's coastal placement, though, will often make several of its tiles difficult to work, so I think I actually prefer Yosemite in this regard.

As for the yields themselves, both wonders add +1 gold, while Piopiotahi adds +1 culture and Yosemite adds +1 science. I would tend to buy the argument that +1 culture is stronger than +1 science, but I don't think it's a huge difference.

So far, it seems like the two wonders are very closely matched. However, that's everything Piopiotahi has, whereas since Gathering Storm, Yosemite also gives +1 food for each of its adjacencies. This extra yield seems like enough to resolve things very solidly into Yosemite's favor, moving it into the top tier of adjacency-based wonders.


Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [16]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [21]
Mato Tipila [2]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [12]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Fountain of Youth [17] 16+1 - Fountain of Youth is quite a clever design, settle next to it for Fresh Water, work it until you get your pantheon (likely first if you've spawned near it) and then leave it alone until you build your city up enough to be able to afford the food to work it again. On top of the strong yields it offers a nice boost for all your units which is relevant whether you're going domination or not.

Ik-Kil [18] 21-18 Worthy of a top 20 but doesn't deserve to be this high, I had a tough time deciding who to downvote though.


Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [17]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [11]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [18]
Mato Tipila [2]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [12]
Torres del Paine [22]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[lotrmith]

Reef: 3 food 2 science is dandy but with zero production you have the answer to "at what cost?".

Torres: I think universally this is the best wonder. Nothing fuels everything so much as explosive growth backed by strong production.


Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [17]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [18]
Mato Tipila [2]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [12]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[CrabHelmet]

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [14]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [18]
Mato Tipila [2]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [22]
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

The same person as before is down voting a +12 Culture adjacency Wonder despite everyone plugging in to restore it and providing poor reasons for doing so? I mean... it provides +12 Culture across 6 tiles. Culture is the most powerful early-stage yield. There is just 0 reason to be down-voting this, Piopiotahi is an easy top 10 Wonder and has reasonable arguments for top 5.

I think Great Barrier Reef is weaker than Fountain of Youth but wanted to bring FoY back into the conversation. If you find FoY super early, it's good because you can work it and get Religious Settlements first to make up for the fact you killed your growth. If you find it too late to get a Pantheon, though, working it sets you back more than it helps you up - I'm not convinced by 4 Science 0 Food and would rather be working Food and Production to simultaneously get a Campus for the same Science and have Population to do other things. Similarly, if I find the FoY later the healing bonus just isn't good enough to waste time marching all my army all the way over to it and back again.

By contrast, the Great Barrier Reef at least can be worked for 'free' at all times because it provides its own food. Admittedly not Housing or Amenities but the point is the opportunity cost of the GBR is very low and it isn't obvious to me FoY is wildly better.

The best Wonders are clearly those which provide enough Food not to be a distraction early on OR have their effect on adjacent tiles so you get Food anyway, AND provide Culture. The worst are those which don't give enough Food to be worth working, or have trivial yields.

With that in mind, I think Torres del Paine is doing too well at the moment. If you find it in like the first 20 turns or so of the game, fantastic. Later, it's... slightly better ordinary tiles with no Culture or Science? The city grows better generally but it doesn't have immediate application. I'd honestly rather have e.g. Ha Long Bay early on, gets me to Political Philosophy faster. Good luck with your slightly faster growth when I have the combat boost from Oligarchy and better economy cards, I'll just take your slightly larger city off you.

EDIT: to explain further why Culture is king (or even Deity), consider the sheer power of Political Philosophy. By switching from the opening government to Oligarchy, and slotting two more Policy Cards, suddenly I have +4 CS on every unit, every Military unit costs 1 less gold, and I earn City-States twice as fast. This is one the strongest changes in power in a single turn at any point in the game, Political Philosophy is THE key early break point for a reason.

More Culture means you do this sooner. +3 Culture gets you there maybe 10 turns faster. Suppose every Culture Wonder had an effect that read "Provides a 10 turn burst of +4 CS on all units, 50 Gold, and 1 Envoy". You'd be like "holy moly, this Wonder is absolutely busted!". Well, that's what Culture Wonders do - you just don't translate the Culture into the effect and just think in an abstract way "oh yeah +3 Culture seems kinda neat."

This is even then ignoring all the other many, many bonuses from Culture - I'm literally just highlighting *one* of the key break points.

Wonders like Paititi and Piopiotahi *destroy* stuff like Torres del Paine, and I don't even think TdP is even a bad Wonder, it's a really good one, just not on the level of those Wonders providing disgustingly high amounts of Culture as early as they do.

 

[TCBB]

Mato Tipila [ELIMINATED] Just a bit ehh. Extra production is nice if you get a city down early, but the impact rapidly dwindles after; a worse version of Russia’s ability, really.

Mount Roraima [23] (22+1) Another upvote for Roraima to bring it equal with Zhangye. The yields are amazing early on, and you can reliably fit two cities around it.

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [14]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [18]
Mato Tipila [ELIMINATED]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23] (22+1)
Mount Vesuvius [4]
Païtiti [25]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[xaiviax]

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [14]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [18]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1] (4-3) This reverse growth wonder is great for the player when the ai settles near it. Nonetheless, I prefer a more competitive ai.
Païtiti [26] (25+1) There is a math where this wonder is equivalent to having Rome's civ ability, minus the roads, plus the pyramids. That notwithstanding, this wonder is more than twice as good as Piopiotahi, and still utterly broken.
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [20]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[hhhhhh]

Yosemite [17] (20-3) Only a few science which is not that important early game and can be ignore late game.
Ik-Kil [19] (18+1) If you utilize this well it can grant you 1000+ productions (when you use it for late game wonders), and it can also win you some early game wonders.

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [14]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [15]
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [19]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [26]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[bengalryan9]

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [15] (14+1) All that stuff I said earlier about Crater Lake allowing you to get your second settler out fastest? It also applies here, with the added advantage that working this at the start will also help you through the early part of the tech tree as well. Some day I hope to be lucky enough to start next to this.
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12] (15-3) I'm not saying this isn't good for domination... I'm sure it is. But that's more or less *all* it's good for, and your enemies can also grab the same bonus anytime they move next to it.
Great Barrier Reef [8]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [19]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [26]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [15]
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[Amrunril]

Great Barrier Reef (8-3=5). This gives a maximum of +6 food and +4 science. I certainly won't say no to that, but I don't think it's enough to merit an upper tier spot.
Ik-Kil (19+1=20) I'm kind or curious what the design process behind this was. All of the game's other wonder production bonus are limited to an underwhelming 15 or 20%, but suddenly the devs decided to go all the way to 50% here.

Eyjafjallajökull [19]
Fountain of Youth [15]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [26]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [125]
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[monikernemo]

The draw back of ik-kil is that your districts might be placed suboptimally, or it could also be the case that the tile adjacent to ik-kil is not suitable for building certain wonders, which explains the high production bonus.

Eyjafjallajökull [20] (19+1) upvoting this again, high food yields, relatively low population loss compared to vesuvius makes this a nice wonder to settle next to.
Fountain of Youth [15]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [26]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [12] (15-3)
You need 6 population point to get the full 6s 6 cul. Not very enticing in my opinion.
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[JesseS]

Fountain of Youth [12] (15-3) The Fountain of Youth provides one good tile to work, which can't be further improved. This is great if you can settle it initially, but I think we should be grading natural wonders off the more typical scenario where you find and settle them slightly later, when the yields are weaker relative to what you can naturally produce. +10 healing per turn is a decent bonus, but not enough to detour your units too far to it it; it's ultimately the difference between healing in hostile vs friendly territory. And you have to fortify a unit for a turn to heal it. If I'm going for domination, I would much rather have Giant's Causeway to save that amount of damage per battle and deal more damage myself. And if I'm not, the healing bonus is only useful in niche situations.

Païtiti [26+1=27] This is just the best natural wonder by far. Culture is one of the most important early yields and this provides boatloads of it, along with gold. It buffs adjacent tiles, so you can improve the yields. If it happens to spawn on desert tiles, you can still build some great theater squares.

Btw, @Leucarum, Liang doesn't protect against population loss from disasters.

Eyjafjallajökull [20]
Fountain of Youth [12]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [16]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [27]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [17]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [12]
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

Pantanal [14] (17-3) Too high: it should be in the firing line for elimination soon. The combination of 2 food 2 culture at least means the city doesn’t starve, but it’s still not an amazing combo. Work it early, and you cripple your city’s production; but wait until the point when you have enough production to subsidise working the tiles, and the impact of the 2 culture is severely minimised.

Matterhorn [17] (16+1) Yes it provides less culture overall than Pantanal, but I still think it a better wonder. From experience, at least one of the surrounding tiles is usually a 1food 3production, a 2food 2production, or even more; and this means you can afford to dedicate your second citizen to working the tile in order to gain the 1culture, yet still keep the city functional. Nor should Alpine Training be scoffed at; it is an extremely useful quality-of-life bonus for any domination-themed strategy, comparable to having Ethiopia’s UU but for all your units. Overall, a very solid wonder that I’m always happy to see spawn nearby.

Eyjafjallajökull [20]
Fountain of Youth [12]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [17] (16+1)
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [27]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [14] (17-3)
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [12]
Yosemite [17]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[lotrmith]

Tsingy - I don't understand the argument about "having to work 6 tiles to get all 6c+6s". Not only is the culture and science a bonus on already workable tiles with their own base yields, but if the argument is that you have to work a lot of tiles to reap all the potential rewards then there are other wonders on this list that affect far more tiles to which that argument would be equally absurd. Outside of just super strong food+production yields, the best thing you can get early game is a culture boost, so having even just one sustainable tile of 2food+Xproduction+1culture (and +1 science to boot) is really, really good.

Yosemite - Downvotes are hard at this point so I'll just say I'd rather have food and culture than food and science+gold.

Eyjafjallajökull [20]
Fountain of Youth [12]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [17]
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [27]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [14]
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [13]
Yosemite [14]
Zhangye Danxia [23]

 

[xaiviax]

Eyjafjallajökull [20]
Fountain of Youth [12]
Galápagos Islands [10]
Giant's Causeway [12]
Great Barrier Reef [5]
Hạ Long Bay [16]
Ik-Kil [20]
Matterhorn [18] (17+1) For my scouts and military, I would rather have this than Giant's Causeway. And I get extra culture.
Mount Kilimanjaro [18]
Mount Roraima [23]
Mount Vesuvius [1]
Païtiti [27]
Pamukkale [20]
Pantanal [11] (14-3) I'll say it again, I love culture, get me to PP and Feudalism asap. That makes this unimprovable wonder decent, not great. Honestly, I would rather have 4 actual swamp tiles that I can exploit to improve my empire and improve culture through better means.
Piopiotahi [13]
Torres del Paine [23]
Tsingy de Bemaraha [13]
Yosemite [14]
Zhangye Danxia [23]