No Wonders?

[mudphud]

Well the purpose of this thread was that I was going to kick my wonder addiction but I wanted input from people.

It was obvious that what I suggested initially wasn't going to work. It would've improved my game in some areas but made it worse in others by building NO wonders.

Case in point, if you're going for space race victory you have to get the Space elevator. Or The Sistine Chapel for cultural.

I've identified 3-4 wonders for the entire game for my favourite leaders and I'm going to try a strategy where when I play them, I only build those wonders. For example, Pyramids, Parthenon and Sistine Chapel (if going for culture victory) for Pericles. BTW, I ended up rushing Parthenon with my second engineer. A nice pair of wonders to have without having to spend a single hammer on wonders.

So I'll see how I go with that.

But thanks for the suggestions.

I don't think that planning to get a certain wonders every time with a leader is usually a good idea. You need to take into account your situation and resources. Sometimes an early rush it a much better use of hammers than an early wonder say if you are constricted and can't expand due to neighbors while other times you may have plenty of room to peacefully expand and can spend the hammers on a wonder.

 

[tempuraki]

Tier 1 must-haves/must-deny-to-enemies:

A. Gr Wall, Gr Library, Statue of Liberty, Mausoleum (partly for denial purposes as AIs burn their GPs for golden ages quite often, though this becomes Tier 2 if I miss the Music free GA), Pentagon, Taj Mahal, 3 Gorges Dam, and all late-game happy wonders (Broadway etc.) so you are not dependent on someone else to trade you your happiness.

B. If I plan to have a state religion (especially with AP hammer bonus), I also go for Spiral and Sankore regardless of cost.

C. Also Space Elevator if I plan to go for/deny Space Race.

I also have Statue of Zeus on my tier 1 list, so that the neighbor i will eventually attack don't end up with it. Tier 2 if I am not attacking anyone.

A good thing to do is identify crappy wonders and resolve never to build them. Here's a list I stick by:
...

This list is debatable, but in the interest of broadening the civ4 experience, if wonder addicts are trying a no-wonder strategy, I think it's a good idea for the no-wonder addicts to try building some wonders as well, starting with building only the ones on this list.

No wonders is the best way to kick the habit

I wish that's the case, but sadly it did not help me. It only made me want to build wonders even more. the very next game I chopped Stonehedge the first thing. I mean, the second, only because I needed to get a worker to chop.

As someone else has said, the best wonder is the horde of a dozen axemen - this wonder provides free enemy cities.

I agree with this a whole lot, and I've been trying to kick the addiction to this wonder lately.

 

[kamigawan]

If you're training yourself, then sure. But the point of not building wonders at higher levels is so that you aren't tying up a city and wasting turns and hammers building them the hard way. Therefore, popping a GE to finish a "free" wonder should still be a valid tactic because it doesnt' divert your production away from military/expansion/other infrastructure. Even at higher levels.

 

[popejubal]

If you're training yourself, then sure. But the point of not building wonders at higher levels is so that you aren't tying up a city and wasting turns and hammers building them the hard way. Therefore, popping a GE to finish a "free" wonder should still be a valid tactic because it doesnt' divert your production away from military/expansion/other infrastructure. Even at higher levels.

A settled Great Engineer produces a raw 3 hammers and 3 beakers.

Put him in your Heroic Epic city with a forge and that's 6 or 7 free hammers per turn for the rest of the game. Over the next 200 turns, that's more than 1200 hammers even if you skip Organized Religion and never build a Factory.

The beakers he produces are also quite nice. Instead of putting him in your Heroic Epic city, you can also put him in your best Commerce city. That city will be building Libraries and Universities and will probably build Oxford as well. Every turn that you spend creating those buildings is a turn that you don't get to use them. The settled Great Engineer helps tremendously in getting those buildings into play quickly without forcing you to stop working as many of those delicious Villages and Towns. The 3 beakers he adds to that city are then multiplied by the Library, Monastery, Oxford, etc. that he helped build.

That's synergy.


Blowing a Great Engineer on a World Wonder? That's giving in to your addiction.

I won't argue that it's always bad to burn a Great Engineer on a World Wonder. I will argue that it's always a bad idea to burn a Great Engineer on a World Wonder when you're trying to get over Wonder Addiction.

 

[pigswill]

An issue that may be worth mentioning is how you get the GE in the first place. In the early game you'd be looking at researching MC, building a forge and then running an engineer specialist. Its a reasonable strategy if you're looking to build wonders. If you're not looking to build wonders then its probably not an optimal approach to the start of the game.

 

[BronzeAge]

A settled Great Engineer produces a raw 3 hammers and 3 beakers.

Put him in your Heroic Epic city with a forge and that's 6 or 7 free hammers per turn for the rest of the game. Over the next 200 turns, that's more than 1200 hammers even if you skip Organized Religion and never build a Factory.

The beakers he produces are also quite nice. Instead of putting him in your Heroic Epic city, you can also put him in your best Commerce city. That city will be building Libraries and Universities and will probably build Oxford as well. Every turn that you spend creating those buildings is a turn that you don't get to use them. The settled Great Engineer helps tremendously in getting those buildings into play quickly without forcing you to stop working as many of those delicious Villages and Towns. The 3 beakers he adds to that city are then multiplied by the Library, Monastery, Oxford, etc. that he helped build.

That's synergy.


Blowing a Great Engineer on a World Wonder? That's giving in to your addiction.

I won't argue that it's always bad to burn a Great Engineer on a World Wonder. I will argue that it's always a bad idea to burn a Great Engineer on a World Wonder when you're trying to get over Wonder Addiction.

Or, how about using/saving that GE to rush the SoL. Now EVERY city gets at least a FREE 2 hammers a turn. 3 hammers vs 2*(each city).

It would seem the settling there really does cost you a fortune in hammers using the same arguements.

 

[Nishdog]

If I want someone who doesn't like vegetables to experience all of the wonderful foods that the world has to offer, I'm not going to start him on canned spinach. I'm going to start by offering him a garden fresh tomato with a little basil or some fresh baby snap peas and corn on the cob picked just that morning.

Baby steps.

Can I get that to go?? Preferably with a cheeseburger, medium-rare with large fries and a diet coke??? Sounds Yummy!!

 

[RandomLeader]

I tend to build too much also. I tried this to discover how much I really need wonders so I took 4 games and played them to liberalism just to see reference. I builded one wonder in every game and that was Great Wall. Now that I look back I shouldn't have build that either because I had nice army very early on to deal with barbarians. Result was..

I was totally bossing my neighbours around with my army. I destroyed one civ (don't remember the year) with 6 cities and took them all.. Maintanance dropped my research to zero but I got CoL just in time so it was short set back when I whipped courthouses to every 8 cities that I had then. Very shortly I got my research up to 80% and I won clearly liberalism race. That was game one. Actually every game went like that and I lost liberalism race only once.

I must say that I am only beginning to get hang of things in monarch-level due thanks to this forum. Lots of small tips that seem to improve my game every time I play.

Best thing when laying off wonders was that you could pull out a missionary, worker or settler every time needed and fast. I think I founded new way of playing and my.. aren't those foreign capitals sweet? Maybe the best was what Frederick gave me.. 4 seafood, Silver right next to it and a river with plains (1F+1H+1G with default, cottages over them). Slavery rules too. I can't remember what was the last time I thoughed from early on that there is no stopping me and I couldn't be nerveous of my neighbours huge stacks right next to me. I like it.. I like it a lot

 

[axident]

Play lots of games of all flavors and you will eventually figure out that the best strat is to be opportunistic and use what you've been given. Many games I think I won't build many wonders and yet I start off next to marble or something so I build stuff like ToA just cause it's cheap and gives many GP points. I rarely if ever intend to wonderspam even before knowing what the map looks like.

 

[vale]

Or, how about using/saving that GE to rush the SoL. Now EVERY city gets at least a FREE 2 hammers a turn. 3 hammers vs 2*(each city).

It would seem the settling there really does cost you a fortune in hammers using the same arguements.

There are so many flaws with this argument. I'll address them one by one:

1. Unless you have a massive population, the GE is not going to complete the SoL by itself. So the GE does not guarantee anything regarding the SoL.
2. Each city does not get at least a free two hammers with SoL. It is quite possible some will only be able to run citizen specialists.
3. Three hammers a turn for the entire game now vs. some bonus per city per turn for the rest of the game 2000 years from now is not the slam dunk for rushing SoL that you make it out to be. In fact I would be willing to bet that the settled GE gives you a better chance of actually building the SoL later in the game in the long run because of the early game production and tech boost that can give you exponential returns.
4. Not rushing the SoL does not preclude you from winning the race to build it. If you can actually hard build it and win the race, then rushing it with a great engineer only gives you a mild boost across your whole empire. (Some number of extra turns with the free specialists and turns of production in your SoL city that aren't spent producing SoL).

In most cases, leaving a Great Person sitting around for a long time is going to be suboptimal. In this example, I am certain that is extraordinarily suboptimal.

 

[popejubal]

Or, how about using/saving that GE to rush the SoL. Now EVERY city gets at least a FREE 2 hammers a turn. 3 hammers vs 2*(each city).

It would seem the settling there really does cost you a fortune in hammers using the same arguements.

It will be a couple of hundred turns between when you get the first Engineer and when you are eligible to build the Statue of Liberty. The Engineer would probably have given you close to a thousand hammers and over a thousand (maybe even over 2000) beakers by then.

Also, it takes 2 or 3 Great Engineers to build the Statue of Liberty (unless you have a city with population 500 to get the extra needed hammers out of the first GE). The Statue of Liberty is a very expensive wonder.

Also, you can only run 1 Engineer per city until you start building Factories, so you're really getting an extra Priest/Scientist/Merchant or even just a lowly 1 Citizen in your other cities. Don't get me wrong, I like the Statue of Liberty (for empires that are large enough), but I like the idea of getting over a Wonder Addiction even better.

Cold Turkey is the only way to go. Why not try playing Mehmed II?

One other thought on Wonders: if you do have Marble or Stone hooked up in your empire, you can still build World Wonders while kicking the habit. Just don't finish them... When an AI civ completes the Wonder, you get 1 gold for each hammer spent and you're getting at least +100% on your hammer investment. You have to wait for your gold, but it's a much better payback than building gold directly. I'll often start building Chicken Pizza in my empire if I have the resource available, but I'll certainly never finish it. It's nice to be able to run at 100% research for a while because the Toku did something stupid and built Chicken Pizza.

 

[Bast]

I don't want to keep giving updates from my game but I want to say that I settled two more engineers that I got. You have no idea how hard it was to say no to University of Sankore.

Going for a culture win and so rushed an engineer to get The Sistine Chapel. You have no idea how many great people I've had. Pericles + Pyramids = Heaven.

So those settled engineers are giving +3 +6 and +2 . Thanks to wonders (Pyramids + Sistine). I think it shows that there are leader specific wonders you should go for. And that works. But I've also skipped a lot of wonders I could've had.

I think I've kicked the habit.

 

[BronzeAge]

+2 culture per specialist just doesn't seem to be worth the hammers to me.

I'd rather take a + 0.5 commerce per specialist.

 

[axident]

+2 culture per specialist just doesn't seem to be worth the hammers to me.

I'd rather take a + 0.5 commerce per specialist.

The +2/spe is nice but the +5/state religious building is awesome. Esp. if you have AP/Sankore/Spiral bonuses, then of course you should spam state religious buildings like crazy. Your neighbors will probably end up losing some cities due to your crazy cultural output. I've had games where Sistine basically turned the tide from my cities being under cultural siege and losing fat cross tiles to my annexing large swaths of territory and some AI cities.

 

[Bast]

The +2/spe is nice but the +5/state religious building is awesome. Esp. if you have AP/Sankore/Spiral bonuses, then of course you should spam state religious buildings like crazy. Your neighbors will probably end up losing some cities due to your crazy cultural output. I've had games where Sistine basically turned the tide from my cities being under cultural siege and losing fat cross tiles to my annexing large swaths of territory and some AI cities.

Exactly. If you're going for a cultural victory, this wonder simply becomes a must.