Petra is the best wonder in civ 6

[Veriaqa]

If you build a city in the desert, make sure that you build Petra on that city. You won't regret it, in fact you WILL regeret it if you don't build Petra on that city.

Petra is the best wonder in civ 6 imo. It makes your desert city spew productions, foods, and golds like crazy.

In my last playthrough, I play as Norway, I build my second city on a desert near an oasis because I need the luxury resources around the location, three kind of them! I have no other purpose for the city beside for collecting the luxury. But I manage to build Petra before anybody else. And oh boy, that city turn out to be gold. The area are completely desert bar some one - two grassland tiles. And every one of them producing atleast two production, some even three. My second city even surpassing my capital in everything. Building district are kinda problematic after the two grassland tiles are used up because you need to sacrifice the desert tiles, But I made the military district there and use the city as my unit production. It build every unit in just one turn.

 

[Kelmort83]

IMO, it's work best with Egypt because of the start bias + you can then surround Petra with 3 sphinx + 1 theater square.

But, you either need to chop 3-4 forest or have 4-5 dedicated trader on productin / and the right civics to build Petra, or esle it's might just have been better to settle somewhere esle without Petra.

And by the time Petra is ready, your city still won't be 100% operationnal. In the End you have to estimate what is the cost of such a project.

 

[Veriaqa]

Yeah I agree, but at the end it is worth the effort to build Petra.

 

[Gigaz]

I think Petra is actually a low- or mid-tier wonder.
Even with Petra, desert locations will be weaker than grassland with mines and cluster farms. That is particularly true for the flatland desert, which does not support farms even with Petra.

 

[Veriaqa]

Low - mid? I don't agree with you. Petra usefulness in making useless desert tiles into productive ones made it atleast up to super tier wonder. Mention one wonder that have much more impact on game than Petra.

 

[Gigaz]

Ruhrgebiet is very important for space victory due to the increased production. Forbidden palace is extremely flexible for all kinds of situations. Hagia Sophia is very powerful for religious victories. With Petra you can turn a bad city into a good city (occasionally) but if you fail to get the wonder, you just have useless city.

 

[Veriaqa]

Yeah, but I don't talk about when you fail to get the wonder. You can apply that to every wonder Ruhr valley included. But when you manage to build Petra you have one if not the best wonder in the game

 

[kaspergm]

While I far from think it's the best wonder in the game (the 4 policy-slot wonders beats it hands down imo.), it can be great. I had a city in one game with 22 desert-hill tiles around it. Build Petra in that city and then spammed mines all over those hills. The city became an insane production powerhouse.

 

[Aedn]

It's an average wonder due to being situationally useful. It's extremely good if you can get 4+ desert hills by a river or mountain tile. Regular desert tiles can't be improved so those tiles have far less overall value compared to desert hills. The big drawback to Petra is that the AI likes to build it on small desert areas early, and you expend lots of production attempting to build it that is better off used for other things.

Ruhr valley, great Zimbabwe, forbidden city and coliseum are all better then Petra in your average game. Venetian arsenal is the best wonder atm, it that is largely due to the borderline exploit of selling units.

 

[Veriaqa]

While I far from think it's the best wonder in the game (the 4 policy-slot wonders beats it hands down imo.), it can be great. I had a city in one game with 22 desert-hill tiles around it. Build Petra in that city and then spammed mines all over those hills. The city became an insane production powerhouse.

This is what I mean. It can turn one useless city into a powerful ones. The usefullness of Petra is amazing. I don't say that the other wonders are useless, much of them very usefull too. But Petra is up there among the most usefull wonders.

 

[MooFreaky]

This is what I mean. It can turn one useless city into a powerful ones. The usefullness of Petra is amazing. I don't say that the other wonders are useless, much of them very usefull too. But Petra is up there among the most usefull wonders.

The point isn't that it can't turn a bad city into a great one. The problem with Petra is that you need to have a bad city in just the right circumstances to make it useful. If you don't have a desert with a river and desert hills AND enough woods to chop for that bonus production, then it isn't great. And even then it's a lot of investment to turn a bad city into basically the equivalent of a decent city built in another location. That decent city built elsewhere also can get operational and useful far earlier.

So yes it's great in the right circumstance, but you are still better to found a city in a non-desert location than to build one just for Petra.

 

[Veriaqa]

Yes I agree you need to invest to make it great. What I mean though when you get it right, you have the best wonder on your dispossal.

 

[SKS]

IMO, it's work best with Egypt because of the start bias + you can then surround Petra with 3 sphinx + 1 theater square.

But, you either need to chop 3-4 forest or have 4-5 dedicated trader on productin / and the right civics to build Petra, or esle it's might just have been better to settle somewhere esle without Petra.

And by the time Petra is ready, your city still won't be 100% operational. In the End you have to estimate what is the cost of such a project.

If we're talking Civ/Wonder Synergies, China by far is the strongest user of Petra. Egypt may have a desert bias, but that also means their capital is surrounded by horsehockey desert tiles, which got a hell of a nerf in VI. So if you start desert you are by fault gimping yourself, which will make it difficult for you to invest in a wonder. If you have enough normal tiles to salvage the desert start then you aren't making full use of the wonder. It's a Catch-22. For everyone else who doesn't start desert, how are you going to build petra with a 3 pop expand surrounded by 1 production desert tiles?

Enter China. China has three synergies with Petra that I can see right off the bat:

a) Have a effective hammer multiplier to all wonders they build in the early game. With the 30% builder charge and Pyramids this can be as high as a 4x multiplier.

b) Can build by proxy using by building builders in the cap and rushing Petra at your horsehockey but soon not to be horsehockey desert expland.

c) They can improve empty desert tiles with Great Walls. Usually even Petra-boosted empty desert tiles are kind of crap at 2/2, since you can't improve empty desert. But with a great wall line, that shoots up to 2 food, 2 production, 2 culture, 4 gold and 4 Tourism per Great Wall tile.

The point isn't that it can't turn a bad city into a great one. The problem with Petra is that you need to have a bad city in just the right circumstances to make it useful. If you don't have a desert with a river and desert hills AND enough woods to chop for that bonus production, then it isn't great. And even then it's a lot of investment to turn a bad city into basically the equivalent of a decent city built in another location. That decent city built elsewhere also can get operational and useful far earlier.

So yes it's great in the right circumstance, but you are still better to found a city in a non-desert location than to build one just for Petra.

Agree that these are all huge problems.

Solution: be China.

 

[Leyrann]

And then you don't have desert nearby and you wonder why Petra even exists.

Petra is a good wonder, yes, but only if you are in a sub-optimal position. Assuming everything goes as well as it can, Petra is simply useless. Compare that with the Colosseum. A great boost to amenities in sometimes as many as 5 cities, which means your luxery resource amenities can all go to the cities that are not in range of the Colosseum; it basically grants 30 pop's worth amenities in an average game. And now just imagine how many tiles or specialist slots those 30 pop, freely divided over your empire, can work... Beats a Petra city by a mile.

 

[Onii-chan]

Under perfect circumstances sure but it's super situational. Plus a "perfect" city for it won't have the production to build it in the first place unless you're China

For consistency's sake I'll maintain that the Forbidden City and Big Ben are the best. And even amongst situational wonders, I'd still put the Great Zimbabwe and the Venetian Arsenal ahead of Petra

 

[Tarquin_77]

I occasionally have daydreams about an Incan desert plateau city from civ5... 7 food 3 prod tiles...

Petra is still pretty sound though. Maybe not a gamebreaker as you generally need to flood a weak city with outgoing routes to get it built. All that energy could bag you someting else worthwhile.

 

[bladex]

yeah...NAH

 

[MooFreaky]

When we get a map editor I want to do 2 identical terrain setups. Except one is grassland and the other is desert, then compare 2 cities as they grow. See how far behind the desert city falls before it can make Petra. Then how long it would take to recover that cost. Which I believe would be never, but it would be good to see it.

Edit: What made Petra a beast in Civ5 was that there were Civs that synergised so well with it. You could have Desert Folklore +Petra with a desert bias Civ. Morocco could take that to a whole new level. Even then, the best part of it was that it also gave so much faith while providing medicore resources.
Plus, you had the benefits of farming the better Civ5 hills along rivers.

 

[Kelmort83]

Egypt may have a desert bias, but that also means their capital is surrounded by ****ty desert tiles

Right. But when I play Cleopâtra I tend to go for the Wheel and always expand far and always on a descent river. Which mean I willl either have only one desert city, and being a capitol, I believe there is some ruleset that can't make it a terrible spot anyway.

A desert city can be nice to extend trade routes too / 4-5 trader boosting petra creation and also making routes to it, often connecting part of your realm.

 

[Veriaqa]

Reading all the posts here, it seems that most of you had trouble with building Petra. I don't get it. I already build Petra in my second city before turn 100? What I did different and clearly better than you then?