stonehege: worth building or not?

[Heroes]

It seems many people love to build stonehege. My question is: is that really good?

The good points to build it:
1. Every city gets 1 culture per turn, so your border can expand soon.
2. It just costs 120 hammers, even cheaper with stone and/or industrial trait. Altogether it could take just 48 hammers!
3. It adds 2 GPP for prophet, assuring you to build holy shrine.

The downsides:
1. A better way to get culture in a new city is to spread your state religion into it (1 cpt too), which can also give +25% building production when running organized religion.
2. Since in this way you don't need obelisk, why spending 120 hammers in the critical early stage?
3. What if you are beaten by some other civ?
4. Stonehege obsoletes just too quickly! Well, you can keep away from calendar for ever, but then you can't connect to 6 kinds of resources (5 happy, 1 health). Your people won't be happy with it.
5. You can get 3 GPP simply by running a specialist.
6. It's not a big loss if you ****** building holy shrine by even 50 turns. You earn just 1 gpt from each city having the religion, nice but not compelling.

What do you think?

 

[Woobi]

I build it becasue of the expansion of borders...

However, often I won't build it if I have no forests near by to chop...

Usually with chopping forrests stonehenge takes maybe 6 or 7 turns to build, which is a sacrifice I'm willing to make early came...

 

[GreenMonkey]

I like it because it helps you get great prophets, and gets early culture.

One of my games I built Stonehenge and Oracle in my 2nd city (which was far away from my capital, and along with 2 more of my cities, trapped in between many enemy cities).

I built Stonehenge and Oracle and converted nearby folks to Confucianism like my cities. I got 3 cities flipped too me, I didn't even notice until they popped up "what would you like to build".

 

[mharmless]

I currently favor the french, Napoleon specificly. His traits are aggressive and industrious, and his starting techs are the wheel and agriculture. I will make an effort to found my second city in a forrest and get stonehenge built as quickly as possible.

Yes it is true that religon would provide a nice +1 culture per turn, and yes eventualy I do push religion onto as many cities as I can. But at the start of the game, spreading that religion will require that you have either built a monestary (60 hammers, research meditation) OR taken up Organized Religion (monotheism) and then trained a missionary (40 hammers) who may fail to spread your religion (40 more hammers). Note that neither of those things get a trait bonus, you are looking at a fixed cost in hammers. 60+(40*N) hammers, and time wasted researching religion instead of moving rapidly to develop metal weapons and beat the snot out of your nearest neighbor. Meditation and Monotheism aren't going to save anybody from the French Legion.

Stonehenge is only 120 hammers, with industrious trait you are looking at a maximum of three forrests chops to get it done in even the worst cities. The adjusted cost is even less than building a single monestary and building just one missionary. It provides almost as many GPP as a single priest specialist, without forcing you to get an early religion, build a temple (80 hammers), and then force a worker to waste his valuble time spreading nonsense (he makes 1 hammer and 1 coin, so not a total waste, but nowhere as good as making him work).

 

[Sadan01]

I only build stonehenge when I have stone within my borders - this is the prerequisite in my opinion. Industrialist is not so important for this (to me at least). If I dont have any stone, I'll leave it to another Civ to build and shoot for the Oracle instead for that free tech (which can be quite valuable depending where you are on the tech tree).

Heroes, the point you made about Stonehenge becoming obsolete too quickly is a good one. On the higher levels of difficulty, I find that around the time you complete it, give the game another 10-20 turns, and it will be obsolete as another A.I has acquired the technology of the Calendar. Based on that, I think any city's production is more valuable than spending it on Stonehenge and the temporary cultural benefits are not worth it. Oracle would be slightly better IMHO.

On the flipside, if you are beaten to building Stoney, then at least you get paid out the relevant commerce for it. That can be a boon to just "waste" some production on it in the first place.

 

[Heroes]

I currently favor the french, Napoleon specificly. His traits are aggressive and industrious, and his starting techs are the wheel and agriculture. I will make an effort to found my second city in a forrest and get stonehenge built as quickly as possible.

Yes it is true that religon would provide a nice +1 culture per turn, and yes eventualy I do push religion onto as many cities as I can. But at the start of the game, spreading that religion will require that you have either built a monestary (60 hammers, research meditation) OR taken up Organized Religion (monotheism) and then trained a missionary (40 hammers) who may fail to spread your religion (40 more hammers). Note that neither of those things get a trait bonus, you are looking at a fixed cost in hammers. 60+(40*N) hammers, and time wasted researching religion instead of moving rapidly to develop metal weapons and beat the snot out of your nearest neighbor. Meditation and Monotheism aren't going to save anybody from the French Legion.

Stonehenge is only 120 hammers, with industrious trait you are looking at a maximum of three forrests chops to get it done in even the worst cities. The adjusted cost is even less than building a single monestary and building just one missionary. It provides almost as many GPP as a single priest specialist, without forcing you to get an early religion, build a temple (80 hammers), and then force a worker to waste his valuble time spreading nonsense (he makes 1 hammer and 1 coin, so not a total waste, but nowhere as good as making him work).

Certainly, if your leader is industrial and/or you have stone, building stonehege makes much more sense. OTOH, it could make much less sense if your leader is creative.

Just some points about missonary: first you don't necessarily need to build missionary, a connected city could spontaneouly get a religion when it has no religion. And a missionary never fails if the city has no religion. And, organized religion is the best early (and even late) civic, so I don't see any reason not going for it (after you know where are metals).

And, the true question is, if you love an early war so much, how about using the 120 hammers to make units? What if your neighbor builds stonehege for you ...

 

[Heroes]

Heroes, the point you made about Stonehenge becoming obsolete too quickly is a good one. On the higher levels of difficulty, I find that around the time you complete it, give the game another 10-20 turns, and it will be obsolete as another A.I has acquired the technology of the Calendar. Based on that, I think any city's production is more valuable than spending it on Stonehenge and the temporary cultural benefits are not worth it. Oracle would be slightly better IMHO.

It becomes obsolete when AI knows it? Not you?

 

[jonathaneyles]

I find that around the time you complete it, give the game another 10-20 turns, and it will be obsolete as another A.I has acquired the technology of the Calendar.

I think wonders becoming obsolete only occurs when YOU research the particular tech. I have tested this on various wonders and I'm pretty sure it's the case.

 

[baboon]

I always build it and I love it. When you chop down one tree it's finished in a few turns.

After that, the good part start. I don't play a creative Civ but with the obelisks you almost get the Creative trait for free. It's all about grabbing land in the beginning.

Oh, and you get a Great Prophet as well I usually build a Shrine with him because I always seem to found a religion at some point. And the GPP keep coming afterwards. Running a specialist is really not an option as it slows your city growth.

It's just a lot of nice stuff for very little hammers. Can't think of a reason not to build it. And I never failed to build it.

 

[Heroes]

I always build it and I love it. When you chop down one tree it's finished in a few turns.

After that, the good part start. I don't play a creative Civ but with the obelisks you almost get the Creative trait for free. It's all about grabbing land in the beginning.

Oh, and you get a Great Prophet as well I usually build a Shrine with him because I always seem to found a religion at some point. And the GPP keep coming afterwards. Running a specialist is really not an option as it slows your city growth.

It's just a lot of nice stuff for very little hammers. Can't think of a reason not to build it. And I never failed to build it.

I forgot to state the top reason not to build it: stonehege still works if you capture it from others! If you make 120 hammers of units, you can gain some serious military benefit. This is always true in civ 3, and I'm wondering how it goes now.

 

[Sadan01]

I think wonders becoming obsolete only occurs when YOU research the particular tech. I have tested this on various wonders and I'm pretty sure it's the case.

Really? I must admit, I just presumed that they would become obsolete once someone in the world researched Calendar - I really haven't done any testing to prove otherwise. If what you are saying is definitely the case, then I'll have to do a re-think when it comes to some of the wonders.

Thanks for the correction though!

Thanks!

Sadan01

 

[mharmless]

Certainly, if your leader is industrial and/or you have stone, building stonehege makes much more sense. OTOH, it could make much less sense if your leader is creative.

Just some points about missonary: first you don't necessarily need to build missionary, a connected city could spontaneouly get a religion when it has no religion. And a missionary never fails if the city has no religion. And, organized religion is the best early (and even late) civic, so I don't see any reason not going for it (after you know where are metals).

And, the true question is, if you love an early war so much, how about using the 120 hammers to make units? What if your neighbor builds stonehege for you ...

Oh of course stonehenge is not even close to a priority with creative. If playing as Kublai Khan probably wont waste the time to build it. The extra +1 is a joke at that point. Better to build a real obilisk if you felt like it since they wont go away when stonehenge expires.

Was not aware that a missionary could not fail in a city with no religion, but now that you've said so I cant think of a single time I've seen a heathen city fail to accept a missionary. As for the spontaneous part, yes it will spread out from a holy city down trade routes, but at the begining of the game you only have two trade routes out of that city and I actualy often find them to be to foriegn cities as they are usualy more profitable. I've had horrid luck trying to ignore religion and let it spread on its own, whichever I settle down on for organized/theocracy has required alot of missionary pushing.

And as for organized, actualy, I'm more likely to pick up Monotheism in a peace treaty than to research it. After ironworking/metalcasting comes the push for catapults with construction. Nothing on the path to engineering requires religion, and in fact it is very likely to have Drama before can even build temples.

As for early use of hammers, I usualy don't go hard at millitary units till picking up copper/iron. Start out spreading out with workers/settlers/warriors, first research is usualy mining/bronze, then mystic, then hunting/archery, then iron working. Bronze to get the chopping going, mystic for stonehenge (3 chops in second/third city), archery for defense of course. Hard push at conquest wont happen without axes/swords.

With the industrial bonus, stonehenge actualy only costs 80 hammers, which would buy 3 archers and 5 hammers left, or 2 swordsmen. Just not alot to give up for what you gain from it. If you have quick access to stone (hasn't happened to me even once yet) then it would cost you less than a single horse archer to build stonehenge. And even if you aren't industrial, stonehenge is only going to cost annother 40 hammers. An extra swordsman. That you can't build till ironworking anyway...

Stealing it from an enemy civ would be very attractive, but even on a terra map the odds of getting one of the civs adjacent to me to pick it up are rather slim. At least with religion there are seven of them to go arround, can pretty much count on your neighbors picking one up unless you are stuck with Genghis and Tokugawa.

So yes, Stonehenge is that good. The greatest cultural/religious bang for the least possible investment.

Edit: Oh, and you can go all the way to Combustion, Corporation, and Assembly Line without picking up Calendar. The only thing that forces calendar on me will be a need to expand overseas. So it will last as long as needed, usualy till the second or third consolidation phase.

 

[Heroes]

And as for organized, actualy, I'm more likely to pick up Monotheism in a peace treaty than to research it. After ironworking/metalcasting comes the push for catapults with construction. Nothing on the path to engineering requires religion, and in fact it is very likely to have Drama before can even build temples.

Organized religion adds 25% building prodution, which seems huge. I personally hate to delay it. What's your reason not to hurry for it?

 

[Heroes]

Edit: Oh, and you can go all the way to Combustion, Corporation, and Assembly Line without picking up Calendar. The only thing that forces calendar on me will be a need to expand overseas. So it will last as long as needed, usualy till the second or third consolidation phase.

Isn't that a pain to see many lux resources you just can't reach?

 

[mharmless]

Organized religion adds 25% building prodution, which seems huge. I personally hate to delay it. What's your reason not to hurry for it?

Honestly once the axes and swords are available, building construction is very minimal. Barracks is only 60 hammers, 30 with agressive trait. Granary is 60, Forge is 120, but only 60 for Napoleon. Theater is all of 50 hammers too. There just isn't enough construction to do early on for me to feel like I need to get organized religion quickly. It will get picked up eventualy, and religion will get spread. It just is not a priority to me. All three main buildings to get up and running in a conqured city (theater, forge, barraks) cost a total of 230 hammers. Napoleon gets +100% on 180 of that, so annother 25% means 80 hammers instead of 90, and 10 hammers saved on theater as well, for a total of 20 hammers saved in my core productions before units start being kicked out. If even half of those cities required a missionary get built to convert them, then I am coming out behind in that city. Short term at least.

Isn't that a pain to see many lux resources you just can't reach?

Avoiding calendar costs access to Sugar, Spices, Silks, Incense, Dyes. The ones you can still get without are Fur, Wine, Gems, Gold, Silver, Ivory, Whale. Sure giving up 5/12 possible luxuries hurts a bit, but on Prince difficulty you only get +2 health and +4 happy for free. I find that health runs out before happiness anyway, and by the late game my cities seem to have more happiness than they could ever outgrow. Besides, nothing stops me from trading annother civ (preferably not an immdiate neighbor) for some of those things.

Realy what it comes down to is that I prefer a domination/conquest win over a space race/culture win. If you are aiming to fight, stonehenge lets you adeqately cover basic culture needs for a long time without any real drawbacks. Obviously there are better wonders, but none of them come as early or as cheaply as stonehenge.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

Nothing can be more delightful than:
"What bastard Mother#$@er build Stonehege one turn before me!!! Answer you freaks!"
Pthat's the main point of building it.

 

[yoshi74]

Stonehenge is IMO a must if you're not creative and aren't going to a early relgion. While it is true that you could also capture it in theory, you need a lot of luck that its build where you can reach it.

Getting it for the fast great prophet is also nice if you have a religion, and the culture border expansion comes really much faster and cheaper as with missionaries. The price is a delay in expansion, because you could had build a settler in the time stonehenge needed, but normally i think its worth it.

Delaying calender for it isn't a must. The border expansion is a early push, to allow the city the use of the best tiles in its 21 fields. By the time calender could be researched most cities will had at least this one expansion.

 

[Shillen]

I'm playing on monarch most of the time now. Going for an early religion without mysticism tech is pretty much extremely difficult. So I don't even bother trying to get a religion. This means I don't even research mysticism for a long time. So no, I don't build stonehenge. Now if I did start with mysticism I would probably build it, even if I chose not to go for a religion. Getting an early prophet is huge. You can merge him in your city for +5gpt and +2hpt. The +5gpt is probably better than shrine income in the early going. It takes a little while to get your religion in 5 different cities. And an extra 2 hpt can be a big boost in the early early game as well. I find having stone in my radius or not in the early going is irrelevant. I don't have time to research masonry to hook it up anyway. There are far more important techs to be had.

 

[subanark]

I found it was worth building on a single city challange. The 8 culture (16 when it becomes obsolite) is a lot of culture, good for getting those necessary resources somewhat close to your city.

Would not build it in my main city when trying to get a culture victory though (need focus on getting artist great people).

 

[Sadan01]

I think wonders becoming obsolete only occurs when YOU research the particular tech. I have tested this on various wonders and I'm pretty sure it's the case.

Ok, I've been doing a bit of checking and I found this:

Wonder Obsolescence

Some wonders become obsolete over time. This obsolescence is caused when any civilisation learns a specific technology. When that occurs, the wonder's special effects vanish, but it still continues to produce culture. For example, the Great Lighthouse wonder provides a trade benefit to all coastal cities, as well as +8 culture to the city where it is constructed. The Great Lighthouse is rendered obsolete once any civilization gains the "steam power" technology, at which point the owner loses the Lighthouse's trade benefit but retains its +8 cultural output.

I guess the manual could be wrong if people have found otherwise. However, I was certain I had read it somewhere that wonder's become obsolete when A civ gets the tech to make it obsolete. Maybe someone can tell me once and for all which way it is. As in the case of Stonehenge, if any civ can get Calendar to obsolete it, no matter who has built it, then there is no point wasting hammers on it as on the higher levels, the A.I. will make it obsolete likely before you've finished it.