Stonehenge: the wonder I'll never build!

Once you've played (and finished) a few games without founding a religion, you'll realize that it's not that essential to found one to win the game. Sure it's helpful, and games as Byzantium or Arabia lose out in civ-specific bonuses when they don't found, but even in these cases, it's not essential. And the realization that you don't need to found a religion to win helps one determine where Stonehenge belongs on the wonder-priority list, which is pretty close to the bottom. For me on deity, I either play a civ with a faith bonus, start near a faith mountain, start near multiple religious CS AND get lucky with easy quests, have a desert start AND get lucky enough to not get beaten to the pantheon, or just do without founding a religion.
Particularly on Deity level, where the safe option is to plan a path to victory without hard-building any pre-Renaissance wonders, or maybe 1 per era and beeline the tech as well as having pre-chops in place and a production switch ready. The only pre-medieval wonder that I attempt on deity is the Oracle because it's really the only early one that fulfills two very important considerations:

1.) It's one of the few wonders where a large portion of the payoff is only granted to the original builder. Top of my head, the only others are Great Library, LToP, Hagia Sophia, and Brandenburg. G-library is impossible on deity, LToP comes later so is more feasible, and with Brandenburg, if you're playing a game that needs generals, you're already going to have LOTS of them. Hagia Sophia might be something that some players shoot for, but I think the same rationale (above) why SH isn't worth the investment applies here as well.
2.) Accessibility - with some exceptions, notably the Maya AI, the AI usually doesn't prioritize Philosophy. They'll often get it after Civil Service. Contrarily, human players almost always aim for this tech as soon as building techs and minimal defensive techs are done because it unlocks NC. As such, this is probably the first tech that the human has before the deity AI gets.

As far as other early game wonder lists appearing on the thread, the one that I would add, very situationally, is Hanging Gardens. First, it's an SP-locked wonder, which increases the success rate. Second, I only try for it, and usually succeed, when you have a non-salt mining luxury start. Gold, silver, gems, and (hilltop) copper have great production yields but often can't be worked until later because you need other tiles to feed them. Often the capital has three of one type of luxury, so when it's one of these mining luxuries you need 6 food to feed them, conveniently what the wonder provides. Once I build it, I think of the three tiles as producing 2F/3P/2-4G each instead of the city having 6 extra food (even though this isn't entirely acccurate; tradition or ToA bonuses make it a little more than that) which helps to rationalize using these tiles which may slow growth but add economic stability and a great production boost.
 
I think the OP is living off some hyperbole here. Stonehenge is a good Wonder under the right circumstances. I've had multiple games where I needed to drive a religion, but didn't have the proper natural wonders, city-states or terrain to make that happen quickly. Stonehenge is the religion-driving hammer you need at such a moment.

Also, Shrines are cheap to purchase. You can always buy one and still make your way to building Stonehenge.
 
Here's the thing though: No game "needs" religion. At all. It's a bonus, that's it. No win condition needs you to found a religion. You will get converted at some point anyway, so the only thing you are missing out on is a follower belief.
 
Here's the thing though: No game "needs" religion. At all. It's a bonus, that's it. No win condition needs you to found a religion. You will get converted at some point anyway, so the only thing you are missing out on is a follower belief.

and the considerable faith you get from a Grand Temple
 
Note that if you conquer other civs you can build a grand temple in *any* holy city if you want get the +8. More feasible on longer games, but you might get lucky and be playing a good early game civ like Assyria or Huns and have a weaker neighbour who founds a really good religion. In effect you can "steal" the religion less the founder bonus.

Makes sense because that happened in real life too (in civ terms, all of Rome, Arabia and the Franks conquered Jerusalem and built grand temples there).
 
in civ terms, all of Rome, Arabia and the Franks conquered Jerusalem and built grand temples there

Man, I'd love to see a game where this near enough happens. Wackiest holy city I've seen is a double, where presumably an AI generated a GP on the turn the city fell and the conqueror decided to found.

(The city was Edinburgh)
 
Man, I'd love to see a game where this near enough happens. Wackiest holy city I've seen is a double, where presumably an AI generated a GP on the turn the city fell and the conqueror decided to found.

(The city was Edinburgh)

How would that even work? I mean did the conquering civ have a pantheon belief? I didn't think you could do anything with a great prophet if you didn't already have a pantheon belief, and at that point you wouldn't have a religion to spread.

And wouldn't the holy city be the capitol of the conquering civ?
 
As long as there are religions left, you can found with a prophet regardless of pantheon. Back in the day, I'd sometimes build no shrine and wait until theology to even worry about religion, but slightly prioritize the tech. Then I'd rush Hagia and found. What happens in these cases is you get to select a remaining pantheon from the available ones like with founder and follower beliefs.

And the holy city is wherever the prophet was popped to found. So if you build Hagia in a city other than the cap, and you pop the prophet to found, it founds in the city the prophet gets popped.
 
Cities being the Holy City for two religions happens enough that there have been a few threads with people posting screen shots. I think AIs must perceive some advantage to it, but I don't really see the logic. A religion can be founded in any city, not just a capital, and there can be strategic reason for founding outside your own capital -- but founding in a captured capital?

If you capture a GPr, you can found with it even if you do not yet have a pantheon.

A partially used GPr can be used to found, but not to enhance. So if you capture a GPr, and have not yet founded, you might want to convert some of your cities first.

A city will only get the pantheon benefits associate with the dominate religion. If no single religion is dominate, the city gets no pantheon benefit. This would be true for a dual Holy City.

I think the only benefit of founding in a captured Holy City would be to help suppress the foreign religion. But, given the opportunity, I would rather found in one of my cities a use an inquisitor on the foreign Holy City. Inquisitors are pretty inexpensive at that point in the game. OTOH maybe the foreign Holy City has really good placement for passive religious pressure?

And the holy city is wherever the prophet was popped to found. So if you build Hagia in a city other than the cap, and you pop the prophet to found, it founds in the city the prophet gets popped.
Or you could just walk the GPr to your cap or some other city. You have total control as to which of your cities is your Holy City. I always want my Holy City to be coastal, since I build EITC in a coastal city -- but I don’t want my EITC city to loose its religion.
 
I usually put my holy city in the capital, even if my prophet comes from elsewhere. I don't usually build East India because my trade routes are usually internal pretty much until the very end of the game, and I don't usually even have coastal cities unless my capital was coastal. Maybe sometimes I'll have two coastal cities, one on either side of an inland sea, to ferry cargo ships back and forth, or a couple on the main ocean, to build frigates if there are a lot of coastal caps, but even still I usually have my cap fairly centered in my empire and I like the pressure to be somewhat even. I rarely build missionaries and rely on pressure to convert my empire for the most part, maybe one or two missionaries very early to get the pressure ball rolling, but even still, I find my capital usually is the best, most central vantage point from which to pressure my cities.
 
I don't usually build East India because my trade routes are usually internal pretty much until the very end of the game

FYI the EIC only affects others civs' trade routes. It's not a magnifier for your own caravans & cargo, it's a magnet for theirs. If you've gone for early Guilds (not uncommon if you've got a great Machu Picchu site, Cathedrals to fill, or want an endless Golden Age), and effectively sit in the middle of a Silk Road, it can bring in quite a few early-mid beakers.
 
FYI the EIC only affects others civs' trade routes. It's not a magnifier for your own caravans & cargo, it's a magnet for theirs. If you've gone for early Guilds (not uncommon if you've got a great Machu Picchu site, Cathedrals to fill, or want an endless Golden Age), and effectively sit in the middle of a Silk Road, it can bring in quite a few early-mid beakers.

Ah that's interesting, I didn't really know about the EIC. Good to know. Then it's probably a pretty good NW in SP. The problem stands for MP, though, as most people still send internals for the most part, but I'll bear that in mind next time I'm feeling like an SP bout.
 
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