Sun Tzu's Art of War is the Worst Great Wonder in The Game

[Spoonwood]

The Oracle has a better shield to culture ratio than The Pyramids. At the very least, in a 20k game, The Oracle makes for a decent or good build (possibly still not as good as The Pyramids, since you need research in a 20k game and want The Heroic Epic). The Oracle does seem like it easily fits into a "best choice" or close to "best choice" in some circumstance. I mean, your 20k city putting out units doesn't make sense.

But, why build Sun Tzu's? It's cultural production to shield production ratio is one of the worst. It comes at a time when there's plenty of infrastructure to build like cathedrals and coloseuums if playing for 20k. If playing for another victory, Sun Tzu's won't help with research. It comes at a time, when cities might really use marketplaces, courthouses, libraries, harbors, and soon enough universities. You think it helps with military? But it costs 600 shields to build. Does anyone remember Ision's artcile about wonder addiction a while back? I am by no means convinced that Sun Tzu's helps you tactical to take over AI cities. On the contrary, I think it's more the reverse.

First, Sun Tzu's costs 600 shields to build. If you can soon have knights, that's the cost of 8 knights plus barracks exactly! 8 knights? That's almost an entire stack of doom itself, or very close. 600 shields also has the same cost as barracks plus 14 medieval infrantry! Or 18 horsemen plus barracks. Unless the AIs have lots of money, though some units might get upgraded to pikemen, that doesn't mean they can upgrade every single last spear to pikeman. Someone might also lack iron also. On top of that, when you build units, those units get out of cities sooner than wonders which need completed before they have an effect. After 3 turns a horsemen is out of a city ready to move, while Sun Tzu's waits to complete. On top of that, the AIs almost always beeline Feudalism if they don't have it from scientific free techs. Why research Feudalism yourself?

Additionally, once a rail network is up, units can just move back to core cities to heal, instead of trying to heal in some other much more corrupt city. The "barracks everywhere" effect, thus decreases in potential usefulness if/when as the game progresses.

I do enjoy an advantage of capturing Sun Tzu's. The advantage consists in that after a war finishes, every city on the continent can have resistance quashed while a unit heals in that town or city.

Not every city needs barracks. Only those from the core need it. And some cities need to/can put artillery type units sometime. Cities without barracks make for a good choice for putting out artillery type units. So, the number of barracks can get lowered, and thus Sun Tzu's Art of War doesn't have so much value... for some human players at least.

If you want a golden age for a militaristic civ, I think that Knights Templar makes for the better choice over Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Maybe Longevity ends up worse or just as bad as Sun Tzu's, if Sirpleb's analysis about it decreasing histographic score comes as correct. But Longevity probably ends up a quicker cultural build also, since 1000 shields with an 80 shield city means a 13 turn build, while 600 shields with 24 shields means a 25 turn build. And Theology is close in timing to Feudalism, or at least can be.

Battlefield Medicine is the worst overall wonder, if we count small wonders also.

 

[Quintillus]

Well, I certainly wouldn't win 1-on-1 against the great Spoonwood, so you are most likely right. But I'll at least play devil's advocate.

The value certainly depends on the map size/type and desired victory condition. I'd never built it in a 20K city, and it has a poor return on investment on smaller and archipelago maps.

But I think an argument can be made on larger, continents or pangaea maps, especially for non-militaristic civs pursuing a militaristic victory. A non-militaristic barracks costs 40 shields, so if you build Sun Tzu's and it saves you from building 15 more barracks, you've already broken even. If it's a Huge map, it could save you more than that. And the ability to heal quickly in any newly-captured city has value as well. Spoonwood mentions that if you have a rail network, you can just fall back to heal, which is true, but there's a whole era between Feudalism and Steam Power, and with Knights and Cavalry, it's an era where there's often a lot of combat in a military-victory-focused game. Having Sun Tzu's and focusing on the lower part of the tech tree can make Knights and later Cavalry into even more of a steamroller than they already are.

Building Sun Tzu's in a central, productive city frees up more marginal cities to be able to build Courthouses instead of Barracks, which can aid in gaining more troops through lower waste.

Sun Tzu's also has economic benefits, both in the saved maintenance and in the gold to be gained from selling pre-existing or captured barracks. On a small map, yes, it would be better to just build a Marketplace, but on a Huge map, it could be saving dozens of gold per turn. If it saves enough to equal, say, three Marketplaces, that's 240 shields saved, and the question becomes, "is a 360 shield-equivalent Sun Tzu's worth it from a military standpoint?" rather than a 600 shield Sun Tzu's.

I agree that for a militaristic civ, Knights Templar would be a better wonder - half-price barracks means Sun Tzu's is correspondingly only half as useful in terms of saving barracks costs for a Militaristic civ.

I'd argue that Cure for Cancer is the worst Great Wonder in the game, simply due to arriving too late to make any difference whatsoever. By the Modern Era, the player usually has so many luxuries, by conquest or by trade, that happiness is no longer a concern, and if it is cathedrals are cheap by then, or the luxury slider affordable. And the +1 content citizen from the Cure for Cancer is basically a rounding error given the sizes of cities at that stage in the game. Maybe if you are lucky as a Republic or Democracy at war, it will prevent a city from rioting, but instead you could have built 8 Modern Armors and perhaps have already ended the war. If you're going for a Histographic score victory, the +1 content is likely worthless because by that point you're already maxing out the lux slider.

Longevity is a close second, also due to arriving so late, but it at least it can boost your score more through the faster growth. Though I'm curious about this SirPleb analysis about it decreasing score? Is there some sort of penalty when a city starves, which may be more likely with Longevity?

 

[justanick]

Sun Tzu's also has economic benefits, both in the saved maintenance and in the gold to be gained from selling pre-existing or captured barracks.

The saved maintenance is a reasonably good way to turn shields into gold. By that metric Sun Tzu is about average or even better than average, certainly not the worst. Since i tend to play a commerce-minded game, this metric is relevant for me. But given the significant costs building it really only works with an SGL, else simply capturing it may be the better bet.

 

[Spoonwood]

A non-militaristic barracks costs 40 shields, so if you build Sun Tzu's and it saves you from building 15 more barracks, you've already broken even.

Instead of counter-arguing here, I'll just say that I tried to address that point by talking about artillery type units.

Sun Tzu's also has economic benefits, both in the saved maintenance and in the gold to be gained from selling pre-existing or captured barracks. On a small map, yes, it would be better to just build a Marketplace, but on a Huge map, it could be saving dozens of gold per turn. If it saves enough to equal, say, three Marketplaces, that's 240 shields saved, and the question becomes, "is a 360 shield-equivalent Sun Tzu's worth it from a military standpoint?" rather than a 600 shield Sun Tzu's.

Thinking more the "don't build Sun Tzu's" approach likely isn't as straightfoward to calculate. I mean, with putting out units earlier that means a captured city early. Consequently, there's another city lowering unit support from a capture earlier without building Sun Tzu's. Additionally, that city also might make some commerce of it's own, or you might use specialists there.

I'd argue that Cure for Cancer is the worst Great Wonder in the game, simply due to arriving too late to make any difference whatsoever. By the Modern Era, the player usually has so many luxuries, by conquest or by trade, that happiness is no longer a concern, and if it is cathedrals are cheap by then, or the luxury slider affordable. And the +1 content citizen from the Cure for Cancer is basically a rounding error given the sizes of cities at that stage in the game. Maybe if you are lucky as a Republic or Democracy at war, it will prevent a city from rioting, but instead you could have built 8 Modern Armors and perhaps have already ended the war. If you're going for a Histographic score victory, the +1 content is likely worthless because by that point you're already maxing out the lux slider.

So for preventing cities from rioting, I completely agree that Cure for Cancer is worthless, because it's just too late or the player is in a dire situation in the modern era and probably can't afford to build it. And happiness buildings end up cheap turn-wise.

I do recall thinking that Cure for Cancer wouldn't do much in the past after heavy use of the luxury slider, I think. And I thought I had some observations to support that. However, I don't tend to have cities working all tiles (working all tiles was the intended design for the modern era). It looks like I had one that is maybe close enough with a 40% luxury rate...

Without Cure for Cancer, and a 40% luxury rate, to my surprise that city looks like the same!

But, if we sell the courthouse, we get this:

An unhappy citizen.

If we just sell the courthouse, it looks like this:

A content citizen instead of an unhappy citizen.

Either corruption reducing buildings have to get built for maximum happiness or we have to have more use of the luxury slider. Such a city at 100% luxuries and neither a courthouse nor police station needs an entertainer for all citizens working tiles to become happy, and 100% luxuries means nothing to support an economy. How does a courthouse or police station get built? Perhaps it gets cash rushed. But, that's less available funds for doing research. If it gets civil engineered, then that that means fewer scientists, so possibly not as many future techs might get researched. Also, more use of the luxury slider would also mean less funds for research. Every future tech counts towards score. On the other hand, it's a small amount... the save I'm looking at has 78.4 points from future tech.

So, Cure for Cancer can do a little something for score even if the luxury slider can do an equivalent, because Cure for Cancer enables a little more future tech research potentially. Also, building Cure for Cancer doesn't have a resource contention issue like building wonders vs. building units or other infrastructure does, or not to the same degree.

So, yea, there's pretty good case for Cure for Cancer as "useless". But, if playing for score, why wouldn't you build it? I don't see how it takes away from your score. Is there another idea on how to increase score more effectively than building Cure for Cancer once you can research Genetics? I doubt it. And I don't think it's too much micromanagement to build it.

 

[Spoonwood]

Longevity is a close second, also due to arriving so late, but it at least it can boost your score more through the faster growth. Though I'm curious about this SirPleb analysis about it decreasing score? Is there some sort of penalty when a city starves, which may be more likely with Longevity?

I thought he had some analysis where the starvation effect decreased score long-term. I can't find it. But, it doesn't matter here. What I asserted previously doesn't hold, because I didn't pay close enough attention to the time period.

Longevity could be useful if enough of your cities still can grow rapidly. If they have a large amount of surplus food, having Longevity during that time period, no doubt, can boost your score more quickly. So, it's not useless *then*, at least in principle, given that the player had smaller cities during that era. I guess it's conceivable for many players that they need to fight many wars in the modern era in order to feel comfortable enough irrigating all tiles. Or they refuse to capture cities. So, perhaps, for some, Longevity could be useful for a small window of time in increasing their score.

O. K., I found it. It wasn't SirPleb doing the first analysis, it was EMan! SirPleb came in after with an example to try and clarify Eman's analysis.

NO....because a city with +1 toast, say, will be at x+1 people only 1/2 the time the city will be at x-1 people.

Like let's say a city has 51 food with all tiles irrigated. With Longevity, it grows from size 25 to size 27. It can't support size 26 or size 27. But, supposing no Longevity, at size 26 it has -1 food. Supposing the city has a granary, that's 30 food for it shrink. *At most* that means it shrinks in 30 turns. But, it's probably quickly, because pollution will happen with enough turns.

Following SirPleb's style:

Suppose 30 extra points without Longevity, for the turns it's "too big" at size 26.
Then 60 turns also for it to fill the bin once back down to size 25.

We thus get the 1 extra point for 30 out of 90 turns, or 1/3 of the time at most. 30 extra points in 90 turns.

With Longevity, it grows to size 27. Now it has a deficit of 3 food per turn. Thus, it will shrink in 10 turns at most, instead of 30 turns.

So, we can suppose 2 extra points at most for 10 turns, for 20 extra points at size 27.
Then 1 extra point for 1 turn at size 26.
And 60 turns to grow back .

We thus get 21 extra points in 90 turns.

So, Longevity fails to increase score for cities over enough time, even though it immediately increases score.

 

[Spoonwood]

Perhaps the design idea behind Longevity was that players would be razing cities and building new ones in the modern era. In that case, I could see a case for Longevity.

I guess it could also have high value in the modern start scenario in Civ-Content. Maybe there's a scenario I've missed where Sun Tzu's has high value somehow?

 

[justanick]

Perhaps the design idea behind Longevity was that players would be razing cities and building new ones in the modern era. In that case, I could see a case for Longevity.

Or in case a nuclear war has decimated the population of (barely) remaining cities.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

Sun Tzu's also has economic benefits, both in the saved maintenance and in the gold to be gained from selling pre-existing or captured barracks.

This would presumably be the same for pre-existing granaries if one captures the Pyramids. The question I have - having never done this (I never thought of it) is how to sell pre-existing ones without also losing the free one you get for having Sun Tzu's or Pyramids or whatever.

 

[justanick]

You simply sell the exsting one. The free ones remain.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

You simply sell the exsting one. The free ones remain.

So, given that two do not show up in the City screen, I would simply need to know where there were pre-existing ones?

 

[Spoonwood]

So, given that two do not show up in the City screen, I would simply need to know where there were pre-existing ones?

You right click on the granary or barracks. If there was one built it gives you the 'sell' building option. The automatic one from the wonder remains in either case. You do NOT have to know if there were pre-existing ones or not.

 

[WeirdoJoker]

You right click on the granary or barracks. If there was one built it gives you the 'sell' building option. The automatic one from the wonder remains in either case. You do NOT have to know if there were pre-existing ones or not.

Ok, so the "sell" option will not appear for the free one, then. That makes sense, thanks.

 

[Quintillus]

That is some fascinating analysis of Longevity and its drawback. I'd still probably built it (assuming nothing else better to build) in 90% of cases where the game hasn't ended by that point, given the likelihood that at least some cities will grow more quickly because of it, offsetting the loss of 9 points in 90 turns (assuming no pollution), or 1/10th of a point per turn, in those cities that are maxed out and have an odd food count.

 

[Spoonwood]

That is some fascinating analysis of Longevity and its drawback. I'd still probably built it (assuming nothing else better to build) in 90% of cases where the game hasn't ended by that point, given the likelihood that at least some cities will grow more quickly because of it, offsetting the loss of 9 points in 90 turns (assuming no pollution), or 1/10th of a point per turn, in those cities that are maxed out and have an odd food count.

I think the way to optimize score would be to build it in some city with civil engineers maybe. Then once it's built have that city build workers and settlers and transfer population to other cities. Probably buying settlers here maybe because of the extra growth? Once cities reach maximum population, then disband that city.

But, that's assuming enough cities ready to grow... having that surplus food. I do remember transferring city sites a tile or two (and disliking that sort of thing when I played last summer). But, I also had a good amount of captured AI population also.

Though, I have no idea if trying to disband/abandon a Longevity makes for a fun thing to do. If it's more enjoyable, build Longevity and keep it. Motivation matters quite a good bit for histographic games or games that take a long time after all.

 

[BlackBetsy]

My 2 cents is that Sun-Tzu's is a good Wonder if you are playing a conquest game on Pangaea, have an SGL, and Pyramids / HG / JS Bach are built. For archipelago, or science victories, no value.