The 4 rules of Wonder addiction

caveman,

Firstly, thank you very much for the positive comments.

I must however disagree with your assesment of the Americans and English. While the American CIV does have a very awkward and ill-timed UU, the CIV itself is so inherently strong from a great trait combo - that the UU is a near non-issue. I have added a link below my CIV reviews, there you will find the one on the Americans. As to the English, their UU is fantastic! On arch or conts map the Man O' War can be quite a fearsome unit.

Once again thanks for your positive comments and input.

Ision
 
I was reading through this thread and a few occassions it was mention that at Deity difficulty, the AI always beats the human player at building Wonders. This is why you should learn not to build them.

My question is, why does the AI always win at building them? Does the AI have an advantage at higher levels? (read: cheat). Do they get accelerated building for Wonders ? (I don't believe I read this in the AI cheat article)

Mad Hatter
 
Yes the AI 'cheats' in terms of production.

At Diety, the AI will build in 60 shields what it takes you 100 sheilds to build.
 
1st, welcome to CFC, Mad Hatter!
2nd, the higher the level the higher the production bonus the AI has. That is, why an AI civ will always outrace the human player on wonders, if both start at the same turn and with comparable city to build the wonder in.

As you may find on the first pages, I don't agree with Ision about to completely avoid bulding wonders, but that is just some matter of taste, I guess.
 
1st, welcome to CFC, Mad Hatter!

Thank you :) I for see many days of playing Civ 3 in the near future. This is based on having played nothing but Civ 3 on the past three-day weekend :lol:

2nd, the higher the level the higher the production bonus the AI has. That is, why an AI civ will always outrace the human player on wonders, if both start at the same turn and with comparable city to build the wonder in.

Ah ok, I see it now. I had missed the cost factor statistic from another post that talked about AI bonuses.

As you may find on the first pages, I don't agree with Ision about to completely avoid bulding wonders, but that is just some matter of taste, I guess.

Ya, I'm not sure about that either. I've been playing on Reagant level, so I'm not sure how feasible it is to have a free city to build a wonder or two. Does hording up shields by building a palace, while you wait to acquire the tech needed to build the wonder that you want, not work in Deity? As soon as you get the tech needed, you switch from palace over to wonder that you been saving up for.

Mad Hatter
 
The basic idea of your article is good, Ision, and I see the point you're drawing. My idea on wonders, however, is that building them is okay as long as you don't depend on them. I think that absolutely no wonders up to Regent mode is going a little too far, but that's my opinion.

One thing that I did notice and confused me a bit is in your article on the civ review of the Americans, which seems to contradict all that you wrote about here. You said:
As a production powerhouse, I strongly recommend the pursuit of the Pyramids for this Civ – free granaries for America accentuates their production advantage to near ridiculous levels!
Click to expand...

I think that's wonder addiction, the mindset of "I'll build the Pyramids every time!" Again, that's just my opinion.

One more thing that I think has already been mentioned but I think is a very big problem is improvement addiction. I used to run into the problem of paying support for improvements. I'd build all the improvements I could in all of my cities and then wondered why I had to put science at 10% (this, of course, leads me with nothing to trade to the AI and caused me to fall back in technology.) And since you can hurry improvements, anything that seems "urgent" to you can be granted to you next turn. Of course, I'm not saying I don't build improvements, I just think about whether I need the improvement or not. 95% of the time, I don't if I really think about it.
 
there is no contradiction. the article is a guide and there are always exception. he said in his America review that because of the modern uu they have no choice but to try a wonder strat in order to get a GA that will matter. i am sure that if they had an early uu he would not have said that. he recommends the pyramids, recommends is not the same as sayin always. his reasons were that if you are going to go for an early wonder the pyramids will help make the trait combo of america even stronger.

his article say at the very begining that he does build wonders and that players that like to should go ahead. you miss the 2 points of the article. the point is that if your goal is to move up in level as fast as you can then building wonder will usually hurt you more than help, and that if your goal is to become a better player and learn alot more strats and ways to play not building wonders will usually make you improve faster.

before his advice i struggled very much when trying to move up in level or anytime i tried to use a new civ. after the article my game play was so much better and i began to play with all of the different civs. i have now reached a point where i can see that without his advice i never would be able to play at the level i am now. so today i do build wonder but just a few and i am very picky. now when i build one it does me more good than bad.

no higher level player that like to play a game where he might lose would ever argue against this artcile. it is too clear and correct for that. i notice that only players that are playing lower level or play at level they know they will win ever argue with it. i believe that 90% of the demi or deity players that read this article will tell you how totally correct and helpful it is. this is one of the best articles ever written for this game.

Y
 
yankees said:
before his advice i struggled very much when trying to move up in level or anytime i tried to use a new civ. after the article my game play was so much better and i began to play with all of the different civs. i have now reached a point where i can see that without his advice i never would be able to play at the level i am now. so today i do build wonder but just a few and i am very picky. now when i build one it does me more good than bad.Y
Click to expand...

Same here. When I read this article I was able to win about half my monarch games with save/reloading about 30 times per game with cherry picked civs, not Iplay random Emperor games with random civs and no save reloads and I expect to win the game before it even starts (about to move up difficulty levels again). Ision and Zerksees (sp?) taught me more in 2-3 articles that I learned since i bought vinilla civ the week it was released. This article is civ gosple to me.
 
THANK YOU ISION!!! I just took your advice and played a game on completely random settings, rather than my usuall setup of Rome, standard size map, roaming barbarians, wet, warm, and 5 billion year map, of which I have not played a SINGLE game without that setup, in the year and a half I've had this game. So I put all random, become Japan, a new favorite civ now, and don't build any wonders the whole game, and I took it to the next extreme and didn't build any city improvements either, and I won the game with the highest score I've ever had, and having much more fun than usuall. Thanks again.
 
Ision — I just read your original post and really enjoyed it. But correct me if I'm wrong — isn't the Great Lighthouse Tower crucial to galleys not sinking? I tried to sail 6 galleys in a game and they all sank in open sea. But once I built the Lighthouse, no more problems. Is it considered a wonder or just a city improvement?
 
It is a Great Wonder. As in all things, there are exceptions to everything - this is one Great Wonder that whenever you play on Arch-maps, on average, you SHOULD make an attempt for it.

Ision
 
This was posted months ago (obviously) and I never commented about it but I did read it back then.

Ision, I have read alot of hints and tips and advice from multiple people everywhere on this board, many of them are very useful but this has got to be the biggest help to my game ever. I know it's a bit late, but I figured I should let you know. Thanks!

Now, when I play against my roomate (who does not ever visit civfanatics.com) he struggles to understand why he is losing more and more (he used to win almost everytime). We'll be going along, all happy and fine, then I'll get the pop-up message "Your Roomate just built the Great Library in his capitol!" And he'll act all proud of himself and call me a newbie. Then I'll say something like. "Wow! Congrats man! Good job! Hey by the way, how were you going to deal with the stack of 20 swordsmen I just moved into your core?"

Hehe. While he's wasting time building the Pyramids, I'm building an army to take it from him once he builds it, and it really is because of this article that I was able to ween myself from my newbish addiction to wonders. Thanks again Ision, you have allowed me to kick my roomates ass at Civ. For that, you deserve a medal. :goodjob:
 
I havn't played civIII that much, and it ain't going to well neither. Now I realize that it's my wonder obsession, thank you very much. I think it's because of my background as a frequent civII player, where I could build almost every wonder and crush any opponent. But the wonders are more important in civII, especially the great library and the workshop, the effects are not as great in civIII. Nr. 2, it's a lot easier to build them cause you can buy them and you know when others are close to build them.
I have to really reevaluate my need to build wonders, thank you for this article and to the other former civII addicts who recently started with civIII, try to not build a single wonder in the entire game. Works better than quit if you don´t build them all...
 
Ision, thanks for the great tip! I made may way to emperor as a wonder addict. I would strive for the bigs like GL, Michael Angelo, Sun Tsu, but I got stomped on emperor and after reading you advice, I demoted myself to monarch and started really playing the games. By not even trying for wonders I find I am more focused on the game. I have to admiot I did build the forbidden palace using a great leader. I mean I had two of these guys just laying around doing nothing. I also used great leaders to rush some of my frontier cities.

Playing the Iroquois - monarch - random map and loving it!!!

Thanks again
 
Siv said:
... By not even trying for wonders I find I am more focused on the game. I have to admiot I did build the forbidden palace using a great leader. I mean I had two of these guys just laying around doing nothing. I also used great leaders to rush some of my frontier cities. ...
Click to expand...

You mean SGLs? Ok, wonder addiction is something which can hinder your game progress, but in case you get SGLs...I never used a SGL to anything beside rushing a great wonder.The scientific age is bugged and no option and rushing small wonders or improvements feels like wasting for me.I would keep them around for one of the later wonders (ok, negative side effect is it prevents you from getting MGLs, but compared it is a minor disadvantage IMO.Especially if you already have a an army which allows you to build the HE and the Military Academy).
 
Ision, you rock...

this article has helped immensely... as a tip to my fellow newbies..

micromanage as much as possible, it has been my greatest weakness...
 
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