The Colossus...Does it work?

[smljohnson]

I've noticed in some of my recent games that certain traits or wonders seem to have little or no effect.

For example, I built the colossus in a seaside commerce city (an obvious choice), and I currently had +2 gpt. After it was constructed, nothing changed. The gold didn't go up, the research didn't go up. Or did I just completely miss something?

Also, since I'm asking about that, I was playing a game with (I don't remember who) but they had the expansive trait allowing the construction of workers at +25% speed (I think?). However, when I built a worker right away in the starting city, it took 23 turns (epic speed). I thought that didn't seem right, so I started another new game with a non-expansive civ leader and, with similar starting tile (for the city) and the same food resource being worked, it took 23 turns also. Again, am I missing something?

Thanks, I'm still trying to get a hold of this game, but this site is amazing for helping with that!

 

[JujuLautre]

If you don't work sea tiles, the colossus won't have any effect on your economy indeed. To check if it works, just open the city screen on a city with coastal or ocean tiles and check by yourself if their commerce output increased by one.

Expansive (and also imperialistic) is a little bit misleading: you get +25 or +50% on the production based only on the hammers, not on food. So if you build a worker with a base of 3 foods and 1 hammer, you won't see any improvement. You have to have at least 4 hammers to see any (2 hammers for imperialistic with settlers).

 

[Matthew5117]

To start off, the Colossus increases all water tiles, meaning if you build it in one city, the rest of them will have the effect.

Do you think there might have been a chance that the Colossus was built a turn before you researched Astronomy? Maybe another civilization built the Colossus before you when you didn't notice?

Concerning the worker, production varies on the cities (what tiles they're working, what specialists or resources do they have access to, overflow etc.). So maybe, the production was different and it was just a coincidence that the number of turns it took to build the worker was the same.

If not, I think it is a glitch then.

 

[CCRunner]

You probably weren't working the sea tiles for the colossus.

for the workers/expansive thing I think you need at least four hammers to get the bonus. Extra food doesn't get any bonuses.

 

[smljohnson]

Well, it's good to know that the worker bonus is dependent on hammers (which kind of sucks, honestly).

As for the colossus, yes, it was built by me (it was sitting in the water near my city and it appears in the list of buildings). I built it long before I had astronomy and I was working the sea tiles (I had to, the city had great fish resources!). I don't know, maybe I'm just still missing something or maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers. I'll give it another go and see what happens.

Thanks for the info on the workers, though!

 

[Joshua368]

Well, it's good to know that the worker bonus is dependent on hammers (which kind of sucks, honestly).

As for the colossus, yes, it was built by me (it was sitting in the water near my city and it appears in the list of buildings). I built it long before I had astronomy and I was working the sea tiles (I had to, the city had great fish resources!). I don't know, maybe I'm just still missing something or maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers. I'll give it another go and see what happens.

Thanks for the info on the workers, though!

Well just count the commerce coins on all the coast tiles, there should be three now in all cities. (four if financial)

As for why there wasn't any difference, who knows? Maybe you're only working a few so the change was minute, maybe something negative happened elsewhere to cancel it out. (governor switching tiles, barb galley blocking trade routes, etc)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's a weak sauce wonder for non-FIN, and only ok for FIN. Specialists give better returns immediately and it doesn't take a cottage long to catch up (and will later overtake) the sea tiles.

Great Lighthouse, on the other hand, is overpowered on some maps and very good otherwise, due to the passive commerce and the ability to abuse trade routes to no end.

 

[azzaman333]

It's a weak sauce wonder for non-FIN, and only ok for FIN. Specialists give better returns immediately and it doesn't take a cottage long to catch up (and will later overtake) the sea tiles.

Great Lighthouse, on the other hand, is overpowered on some maps and very good otherwise, due to the passive commerce and the ability to abuse trade routes to no end.

I agree entirely with this post.

 

[Joshua368]

It's a weak sauce wonder for non-FIN, and only ok for FIN. Specialists give better returns immediately and it doesn't take a cottage long to catch up (and will later overtake) the sea tiles.

Perhaps, but it's really cheap. Forges are something you'll want in your highest production city asap and the Collossus will usually take about 5-6 turns on normal speed, if you have copper. Not bad for a wonder.

And not dissing the lighthouse, I know firsthand how powerful it can be, but it requires a bit more devotion. Lighthouses may not be top priority and the great lighthouse costs a moderate amount. You can't even halve the production time with something like stone, what the heck's up with that? (I think it's the only early wonder to not have a specific resource)

 

[Charonicus]

I like the Colossus, especially if I'm a financial leader with lots of coastal cities.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Perhaps, but it's really cheap. Forges are something you'll want in your highest production city asap and the Collossus will usually take about 5-6 turns on normal speed, if you have copper. Not bad for a wonder.

And not dissing the lighthouse, I know firsthand how powerful it can be, but it requires a bit more devotion. Lighthouses may not be top priority and the great lighthouse costs a moderate amount. You can't even halve the production time with something like stone, what the heck's up with that? (I think it's the only early wonder to not have a specific resource)

I guess it's not bad as a denial wonder. However even if you get it cheap it often doesn't give any meaningful returns so it's a sort of red herring (although if you have copper it's not bad just for GPP points if you're going with wonders as a means to farm GP!).

I agree that GLH, while often great, isn't always worth the effort (I actually don't even try for it about 1/2 the time ni the LHC series, which is based on isolation!) I disagree about the lighthouse priority though. If you have a city with 1 seafood, consider a lighthouse soon. If you have two seafood or more, GET THE LIGHTHOUSE. A lighthouse in a 3 seafood city gives you a farm's worth of food without working extra tiles...! It's a 2 pop whip for everyone and even less for organized I think. It's very seldom not worthwhile unless you have NO seafood tiles you're working anyway. You'll be hard pressed to find a building more worthwhile than a lighthouse in a seafood city outside of a granary!

I messed around with 1 fish coastal cities, and could get most of the infrastructure throughout the game in there pretty easily with a whip. 6 food + commerce tile? You bet!

 

[UncleJJ]

TMIT, I agree with you on the lighthouse being second only to the granary in importance but you're underselling the Colossus versus TGL. I find the Colossus is the more profitable wonder most of the time on water maps and I've used both wonders a lot seperately and together.

The Colossus is easy to build and easy to use. If you position your cities such that they work plenty of coastal tiles they can grow big and produce plenty of extra commerce from the tiles. I use these coastal tiles as a means to "store" hammers for whipping, so while my food surplus is regrowing the city for the next big whip my hammer store pays a nice commerce bonus. There is no need to treat these tiles like cottages. If you're also Financial the payoff can be incredible, try it with Elizabeth

The Great Lighthouse (TGL) seems to have become very popular recently but it is actually more often hype than delivery. It's quite difficult to build as there are no hammer bonusses. The extra trade routes in most coastal cities are usually just internal trade and limited to 1 (or 2 commerce for an offshore island) for most of the game. I've never had enough foreign trade routes to allow TGL to get close to its potential and I doubt many people have. It's one good point is when spamming (or capturing) new coastal cities as most of the maintenace cost is met immediately with the 4 trade routes even if they are only 1 or 2 commerce each. That allows you to expand rapidly grabbing coastal sites despite not having built enough courthouses.

 

[Willem]

Well, it's good to know that the worker bonus is dependent on hammers (which kind of sucks, honestly).

Yeah that expansive trait only affects the Hammer portion of a Workers construction, not all of it. Which I agree sucks. The bonus for Settlers with the Imperialistic trait works the same way.

 

[Feyaria]

Play archipelago+high sea level (very few land tiles) with a finacial leader and get both Colossus and Great Lighthouse. You will have double the commerce then the AI (4 commerce on water tiles instead of 2 and 4 trade routes instead of 2)

Building settlers with imperialistic or workers with expansiv, working mines is often better then food sources because of the bonus only added on hammers. Thats one of the few things were I trust the city gouvernor and let him arrange the worked tiles for fastest production.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yeah that expansive trait only affects the Hammer portion of a Workers construction, not all of it. Which I agree sucks. The bonus for Settlers with the Imperialistic trait works the same way.

Keep in mind that the bonus therefore applies to whips and chops in both cases.

Also don't forget about the other parts of these traits .

 

[ukrneal]

I think one other aspect is timing. The Colusses usually comes at a time when I am trying to expand (costly), focus on hammers and food. It allows you to cottage spam less and keep research at a higher level. Of course, it will only help if you have enough coastal plots used.

But I find that when I plan for it, it is very good indeed.

 

[Greencardman]

If you had your science at 100%, you might not have seen a change in your GPT or research per turn, but if you check inside the city, the beakers would have gone up (but possibly not enough to lower the amount of turns to the next technology.)

 

[TeraHammer]

Astronomy... a love-hate relationship to me allways

 

[Cashew]

Well, it's good to know that the worker bonus is dependent on hammers (which kind of sucks, honestly).

As for the colossus, yes, it was built by me (it was sitting in the water near my city and it appears in the list of buildings). I built it long before I had astronomy and I was working the sea tiles (I had to, the city had great fish resources!). I don't know, maybe I'm just still missing something or maybe I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers. I'll give it another go and see what happens.

Thanks for the info on the workers, though!

That's because the trait is overpowered as it is. As a side note, the case is the same with imperialistic. Hammers only, must be in round lots of 2 hammers to get the bonus.

 

[jimbob27]

It's a weak sauce wonder for non-FIN, and only ok for FIN. Specialists give better returns immediately and it doesn't take a cottage long to catch up (and will later overtake) the sea tiles.

Great Lighthouse, on the other hand, is overpowered on some maps and very good otherwise, due to the passive commerce and the ability to abuse trade routes to no end.

It's a map dependant wonder. Only really good on archipelagos. It's rare to have the food for a lot of specialists or the land for a lot of cottages, so working the sea is all that's left. Archipelagos often involve a second land grab at astronomy due to the better ships, and having the colosus can really help in the tech race on those map types. A lot of these water based games only really get going once astronomy is discovered, so using the colosus to get there early can really make or break a game.

For pretty much every other map type, I agree with what you said 100%.