The Hermitage

[50_dollar_bag]

hammer decay starts after 50 turns for buildings, and never starts for wonders.

Hammers apparently do decay for National Wonders, I tried this last night on an Emporer/Marathon Fractal map as Huyana Capac. I'd cleaned out my continent and was quite far behind in techs because my trading partners were Tokugawa and Isabella. Izzy wouldn't trade with me because I'd been showing her my Quecha's since about 3000BC, and Toku is just Toku. The rest of the world was revealed to be Mansa and Victoria who up all visible techs and Shaka and Monty who we're slightly more advanced but unwilling to trade.
Teching took a while to gain momentum so with no need to build military and my core cities up to date with buildings I gave this a go. I built the Hermitage about 5 times over and got between 750-800 gold for each failed attempt, i did notice that a few of the cities which had built it to 1 turn to completion eventually showed 2 turns after about 100 turns, so decay does occur.
It did save my ass from a sneak attack from Monty as I let the Hermitage complete and the refund gave my enough money to upgrade some troops, about 5 times more than a turn of 0% science.

 

[popejubal]

Because I once had over 700 gold from missing the pyramids, and the pyramids only costs 500 hammers.
I may be mistaken, but i'm usually very near 0 gold, and when I'm suddenly so high, I notice it.

I'll test it some more, and come back.

With a Forge and Organized Religion, you'll be making 2 gold per raw hammer invested.

The Forge would count toward whatever legitimite build you might have, so that shouldn't really count, but it's certainly one way to tally up the numbers.

I'd never want to miss the Great Library or Oracle, but there are a lot of other wonders that I wouldn't mind "selling" for cash.


...hmmm. I may actually start building the Chichzen Itza now. I'll just need to remember not to accidentaly finish it.

 

[Scaramanga]

taking the surrounding german cities certainly is faster

Heheh - true. My "strategy" I guess was to use the remnant German cities as buffers against the Ottomans on the other side of them.

 

[Scaramanga]

..., i did notice that a few of the cities which had built it to 1 turn to completion eventually showed 2 turns after about 100 turns, so decay does occur.

Is it possible that the cities were making less hammers/turn later than when they could've completed it in one turn? Highly unlikely 100 turns down the road I guess but just checking...

 

[50_dollar_bag]

Nah they would definately have been making more as I'd switched to Universal Suffrage by this stage, plus most of them would have had factories up and running.

 

[PublicEnemy]

Hammers apparently do decay for National Wonders, I tried this last night on an Emporer/Marathon Fractal map as Huyana Capac. I'd cleaned out my continent and was quite far behind in techs because my trading partners were Tokugawa and Isabella. Izzy wouldn't trade with me because I'd been showing her my Quecha's since about 3000BC, and Toku is just Toku. The rest of the world was revealed to be Mansa and Victoria who up all visible techs and Shaka and Monty who we're slightly more advanced but unwilling to trade.
Teching took a while to gain momentum so with no need to build military and my core cities up to date with buildings I gave this a go. I built the Hermitage about 5 times over and got between 750-800 gold for each failed attempt, i did notice that a few of the cities which had built it to 1 turn to completion eventually showed 2 turns after about 100 turns, so decay does occur.
It did save my ass from a sneak attack from Monty as I let the Hermitage complete and the refund gave my enough money to upgrade some troops, about 5 times more than a turn of 0% science.

How much does the Hermitage cost?

Seems like a waste of a lot of hammers to me. Wasn't there anything more useful you could have been building in those cities?

 

[50_dollar_bag]

I did say "so with no need to build military and my core cities up to date with buildings"
so excluding units/walls/wealth/culture/gold, no.

 

[cabert]

OK, a little test with national epic yesterday.
For national wonders (and world wonders, see below), it's 1G per hammer.
So with industrious and the right resource it's 2,5 per base hammer (not taking into account OR or forge or factory, which do increase the normal hammer->gold conversion anyway).

It's not totally right, since forge and such aren't correctly calculated :
4 base hammers, in a city with a forge give 5 gold for a straight conversion
4 base hammers, in a city with a forge, industrious, the right resource, and OrgRel give 12 wonder hammers = 12 gold. So its only, in the optimal situation, a 140% bonus.
If you take away the fact that you need to finish the wonder somewhere else, it's down to a 1:1.

Just build gold!

edit : the pyramids on EPic speed cost 750 hammers, that was my mistake

 

[cabert]

So I tested with th taj mahal, and indeed it's 1 G per hammer into the wonder.
So at best with industrious + the right resource, it's
2.5 gold per base hammer.
Not counting the need to finish the wonder somewhere else and the delay before actualy having the gold.

 

[BCLG100]

Because I once had over 700 gold from missing the pyramids, and the pyramids only costs 500 hammers.
I may be mistaken, but i'm usually very near 0 gold, and when I'm suddenly so high, I notice it.

I'll test it some more, and come back.

Bear in mind it will be affected by speed.

 

[UncleJJ]

So I tested with th taj mahal, and indeed it's 1 G per hammer into the wonder.
So at best with industrious + the right resource, it's
2.5 gold per base hammer.
Not counting the need to finish the wonder somewhere else and the delay before actualy having the gold.

Other bonusses such as OR, Bureaucracy and Forge, Factory and Power count as well of course. But all of those except OR count towards wealth so I guess they don't count as an advantage.

Another trick that applies to fake building wonders that can't be used for wealth is the use of chopped forests and overflow hammers from whipping under Slavery (whip a unit or building and let overflow apply to wonder). Using those tricks is effectively a way to turn wood to gold or food to gold.

As to the basic proposition of partially building multiple versions of national wonders as way to raise gold, I don't do that, as it seems to be a serious exploit of the game system. If it is worthwhile to do that, in terms of the gold you get, then you are cheating yourself by doing that since it makes the game easier. If you want to cheat like that why not make it easier for yourself and use the worldbuilder?

 

[DaviddesJ]

Another trick that applies to fake building wonders that can't be used for wealth is the use of chopped forests and overflow hammers from whipping under Slavery (whip a unit or building and let overflow apply to wonder).

I don't think you have to use overflow. You can whip a wonder with Slavery, and then take it off the build queue so that it never finishes. You'll still get the hammers converted to gold when it's built elsewhere (I think).

Of course if you do it that way you pay the penalty for hammers from whipping being less for wonders than other things.

 

[cabert]

Bear in mind it will be affected by speed.

yep, I thought about it and now I recall the details :
it was epic speed (which I'm not really used to).
So the pyramids costs 750 hammers, and I got 732 gold .

 

[KMadCandy]

as far as comparisons with building gold, vanilla is handicapped there. warlords made some changes that improved building wealth/science/culture a lot (i think changing it from 50% to 100% and also applying forges/factories). the old, "less gold per hammer" system still applies in patch 1.61, so there are probably more times in vanilla than in warlords when you're better off wonder-building for cash.

just something else to add to the mix for those of you who like to figure out the math-y stuff. i don't *giggle*

 

[UncleJJ]

I don't think you have to use overflow. You can whip a wonder with Slavery, and then take it off the build queue so that it never finishes. You'll still get the hammers converted to gold when it's built elsewhere (I think).

Of course if you do it that way you pay the penalty for hammers from whipping being less for wonders than other things.

Correct, you don't have to use overflow as wonders can be whipped directly as you suggest. But I think that is only half as efficient as the overflow method in terms of the food to hammers and hence food to gold conversion rate. So I ignored it as a viable option, although little would be lost if the wonder was nearly complete.

 

[DaviddesJ]

Correct, you don't have to use overflow as wonders can be whipped directly as you suggest. But I think that is only half as efficient as the overflow method in terms of the food to hammers and hence food to gold conversion rate.

I think it's 2/3 for national wonders, 1/2 for world wonders. But the main point is that you can convert several pop this way. The overflow method lets you convert less than 1 pop per rush into the wonder, which may or may not be useful, if you have a whole lot of food.

I doubt I would actually do it, but, it's theoretically possible.

 

[r_rolo1]

I've been reading the above posts and I would like to ask if there's a diference on results if the world wonder is finished by other civ. At least you wouldn't have to actually finish the "#$%&@£§ thing (i'm specifically thinking in the "Chichen" Itza, but I beleive there are some wonders that most of the people wouldn't care to miss.