My brother mentioned he'd learned of a Wonder/Super Specialist Economy, so I tried it out. After a surprising start on Prince level where I was able to get all wonders before the Hanging Gardens I decided to tweak around some settings and cheat where needed to see if I could build every wonder (not including religious shrines, though I think they could be monopolized too with a little luck).
I'll disclaim, I cheated by reloading auto saves, and opening WB in the beginning to verify there was Stone and Marble nearby, so this is in no way a viable strategy for a serious game, just a parlor trick you can use for a diversion.
The tweaking I mentioned was this: Noble difficulty to eliminate AI advantage (though I think it would probably still work on Prince), normal speed, Custom game so I could pick the other Civs, and I picked Montezuma, Shaka, Alexander, Tokagawa, Ragnar, and Gengis Khan, with the intention that they would be too busy killing each other to build wonders.
I hoped for an isolated start, but ended up on an island with Ragnar. I played as Ramsis, built worker, warrior, settler and directed my research to go straight for Monotheism to get the extra 25% production (plus it takes you through Masonry to get the bonuses from stone and marble). I set my first settler down next to stone and built Stonehenge there. I was lucky to have Marble just outside my capital's fat cross, but still needed a coastal city for the great Lighthouse and Colossus, so picked a coastal place with lots of hills and forests for production. With three cities I focused on building wonders for most the ancient and classical periods, and ended up taking up most the island with the culture from those cities. My research was directed to techs that unlock wonders almost exclusively (had to divert to get animal husbandry, but, for example, went without Iron Working or Hunting until well into the middle ages). I grabbed Metal Casting from the Oracle since forges will also help with maximizing production.
I have a Mac, thus I'm still playing Warlords, so I can't say this will work on BtS, but looking at the tech tree it looks like it would maybe even be easier early on, since the Parthenon doesn't open up until later. Aesthetics does look like it would be the biggest stumbling block, with three wonders that need building all at once. On Warlords I think that if you don't lose any wonders before the Great Library you're pretty much set for the rest of the game, and I imagine it's pretty close to the same on BtS.
Anyway, I remember when I was starting out playing I was really frustrated that I couldn't find a way to build every wonder, so if anyone always wanted all of them (short of taking them by force), I hope this helps.
I'll disclaim, I cheated by reloading auto saves, and opening WB in the beginning to verify there was Stone and Marble nearby, so this is in no way a viable strategy for a serious game, just a parlor trick you can use for a diversion.
The tweaking I mentioned was this: Noble difficulty to eliminate AI advantage (though I think it would probably still work on Prince), normal speed, Custom game so I could pick the other Civs, and I picked Montezuma, Shaka, Alexander, Tokagawa, Ragnar, and Gengis Khan, with the intention that they would be too busy killing each other to build wonders.
I hoped for an isolated start, but ended up on an island with Ragnar. I played as Ramsis, built worker, warrior, settler and directed my research to go straight for Monotheism to get the extra 25% production (plus it takes you through Masonry to get the bonuses from stone and marble). I set my first settler down next to stone and built Stonehenge there. I was lucky to have Marble just outside my capital's fat cross, but still needed a coastal city for the great Lighthouse and Colossus, so picked a coastal place with lots of hills and forests for production. With three cities I focused on building wonders for most the ancient and classical periods, and ended up taking up most the island with the culture from those cities. My research was directed to techs that unlock wonders almost exclusively (had to divert to get animal husbandry, but, for example, went without Iron Working or Hunting until well into the middle ages). I grabbed Metal Casting from the Oracle since forges will also help with maximizing production.
I have a Mac, thus I'm still playing Warlords, so I can't say this will work on BtS, but looking at the tech tree it looks like it would maybe even be easier early on, since the Parthenon doesn't open up until later. Aesthetics does look like it would be the biggest stumbling block, with three wonders that need building all at once. On Warlords I think that if you don't lose any wonders before the Great Library you're pretty much set for the rest of the game, and I imagine it's pretty close to the same on BtS.
Anyway, I remember when I was starting out playing I was really frustrated that I couldn't find a way to build every wonder, so if anyone always wanted all of them (short of taking them by force), I hope this helps.
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