The opposite of Wonder Addiction

[AndrewN]

I'm like you. I very rarely build any of the early wonders. Hollywood and the similar are useful for late game happiness, the 3 Gorges Dam is a very nice wonder and of course the Space Elevator for a space victory.

The rest of the wonders are useful under certain circumstances, for example I have just built the Great Lighthouse as I new I was going to get a number of coastal cities. I never bother with the Oracle, you need too many useless religious techs for it and I don't see the point of the Great Library, the bonus seems way too small for the cost.

On the other hand, if you want to try a wonderspam game, then play France on the Earth 18 civ map

 

[Joshua368]

Space Elevator actually isn't that great for space race, because it forces you to go off the shapeship techs (robotics) for it. Often you'd be faster just skipping it to get the engines. (also beeline superconductors early for labs, which increase spaceship production and give a science boost)

Three gorges dam is nice, but really hammer expensive... worthwhile to build though.

As for earlier wonders, the Great Wall is probably my favorite, although I rarely go after the same wonders in subsequent games. A lot of it depends on what resources I have on hand and the situation I'm in... With marble I'll usually take a shot at the Mossoleum, I love that wonder. (expecially if I can get the Taj later)

The Great Library is great as well. The thing is that it gives you the most Great People Points of any wonder - 8 GPP, rather than the usual 2. Plus they're a solid eight Great Scientist points, a very useful great person to be churning out at that point in time. The only one close is the Temple of Artemis with 5 GPP, and those are split between Merchant and Prophet.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I also sort of stopped building wonders (except the late ones which are easy to get because by that point you should be winning)... But I wish I could go back to one or two. It seems I'm often beat to them though.

It appears to me that when you start a game with a certain leader, there are always a couple of wonders that could do .. wonders... in terms of leveraging this leader's traits, UB, UU, whatever. Like having an Egyptian Stonehenge that give you free UBs in all your cities. But I never seem to be able to think of it properly. I guess I'd need to make a plain list of all the game wonders, and add a check mark next to those that seem to make sense for that leader or the strategy I'm planning on. But then I can imagine myself staring at the wonder list with drool coming out of my mouth, unable to figure out why a certain wonder would help me that much.

 

[CivCorpse]

I never bother with the Oracle, you need too many useless religious techs for it and I don't see the point of the Great Library, the bonus seems way too small for the cost.

When you say "useless religious techs" I assuming you mean there are techs you need much sooner at that stage of the game. Priesthood is a very useful tech as it opens up both Monarchy and CoL. Both of which have great trade value early in the game. And both of which can fund early expansion.

Great Library can be a real life saver if you don't have a nice GP farm location. It will also allow you to stay in slavery and still have decent GPP in a city. An example being you have your GP farm set up and it has a Library/Forge/GL/NE when you go to war in the medival/early gunpowder era. You switch to slavery for unit production and to get vital infrastructure in your newly captured cities. Your GP farm can run 2 scientists and an engineer. That is a total of 20GPP.
Also if you have built/captured the mids and are using early Representation those extra scientists generate 12 bpt. The problem is that your GP farm doesn't always have the hammers to build it without marble. Definately worth using an early GE if you manage to get one.

 

[Daedal]

Keeping the Great Library away from the AI is just as important as getting it yourself. It'll mean the difference between being the first to liberalism/physics or losing it by a turn or two. Plus what others have said about it and the fact that it's usually on a good tech route, anyway, unlike the Oracle. The GL is definitely an exception to the usual 'no wonders' rule.

The Great Wall is an awesome wonder, but it goes too early. Same with Stonehenge. Pyramids are too expensive unless I'm industrious and have stone on hand, but if I get a start like that you'd better believe I'll be running a wonderspam economy and building all three of these wonders.

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

Lately I've been experimenting with a few of the wonders that I never used to build. I have found that I like building MoM and the Taj if possible. Every 2 golden ages are giving you a third one for free, basically.

I have also found I do like building the GLib if possible, for the simple reason that I'm usually bad about setting up a decent GP farm. Still though, I always see all those hammers and figure I should be pumping out troops instead. Just the warmonger in me I guess.

 

[Hereditary Rule]

Pyramids are too expensive unless I'm industrious and have stone on hand

I'm with you. I NEVER attempt the mids unless I'm Industrious or have stone. However, I ended up going for them in my last game without stone or IND and got them pretty early at 700BC. The main reason was happiness from REP. I hadn't even teched mysticism (I'm CRE), so it was a long road to Monarchy. I've only got one other CIV on my continent so trading around to get up to Monarchy was probably not going to happen.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm with you. I NEVER attempt the mids unless I'm Industrious or have stone. However, I ended up going for them in my last game without stone or IND and got them pretty early at 700BC. The main reason was happiness from REP. I hadn't even teched mysticism (I'm CRE), so it was a long road to Monarchy. I've only got one other CIV on my continent so trading around to get up to Monarchy was probably not going to happen.

The +3 and the 5 city limitation make rep situational indeed. If you lack happy resources you don't want a capitol locked at pop 8 and a bunch of other cities at 7 - that won't hold an advantage very long at all (your forum name would be the better civic).

I see the mids as a HUGE investment without stone, as you're forgoing quite a few hammers worth of workers and settlers, not to mention potential land that may not be so easy to get from an AI. Still, in your case it made sense to try for it to get out of a hole, and even if it failed you could apply the $$$ (seriously, no techs or resources @700 BC?)

Seeing the "useless religious tech" argument irks me in particular though (I know it wasn't coming from you . You have access to a building (priesthood), a very strong civic (mono), and the #2 hammer-to-multiplier ratio building available (monastery). Granted, you need religion for these, but other than the civic you don't have to RUN it to get their uses (in fact stacked monasteries in a bureaucracy capitol can be pretty scary), and how many non-isolated games do you get into where you don't have a religion spread to you? I'd consider a CoL oracle then just because your continent will buddy up and out-tech the other one which founded all the others...

High levels usually preclude founding early religions without very favorable starts or choice rivals w/o mysticism, but that doesn't make the use of the TECHS bad.

 

[Daedal]

Seeing the "useless religious tech" argument irks me in particular though (I know it wasn't coming from you . You have access to a building (priesthood), a very strong civic (mono), and the #2 hammer-to-multiplier ratio building available (monastery). Granted, you need religion for these, but other than the civic you don't have to RUN it to get their uses (in fact stacked monasteries in a bureaucracy capitol can be pretty scary), and how many non-isolated games do you get into where you don't have a religion spread to you?

Plenty. I keep waiting for those darn missionaries and instead they send a stack of swords. Nimwits. And by the time I get fed up waiting for a religion to spread to me they're almost all gone and I don't feel like going out of my way to grab one. Even worse, everyone on the continent already has a religion so if I grab one and spread it around I send my chances of randomly having a religion spread to me to zero so I get to run atheism until FR comes along or else become the world's whipping boy.

I'd consider a CoL oracle then just because your continent will buddy up and out-tech the other one which founded all the others...

Oracle's likely gone by then.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Eh, I used the Oracle to grab CoL in my latest game. It's doable.

 

[crazybuilder]

well, i like to spam wonders so my neighbours will attack me >.<

nah kidding .. but wonders does magic.. cultural level ... and fast and fearsome border line.

just build them when you can afford to.. dont build those almost irrelevant.. pyramids/hang garden/hagia (production city)

stonehedge/oracle <--- my push for a early prophet and free code of law... second city... within turns my cultural level is at 60%
religion = easiest way to make $ and friends.. and enemies >.<

 

[Favorius]

I play Civ series since 1995 and until my last game I was a peaceful builder and a wonder addict who usually wins by late domination or space vic. Whatever the odds I was feeling I had to grab wonders, especially GL, SoLiberty and goes on...

Well, in my last game I completely revised my gameplay. Note that I was not playing since February, so after 7 months the temptation to return was irresistable

I started on huge terra, ragings barbs (who erased Chinese) and aggressive AI on Prince. I was Holy Roman ruled by Darius.(rathauses + organized + financial )

Centuries of warfare against barbarians and when they pacify, AI started knocking my door with cats, axes and whatever they gather. You see I had no time even for a market in my capital but constant warfare.

For a peaceful builder it was really hard to bypass the shiny new wonders or buildings, but focusing on soldiers, walls, barracks and holy rathauses, trying to increase science/income only by riverside cottages.

Despite being out teched in 'civilizied' techs, I usually kept parity in military techs, being able to get longbows and landsketches on time against horse archers/maces/knights. Also I had to mention that AI constantly attacked my border city 'Phyrigian' which was founded on hills. I managed to get 3 longbows above 38xp in this bloody city and 5 generals, two of them being settled in highest cities, one of them being attached and two were reserved for military academy.

So the things have changed when I get to civil service/maces, bashing my southern neighbour Mayans to vassalage and grabbing a good portion of land, then pushing out from Phyrigian to West, capturing holy city of Judaism from English and building its shrine.

It became my third shrine and I waited till grenadiers and consolidating my gains meanwhile. Then you guess the upcoming story... A merciless war of slaughters in the age of Enlightenment.

After seeing the joy of imperfect and hard fought wars and being able to keep parity without libraries/markets for a long time (not to mention wonders except shrines) I think I suppressed by wonder addiction/builder instincts.

Currently I am converging my cannons/cavs/rifles to mount my next attack. This game will probably be a domination victory but not the one with tanks/bombers, but cavs/cannons/grenadiers.

This was a great step for a peaceful/builder/wonder addict. Now I take into account the benefits versus costs of buildings/wonders and opportunity costs.

Any comments?

 

[Peluin]

Favorius, congratulations? Assuming you enjoyed using the new approach as much as you've enjoyed the peaceful route! 38 xp is a huge amount for a longbow

I guess there's really no way to break wonderlust except by mindset, right? I've been playing team games with the roomie and if I let him play Industrious he builds everything under the sun. He'll build Shwedagon Paya and still stick with Paganism

 

[TheWilltoAct]

haha good story, and good comments Peluin, lol at your roommate

I haven't built any wonders yet in the game I'm working on, in fact foolish wonder building by my neighbor Shaka led to his untimely demise!
I was able to easily invade him largely because he built the Pyramids without Industrious trait or stone LOL!
And he completed it just as I was coming to invade , now that's a good feeling
He also built me an Academy but in the most random city conceivable... it's surrounded by hills and it's like 1 or 2 pop atm (Shaka squeezed all the juices out of it as it was his last city )... but it is a coastal city so maybe with windmills + trade routes it might not be too bad of a city.

btw, I am actually looking forward to building a few wonders now that I am finishing the process of consolidating my gains
I am the only civ with Aesthetics (why don't any of the AIs prioritize this, srsly ) and oddly I think my neighbor Genghis Khan is willing to trade me marble . Literature is a turn away so I hope to use Genghi's marble to power in the Great Library, perhaps followed by the National Epic. I could also try for the Parthenon and/or Shwedagon Paya though idk how important those two are. I also have an academy in my future GL site (and I'm running Representation with Shaka's Pyramids ) so I hope to get some serious