the spiral minaret (not completing it intentionally)

Has anyone out there not finished this building intentionally while investing almost all (if not all) hammers into it and then switch builds so someone else builds it to take a lump sum of gold for not completing a wonder?

As the purpose of this wonder is to make gold, I was curious if the lump sum received for allowing someone else to build it would exceed the gold one would generate provided
a. the empire size was modest (6-9 cities) or
b. just didn't get around to building a lot of religious buildings. For instance, if I'm not spiritual, I find I often don't build a lot of temples.

I suppose this approach could be taken with most wonders but in the case of the minaret, you'd be offsetting speicifcally what it is designed to do.

Now, I understand if you're a long way from computers (that is the tech that obsoletes, right?) and have an empire with 18 cities maxed out with temples, monasteries, and cathedrals than eventually the output from the minaret would exceed a lump sum.

I'm looking at trying this presently in my augustus game as I haven't built many temples or monasteries. However, I am industrious, I have stone, and have a lot of cities. Thus, it wouldn't take many turns to invest a load of hammers.

 

People do this all the time and not just with SM, but all wonders where you are Industrious and/or have the production-boosting material in question. Chichen Itza is a favorite for this trick, since the wonder sucks but the gold for almost-completing it is good if you have stone. It's often better to have the wonder itself, though.

 

I can also see the pizza as being another favorite for this tactic. It just seems perfect with the SM.

 

I normally prefer income to lump sums of cash, so if I was close to completing Spiral Minaret I probably wouldn't sideline it...

 

The ideal situation is having a 6 tile support 6 grassland mines. If you are industrious and have stone/marble, it's equivilant to having your seven tiles produce about 7 /turn, much better than even a developed town, especially at that point in the game. Of course, there are plenty of opportunity costs to weigh against, but I can see situations where it may be beneficial (huge map w/ city to spare). I could see Bismark as the best leader to pull this off with cause of the expansive worker bonus (I see a size 7 city juggling between 12 tiles or so, mines and cottages or whatever, and needing the worker bonus to get all these improvements up). Other wonders to use could be the parthenon, shewagadon paya, sistine, mausoleum maybe, colossus if little coast cities. You can even take the wonder off the que in a city and build it in another. rinse, repeat.

I think the programmers would be a little disappointed to see wonders built only to cash in, but for the lowly wonders the rate you get can be better. But for most of them, it's better to just get the wonder. Even with just a few seafood tiles, it's better to have the colossus than to cash. And the SM is usually something that would pay off better as a wonder than the cash, unless you have little religion spread. And then there's the whole GPP to account for. The pizza would be the best to try this with

 

Wouldn't the SM be a good wonder if u had a religion spread across the globe? If u play as Monty, Hatty, India, or Isabella, spreading a religion is easy. Plus, Spiritual Civs who u spread ur religion to will invariably build Temples and Monasteries, so that's extra income. Its like a second shrine in some cases!

 

If I'm industrious, or have access the bonus resource, I'll often invest unused hammers without planning on completing a wonder. It's simply a better method of converting hammers into gold that doing it directly using the "build wealth" option.

You only get the gold from your temples, monasteries, and cathedrals... and you only get it if they're of your state religion.

Also, that bonus gold is located with the building, not the wonder. So if you have a temple in each of your cities, then each of your cities get +2 .

 

Well on the OP, I believe SM is about 500-1000 hammers

That means it will yield 500-1000 gold (less because you don't complete it)

Assuming 6-8 cities, and lets say 1/2 that number of state religious buildings so 3-4.. for a total of 6-8 gold per turn (assuming no gold multiplier)
That means that building becomes the preferable option with ~100 turns

Lots of time before computers even if you are somewhat beelining there.

 

That means weighing the advantages of either:
- starting to receive income early and for a large part of the game (until the wonder obsoletes OR you switch state religion)
or
- getting a lump sum a bit later (because you have to wait for the wonder to be completed), and letting your opponent get the benefits from it.

The favoured solution, of course, would be to nearly-build it, get the cash, and capture it the turn after it's completed

 

It depends on when you decide to switch to Free Religion, which comes earlier than Computers.

 

Or if you decide to switch to free religion at all. I always stay in Organized Religion or Pacifism if I built the Spiral Minaret, the University of Sankore, and Apostolic Palace.

If you have a huge empire with lots of cities and temples, the gold, science, and hammers are nothing to sneeze at.

 

When i see I can get the minaret I just spread the buildings and religion around so I get a nice 20-30 income boost once it hits.
Same with Sankore.

 

Heh, a moment ago I was playing Industrious Stalin on Prince (on save given by Cam_H) and I was 1turn to finish Temple of Artemis, then I cancelled it and built it in my capital. So I had both wonder and 335 gold

Shame that it won't pay off really on higher difficulties.

 

Another trick is to part build a national wonder in a city. Then switch. Exactly the same as building a world wonder except you control when it is eventually built and you can have partly built versions in several cities.

If I am playing an industrious leader I don't part build wonders and lose them on purpose. For an industrious leader wonders are a source of GPP - you have so many of them that your capital becomes a GP farm running national Epic and Ironworks and getting most of its GPP from wonders.

 

Do you get one gold per hammer, for hammers spent on incomplete wonders?

If so, it is overpowered.

You should get no more than what than you get for building wealth. You should get less, probably - the salvage from selling off the bricks of a half-finished spiral tower shouldn't realistically amount to a massive windfall.

 

Building wealth is one gold per hammer, with no commerce benefits. Same as what you get for failed builds. Trading the money back for hammers later, in unit upgrades or rush builds, costs 3 gold per hammer. So don't see it as being very powerful at all. Building research also negates bonuses.

I think if you're building wealth or research, something is wrong. Better to have cottages in place of those mines and get bonuses for both research and wealth. Getting paid for a wonder is a nice consolation prize but not terribly efficient.

 

I find the Spiral Minaret invaluable.

Spread out your core religion to at least the capital cities of the other nations, and bribe them to convert to your religion as soon as there are enough people "following that faith".

Build the spiral minaret and watch the gold roll in, its like having a money making hotdog stand in every city.

 

Another thing to factor in is if your the type of person that delays or beelines scientific method since that can obsolete 2 per city.

 

And again...
@Zenops - +2 for each religious building is only for each of Your religious buildings. If You meant that spreading Your religion to other nations is good for relations I don't know how that can be related to Spiral Minaret...

 

If you plan on conquering 60 percent(or all) of the world, having the other guy be mollifed with your religion really helps - until you want to pound him into submission.

By that time, more than likely he will have built a temple and monestary and maybe even a mandir for you (especially on Deity, where the AI gets a ridiculous production bonus)... Which makes it an extra bonus on an already sweet victory.

Sending out a missionary before 1000BC to your farthest nation, means its ripe for the picking when you actually complete the SM much later on. Its sort of like taking over cities with wonders instead of building the wonders yourself. Lull the AI into a false sense of security, let it build your buildings for you, and then strike! Another benefit is that once you've taken it over, its already of your religion and you can immediately gain the benifits of whatever religious civic you may have at the time.

*Spoiler*

If you are lucky, the you may even be able to convince your friendly matched religion neighbor to start a war with someone else. You can often give away two or three technologies to get a Friendly AI to war with someone else. At which point more than likely they will move a *huge* amount of units out of their cities to go on the offensive (or lose a similar amount on the defensive). About 4-turns later, you can do some serious backstabbing and ravage the formerly friendly religious cities which may only be protected with a handful of units. It really doesn't matter what technology you give away, because that AI is pretty well toast. Even if he has massive armies, more than likely he will never make it back to the city in time to defend it, at which point you should probably have taken as many weakly defended cities as possible (possibly all of them)

At the end of it all, you should have a whole nation of religious cities complete with temples and monestaries. And you will also have -1 with the nation "you brought a war ally against us" and perhaps a "-1 you declared war on a friend" with other nations, which is completely acceptable for wiping a competitor out with such ease