Trouble Understanding the Petra

[Harv72b]

It doesnt apply for floodplains, which kinda blows. I can only see this being overwhelmingly useful on towns nearby many desert hills, or oasis's. Otherwise desert tiles are just like trading posts on plains near a river. Meh. It should apply for flood plains.

Or a city with numerous resources located on desert tiles:

Spoiler :

 

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Imagine a Civil Serviced Floodplain with a Polder and Petra. How much food is that?

 

[Lyoncet]

Imagine a Civil Serviced Floodplain with a Polder and Petra. How much food is that?

The same as a flood plain with a Polder, since Civil Service doesn't affect Polders and Petra doesn't affect flood plains.

 

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Oh... I always thought Civil Service increases food on rivers. Turns out they need to ba farms then.

 

[Smokeybear]

Oh... I always thought Civil Service increases food on rivers. Turns out they need to ba farms then.

Civil Service adds +1 food for farms next to any fresh water. They do affect flood plain farms. Petra affects all desert tiles that are *not* flood plains.

 

[Lyoncet]

Civil Service adds +1 food for farms next to any fresh water. They do affect flood plain farms.

Yes they do. All flood plains are by necessity on water, since they're generated if and only if when you have a desert tile with a river running next to it. Maybe you meant they don't affect flood plain Polders?

 

[Smokeybear]

Yes they do. All flood plains are by necessity on water, since they're generated if and only if when you have a desert tile with a river running next to it. Maybe you meant they don't affect flood plain Polders?

Sorry, wasn't commenting on polders. I haven't played as the Dutch yet, so am not familiar with the properties and shortcomings of them.

 

[Gucumatz]

Heres a fun theoretical scenario...

Inca conquers a Polder desert area. Builds petra and has mountains on the edges of the 3tile radius. In theory you could have +6 food +3 production +2 gold (if there is a river) prior to civil service etc. In addition to Polders.

 

[pspboy7]

The desert tile has to be adjacent to your city at least. Petra is an awesome wonder if you have a decent amount of desert tiles in the city.

 

[Loucypher]

I had this beauty:
Amsterdam
7 Flood Plain Polders
1 Petra Gold Mine
Several Petra Great Prophet/Engineer/Artist improvements, some even on hills.
It was glorious. I should take a screenshot.
Petra really turns Desert tiles into delightful Plop Down Great Person Improvement targets.

 

[TheHanzou]

Petra is very strong.

Fun fact: If you build a City on a flood plains it will turn into a normal desert and as such being affected by petra.

Petra is worth it for 1 tile already as it not only gives tile yield and normal bonus but also a free culture building AND even additional culture. Its really strong.

 

[Danglesan]

Petra is really nice for the inca if you can find a nice river running through desert hills and mountains.

 

[CYZ]

Heres a fun theoretical scenario...

Inca conquers a Polder desert area. Builds petra and has mountains on the edges of the 3tile radius. In theory you could have +6 food +3 production +2 gold (if there is a river) prior to civil service etc. In addition to Polders.

Make it more realistic. Desert hills with rivers and mountains around will make awesome terrace farms if you can get Petra even without the Polders

 

[Fragamemnon]

This wonder is so powerful that I will forego settling a third and fourth city if it means getting to it and building it faster. Not all desert starts can use Petra (usually due to not enough production, too many blank desert tiles and flood plains), but those starts with at least a couple of hills in them really make this wonder go broken.

In the games were I have built it, I was pushing 30+ food on production focus in the medieval era. With those kind of hammers you can do whatever the heck you want and still wonderspam a bit on the side if that's your kind of thing.

I really like the wonder though. It's an early wonder worth fighting the AI for even on Immortal/Deity. It can go super early, especially with ancient ruins turned on, so plan accordingly. It's also much, much better if you have cheap tech luxuries like gold/silver/copper or Furs/Circus and don't have to go directly to calendar to get your early luxury techs. This usually isn't the case though on desert starts.

 

[Calouste]

I had this beauty:
Amsterdam
7 Flood Plain Polders
1 Petra Gold Mine
Several Petra Great Prophet/Engineer/Artist improvements, some even on hills.
It was glorious. I should take a screenshot.
Petra really turns Desert tiles into delightful Plop Down Great Person Improvement targets.

In my current game I have Amsterdam with (IIRC) about a dozen Flood Plain Polders, a Marsh Polder, a lakeside Desert Wheat, a Desert Stone, two Desert Hill Coppers, another two or three desert hills, a Grassland Stone, Horses and Furs. It has Petra, Temple of Artemis and the Hanging Gardens, and the desert based faith Panteon. The city is about size 40 at turn 200 or so. Getting Economics was like getting three Wonders at once.



Won an OCC Cultural Victory by turn 301, by that time the city was size 58.

 

[Mark the Bold]

Petra rules. Sorry I don't have anything more sophisticated to say about it. Petra just rules.

Desert hills + Mines + Petra = Mini Manufactories

 

[Jaeger5]

I play almost exclusively as Egypt, so knowing this about the Petra will provide invaluable. Thanks guys!

Get the Karnak wonder mod too. Every flood plain provides 3 Faith. With desert pantheon, 4 on the flood plain, 1 on desert.

You need Holy Warriors to spend all that Faith though or you will be getting GPs every few turns.

 

[Narrie]

Petra is one of the most powerful wonders of the game, of course largely dependent on the location and of the surroundings of the city which builds it. I built it in Amsterdam in a game with the Dutch where the city was brilliantly placed at the mouth of a long river and was surrounded by 2/3 of desert, some of it desert hills, some flood plains and also plain desert. The rest was tiny bits of grasslands and plains. I played a cultural game and put great emphasis on the quick growth of the population in my cities through advancing in the tradition and liberty policy trees and also my religion which eventually included all possible food bonuses available. With the abundant population and the enhanced production the city was now able to construct almost every wonder available, in spite of the presence of many strong rival capitals. My civilization was thriving with the benefits of the wonders and my culture steadily advanced so that I could utilize Amsterdam's incredible gold potential with the commerce tree, in addition to building all possible wealth buildings there, national treasury, etc. Amsterdam was by the middle ages already turning into an undisputed world capital with the largest population, a huge number of wonders and a gold output that was not matched by half of the other civs in their entirety. A few great buildings and a polder gave some desert tiles absurd yields. As the population grew large enough to work all the superproductive tiles of the city, boosted further by social policies, I started advancing through the freedom tree so that I could ensure that I also have superproductive specialists. I also completed the tower of liberty. Eventually Amsterdam hit a size of 52 as I achieved diplomatic victory in 2015, with the city containing about half of the game's wonders (17). The construction of the utopia project was also well underway as I won the first elections. And no doubt Petra was the early game backbone that ensured the city thrived endlessly boosted on all fronts with gold, production and food from the numerous desert tiles. With the right policies, the religion and maritime city state food bonuses I amplified their effects and eventually made the city into a true masterpiece. But Petra made it all possible, no doubt about it.

A big thumbs up for petra from me !!

 

[Sabrina]

Petra is one of the most powerful wonders in the game, surely the most powerful in the early game. Picking up desert folklore as pantheon will help too, because besides the benefits of Petra, you can also have a lot of faith from those desert tiles. In my current game, I built the Petra on the coast, surrounded by desert hills and desert plains. The production is awesome, the population is as big as in my capital (which has the Hanging Gardens) and, with seaport, barracks, armory and the heroic Epic, it could build a hell of a fleet in no time at all.

 

[szcott]

I play on Marathon/ Immortal/Standard mostly, and Ive noticed that if you build TOA at the start, it will sometimes give you a GE in time for Petra. Might need to build another GE type too, can't really be sure. Also if you have other Great People coming out like a GS from Babylon, it might delay it also.