Unable to Build Big Ben

an old man

Chieftain
Joined
Feb 20, 2022
Messages
25
I saved a hex adjacent to a commercial hub specifically in order to build Big Ben there. Both the hub and hex are adjacent to a river. I built a bank and have completed the Economics research required but I have no build option for Big Ben. I also started the game before the Atomic age.

Can someone please explain why I am unable to build Big Ben? I can live without having Big Ben but am frustrated by not understanding why I cannot build it.

Thank you
 
Are you trying to build it on a floodplain? Cause that won't work unless you're playing Egypt.

A screenshot of the situation would be handy of course.
 
Is it possible one of the nefarious NPCs had the audacity to beat you to it? They're very rude like that.

This was my first thought too. Perhaps an AI already built it?
 
Thank you all for your comments. I'm not sure, but I think I know what happened. I am playing against Tomyris and it's my first attempt at the deity difficulty. In earlier games, when my opponent built a wonder before me there would be a little icon at the bottom right of my screen which would note it. I could also find out by reading the "gossip". I suspect that at the deity difficulty level both of these two sources of information are no longer valid. I'm likely going to get my a$$ kicked, but if manage to start destroying her cities I will keep my eye open for Big Ben. :)
 
Thank you all for your comments. I'm not sure, but I think I know what happened. I am playing against Tomyris and it's my first attempt at the deity difficulty. In earlier games, when my opponent built a wonder before me there would be a little icon at the bottom right of my screen which would note it. I could also find out by reading the "gossip". I suspect that at the deity difficulty level both of these two sources of information are no longer valid. I'm likely going to get my a$$ kicked, but if manage to start destroying her cities I will keep my eye open for Big Ben. :)

I know for a fact that Deity does not change that. But perhaps you simply missed the notification, or clicked it away without remembering?

If you have vision of other civilizations' land, you can also use the search option (near the minimap, one of the buttons) to search for the Big Ben. It'll highlight all tiles that contain whatever you search for, and you can easily move through them (though there will of course be at most one Big Ben). Note that if you don't have the tile revealed, it'll show 0 results even though it might be out there somewhere.
 
The wonder notification seems to me sometimes to be bugged. I have no direct evidence, but I have multiple times thought to myself that there have been missing some of the pop-ups for wonders being build. Maybe others have more information on this, but it could explain your experience.
 
The wonder notification seems to me sometimes to be bugged. I have no direct evidence, but I have multiple times thought to myself that there have been missing some of the pop-ups for wonders being build. Maybe others have more information on this, but it could explain your experience.

It seems to be limited to 3 notifications, if you don't click them away there won't be any new added. But yeah, if it's not in the list it's already build. If it's not build but you don't have a suitable spot in a city the wonder will be grayed out in the build list.
 
The wonder notification seems to me sometimes to be bugged. I have no direct evidence, but I have multiple times thought to myself that there have been missing some of the pop-ups for wonders being build. Maybe others have more information on this, but it could explain your experience.

This appears to have happened in my latest Deity game as the Maori. I had a good Pyramids spot, and while researching towards masonry I kept following all notifications to see if somebody else had already built them. I was getting notifications for other wonders (Stonehenge went pretty fast!). When I finally researched masonry, the wonder was not on my build list... Centuries later I stumbled upon it in Ottawa.
 
This appears to have happened in my latest Deity game as the Maori. I had a good Pyramids spot, and while researching towards masonry I kept following all notifications to see if somebody else had already built them. I was getting notifications for other wonders (Stonehenge went pretty fast!). When I finally researched masonry, the wonder was not on my build list... Centuries later I stumbled upon it in Ottawa.

I never realized that either. I know I've had other cases where I was building, say, a late colosseum, and then all of a sudden, I wasn't anymore.
 
Oh right.

That's what happend for Stonehenge in my last game. I wanted to 1-turn chop it because of era score from the wonder and whatever I'd do with the free apostle, but it disappeared from the list the very turn I wanted to chop it.

Just chopped the Hanging Gardens instead though. :dunno:
 
Wonders are good to build but you got to take care of them and not let other aggressive people try to take them. Its still a good investment though.
 
Still not positive what is going on here, but I think what happens is that before you meet your opponent, when they build a wonder an icon in the bottom right corner of your screen lists it as well as mentioning it in the gossip list. But after you have met them (or, more likely, after they denounce you which happens a few turns after you meet them) the information about building and completing wonders by your opponent is kept hidden from you and you don't know they have built it until you try building it and cannot (which was the reason for my initial post on this topic), or you receive a "refund" and have to choose a new construction project for the city you had building the wonder, if you were in the process of building one and your opponent completed it first.
 
Also note, as far as I know, that multiple notifications of the same kind are grouped into one, with arrows allowing you to scroll through them. So such thing can happened that two Wonders were built at the same time (or closely in time If you didn't close the previous notification) and so there was notification but you didn't realize it and thought it was the sooner one and closed it.

But in my experience, 90% of the time this happens is, as Tech Osen promptly pointed out, simply that I forgot that I cannot normally build over Floodplains. I often forget this for Districts too.
 
Still not positive what is going on here, but I think what happens is that before you meet your opponent, when they build a wonder an icon in the bottom right corner of your screen lists it as well as mentioning it in the gossip list. But after you have met them (or, more likely, after they denounce you which happens a few turns after you meet them) the information about building and completing wonders by your opponent is kept hidden from you and you don't know they have built it until you try building it and cannot (which was the reason for my initial post on this topic), or you receive a "refund" and have to choose a new construction project for the city you had building the wonder, if you were in the process of building one and your opponent completed it first.

This is not the case, the wonder construction notification doesn't depend on relationship or anything like that.

Also note, as far as I know, that multiple notifications of the same kind are grouped into one, with arrows allowing you to scroll through them. So such thing can happened that two Wonders were built at the same time (or closely in time If you didn't close the previous notification) and so there was notification but you didn't realize it and thought it was the sooner one and closed it.

But in my experience, 90% of the time this happens is, as Tech Osen promptly pointed out, simply that I forgot that I cannot normally build over Floodplains. I often forget this for Districts too.

Wasn't the case with me for Stonehenge, I think. I tend to pay attention to how many of a given notification there is in any turn, and always start my turn by looking through them.

Also, the floodplains thing isn't the case anymore in Gathering Storm. You still lack some abilities (e.g. you can't plant woods on them), but districts and wonders work fine unless specifically excluded.
 
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