What is your favourite/least favourite wonder to start next to?

[Dotsworthy]

Favourite: Matterhorn. The extra culture is nice, but what makes it good is the bonus for hills which makes it extremely useful in the early game.

I know there are stronger wonders but I love having that free promotion.

Least Favourite: Mount Vesuvius. The additional production is great and the chance of extra yields is great even with the population loss. But every time I've come across Vesuvius it surrounded by mountains and water tiles, with one usable tile.

 

[Thormodr]

Torres del Paine is great to start next to.

Gives you a huge boost right off the bat.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I really love Eyjafjallajökull, especially if it erupts before you settle. I had that happen once and it produced the most incredible tiles.

 

[Icicle]

Least Favorite: White Cliffs. They're just worse than most base tiles in the game imo.

 

[Chefofrats]

Mount Roraima is awesome to start by.

The wonders without food yields on the other hand are terrible in the beginning, as they stunt city growth - the AI city manager works those tiles by default, even if it stops a city's growth completely.

 

[bite]

Favourite - Uluru, Delicate Arch, Crater Lake - anything that helps get that first pantheon

Lest - Cliffs of Dover - literally the worst Natural Wonder in the game, I would actually prefer the tiles if it was not there

 

[Vahnstad]

The volcanoes i like because of insane yield tiles.

 

[criZp]

The ones that buff adjacent tile yields. The ones that only have their own base yields tend to feel not very wonder-like.

 

[Leucarum]

I second Eyjafjallajökull. One of my most memorable games was spawning next to it and having it erupt right on time. It completely changed how I approached that entire game.

 

[bengalryan9]

Maybe this is a different approach to answering the question, but in terms of something right next to my capital I like having something that generates faith if only to guarantee my choice of pantheon. I wouldn't call Crater Lake a great natural wonder or anything but it's essentially a free settler and it only takes up one tile.

 

[Aurelesk]

The infamous Cliffs of Dover. They combine a lot of cons:
• Like all passable Wonder, their tiles are dead tiles that cannot be improved.
• They are "only" a 2-tiles passable wonder (excluding the lakes), making difficult to capitalize on Holy City adjacencies (only one +4)
• They are a coastal Wonder, and coastal tiles are highly valuable for coastal cities that need room to develop.
• You cannot put water tiles in a Natural Park, making this wonder even harder to put in one.
• They do not have any side effect like 'instantly heals', 'provide fresh water', 'additional CS when defending' , 'adtionnal yield at set era' or something to consider having those tiles (or denying it to other civilization).
• You have to prevent your citizen to work the tile if you want to grow or produce things. The AI is not smart enough and will stay with a 1 Population city forever.

The existence of Matterhorn is the only reason why my Scouts only goes for Ranger than Alpine for their first promotion, 'just in case' the wonder dare to show.

I never saw the Lysefjord once in my life (I have the DLC), but this is the kind of Wonder that you want in your empire just to deny it to other civilizations. I think it can be strong: you could train the first level on barbarians then get the second level with the wonder, and end up with several +17 CS against district defense Ranged Naval units ready to get all the coastal cities.

I will not be original: Piopiotahi and Mount Roraima are the best for me: those overlapping bonus are incredible, and you can have great National Park out of them. Piopiotahi is probably the best between the two, because Culture is really important in the early game and this wonder allows to have it without sacrificing the early growth.

I really dislike Crater Lake. From time to time the game allow you to appear next to it as a "fresh water' tiles, and you have to manually select to not work faith/science in your Capital because the citizens will love to work it and stay forever at 1 Population. AI are not smart enough for this and end up to have a 1 Population capital city forever. But it is a quick Pantheon, so it is not totally bad. I can say the same thing about Dead Sea, Lake Retba (or even Sahara el Beyda, Gobustan...); but you do not start the game next to it as frequently as Crater Lake (probably because they do not give fresh water anymore).

 

[iammaxhailme]

For turn 1 settles, I think the best are anything that can put faith/science/culture on a tile that still provides food. So something like Pantanal, Galapagos, Barrier Reef, Roraima, etc. Overall, the best is probably Roraima, which is probably a common opinion... it's often in jungle, so a jungle tile in the "corner" of Roraima is, iirc... 2 food, 1 production, 3 faith, 3 science? That's absolutely insane to have right away. Plus, even more if it's a hill or has sheep or something.

Bad turn 1 natural wonders are, conversely, stuff that will need you to work 0 food tiles, like crater lake, dover, retba, etc. I also dislike no-yield natural wonders like Giant's Causeway and Lysefjord. I think Crater Lake could get a pass, as you can just work it for like 5 turns to get a pantheon super quickly, and then leave it alone until later.

 

[Hans Castorp]

Zhangye Danxia. GP points rather than yields, but ridiculously early GM and GG dominance, and it's very pretty. Most fun I ever had was spawning next to them with Kongo. Happy days...

 

[Tech Osen]

Favourite - Uluru, Delicate Arch, Crater Lake - anything that helps get that first pantheon

Lest - Cliffs of Dover - literally the worst Natural Wonder in the game, I would actually prefer the tiles if it was not there

Tiles should be improvable or something.

 

[bite]

Tiles should be improvable or something.

If the tiles were at least on the ocean side, that would be a drastic improvement

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I prefer the wonders that are visually awesome/recognizable, giving your empire and your cities really a unique touch. Mount Roraima, Pamakkule, Zanghye Danxia, Mato Tipila, Eye of the Sahara... For me, civ is most a builder game, and I try to make the prettiest empire possible. I often don't do great World Wonders just because they won't fit in the general aesthetic of my empire or they are completely unroleplay. So, yeah, I'm the kind of person choosing his wonders based on visual appeal

 

[Spaceturtle]

Wait, you can start near natural wonders?? I thought that was only for AI civs and city states

But seriously, in hundreds and hundreds of hours of civ 5 and 6 it barely has happened to me (within reach of my first/second city I mean), so its hard to have a favourite. I'm just glad to have any wonder near me, doesn't matter which one.

Once I had delicate arch nearby with Mali. It wasn't super close to my first city, but I had the whole desert to myself anyway. It was nice.

 

[ezzlar]

I hate the promotion-giving wonders since I have to micromanage all my units and keeping tab on which ones have the promotion and do that logistics shuffle.

Mod idea: "Having X within your city borders makes all your units start with Alpine promotion".

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

It hasn't happened to me often enough to have a favourite but I'm playing a fun game as Canada at the moment and have Mato Tipila next to my second city. An excellent early boost and now the proud centerpiece of Montreal National Park.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Maybe this is a different approach to answering the question, but in terms of something right next to my capital I like having something that generates faith if only to guarantee my choice of pantheon. I wouldn't call Crater Lake a great natural wonder or anything but it's essentially a free settler and it only takes up one tile.

Sadly the settler from Pantheon is not actually "free", compared to, say, Worker's from an Ancestral Hall. The supposedly "free" settlers increases future settler cost, which is kind of a big deal in the early game. The absolute best scenario is manually build a settler, then get the pantheon one or two turns after. But that rarely happens to me, getting the Pantheon is usually a 3-6 turns increase in producing my next settler.

I still take that Pantheon in more than 50% of my games, because early expansion is so strong!