When is petra worth it?
- Thread starter Artifex1
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stormtrooper412
Peacemongering Turtlesaur
Q: When is Petra worth it?
A: Always!
A: Always!
Gort
Emperor
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- Nov 7, 2010
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Well, +1 trade route for the rest of the game is well worth blowing a Great Engineer on. The real question regarding Petra is, "How many sacrifices am I willing to make in the early game in order to have a chance of getting Petra before an AI does?", and the answer to that question depends on a ton of things, including how willing you are to restart the game if someone beats you to it.
LeeS
Imperator
Assuming none of these are also Flood Plains, you will get up to an additional 4 hammers and 4 food per turn from building petra, in addition to the extra culture, the gold (or hammers or food) from the extra trade route, and the super extra culture after you discover Archaeology. So, is that worth the Great Engineer to you?I got 4 desert tiles in my capital city and a great engineer.
I say up to 4 additional hammers and food because if your city is not working any of these tiles, then there's no benefit from the surrounding desert terrain tiles related to constructing Petra. If the city does not work any of these desert tiles for quite some time, was the expenditure of the Great Engineer worth it to you? Only you can answer, but you do need to make that part of your decision as to whether to pull the trigger on Petra.
Petra also gives you 1 Great Engineer point per turn in the city, so at least theoretically you will 'get back' that Great Engineer, but there is no guarantee this will be the case in practical terms. Without other modifications to great people generation, 1 GPP equates to 200 turns on standard speed will be required to 'earn back' that great engineer if you have no other wonders or buildings adding more great engineer points in the city.
I like Petra, myself, but I only really try to go for it (or rush it with a Great Engineer) if I have a city (capital or otherwise) that has substantially more qualifying desert tiles than the four you mention. Otherwise, I skip it for something else, Wonders-Wise. I'll save the Great Engineer, myself, for something more juicy, like Sistine Chapel, if I don't have enough desert tiles around one of my cities to make it worthwhile by the way I calculate "worthwhile".
However: (a) everyone's definition of "situationally worthwhile" is going to be different, and (b) my views on these things are often not very much an overlap to the usual forum conventional wisdom.
If you are playing G&K, you don't get a trade-route or Caravan unit, you get a free Amphitheater Building and an additional Gold on every qualifying desert tile. I'm not convinced the extra 3 Culture you got from having the free Amphitheater Building wasn't better in the long-term than the extra Caravan you get in BNW.
Acken
Deity
Depends what desert tiles these are. If they are hills then yes it's worth it. If it's flat desert and you have enough to work elsewhere then no there are better wonders to use an engineer on.
Illianor123
Warlord
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- Aug 26, 2014
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As above. Flat desert becomes plains and so isn't that worth it. Hills, or lux tiles are great.
The question isn't just "is Petra worth it" -- the opportunity cost should be factored into your decision as well. In a vacuum, Petra would definitely be worth it, but popping an engineer on it means one less juicy Renaissance wonder, which are usually hotly contested and arguably better. With only 4 desert tiles, I'd rather rush the Leaning Tower, but maybe that's just me.
Count the number of hills you have, that will directly benefit you. Usually anything more than 4 desert hills is good enough by my standards, if you consider HG has 6 food. plus the trade route and culture is better than a garden imo.
reddishrecue
Deity
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- Nov 16, 2009
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Petra is worth it all the time. Who wouldn't want an extra trade route? Unless you're so busy that you don't have time to build more trade routes.
When is Petra worth it to build? First and primary example that springs to my mind is when you're playing as Babylon and you start near a bunch of desert hills, especially if there are oases nearby!
I give you exhibit A:
Moderator Action: Wide image wraped in spoiler tags.
*This screenshot was from a G&K game, in case you're wondering why the display looks different. But look all all those Academies! That's when you absolutely, definitely want Petra because it will make those ALWAYS WORKED Academy tiles worth even more! The city can be a powerhouse of not only Science but also Production! When not building wonders or infrastructure you can spit out powerful units every couple of turns. Petra is this situation = awesomesauce!
**image hosted in imgur because for some reason it seems like the option to upload images into an album here is gone.
I give you exhibit A:
Spoiler :
Moderator Action: Wide image wraped in spoiler tags.
*This screenshot was from a G&K game, in case you're wondering why the display looks different. But look all all those Academies! That's when you absolutely, definitely want Petra because it will make those ALWAYS WORKED Academy tiles worth even more! The city can be a powerhouse of not only Science but also Production! When not building wonders or infrastructure you can spit out powerful units every couple of turns. Petra is this situation = awesomesauce!
**image hosted in imgur because for some reason it seems like the option to upload images into an album here is gone.
Here is another great Petra city from a recent HOF Gauntlet game I played.
In principle, you want a lot of desert hills. Having sheep on the desert hills is a bonus. Oasis tiles become better with Petra as well.
As has been mentioned earlier, even without maximizing the potential Petra can be a valuable wonder simply because it provides an extra trade route. This is bonus food or production for one of your cities for the rest of the game if you are using internal trade routes (and why wouldn't you be?).
Spoiler :
In principle, you want a lot of desert hills. Having sheep on the desert hills is a bonus. Oasis tiles become better with Petra as well.
As has been mentioned earlier, even without maximizing the potential Petra can be a valuable wonder simply because it provides an extra trade route. This is bonus food or production for one of your cities for the rest of the game if you are using internal trade routes (and why wouldn't you be?).
Aside from Liberty finisher, what are folks doing to reliably get a GE on deck in time for Petra? Or are people mostly trying to hard build Petra?
LeeS
Imperator
Plus I'm assuming you beelined to get Desert Folklore. Gotta love all those freshwater hill tiles you got thereHere is another great Petra city from a recent HOF Gauntlet game I played.
Spoiler :
In principle, you want a lot of desert hills. Having sheep on the desert hills is a bonus. Oasis tiles become better with Petra as well.
As has been mentioned earlier, even without maximizing the potential Petra can be a valuable wonder simply because it provides an extra trade route. This is bonus food or production for one of your cities for the rest of the game if you are using internal trade routes (and why wouldn't you be?).
If you play at low difficulties that's easy just build a handful of the Ancient Wonders that grant Engineer points. At King you can build StoneHenge, Temple of Artemis, Pyramids and that will get you a Great Engineer real fast.
But assuming Diety
I've had pretty decent success on Venice when I get desert starts. With Venice you don't build settlers so that a lot of extra turns of population growth and earlier infrastructure which tends to snowball your capital earlier. I.e. you can build granaries earlier.... Theoretically you should have more production than Egypt which has had to build settlers and is behind on growth...
If you tech straight to Currency it is possible to Hardbuild it right after Hanging Gardens.
For other civs possibly Babylon as the free Academy gives you a great Science bonus
This was the case in my game (pictured above). With Babylon, at least up to King difficulty (maybe higher) you can have Petra completed before the other civs even have the tech to start it. So no need to burn a GE on it.
Back to the OP, "When is Petra worth it?" For deity and to a lesser degree immortal, it's kind of a trick question because the answer is, "when none of the other civs have a capital on or adjacent to a desert tile" but there's really no way for you to have that information at that point in the game.
Also don't forget to factor into your equations that after architecture (archeology?) Petra adds six culture per turn to it's initial 1CPT for a total of 7 CPT which is also subject to multipliers. At higher difficulty levels when you can't have many (any) wonders, this can be a pretty large chunk of your entire culture.
Also don't forget to factor into your equations that after architecture (archeology?) Petra adds six culture per turn to it's initial 1CPT for a total of 7 CPT which is also subject to multipliers. At higher difficulty levels when you can't have many (any) wonders, this can be a pretty large chunk of your entire culture.
For the current Egypt DCL #34, I have been able to hardbuild Petra with my two non-Liberty plays. So I find that encouraging. On that map, Hanging Gardens went fast (when I went Tradition) and Desert Folklore went fast (when I went Piety). But Petra! Game is so slow until then though!
I would love to have Petra with Morocco, so I am grateful for this thread making me think that might be feasible.
Sometimes, it's worth taking the Petra for the sake of denying it from other civs. For instance:
This was actually a pretty good Petra spot. The problem was that I was Iroquois, and the lack of forest tiles meant that my production was way worse than if I were a different civ. Still, I went out of my way to secure this spot and the wonder before Arabia (who was just southwest of this city) or Morocco built it. How much more trouble would I have gotten if they took it first?
It's still a pretty damn good wonder, though, provided you have a really good location for it. Even though I was the Iroquois, I managed to snowball out of control the moment I built it. My Petra city was actually much bigger than my capital in population, production and science (my capital was my major source of gold income, culture and tourism output instead).
Spoiler :
This was actually a pretty good Petra spot. The problem was that I was Iroquois, and the lack of forest tiles meant that my production was way worse than if I were a different civ. Still, I went out of my way to secure this spot and the wonder before Arabia (who was just southwest of this city) or Morocco built it. How much more trouble would I have gotten if they took it first?
It's still a pretty damn good wonder, though, provided you have a really good location for it. Even though I was the Iroquois, I managed to snowball out of control the moment I built it. My Petra city was actually much bigger than my capital in population, production and science (my capital was my major source of gold income, culture and tourism output instead).
Petra is always worth building. The EXTRA trade route is well worth the effort. Although it is not always worth rushing Petra.
If you have 3 - 4 desert hills then it is worth rushing petra IMO, most likely picking up HG on the way because a good Petra rush will involve rounding HG before others.
If it's just flat desert I would make no concerted effort to obtain Petra but definitely make the wonder if it's still available when you have currency. An extra trade route really is quite strong in and of itself.
If you have 3 - 4 desert hills then it is worth rushing petra IMO, most likely picking up HG on the way because a good Petra rush will involve rounding HG before others.
If it's just flat desert I would make no concerted effort to obtain Petra but definitely make the wonder if it's still available when you have currency. An extra trade route really is quite strong in and of itself.
