When to let go of Stonehenge?

[Merovech]

Seriously, the Ethiopian UB is crap even when played with unrestricted leaders. The only time it makes sense is in a Pangaea culture-victory attempt with a non-creative leader, and even then, you're better off with China.

But on the topic of Stonehenge, I find it much more useful in BTS than I did in vanilla Civ 4 because it doesn't expire with Calender. I normally wouldn't delay Calender much, even with it obsoleting Stonehenge, unless you have no calender resources. Stonehenge is awesome in that it saves hammers in new cities, hammers that could be better spent towards granaries, etc, and is actually quite useful in a war to get control over conquered territory. However, I rate it as a waste of hammers if you have a creative leader or are playing as Inca (especially Expansive Inca w/unrestricted leaders)

 

[Pangaea]

It was a good crutch to have with non-creative leaders because it can be a bit of a pain to build monuments in all cities, but it has negatives besides those mentioned so far. It dirties the GP pool as well. Normally you want a GScientist early on, but with Stonehenge you risk getting a much less useful GProphet. Good if you have founded a religion, but other than that mostly only useful for starting Golden Ages.

120 isn't a great deal (pays off with 5 cities), but the real cost is that you're not building other more useful things, like warriors, settlers and workers.

 

[jarhead_leif]

120 isn't a great deal (pays off with 5 cities), but the real cost is that you're not building other more useful things, like warriors, settlers and workers.

I'm getting really confused of what to build. Settlers or Stonehenge?? I'm much of an Expansive type than Industrious.

 

[babar]

Seriously, the Ethiopian UB is crap even when played with unrestricted leaders. The only time it makes sense is in a Pangaea culture-victory attempt with a non-creative leader, and even then, you're better off with China.

A stele will pop borders in eight turns instead of ten, and can be useful in culture wars with AIs. It's not great, but it's not bottom-tier either. And I can't think of any better UB for culture victories. China's comes later and does the same thing, so how is it better?

 

[pepe26]

please listen to all the people that dont build SH at all... its just very unuseful

 

[elitetroops]

A stele will pop borders in eight turns instead of ten, and can be useful in culture wars with AIs. It's not great, but it's not bottom-tier either. And I can't think of any better UB for culture victories. China's comes later and does the same thing, so how is it better?

The stele goes obsolete with Astronomy, the pavilion never expires. Usually if I win a cultural victory, I build most of the culture late game, when it's very likely a stele would be of no use anymore. Unless you get a lot of early wonders, the 25% boost early doesn't amount to much.

 

[The Oz-Man]

On Sulla-style Always Peace culture crush domination games, Zara is one of the better leaders, and the Stele is a big part of that (Creative/Organized is another big part because culture crush games inevitably have a lot of far-flung poorly placed cities). Beyond that? Eh.

I do like building the Henge as De Gaulle or Brennus in particular, and all other Charismatic leaders like it.

 

[babar]

The stele goes obsolete with Astronomy, the pavilion never expires. Usually if I win a cultural victory, I build most of the culture late game, when it's very likely a stele would be of no use anymore. Unless you get a lot of early wonders, the 25% boost early doesn't amount to much.

If you aim for culture early with the idea of winning quickly, you will usually have early wonders and settled artists and will never research astronomy (unless isolated i guess). I find the stele shaves a few turns off (and more than the pavilion). My fastest culture victories are consistently Ethiopia/Gandhi.

 

[pepe26]

what are the victory dates on those culture wins?

 

[babar]

I usually get anywhere from 1650ish to early 1700s (IMM/no tech brokering).

 

[elitetroops]

If you aim for culture early with the idea of winning quickly, you will usually have early wonders and settled artists and will never research astronomy (unless isolated i guess). I find the stele shaves a few turns off (and more than the pavilion). My fastest culture victories are consistently Ethiopia/Gandhi.

Hmm.. You are probably right that when winning a well executed early cultural victory the stele is better. But I guess I'm not capable of those. I get too distracted early on by keeping up a decent defense and not falling behind in the tech race and cannot focus on culture until much later. Perhaps I should try an ethiopian rush for early culture sometime.

 

[Tatran]

With De Gaulle, Industrious AND charismatic traits (plus stone) I would probably try for it.

I guess most players would have done the same thing with this start; satisfying their wonder addiction.
No problems getting the Stonehenge + Great Wall + Pyramids + Temple of Artemis + Oracle.



After a second scout round, I found Shaka nearby.
It was the first time I picked Horseback Riding with the Oracle.
To make a long story short, the game was a disaster, Shaka had copper.

Btw, if the opportunity is there to build/chop the Stonehenge at EMP I'll do so.

 

[Pisskop]

Hmmm on Emperor I can sometime pull off a settler then stonehendge, even without industrious as long as I have stone and starter worker techs, like farm, mine, or fish (food is better, though. Build warrior/boat(warrior)/worker/settler/(chopped)worker/stonehendge)

But I usually don't waste the time, I build up and rush/landgrab. Monuments are easy to do, and I try to chop them (only when I have at least 1 worker per city)

 

[Mylene]

Stonehenge does not fight much with settlers or workers
Cos one you would build while growing, and the other not.
But it's fighting with Warris, and sometimes work boats.

That's where diff. level comes into play mostly..not so much cos AIs build SH quicker, but you most likely need some barb defense and spawn busters on Imm+

And if i have stone, i would much prefer getting tgw instead.
Just not a good wonder, all other early ones can work some miracles for you (huge area, loads of barbs expected...tgw. Oracle, Pyras, GLH..no need to mention those. But a monument everywhere?
I always thought doing that cos of Cha makes even less sense, you already get +1 happy and should be some time until another happy becomes useful. So the timing of early SH does not really work.

 

[Habitus]

Stonehenge does not fight much with settlers or workers
Cos one you would build while growing, and the other not.
But it's fighting with Warris, and sometimes work boats.

That's where diff. level comes into play mostly..not so much cos AIs build SH quicker, but you most likely need some barb defense and spawn busters on Imm+

And if i have stone, i would much prefer getting tgw instead.
Just not a good wonder, all other early ones can work some miracles for you (huge area, loads of barbs expected...tgw. Oracle, Pyras, GLH..no need to mention those. But a monument everywhere?
I always thought doing that cos of Cha makes even less sense, you already get +1 happy and should be some time until another happy becomes useful. So the timing of early SH does not really work.

I agree, to be honest thou if I decide to build it its generally harder on IMM then Deity, the extra city + units can often reduce barbs to a non-issue on low land map script such as Pangaea.

Usually if i build it, I'm playing Louis and culture trolling the AI for fun

 

[FlyinJohnnyL]

I often find that I'll whip a granary and maybe spawn busters, and I will find myself hard pressed for stuff to build anyway. 90% of the time if you place your cities correctly you aren't hurting for a border pop anyway. Maybe 95% of the time actually.

 

[ben-jammin]

In 99% of games, it only makes sense to build Stonehenge if you're playing de Gaulle. His traits make stonehenge a decent build, but even still getting an early GProphet when you wanted a GScientist can slow you down quite a bit.

The real problem is that at immortal and deity, stonehenge usually goes before 2500BC. That means building it essentially puts you behind by an early city, which has a cascading effect. As FlyingJohnny pointed out, learning how to place cities to be productive before a border-pop is a strategic improvement in play. Also at higher levels you can count on AIs to spread religion to you fairly early in I'd say 8/10 games on immortal and 10/10 on deity (unless you're playing isolated, semi isolated).

 

[pepe26]

but even still getting an early GProphet when you wanted a GScientist can slow you down quite a bit.

thats the biggest issue in my eyes as well... polluting one's great person pool in the capital like this, is a problem, that cannot be solved until much later, i.e. until too late.

 

[Mylene]

An early great prophet would be very good imo, i would say SH makes most sense with Phi rather than Cha.

 

[pepe26]

what are you gonna do with the GProphet??