wonder building

[Jamesmor]

when do you start building wonders? right away? or do you wait till you get 5-10 cities then start?

 

[Maple]

I start when there is either a chance where I know I can build it or if I absolutely need it.

 

[Crow T Robot]

Depends on the Wonder and which Civ I play as. Generally I like to grab the Pyramids right away though and start building it assoon as the third Settler is spawned

 

[Bamspeedy]

There are alot of players who don't bother building any of the ancient era wonders. It depends on what difficulty level you are playing and how good of a starting position you get. Getting the Pyramids is great, but on the higher levels, either A. You won't get it anyways, or B. It takes too much of your production/expansion to get it, that you end up further behind even if you did get it.

On the higher levels, in order to get the Pyramids you need your 2nd or 3rd city to start building it right away. While that city is spending 30-50 turns building it, it is not producing more settlers/military units, etc. So it cuts your expansion by 33-50%. By the time the Pyramids is complete you may have 10 cities, where you could have had 15 without trying to build the pyramids. Sure, after you complete the pyramids you will start to catch up, but by that time, some (or all) of the good city spots are already claimed. So it would depend on difficulty level and whether or not you are competing with other civs for territory. If on an island/continent all to yourself go ahead and build it.

Give Masonry to your neighbor (if on the same landmass), so while they build the Pyramids you are building up a military to take it from them!

I usually start building wonders starting with Sun-Tzu's and get all the wonders after that on Regent and Monarch level. Emperor or Deity, you will most likely have to wait alot longer than that to start building wonders. Chieftain or warlord, you can get almost every wonder, if not all of them, depending on how skillful you are.

 

[papamaverick]

Man...

I'm playing Diety right now and the AI builds wonders like crazy. They built Oracle faster than I could've if I started with it's prereq and began building it the first turn in a city with no unhappiness. Bottom line is they get 40% discount on shields--which is a LOT in the beginning of the game (close to 25 turns).

I'm hoping to do well enough with my core cities to get JS Bach and/or Mike's Chapel, other than that you can live with nothing else. Actually, the largest disappointment for me is the HUGE culture deficit...makes it hard to keep up in that regard, and then the AI civs start trying to bully you...

Oh well. If anyone has a good strategy for securing Great Library on Diety without screwing the rest of your cities, lemme know.

By the way, this is only my 2nd game on Civ 3...but I was an avid Civ 2 player (max score was Diety 450% or something) and not too much has changed...well not enough to make Regent difficult.

My plan at this point is to hang tight until Industrial times as warfare prior to that is small, local, and drawn-out. Once rails come along, then bingo my mood changes. I become particularly ruthless, timing my attacks for the turn after ROP expires and taking an entire civ in one turn. Works great for staying in democracy.

Dave

 

[Archullus]

In case you haven't come across this exploit...

I So you want to build a wonder quickly

1) Start by part building a palace.
2) Research the technology that allows the wonder.
3) Switch production to the wonder.

Even if you are the last to discover a new technology, your part built palace gives you an advantage.


II So you want beef up production.

You want THAT wonder...
and you have workers streaming out of your ears:

1) Clear forests and jungles around the city.
2) This gives a bonus of 10 shields per map tile.
3) Each map tile will give this bonus once only.


III So you want to ramp up production to the max.

Plant forests on plains and grassland tiles in the city radius.
Then clear the forests you have planted.
With optimum terrain, you can get a total bonus of up to 200 shields.
This comes from 10 shields per map tile x 20 map tiles per city radius.
Base times for these actions are:
10 turns clear forest
16 turns clear jungle
18 turns plant forest
So planning ahead is important.


IV And you want to cause the other civs some pain.

When a wonder is built other civs who have been building it either:
Switch to a less favourable wonder; or
Get abortive production cost.

This is tough on them, so to maximise their pain:

1) Plan which city will take the next wonder.
2) Consider the potential shield bonus from clear forest.
3) Scrutinise when other civs start their wonders.
4) You have to start building when they do.
5) Ramp up production by clearing those forests.
6) Synchronise the palace build in that city with your research.

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by Archullus
In case you haven't come across this exploit...

I So you want to build a wonder quickly

1) Start by part building a palace.
2) Research the technology that allows the wonder.
3) Switch production to the wonder.

Even if you are the last to discover a new technology, your part built palace gives you an advantage.

That works. The rest doesn't. Sorry

II So you want beef up production.

You want THAT wonder...
and you have workers streaming out of your ears:

1) Clear forests and jungles around the city.
2) This gives a bonus of 10 shields per map tile.
3) Each map tile will give this bonus once only.


III So you want to ramp up production to the max.

Plant forests on plains and grassland tiles in the city radius.
Then clear the forests you have planted.
With optimum terrain, you can get a total bonus of up to 200 shields.
This comes from 10 shields per map tile x 20 map tiles per city radius.
Base times for these actions are:
10 turns clear forest
16 turns clear jungle
18 turns plant forest
So planning ahead is important.


IV And you want to cause the other civs some pain.

When a wonder is built other civs who have been building it either:
Switch to a less favourable wonder; or
Get abortive production cost.

This is tough on them, so to maximise their pain:

1) Plan which city will take the next wonder.
2) Consider the potential shield bonus from clear forest.
3) Scrutinise when other civs start their wonders.
4) You have to start building when they do.
5) Ramp up production by clearing those forests.
6) Synchronise the palace build in that city with your research.

1. You cannot rush a wonder - except with a Great Leader. Not forest clearing, or unit disbanding, or anything else. The ONLY way is to prebuild.

2. AFAIK, the plant-then-reap approach to forest building doesn't work now either. You get 10 shields for the starting forests, but nothing else.

3. All you get for clearing jungle is a cleared jungle - no shields, ever.

 

[Archullus]

Hi Madscot

On 1, My point is that pre-build needs to be planned.
Build and (and pre-build) can be accelerated. You say it can't, fine.
I use palaces to store production and to cause other civs abortive production effort. It is no coincidence that palaces have the longest production well. When I have a number of available wonders, I use them in the same way; as production wells.
I use forest clear to accelerate production levels. (With the exception of jungles )
So what do you want, caravans and freight?

On 2, I recommend you try before you reply.
It is not obvious; there is no flag saying "land tile not yet used for the 10 shields bonus".
Planting forests works on versions 1.21f and on 1.29f, unless you are using a special mod of some sort.
Each plains and grassland map tile will give this bonus once only... or should I have said something else?

On 3, There is no shields bonus for clearing Jungle.
Thanks for the correction mate, my mistake.

 

[Bamspeedy]

MadScot is correct. You can only clear a forest once and get the 10 shield bonus. You can continue to plant and clear forests, but you will only get 10 shields from that square once (unless you are playing with the original game straight out of the box, v1.07f).

Clearing forests does not add shields towards wonders. In fact if you are building anything that has some of it's production from the clearing of forests you cannot change to a wonder, as it won't even be an option to build in that city.

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by Archullus
Hi Madscot

On 1, My point is that pre-build needs to be planned.
Build and (and pre-build) can be accelerated. You say it can't, fine.
I use palaces to store production and to cause other civs abortive production effort. It is no coincidence that palaces have the longest production well. When I have a number of available wonders, I use them in the same way; as production wells.
I use forest clear to accelerate production levels. (With the exception of jungles )
So what do you want, caravans and freight?

I agreed with you about prebuilding, using palace (or small wonders) to store prebuilt shields. In fact I'm doing it right now in GOTM9 Hope it works....

On 2, I recommend you try before you reply.
It is not obvious; there is no flag saying "land tile not yet used for the 10 shields bonus".
Planting forests works on versions 1.21f and on 1.29f, unless you are using a special mod of some sort.
Each plains and grassland map tile will give this bonus once only... or should I have said something else?

Unfortunately, this was something I wasted quite a few workers on once. I had a couple of cities in some 'strategic tundra' - there was some oil up there - so I decided that 1 shield/turn was useless and set a bunch of workers to planting and clearing forests. Other than providing employment for the university students of my empire it didn't achieve anything.

And forests are pretty useless as improvements otherwise - most tiles are better with rail+mine for shields. Of course, they make a nice border (slows down those pesky cavalry raids) and it looks better than a pile of tundra/mines IMHO. I believe it has even been suggested as an offensive tactic - send eco-guerilla workers into ROP territory to plant forests on top of mines/irrigation etc, just to annoy the AI.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I believe it has even been suggested as an offensive tactic - send eco-guerilla workers into ROP territory to plant forests on top of mines/irrigation etc, just to annoy the AI.

You used to be able to do that in the original version. Plant forests to starve the AI to pop 1! But they fixed that in a patch.... you can still mine and irrigate the AI's terrain, though .

 

[Archullus]

Yes

Sorry guys, that is correct you can only put the extra shields into non palace and non wonder production.
Of course after 1 game turn you can switch production back to palace.
I know this limits the use for mid to end game situations really.
I guess this will be patched next?

 

[phishphanatic]

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
Give Masonry to your neighbor (if on the same landmass), so while they build the Pyramids you are building up a military to take it from them!

In my current game, I have just realised what a waste "stealing" wonders can be. I was in the process of destroying Russia, with the Greeks helping me. The Greeks were approaching some of the cities the Russians built Wonders in, so I used half power Elite calvary to make sure I got those cities, not the Greeks. I realised a couple turns later that I don't receive any culture points for captured wonders. Man that sucks. I was hoping to get a cultural win one of these games, but now that seems unreasonable. How does anybody do it??

 

[MadScot]

Originally posted by phishphanatic
In my current game, I have just realised what a waste "stealing" wonders can be. I was in the process of destroying Russia, with the Greeks helping me. The Greeks were approaching some of the cities the Russians built Wonders in, so I used half power Elite calvary to make sure I got those cities, not the Greeks. I realised a couple turns later that I don't receive any culture points for captured wonders. Man that sucks. I was hoping to get a cultural win one of these games, but now that seems unreasonable. How does anybody do it??

Well, you'd don't get the culture for a wonder - it's not unreasonable, really - the Taj Mahal hardly enhanced British culture during the Indian empire period -.

What you get is the 'benefit' of the wonder - graneries for the Pyramids, etc. That's the main reason to take a wonder.

Plus you deny your enemy the culture accumulated in the captured city, plus the chance to get more. Since the easier route to cultural victory is the 'civ' version rather than the 'single city' and THAT requires a cultural ratio, anything that knocks the other civs down helps.

But the only way to earn culture is to build it yourself.