Wonder Elimination Thread

[civnoob13]

Big Ben (-1) -2
Chichen Itza (19)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (16)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (13)
Great Library (20)
Great Wall (6) +1
Hagia Sophia (26)
Hanging Gardens (20)
Oracle (13)
Porcelain Tower (16)

Buh-bye Big Ben. You are too late in the game, 15% is too little, and I rarely rushbuy at that stage anyway.

I'm fighting a losing battle with the great wall, but it is just great on the defence, and for peaceful players who want to win peacefully, the best form of a good defence is ... a good defence.

 

[zyx]

I've never seen anything even close to 1000 unhappiness from population. Are you doing a huge marathon map all the way until 2049 and dominating the whole thing? Heck, even 100 unhappiness from population takes a long time to get to and is really only relevant in domination play. By the time you have that you probably have captured the enemy city that built it anyway.

As far as I know each city has a base unhappiness of 3 (India 6) and 1 unhappiness per additional population ( India 0.5).

You reach 100 unhappiness easily:
10 cities: 10x3(base unhappiness +10x7(size)= 100
6 cities: 6x3(base)+6x14 =102

 

[zyx]

And
maybe someone can tell me how much benefit you gain with the porcelain tower and the better ra's ?

You get +50% with rationalism and +50% with PT. So you can double your RA's tech output.

 

[fmlizard2]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (16)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (13)
Great Library (20)
Great Wall (4)
Hagia Sophia (26)
Hanging Gardens (20)
Oracle (13)
Porcelain Tower (16)

+1 for Chichen Itza, still awesome and with +4 now. Golden ages are the key to a strong economy in the middle part of the game.

-2 for the Great Wall. It goes obsolete, only helps when you are defending (which you shouldn't be doing much of). AI goes hard for it so you can't build it on the cheap late in the era.

 

[NicTeos]

@ zyx, it's the number I posted was 1000,
it's easier on big maps to get it, maritime cities, modern age, and then it's likely 1*40 + 10*30 +20*20 + 30*10 = 61 cities with 1040 unhappiness*

@ zyx, 2nd
k, it's up to 100%, from which base value ? how much more RP can I calc with ? Before, it became awesome at industrial, modern age with ~400 gold for a free tech for some k RP.
However, I still see piety far better than rationalsm...

@ Bec
I aggree Oracle is strong, a free SP for the whole game.
But HG is great, instead of 10 farms, ( 5 river farms with Civil service later ) you can use it for mines, and or other tiles with more hammers. Also at the very begin, there shouldn't be that problem with happiness, normally 2 ressources in your capital, and the first cities should have further luxury goods until the main source for happiness become something else. If you can manage your happiness somehow better, you will have a bigger capital city, which normally also means more production. This (Capital) City will grow really fast in hammer-production -> more wonders, buildings -> more productive -> I win -button . The +10 food is later easy to obtain ( medieval/industrial )(for all cities), but not at the ancient. But it can also happen, that HG don't fit that good.

 

[Becephalus]

@ Bec
I aggree Oracle at begin is a very strong thing, a free SP for the whole game.
But HG is great, instead of 10 farms, ( 5 river farms with Civil service later ) you can use it for mines, and or other tiles with more hammers. Also at the very begin, there shouldn't be that problem with happiness, normally 2 ressources in your capital, and the first cities should have further luxury goods until the main source for happiness become something else. If you can manage your happiness somehow better, you will have a bigger capital city, which normally also means more production. This (Capital) City will grow really fast in hammer-production -> more wonders, buildings -> more productive -> I win -button . The +10 food is later easy to obtain ( medieval/industrial ), but not at the ancient. But it can also happen, that HG don't fit that good.

I may try to play with it more since people are just raving about it in this thread. It just never seems like a good choice, and when I have gotten it I have been underwhelmed. But I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my life

 

[zyx]

@ zyx, it's the number I posted was 1000,
it's easier on big maps to get it, maritime cities, modern age, and then it's likely 1*40 + 10*30 +20*20 + 30*10 = 61 cities with 1040 unhappiness*

@ zyx, 2nd
k, it's up to 100%, from which base value ? how much more RP can I calc with ? Before, it became awesome at industrial, modern age with ~400 gold for a free tech for some k RP.
However, I still see piety far better than rationalsm...

I calculated 100 because 1/10 of 100 is 10, which is what ND does: 10 happiness. I wanted to show that FP is often better than ND - not just on huge maps. 1000 unhappiness is really difficult to get unless you play on huge maps. You forgot 3 base unhappiness per city, so you wouldn't need as many cities. ;-)

The civilopedia says something like this regarding RA's benefit:
You get half of your median tech cost, of all techs that are available to research to you on the turn the RA ends.

As there are several tech cost levels down the tech tree, I'd assume you get half the tech cost of a tech of the level you are allowed to reseach the most techs: so neither the fact that you still have a tech of an earlier era to research, won't drag your benefit nor do you additionally benefit from being able to research a single future era's tech.

If you have rationalism, PT and only as expensive techs to research you get a free tech instead of half or 75% (having either PT or rationalism) a tech.

 

[KaiserKevin]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (16-2) 15
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (13)
Great Library (20)
Great Wall (4)
Hagia Sophia (26+1) 28
Hanging Gardens (20)
Oracle (13)
Porcelain Tower (16)

With its new free person HS counts as 2 wonders in one, not sure anything can beat that.

Statue rarely provides a huge boost to production, even when I have a large empire with huge pop. centers, doesn't provide much of a boost compared to mines or just engineers, maybe I don't use it right. Liked the C.IV version of free specialist, would find that more useful I think.

 

[basta]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (11) -2
Great Library (21) +1
Great Wall (4)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (20)
Oracle (13)
Porcelain Tower (16)

I'm getting fond of a GL opening with just one satellite city and a few archers--works every time I've tried it, basically because after patch everyone is warrior-rushing everyone else and they don't have time to build early wonders

Forbidden Palace? I don't even know what it gives you--obviously I wasn't impressed and maybe built it once, ever.

^Oh and BTW, I adjusted KaiserKevin's vote; he was taking away 1 and giving 2.

 

[Thalassicus]

You get +50% with rationalism and +50% with PT. So you can double your RA's tech output.

The Porcelain Tower is MedianTechPercentChange = 25%. The tooltip says 50% because Firaxis writes each tooltip by hand, instead of automatically scanning directly from the game files as done in the Unofficial Patch.

 

[H.M. Henrik]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (11)
Great Library (21)
Great Wall (2) -2
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (20)
Oracle (14) +1
Porcelain Tower (16)

Great Wall: I'm kind of forced to agree that defensive wonders are necessarily less valuable than the others.

Oracle: I tend to go for cultural victories, and having an early free policy helps greatly.

 

[zyx]

The Porcelain Tower is a 25% bonus to RAs. The tooltip is inaccurate because Firaxis writes each tooltip by hand, instead of automatically scanning directly from the game files as done in the Unofficial Patch.

Depends on how you look at it:

If you look at it from the RA's (100%) side, then PT and rationalism add +50% each -> you double your output, which is half a tech.

If you see it from the tech (100%) side: then PT and rationalism add 25% each to your half median tech value.

Conclusion: either way you get the value of a median tech.

 

[Bezurn]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (11)
Great Library (21)
Great Wall (2)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (14)
Porcelain Tower (14)

(+) Building the HG in your capital is very nice... capturing the HG in another civs capital, not so nice as unless you annex the city happiness will become a problem. You get the happiness by taking Monarchy in the tradition branch after building this wonder.

(-) Porcelain Tower gives 25% more on research agreements. That equals 1-2 free techs per game if you have friendly neighbors who won't DOW you 2 turns before the RA is about to pop. It's good for an overseas map, but we all know the AI doesn't understand the game on more than 1 continent. Furthermore you can simply capture the wonder if you want it usually. Whereas capturing some other wonders gives far less benefit than building it yourself. There are too many good wonders available when this one is around for me to bother building it 90% of the time, even if I'm going for rationalism tree.

 

[civnoob13]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (9) -2
Great Library (21)
Great Wall (2)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (14)
Porcelain Tower (15) +1

Porcelain tower gives you a free tech and, if you do diplomacy well, a good few extra techs. Forbidden palace is only useful for large empires, which I don't have.

 

[NicTeos]

I calculated 100 because 1/10 of 100 is 10, which is what ND does: 10 happiness. I wanted to show that FP is often better than ND - not just on huge maps.

good argument

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (15)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (11)
Forbidden Palace (10)
Great Library (21)
Great Wall (0)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (14)
Porcelain Tower (15)

FP, is great if you have happiness-issues. Imho in many cases the best happiness wonder. Maybe the effect isn't shown and noticed. ND - bang , 10 Happiness, but FP at begin maybe 5-7 and the gain grows with the size and time.

Great Wall : Civ isn't a tower defense. Maybe it can imagine a picture of safety, but the backbone of safety in civ are units.

@Kaiser and SoL
There are rather often cities, where no mines or lumber mills are avaible. but maybe this cities have some specialist slots, so they can get some production.
SoL becomes really awesome, if you have also have the liberty SP for 50% less unhappiness and 50% less food consume for your specialists.

A specialist cost then only 1 food and 0,5 unhappiness* and with SoL +1 production. Unless you still have free specialist slots, you transform 1 food into 1 production. It doesn't matter ( until, max. specialists*) if you have farm or mines. AND a specialist still produce something else, like culture,rp,gold,hammers and give you great person points. Further it makes base rp through population more effective vs. unhappiness. If you have connected the city you also get 1g trade for only 0,5 unhappiness per specialist. The only disadvantage is, that specialists still count in the same way for the needed food for city growth.
--> The total return of a specialists with SoL and Liberty SP is excellent. ( Imho, hardly any have finished mercantilism sp also, then a specialist can into space )

Also togehter with many maritime cities it doesn't matter, at which terrain you build a city. You don't need land for your cities anymore - to have a productive city.

edit : also note, that an unemployed get one hammer. With SoL and Liberty 2 hammers for 1 food. You may only want farms ...

Is SoL without liberty good ... still depends on how much specialists you have.
Is Liberty without SoL good ... hardly that good, se wouldn't be that productive. In a very developed se , SoL brings you 33-50% of all hammers ?
SoL scales with size of empire(specialists) and number of maritime cities to be a must have on huge maps ( together with liberty and maybe also mercantilism* ) ?

 

[Camikaze]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (13)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (12)
Forbidden Palace (10)
Great Library (21)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (14)
Porcelain Tower (15)

I don't like the mountain requirement for Machu Picchu. At all. I'm yet to build it, because my wonder producing cities are never in the right position, or at least have a better production option available at the time. The Sydney Opera House is more useful now, so I'll upvote it. Coming earlier in the tree at Mass Media makes it even more of a viable target for Cultural victories.

 

[NicTeos]

machu picchu req. for a mountain is a weakness and a strength. I normally build a city near a mountain, especially for this wonder. When I begin to build this wonder, this city is quite often rather small and it takes many many turns to build. But normally there is no competetion about this wonder and the wonder becomes better, the later game and the bigger the size.

Maybe you have a look at the trade in the industrial age ? ( number:gold through trade )

But maybe I only favour every wonder with no/hardly immediate effect, but therefor with a huge scaling part...

 

[Tabarnak]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (13)
Notre Dame (19)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (12)
Forbidden Palace (10)
Great Library (21)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (12)
Porcelain Tower (16)

Hmm some wonders are out already. Porcelaine because it's powerful both in sp and mp mode. Oracle is simply less important. Techs over Culture.

 

[zyx]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (16)
Machu Picchu (13)
Notre Dame (17)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (12)
Forbidden Palace (11)
Great Library (21)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (12)
Porcelain Tower (16)

FP reduces 10% unhappiness, wich should be a lot more than +10 happiness given by ND in late game.

 

[DemonMaster]

Chichen Itza (20)
Eiffel Tower (17) +1
Machu Picchu (11) -2
Notre Dame (17)
Sistine Chapel (11)
Statue of Liberty (14)
Sydney Opera House (12)
Forbidden Palace (11)
Great Library (21)
Hagia Sophia (27)
Hanging Gardens (21)
Oracle (12)
Porcelain Tower (16)

ET is (often) very good or even extremely good.
Money can be an issue during parts of the game, but usually not that hard to fix regardless so even if MP can be good if you have a economic crises but again not so hard to fix with other means. ET:s (new enhanced) effects was a shock to me when I saw it the first time.