It does not mean that it could be in this top list....
I can tell you such tile,
Mm... actually i wont, try to play Inca or Iroquois, you will see them
Petra is not bad but its far from deserving to be in this list... I didnt rolled it in my many games and travelling 10 tiles to find crappy 2 hill desert? no , thank you
My proviso was "unimproved" tile - a terrace farm is an improvement (and you can always stick it on a Petra-improved hill). I should also have specified base production - i.e. before tech bonuses to different terrain, resource and improvement types. An Iroquois forest with longhouse in the city has basic production 1 food, 2 hammers, and 1 gold only if on a river. A Petra hill is equivalent to longhouse + lumbermill + river - and can be improved. it may also have sheep, or prove to have iron, coal etc.
Again, if you're using Petra in any sites with flat desert you're using it wrong; 2 hills are about worthwhile, but only if you have other desert resources or adjacent non-desert/floodplain land to work. You don't settle desert sites you wouldn't settle anyway just to get Petra - apart from anything else you'll be screwed on the rare occasions the AI beats you to it. You use it to improve sites you already want to work. You wouldn't ordinarily say no to a site with multiple hills, possibly with sheep, an oasis or two, incense and maybe a river with floodplains or some wheat. Petra just makes that city you were going to settle anyway into a great city.
Too many people are getting hung up on the word "desert" and thinking of the flat stuff without production, which is never good to settle if there's an alternative, Petra or no Petra, and which by itself is less common than desert terrain per se. Nor is there any reason to object to a Wonder on the basis that you sometimes prefer to build it in a city that isn't your capital.
Again, seems you under impression of this wonder, still, but its far from being best wonder
No, not really. It's hard to see obvious candidates in the ones that have been excluded that should be in its place, and of the remaining ones ... Chichen Itza? How on Earth has a Wonder whose main function is to give you a bit of extra gold for five turns at a stretch (in my experience the culture boost during GAs tends to be mediocre) even been in the running alongside the generally superior gold bonus of Macchu Picchu, let alone Petra or Hanging Gardens? Notre Dame? Sure, 10 happiness is good, but this is a fairly mediocre way to achieve it. Petra is reliable, can usually be built by the player at least as high as Immortal, comes early and provides a continuous bonus, and said bonus is strong (especially in production cities) and supports any strategy equally.
That really does just leave it with the remainder of what I'd consider the game's best Wonders - Hanging Gardens (really no downside), Macchu Picchu (strong but situational - finding a mountain is easy, finding a mountain where you want a city less so - and only especially effective in wide empires), The Oracle (though some comments here have had me reevaluating and somewhat downranking this one) and Leaning Tower of Pisa (which depending on how you look at it is either the game's most expensive way of generating a single GP of your choice or an expensive - albeit cumulative - National Epic that's of limited value unless you go heavy GP production in multiple cities). So, no, it's not very far from being the game's best Wonder.
And above all it has the advantage over the other remaining Wonders that it is, indeed, Petra. For me at least, "best Wonder" really has to include the consideration "is this thing deserving of being a World Wonder"?
Pisa was the subject of an objection right at the start of the thread that it doesn't deserve Wonder status.
I can say from personal experience that, while Chichen Itza's Temple of Kukulcan is iconic, it isn't the most impressive Maya structure, and it certainly doesn't compare with Petra. I don't even have strong memories of Notre Dame.
I've never visited Macchu Picchu, but have been assured by the friend who accompanied me to Petra that it can't compare - which doesn't surprise me in the least. The Pyramids undoubtedly deserve to be a Wonder, and they can't compare with Petra.
The Oracle was the one classical Wonder not obviously selected on grounds of architectural or aesthetic merit. While the Hanging Gardens may never have existed in the first place.
1. Pisa
2. Itza
3. HG
4. Machu
5. Oracle
6. Petra
7. ND
Hmm, mine would be very different:
1. Hanging Gardens
2. Petra
3. Macchu Picchu
4. Leaning Tower of Pisa
5. The Oracle (I'll admit, this has gone down somewhat in my estimation)
6. Notre Dame
7. Chichen Itza - the only one here I very rarely build (unless I'm Maya, and then only to build it in Chichen Itza), and from recollection of trying it with Darius post-G&K the bonus is always 5 turns now. The Persian 50% and the Itza 50% both affect the base 10 turn value, so you don't get 2.5 turns more Golden Age from the combination.
I will very nearly always build the others when I have the opportunity, save Notre Dame (somewhat optional) and Hanging Gardens (lack of opportunity - this is an AI priority, and for good reason).
Of all of these, Machu Picchu seems the most situational to me. I hardly ever get mountains (unless I'm Inca) and I'm more likely to get a Petra city. Sorry, but it's time to go.
While it's been my experience as well that I'm more likely to be in a position to build Petra than Macchu Picchu, in one respect MP has the less onerous requirement: as long as you have the mountain, it's irrelevant what other tiles you have. To really maximise Petra you need decent surroundings, not just a single tile.
The idea of Wonders being "situational" is overblown as a limitation, and also being misdefined on the assumption that only terrain makes a Wonder situational.
Only The Oracle (as you note) and the Hanging Gardens, and to a lesser extent Notre Dame, are genuinely both buildable and similarly valuable in any situation. Pisa is of no use if you don't play a strategy that uses specialists to any degree, and large amounts of hammers for one free GP is just not generally a good deal. Lots of people favouring Chichen Itza report having numerous Golden Ages - players who don't focus on GAs (either sense of the abbreviation) or maximising happiness get little benefit from it, and you have to actively plan around GAs to use it most effectively.
Is it a limitation that a Wonder is situational? Of course. Does it automatically make a Wonder inferior to non-situational Wonders? Of course not - it depends on (a) how common the situation that triggers/maximises its utility is, (b) the importance of the Wonder's benefit, and (c) is that situation one that your strategy favours? For instance, most strategies favour GP generation to some degree and so Pisa is a situational Wonder that is useful in many game-relevant situations. Chichen Itza is a situational Wonder that is considerably less so, since Golden Ages are rarely prioritised (the mindset that happiness is most useful for preventing unhappiness rather than for triggering GAs still persists). In that context Petra particularly is not a very situational Wonder - on the one hand, it's true that you might not find suitable terrain. But on the other, Petra works equally with pretty much every strategy you care to name, so its effect is much less situational than Pisa's or Chichen Itza's. On top of which it scores highly on the 'strength of its benefit' criterion.
). You don't even have to be next to the Mountain for Machu Picchu, only within two tiles. It also scales well with a larger empire. Perhaps it has little value in a OCC type game...but then to me that is a very situational downside which could apply to many of the wonders.
