Wonder priority

[AutomatedTeller]

Great Wall is quite useful in AW and/or with raging barbs. In AW, you'll be fighting a lot in your own territory. With raging barbs... well, without it, sometimes it's hard to even survive. It looks cool, too.

 

[MarigoldRan]

1. GW is not useless. Try playing Huge Continent maps. With raging barbs. Or just Huge Continent maps. Period. The GW-Raging Barb thingy is quite wonderful.
2. Oracle becomes more and more useful at higher levels. Its peak usefulness, I think, comes at Emperor and Immortal. Less useful on Diety since there's a good chance you won't get it.
3. MoM and Taj depends on map. The larger the map, and hence the more cities, the more useful.

 

[JammerUno]

If you can't handle the settings you've chosen without the GW, but expect the AI to overcome it, you might as well play standard settings on a lower difficulty. What's the fun in huge continents with raging barbs if you build the GW?

 

[ben-jammin]

SoZ is very rarely useful, but the other two do deserve some credit.
Artemis gives 5GPP very early, and provides little benefits on the side including an extra 3 if you got Rep from the mids.
Ankor Wat makes Priests better than Engineer specialists, and gives 3 Priest slots. Its actually a pretty strong wonder, but its not for everyones playstyles.

True. I can't argue wit hany of that, but for me these are wonders that take hammers away from other wonders or critical infrastructure and defense at a very important stage. Angkor Wat comes usually right before the push for universities->oxford. Temple of Artemis comes right around a number of better wonders.

I should have added hanging gardens to that list. I've never, ever built it. Though I could see maybe going for it in the very specific circumstances of being industrious with stone and going for a cultural victory. But even then if i couldnt get it in the same city as the pyramids (pretty unlikely on any higher difficulty) I don't think id bother.

@um the muse yeah i meant national epic. brainfart. Statue of Zeus for me is not worth denying it to the AI. Ideally offensive wars should be quick anyway, and if you have to fight the AI with the statue of zeus you prioritize capturing it. Although it's a great wonder to build if you're going for a culture victory i suppose. At higher difficulties war weariness seems to have no effect on the AI anyway. It might be a lot better on multiplayer.

 

[jwez11007]

Couple observations on ToA. If you have GLH and you're ToA city is coastal it starts to look good from a commerce standpoint, and really isn't that bad otherwise. Throw it in you're nat epic/GLib city (under Pac and/or Philo leader) and you start really boosting the intrinsic GPP generation of your GP farm.

Also Hanging Gardens can be a huge hammer boost if built after heavily rexing. I usually count the hammers gained assuming I whip them all away and compare to the build cost when deciding to build HG. Its like an early form of US in that I can transfer hammers from a hammer intensive city to low hammer cities. Extra health also never hurts.

 

[Um the Muse]

Yup, yup. I don't build the SoZ either. You're only denying it from a single civ, after all--and I don't like offensive wars, anyways. I was just throwing out a reason I've heard from several warmongers. I dunno, maybe they all had ivory.

Hanging Gardens is very good though it's an odd duck, too. Early game it's the extra people that's nice. I recently built it with the Aztecs, and it super-charged my whipping. Later, it's like gaining the EXP trait. I would definitely recommend it if you have the chance.

 

[nfw]

If you can't handle the settings you've chosen without the GW, but expect the AI to overcome it, you might as well play standard settings on a lower difficulty. What's the fun in huge continents with raging barbs if you build the GW?

That's no different than any other set strategy, is it?

 

[iDagon]

Thanks for imput..

Well, back when I was playing on settler/chieftain(when feeling brave), I loved HG.. 1+pop to all cities seemed amazing! Now, i don't know what was I thinking.. (I did tend to build 57362 wonders per game so it's undestandable). Maybe it's worth it if you play as monty and it boosts your whips a bit but I am not convinced..

I also know for a fact that I NEVER built SoZ.. I never even saw the cinematic for it. So no love there.. It seems the most useless building in the game (not just wonder, BUILDING). i would prefer a Jail..

Well, I can't say witch are the best, but from my experience, the wonders that influenced my gameplay when i got them (or not) the most are the mids, sistine and 3gorgesD.. I think those are the most usefull..

PS. @Marigold: Yeah, you can really screw with the AI with raging barbs and GW, but I usually aim for Apostolic Palace wins when I want to be cheap.. It's tons of fun..

 

[coanda]

SoZ has got to be the single worst idea for a wonder in the game.

If your wars are as short as they ought to be, WW really isn't going to have an impact even on your enemy's economy. For it to have a big enough, prolonged enough impact on your enemy's econ. that it starts actually helping you (by significantly decreasing how many military units they can field or what military techs they get) your war has to drag out to hilariously epic duration.

I might build SoZ if it gave a +1000% boost to WW instead of +100% and I had Ivory. Then again, I might not.

(As a side note... I'm actually a big fan of Jails - they're a very strong building. Admittedly generally you either want to build a whole bunch of them or almost none of them, depending on whether you're messing with the espionage slider)

 

[Ataxerxes]

I don't care for 3 Gorges. It comes soo late. If it was available even at the time of coal plants it would be crazy good. Pyramids is often welcome for representation. Sistine is a nice wonder, but it's especially valuable for denial. It speeds up an AI's cultural victory a lot (and AI seems to like that victory).

Jails are cheap and nice. I also never consider SoZ even with Ivory. It always seems like something (anything?) is more important.

 

[ben-jammin]

SoZ has got to be the single worst idea for a wonder in the game.

If your wars are as short as they ought to be, WW really isn't going to have an impact even on your enemy's economy. For it to have a big enough, prolonged enough impact on your enemy's econ. that it starts actually helping you (by significantly decreasing how many military units they can field or what military techs they get) your war has to drag out to hilariously epic duration.

I might build SoZ if it gave a +1000% boost to WW instead of +100% and I had Ivory. Then again, I might not.

(As a side note... I'm actually a big fan of Jails - they're a very strong building. Admittedly generally you either want to build a whole bunch of them or almost none of them, depending on whether you're messing with the espionage slider)

To be fair, even those perfectly planned wars sometimes drag out. The real problem is that at the difficulty levels where that actually happens, the AI feels so little effect from war weariness that the wonder is just a joke.

It seems like something they might have included with multiplayer in mind.

 

[Sian]

when i use SoZ it is a glorified culture pressure

 

[yanner39]

for non-spiritual leader you typically around 300 AD launch your first GA with GP (ideally from music ;-)) in which you get 3 GS from 3 cities.

Then you bulb yourself through philo (ok this one you should have bulbed before since otherwise you can't get those 3 GS's more like 2 only - the pac bonus is big big), paper, education. At then end of this first GA you switch to slavery and whip unis and OU.

Actually, in my last game, I had the GLib, Parthenon and Nat Epic in my Capital and generated 3 Gr Scientist.

In my current game, I have all 3 wonders again (marble is pretty sweet) and I'm trying to incorp Pac in there.

then you selftech nat, gunpowder, lib, take lib->Mt, build TM and in the GA you whip your cuir army then you go and own the world.

Actually, building the TM would have sped things up for me last game. Thanks for the tip.

 

[MarigoldRan]

That's no different than any other set strategy, is it?

Exactly.

My entire playstyle pretty much consists of screwing the AI. I'd argue that most Diety-level players are the same.

 

[vranasm]

Exactly.

My entire playstyle pretty much consists of screwing the AI. I'd argue that most Diety-level players are the same.

you are maybe diety level player, but you will never be deity level player until you learn to spell it properly!

 

[MarigoldRan]

Deity-Shmeity. I thought it was "I" before "E" except after "C." When the hell did they revise that rule?

P.S. Never Quecha rush a capital on a hill....

 

[Riflin'Joe]

No hate yet for Chicken Pizza?

The wonders I never build even when spamming with an ind leader are SOZ and Notre Dame. The latter's effect is too meh to bother with for a tech the AI adores so much.

 

[iDagon]

Chicken pizza never seemed so bad.. Not good, but not worthless anyway.. And Notre Dame is smth I would like if it was in the Aestetics - Drama line.. More culture! But on Construction? Yeah.. Hard to justify going for it..

Also.. Smth not really related.. What's with "space elevator"? Is there any way to check latitude on the map to see if you can actually build it? (if you wanted to, anyway). Does toroidal/cilindrical make a difference?

 

[yatta77]

Also.. Smth not really related.. What's with "space elevator"? Is there any way to check latitude on the map to see if you can actually build it? (if you wanted to, anyway). Does toroidal/cilindrical make a difference?

n = Total vertical tiles (North Pole to South Pole)
x = n /3
As a rough calculation, every city positioned in a vertical tile between x+1 and n-x (both included) should be ok. But I've been reading they are exceptions when continents are long vertically and you can build it even more north or south, don't ask why, I don't know.

I personally don't build it, since for a Space race Victory I kind of beeline Computers, build Internet, then beeline Fusion: so in my games Robotics comes later, from Internet (if the AIs are advanced enough).

By the way, I've been lurking a bit on this thread, I'll probably write myself a bit about my silly thought on Wonders in general, as soon as I get time.

Greetings,
yatta.

 

[iDagon]

@yatta Yeah.. Space elevator seem out of your way when going for space but just the same I wanted to understand the dynamic behind it..

Still, call me a geography noob, but wasn't "latitude" going from E to W? So elevator should be built at the horizontal edges of the map, and not vertical? I could very well be wrong..