dalamb
Deity
Some updates in response to comments in NC 124: Ramesses. Created a new "useful in long games" section for Oxford and Internet. Added Kremlin to conquest; perhaps it belongs in the "long games" section instead?
Wonder-Spamming Choices based on Game Strategy
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TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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While I agree that MoM is excellent and is widely useful if you can get it, it requires a significant investment to realistically be able to construct it usually (IE AI won't readily trade calendar in time for it to be feasibly built).
While SoZ is a pain to fight against, I would not consider it consistently worth building in a conquest/dom game. Maybe with ivory and border pressure when you're not prepping for war, but IMO definitely not without ivory for pure denial purposes.
Oh I kind of automatically assume the resource doubler is available, or the leader is Industrious otherwise it's hard to justify the hammer cost, like G.L and Mids are fantastic wonders, but building without the resources is simply not feasible or worthwhile.
Absolutely agree on the MoM, without a solid Calendar beeline by yourself it's not really feasible, and that certainly hurts your tech trade since the AI loves to research Calendar, overall it's easier to conquer it most of the time, but I look at most wonders that way aside from the Oracle and Taj, though I'd say the Oracle is just as circumstantial as MoM.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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Without a resource doubler or IND the only wonders I'd really consider most games are Oracle, NE, and HE (and not always).
The only big-expense world wonder I'll build w/o the resource is sistine, while going for
wins. If you get music early and saved forest, you have a great shot at it because music isn't a popular AI tech if the artist is gone.
dalamb
Deity
The intro does mention capturing rather than building for many wonders, and not building without accelerators, though it does so quite briefly. I've added the MoM to Generally Useful.
ben-jammin
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Without a resource doubler or IND the only wonders I'd really consider most games are Oracle, NE, and HE (and not always).
The only big-expense world wonder I'll build w/o the resource is sistine, while going for
Great Wall is very powerful for a low cost. Hard to get on Deity but not riskier than the Oracle IMO. The Great Spy can probably get you more beakers than Oracle'ing CoL.
dalamb
Deity
@ben-jammin: so you'd say GWall should go under "generally useful"? and do you mean the GSpy lets you steal techs, thus giving virtual :beaker: more than you get from 1 oracle tech?
ben-jammin
Emperor
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Yeah that would be assuming you pop a Gspy as your first great person and use it to infiltrate for later spy missions (although it's also useful as a maintenance free, invulnerable unit for exploring the map first). You would have to count the beakers for CoL (minus the cost of myst->priesthood to be fair) AND the beakers from trading and brokering, which are considerable. But with discounts 3000 EP points gets you what, no less than 6000 beakers? And keeping in mind that you get those beakers without having to give the AI anything in return (though you do have to put hammers into spies, and get the techs only after a long wait). Oracle gives you a huge boost but to maximize it you also have to give the AIs a boost by trading around strong techs.
Great Wall can go extremely early just like the Oracle, but if you miss it you've only had to research masonry which the AI often wont trade you for quite a while.
plastiqe
Grinch
Pyramids and Shwendbliy Paya... erm.. the one from Aesthetics that builds better with gold. Both of those civic unlocking wonders are super-powered with a Spiritual civ allowing you to run a CE, Civics Economy.
drewisfat
King
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Great Wall definitely should be widely useful. It's the best wonder on a cost/benefit basis, the only issue is it's hard to get. Finding stone at the start usually makes settling on/near stone and building GW a no-brainer.
TGLh also broken good, maybe not widely useful only because it requires a lot of coastal cities, but like GW it can carry your economy so much it feels like cheating.
MoM I never thought was a great wonder. Actually I think of it more as a long game wonder. Most games there's not much time for many golden ages after using one scientist for an academy, several for bulbs, and maybe a merchant for gold.
The main kicker thought is it's hard to get on the higher levels, and it competes directly with GLib, which is better. Often I'll build MoM for fail gold and if the AI is late I'll be pleasantly surprised.
TGLh also broken good, maybe not widely useful only because it requires a lot of coastal cities, but like GW it can carry your economy so much it feels like cheating.
MoM I never thought was a great wonder. Actually I think of it more as a long game wonder. Most games there's not much time for many golden ages after using one scientist for an academy, several for bulbs, and maybe a merchant for gold.
The main kicker thought is it's hard to get on the higher levels, and it competes directly with GLib, which is better. Often I'll build MoM for fail gold and if the AI is late I'll be pleasantly surprised.
As long as you plan the game to last to drafting, MoM is worth it. It easily returns the hammers it takes to build with the increased Golden Age length. Add in the extra commerce and it's a no brainer. The synergy with Taj just makes it that much better. If the game is planned to last past Scientific Method, it becomes better than the GLib especially on higher difficulties where the tech pace is faster.
ben-jammin
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MoM is great if you have marble and so go down the aesthetics path and win the music race. But conversely if you go down that tech path you won't often get calendar in time. 12 turn golden age right around the time you get civil service can almost guarantee you the Taj, which in turn can usually get you another 2 great people for a third golden age, making the MoM worth a full 12 turn golden age itself (far better hammer return than the Taj).
But again its quite rare on Deity to win music and still have the opportunity to build the MoM with the way AIs love to build it and won't trade you calendar until they've done so.
