World Wonders useless on Monarch or higher?

[Muz]

Great lighthouse is great too, and gives a huge boost to commerce (and research) when you've got a lot of coastal cities. It lasts till Corporation, which can be a very, very long time for epic maps.

 

[Kenji]

if u get pyramids u cant get oracle, if u get oracle u cant get pyramids, thats the choice i normally see in monarch +

just to say its not hard to have both up.. (i just skip Stonehenge cos i am planning to get calander...)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

if u get pyramids u cant get oracle, if u get oracle u cant get pyramids, thats the choice i normally see in monarch +

just to say its not hard to have both up.. (i just skip Stonehenge cos i am planning to get calander...)

The way I normally do it is to build 3 cities as fast as possible - Indians are brilliant for this because they start with mining and meditation, which means you can get bronze working to choprush settlers without getting too behind on the race for religion. And if you use Gandhi they are industrious so you get the wonder production boost too. If I see stone and/or marble within reach, then I'll plonk cities on those places, even if they are further from my capital than I'd otherwise have liked. Then I have one city (the one with stone if I have it) building stonehenge then pyramids, one city (the one with marble, if there is one) building oracle then parthenon, and the 3rd city building units etc. for defence. Wonders being choprushed as far as possible. Doesn't always work - the pyramids tends to be the one it fails most often on, and of course it's not that often that I find both stone and marble quickly enough, more commonly I'll have one or the other.

 

[fung3]

I have yet to build the Pyramids, stealing them is the only way that I have acquired them so far.

In my next game, commencing this evening, I intend to play as Qin and build Pyramids, Parthenon, Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sofia in the same city in an attempt to churn out many Great Engineers. This could be folly but I will try it on Monarch at epic speed, standard continents.

 

[budweiser]

man wheres the love for the great library... how do you guys get your great scientists in space race games?

I was messing around with Liz in a OCC last night. All I built was a library and then I made a regular scientist specialist in London. I got three great scientists just from that.

 

[drhirsch]

If I play a industriuos civ, like say Qin, I usually go for

Stonehenge - cheap and quick, the early prophet is very useful
Pyramids - kinda expensive, needs lot of wood, but the benefits are huge, especially on emperor and above
Great Library - fast way to academy, nice synergy effect with the Pyramids

I found out that I can't do Oracle and Pyramids the same time, its to expensive. I skip the Partheon completly.
If development is ok and I have much water, I will try the Great Lighthouse and the Kolossus.

 

[PopTarts]

(On Monarch) One thing I've noticed is that if you can get a little lucky early, you can nab most of the wonders. I've found the key is to ensure that your GE points are concentrated - so I try to make sure I get Pyramids, Hanging Gardens and even Hagia Sophia. Of course getting Metal Casting for the GE is important too.

So with Elizabeth I've tried to concentrate all of my wonders in the capital city - in many games the number of GEs that pop out are average, but in some games you get slews of GEs that can build you virtually all the wonders. In one game the only non-coastal wonder I missed was the Oracle, I think.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

In my next game, commencing this evening, I intend to play as Qin and build Pyramids, Parthenon, Hanging Gardens and Hagia Sofia in the same city in an attempt to churn out many Great Engineers. This could be folly but I will try it on Monarch at epic speed, standard continents.

Parthenon gives you artists not engineers

 

[fung3]

Parthenon gives you artists not engineers

I don't build it for the artists, I build it because it doubles GP birth rate.

 

[morchuflex]

You can build many wonders on Monarch, if you choose them carefully, and they can be tremendously useful. However, you won't make them an absolute priority, in order not to cripple your development. That's why I generally tend to ignore the very first wonders (Stonehenge, etc.), unless I have a lot of forests I can chop.
The best way to determine wether you can afford wonders is to consider how good your starting location is, and wether you have neighbours or not. A good location (with lots of food to feed specialists) and no neighbours (which means not too many troops needed) is a "GO".

Now, what to build?

First, if you found a religion, you absolutely want to build the shrine. Pretty obvious. It is not too urgent, (you can wait until you have some cities) but you'll want it anyway.

On Archipelago maps, the Colossus is a must have, especially for a financial civ: it makes coastal tiles worth 4 and ocean tiles 3 gpt! Furthermore, at least on Monarch, it's not too hard to get.
The Great Ligthouse is very nice too, but not nearly as much as the Colossus. The only downside with the latter is that having it inclines me to delay Astronomy, which can sometimes be detrimental.

The Great Library is... great (!) on mid-size or smaller maps, when your capital city is likely to be as productive as the whole rest of your empire. The beauty of it is that the two free specialists the GLib grants you also generate scientific GPP. To further enhance its effects, build an academy early on and run both bureaucracy and representation. Then you ROCK.

If I can afford it, and I have founded a religion, I also like the Spiral Minaret. I can generally grab it before the AI (for some reason, they don't go to Divine right quickly). Plus, the Tech has a huge trade value (but I only trade it just before I complete the Minaret).
Of course, I'll build it in my capital. That, combined with the shrine, and the appropriate buildings (bank etc) will allow my capital to make 100 gpt or better, even when I run a 100% tech rate. In fact, these wonders - Shrine and Minaret - are what allows me to run 100% tech!

There are other nice wonders, but these are the ones on my A-list. Later in the game, I'll of course try to have the Statue of liberty, the 3G Dam etc... But that's another sory.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I don't build it for the artists, I build it because it doubles GP birth rate.

It doesn't double GP birth rate. It adds on 50% of the base GP birth rate (in all cities).

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't build it for the artists, I build it because it doubles GP birth rate.

OK I understand what you are saying now. I don't think the strategy is folly, but I suspect the results will be on the marginal side.

Building the pyramids, hanging gardens and hagia sophia gives you 6 engineer points/turn. Make that 9 if you have a forge and an engineer in the same town.

Parthenon ups that to - I assume, 16 GPP/turn (11 +50% with rounding which I'm guessing rounds down as that's how Civ often seems to work). But 3 (2+50%) of those are great artist points. That means you get 13/9 or 44% more engineer points. (If the +50% rounding went up then it'll be a bit better) But because the cost of great people goes up with each one, that will be fewer engineers.

Ummm, let's make another guess and say it's 200 turns between parthenon being completed and chemistry being discovered (but bear in mind HG/HS won't get built and contribute points till some time after parthenon anyway). That means that without the parthenon you'd have 1800 great engineer points before chemistry. That's enough to give you 5 great engineers plus 300 of the 600 points towards the 6th one. 5.5 great engineers.

With the parthenon you get 3200 points from that city. That's enough to give you 7 great people plus 400 of the 800 points towards the 8th one. 7.5 great people, but on average 1.4 (=7.5 * 0.19) of those will be artists. On average you've gained just about 0.6 of a great engineer Now that's a lower limit - there are plenty of ways to get that number up - put forges/engineers in other cities. (Is there any other improvement I've forgotten about that can give you more engineer specialists?). Build national epic, though that gives you artists too. Mebbe my estimate for turns to discover chemistry is wrong? But even so, it doesn't look to me like building the parthenon is going to give you substantially more great engineers.

If what you wanted to do was get just as many great engineers AND get some other great people too, then having the parthenon would be a lot more worthwhile. And if you want more of just about any other specialist the parthenon will be worthwhile. The problem with engineers is there's so little scope for taking advantage of the parthenon by assigning engineer-specialists.

(edit: I'd quoted myself instead of fung3!)
(edit again: Redone calculation as noticed a mistake in it, plus I just noticed you said you were trying it on epic, so I've upped my estimate of turns to chemistry)

 

[fung3]

Wow, that is detailed.

I played over the weekend as Qin on Monarch. Built Pyramids, Hanging Gardens, Hagia Sofia, Pentagon and 3GD oh and the Parthenon in same city. Also ran with Pacifism, Mercantilism and Caste System. This city churned a lot of Great Engineers plus the odd Artist and Scientist. Toward the end of the game the city made 120 GPP/turn.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Sorry to do this to you DynamicSpirit but I think your calculations may be based on wrong assumptions on how GP percentages are calculated.

Check http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146174

I think you found 19% chance for great artist by taking 3 out of 16 GP points. The percentage is found by the proportion of great artist sources to all great people sources.
Since there are 4 great engineer sources (3 wonders and 1 specialist) and 1 great artist source (parthenon), then the chance for a great artist should be 20%.

You don't get GP points towards specific types as such. Rather, the GP points just determine when the GP birth will take place.

The number of GPPs will determine when a great person will be generated, and the number of sources will determine what type it will be.

Assuming your value of 7.5 great people in that time, then that means you will expect 0.2 * 7.5 = 1.5 great artists.

 

[morchuflex]

Simple trick:

To benefit from the Parthenon +50% GPP without generating unwanted great artists (by far the least interesting great person type), just build the Parthenon in another city than your "GP factory".

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Simple trick:

To benefit from the Parthenon +50% GPP without generating unwanted great artists (by far the least interesting great person type), just build the Parthenon in another city than your "GP factory".

But then the other city is likely to generate great artists, unless you very quickly shove enough specialists somewhere else to prevent the parthenon city from ever actually reaching the GP threshold (not hard to do later in the game but I'd imagine quite hard in the early stages)

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry to do this to you DynamicSpirit but I think your calculations may be based on wrong assumptions on how GP percentages are calculated.

No problem PieceOfMind, if correcting something means I learn something that'll help me playing Civ then I'm not going to complain The correction doesn't really alter the conclusion of the calculation anyway - if anything it strengthens it. Ta for the link, very useful. Possibly explains a couple of games where I seemed to continuously get very improbable great people, based on how I'd set up my specialists.

 

[morchuflex]

But then the other city is likely to generate great artists, unless you very quickly shove enough specialists somewhere else to prevent the parthenon city from ever actually reaching the GP threshold (not hard to do later in the game but I'd imagine quite hard in the early stages)

If you don't hire any specialist in the Parthenon city, it will most likely never reach the threshold, especially if you specialize your cities so that all GP are produced in one or two cities.

 

[Vynd]

I think that Wonders are very useful and achievable at Monarch difficulty. In fact I don't think it's realistic to try and win without wonders. The only question is if you're going to build them yourself or if you're going to take them from other people. I don't think either of these strategies is outright superior to the other. It all depends on what civilization you're playing, your starting situation, and who your neighbors are.

I mean, if you're the Romans and your neighbors are nice peaceful wonder building civilizations like Egypt, then heading straight for Iron Working and taking their cities makes a lot more sense than trying to beat them to the Oracle. But, to go to the other extreme, if you're playing as Gandhi and you find yourself starting alone on an island with some Stone, building Stonehenge, the Oracle, and the Pyramids may be an excellent move. Play to your strengths.

 

[Firebot]

So far in my last 3 Monarch games, I've always built the Great Library AND the Hanging Gardens, and completly ignored all the other early wonders. The Hanging Gardens I find to be extremely undervalued, giving health and a population boost at what I find a critical part of the game, and is often easily available because the AI has trouble building it. The +2 Great Engineer points it gives can be manipulated to your benefit, and I usually build the Great Library and the Hanging Gardens in the same city, a Great Scientist or a Great Engineer pops up, it's win win. I never ever try to build the Pyramids anymore at higher difficulty levels, as the cost is simply too great for the benefits (which while I do love it's not required and you lose ground in other areas), I tend to want to capture it. In my current test game for the GotM3 I've managed to get the Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel, and currently popped out another Great Engineer to either build Versailles or Spinal Minaret (and I was originally badly sandwiched between 2 civs, only having room for 3 cities). I also captured the Pyramids and Stonehenge with the game currently around 1100AD. My previous GotM3 test game netted me a couple less Wonders, but the end result was the same. All those Wonders add up to HUGE benefits for a large Civilization, as it counteracts a lot of the difficulties of growing a healthy empire in Monarch difficulty.

It may be a lot harder to get Wonders, but the value some of them give are far more pronounced at higher difficulty levels.