World Wonders useless on Monarch or higher?

[siroxo]

Currently, I've been winning consistently on Monarch (nearly every game with a financial civ, and more than half with others). I've also won my share of Emperor games, but still lose more than I win.

One thing I've noticed is that until I'm far enough ahead that I know I can win, I never have time to build a world wonder (even with industrius civs). The only early Wonder that can be useful is the Oracle (to get Bureaucracy or Theocracy early). Even later on the only Wonders I build are Kremlin and Pentagon.

Not only does the computer beat me to most wonders when I do try. But if I succeed in building a wonder, I find myself extremely far behind in all other aspects, especially military.

On the other hand, in games that I forget wonders completely (until Kremlin/Pentagon), I remain competative, and usually come out ahead.

My question is, are others able to find a place for wonders (besides Oracle) in their early game strategies, on the higher difficulty levels?

 

[thordk]

i don't even consider the oracle very useful. if you happen to have access to marble and some spare trees chop it, but you may also beeline to some techs, the AI rarely discovers early on and then trade it for code of laws. on monarch and higher one AI gets this tech normally around 650 BC.
another expensive tech available through oracle is metal casting. but again you will be able to trade it against your traded code of laws. if that's not enough, sometimes you can even add alphabet.

the hammers used to build those wonders could be used for military, granting you an advantage over the AI. that's useful as you can conquer pyramids and such wonders relatively early

but i tried grabbing early wonders in some monarch games. seems to be not that big a problem to get mostly all of them (stonehenge, pyramids, great library) while still founding 1-2 religions. if doing so i start by building one worker in my capital and then chop a worker and settler. the new founded city will again build/chop a worker and settler and then concentrate on military. the third city will concentrate on gold.
the capital will become a population/culture/gold powerhouse.

works pretty well. you're able to get a slight tech advance by doing this and have some nice wonders. it's no problem to expand later or crank out some military and conquer your neighbours.

but usually, if you just expand like a madman, build some cottages and concentrate on military you will have a easier time to conquer your neighbours. or if concentrating on research and trading you will end up with a tech advance.
having a "monopol" on cavs and tanks for at least 20 turns is a huge advantage, more worth than some wonders

 

[Drake007]

I think the oracle can still be useful on higher levels (built it a bunch of times on emperor and twice on immortal). Typically I snatch code of laws with it. A religion and a big tech to trade helps a lot with diplomacy, which i think is very important on emperor+. Make 2-3 confucian friends and then bribe them into going to war with some other AI by giving them code of laws. It really works wonders for slowing almost everyone down. You also get courthouses and an eventual shrine, which will help your economy. That is particularly true if you like to rush your neighbours early which i think is pretty much another must-do at these levels. Finally it helps to be friendly with at least one AI in order to be able to trade techs freely, and religion sure helps achieving that. IMO thats a lot of advantages for 5 forests and a few worker tech sacrifices (which you'll get back by trading code of laws anyway). The more AIs you can trade with the better it is.

Among other wonders, I find the great library quite useful if you're going for space race. It really helps getting more great scientists and every little bit helps on higher levels. If I have marble its a no brainer. Hanging Gardens can be nice if you have stone, a good number of cities, suspect you're gonna have health problems, and have a nice production city that doesnt have much to do atm (i.e. peace time). Other than that, the Kremlin is always nice to have, although it comes a bit late. Finally, pyramids aside, the Great Lighthouse is arguably the best wonder in the game on water maps i think.

Speaking of pyramids, I never build it personally on emperor+; I'd much rather have 7/13 axemen and not have to research that useless masonry tech.

 

[ds61514]

My question is, are others able to find a place for wonders (besides Oracle) in their early game strategies, on the higher difficulty levels?

My own level is Monarch/Emperor...

I really like Stonehenge (it's 4 obelisks or 2 and 2/3 with IND leader). Remember that you can get Civil Service with your first great prophet (don't research masonry).

Great Library is the fastest way to get an academy. The biggest problem is that literature has crap trade value...

Pyramids isn't bad but I have had trouble utilizing it to its full potential. Probably a good idea to combo it with Hanging Gardens (which IMO is a very underrated wonder).

 

[ElJojo]

yes pyramids + Hanging Gardens is quite good, you'll get GE for the whole game after that
But generally I'd rather capture the pyramids. Quite often the civ that builds pyramids is not so developped because they started soon and it costed them so much. It can be an easy pick... And you end with the axemen and the wonder

 

[siroxo]

I really like Stonehenge (it's 4 obelisks or 2 and 2/3 with IND leader). Remember that you can get Civil Service with your first great prophet (don't research masonry).

Nice idea. I'll have to try this jump to Civil Service using Stonehenge. Since I often go for Bronze Working early anyways, I should be able to chop rush Stonehenge.

 

[Nestorius]

I haven't had much luck with the early wonders on Monarch and tend to avoid them along with religion in favor of practical development. But, if my city is already well-built, I sometimes try. Current game, I lost the race for a few wonders, but it didn't matter because I was broke and couldn't afford more units and my city had built everything it needed to, and I ended up receiving tons of gold for higher research and unit upgrades. Parthenon got me like 400 gold! Basically building a wonder is settting your city on 'double-wealth'.

 

[Baurgja]

I´ve been playing at Emperor level too, but so far no win. My question is about the map settings and number of civs ppl play. I play on huge pangaea with 8 to 11 civs. Lately stick with 11, because it seems more interesting and, surprinsingly, more balanced. In any case, my biggest problem is to be able to keep a good tech pace. Even for a conquer campaign, with such a vast territory and many different civs, you cannot go only with praetorians. By the time you have conquered two or three civs, the others will have maceman/pikeman and rifleman very soon.

 

[Baurgja]

Oops ... sorry, the thread is about Wonders. The last questions however still applys, because more civs and land means more competitors on wonders race. In my experience, even at Emperor wonders are possible ... but it also usually makes my army weak.

 

[Yzen Danek]

On Emporer games, I usually get one earlier wonder (usually Stonehenge, sometimes also Great Lighthouse), and few if any until the end, where I flat out buy the 3Gorges and Eiffel Tower to power my war machine. If the game is right for it, I'll also go for Kremlin.

Pyramids and any shrines I can get I prefer to conquer.

 

[Leifmk]

I'm mostly playing on Monarch now and usually go for a wonder-heavy builder strategy. Most of the early wonders give useful benefits, not least of which is the GP points. I usually get at least half of them, provided I have enough trees to chop down and can find at least one of stone or marble.

 

[Shadzy19]

It really depends on what map you play but i still often get stonehenge / oracle / great lighthouse / colossus .
After that i get the same cycle and the only wonders i get after are the kremlin and pentagon if i can afford them . I almost never build any of the others unless i pop a Great Engineer.

 

[Drake007]

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

 

[Kenji]

World Wonders is useful when playing Philiosopical Civs. at my current Emperor game - Victoria.

having almost 200 GPp at 1600AD in capital is pretty good, really

 

[Torello]

Sure, I build all sorts of the early wonders in Emporer and Immortal games. Just depends on the situation.

In certain situations I'll chop Stonehenge. Occasionally I get stone hooked up and it isn't completed yet, then it's a 2 chop wonder and it pays for itself in 2 cities (assuming I'm not creative). But sometimes I build it even without Stone. Just if it seems right.

Not too often, but sometimes I'll get the Pyramids. If I have stone, or I'm Industrious, and/or I have a lot of excess forests, or I'm alone on an island.

I almost never build the Parthenon. I rarely build the Oracle, because I tend not to research the religion tree until much later. But when I do get Priesthood and it isn't built yet, I may chop it out real quick in some situations.

I build the Great Lighthouse sometimes when the situation is good for it. It's great in Archipelago, but it's worthwhile even if you're just mostly coastal.

I build the Great Library somewhat often. If I build the Pyramids then I'll use the first Great Engineer for it almost 100% of the time. If I have marble or Industrious I'll probably make a decent effort to get it. At immortal or a heavy war early emporer game without Pyramids or Marble I probably won't get it. And if I'm not going to get it I probably won't research Literature that quickly either.

I've built the Hanging Gardens a couple times, the Collosus a couple times. After that for the later wonders I rarely build any of them.

I would rarely get more than 2 of them, but often get at least 1, maybe 60-80% of the time.

 

[steview]

On monarch i go for Stonehenge, oracle, GL and if im lucky parthenon.

BUT i know it would be more effective to use the shields for miltary and conquer them.

I just dont like early war i like to build / balance science / economy.

It is the point where im finding i cant just out-research the ai though. (reminds me of demigod on c3c)

 

[DarkSchneider]

Pyramids are good but you're almost always going to be beaten to them, but most of the other worthwhile wonders you should be able to get, here's the list:

Great Library
Hanging Gardens
Statue of Liberty
Kremlin
Pentagon
Three Gorges Damn

 

[Grimz101]

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

 

[DynamicSpirit]

My question is, are others able to find a place for wonders (besides Oracle) in their early game strategies, on the higher difficulty levels?

My view is that - obviously - it depends on your playing style. If you want to build an empire rather than go to war then wonders can be very useful on monarch. However...

1. Individual wonders often don't have a huge effect. It's when you start combining wonders that it can have a big impact. For example, get the pyramids (-> representation -> +3 science for specialists) AND the great library (-> more specialists) AND the sistine chapel (-> +2 culture/specialst) AND the parthenon (-> more GP points/specialist) and you have incredibly powerful specialists.

2. On monarch level it is pretty difficult to play with an early-wonder/religion strategy. IMO it doesn't take too much thought to build an army of axemen/spearmen/swordsmen and march off to the nearest opponent's city. But if you go for an early wonder strategy, you spend your early years balancing out so many different things - getting the wonders built before you get beaten to it, coordinating your techs so you still have enough military to keep barbs at bay till your initial wonder-building phase is over, making sure you can still build land improvements. There are so many things that can go wrong (My most embarrassing was realizing after building two quarries there was *nothing* else that my two workers could do coz I didn't have the right techs). But on the other hand, it's incredibly satisfying when you do pull it off. My current game, I'm playing Indians on monarch level, started alone on an island. I've managed to build pyramids, parthenon, oracle, stonehenge, hanging gardens, great library, versailles and spiral minaret. And am rapidly becoming the biggest civ - and despite not being able to tech trade till very late, am roughly equal on techs too, without having fought a single war - and I'm pretty sure my wonders contributed a lot to that.

OTOH I haven't tried the strategy on emperor yet - I suspect emperor would take it from difficult to almost-impossible.

 

[hollebeek]

On Emperor I only build Stonehenge, Colossus, and Hanging Gardens (the
AI seems slower to start wonders that require a prereq building; I don't
think it understands building an aqueduct before you need it so that you
can build HG).

Pyramids I generally capture instead of build.