Everyone loves a Wonder

[DeepO]

Originally posted by baboon
For a military style game, this is what I do, in order, and why:

Okay, allow me to give an alternative which you could try. Just to point out that your method is a very good one, but it is by far the only option.

1. Stonehenge. Because I don't want to build obelisks and because it's done within a few turns with a chop, even on Epic. I build it after I made my first settler.

Stonehenge can be easily avoided by either a creative leader, or by going for an arly religion. Spreading your state religion is better than Stonehenge. Building a temple and putting a priest in it is better than the GPP Stonehenge creates. Obelisks aren't expensive either, and can be put where they are really needed (resources out of reach, AI nearby) instead of getting a flat bonus for the whole empire.

That said, Stonehenge is a powerful wonder. But especially at higher levels it becomes less important, and there might be better choices in your game. Not going for Stonehenge is not a big deal, you can compensate easily.

2. Pyramids. Since I'm not founding an early religion, I need happiness. Health will be taken care of by granaries. Takes me 2 chops on Epic to help getting it. Still annoyingly long. I build it after my second settler.

By the time you build the Pyramids, you can either reach Monarchy or Drama. (and these would be near your 'normal' tech path in about every situation) Both hereditary rule and the culture slider are very valid options to deal with the happiness situation.

If you compare the build cost of the pyramids to building a couple of warriors (which provide happiness under her. rule), or to go a bit less on production and more on commerce (so the beaker/gold cost of the slider at 10% is compensated because you generate more commerce in total), you will see that the pyramids, only for the happiness bonus, is not worth it at all. (rep also gives extra bpt for specialists, which is in many cases 'unbeatable'. Most people don't run enough specialists, though, and get low research bonusses from running rep.)

The pyramids give other options, though, which makes it much more powerful. E.g. religious civs can quickly turn to uni. suff., rush a couple of units/buildings, and turn back to rep. or her. rule.

3. Oracle. One chop and either I get it or I just miss it. It gets me to Code of Laws, with my religion and the important courthouses. If I miss it I'm pretty rich, so I raise the research to 100%. I build it right after the Pyramids.

So you're building this as 3rd wonder in your capital, after a worker and a settler? Possibly after a granary? What level is this? I build it after a settler and a lib, which on some starts is too late to beat the Monarch AIs...

Oracle is pretty important, and nearly invaluable for some of the farther techs (CS being the most talked-about example, but Theo or Philo are options too, as are some others). For the other ones like CoL, a lib + 2 scientists (+ academy with the GS they'll generate) will get there easily too. The Oracle is very nice, but quite easy to lose.

I'd like to build less wonders and more units, but I can't miss these. Stonehenge is very important for landgrabbing, oracle is too cheap and too good to miss. The only thing I would like not to build is Pyramids because it takes a long time and deforests my capital, but I don't think I can do without Representation.

See above. My guess is that you're putting too much emphasis on production, and thus need even more production to get where you want. It sounds strange but look at this way:

- Without 3 wonders in your capital, you don't know what to build... so go for more units and settlers. The difference in hammers you don't spend on wonders is easily enough to conquer a couple of AI capitals.

- Without the need to chop, you keep forests around which give out their production over a long period of time. Hence, you don't get into production problems later on, once your wonders are built, you have no production left, and you want to build units.

- without your dependence on rep., using her. rule instead, you will have the incentive to build loads of units. Once you go to war, you use the slider for a couple of turns until you either secure more resources, or can return your units to your largest cities.

- without the need to have that extra amount of hammers for all those wonders, you can build commerce early. With more commerce, you're thinking long term: your tech pace will pick up, you'll have more money for upgrades, etc.

- by depending more on religion to expand than on Stonehenge, you'll gain more money. You will want to build missionaries early, which means you get the benefits early as well. In games with Stonehenge, it's very normal to find out some ~20 turns after reaching Calender that you're empire religion status is in a bad shape, and needs immediate action. This is also the time where you naturally want to focus on war: if you need to build missionaries then, your dirrectly hampering your ability for war.

BTW, Religion also provides happiness (important early on), and provides bonusses for certain civics (which become available around the same time as calender can be)

- By building all those wonders, it's normal that you will reach higher pop-levels in your capital, and in the few other cities you will have (as they need to build units, they don't build many settlers either). However, what is that extra pop giving you? Only more production, as you'll need that to finish the wonders.

This is a vicious circle: By not going for wonders, your capital doesn't have to grow. Thus, more (smaller) cities can be created. Thus, more commerce is generated (note that the 'extra' pop in wonder cities provide very little commerce at first: these are set to forests, maybe hills+farms. not cottages). If you don't have 2 big cities but have 5 smaller cities, you don't run into happiness/health problems either. Which means you don't need the wonders in the first place...

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By this, I don't want to say that your approach is wrong, on the contrary. CIV is IMHO in many cases a lot more fun to play when you go for vertical growth instead of horizontal growth. But there are certainly other options, and your 'must follow' path might be a bit narrow.

DeepO

[baboon]

Thanks a lot DeepO, that's a lot of other options for me.

I'll try the Hereditary rule option instead of the Pyramids, that will fit nicely in my Conquer strategy.

On building the Oracle: I play Prince at the moment. My described strategy gets me the Oracle about 50-70% of the time. When I miss it's very close usually. (I used to play Civ3 at Emperor, where I did only build the Great Libary. I'm a bit spoiled now, but since I didn't get a Domination victory so far on a Pangea, I stay at Prince).

At 4000 BC I start with a worker, then chop a settler. Therefore I'm pretty quick with building everything, because I keep chopping. edit: but I'll stop chopping

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DeepO

I have not seen any report yet of somebody really focussing on GPs.

DeepO

Have you seen the Great Profits thread? It might demonstrate the focus you had in mind.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


Have you seen the Great Profits thread? It might demonstrate the focus you had in mind.

That's a good thread, and no I didn't see it before (I now am able to read and respond to some 20% of posts here, so naturally I focus on those I already posted in ).

It is an extreme situation, but sometimes these extreme situations need focus so part of it becomes more mainstream. A GPr pump certainly is part of the options you've got, in which Angkor Wat becomes very valuable indeed.

As I said somewhere (don't know if it was here or in some other thread): main use of the Wat is the 3 extra specialists you can run. The added hammers from priests only further streamline its use. People who forget to use those 3 extra priests will rate the Wat much lower than the actual power of the wonder.

DeepO

[popejubal]

Re: Everyone loves a Wonder

Civ 4 is much different and I find that this new Sistine Chapel totally sucks, +2 culture for all specialists?? That's it??? Are you kidding me? Where's the beef?!

I'm quite fond of the Sistine Chapel. +2 Culture for specialists is craptacular... unless you're using a lot of specialists for some reason.

In my current game, I have Representation, Caste System, Mercantilism and Sistine Chapel going for me, so I get a free artist in each city producing +6 culture and +3 research. I'm dropping cities everywhere I can squeeze them at the moment in my exceptionally crowded map and I'm seeing huge territory gains from all that culture. As soon as I build a nice temple, I switch them to priests and get a lovely +2 production, +1 gold, +3 research and +2 culture. I'm quite fond of these well rounded specialists that make my life so much more comfortable.

YMMV.

[Enigma_Nova]

What deepo said makes a lot of sense.
I wonder what else there is to think about. Obviously a lot!

[Dog of Justice]

If you use Representation-Mercantilism in the midgame, Sistine Chapel is a reasonable wonder. Generally your financial situation is such that you want to found several more cities around that time; often those cities are being held back by Culture more than anything else, given that they tend to be located in formerly enemy territory. For the absolute best results, you want Free Speech and the Statue of Liberty as well. This gives you +2 production, +6 research, and +8 culture per turn in any newly founded city.

Admittedly, I don't prioritize the Chapel that highly under even the circumstances described above, but if I'm Industrious, I find myself running out of useful Wonders to build, so Chapel makes the cut in that case.

[djpsychonaut]

Hey there,
Here's a mystery I can't seem to solve... I have quite the advanced empire under Gandhi and I'm winning the tech race. I'm the only one that has access to Robotics.

When I go to my best production city, I'm not able to find the Space Elevator as an option to build! At the beginning of the turn though, I'm given it as an option to build in some cities, and I'm even finding it as an option to build in some places, but not in a high production city.... why is that?

I clearly have the tech to build it and I know that no one has built it yet. Are there other pre-reqs that are not documented? As far as I know I have fulfilled all of the documented pre-reqs at my highest production city. This isn't a National Wonder, so that shouldn't be the limit. Does anyone have any ideas?

[Blake]

The elevator must be built near the equator. It is possible to rushbuy it.

[Dominae]

I find that Great People planning is a very powerful thing. If you know which type you're going to get and when, you can shape an entire strategy around it. It's kind of like the Oracle gambit/slingshot, but a lot more versatile.

To this end, I try to specialize my Specialists city by city. One will have Scientists, the other Engineers, etc. If I'm a Philosophical civ I might just put them all into one big Great Person city to maximize output, but it's rare that there's enough Food to support that.

So, to get back to the point of this thread: one of the major considerations for each Wonder, in my opinion, is what kind of Great People points they produce. While the main effect of a Wonder is certainly important, the effect of the GPPs they produce can almost eclipse it, especially for those early Wonders (for instance, Stonehenge does not suck for the simple reason that it's probably the fastest way to get a Shrine).

Consider the Great Library for instance. You're not only getting extra Beakers per turn, you're getting Great Scientists to boot! First Einstein builds an Academy, then Newton helps rush Paper, and in the blind of an eye you're light years ahead of the competition in the race for Liberalism.

The techs that Great People provide when you cash them are no random, they're related to what kind of GP you have: a Great Merchant will give you Currency, a Great Prophet Theology, etc.

Sometimes it's hard to "spare" the Laborer in order to make Specialists to produce Great People. The other way of getting GPs, then, is to simply build the right combination of Wonders. Most often in my games it's the Wonders that are my GP workhorses, not my Specialists (at least, not until much later).

Here are some nice combinations to build your strategy around:

1. Pyramids and Hanging Gardens.
2. Colossus and Great Lighthouse.
3. Parthenon and National Epic (or is Heroic that produces the Great Artists?).

In short, the combination of GP-synergistic Wonders is better than Wonder effects taken in isolation. If I already have Pyramids, I will value Hanging Gardens much more highly.

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by Blake
The elevator must be built near the equator. It is possible to rushbuy it.

Well, it's nice that they documented that...

[inca911]

Anyone know how I can know in advance if I'm able to build the Elevator? It's not like my longitude is published anywhere....

[djpsychonaut]

After getting the answer to this mystery, I tried to determine what the limit was. It seems that if you divide the map into three horizontal bands, then the top and bottom sections are where you cannot build the Elevator. I'm sorry that I don't have a more specific guideline, but it's something.

Also, your longitude isn't the problem, your latitude is.