Early wonder basics?

[Geronimo]

I think I pretty much suck at early wonder planning since even though I'm playing vanilla (well blake AI) civ v 1.61 where CS slingshot is possible I took so long to get the oracle done that I could have already finished researching CS on my own by the time I finally finished it.

The problem seems to be in part that I never seem to have marble or stone nearby when I start. This can't be uncommon so is marble not nearly as critical as it appears to be?

Do people start building the oracle even before they make their first settler?

Do people generally chop out all desired wonders and so make a beeline for not only chopping but the 50% chopping bonus before they begin to chop down the forests?

Does the chopping begin even before the 50% bonus is obtained?

Do players generally clear cut their entire starting area of forests to support such wonder building and not worry about leaving any forest to grow back or for future use?

After getting the chopping tech, should I take time to grab the alphabet for early tech trading before I beeline for code of laws?

Do people track down by whatever means the marble wherever it might be on the map and go to war immediately to get it?

I'm certain my current approach will completely fail on the monarch or higher difficulties. Wonder building really seems to be the weakest link in my ancient-classical game play.

[Jaybe]

If you have the city to spare, then try building the wonder. If not, don't.
I will generally not attempt an early wonder without the marble/stone, but building a wonder and failing can be a financial miracle, allowing substantial increase in research rate.

I doubt that I have built the Oracle more than once in the last year of playing.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Jaybe
If you have the city to spare, then try building the wonder. If not, don't.
I will generally not attempt an early wonder without the marble/stone, but building a wonder and failing can be a financial miracle, allowing substantial increase in research rate.

I doubt that I have built the Oracle more than once in the last year of playing.

At what difficulty does building the oracle start to become less likely than not?

[Jaybe]

HOW SHOULD I KNOW???!! I only play on noble.

addendum, for clarification: that one time I built the Oracle is about the only time I ATTEMPTED it. I usually don't have marble that early, and general development/barbarian threats are often higher priority.

[Blake]

Wonder building is usually opportunistic, if you have stone, you consider getting a stone wonder (Pyramids or Hanging Gardens), if you have marble then the Oracle or Great Library are attractive. With copper the Colossus is extremely cheap so if you have water then go ahead and get it.

I find it's usually optimal to get 1 or 2 early wonders.

It's important to learn to play without wonders. This is always possible, but it's easiest for Financial, Organized and Aggressive leaders. Wonders are usually a waste of resources (compared with settlers workers and military) and that's why I advocate "With cheap resource only". This includes Industrious leaders - industrious is for cheap forges really and to further cheapen wonders you have the resource for .

[DrSpike]

You don't need marble to pull off the CS sling, which is a good thing as you will rarely have it!

From your post it looks like you tried to build in a poor production city. You need to be quite focused for slings: don't muck around too much at the start - get your second city down fast, and be beelining for priesthood so you can start Oracle early. Sometimes it's best to do it in the second city and library in the first, and sometimes best oracle (start) then library then Oracle (finish) all in the cap. This pollutes your GP pool but gives you more production options as the second city is free.

If you are focused you can get the sling on the higher levels. However, on Monarch upwards you always run the risk that one of the AIs will pull it out outrageously early. I've never lost it below Monarch.

[bjsiders]

It just depends. In my last game I had stone and was Creative, and going for Stonehenge made some sense. I chopped in and pop rushed Stonehenge and then plopped some cities down which pushed out borders quickly and cut off a huge swath of land to develop at my leisure.

In another game I have both marble and stone and I'm an industrious Civ, so even playing on Monarch, I've built Stonehenge, the Great Wall, the Pyramids, the Colossus, The Great Library, the Hanging Gardens, Sankore, and a few others.

Typically if I get to a tech first, it yields a good wonder, and I have the right situation, I go for it. This usually means some production and a lot of growth. A chop worth, what ... 90 hammers? If it takes 30 turns to get 90 hammers but I can grow a size in 6, there's no question what you do. Screw the production and grow until it takes less time to produce 90 hammers than it would to grow. Usually by then though you can pop rush.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Re: Early wonder basics?

My answers, based on impressions of games I have read, and my own play.

Originally posted by Geronimo
Do people start building the oracle even before they make their first settler?

Not generally, no

Originally posted by Geronimo
Do players generally clear cut their entire starting area of forests to support such wonder building and not worry about leaving any forest to grow back or for future use?

Usually, yes. Note that this is pretty much independent of Wonders. If you are basing your opening on production, "Rip them all down". Future use? No, the old cities will be running commerce for the most part. And the probabilities for growth aren't all that great.

Originally posted by Geronimo
After getting the chopping tech, should I take time to grab the alphabet for early tech trading before I beeline for code of laws?

What are you going to use it for? How much return will you get from that investment, and is it your wisest investment of research? Plus, is it fun? Sirian persuaded me that tech trading is a bore, but that doesn't mean that he would persuade you.

Originally posted by Geronimo
Do people track down by whatever means the marble wherever it might be on the map and go to war immediately to get it?

Not hardly. Copper? Sure. Iron? you betchya. Horses? Occassionally. But rocks? no.

[jbp26]

Re: Early wonder basics?

Originally posted by Geronimo
The problem seems to be in part that I never seem to have marble or stone nearby when I start. This can't be uncommon so is marble not nearly as critical as it appears to be?

its helpful, not critical.

Do people start building the oracle even before they make their first settler?

no, this would be detrimental to your early growth. you need to push out at least one settler from your capitol before you worry about the oracle.

Do people generally chop out all desired wonders and so make a beeline for not only chopping but the 50% chopping bonus before they begin to chop down the forests?

nah, waiting for that takes too long.

Do players generally clear cut their entire starting area of forests to support such wonder building and not worry about leaving any forest to grow back or for future use?

forests growing is a nice bonus but not enough to plan around. i'll chop at will, unless ti will be detrimental to hte cities health.

After getting the chopping tech, should I take time to grab the alphabet for early tech trading before I beeline for code of laws?

i usually wait to get alphabet until after code of laws.

Do people track down by whatever means the marble wherever it might be on the map and go to war immediately to get it?

no. wonders are fun, but not critical.

I'm certain my current approach will completely fail on the monarch or higher difficulties. Wonder building really seems to be the weakest link in my ancient-classical game play.

At any difficulty up to and including Prince, you should be able to grab the vast majority of the wonders without too much trouble. Like Blake said, don't worry too much about them, as the resources you put towards them are probably better spent on military units or settlers. you can always steal wonders.

[Jaybe]

I'm a bit conservative in forest chopping. If I don't need to, I won't. I would often save a forest or two for factories before Warlords 2.08 (I'm Rome). Leaving some forests about allows them to regrow, clearcutting them will leave no such opportunity.

[SirIlya]

Re: Early wonder basics?

Originally posted by Geronimo
I think I pretty much suck at early wonder planning since even though I'm playing vanilla (well blake AI) civ v 1.61 where CS slingshot is possible I took so long to get the oracle done that I could have already finished researching CS on my own by the time I finally finished it.

When it comes to wonders, I think you should pick 0 - 2 early wonders based on your civ, leader, starting resources and strategic layout. Wonders can be important, but only those that synergize well with your starting situation. Egypt+Stone, grab Stonehenge for sure. Augustus+stone? Stonehenge is a waste but Pyramids will be nice for keeping research up while conquering the world BC.

With the CS sling, certain starts are more conducive (isolated on an island, financial civs to faster research thru CoL, religious civs because you are going to be grabbing religion techs anyway, philosophical leaders for fast GP's, etc) but if you are going to CS sling, decide early and eliminate anything from your tech tree that isn't critical. (Pick a subset of the worker techs, you won't have time to get them all). The new AI builds the Oracle pretty early so even if you do everything right you might have to settle for grabbing CoL and waiting a while to get CS.

I really think that freeing one's self of wonder-addiction is the key to moving up the difficulty levels. Play a few games where you refuse to build any Classical wonders and you will then understand the opportunity cost of all those turns churning out the wonder.

Are three cities squeezed into the corner by the AI's or barely fending off barbarians and re-improving repeatedly plundered land because of a CS sling better than a proto-empire of 7 cities including two captured AI capitals and a veteran military? Hrmm...

[Geronimo]

Re: Re: Early wonder basics?

Originally posted by SirIlya

Are three cities squeezed into the corner by the AI's or barely fending off barbarians and re-improving repeatedly plundered land because of a CS sling better than a proto-empire of 7 cities including two captured AI capitals and a veteran military? Hrmm...

So even at high difficulty 7 cities won't cut your science rate down to unnacceptable lows?

[SirIlya]

Re: Re: Re: Early wonder basics?

Originally posted by Geronimo


So even at high difficulty 7 cities won't cut your science rate down to unnacceptable lows?

Well, the key is NOT to avoid ever having low science. They key is avoiding getting yourself trapped in low science rate you can't climb out of relatively quickly. One could argue that if you have too high of a science rate, you probably should have expanded a bit more.

If you have Pottery, Writing or a Shrine you can pretty much dig yourself out of a hole (cottages or librarires). So I will usually wait till after I either have some cottages growing or writing before I let the tech rate dip much, but after that I feel free to expand until tech is 30-50%. If I have alot of libraries and lots of area in which to expand I might even go lower on tech rate as long as I can keep my beakers toward Code of Laws at a decent rate. Once you get Courthouses in place things will get much better (and if courthouses alone don't do it then worst-case you can run some merchants for a bit). And while you are doing this you are improving large areas of land, growing lots of cottages instead of just a few, grabbing resources which may let your cities grow larger, etc.

I plan aggressive expansion along with the economic techs. So right before or shortly after Currency, someone neighbor gets a nasty surprise. And after I have all three (currency, guilds, banking), only War Weariness slows me down.

The other nice thing about early expansion is that if you have stone/copper/marble you can then put a decent hammer city (say one with +food and hills) on a wonder that would help if you had it and it's not as bad if you don't get it. Send some workers out to a forested city and crank on Pyramids or Great Lighthouse or something. If you don't get it, you devoted the hammers of 1/7th of your cities to the wonder instead of 1/3.

You can't grow unfettered, but don't let a dropping tech rate keep you too small.

[Brundlefly]

Re: Early wonder basics?

Originally posted by Geronimo
I think I pretty much suck at early wonder planning since even though I'm playing vanilla (well blake AI) civ v 1.61 where CS slingshot is possible I took so long to get the oracle done that I could have already finished researching CS on my own by the time I finally finished it.

The problem seems to be in part that I never seem to have marble or stone nearby when I start. This can't be uncommon so is marble not nearly as critical as it appears to be?

Do people start building the oracle even before they make their first settler?

Do people generally chop out all desired wonders and so make a beeline for not only chopping but the 50% chopping bonus before they begin to chop down the forests?

Does the chopping begin even before the 50% bonus is obtained?

Do players generally clear cut their entire starting area of forests to support such wonder building and not worry about leaving any forest to grow back or for future use?

After getting the chopping tech, should I take time to grab the alphabet for early tech trading before I beeline for code of laws?

Do people track down by whatever means the marble wherever it might be on the map and go to war immediately to get it?

I'm certain my current approach will completely fail on the monarch or higher difficulties. Wonder building really seems to be the weakest link in my ancient-classical game play.

I'm sure that some have said this already, but if you want to build wonders, pick an industrious civ and go for Iron Working early so you can chop trees. My capitol is usially my best production city, and since many of the early wonders are religious, I usually get a Great Prophet early. I use that to slingshot to Theology. Early Wonders building is part of every game I play. I do it at the expense of research and growth. For this reason, I stay in the middle of the pack throughout the first 2/3 of the game.. But the culture and special benefits are worth it.

[ben04]

Actually the CS slingshot still works pretty well on those starts where it actually brings a lot.

For me there are 2 major goals to the CS slingshot:
1)Boost research
2)Get Mazemen early

For 1) to really kick in you need a lot of base commerce in your capital. This means at least one gold mine. With one gold mine to power your research Math isn't at all that expensive anymore.

Throw in Creative for a cheap library and an academy and you have enough beakers to out research everybody.

Now you can have the choice : Go kick some ass using your mazemen or get the GL to out research even more.