Wonders... your thoughts...

[Rhothaerill]

Urgh! Last night I ran into the one downside of an ultra early Pyramids. I was playing as the Celts for the first time in C3C and completely forgot that they added agriculture to it's GA flags. I received an SGL on my first tech research and proceeded to build the Pyramids...and start my GA with only a size 3 city and a size 1 city. I was so irritated with myself for forgetting that I started a different game and abandoned the original.

[vmxa1]

Welcome to the club. It is very hard to avoid an early GA with most of the Civs from C3C. If you luck out to get an SGL and use it for the most useful wonder you get the ultra early GA with many of them.

I guess it means deity level so you won't have to worry about wonders in the ancient age, becasue even Demi can allow it.

[Rhothaerill]

I usually play emperor so I don't often get the chance to build the Pyramids anyway. Or at least I don't often try to build it with a straight city-build.

Sigh. The worst thing was that the game had been going great until my mistake. A decent if not humongously great starting position, lots of expansion room to the north (and several luxuries up there), and my second city was a settler popped from a hut.

[Catt]

Why'd you give it up? Sounded like it could have been loads of fun (unless you hate the early wins sorts of game where the conclusion is foregone but a ways off).

IIRC, you played the "No GA" AU game and so know that a GA is a nice bonus but not anything required or even uber-powerful. Your ultra-early GA would be stronger than a no-GA game even if it felt somewhat wasted.

Catt

[Rhothaerill]

I was irritated with myself for making a dumb mistake. I could play it out, but I'll have to go back and check if I have a save from right after getting the SGL and rushing the Pyramids. I know I have one from after getting the settler from the hut, but I don't think I could replay the exact moves that would lead back to getting the SGL (since it's RNG driven). I suppose I could also play it out without getting the SGL and the Pyramids, but then it would just feel wrong if you know what I mean. I hate reloading even if I make a mistake. I usually try to live with them when I make them (notice I didn't say 'if' ), but totally forgetting that wonder would start an ultra-early GA was a rather large mistake.

I did play the no GA game and it was one of my all-time favorites because it was a hard-fought win. Those are the best.

[Aeson]

The Pyramids are worth far more than a GA! With the Pyramids you're likely to keep close to 2x the population growth through the Ancient Era, which will come close to doubling your commerce and production when it's most important.

And you still get your Despotic GA, which isn't as bad as people make it out to be. The advantages are smaller, but so is the scale of the game. 1 or 2 extra cities (which is pretty easy to leverage a Despotic GA into militarily or economically) when you are at 1000BC means you're going to have a the capability of a 'psuedo GA' for the rest of the game of around 10-20% (assuming around 10 cities at that point).

With the changes to specialists in C3C, and the free tech of Philosophy, the advantages of the Pyramids and an early GA are much more than in vanilla/PtW, even with the lessened power of the FP. It used to be that your population growth would hit the corruption limit at some point and stop being as useful, but now corrupt specialist cities are powerhouses in their own right.

You can never have too much population growth.

[vmxa1]

Aeson your analyse is correct, but Rhothaerill only had two cities.
A size 3 and a size 1, so that is about as animic of a GA as you are likely to get.

I did the same thing, but had 4 or 5 cities and had a pump and the capitol pump, so I could get a few more cities up and more tiles mined and worked before the 20 turns ran out.

This let me do fine as you point out, but 2 cities is pushing it. If only the SGL could be held off for a time beofre slaming in the wonder.

[Rhothaerill]

Originally posted by Aeson
The Pyramids are worth far more than a GA! With the Pyramids you're likely to keep close to 2x the population growth through the Ancient Era, which will come close to doubling your commerce and production when it's most important.

And you still get your Despotic GA, which isn't as bad as people make it out to be. The advantages are smaller, but so is the scale of the game. 1 or 2 extra cities (which is pretty easy to leverage a Despotic GA into militarily or economically) when you are at 1000BC means you're going to have a the capability of a 'psuedo GA' for the rest of the game of around 10-20% (assuming around 10 cities at that point).

With the changes to specialists in C3C, and the free tech of Philosophy, the advantages of the Pyramids and an early GA are much more than in vanilla/PtW, even with the lessened power of the FP. It used to be that your population growth would hit the corruption limit at some point and stop being as useful, but now corrupt specialist cities are powerhouses in their own right.

You can never have too much population growth.

I know the Pyramids are very much worth it, but if I had remembered the GA flag I would have done things differently. I was already setting my capitol up as a pump city and was very close to completing a granary (three turns IIRC), and my second city was being set up as a production city designed for units. As vmxa1 said, I only had two small cities with minimal tile improvements as this was an ultra-early SGL. If I had held onto the SGL long enough to set up a couple more cities with some tile improvements then I would have had the best of both worlds regarding Pyramids and GA.

[Cerbykins]

Depends entirely on what you want ToA for. For the culture total and happiness throughout, it won't be worth it. For borders, getting the entertainers off the tiles a while and getting a short term culture boost, it's ideal

Brings to mind an interesting concept...something that happened in an online game. Basically, two players had TOTALLY opposing strategies, and yet - both were doing fantastically well. The players who WEREN'T doing so well, were actually the ones who either tried to mix the two opposites, or had no clear plan

So I guess it's not just a case of trying to justify an obscure point of view (mine, normally ), but actually a valid point. The players who might lose out are not the ardent ToA supporters or the anti-ToA crowd, but in fact the players who have shots at wonders/big ground forces/whatever you spend your surplus on and don't maximise the choice they DO make...

I personally view the wonders in terms of what they can give me, an dhow surely they can give it to me. Great Library is worthless if the AI decides to play dumb with tech and stagnate, or if one civ ges mad while the others fall behind (the normal case for me). On the other hand, the Pyramids are ALWAYS a good investment, in terms of all the free resources that would otherwise have been spent on making the granaries (e.g. 60 shields x 20 cities = MEGA payback ) and in terms of the extra resources acquired because of the early growth. It can be tough to itemise such things, but some idea is usually possible, so it's easy to see that, for example, the benefits had from the Pyramids will EASILY outweigh the benefits had from the Great Wall, seeing as the free walls are a) cheap and b) rarely ever used.

Anyway

On that note, it makes Adam Smith's GREAT for me, because then I can now time and effort on getting Stock Exchanges in place where there's only a 2-3 gold payback, and of course that a couple hundred gold is coming back to me that was previosuly going into maintenance before. My usual excessive needs for more units explains my desires for Knights Templar, and any wonder that gives out free stuff over a whole continent is good by me, with the exception of the Great Wall, seeing how I rarely need a wall or two at most, and they're easy to rush - even pop rush

So I like free stuff...

[Brundlefly]

I built Knights Templar for the first time in a recent game. Do you have a specific strategy for your Crusaders? Does it somehow involve their unique fortress-building ability? I think I wasted several of my crusaders in coming to the aid of an ally.

[Aeson]

I'm not saying it's best to build it that early, just that it certainly isn't a 'mistake' to end your game. You'll still be much better off in the long run than if you didn't get the SGL and had a better timed GA but no Pyramids.

[vulture]

Chiming in rather late:

favourite ancient wonder is definitely the pyramids. Every game where I've had them, I've dominated from start to finish. Don't get them very often though. Colossus is nice to have, likewise the Great Library, but neither is as dramatic as the pyramids. Lighthouse on some maps. None of the other ancient wonders excite me, although I haven't played Conquests yet, so haven't seen the Statue of Zeus in action.

Middle ages, they're all good (aside from Shakespeare's Theatre). The science wonders I can live without, but the big four (Sun Tzu, Leo's, Bach's and Sistine) I try my hardest to get. Usually get Sun Tzu's rather than Leo's, and usually wish I'd done it the other way around when I see how much it is going to cost to upgrade all those pikes to muskets and horses to knights or cavalry. It's the era of very expensive upgrading. Adam Smith's is also nice. Magellan's is a very low priority for me.

Industrial era, there is only one way to go. Get Theory of Evolution, select Atomic Theory and Electronics as the free techs, and build the Hoover Dam before the AI has even heard of electricity. Hoover is very powerful, although at a stage where the game is usually over in essence. ToE itself isn't much, but getting it is equivalent to getting Hoover. Come to think of it, I think the only game I've played where I didn't get both was in a one city challenge... and I'm not sure I didn't get Hoover then anyway to save a few gold per turn on a hydro plant. Suffrage is also nice - I notice the difference if I get stuck in an infantry war withouth it, but it's not in the same league as Hoover.

Like others have said - almost none of these wonders are 'must have'. You can win with them all going to other civs: you just have to work at it a little more. They are nice bonuses, but not much more. The one exception to that I think is the pyramids - the only reason this isn't considered vastly overpowered is because a) it is possible to not take advantage of it properly (by not letting your cities grow as fast as possible), and b) the effect of it isn't obviously linked to the wonder. You just find that, sometime in the middle ages, that you have a larger army than your neighbours, a much higher score, and a far better economy and research machine, and think to yourself "I've done a really good job of expanding and developing my cities this game" - little realising that without the pyramids you would have less production per city, have captured less land in the REX, struggled more in wars, and generally had about half the manufacturing and ecnomic power you currently have at this point.

[Arrian]

Vulture:

If and when you get Conquests, I think you will find SoZ to provide a LOT of bang for the buck, and Shakespeares is no longer useless. In addition to lots of content people & culture, it now acts as a hospital. It's still not particularly important, but it's a little nicer now.

The wonders I really care about:

Pyramids
Sun Tzu
Sistine
Leos
Bach
Smith
Hoover
UN (clearly)

-Arrian

[ducki]

Originally posted by vulture
Middle ages, they're all good (aside from Shakespeare's Theatre).

I actually quite like the new Shakespeare's in and of itself. Getting to the tech is a bit out of the way for most of my games, but being able to grow beyond Size 12 AND stay happy at that stage in the game can give you a serious powerhouse of a city and maybe set you up to steal some of those "lower priority" Science wonders. The old Theater, I agree, needed a boost, and Conquests gave it a good one, IMO. (Edit: Dang, Arrian beat me to it. )

Industrial era, there is only one way to go. Get Theory of Evolution, select Atomic Theory and Electronics as the free techs, and build the Hoover Dam

This is in serious need of fixing. For all the valid options a player has up to this point, having a wonder-tech-wonder combination this overpowered means, as you say, there is only one way to go. Too sad.

[vmxa1]

I am starting to think Leo's is more useful to me than Sun Tzu. So many upgrades now with MI and Guerillas and the cost of upgrading knights and calvs.

I am not so sure I need all those free barracks.