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Unless I get a really strong start or get lucky with GLs I rarely build any wonders.
So the ones I prefer are the ones which get built conveniently close at hand.
Build it yourself and it ties up a city's production for ever and costs a small mountain of shields. With the AI building all the wonders they appear nice and quickly because they cost the AI so much less.
And as a little hidden bonus, if you punch the F7 key from time to time you will often see half a dozen AI civs competing to build a single wonder. Numbers of those civs will get to write off shields when they lose the race. Which helps to erode their production advantage a bit. Whereas if you don't join the race yourself you will never have that irksome experience.
I make one exception to this. If I find myself in a crowded starting location with a neighbour or two who is going to produce strong culture then I have a go for the Collosus (plain vanilla Civ3, this is). Because without the extra culture from a wonder it can add substantially to the difficulty of getting out of the pocket if you have to work too hard to avoid culture flips.
I go for the Collosus because, for some reason, that wonder gets neglected by the AI. To attempt that I find that you must recognise the situation you are in very very quickly (so as to devote one of your first three cities to the task and you need a coastal city with a good balance between food and forest plus the prospect of two or more early luxuries.
Or to get lucky.
So the ones I prefer are the ones which get built conveniently close at hand.
Build it yourself and it ties up a city's production for ever and costs a small mountain of shields. With the AI building all the wonders they appear nice and quickly because they cost the AI so much less.
And as a little hidden bonus, if you punch the F7 key from time to time you will often see half a dozen AI civs competing to build a single wonder. Numbers of those civs will get to write off shields when they lose the race. Which helps to erode their production advantage a bit. Whereas if you don't join the race yourself you will never have that irksome experience.
I make one exception to this. If I find myself in a crowded starting location with a neighbour or two who is going to produce strong culture then I have a go for the Collosus (plain vanilla Civ3, this is). Because without the extra culture from a wonder it can add substantially to the difficulty of getting out of the pocket if you have to work too hard to avoid culture flips.
I go for the Collosus because, for some reason, that wonder gets neglected by the AI. To attempt that I find that you must recognise the situation you are in very very quickly (so as to devote one of your first three cities to the task and you need a coastal city with a good balance between food and forest plus the prospect of two or more early luxuries.
Or to get lucky.
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