Getting Wonders at Emperor level

[Fistleaf]

What are the best strategies for getting Wonders at Emperor level - at least a few of the important ones? And on a random standard map with random settings.

[Tall Stranger]

Well, first off it's going to be harder to do this, since you're going to be behind in tech longer, which makes it less likely you'll beat the AI to a wonder-enabling tech. As a result, I recommend that players moving from Monarch to Emperor ratchet back their expectations about which wonders they're going to be able to get. I recommend focusing on the 1 or 2 REALLY important wonders you want for each age, and let the other ones go. You don't need to build every wonder to win. Latet, as you get more experienced at the Emperor level, you may be able to set your sights a little higher and try to get 2-3 wonders per era.

That said, the strategies really don't change all that much between Monarch and Emperor (at least in my view). The keys remain:

1. Prebuilds (usually the palace, but sometimes other structures like cathedrals) are critical. If you haven't started a prebuild before getting the required tech, your chances of beating the AI to the wonder are greatly reduced.

2. Smart tech trading. Remember that the AI LOVES to build wonders, so watch what techs you trade them. You may want to, for example, hold off trading the AI certain techs for a few turns so that they can't start on the wonder. Wonder cascades are especially important in this regard. If, for example, you know 3 or 4 AIs are chasing the same wonder and that one of them is only a couple turns away, WAIT before trading a wonder-enabling tech. Once the wonder is built, the other AIs will either have to waste all the shields they've accumulated or start building a different wonder. The last thing you want is for them to be able to use all the shields they had accumulated for the Pyramids to beat you to Hanging Gardens (or whatever you're building). Wait till they've wasted the shields on something before trading them that tech.

3. If neither of these work, get Wonders the old-fashioned way: conquest!!!

[Aeson]

Another way to keep the AI from building wonders is to make sure they are at war. Use Military Alliances to set up wars that won't affect you. Use techs that you can't trade for anything with to keep the backwards civs at war with the tech leaders, especially when they don't share a border. Declare war on civs which can't reach you due to distance or naval crossings.

The AI won't start wonders as often while at war. They will concentrate more on military units.

I like to send out units to pillage early on when playing builder. It only takes a few when used correctly to seriously hamper your neighbors economically. Steal Workers and tear up terrain improvements. Even a single Warrior can do quite a bit of damage. You can almost always capture a Worker on the first turn of the war which is enough to make it pay off. Anything after that, even just leading the AI units around for a few turns and keeping the AI pop rushing, is going to be icing on the cake.

Generally there will be AIs further away which you can't set back this way. Each AI you do hit will be another AI which won't be participating as much in the upcoming wonder cascades though. You can't beat the AIs to all the wonders, but in general, for every AI that isn't switching over from wonder X when you build it, you'll be able to get another wonder later on.

[Theseus]

Aeson makes an excellent point: Distracting the AI civs from GWs is quite as important as figuring out how to build them yourself, certainly at Emporer and higher.

I'd like to add, however, that Tall Stranger's last comment is equally fine: There is NOTHING wrong with *encouraging* nearby AI civs to build GWs, and then immediately capture them. I did this to good effect AU 505, where, having stopped my first immediate neighbor's REX, they started building two GWs... upon completion, I went to war and grabbed them. So I didn;t get the culture... big deal.

[Dominae]

Adding Workers to a Wonder city is a powerful tool that I almost always use. You prefer your Wonder city to be Shield-rich rather than Food-rich, so it takes longer for it to grow. Get around this by moving population from your pump cities into your Wonder city.

This introduces a timing issue with respect to how ready your Wonder is for all that additional workforce: you want at least a few Luxuries or Happiness improvements there already, otherwise you will be inefficiently using the Lux slider to support just one city. With a couple of MPs, a couple of Luxuries, a Temple and the Lux slider at 10-20%, your Wonder city can get pretty big without any problems. But if you want to reach size 12 (or if you switch to Republic), you may need to build/rush a Colosseum.

It is important to remember that spending Shields on infrastructure can result in a delay on the ETA for your Wonder, so you believe the race may be a close one, staying at a lower pop to finish the Wonder sooner may be the right call.

Finally, this may be obvious, but always make your Wonder city one that is adjacent to fresh water. There is no worse feeling than realising that you cannot join all those Workers on schedule because you forgot you need an Aqueduct (trust me, I know from experience!).

[Drakan]

Hiya Fistleaf. I'll post this link to an article I wrote for prebuilds. It'll help you out at Emp and above.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=92070

[Commy]

Personally, after monarch, the AI is so powerful and demented that the only successful strategies are just that, game strategies. It kind of takes the realisticness out of the game. If only they could make the AI smarter instead of just giving it boosts, Civ 3 could probably be a good game 20 years from now...

[realpolitic]

In getting wonders, especially early ones, you need to consider how much of your empire's resources you want to tie up. If you build a wonder with 3 cities, (you'll be using your most productive city), you'll probably be tying up 40-50% of your resoures, that could have gone into expansion etc. The Pyramids are the only Wonder that comes anywhere near this. It doubles the growth rate TEMOPORILY(until bad terrain slows growth or city improvements are needed). Now if this was a permenent increase and if finishing it first were guaranteed, it would justify up to 50% of your resources, as is maybe it makes sense after you've built 5 cities, but at that point, I find the risk of not finishing it first unaccepatable, and no other wonder is justifies such a large percentage of an empire's resources. Pass on the early wonders, or mod them to be worthwhile.

[joncnunn]

On Emperor Level:

Ancient Era:

Unless you get a SGL, don't bother with anything other than the 200 sheild wonders and the 300 shield Hanging Gardens. (If you do get the SGL, then use it on an expensive wonder)

Also, only one city should be building a wonder at a given time in the Ancient Era. (Again a temporary exception if you get a SGL)

Middle Ages:
Use the Palace and a newly allowed wonder as a prebuild to the wonder you are really intending to build.

Also you probably shouldn't have more than two such cities unless your in a GA or else get a SGL.

Industrail Era:

Universial Suffrage : If you've built Shakespheres, Build a Factory in the same city and then build US. Consider rushing the Factory if an AI enters the Industrial Age before it would normally complete.
If the AI reaches this tech before you do though, your probably better off letting this wonder go unless needed for your GA, in which case that storing shields will be important. It's the least useful wonder of the era, only Republic/Democracy that's at war can actualy use it.

Theory of Evolution : A Factory and Hospital is almost always sufficent to build this wonder without storing shields.

Hoover Dam : Even less likely to need anything other than a Factory, Hospital, and river to beat the AI to this.

Modern Era:

If going for the empire wide 100K Cultural Victory, it's easy to build all these wonders in cities with Factories + Hospitals. The Internet is a high priority because it will add a cultural improvement to every single one of your cities.

Going for the 20K single city victory, research and build the 800 shield wonders first and then the higher cultural 1000 shields wonders. [In this case, you'll usually have built all / nearly all the previous era wonders in one city, and may have even saved a SGL waiting for a normal wonder build there to complete prior to using for rushing another.]

Going for UN victory, just reserach Fission and build.

Going for the Space Ship: only the Internet, SETI, and if you need to filibuster, the UN are worth building.

Going for Domination / Conquest: none of them are really worth building except perhaps the UN again to fillibuster. Just get Mordern Armor.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by joncnunn
Theory of Evolution : A Factory and Hospital is almost always sufficent to build this wonder without storing shields.

Always prebuild the Theory of Evolution. Ideally, you complete it the same turn you discover Scientific Method.

A Factory and a Hospital means that you either discovered or traded for both Industrialization and Sanitation before proceeding to Scientific method. If you discovered them yourself, you would have been better off just beelining for the ToE and while prebuilding it (sometimes you need to start in the Medieveal era). If you traded for the techs with the AI, there is a chance you could lose the race to the ToE, so you did not prebuild enough. In this last case I suggest you rush the Factory, forget the Hospital, and hope/pray.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Purely on personal style playing, I've found that it is quite possible to build 2-3 wonders while at the same time annexing a neighbor on Emperor during the Ancient age.

(call me crazy but more and more often the Colossus is working it's way into my preferred builds at this level, along with getting the city building it, preferrably the capitol, to size 12 ASAP. This goes along with my preferred use of Feudalism and curbs some of the cash negatives associated with that choice. The Lib, Zeus, and gardens compete for the 2nd and 3rd wonder.)

That's not to say those shields wouldn't be better used in expanding peacefully, though. Then, I'm not exactly known for doing what would be 'best'.

It all really boils down to focusing on what you want, and learning which are less valued by the AI. (or occasionally waiting for that AI you've been kicking the hell out of to finish building whatever before you take the town that was building it.)

[Arrian]

To too love the Colossus, UnO. Since I rarely play seafaring civs, however, I find I'm often beaten to it - even on Monarch - because at best it's the first build in my second city. By that point, a seafaring AI civ has probably started it.

-Arrian

[UnOrthOdOx]

I've had the most amazing streak of starting within 1 move of shore without seafaring, with relatively unremarkable land around the capitol, making the 2nd/3rd city become the settler pump. Hence the deviant nature of this arising... Also, AI's seem to switch from it to more valuable things like pyramids...if they are capable. And I like my neighbors building pyramids...



One thing that will just cripple the AI. Watch every turn after you meet them. Sooner or later there will be workers for sell. Buy them. Earlier the better. (I seem to see them in 2's allot for some reason. )

[joncnunn]

Colossus became much more of an AI priority in Conquests than in Vanilla.

It was extremely easy to build it first in Vanilla, even on Emperor.

In Conquests, it sometimes takes a lot of work on Monarch.

Originally posted by Arrian
To too love the Colossus, UnO. Since I rarely play seafaring civs, however, I find I'm often beaten to it - even on Monarch - because at best it's the first build in my second city. By that point, a seafaring AI civ has probably started it.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

Well, the Statue is the one anicent wonder that if built early enough could directly contribute more shields to a war effort than it costs.

The Colossus tends to pay for iteself back in the form of commerce. (Especally after leaving Despotism)

The Musieum pays for itself by eliminating the need for a Catherdrial, making it easier to build another wonder.

Hanging Gardens offers the same bonus to the city it's built & also functions as an extra luxary early on.

Great Libary, ToA, Oracle are all on my never build list except on mods that make all optional ancient era techs required to advance to the next era.

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
Purely on personal style playing, I've found that it is quite possible to build 2-3 wonders while at the same time annexing a neighbor on Emperor during the Ancient age.

(call me crazy but more and more often the Colossus is working it's way into my preferred builds at this level, along with getting the city building it, preferrably the capitol, to size 12 ASAP. This goes along with my preferred use of Feudalism and curbs some of the cash negatives associated with that choice. The Lib, Zeus, and gardens compete for the 2nd and 3rd wonder.)

That's not to say those shields wouldn't be better used in expanding peacefully, though. Then, I'm not exactly known for doing what would be 'best'.

It all really boils down to focusing on what you want, and learning which are less valued by the AI. (or occasionally waiting for that AI you've been kicking the hell out of to finish building whatever before you take the town that was building it.)