Wonder Guide

[Catt]

Originally posted by ducki
vmxa1 - now you mention it, I think I get Steam first, then beeline for Scientific Method, for exactly the reasons you gave - smaller required defense, boost in production, with the addition of faster reinforcements for whatever military campaign I may undertake.

Whatever your underlying reasons for going after Steam Power, I assure you that you do get it first and then get Scientifc Method, because Steam Power is a prerequisite for Electricity (which is a prereq for Scientific Method and therefore ToE).

Catt

[Bierkieser]

The first wonder to go for is the Art Of War. All of the ancient wonders aren't very helpful if you are REXing. Your cities never get big enough to need more than a temple and a few luxuries (at Regent anyway). Maybe more important at more difficult levels...

UPGRADES: I have been meaning to thank Fraxis for the 'upgrade all' patch. The first time I had to upgrade 120+ Riflemen to Infantry one at a time I almost didn't play the game again.

[Jawa Jocky]

The Great Wall is something to consider building. It's not a great wonder for the human player, but it's a real pain in the *ss when your neighbor has it.

[DaveMcW]

I never see the AI build walls, even if they have the Great Wall. I suspect in MP games it will be more valuable.

[Jawa Jocky]

I never build Art of War. Barrack are the easiest improvement to make and are usually the 1st on my list. Even more so if your militaristic.

I never build the Great Wall either, but I can at least say I have considered it.

[Master Marcus]

I never build ancient GW; my first at Regent is generally Sistine or Bach's, and at Monarch sometimes I can get Smith's ( I got Bach's only once at Monarch ) otherwise my first GW is ToE just before Hoover. I've always considered the ancient GW as to be there for stopping the AI REX when it starts to build them in capital+ another big town/city, and I play my own REX accordingly.

[ducki]

Bierkieser - I love love LOVE getting the Colossus in a river city. It may not seem like much, but it's kinda like culture. The longer it's in place, the bigger the cumulative gains.

I really like the Gardens, too, but I'm a happiness hippie. Happy citizens are productive citizens, I say.

Other than those two, yeah, I can take or leave anything Ancient, though I hate when the AI gets em anyways.

Middle Ages, again, for me, it's happiness. Sistine & Bach if at all possible. If I'm not Militaristic, SunTzu is nice if I haven't conquered my continent yet. Leo's in nice if I have a large, obsolete military or plan on a lot of Build Now, Upgrade Later. Otherwise, gimme happiness wonders and I don't really care what I miss from Ancient through Mid Middle Ages.

Jawa - I usually build the Wall as a booby prize for having missed out against the AI on one of my preferred wonders. And it hurts.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Robber Baron
Good point, Ducki. ToE is basically a Hoover strategy, and as such invaluable. Then selling the techs you acquire (carefully, preserving your window on exclusive Hoover construction) is bonus.

Right... it ain't Hoover, it's control of the "industrial corridor" Game over.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

I think Heroic Epic is far overrated. It doesn't increase your chances by much and with proper unit management you can consistently generate GLs in a war.

[ducki]

I've tried the "unit management" thing and I'm very, very lucky if I get one(1) Great Leader in a game. I can have Elites coming out of my ears, but in the game(singular) where I got 2 leaders, I almost fell out of my chair.

I know a lot of y'all can get so many leaders that you just build armies with the "extras", but not all of us see that sort of luck.

The bad thing is, those of us with "bad leader luck" tend to have something more pressing to do with what will probably be our only leader in a game, like FP building or Wonder stealing. Which means we don't get a successful army, which means we don't get the Epic, which means we don't get better chances at leaders.

The Epic(and Armies) is something I think should be like the Manhattan Project - once the technology is discovered, it stays discovered and anyone can "copy" it.

But I'm also in the minority about Manhattan. I agree that anyone that builds it makes nukes available worldwide. Most people seem to disagree.


Anyway, I've only built the Epic twice, so I don't have much of a sample to say whether it's worth it or not, but I sure like its culture.

[Master Marcus]

It's not that I dislike that much the Military Academy, more useful than Heroic Epic as a small wonder: can build Armies; then if lucky enough to produce an additional GL or two thereafter I use them exclusively for hurrying. Btw I have an average of 2 GLs per game. I still don't know how much Heroic helps or not, I agree it seems to have a little impact, but in a particular campaign ( perhaps every 3-4 games ) I generates 2-4 of them late industrial/modern. I never play militaristic trait on huge maps.

[Catt]

Originally posted by ducki
The Epic(and Armies) is something I think should be like the Manhattan Project - once the technology is discovered, it stays discovered and anyone can "copy" it.

But I'm also in the minority about Manhattan. I agree that anyone that builds it makes nukes available worldwide. Most people seem to disagree.

I disagree with you about the Epic - the ability to build the HE and the Military Academy make the question of what to do with that first leader (or sometimes second) an interesting question. Without the "victorious army" trigger for both, building an early army loses some of its luster for me.

But I agree with you on the Manhattan Project -- I've never fully understood the objections to its implementation (other than as presently implememented it rarely gets built by the human player because it might rightly be thought of as a waste of shields -- but that's not the complaint most have with the MP ).

Catt

[ducki]

I see your point, Catt, but I disagree.

I don't think a meta-game reason for locking the ability to build armies behind the Random Number Generator is as strong an argument as the pseudo-historical accuracy that pervades most of the game.

Historically, Armies as a "formal" process, procedure, and organizational model were "perfected" by a few great strategic minds and then copied and refined, until one or two Europeans started teaching the method to anyone willing to pay for their knowledge.

I strongly feel that the ability to Build Armies should be tied to Any Civ discovers Armies. Sure, leave the Epic hidden behind "Victorious Army", but don't hide "Build Army" behind the wretchedly cruel RNG.

It's the one Catch-22 in the game that I really despise, mostly because it's illogical and makes certain wonders attainable _solely_ by the imperfection of computer-based RNGs. Maybe there should be a sliding scale for Great Leaders. Start the odds at 1:8 and after the first one, make them 1:16, and then 1:24, then 1:32.

I'd love to try out Armies in depth, but most of my games are Leaderless.

I recently read one of the "Must Read..." threads about the "Most Fun Militaristic Civs" and there was one guy that posted about getting 20 leaders in a single game. He used one of them to build a marketplace, for god sakes!

I just disagree with making such a big part of a game (that's supposedly about management) dependent on both play-style and the RNG.

Sorry for the rant. Maybe I should just mod my own game and quit whining about this item...

[nbarclay]

The ideal with Manhatten might be to keep Manhatten as a great wonder but instead of having it enable building nukes worldwide directly, have it enable a less expensive small wonder that other civs could build to get the same ability. After all, it sort of makes sense that the first civ to figure out how to build nukes would have a tougher job than the others. I don't know whether that could be set up in the editor or not, though.

Nathan

[vmxa1]

Now that is a sad story ducki, I have never had a game with out the Epic, but I agree it is not really a huge deal.