Wonders!~?

[joechoda]

ok, this may have been covered already, i'm new HELLO! and i haven't read much more than the first page, BUT...

WOnders?? what ones are "vital" which do you traditionally go for at the begining?? this could reveal alot./

i ALWAYS do the pyramids first... obvious, i like growth.

then i usually get Colossus.... if possible, and other ones i ALWAYS get:

Mike's CHapel
marco polo!!!!
Bach's cathedral
darwin's voyage
womens suffrage
cure for cancer
seti program

those are the must haves, according to my style of growth easy happiness, and science.

if i'm lucky to have several thriving cities, i most certainly will go for most of them....

however, i have never built Sun Tzu's war academy. i find that to be useless.

RoB!

[Gatekeeper]

JoeChoda:

Hmm ... your Wonder emphasis pretty much matches mine, with the exceptions of:

1. Pyramids
2. Cure for Cancer
3. SETI Program

I usually build a ton of granaries right away and simply get Adam Smith's Trading Company to recoup the costs later. Nos. 2 and 3 are expendable, depending on the state of the game. If I haven't gotten Michelango's Chapel and/or J.S. Bach's Cathedral, then I will be hell-bent on getting Cure for Cancer. SETI simply comes too late in the game to be of any real benefit, particularly if you've lost the Collossus, Copernicus and Isaac Newton. And if you've gotten those three Wonders, what's the point of SETI?

On a final note, I place supreme importance on getting Colossus — when it's built in a well-situated capital or second founding city, it can make a heckuva difference w/the extra trade arrows.

CYBERAmazon

[Tizzy]

It depends what sort of game I'm playing.

OCC: Colossus, Observatory, College, Theatre, Darwin's Voyage SOMETIMES, Apollo

Bloodlust: Colossus, Hanging Gardens ( because I don't ususally build temples or anything like that if I@m taking over the world), Great Wall, War Academy, and hopefully the game ends shortly after that!

Space race: as for OCC (except Theatre), but I always try for Darwin's in this type of game, plus Adam Smiths, Hoover Dam and Seti. I might chuck in one or two happiness wonders, but I usually use luxuries to keep them happy.

I still think building Seti is a good idea. It makes quite a difference to your science rate (and by this time, the Colossus is obsolete), which means you can either make the rest of your discoveries quickly, or lower your science rate to what it was before, and build up your treasury to rush buy those spaceship parts.

Tiz

[Laertes]

It depends on what level you are playing, but at Deity the happiness wonders you have are important.

I really like Sun Tzu if you are expanding a lot, as your first units in distant cities will be vets, and you can do a lot of damage with vet knights and calvary.

Hoover Dam is a must have for me, for the production and pollution control.

I never bother with Darwin's voyage. The science rate should be high enough not to need it, especially if you build the SUper Science City which is well explained elsewhere - COlossus, Copernicus, Newtons COllege and lots of freights and give you a city with several hundred research beakers per turn.

UN is really valuable too, it tends to stop annoying little prods from your neighbours.

[kcbob]

Welcome to the fray, joechoda. Hope you've got a lot of free time on your hands. Either that or a good psychotherapist to help you with your addiction to this forum that is sure to develop.

Wonders? As some of the other people said, it depends on a couple of things, i.e., what difficulty level and what style.

An OCC game is probably the same regardless of the difficulty level. Colossus, Copernicus, Sir Isaac, Shakespeare's, and Apollo should do it.

ICS... Hanging Gardens, Sun Tzu, and Leo's. Maybe the Great Wall.

Perfectionist expansionist... Mike's Chapel (and maybe Bachs), Leo's, Darwins, Hoover Dam, Adam Smith's, Seti, and Statue of Liberty.

BTW. Are you familiar with the acronyms OCC and ICS?

Anyway, good luck.

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[Bohlen]

quote: Originally posted by kcbob on 10-25-2000 07:54 AM Welcome to the fray, joechoda. Hope you've got a lot of free time on your hands. Either that or a good psychotherapist to help you with your addiction to this forum that is sure to develop

You can say that again!

[Simpson II]

The only wonder that I'm fairly fanatical about is Mike's Chapel. After that would be Bach's Cathedral, so that I can skip building coloseums - the pair mean a huge saving in time. Shakespeare's Theatre is very nice for the aggressive democrat, and HG is a big boon to any effective expansion... hmm, is there a pattern here? Happiness, IMHO, is the key to winning the middle-game, at least at Deity.
Most of the later wonders are just icing. SoL is the only one which is likely to have a really dramatic game effect, with great claw-back potential in MP... how to build it while behind is another story, though.

Sun Tzu's can be very useful, especialy if you get the Great Wall with it. Every new or captured city becomes a military stronghold immediately.

But, by and large, I believe in playing what I get. You can make good use of all the wonders (Eiffel Tower excepted, of couse!)

[Ming]

Again, the value of each wonder is totally dependent on the game you are playing and the strategy you are taking. The light house is a great wonder if you are stuck on an island, but not that important on a small world with one large mass.

The happiness wonders are more important at Deity, but at the lower levels, they aren't a total must.

SP vs MP can make all the difference in the world too!

But, we can all agree that the only purpose of the Eiffel Tower is for some AI to waste shields building it

[Tizzy]

quote: Originally posted by Ming on 10-25-2000 10:31 AM The happiness wonders are more important at Deity, but at the lower levels, they aren't a total must.

What a give away that I don't play at Deity!

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Ming on 10-25-2000 10:31 AM But, we can all agree that the only purpose of the Eiffel Tower is for some AI to waste shields building it

Er ... not quite. The Eiffel Tower can be very helpful in SP for the civilized player who has been forced to compromise her reputation. Building it will re-enable the forming of lasting alliances, the ability to trade techs and to get tribute or gifts, and even to make peace (in MGE).

Of course it all depends on the reputation of the AI tribes: if they have done bad things, having a good reputation yourself makes little difference. But there are circumstances in which the Eiffel Tower is a wannahave.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[kcbob]

quote: Originally posted by Ribannah on 10-25-2000 01:45 PMBuilding it will re-enable the forming of lasting alliances, the ability to trade techs and to get tribute or gifts, and even to make peace (in MGE).

For all the ranting and raving I do about MGE and the hostile AI, you'd've thought that I would have tried this. Do you think it really helps all that much?

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[Ming]

Heck... once you have a big lead on the AI, and the game advances into the modern era... Not even the ET will do you any good. They will still hate your guts anyway

[Bohlen]

ET is absolutely worthless. Ming said it all. The AI will attack when it is behind in the tech race no matter what, especially in MGE.

I go back and forth on the "Best Wonder" question all the time. Yes, it does depend on what type of game you are playing and what situation you are in at the time of an advance that allows a wonder, but for me there seems to be the same old wonders that I build every time, and when I don't...well, I don't enjoy the game as much.

Colossus, Cope's, & Ike's are THE wonders to have for your civ. A SSC makes the game a lot more fun.

Adam Smith's is just awesome. Want to go to war and still keep a high rate of research? Build it.

Mike's Chapel is a MUST wonder. Ok, so you can win without it, but it's not as much fun, is it?

[Mercantile]

my favorite wonder is Sun Tzu's, it lasts along time, and it is available almost at the beginning which makes it valuable. The vet units for me are of extreme importance as i tend to do more defensive fighting.

However on an economic front, ASTC is important as it saves me tons of cash, which i can use for cathedrals and such when i dont come up with Mikes or Bachs.

A wonder i am really starting to see as important, especially if there is water is the lighthouse. I used to think it sucked, now vet boats are seen as important to my trading empire Control the seas matey, lets get that caravan to another nation

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Do you shovel snow in your birkenstocks?

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Ming on 10-25-2000 03:31 PM Heck... once you have a big lead on the AI, and the game advances into the modern era... Not even the ET will do you any good. They will still hate your guts anyway

Well, maybe so, but - I just built the Eiffel Tower late in OCC#4, which allowed me to give a bundle of techs to civs who didn't want any before, thereby significantly lowering the beaker requirement for the rest of the game. So even at such a late date it can be good for something

In another game (the OCC where we start by destroying 4 surrounding civs ) I built ET much earlier with even better results. In MGE you cannot have any negotiations when your reputation is low.

- Rib -

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire