I hate when this happens (losing 560 shields of production)

[Artifex]

Just a thought. There is nothing that deflates me more in this game than when I am 2 turns away from a middle ages wonder and get beaten by 2 turns with the next thing on the build que being a harbor or temple.

I keep forgeting this isn't civ 2 and you can research another wonder and keep building so your screwed. *sigh*

I even made my city go into civil disorder hoping it would freeze production but that trick didn't work either.. changed from leonardo's to a temple. Js bachs is only 2 turns away too. *sigh* I gotta start all over again.. those chinese....

Things like that make me long to restart.

[Palleon]

You can switch to anouther wonder as long as you don't have anything else in the build queue..just keep those cities open.

[Coracle]

I've always said it made far more sense in Civ 2 to be able to stockpile your resources and rush a Wonder than in Civ 3 having a Great Leader somehow build an entire Wonder from scratch in one turn.

In Civ 3, since we get no warnings and can't rush, we should be allowed to retain some of the shields and be able to convert them into Wealth instead of losing everything.

It's just another irritation with Civ 3.

[Palleon]

For once Coracle, I'll agree with you. If you have excess shields, you should get gold for it. Same for research. Instead of micromanaging your tech, and pointing points back into money when you get to 1 turn, excess beakers should become gold.

[The_Hawk]

The one thing you can do to calculate if you're leading the race for creating GWs is to use your Info screens.

Artifex,

Let's say you're building JS Bach and you want to know if you're leading. Use your Wonders of the World screen (F7). It will show you the GWs that have been built and by whom (color-coded and has Owned in the Wonder box). However, it ALSO shows you who's building a wonder as well (Will say Being Constructed) and will tell you which city is in the process of building it. So in your example, once i'm 5-10 turns into building something, I might check that F7 screen. Let's say Beijing of China is building the wonder. I now know that I have competetion, if the Tech is widely known, you may have 2-3 Civs competing for it at the same time.

If you want to know who's winning the race, you'll have to spend some money. If you're not at war with the Civ, just use your Embassy to investigate the city in question (Beijing in this example). You'll see how many turns till they complete their wonder. If you're winning, great! If not, you now have options.

Do I go to war to get a GL?

Do I conduct espionage to sabotage production (If available)?

Do I change production in my queue to something else?

At least you have the options at your disposal and are in control. You may lose the Wonder, or can conduct a strategy to seize control of a Wonder in construction. Choice is yours.

[Zachriel]

On higher levels, the AI always has production advantages. I almost never attempt a wonder that the AI has already started. F7.

[The_Hawk]

I'm not sure if people have found better strategies, but there are a couple of things i've done to reduce or gain a 2 turn lead in production.

1. Clear Forest. Every tile within a City radius of Forest that's cleared by a Worker produces 10 shields of production. So, if your City is producing 24 squares, you have to clear 2-3 tiles of forest to get a 1-turn gain. I'm not sure if a patch fixed this issue, but you can simply reforest the tile and have your workers chop it down again! I still have the 1.17f patch (I'll install 1.29f when I finish my current game) and it still works for me!

2. Disband Units. Pick some units, especially units that may be obsolete at the time, if any. Move them to the city building the GW and disband them! Depending on the unit you can get a number of shields from this as well.

I know that military units are precious commodities, but so are GWs. and they can only be built once! I've caught up on a 4 turn gap using just the 2 techniques above! I was not playing a Civ with a military trait, so going to war to try and get a GW was not an option. The city building it was on another continent and at the time the biggest boats were Caravel. So, I improvised.

You can do some other minor things to maximize your production in that city as well, but these are more obvious (placing city workers on all production based tiles,etc.) Even if your city's surplus is dwindling, you might be able to time it for a few turns where you plan to lose some food in storage to gain more production. Just an idea

Anyway, that's some stuff that I do to speed production. Any other ideas?

[Palleon]

Start up a city improvement that costs a lot of shields, pay to rush it, then switch to the wonder. Haven't tried this on 1.29 though.

[Jaybe]

My understanding is that clearing forests, pop rushes, unit disbanding are all disallowed for wonder building. Some of these are from personal experience, some from reading here. If you have used any of these methods building something else in the course of this construction, you cannot switch to a wonder.

The only semi-solution I have for Artifex's situation is to hope you can switch to a Palace (cost of a palace depends on how many cities you have).

[alva]

From the moment you added shield in a non-regular way
(not produced by the cities workers), you can no longer
switch to a wonder!

I agree with Coracle on the GL too, too strong and no fun.

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Jaybe
(cost of a palace depends on how many cities you have).

Huh?

Also, previous comments are correct, there is no way to 'speed' the building of a GW other than with a GL.

Sorry.

[delsolsi]

When ever I build a wonder that the AI either has the tech for or is close to having the tech, I try to come up with a back up plan of what I'll build if the AI finishes first. If you are in a situation were the only options are a huge loss of shields you have to decide if the wonder is worth the risk of losing a ton of production.

[Hurricane]

I agree with The Hawk and Zachriel. I always use the investigate city option when I am building important wonders. By micromanaging production (build mines over irrigations, join workers to the city so it can work all tiles, increase luxuries so entertainers aren´t needed) I can often get the required shields to finish the wonder first.

And if you still get beat to the wonder, switch to another wonder of Palace. That´s why you shouldn´t build risky wonders in your capital.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Coracle
I've always said it made far more sense in Civ 2 to be able to stockpile your resources and rush a Wonder than in Civ 3 having a Great Leader somehow build an entire Wonder from scratch in one turn.

In Civ 3, since we get no warnings and can't rush, we should be allowed to retain some of the shields and be able to convert them into Wealth instead of losing everything.

It's just another irritation with Civ 3.

Well, yes, it is definitely an irritation, I will agree on that. However, I have always felt that with Civ2, it was far too easy to beat the AI civs to ANY wonder. You always got that popup saying they almost finished it and if there was cash enough, you simply cheated them out by "buying the rest of the wonder". THAT was unfair (I remember selling granaries and barracks like mad to get the cash needed to buy the Leo's Workshop...).

With Civ3, you have to take more measures to make sure you finish the wonder first (or, at least, do not waste all that production put into the race). All of them have been mentioned by other people in this thread:

1) Maximizing production of the building city (adding workers, mining irrigated land, maximizing luxuries, so everybody can be assigned to work)
2) Determining if there is a solid chance to win the wonder race by spying/embassying (uh?) on the rival civs.
3) Having a "backup wonder" (or backup building) you can switch to, should you lose the race.

Even if you lose the race by very few turns, you can sometimes still save the day by trading for a tech that allows a different, yet unfinished one.

I may agree with that the shields not used for the wonder building (those that are currently wasted) should be changed to money... but I am not really sure, if it was not too easy then... the way it is now, you have to be careful in planning what to build.

One objection I do agree with is that the GL building is far too easy. But then, you can have only one leader in stock, so there is still the strategic decision. Shall I save it for the UN? Shall I use it now?

[The Pioneer]

I had that happened to me a couple times in the last game I played. It's very annoying, I got so angry that I attacked, razed and destroyed the Japanese, who had beat me to the GW race! I of course made sure that I kept the cities with the wonders!