Most powerful wonder?

[MOBIUS]

Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about for London Exchange and Edison's Lab...

All LE does is save you money - granted it's a lot, but my strategy places gold at the bottom of the resource tree... It is FAR BETTER to be PRODUCING lots of gold by clever initial placement of your cities and building Marketplaces - plus you have to watch out when Robotics rears it's ugly head...

EL, almost a waste of time IMO... I have prefected my science figures by the time I get to EL and I hardly receive any advances through it - besides, two allies in a human game can EASILY outstrip advances with their combined science... Now Gallileo's Telescope on the other hand, THAT is a work of art!!!

Faves in early to mid game - no particular order...

STONEHENGE
GALLILEO'S TELESCOPE
CONTRACEPTION
LONDON EXCHANGE - hey, I just didn't say it was the Holy Grail...

[Flyercraft]

Of course LE saves you a LOT of gold but don't forget that a big portion of your science comes from converted gold. In my first game, LE made my advances took 3 turns instead of 6 turns!!

[DrDanger]

I'd say London Exchange and Yes Robotics kills it..but you can overcome that by having City Clock's & Television's..which brings up my Third Favorite Wonder Hollywood..Steals Gold from any Foreign Civ with Television's..2nd Fav is Edisons Lab..Free Science..Then 4th is Gally's Scope..200% Science..build that on a city Tile that will GROW......5th would be Genome..10%Production Increase and 10% Attack Bonus..and then I cant leave off that all important Globesat..Radar Coverage of whole world...As for Labrynth..welll.it doesnt last that long when you have some Good Science Hunters out there..Goes Obsolete soo soon..~sigh~

[Andz83]

interesting discussion you brought up here, fellows! go on!

[uffe]

OK, maybe I'll post my thoughts also...

I play the game with the 1.2 patch and always a single player game (at the moment I'm usually playing at the Emperor level), so my thoughts apply only to that kind of games.

In the early game I always try to get the Stonehenge. My tactic is to try to build as many cities in the beginning as possible and Stonehenge really helps them grow faster (also keeping in mind that building so many settlers reduces the growth quite a lot at first). Because of this tactic I do not have workers on too many goods in the beginning, which kind of makes the Labyrinth useless. I don't really even consider building any other wonders in the early game.

In the middle game, Edison's Lab and London Exchange are the most important. For the higher difficulty levels, the Contraception is really good, so I also try to get that. I also like Galilei's Telescope, if I have a suitable city for it (I usually have) and East India Company, if I need to use sea units a lot.

In the late game I'm usually already winning and far ahead in tech, so I get pretty much every wonder I want. The ones that I always build are Gaia Controller (since otherwise my cities pollute too much) and the GlobeSat (btw, I think this wonder should reveal the map for everyone) just to make it easier to win. Other wonders are sometimes handy and I tend to build quite a lot of them in the late game, but I don't really need them for winning.

[Solver]

I like what you call Londons Exchange. You see, I use German CTP version.
AI Pyramide is very nice benefit, but hard to control, for sure. Early on I love Labyrinth and Stonehenge. But I'd say Edison's Labor is my favorite one.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Gregurabi]

Don't build the AI Entity! It's going to backfire on you.

(Yeah, sure, it's great to be able to slam your production slider all the way up, and your wages/rations sliders all the way down... but unless you plan to win within, say, 10 turns don't do it! You'll lose 1/3 of your cities, and Murphy's Law says it will happen at the worst possible moment.)

[Solver]

I build AI entity in situation like yesterday: I switch to Ecotopie goverment. I had towns with production good enough to produce EcoRanger (Park Ranger?) in 1 turn. I planned to launch them into the space and land. Do that with each city on the land, and get thew wiped out with Parks. But I have had about 120 cities at that moment. This caused unhappiness, so I was forced to create the AI entity. It took my cities, but they turned out to be barbarian. My 3 citites had Though Control improvement, so they didn't revolt and I could finish it off.
By the way, I always keep several Leviathans near the city where I got the AI Entity. I take all the forces, except 1 Plasmatica unit out. Then, if necessary I order 3 Leviathans to attack and the city is mine again.
But I'm not lucky. Mostly my AI entity revolts for the first time within 10 turns after I've built it. Yesterday it was even worse. It revolted in the next turn!

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[Joseph]

You can build the AI Entity every game with out a problem. Waite until you start the aliens project. Then check with one of your best city, how many turns it would take to build the AI Entity. Start the AI Entity about three to five turn after the Aliens project. When you get the next to last turn before the Alien project is complete, go the city screen and the AI Entity Should be a few turn from comletion. Just rush buy it, and then on the last turn, you will have the AI Entity and the Alien Project together. Your total points for the game will be higher. If you do not use much money during the game, you have around 70,000 to 85,000 dollars in your acount at the end of the game. The AI should not cost more 10,000 to 15,000. If you go for a military victory, you could do the same thing. Again check your bet city for building the AI, and then when there is only two to three cities left, start the AI to build, and then conquer two of the cities, then have your armies ready to destroy the last city, then go to the city screen, rust buy the AI. Start the next turn. You will get the AI and you destroy the last city, game over.

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[Solver]

Yes, but then you don't feel the real benefit from it. The sense is having AI and playing while it's here.

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Solver - http://www.aok.20m.com

[psientist]

Artificial Intelligence Wonder

I've found Artifical Intelligence to be very useful. Research the technology that grants the AI wonder, and give it to your strongest computer-player enemy. Usually, the enemy will start building the wonder just to spite you. Start moving out some stacks, and when AI cities inevitably defect - they will vacate most of the defending units. An easy way to cripple the strongest computer player, if any remain, and take their cities - in solo play or multi. Warning - don't take the city that built the AI wonder!

[Martin Gühmann]

Actual the AI Entity is the strongest wonder, the trick is to get it under controll, so my trick was save every turn and when it revolts than reload the last turn and than I use the sliders to make all my people happy, max out happiness and than I keep my cities. I think the problem is when the happiness level of your AI-Entity city as it would be without the AI-Entity gets to low than the revolt will happen so, a mind control emmiter should control the AI-Entity.

-Martin

[J Bytheway]

I had a friend who always built the AI Entity in a frotier city then undefended it so some computer player conquers it. With the Egalitarian act you'll have a good chunk of the computer empire pretty soon, then remove the defense from the AI Entity city again, and repeat as necessary. Unfortunately, this backfired for him in one game because about 25 cities revolted from the computer player into his empire when he was already several cities over the max city limit, and so now he had huge happiness problems. Consequently, all but 3 of his 150-odd cities revolted to the bararians. I've never seen quite so many barbarian cities before.

[Tainted Angel]

Senseorium and Gaia controller...

[jpww]

Originally posted by J Bytheway
I had a friend who always built the AI Entity in a frotier city then undefended it so some computer player conquers it. With the Egalitarian act you'll have a good chunk of the computer empire pretty soon, then remove the defense from the AI Entity city again, and repeat as necessary. Unfortunately, this backfired for him in one game because about 25 cities revolted from the computer player into his empire when he was already several cities over the max city limit, and so now he had huge happiness problems. Consequently, all but 3 of his 150-odd cities revolted to the bararians. I've never seen quite so many barbarian cities before.

Very amusing!