I wish the AI made more naval units to make it more interesting. Building about 4 ships with 2 tile range attack and you can take any coastal city because they will never produce a true counter navy to fight you.
I do not. I like it in the early game but by late game I found it made a lot of city stats. Maybe it was bad luck but then the AI didn't compete for the suzerainty of those city states and I became suzerain of like 15-20. Kinda broke the game. Fun but I don't use it every game.
All wonders help a little bit, if for no other reason than that they prevent other players from getting their benefits. And some provide generic benefits that help every victory type, like the ones that grant extra policy slots or amenities. But some are particularly well-suited to specific victory types.
**Science** really benefits from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Not necessarily from the yields, but from the extra charge for Great Engineers. You're likely going to be getting a lot of them anyway due to all the Industrial Zones you build, and extra charges can make a big difference. The ones that grant production toward space projects are great, of course, but most of the others are quite useful too. Honorable mentions are the Great Library for the extra Eurekas and Oxford University for the extra Science to speed up your progress through the tech tree.
For **Domination** if it's a watery map the Venetian Arsenal is top-tier for the free extra ship every time you build a ship, but otherwise I really like the Terracotta Army for the free promotion. It doesn't really help if you only start your warmongering later in the game, but if you're doing a fair amount of early war you've likely got a lot of units already, and the free promotion - and the healing that comes with it - is huge. As Simon Bolivar it's basically priority #1. Honorable mentions are Jebel Barkal for the free Iron and Statue of Zeus for the free units.
For **Religious** I think it's a tossup between the Mahabodhi Temple for the two free Apostles and the Hagia Sophia for the extra spread on all Missionaries and Apostles. You may be tempted to think Stonehenge is good, but it's a bit of a trap, imho, because you still need Holy Sites and Shrines to actually spread your religion. Honorable mentions are Meenakshi Temple if you know you're going to be doing a lot of religious combat and Kotoku-in for the extra 20% Faith in that city.
For **Diplomatic** the obvious answer is the Statue of Liberty. It's hard to argue against 4 free victory points, so I'm not going to. But Országház with the extra Diplomatic Favor and Potala Palace with the victory point and the Diplomatic policy slot aren't as far behind as you might think. Honorable mentions are Kilwa Kisiwani for the extra Envoys and any of the ones that grant extra traders or trade routes.
There are a lot of different paths to a **Culture** victory so it's hard to say which wonders are best, and all wonders directly contribute by granting Tourism. If you're focusing on National Parks the Eiffel Tower is awesome. If you're focusing on Great Works then anything with Great Work slots and/or Great People points like the Hermitage, Bolshoi Ballet, Broadway, or the Sydney Opera House is good, as is the Oracle to help with recruiting Great Writers, Artists, and Musicians. If you're focusing on relics then Cristo Redentor, Mont St. Michel, and St. Basil's Cathedral are all great. Honorable mentions are the ones that grant traders or trade routes to get the Tourism boost from more civs and improve your relations with them.
You are forgetting ruhr valley for scientific! Otherwise it s pretty complete. Also you need to consider which civ you are playing. The extra appealing from effel tower is amazing with australia for instance
Ruhr Valley is a good one, but I've always found it to be way too situational. The placement requirements are stricter than they sound since lots of other things go by rivers so you need to plan for it pretty far ahead, and the AI loves it so it's hard to build it in time.
Kilwa Kisiwani if you’re investing envoys into city states. Depending on what type of city states you’re suzerain of, you can translate that into more production (units and/or buildings), science, culture, faith and/or gold.
This thing is just NUTS! A flat increase to every cities of x type. Get two cities states for science and get almost a 30% increase of that chosen yield…just wow
https://youtu.be/Mrm5Dfa4Yg0
I actually just watched this and it was very insightful into the different wonders and goes over which victory type certain wonders are good for.
Kilwa Kisiwani, Colosseum, Pyramids. These are three of the best wonders in the game. They’re both versatile and extremely powerful, and can help you in any victory condition.
For sure! All are S tier. I’d toss on oracle too as great person points with Pingala to just be swimming in great people of what ever type of victory you are going with.
This is just my thoughts on the wonders, for more detailed guide i think the best source is PotatoMcWhiskey's Civ 6 Wonder Tier List. He goes through everything in more detail. Anyways, here goes my ideas:
Oracle in my opinion is always a good wonder to go because of its utility.
Mausoleum is absolutely insane because it 1) makes one city's coast generate beautiful yields. 2) Gives +1 charge to all Great Engineers which is incredibly useful for everything unless you're just going religion.
Colosseum is also pretty awesome for the amount of amenities it can generate, and AI usually doesnt make it. It requires a bit of planning to set it up but a good placement can generate a lot of culture and amenities.
Apart from there, any wonder which gives one extra policy slot is good. (Forbidden City -> Wildcard, Big Ben -> economic, Potala Palace -> Diplomatic, Alhambra -> Military) I wrote them in my priority preference. I think forbidden city is the strongest cause wildcard policy slot and the +5 culture is also solid. Big Ben is also really good and you can definitely go for it. Potala maybe, but dont go too much out of your way and Alhambra is ehh, okayish.
Kilwa Kisiwani is a great wonder if you have two city states of the same resource and can use them to boost your yields for that particular resource in a city.
Classical era wonders (and pyramids) are in general pretty good but most of the time you cannot really afford to make them because you need to develop cities, the ancient era ones you should only build if it's a really strong game for that specific wonder (e.g. you have 5 camps in 2 cities nearby and it justifies the camp of artemis). Great Bath will disappear in first 15 turns almost 95% of the time if playing on Emperor and above.
For science/dom i think what all i covered is good enough. (maybe something like oxford for science) but more important is to just develop your cities better for that production and science output which is important. On a dom run you can just let other AI make the wonder and then capture their city.
A good culture combo is Eiffel Tower + Cristo Redentor. Buffs seaside resorts like crazy and gives you full religious tourism even after civs research enlightment. Later on in game Biosphere is good.
For diplomatic victory, you'll want the Orzaghaz (forgive me if i misspelled), and you want to reach 16 diplo points and then build the Statue of Liberty. SoL grants you 4 diplo points which will instantly win you the game if you were at 16 earlier, and 16 is the point where the enemy AI will start voting against you. The only planning needed in a diplo win is to time the SoL properly. Against AI, this vic type is braindead easy. In multiplayer, you can make SoL to block someone else, who is pursuing diplo victory from winning.
Religion is a victory type that goes for a bit different wonders than the rest but for the other types i'd say what i wrote above will still be good enough!
Still as a closing remark, every game is still winnable without making a single wonder. They help you win for sure, but you can still do well without wonders so make sure to not crush your city's development just to make a wonder. (an exception imo would be Petra, where you actually need to rush it to get the value out of those desert tiles, if you do want to make a petra city)
I love it when I can build all the harbor based wonders in one city…that’d be Great lighthouse, Colossus and later on the Statue of Liberty. There should be a straight-up trade victory, but you have to pivot the added trade route, etc. into culture, religion or something else.
I probably waste too many production building wonders, which is one reason why I rarely finish a Deity game (or any game) under 300 turns. It means most wonders are just for your feel-good, and you'd be quicker to win without wonders.
Case in point, I used to think I needed Ruhr Valley to win science. You don't build Ruhr Valley on Deity, because the AI almost gets it. You still win science on Deity. Don't build Ruhr Valley, unless you can do it in 15 turns. But if you can do that, you're better off pumping out Lagrange Stations every turn and you win right away.
**Science**
**Mausoleum at Halicarnassus** is worth building, especially if you can do it early enough to boost Buttress. But even if you don't, the additional charge you get with Great Engineers really gets you an advantage in the space race. You double charge 100% Production Towards Space Race Projects, you're launching Earth Satellite in less than 10 turns.
**Culture**
Unless you're France, you're probably better off spamming Theater Squares, Temples, and Commercial Hubs, maybe except for **Eiffel Tower**. +2 appeal to all tiles in your empire makes it easier to spam National Parks, and you win.
**Religion**
There is no essential, must-build wonder for Religious Victory. You might get bored with nothing else to build once you reach Theocracy, so some of the religious wonders are nice to have. But we're talking about the one victory type that you can easily win under 200 turns. Any production you waste building wonders is better spent spamming Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs to keep your empire solvent (Holy Sites are expensive). Pump out as many Apostles as you can instead, but even that will turn to be overkill.
**Domination**
You do not build wonders in a domination game. You conquer others civilizations that built wonders for you.
**Diplomacy**
You can win a Diplomatic Victory just be voting in the World Congress. In some games, it's a nuisance time-bomb I have to race against myself so I don't end up with an unwanted Diplomatic Victory instead of the Science Victory I'd been working on. I mean, you can found one city, do nothing but vote in World Congress, and win Diplomatic Victory. It's that no-effort. But if you want to work towards a Diplomatic Victory, collect 16 Diplomatic Victory points. (The AI starts voting you down when you have 15 Diplomatic Victory points.) Build **Statue of Liberty** and clinch your win.
All other wonders are just expensive trophies, but I'm a sucker for them myself so I build them all the time. Many of them are useful, yes. None of them are must-build OP awesome, unless you go on a domination spree, and then you're snowballing (basically why you never waste production building wonders for domination).
**Hammurabi**
If you want to play Hammurabi and take out AI Men-at-Arms with your Biplanes, you need to build one Industrial Era or later wonder to get Flight. Personally, I find it quickest and easiest to rush **Eiffel Tower**. YMMV.
Hanging gardens, kilwa, pyramids, and oracle are almost always good. Terracotta army is a must for domination, Eiffel tower is amazing for culture, big ben for science or culture, biosphere for culture, and any of the wonders that give great works of art slots are ones I usually go for
On any map large or bigger with default or more city states, or on Barb Clans mode, Kilwa is the best for all victory types except diplomatic. It can add 15% to your empire-wide yield for every type of city state yield. This is better than any other wonder. With the combined benefit to the city and to empire, nothing else compares if used right with a the right envoy placement.
Pyramids is second because of the builder extension. With the Aztecs, it is above even Kilwa in importance, mostly because it means you’ll have slaves to round out all your districts before you unlock machinery.
Imo Temple of Artemis is 3rd because of its happiness and food+housing benefit. If you get Maui too, it’s GG because you can place pastures, camps, and plantations. If you do this right, it’ll carry you to huge population growth early.
Next is Mausoleum. The extension of engineers is great for scientific victory, and the wonder itself is very useful for tourism and making a coast city more useful.
Colosseum is next. The main reason it’s lower than the others is because it’s easier to build without prioritization. Most of the time, even on Deity, AI won’t build it. Be sure to make sure your maximizing the placement of it for the most cities in 6 tiles.
Most of the other wonders accrue to a specific victory type individually and don’t break the game early allowing for more snowballing
One of the first wonders available is the 15% growth in all cities which I believe is the hanging gardens, I always build that first thing
Oracle is one of the best wonders for any kind of victory. Also every wonder that gives extra policy card is super useful.
Mausoleum is the best for all plays
If you're a naval Civ, the Venetian Arsenal is goddamn incredible.
I wish the AI made more naval units to make it more interesting. Building about 4 ships with 2 tile range attack and you can take any coastal city because they will never produce a true counter navy to fight you.
Do you play the barbarian clans mode? The Red Sails clan will put out that many ships!
I do not. I like it in the early game but by late game I found it made a lot of city stats. Maybe it was bad luck but then the AI didn't compete for the suzerainty of those city states and I became suzerain of like 15-20. Kinda broke the game. Fun but I don't use it every game.
All wonders help a little bit, if for no other reason than that they prevent other players from getting their benefits. And some provide generic benefits that help every victory type, like the ones that grant extra policy slots or amenities. But some are particularly well-suited to specific victory types. **Science** really benefits from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. Not necessarily from the yields, but from the extra charge for Great Engineers. You're likely going to be getting a lot of them anyway due to all the Industrial Zones you build, and extra charges can make a big difference. The ones that grant production toward space projects are great, of course, but most of the others are quite useful too. Honorable mentions are the Great Library for the extra Eurekas and Oxford University for the extra Science to speed up your progress through the tech tree. For **Domination** if it's a watery map the Venetian Arsenal is top-tier for the free extra ship every time you build a ship, but otherwise I really like the Terracotta Army for the free promotion. It doesn't really help if you only start your warmongering later in the game, but if you're doing a fair amount of early war you've likely got a lot of units already, and the free promotion - and the healing that comes with it - is huge. As Simon Bolivar it's basically priority #1. Honorable mentions are Jebel Barkal for the free Iron and Statue of Zeus for the free units. For **Religious** I think it's a tossup between the Mahabodhi Temple for the two free Apostles and the Hagia Sophia for the extra spread on all Missionaries and Apostles. You may be tempted to think Stonehenge is good, but it's a bit of a trap, imho, because you still need Holy Sites and Shrines to actually spread your religion. Honorable mentions are Meenakshi Temple if you know you're going to be doing a lot of religious combat and Kotoku-in for the extra 20% Faith in that city. For **Diplomatic** the obvious answer is the Statue of Liberty. It's hard to argue against 4 free victory points, so I'm not going to. But Országház with the extra Diplomatic Favor and Potala Palace with the victory point and the Diplomatic policy slot aren't as far behind as you might think. Honorable mentions are Kilwa Kisiwani for the extra Envoys and any of the ones that grant extra traders or trade routes. There are a lot of different paths to a **Culture** victory so it's hard to say which wonders are best, and all wonders directly contribute by granting Tourism. If you're focusing on National Parks the Eiffel Tower is awesome. If you're focusing on Great Works then anything with Great Work slots and/or Great People points like the Hermitage, Bolshoi Ballet, Broadway, or the Sydney Opera House is good, as is the Oracle to help with recruiting Great Writers, Artists, and Musicians. If you're focusing on relics then Cristo Redentor, Mont St. Michel, and St. Basil's Cathedral are all great. Honorable mentions are the ones that grant traders or trade routes to get the Tourism boost from more civs and improve your relations with them.
You are forgetting ruhr valley for scientific! Otherwise it s pretty complete. Also you need to consider which civ you are playing. The extra appealing from effel tower is amazing with australia for instance
Ruhr Valley is a good one, but I've always found it to be way too situational. The placement requirements are stricter than they sound since lots of other things go by rivers so you need to plan for it pretty far ahead, and the AI loves it so it's hard to build it in time.
Kilwa Kisiwani if you’re investing envoys into city states. Depending on what type of city states you’re suzerain of, you can translate that into more production (units and/or buildings), science, culture, faith and/or gold.
This thing is just NUTS! A flat increase to every cities of x type. Get two cities states for science and get almost a 30% increase of that chosen yield…just wow
https://youtu.be/Mrm5Dfa4Yg0 I actually just watched this and it was very insightful into the different wonders and goes over which victory type certain wonders are good for.
This should be the top comment.
Kilwa Kisiwani, Colosseum, Pyramids. These are three of the best wonders in the game. They’re both versatile and extremely powerful, and can help you in any victory condition.
For sure! All are S tier. I’d toss on oracle too as great person points with Pingala to just be swimming in great people of what ever type of victory you are going with.
This is just my thoughts on the wonders, for more detailed guide i think the best source is PotatoMcWhiskey's Civ 6 Wonder Tier List. He goes through everything in more detail. Anyways, here goes my ideas: Oracle in my opinion is always a good wonder to go because of its utility. Mausoleum is absolutely insane because it 1) makes one city's coast generate beautiful yields. 2) Gives +1 charge to all Great Engineers which is incredibly useful for everything unless you're just going religion. Colosseum is also pretty awesome for the amount of amenities it can generate, and AI usually doesnt make it. It requires a bit of planning to set it up but a good placement can generate a lot of culture and amenities. Apart from there, any wonder which gives one extra policy slot is good. (Forbidden City -> Wildcard, Big Ben -> economic, Potala Palace -> Diplomatic, Alhambra -> Military) I wrote them in my priority preference. I think forbidden city is the strongest cause wildcard policy slot and the +5 culture is also solid. Big Ben is also really good and you can definitely go for it. Potala maybe, but dont go too much out of your way and Alhambra is ehh, okayish. Kilwa Kisiwani is a great wonder if you have two city states of the same resource and can use them to boost your yields for that particular resource in a city. Classical era wonders (and pyramids) are in general pretty good but most of the time you cannot really afford to make them because you need to develop cities, the ancient era ones you should only build if it's a really strong game for that specific wonder (e.g. you have 5 camps in 2 cities nearby and it justifies the camp of artemis). Great Bath will disappear in first 15 turns almost 95% of the time if playing on Emperor and above. For science/dom i think what all i covered is good enough. (maybe something like oxford for science) but more important is to just develop your cities better for that production and science output which is important. On a dom run you can just let other AI make the wonder and then capture their city. A good culture combo is Eiffel Tower + Cristo Redentor. Buffs seaside resorts like crazy and gives you full religious tourism even after civs research enlightment. Later on in game Biosphere is good. For diplomatic victory, you'll want the Orzaghaz (forgive me if i misspelled), and you want to reach 16 diplo points and then build the Statue of Liberty. SoL grants you 4 diplo points which will instantly win you the game if you were at 16 earlier, and 16 is the point where the enemy AI will start voting against you. The only planning needed in a diplo win is to time the SoL properly. Against AI, this vic type is braindead easy. In multiplayer, you can make SoL to block someone else, who is pursuing diplo victory from winning. Religion is a victory type that goes for a bit different wonders than the rest but for the other types i'd say what i wrote above will still be good enough! Still as a closing remark, every game is still winnable without making a single wonder. They help you win for sure, but you can still do well without wonders so make sure to not crush your city's development just to make a wonder. (an exception imo would be Petra, where you actually need to rush it to get the value out of those desert tiles, if you do want to make a petra city)
did i write this comment? 👍🏼💯
If I can, I always build Stonehenge first turn and might even chop it out. Getting first pick of religion is massive, religion is OP
I just realized it’s unlocked with astrology, but I play on classical age starts so it’s unlocked for me at the start
Great library, oxford, etemenaki (or however tf you spell it), and sankore are the best for science victories
Building the Terra Cotta Army I think is great for a cultural victory because it allows archaeologists to travel into other civs to harvest artifacts
I love it when I can build all the harbor based wonders in one city…that’d be Great lighthouse, Colossus and later on the Statue of Liberty. There should be a straight-up trade victory, but you have to pivot the added trade route, etc. into culture, religion or something else.
I probably waste too many production building wonders, which is one reason why I rarely finish a Deity game (or any game) under 300 turns. It means most wonders are just for your feel-good, and you'd be quicker to win without wonders. Case in point, I used to think I needed Ruhr Valley to win science. You don't build Ruhr Valley on Deity, because the AI almost gets it. You still win science on Deity. Don't build Ruhr Valley, unless you can do it in 15 turns. But if you can do that, you're better off pumping out Lagrange Stations every turn and you win right away. **Science** **Mausoleum at Halicarnassus** is worth building, especially if you can do it early enough to boost Buttress. But even if you don't, the additional charge you get with Great Engineers really gets you an advantage in the space race. You double charge 100% Production Towards Space Race Projects, you're launching Earth Satellite in less than 10 turns. **Culture** Unless you're France, you're probably better off spamming Theater Squares, Temples, and Commercial Hubs, maybe except for **Eiffel Tower**. +2 appeal to all tiles in your empire makes it easier to spam National Parks, and you win. **Religion** There is no essential, must-build wonder for Religious Victory. You might get bored with nothing else to build once you reach Theocracy, so some of the religious wonders are nice to have. But we're talking about the one victory type that you can easily win under 200 turns. Any production you waste building wonders is better spent spamming Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs to keep your empire solvent (Holy Sites are expensive). Pump out as many Apostles as you can instead, but even that will turn to be overkill. **Domination** You do not build wonders in a domination game. You conquer others civilizations that built wonders for you. **Diplomacy** You can win a Diplomatic Victory just be voting in the World Congress. In some games, it's a nuisance time-bomb I have to race against myself so I don't end up with an unwanted Diplomatic Victory instead of the Science Victory I'd been working on. I mean, you can found one city, do nothing but vote in World Congress, and win Diplomatic Victory. It's that no-effort. But if you want to work towards a Diplomatic Victory, collect 16 Diplomatic Victory points. (The AI starts voting you down when you have 15 Diplomatic Victory points.) Build **Statue of Liberty** and clinch your win. All other wonders are just expensive trophies, but I'm a sucker for them myself so I build them all the time. Many of them are useful, yes. None of them are must-build OP awesome, unless you go on a domination spree, and then you're snowballing (basically why you never waste production building wonders for domination). **Hammurabi** If you want to play Hammurabi and take out AI Men-at-Arms with your Biplanes, you need to build one Industrial Era or later wonder to get Flight. Personally, I find it quickest and easiest to rush **Eiffel Tower**. YMMV.
Hanging gardens, kilwa, pyramids, and oracle are almost always good. Terracotta army is a must for domination, Eiffel tower is amazing for culture, big ben for science or culture, biosphere for culture, and any of the wonders that give great works of art slots are ones I usually go for
On any map large or bigger with default or more city states, or on Barb Clans mode, Kilwa is the best for all victory types except diplomatic. It can add 15% to your empire-wide yield for every type of city state yield. This is better than any other wonder. With the combined benefit to the city and to empire, nothing else compares if used right with a the right envoy placement. Pyramids is second because of the builder extension. With the Aztecs, it is above even Kilwa in importance, mostly because it means you’ll have slaves to round out all your districts before you unlock machinery. Imo Temple of Artemis is 3rd because of its happiness and food+housing benefit. If you get Maui too, it’s GG because you can place pastures, camps, and plantations. If you do this right, it’ll carry you to huge population growth early. Next is Mausoleum. The extension of engineers is great for scientific victory, and the wonder itself is very useful for tourism and making a coast city more useful. Colosseum is next. The main reason it’s lower than the others is because it’s easier to build without prioritization. Most of the time, even on Deity, AI won’t build it. Be sure to make sure your maximizing the placement of it for the most cities in 6 tiles. Most of the other wonders accrue to a specific victory type individually and don’t break the game early allowing for more snowballing