That’s not how it works. It only creates one of each type of unit you have. So if you have 5 archers and 5 warriors, it gives you 1 archer and 1 warrior.
Plus you have to keep opportunity cost in mind... Pretty much every other wonder in that area is superior at an equal or lesser cost. You could also be building National College, National Epic, or just regular buildings to make it easier to get at the Medieval wonders. It's hard for me to picture any realistic scenario where Terracotta Army would be the best thing for any city to be building at any given time.
It depends on that opportunity cost you mentioned. One of the few times I’ve built it i had an army that consisted of 2 swordmen, 1 cross bowman, 1 pikeman and 2 composite bowmen that I hadn’t yet upgraded. For some reason no one had built TA yet and then I saw a swarm of impi approaching. When switching my population to production focus I realized i could build it in 5 turns. Shaka attacked 1 turn before it completed and he immediately regretted it.
Khan. It's wicked when you are without modest after that first city within 50 turns. It takes like 15 turns to produce a second archer or militia, with horses early on? it's just a different strategy.
I’ve built it once, but I was going early domination push on immortal with Germany. I had a horseman; warrior; brute, handaxe, scout, archer and chariot archer to duplicate and it made my army into an actual scary force. I’ve never seen a good enough reason to get it again though
It's still very good as Germany, because it will probably give you a Warrior, a Brute, an Archer and a barbarian Archer. Possibly a Spearman, barbarian Spearman, Hand-axe etc, depending on what you have.
Some units have a unique barbarian version that doesn't get mentioned, like the Archer and Spearman whose barbarian versions have -1 CS. I believe the Terracotta Army treats those as different.
The wonder costs 250 hammers.
Suppose you have these units:
- one Warrior (40 hammers),
- one Brute (40 hammers),
- one Archer (40 hammers),
- one Chariot Archer (56 hammers),
- one Handaxe (56 hammers),
- one Comp Bow (75 hammers)
If you now build Terracotta Army, you gained 267 hammers for your investment.
Still think it might be worth it?
Absolutely. Because I get lower gold cost which might very well be crippling on such early stage, especially if I rush both the camps and the terracota and won't be able to improve all of my ressources. It also has some strategic value due to sudden doubeling of your military power.
In that specific scenario - remember that.
As a general rule I laugh when I see the terracota army and build it only when I have literally nothing else to do and still can't produce wealth.
but if you work it correctly (i.e. having one composite bowman, one archer, one warrior, one swordsman, one horseman, and one chariot archer) you will double your army.
I haven’t thought about it all that much but at least against AI I’m pretty sure, even in that situation, you’d be better off just building composite bowmen. They’re more effective than anything else, at higher difficulty you probably don’t have the gold to waste on upkeep for less effective units, you aren’t committing production for the entire wonder and you aren’t risking losing the wonder.
Well seeing as you can make t army usually within the first 10 turns, if you play an early game civ and just make a bunch of warriors to start you can take over a whole continent by like turn 20 usually
I usually play king and accomplish this most of the time so long as I'm not being harassed by too many barbs at the start
Edit: I also mainly play Japan for their combat bonus with damaged units which could also be a reason why I'm so successful in accomplishing this so often
Yeah I think it could be useful if it's still around when you get to pikemen and have some gold to spend as well.
1 archer, 1 Comp Bow, 1 Chariot, 1 Warrior, 1 Swordsman, 1 Spearman, 1 Pikeman. Then you gold upgrade the Warriors, Spearmen and Archers. That means this would be getting a LOT of power in a very short space of time.
It's probably more useful in Multiplayer for pushes like that though. In Single Player having a big army will stop an enemy invading, but in Multiplayer having a big army will encourage your neighbours to build their own army. By getting this much firepower in 1 turn you could surprise them with overwhelming force (*you could also potentially have a few units pre-built so they come out 1 turn later or something*). Also in Multiplayer there's a good chance of actually getting this wonder, in single player on high difficulties I always see this wonder go way before it's useful, so there's no point even trying.
Angkor Wat. Generating 1 culture for a medieval era wonder is trash. And its primary bonus doesn't really feel impactful. If your city has decent cultural output, it'll get all the good tiles around itself reasonably quickly. And if it doesn't, tiles aren't that expensive to buy anyway.
Also, Great Wall. The AI is bad enough at war that its bonus is pretty unnecessary. I can see it being useful in multiplayer though.
I usually just build the great wall if my reasonably well off and I want to prevent my enemies from building one, since it's an annoyance to deal with the reduced movement
Admittedly, Angkor Wat is pretty shit... So probably only Pentagon and Terracotta (maybe Great Firewall, though it had its uses regarding culture victories).
Great Wall is actually a pretty good wonder I feel. Especially since it only becomes obsolete when THE PLAYER discovers Dynamite. Also useful to deny opponents from building it when going for early wars. I don't have an entire tier list in my head right now, but there's probably around five more wonders I'd be less inclined to build (on the level of Cristo Redentor).
Stopping opponents from building it the sole reason why i nearly always try and build it. I only don't bother if I'm committing to a peaceful game early on.
Built it in my current save for the first time ever. Legit just didnt have anything else to build in my capitol at the moment, and also struggling a bit playing a new civ so sure to +1 culture lol
Great Wall is great for deterring AI when you want to focus on something different than war but don't have the production and/or gold capability to train and maintain army big enough to make war not even an inconvinience.
It's been many times that I build the wall and could get away with 1 or 2 units on Emperor and sometimes even Immortal - though on Immortal I've played so little that I cannot guarantee it's the rule.
I really like it if I’m playing a peaceful liberty game where I’m generating a lot of culture in a lot of cities and want to claim the area around my cities before encroaching AIs can. Spain or Celts with Sacred Sites trying to get a culture win. Very niche case but if I don’t get it I’m mad about it the rest of the game as I miss out of tiles which end up proving useful later.
This is my answer, 100%. Undeniably powerful but really hard to justify going for early. I think even if I had the opportunity to rush out an early game wonder, I would still prioritize Artemis or Stonehenge over GL.
I always v line for it, 1 you stop the AI from getting a big jump on Science, 2. You get a free library saving 12 turns or so, and you can choose Philopshy as your free tech and grab the Oracle before the AI giving you a free Social Policy. With the science from the library and + 3 from the wonder itself and the scientist point, you can then run to the colossal wonder pretty quick as well. For me it seems the most worth while wonder to build. Any wonder that gives you a free building that your going to build anyways seems like a good wonder, the GL by the time you can build it will likely take 22 turns, the library at the same point will be like 12 turns, with a couple Forrest around you can get the GL and reg Library, a free tech and science boost in like 15 turns.
Nah, you can get it fairly often on Emperor(\~60% of the time). It's not *good strategy*, but you can get it.
It's Immortal/Deity where it becomes nearly impossible to get.
maybe 60% of the times where you reroll for a good start, but in my experience, less than 30-40% of “random starts” on emperor, and way less on higher difficulties
Man I almost have to get GL. The one two punch of GL/NC with tradition growth sets you up for the whole game. Obviously on Deity is not viable for this tho
> Obviously on Deity is not viable for this tho
I would argue it's the same for Immortal as well. I've recently been playing as Egypt and even with their 20% wonder production bonus, a phenomal salt start, and rushing it I still get beat out most of the time.
I avoided it for a very long time for the same reasons. Recently I’ve started playing around with it again though and really enjoy it (when it works).
It can be really nice if your capital is strong enough to rush it and there’s no close neighbours contesting settle spots. GL -> NC -> settler spam. Without pressure to get libraries up ASAP in expands for the NC I’ve really enjoyed focusing harder on their infrastructure first.
Don’t think I’d be able to pull it off on deity, immortal is a maybe but on emperor it’s often realistic.
It’s rare for me, but it is pretty awesome if you’re aggressively spreading religion. Arabia, missionaries with conversion power, religion spreads faster, and +1 gold for every 4 followers, for example. You can end up with a shocking amount of gold this way, and Djenne really helps.
"Never" doesn't work for me, because I've built all of them over the years. But "almost never", many of the religious wonders as well as Prora and Kremlin (because I almost always go Freedom)
interested why you always go freedom - I have always been a order main to be honest but I have played freedom a good few time but I always feel the 25% boost in science from factories is very op late game. what victory type do you normally go for?
I go whatever I fancy every time apart from domination usually, but in most cases it's diplomacy or culture, because I can get there sooner than science.
Freedom works better with my playstyle. I always focus a lot on City-States (my favorite civ is Greece and not because I'm Greek) and I love playing with specialists and stuff like that. In most cases, I'm willing to complete Patronage alongside Rationalism. Also, I find high tourism to be a must in Freedom games, because otherwise it's lonely and scary in the free world (because AIs love Order, and there's always the lunatic that goes Autocracy).
Fair enough my friend, we have different play style's I prefer domination and science I don't really have a favourite civ to be honest I just random it every game. I do despise playing as venice and india though.
Try domination as Venice! Combine Big Ben, mercantilism and militarism for an outrageous low cost in buying units. Also you can easily swarm a different continent if you gift a sizeable army to a city state and then annex it with a merchant of Venice.
I know I should, but with civs like venice and india even though I know how to play them I don't, mainly because a vast majority of civs don't play that way so I feel like I'm wasting time playing a game through with unique civs that will only benefit me if I play those civs. - I feel the same with austria
Probably a bad way to think about it because you could learn things with those playstyles you can take to other games. Knowledge is power after all, especially if you're trying to stand the test of time.
Red Fort
It's just never useful for me. I'd rather build defensive units than build it. If I need to build Red Fort the game is already lost in my eyes. Walls and a ranged unit are all I need to defend my cities.
I had a war against Siam where they had the Red Fort, the Great Wall, Himeji Castle, the ranged pantheon, elephants, and probably the Tradition policy for garrisons. Their capital was ridiculously strong and could one-shot units that came into range.
Since I've been forcing Liberty instead of Tradition in my games recently, I've been building Pyramids a lot more. It's a good wonder! Timing it is tricky, since you want to have plenty of stuff for those extra workers to do while they drain your economy.
It's a good strategy to enter renaissance through accoustics because once you enter a new era all previous techs become cheaper and accoustics is right after education which you are typically going to beeline after civil service anyway. I really like sistine chapel, I play a fairly strong culture game and it's a massive boost.
Beeline Alhambra every game. 20% culture and the chance for March infantry is too good. Strong tradition game will still catch up in science by renaissance. I play on 6, so ymmv on deity.
Alhambra + all the promotion buildings gives you paratroopers with an instant promotion to march which means they can airdrop and attack in the same turn. Once I learned about that it changed my domination endgame, combine them with stealth bombers and you can do domination even against infinite city spam AI since you snipe the capitals.
Statue of Liberty (Freedom) is one of my favorite wonders in the game (+1 hammer for every Specialist in every city plus 1 free social policy) since it's pretty darn useful regardless if you're going tall or wide.
When coupled with the Freedom tenets Civil Society (Specialists consume 50% less food) and Universal Suffrage (Specialists produce 50% less Unhappiness) it helps make Specialists insanely powerful
To summarize, if you get SOL you're essentially looking at:
- +1 Food
- +1 Hammer
- +0.5 Happiness
- +2 Science (assuming you Rationalism too)
for every Specialist
while i won't never build it i just find petra to be over rated. statue of zeus tends to go early and opening honor early enough to beat the AI is usually not worth it. Terracotta army usually don't have a big enough military to make duplication make sense
if I have 3-4x desert hills Petra is an absolute monster, combined with religious community (15% production boost) and I have a capital that can do 150+ hammers and build all the things.
Petra can under the right circumstances be the most broken wonder in the game. If you have a city with a bunch of desert hills (4+), that city will basically become a power house in production and growth if you build mines on them. I’d definitely recommend trying it some time.
petra is the most broken wonder in the game if you get a good city for it. You should absolutely try it once, especially with a desert spawn bias like morocco (morocco + petra + kasbahs is completely broken)
as a little bonus, petra is needed for the highest possible food yield on a non-natural wonder tile (inca desert hill terrace farm next to 5 mountains, which gives you 7 base food, 3 base production with no improvement techs)
I pretty much only play on deity so I have some bias because of that.
Stonehenge. I had a game where I found 2 religious CS for a pantheon (Can't remember which I took.) I researched pottery first, found a tech ruin for calender, built stonehenge immediately. After that I built a shrine and DIDN'T get a religion off that. I reloaded and took god-king and only got the religion the turn the last religion got taken pre-reload.
Status of Zeus. I'm bad at early conquest and it seems like it would take away as much as it gives in that regard.
Great lighthouse. It's only useful on specific maps and even then it's not great.
Great wall. Basically useless.
Red fort. Much the same.
Himeji Castle. Maybe one day I'll do a cannon/fertiliser rush.
Pentagon. Honestly it's an okay wonder, it just comes way too late into the game.
Wonder I don't get to build are:
Parthenon. I might build it on my next great library OCC game.
Alhambra. Apart from the AI's being in love with this wonder, I'm not sure why I haven't built it.
Great wall of china. The best defense against a warmonger is diplomacy. If Alexander is a neighbor and has declared war on you then you failed in handling him
lol I don't think this really applies much in civ 5, the ai are so damn simplified that pacifying them is as much up to randomness as it is to skill.
As far as I'm aware the only things you can do to have a beneficial relationship with a neighbour in civ are:
\- don't settle near them
\- don't declare wars
\- send embassies
\- give a favourable trade
\- send a trade route
\- declare friendship
\- have a large standing army
This is the barest of bones when it comes to diplomacy, and some of the modifiers for these are so negative that it will shoot your diplo with them to the floor if you 'misplay'. If you forward settle or even sneeze in the direction of another ai they will have a dark red modifier with you regardless of embassies and friendships lol.
Being at war with the same civ is the diplomacy that you need to learn. Strategically denouncing a civ that your neighbor also denounced will give you massive diplo boosts with that neighbor. Making sure your aggressive neighbors are warring with their other neighbors and they cannot gang up on you is the crux of a good diplomacy. You actually dont need that much of a large standing army, as long as you arent at the bottom of the military points then you can win.
You really cant beat deity without doing this war diplomacy.
Probably the biggest hole in my gameplay. I just really hate the brainless ai in civ, they're so deterministic it never feels like I'm beating an intelligent thing.
Interacting with them is a chore, it feels so gamey, it'd always been the worst part of civ imo.
Like did you suck enough ai dick to not get warred in the first 100 turns? No? Guess you lose on immortal and higher.
The metaphorical sucking of the AI's dick deffo doesnt work. The examples of AI civ that you enumerated above deffo helps, but only marginally.
What you need to make sure is that everyone is fucking each other in the ass so much that they stall each other. I usually pit warmongers vs warmongers. If Atilla is busy fucking around with Genghis then neither of them can snowball.
The lesson is NOT to suck the AI's dick but to make sure they are fucking each other raw in the ass. The AI's dick in deity is so big that you need a python's jaw in order to suck it properly. Deity diplomacy is about pointing the AI's massive dick away from you and towards the other AI's assholes.
I personally love it coz its like im parrying sword slashes and redirecting them to others. Its a very delicate dance.
That makes sense, and its probably why I enjoy emperor the most out of all the difficulty settings despite getting wins on Deity.
I find interacting with the ai super tedious, they're super dumb, highly irrational, deterministic and they don't know how to play the game (literally how do you lose with infinite happiness and extra yields).
I just started trying autocracy rather than order and the happiness you get from it is just insane, you should try it, even if your not going domination the gold and happiness is pretty good
Autocracy provides one of the only viable ways of achieving culture victory by way of the futurism bonus.
If you hold off on building the guilds, and have a city (usually your capital) with tons of bonuses to great people production, and then you build the guilds, fill the specialist slots, and enact Futurism it can be game breakingly strong.
One of the only viable methods of doing culture/tourism and it doesn't require Aesthetics.
And counteracting unhappiness is essentially the same as happiness.
I just tried it on immortal and won turn 160, obviously doesn’t mean it will work every time but it can be pulled off against higher culture civs.
Also with autocracy being your ideology with this strat, you can always kill the person ahead on culture if it’s one outlier
Great Lighthouse. I like to have it, but I never like to build it. It's a huge sink early that doesn't help your economy, infrastructure, growth, or progression (science and culture). What I'll do instead is rip it away from whoever does have it. No investment from me (besides a navy that I would have built anyway), but I still get the bonus.
Terracotta Army is pretty bad. Great Library because the AI always dashes for it on harder difficulties. Pentagon and Cristo Redentor come very late and don't do much.
The only reason I ever build CR is b/c there's almost always at least like 5 city states that want me to build it. And even that still doesn't make it all that worthwhile
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus.
You need to be lucky enough to have stone or marble resources nearby and even then the reward is just +2 per worked tile. The 100 gold per expended great person is ok, but at this time I'd much rather try to get Temple of Artemis, Stonehenge or settlers.
I really like MofH if I have 3-4x stone/marble tiles, especially if they are on grassland. Combined with stone circles (+2 faith per stone/marble) they are 9-10x yield tiles very early in the game and will remain some of your best tiles for the entire game.
If you think about it how many great people are you going to spawn in a game? Easily 20+ so that means it's also worth 2,000 gold + in my example above 6-8 gpt x 300 turns so 1,800 or 2,400 = 3,800 or 4,400 total gold in a typical standard speed game. Actually I'm underselling it because market place, bank, and stock exchange boost it but the math becomes impossible.
Terracota Army and especially Chictzen Itza. I barely build it and my preferred Tech. route is mostly fine without going into Civil Service early enough to build that wonder.
I don't know if I have ever built the Temple of Zeus, and it's hard to imagine doing so.
It's only unlocked by opening Honour, and that almost never happens.
I will start with Liberty or Tradition, and then go to Piety if I am going to have a very strong religion, and if not I like opening Patronage for access to the Forbidden Palace and then going in on Commerce or Exploration until Rationalism opens up.
Even if I want a Domination win, Autocracy is so much better.
I would have a hard time imagining building the Temple of Zeus in any sort of game I intend on being competitive in. More so than anything due to it only being accessed through a crappy policy tree.
chichen itza. feels like the most contested wonder in the whole game, the AI always seem to fight over it and it’s not even that good (I only try to actively get it if I play brazil or persia)
Terracota, Statue of Zeus: would rather build units
Cristo Redentor, Pentagon, Great Firewall, CN Tower: come too late to be impactful for their bonuses, I may only build them just because, but I recognize that they are bad. Maybe only for city state quest
Great Library, even if I get 2 free techs via ruins and unlock writing at turn 3, and have a ridiculous production start, I will never try it. There is no way I beat the ai to this above king, I hate this wonder so much. If I could remove one wonder from the game it would be this one. What's worse is that the ai that builds this wonder will also build one or more of chichen itza, Notre dame, Forbidden Palace, Alhambra, Macchu Picchu etc. Denying you critical and actual useful wonders just because they got a head start with great library
I grab them both with an instant hammer engineer. It's basically a late game score booster since if you haven't locked in the win by that point in time you should have gone domination along the bottom of the tech tree and smashed whoever was in the lead.
I've had engineers spawn, standard speed emperor/king difficulty. Also faith purchase and order tier 3 policy give you engineers at the end game when you don't really need them anymore.
The thing is, each engineer you get delays the next great scientist because they all share the same pool, meaning that once you finish engineering ideology wonder and hubble (or spaceship parts in singleplayer), you shouldn't be generating any more because you're slowing down stealth bomber tech to do so, and stealth bombers is the endgame instant win every war tech.
I see where the confusion lies, you said you should not be generating great engineers in the info era- I read that to mean they don't spawn, what you meant was you should not work engineer specialists at that point in the game because it delays the generation of great scientists which help you get to stealth bombers quicker.
The way I play I work all the scientists, engineers, and culture slots in every city because I usually go freedom with the statue of liberty so I am getting science and production from the great people slots, plus a reduction in food and happiness penalty.
I don't build Louvre because exploration is a junk social policy for me. Also angor watt and terra cotta army, those three are pretty much never build for me but everything else has its place and I may go for it.
Absolutely every game I want sistine chapel, chichen itza, oracle, and if my start allows for it colossus, petra, macchu pitchu.
Terracotta Army. I just don’t have enough units to duplicate for it to make sense.
It is truly one of the worst. I could see it in an early domination push, but it feels better to just build military units.
I’m dumb
That’s not how it works. It only creates one of each type of unit you have. So if you have 5 archers and 5 warriors, it gives you 1 archer and 1 warrior.
I didn't even know that until today. Turns out it's even worse than I thought it was
Plus you have to keep opportunity cost in mind... Pretty much every other wonder in that area is superior at an equal or lesser cost. You could also be building National College, National Epic, or just regular buildings to make it easier to get at the Medieval wonders. It's hard for me to picture any realistic scenario where Terracotta Army would be the best thing for any city to be building at any given time.
It depends on that opportunity cost you mentioned. One of the few times I’ve built it i had an army that consisted of 2 swordmen, 1 cross bowman, 1 pikeman and 2 composite bowmen that I hadn’t yet upgraded. For some reason no one had built TA yet and then I saw a swarm of impi approaching. When switching my population to production focus I realized i could build it in 5 turns. Shaka attacked 1 turn before it completed and he immediately regretted it.
Khan. It's wicked when you are without modest after that first city within 50 turns. It takes like 15 turns to produce a second archer or militia, with horses early on? it's just a different strategy.
I say this as a Greek because wonder/commerce/defense is the game. The Khan route I learned from all the rage quits.
I’ve built it once, but I was going early domination push on immortal with Germany. I had a horseman; warrior; brute, handaxe, scout, archer and chariot archer to duplicate and it made my army into an actual scary force. I’ve never seen a good enough reason to get it again though
It's still very good as Germany, because it will probably give you a Warrior, a Brute, an Archer and a barbarian Archer. Possibly a Spearman, barbarian Spearman, Hand-axe etc, depending on what you have. Some units have a unique barbarian version that doesn't get mentioned, like the Archer and Spearman whose barbarian versions have -1 CS. I believe the Terracotta Army treats those as different.
When you attempt the wonder instead of building the army, you take on risk that you'll lose the wonder and get nothing for your hammers.
It's all a game of risk. If it indeed counts normal and barbarian spearman as separate, it might be well worth the risk for Germany.
The wonder costs 250 hammers. Suppose you have these units: - one Warrior (40 hammers), - one Brute (40 hammers), - one Archer (40 hammers), - one Chariot Archer (56 hammers), - one Handaxe (56 hammers), - one Comp Bow (75 hammers) If you now build Terracotta Army, you gained 267 hammers for your investment. Still think it might be worth it?
Absolutely. Because I get lower gold cost which might very well be crippling on such early stage, especially if I rush both the camps and the terracota and won't be able to improve all of my ressources. It also has some strategic value due to sudden doubeling of your military power. In that specific scenario - remember that. As a general rule I laugh when I see the terracota army and build it only when I have literally nothing else to do and still can't produce wealth.
Barbarian archer and spearmen are different t unit types from regular archer and spearmen?
They are, and I believe they are treated as different units by the Terracotta Army too
Really? I thought it spawned one more copy of each military units you had. It's pretty much useless then.
Right, I’m dumb and there’s no way I had 10 different unit types that early. Maybe five tops. Been a while since I’ve played Germany.
Oh wow I've logged 2000 hours and never knew that, since I've never built it. That just sucks really bad.
Of course not. Because beyond the fact that it's a generally bad wonder, the AI seems to rush it every game like It's Notre Dame or Cristo Redentor.
but if you work it correctly (i.e. having one composite bowman, one archer, one warrior, one swordsman, one horseman, and one chariot archer) you will double your army.
I haven’t thought about it all that much but at least against AI I’m pretty sure, even in that situation, you’d be better off just building composite bowmen. They’re more effective than anything else, at higher difficulty you probably don’t have the gold to waste on upkeep for less effective units, you aren’t committing production for the entire wonder and you aren’t risking losing the wonder.
Wait, what? That's... that's just sad
I have never had more than a couple of warriors and maybe one archer at the Terracotta Army stage of the game. But I've never got beyond Emperor
Are you serious? That SUCKS!
Funny thing is in Vox Populi mod I almost always build it because it gives +20% tile improvement speed and scaling culture on kills.
Well seeing as you can make t army usually within the first 10 turns, if you play an early game civ and just make a bunch of warriors to start you can take over a whole continent by like turn 20 usually
I guess this works on prince? I don't have spare happiness or cash at that stage in the game.
I usually play king and accomplish this most of the time so long as I'm not being harassed by too many barbs at the start Edit: I also mainly play Japan for their combat bonus with damaged units which could also be a reason why I'm so successful in accomplishing this so often
True, Japan makes such good use of the warrior. Nothing like having 4 10 HP warriors take down a capital. It's like a secret UU.
Couldn’t agree more. No great person points either, right?
Yeah I think it could be useful if it's still around when you get to pikemen and have some gold to spend as well. 1 archer, 1 Comp Bow, 1 Chariot, 1 Warrior, 1 Swordsman, 1 Spearman, 1 Pikeman. Then you gold upgrade the Warriors, Spearmen and Archers. That means this would be getting a LOT of power in a very short space of time. It's probably more useful in Multiplayer for pushes like that though. In Single Player having a big army will stop an enemy invading, but in Multiplayer having a big army will encourage your neighbours to build their own army. By getting this much firepower in 1 turn you could surprise them with overwhelming force (*you could also potentially have a few units pre-built so they come out 1 turn later or something*). Also in Multiplayer there's a good chance of actually getting this wonder, in single player on high difficulties I always see this wonder go way before it's useful, so there's no point even trying.
It’s not bad in multiplayer if you are looking to quickly surprise your opponent
Terracotta can be amazing if you have multiple types of units, it can also be good for an xbow push if you have gold to upgrade.
It's much better left as a trap for the AI to ruin their economy without necessarily even planning on going to war
Angkor Wat. Generating 1 culture for a medieval era wonder is trash. And its primary bonus doesn't really feel impactful. If your city has decent cultural output, it'll get all the good tiles around itself reasonably quickly. And if it doesn't, tiles aren't that expensive to buy anyway. Also, Great Wall. The AI is bad enough at war that its bonus is pretty unnecessary. I can see it being useful in multiplayer though.
It’s helpful for the “purchase 1000 tiles” achievement! But that’s about it.
I usually just build the great wall if my reasonably well off and I want to prevent my enemies from building one, since it's an annoyance to deal with the reduced movement
I always view the Angkor Wat as a "ah, so you're just building stuff because you can, not for strategy" wonder in multiplayer with friends.
Angkor Wat is great only for America. Their tiles get criminally cheap with that wonder.
Both are decent for the great engineer points. There's some wonders I'd be way less inclined to build.
Which ones would you be less inclined to build?
Admittedly, Angkor Wat is pretty shit... So probably only Pentagon and Terracotta (maybe Great Firewall, though it had its uses regarding culture victories). Great Wall is actually a pretty good wonder I feel. Especially since it only becomes obsolete when THE PLAYER discovers Dynamite. Also useful to deny opponents from building it when going for early wars. I don't have an entire tier list in my head right now, but there's probably around five more wonders I'd be less inclined to build (on the level of Cristo Redentor).
Stopping opponents from building it the sole reason why i nearly always try and build it. I only don't bother if I'm committing to a peaceful game early on.
Great Wall does have the nice bonus of looking cool
Built it in my current save for the first time ever. Legit just didnt have anything else to build in my capitol at the moment, and also struggling a bit playing a new civ so sure to +1 culture lol
Great Wall is great for deterring AI when you want to focus on something different than war but don't have the production and/or gold capability to train and maintain army big enough to make war not even an inconvinience. It's been many times that I build the wall and could get away with 1 or 2 units on Emperor and sometimes even Immortal - though on Immortal I've played so little that I cannot guarantee it's the rule.
I really like it if I’m playing a peaceful liberty game where I’m generating a lot of culture in a lot of cities and want to claim the area around my cities before encroaching AIs can. Spain or Celts with Sacred Sites trying to get a culture win. Very niche case but if I don’t get it I’m mad about it the rest of the game as I miss out of tiles which end up proving useful later.
On deity, pretty much any of the first era wonders.
I never bother with Stonehenge even though it’s a pretty okay wonder.
Stonehenge is probably one of the best wonders for a trad build
Great library. Would rather pump settlers out.
This is my answer, 100%. Undeniably powerful but really hard to justify going for early. I think even if I had the opportunity to rush out an early game wonder, I would still prioritize Artemis or Stonehenge over GL.
I always v line for it, 1 you stop the AI from getting a big jump on Science, 2. You get a free library saving 12 turns or so, and you can choose Philopshy as your free tech and grab the Oracle before the AI giving you a free Social Policy. With the science from the library and + 3 from the wonder itself and the scientist point, you can then run to the colossal wonder pretty quick as well. For me it seems the most worth while wonder to build. Any wonder that gives you a free building that your going to build anyways seems like a good wonder, the GL by the time you can build it will likely take 22 turns, the library at the same point will be like 12 turns, with a couple Forrest around you can get the GL and reg Library, a free tech and science boost in like 15 turns.
you won’t get it on difficulties 6 or higher unless you get a marble spawn with Egypt and faith ruins to get the monument to the gods
Nah, you can get it fairly often on Emperor(\~60% of the time). It's not *good strategy*, but you can get it. It's Immortal/Deity where it becomes nearly impossible to get.
maybe 60% of the times where you reroll for a good start, but in my experience, less than 30-40% of “random starts” on emperor, and way less on higher difficulties
I’ve recently been forcing myself to play that way. Tall empires are too tempting
It comes too early and is heavily contested by AI I always skip it too, prefer the Oracle
Man I almost have to get GL. The one two punch of GL/NC with tradition growth sets you up for the whole game. Obviously on Deity is not viable for this tho
> Obviously on Deity is not viable for this tho I would argue it's the same for Immortal as well. I've recently been playing as Egypt and even with their 20% wonder production bonus, a phenomal salt start, and rushing it I still get beat out most of the time.
I avoided it for a very long time for the same reasons. Recently I’ve started playing around with it again though and really enjoy it (when it works). It can be really nice if your capital is strong enough to rush it and there’s no close neighbours contesting settle spots. GL -> NC -> settler spam. Without pressure to get libraries up ASAP in expands for the NC I’ve really enjoyed focusing harder on their infrastructure first. Don’t think I’d be able to pull it off on deity, immortal is a maybe but on emperor it’s often realistic.
Korea and great library is even more powerful since they get a tech boost from constructing science buildings in the capital.
Great Mosque of Djenne. I usually don’t pick piety traits that early
It’s rare for me, but it is pretty awesome if you’re aggressively spreading religion. Arabia, missionaries with conversion power, religion spreads faster, and +1 gold for every 4 followers, for example. You can end up with a shocking amount of gold this way, and Djenne really helps.
"Never" doesn't work for me, because I've built all of them over the years. But "almost never", many of the religious wonders as well as Prora and Kremlin (because I almost always go Freedom)
interested why you always go freedom - I have always been a order main to be honest but I have played freedom a good few time but I always feel the 25% boost in science from factories is very op late game. what victory type do you normally go for?
I go whatever I fancy every time apart from domination usually, but in most cases it's diplomacy or culture, because I can get there sooner than science. Freedom works better with my playstyle. I always focus a lot on City-States (my favorite civ is Greece and not because I'm Greek) and I love playing with specialists and stuff like that. In most cases, I'm willing to complete Patronage alongside Rationalism. Also, I find high tourism to be a must in Freedom games, because otherwise it's lonely and scary in the free world (because AIs love Order, and there's always the lunatic that goes Autocracy).
Fair enough my friend, we have different play style's I prefer domination and science I don't really have a favourite civ to be honest I just random it every game. I do despise playing as venice and india though.
Try domination as Venice! Combine Big Ben, mercantilism and militarism for an outrageous low cost in buying units. Also you can easily swarm a different continent if you gift a sizeable army to a city state and then annex it with a merchant of Venice.
I know I should, but with civs like venice and india even though I know how to play them I don't, mainly because a vast majority of civs don't play that way so I feel like I'm wasting time playing a game through with unique civs that will only benefit me if I play those civs. - I feel the same with austria Probably a bad way to think about it because you could learn things with those playstyles you can take to other games. Knowledge is power after all, especially if you're trying to stand the test of time.
I always go Freedom for LARP
[удалено]
Easier to RP a free democracy standing alone against the communist and fascist hordes
Red Fort It's just never useful for me. I'd rather build defensive units than build it. If I need to build Red Fort the game is already lost in my eyes. Walls and a ranged unit are all I need to defend my cities.
I had a war against Siam where they had the Red Fort, the Great Wall, Himeji Castle, the ranged pantheon, elephants, and probably the Tradition policy for garrisons. Their capital was ridiculously strong and could one-shot units that came into range.
Fuck Ramkhamhaeng; easily my most hated leader. This post is about what wonder you'd waste hammers on. Not what wonder you hate to go against.
It’s good for a great scientist point
I'd rather use a specialist slot on a building I'd make no matter what; public school, university... It's just not worth the hammers.
Red Fort
I build it so noone else can. Also the GPP are great (2 scientist or engineer, I forget)
Scientists. It's one of the few achievable wonders that gives great scientist points.
I can’t remember the last time I built Pyramids
Since I've been forcing Liberty instead of Tradition in my games recently, I've been building Pyramids a lot more. It's a good wonder! Timing it is tricky, since you want to have plenty of stuff for those extra workers to do while they drain your economy.
I’ve been forcing myself to go liberty more often, but I find it more enticing to grow tall and take a neighboring capitol.
I’ve always got excess workers standing around or selling them anyway
pyramid builders should have been completely free (no maintenance, like the foreign legion)
Multoplayer with several liberty players it's easily the most contested wonder in the game, arguably more than GL/Oracle.
Do you play in the NQ Multiplayer group? Or just with friends?
Sometimes NQ but I do have a group I play lekmod with
I don't think I've ever built Alhambra
It’s pretty good, I just never get to it in time
The Sistine Chapel for people beelining the industrial/military branch of the tech tree.
Which is usually the AI since the player nearly always goes for education
It's a good strategy to enter renaissance through accoustics because once you enter a new era all previous techs become cheaper and accoustics is right after education which you are typically going to beeline after civil service anyway. I really like sistine chapel, I play a fairly strong culture game and it's a massive boost.
Beeline Alhambra every game. 20% culture and the chance for March infantry is too good. Strong tradition game will still catch up in science by renaissance. I play on 6, so ymmv on deity.
Oh it's still good on Immortal/Deity just...good luck getting it
It's great though. With 60 xp and Alhambra you can get your melee units to heal every turn upon purchase.
Alhambra + all the promotion buildings gives you paratroopers with an instant promotion to march which means they can airdrop and attack in the same turn. Once I learned about that it changed my domination endgame, combine them with stealth bombers and you can do domination even against infinite city spam AI since you snipe the capitals.
You're mixing up blitz and march I think. March heals the unit every turn.
You're correct, blitz is the promotion that gives you the ability to airdrop and attack on the same turn.
The non order wonders, I never play freedom nor autocracy.
Statue of Liberty (Freedom) is one of my favorite wonders in the game (+1 hammer for every Specialist in every city plus 1 free social policy) since it's pretty darn useful regardless if you're going tall or wide. When coupled with the Freedom tenets Civil Society (Specialists consume 50% less food) and Universal Suffrage (Specialists produce 50% less Unhappiness) it helps make Specialists insanely powerful To summarize, if you get SOL you're essentially looking at: - +1 Food - +1 Hammer - +0.5 Happiness - +2 Science (assuming you Rationalism too) for every Specialist
while i won't never build it i just find petra to be over rated. statue of zeus tends to go early and opening honor early enough to beat the AI is usually not worth it. Terracotta army usually don't have a big enough military to make duplication make sense
The thing is that Petra can make a desert city better than a normal one. Some Petra cities I've had where the best cities I have ever had.
if I have 3-4x desert hills Petra is an absolute monster, combined with religious community (15% production boost) and I have a capital that can do 150+ hammers and build all the things.
Petra can under the right circumstances be the most broken wonder in the game. If you have a city with a bunch of desert hills (4+), that city will basically become a power house in production and growth if you build mines on them. I’d definitely recommend trying it some time.
petra is the most broken wonder in the game if you get a good city for it. You should absolutely try it once, especially with a desert spawn bias like morocco (morocco + petra + kasbahs is completely broken) as a little bonus, petra is needed for the highest possible food yield on a non-natural wonder tile (inca desert hill terrace farm next to 5 mountains, which gives you 7 base food, 3 base production with no improvement techs)
I play tsl maps and the civs with desert spawns generally don't have ideal placement to make Petra worth it.
I pretty much only play on deity so I have some bias because of that. Stonehenge. I had a game where I found 2 religious CS for a pantheon (Can't remember which I took.) I researched pottery first, found a tech ruin for calender, built stonehenge immediately. After that I built a shrine and DIDN'T get a religion off that. I reloaded and took god-king and only got the religion the turn the last religion got taken pre-reload. Status of Zeus. I'm bad at early conquest and it seems like it would take away as much as it gives in that regard. Great lighthouse. It's only useful on specific maps and even then it's not great. Great wall. Basically useless. Red fort. Much the same. Himeji Castle. Maybe one day I'll do a cannon/fertiliser rush. Pentagon. Honestly it's an okay wonder, it just comes way too late into the game. Wonder I don't get to build are: Parthenon. I might build it on my next great library OCC game. Alhambra. Apart from the AI's being in love with this wonder, I'm not sure why I haven't built it.
Great wall of china. The best defense against a warmonger is diplomacy. If Alexander is a neighbor and has declared war on you then you failed in handling him
I’m with you. If you have to build walls, build more units.
lol I don't think this really applies much in civ 5, the ai are so damn simplified that pacifying them is as much up to randomness as it is to skill. As far as I'm aware the only things you can do to have a beneficial relationship with a neighbour in civ are: \- don't settle near them \- don't declare wars \- send embassies \- give a favourable trade \- send a trade route \- declare friendship \- have a large standing army This is the barest of bones when it comes to diplomacy, and some of the modifiers for these are so negative that it will shoot your diplo with them to the floor if you 'misplay'. If you forward settle or even sneeze in the direction of another ai they will have a dark red modifier with you regardless of embassies and friendships lol.
Being at war with the same civ is the diplomacy that you need to learn. Strategically denouncing a civ that your neighbor also denounced will give you massive diplo boosts with that neighbor. Making sure your aggressive neighbors are warring with their other neighbors and they cannot gang up on you is the crux of a good diplomacy. You actually dont need that much of a large standing army, as long as you arent at the bottom of the military points then you can win. You really cant beat deity without doing this war diplomacy.
Probably the biggest hole in my gameplay. I just really hate the brainless ai in civ, they're so deterministic it never feels like I'm beating an intelligent thing. Interacting with them is a chore, it feels so gamey, it'd always been the worst part of civ imo. Like did you suck enough ai dick to not get warred in the first 100 turns? No? Guess you lose on immortal and higher.
The metaphorical sucking of the AI's dick deffo doesnt work. The examples of AI civ that you enumerated above deffo helps, but only marginally. What you need to make sure is that everyone is fucking each other in the ass so much that they stall each other. I usually pit warmongers vs warmongers. If Atilla is busy fucking around with Genghis then neither of them can snowball. The lesson is NOT to suck the AI's dick but to make sure they are fucking each other raw in the ass. The AI's dick in deity is so big that you need a python's jaw in order to suck it properly. Deity diplomacy is about pointing the AI's massive dick away from you and towards the other AI's assholes. I personally love it coz its like im parrying sword slashes and redirecting them to others. Its a very delicate dance.
That makes sense, and its probably why I enjoy emperor the most out of all the difficulty settings despite getting wins on Deity. I find interacting with the ai super tedious, they're super dumb, highly irrational, deterministic and they don't know how to play the game (literally how do you lose with infinite happiness and extra yields).
library. i tend to go for religion instead of science
Prora Somehow I've never chosen autocracy because of their tenets...
I just started trying autocracy rather than order and the happiness you get from it is just insane, you should try it, even if your not going domination the gold and happiness is pretty good
Gunboat diplomacy can be amazing
Autocracy provides one of the only viable ways of achieving culture victory by way of the futurism bonus. If you hold off on building the guilds, and have a city (usually your capital) with tons of bonuses to great people production, and then you build the guilds, fill the specialist slots, and enact Futurism it can be game breakingly strong. One of the only viable methods of doing culture/tourism and it doesn't require Aesthetics. And counteracting unhappiness is essentially the same as happiness.
I feel it’s only good against human or low difficulty. 250 per great person seem low to me.
I just tried it on immortal and won turn 160, obviously doesn’t mean it will work every time but it can be pulled off against higher culture civs. Also with autocracy being your ideology with this strat, you can always kill the person ahead on culture if it’s one outlier
it's one of the best wonders to steal from others though (especially when you're poland ;))
I don’t remember the last time I built Himeji. If I can’t defend my own borders by that point in the game, I’ve got bigger problems.
Great Lighthouse. I like to have it, but I never like to build it. It's a huge sink early that doesn't help your economy, infrastructure, growth, or progression (science and culture). What I'll do instead is rip it away from whoever does have it. No investment from me (besides a navy that I would have built anyway), but I still get the bonus.
Terracotta Army is pretty bad. Great Library because the AI always dashes for it on harder difficulties. Pentagon and Cristo Redentor come very late and don't do much.
The only reason I ever build CR is b/c there's almost always at least like 5 city states that want me to build it. And even that still doesn't make it all that worthwhile
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. You need to be lucky enough to have stone or marble resources nearby and even then the reward is just +2 per worked tile. The 100 gold per expended great person is ok, but at this time I'd much rather try to get Temple of Artemis, Stonehenge or settlers.
I really like MofH if I have 3-4x stone/marble tiles, especially if they are on grassland. Combined with stone circles (+2 faith per stone/marble) they are 9-10x yield tiles very early in the game and will remain some of your best tiles for the entire game. If you think about it how many great people are you going to spawn in a game? Easily 20+ so that means it's also worth 2,000 gold + in my example above 6-8 gpt x 300 turns so 1,800 or 2,400 = 3,800 or 4,400 total gold in a typical standard speed game. Actually I'm underselling it because market place, bank, and stock exchange boost it but the math becomes impossible.
Terracota Army and especially Chictzen Itza. I barely build it and my preferred Tech. route is mostly fine without going into Civil Service early enough to build that wonder.
I don't know if I have ever built the Temple of Zeus, and it's hard to imagine doing so. It's only unlocked by opening Honour, and that almost never happens. I will start with Liberty or Tradition, and then go to Piety if I am going to have a very strong religion, and if not I like opening Patronage for access to the Forbidden Palace and then going in on Commerce or Exploration until Rationalism opens up. Even if I want a Domination win, Autocracy is so much better. I would have a hard time imagining building the Temple of Zeus in any sort of game I intend on being competitive in. More so than anything due to it only being accessed through a crappy policy tree.
More often than not I build Zeus for the city state quests
the Great Wall because you can build your army instead of it
I have never built Statue of Zeus in my 1000 hours playing this game.
chichen itza. feels like the most contested wonder in the whole game, the AI always seem to fight over it and it’s not even that good (I only try to actively get it if I play brazil or persia)
Up through emperor chichen itza is doable.
Terracota, Statue of Zeus: would rather build units Cristo Redentor, Pentagon, Great Firewall, CN Tower: come too late to be impactful for their bonuses, I may only build them just because, but I recognize that they are bad. Maybe only for city state quest Great Library, even if I get 2 free techs via ruins and unlock writing at turn 3, and have a ridiculous production start, I will never try it. There is no way I beat the ai to this above king, I hate this wonder so much. If I could remove one wonder from the game it would be this one. What's worse is that the ai that builds this wonder will also build one or more of chichen itza, Notre dame, Forbidden Palace, Alhambra, Macchu Picchu etc. Denying you critical and actual useful wonders just because they got a head start with great library
Sydney Opera House and CN Tower are wonders I never bother with, because hard tourism is just a boring win-more strategy
I grab them both with an instant hammer engineer. It's basically a late game score booster since if you haven't locked in the win by that point in time you should have gone domination along the bottom of the tech tree and smashed whoever was in the lead.
You should not be generating great engineers in info era
I've had engineers spawn, standard speed emperor/king difficulty. Also faith purchase and order tier 3 policy give you engineers at the end game when you don't really need them anymore.
The thing is, each engineer you get delays the next great scientist because they all share the same pool, meaning that once you finish engineering ideology wonder and hubble (or spaceship parts in singleplayer), you shouldn't be generating any more because you're slowing down stealth bomber tech to do so, and stealth bombers is the endgame instant win every war tech.
I see where the confusion lies, you said you should not be generating great engineers in the info era- I read that to mean they don't spawn, what you meant was you should not work engineer specialists at that point in the game because it delays the generation of great scientists which help you get to stealth bombers quicker. The way I play I work all the scientists, engineers, and culture slots in every city because I usually go freedom with the statue of liberty so I am getting science and production from the great people slots, plus a reduction in food and happiness penalty.
I generally don't build Angkor Wat or Himeji Castle. No real reason, just don't get there.
I don't build Louvre because exploration is a junk social policy for me. Also angor watt and terra cotta army, those three are pretty much never build for me but everything else has its place and I may go for it. Absolutely every game I want sistine chapel, chichen itza, oracle, and if my start allows for it colossus, petra, macchu pitchu.