is the concept of pre-building wonders just plain ludicrous?

[aahz_capone]

I think that even though it makes no logical sence, the feature of changin your wonder at whim is needed, especially now with the "tech whores" (see thread on tech too fast in 1.17f).

The simple fact is that I haven't been able to build ONE wonder since 1.17f on emperor before industrial age (and then it's only because I've been building a palace for a million years and change to a wonder at just the last minute, assuming ofcourse that I've been smartlucky enough not to be 4 techs behind by then).


Being a nonwar-culturebuilder-untilIhaveperfectinfrastructure-thenkillall strategist, this bites.

[DrFell]

I don't even try building wonders until later in the game. Personally I'd rather just sit back and build infrastructure first, and then pump out units to conqer and ensure I have all resources on lower levels, and on higher levels fight an early war to conquer a nearby weak civ, get their cities and techs, then build up. I actually found a new strategy by accident recently and it works quite well - I can get the enemy civs in awe of my culture early on in deity level AND build a decent army. Helps a lot when you want to avoid cities culture flipping back to your opponents.

[aahz_capone]

There's a trick to that, first thing you build in your capital is a temple. (Ok, you have to be egyptians or get the science very fast, but build something else instead till you have the science then switch at the last moment). This alone triples (comapred to other civs ofcourse) your culture value at the beginning of the game and for many centuries afterwards, because a temple which is 2000 years old in 500 bc is almost as cultural as the best of the great wonders. Don't worry about loosing vital start time, the other civs are all building warriors. (I personally never build them , they aren't upgradable much, same with swordsmen)

[DrFell]

I despot rush the temple, but not straight away.