Building Wonders without the Correct Tech?

Lucarse · September 23, 2002, 11:36

Thanks to the the great advice of this forum i have been kicking ass at the higher levels!!. but i have come across
an annoying hiccup or bug.

I was playing at regent level as the Persians, and i had a good lead, pretty much all of a continent apart from the annoying little settlements the AI insists on putting in the 'polar regions'.

I have a tech lead of at least one or two techs, owing to aggressive trading and following a tech line the AI was not.

Anyway its 1560-ish i'm 6 turns away from electricity (science is at 90%) and i get an announcment that Germany has started building the Hoover Dam.

I go to trade with Germany for electricity (i don't want the AI having a 6 turn lead on a wonder) and in their techs to trade list Electricty is not there????.

I thought maybe they'd got it that turn and the game hadn't caught up, so next turn i check its still not there!! nor on the forth or fith turn.

I Spend some money trying to find the German city producing the wonder but cannot.

Anyway i actually manage to build the wonder after sweating it out for 27 turns, and am now even more powerful.

The thing is how can Germany build the wonder without having electricity???

I sold it (electricity) on to every other civs bar germany (and got shed loads for it) they weren't interested in buying it but it still came up on my list of techs to sell??.

Jaybe · September 23, 2002, 12:03

(ElectrONICS required for Hoover Dam.)

Gen.Dragolen · September 23, 2002, 13:13

Lucarse,

You are forgetting that the trade screen will only show you techs for which you have the prerequisites technologies. If you get a little further up the tech ladder, you'll see that they have the Electronics advance.

You may need to do some more horse-trading or warring to force them to cough up a couple of techs you don't already have. I tend to do alot of building and ignore what the other civ's are doing for research until one contacts me about a copy of my territory map or something, and then I trade for whatever techs they have.

Remember, the AI civ's will trade and make some of the worst possible trades with each other for technologies. Like selling Gunpowder for a Workd Map... so they manage to keep up and often slip ahead, especially on a huge map.

D.

Bella Hella · September 23, 2002, 13:29

isn't electricity a pre-req for electronics? if the germans don't have electricity, they ain't got electronics either, right?

Wormwood · September 23, 2002, 20:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Lucarse
I was playing at regent level as the Persians, and i had a good lead, pretty much all of a continent apart from the annoying little settlements the AI insists on putting in the 'polar regions'.

The sure way to stop that is to change tundra so that cities cannot be built on it. Since you shouldn't be building a lot of cities there, it won't affect you too much, and they aren't worth enough to make or break the AI. Note, however, that if the tundra is forested, that cities can be built on top of that (unless you do the same to forests.)

Jaybe · September 23, 2002, 22:22

Quote:

Originally posted by Wormwood
The sure way to stop that is to change tundra so that cities cannot be built on it. Since you shouldn't be building a lot of cities there, it won't affect you too much, and they aren't worth enough to make or break the AI. Note, however, that if the tundra is forested, that cities can be built on top of that (unless you do the same to forests.)

Just remember: Do NOT Disable roads on Tundra by making Commerce = 0.
Doing so will also disable colonies and make resource scarcity a REALLY interesting facet of the game, especially for oil. This can really hobble the AI even greater than usual if you get a good start.

JohnM2433 · September 24, 2002, 00:56

I think it is Electronics that's required for the Hoover Dam. Assuming that's what you meant:

1. You will only see a tech on the other civ's side in negotiations if (a) they have it, (b) you don't, AND (c) you can currently research it.
2. You can check which cities are building which Great Wonders by pressing F7 (IIRC).

If, when in negotiations with the Germans, Electronics was there in the list of techs you could sell them, then it must be a bug, assuming you weren't mistaken about receiving notification about them building the Hoover Dam. Since you couldn't buy it before, and they don't want it now, it sounds almost as if they have it, but the negotiations screen doesn't "know" that, for some reason. Very curious. If you would post a save (ideally, from before you got Electronics, when the Germans were building the Hoover Dam), maybe we could confirm that that is what's happening, or check for an alternate explanation.

rob.derosa · September 24, 2002, 02:59

Quote:

Originally posted by JohnM2433
2. You can check which cities are building which Great Wonders by pressing F7 (IIRC).

Or one of the F buttons, go on try 'em all. You may end up finding your Demographics

Lucarse · September 24, 2002, 04:16

Thanks JohnM2433 i didn't know about the F7 key, time for me to RTFM!.

Sorry i did mean electronics!!! not electricity.
maybe it was a 'blip' as i couldn't find any of germanies large cities builiding it (or any on a river).

I was until that point ahead of the game in tech's so i was surprised A) they got to a tech before me B) they were building the wonder!

I had just lost out on a race to Uni Sufferage (and JS bach) by 3 measly turns and was really pissed if i was going to miss something as important as the hoover dam. (playing on large contenents 98% of my cities in same landmass)

I'll go back into my autosaves and see if i can post it up.

cheers Apolytonites!.

Wormwood · September 24, 2002, 11:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe

Just remember: Do NOT Disable roads on Tundra by making Commerce = 0.
Doing so will also disable colonies and make resource scarcity a REALLY interesting facet of the game, especially for oil. This can really hobble the AI even greater than usual if you get a good start.

No, all you do is click off the option "allow cities". I treat the arctic as colonies only; it's where you go for aluminum, oil, furs, when the AI is being a jerk about trading it.

JohnM2433 · September 24, 2002, 16:10

You may find that an autosave is too large to post. If that's the case, save the game and post the new save -- regular saves are compressed, but, with the current patch, autosaves are not (to save time between turns).

I just thought I would mention that, since some people have had trouble posting autosaves in the past. Now you should have no trouble posting a save as soon as you find one. (As if we're all on the edge of our seats, dying to figure this out ASAP!

)