[SPOILERS] JR4 and RefSteel have a plan

[JR4]

Superdeath built Angkor Wat last turn, fortunately not in a city near us (the one highlighted in the turn report).

The big question is this:

Is Angkor Wat the worst world wonder in the game? I think that the Great Wall and Chichen Itza are worthy contenders.

[Charriu]

I would put the Great Wall at the worst. Especially because you can't see the wall in MP, which is one of the best parts of it.

EDIT: Another reason is that preventing barbs is a double edged sword. Yes, you are not at the danger of barb attacks, but first this could lead to you building too few units and second the exp from barbs can be useful for heroic epic.

[Krill]

200 hammers for no barb pressure and a guaranteed great person. To put it into perspective, a none PHI 100gpp GP costs 68 food. Plus the extra GG points.

Why is it bad, if you just want a random GP for a first golden age?

[Charriu]

Well yes the random GP is good, but almost every wonder can give that. The barb defense is very situational. Most off the time I rather take units worth 200 hammers instead.

[Krill]

Units cost gold in upkeep. Wonders don't. The problem with situational is that you can't be black and white, good or bad. Sometimes it will be the cheapest option. Sometimes it will give you no benefit until T150.

Another point is that GW doesn't stop barbs spawning. It stops them entering borders: the GW can therefore give a player a much wider area for barb farming and increase the opportunity for XP farming, but a player has to use it well. It's a wonder that actually takes a bit of skill to use well.

[Rusten]

Angkor Wat very bad for most games, but it has a situational use for getting a mid-game prophet for a shrine. That can be almost impossible to do otherwise.

But it's too expensive under the new rules (no stone/marble wonder production bonus). You may want to lower the cost of some of the less useful wonders in a later update, Krill. THe first ones that come to mind are Angkor Wat, Chichen Itza and Hagia Sophia. GW is not one of them IMO, it has its uses as Krill said.

[Krill]

The no production modifier is a game option, not intended to be part of the core game. Its use is intended to be if players want to use an unbalanced map.

That said, the production modifiers were reduced to be 50% anyway so yeah, maybe those Medieval wonders do need dropping to something a bit more reasonable.

[JR4]

I agree that the Great Wall sometimes can be useful, in particular on a Pangea with a high difficulty level with lots of barbs. But it`s hardly a must-have as a sentry net of units should be able to deal with those barbs effectively. Fwiw, in the three MP games I`ve played here on Realms Beyond I`ve had just about zero problems of dealing with them. PB 37 and 39 both had Noble difficulty but still..

Getting early GPs is nice and if you are in need of a Great Spy in the mid/late game those early points from the Great Wall can come in handy. But I still feel that it`s worse than the other ancient wonders at least. As for Angkor Wat or Chichen Itza, I`d only build them for a compelling reason like needing more Priest points or fighting a cultural war.

[JR4]

TURN 249

Wetbandit started a Golden Age. He did not change civics. We temporarily lost tech visibility on him but we should be able to get it back in a couple of turns. We`ve been investing EPs heavily on Mr. Cairo as city visibility could be extremely useful if it gets to a big showdown later on.

   

Mr. Cairo has 7 Frigates visible and Wetbandit has 4. We`ll complete Steel in three more turns which will give us access to Ironclads. They are very good at holding tiles but I`m not really a fan of those. Maybe we`ll build a few Ironclads once Steel is in. We soon need to decide of tech path. I`m leaning Railroad next as that would allow us to move around units really quickly and we`d be virtually impossible to attack with access to Machine Guns. That would give us some extra time to get our next two GPs for our fifth GA. Lords and Escanes are running three specialists each but the GP counter is getting high so getting those two GPs is going to be painfully slow.

[JR4]

TURN 249

The demos show that Wetbandit has caught up with our power and we`re all of a sudden down to third. Soon, very soon that is going to change. I`m determined to go to war at all costs as this game has been rather dull for a while.

   

Our first Factory completed this turn (in Gower) and as a result it got a ton of unhealthiness. It`s probably going to steal the Pigs for good as we need our Oxford/Wall Street bureaucracy capital to stay strong. As a result, Antiochus will sadly starve a bit but it`s been doing a magnificent job of churning our Great People Great Merchants.

Would it be an awful idea to try for Pentagon in Pilch? Yes, it`s vulnerable but it`s got good production. I expect Mr. Cairo to start a Golden Age any time now and we know that he has an Engineer in hand so I`m far from certain that we`ll get Pentagon. Losing it would be bad of course.