CivIII: Indispensable wonders?

Early in the game I go for Colossus for the $$$ benefit, and Great
Library. The Lighthouse is useful for discovering new peoples and
making the Library worth something.

Later on, if I'm German, I must have Sun Tze and Leonardo. The
scientific wonders (Copernicus and Newton) in the middle ages are
essential, and either JS Bach or the Sistine Chapel (although it's
difficult to get those and the science ones). Magellan is critical if
other Civs are across oceans - it's a clear advantage in shipping troops
over and chasing down the enemy's ships. Shakespeare is only useful if
I can build it close to an opponent's cities and I'm trying to cultify
them.

In the industrial age I must have Theory of Evolution and the Hoover
Dam. I'll try for Sufferage. How come there are only 3 wonders in the
Industrial age?

In modern times, I try to bulid SETI early on in the same city as
Copernicus and Newton. UN, naturally. I'll let Manhattan go if it
compromises getting any others. Cure for cancer is nice to have at this
stage because I'm usually sending my modern armour all over the shop and
it helps keep conquered folk happy. I'll only go for Longevity if I've
got a lot of my own luxuries (without trading) because it does cause
trouble in larger cities. It's nice for newly conquered towns though,
as it means you get more of your own people in rapidly.

--
Richard P. Grant | It's called a bio-assay -
0x5F9559B1 | If enough of your customers die,
| you know there is something wrong.
www.rg-d.com/BioLOG | - Adrian Tuddenham on ucsm

My personal list of must-haves would include:

1. Great Pyramid - massively speeds the early growth of newly planted
cities. Growth is good!

2. Smith's Trading Company - This one will save you huge amounts of
money in a empire of any significant size and development.

3. Leonardo's Workshop - another one that saves enormous amounts of
money over the long haul.

4. Either Cistene Chapel or Bach's Cathedral - both would be nice, but
I think I've only ever managed to pull that off once.

5. Hoover Dam - The production boost from this one comes at just about
the right time to help in building up a significant army for bashing
some AI heads. (Prior to the industrial age, I find it very difficult
to maintain any sort of serious offensives, both due to slow production
rates for military units in unindustrialized cities and a lack of really
good offensive units.)

I really haven't found most of the science-based wonders to be all that
useful, except for the Great Library, and I usually lose out on getting
that one in order to ensure I get the Pyramids.

Since I usually play on continent-style maps with a high land
percentage, the naval wonders (Magellan, Lighthouse) aren't all that
useful. I would probably put Lighthouse as more important even than
Pyramids on an archapelago-low land map though.

As ever, just my $0.02.
--
Jason E. Schaff

jschaff297061.RemoveThis@comcast.net

"You can wash a pig as often as you like, but it will still wallow in
the mud."
--Russian Proverb