Episode: 4510
Title: HPR4510: Playing Civilization V, Part 5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4510/hpr4510.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-11-22 15:12:47

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This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4,510 for Friday the 14th of November 2025.
Today's show is entitled, Playing Civilization V Part 5.
It is part of the series' computer strategy games.
It is hosted by Ahukah and is about 12 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, we continue our look at the game mechanics of
Civilization V.
Hello, this is Ahukah, welcome to You to Hacker Public Radio.
And another exciting episode in our ongoing series on computer strategy games.
And we're in the middle of the discussion of Civ 5.
And what I want to turn to today are the topics of wonders.
Now in Civ 5 there's actually two kinds of wonders.
World wonders are things that can be built once and once only.
So whichever player builds it first gets it.
If two players complete it on the same turn, the player whose turn comes first gets it.
So if you're building one and someone gets there ahead of you,
you'll get a little bit of cash out of the deal, but you won't get the wonder.
Now there's also something that they call national wonders.
And national wonders can be built once by each player.
So you can always build a national wonder.
You can only build it once so you have to decide which city is going to host it.
Then in addition to that, there are international projects
that can be built with contributions by all players and give benefits
according to the level of contributions each player makes.
Deciding which ones you want to pursue and when is important.
And you have to accept that you won't always succeed with world wonders,
with international projects, whatever.
If you lose out because another player built it first,
you get some money in exchange, but not that much.
It's still in that loss.
So let's get into all the details here.
Listing all of the wonders and related items here would just take up a whole lot of time.
And the lists are already available online, such as at the Civilization Wiki.
And I've put a link in the show notes for that.
So consult that list for all of the details.
There's a lot of them and each one provides different benefits.
So some study here is warranted.
Now world wonders are worth building if you want the benefits they provide.
For example, if you build the great library, you get three science additional per turn,
one free technology, and a free library in the city where it is built.
And you also get an additional great person point each turn towards getting a great scientist.
And it has two slots for great works of writing.
Now if you are intending to go for a science victory, this will be a good one to have.
It comes early.
You can build it once you've discovered writing.
This illustrates a few points about world wonders.
The first is that there is a prerequisite discovery that unlocks the ability to build the wonder.
The great library is an ancient era wonder, so it is unlocked by a very early discovery.
But as you continue to research technologies, you unlock more world wonders.
When you get to the medieval era, for instance, and discover theology,
several wonders are unlocked, such as Barobador and Hayesafia.
And in the modern era, the discovery of radio unlocks Broadway and Eiffel Tower.
Another point is that many, though not all wonders, provide great person points each turn.
That is something to watch out for.
Now, you don't need to build any world wonders at all.
But because of the benefits they provide, it usually makes sense to build a few.
Of course, there is a trade-off.
World wonders require many turns to create, and there is always the chance that you will invest 20
to 30 turns of production into a wonder, only to be beaten to it by another player.
And there is also the opportunity cost in that while you are building the wonder, you are not
building units, other city buildings, and so on. There may well be wonders you would like to have,
but one of your neighbors gets nasty and you have to focus on building military units.
That does happen, and it is part of the game. The game is always forcing you to make choices.
And if you choose wrong, you will pay a price.
Now, one thing you have to understand right away is that you can only attempt a few of these wonders.
Winding up with three or four of them by the end of the game is not unusual.
There is one way to get wonders without building them, however.
If you conquer a city that has a wonder, you get the wonder as part of your conquest.
Now, the other one we want to talk about here is the National Wonders.
That is one that you know you are going to be able to get. So, you are never going to lose out.
But there is a prerequisite, and the prerequisite is you need to have built a certain building
in each city you control directly. So, there is a concept of puppet cities. You can ignore puppet
cities for this purpose. So, what do we mean by that? Well, let's say you are going for a science
victory. Well, one of the National Wonders you would like to get is the National College.
Now, that is unlocked when you have built a library in each city you control directly.
It gives plus three science per turn, plus a 50% increase in the science output of the city where
it is built. You get the maximum benefit from this wonder if you build it early, which suggests
that you don't over expand too early. I would not go past four cities before I got libraries
in all of them and built this National Wonder. Another example is the National Epic, which requires
a monument in each city. Well, one little trick is you can choose the tradition policy tree and
get legalism, and it will give you a free monument in your first four cities. If you only have four
cities, you have your prerequisite right there without building anything. Once you understand how
the National Wonders work, you see how the game is nudging you towards building only a few cities
and not overexpanding. Many of the best players advise that you build no more than four to five cities.
Now, there's also something called Guilds that you can build, and they're like National Wonders
in that each player can build them once per player. They're designed to help you earn great writers,
great artists, and great musicians. So, they are key if you're going for culture victory,
but they're worth building for anyone because culture is how you get added policies, and we've
already discussed that. Then there's projects. These come late in the game and can give you powerful
options. One is the Apollo Project, which is necessary if you want to win a science victory since it
lets you construct spaceship parts. The other is the Manhattan Project, which lets you construct
nuclear weapons that may or may not be necessary depending on the circumstances of your game.
Then there's International Projects. There are three of these international projects.
The International Games, the International Space Station, and the World's Fair.
Now, these do not just show up in the production queue. They have to be voted on in the World Congress.
If one of them is proposed and the vote is positive, the clock starts to get the project done.
Each empire can make their own decision about how much production they want to put into it,
but you can have all empires participate, and you can decide to have multiple cities devote their
production to the International Project if you wish to. The top three contributor empires are
rewarded, so if you're the fourth or lower, you've simply lost the production you added.
So this is a go big or go home situation in my view. Of course, it takes a lot of production to
build these, so if you have other problems such as an ongoing war, you will probably have to pass.
Now what are some of the strategic considerations? There's far too many wonders for you to contemplate
building all of them, so you have to consider selectively to attempt to build one or more.
Generally, you'll be in competition with other empires, so you need to have a city with high
production that you can build a wonder in. Even so, you will sometimes lose out.
There are ways to rush a wonder if it is really vital to your strategy. First, adjust your
population in the city to focus on production. Second, make sure you have high production
tiles, such as mines. Then if this focus causes food output to fall, you can use caravans to bring
food to a city. Caravans are normally used for foreign trade, but if caravans are sent between
two of your cities, they bring in food. Finally, if you have untouched forest tiles, you can use your
workers to cut down the forest with edge production to your city. You can only do this once,
of course, on any given tile, but it is a frequently used technique. Players refer to this as
chopping to get the wonder. If you take a look at the list of wonders that I linked to,
you will see the benefits of the wonders are quite varied. Some will help you get a science
victory, some a culture victory, others a diplomatic victory, and so on. So you shouldn't just build
random wonders really willy-nilly. You should have a strategy for getting a victory and pick wonders
to focus on in line with that strategy. Here are a few suggestions. For science, two of the top
ones I would suggest are the great library and the porcelain tower. For domination, the statue
of Zeus and the Brandenburg Gate. For culture, Parthenon and Sistine Chapel. Now diplomatic is a
little different. This one is indirect. The key to winning a diplomatic victory is to ally with
virtually all the city-states. This can be done in two ways. First, station a spy in the city-state
to rig elections in your favor. Second, shower them with money. So if you want to try this type of
game focus on money. So, classes in Machu Picchu are examples of very useful wonders for going
for a diplomatic victory. Now these are just a few obvious ideas, but wonders that increase production
are good for any strategy, particularly a domination strategy. Since if you can crank out military
units faster than your enemy, you are quite likely to win. The point is that you have to make choices.
There are always competing demands on your resources, and you have to know which wonders you really
want to compete for, which ones are nice to have, and which ones you can safely skip.
Personally, I rarely attempt to build any ancient era wonders. The reason is I tend to focus on
exploration and building up my empire in the early turns. Later on, if I'm in a more comfortable
situation with 4-5 well-developed cities, I will build more wonders. But often when I do lose
because I don't have anything else to build that is a priority, and I always prioritize the production
buildings. When a workshop becomes available, for instance, I will make it the next thing in my
queue for all of my cities. Now, if you have high production cities, you'll be successful more
often in building wonders. So, that's enough on this topic. This is Ahuka for Hacker Public Radio,
signing off, and as always, encouraging you to support free software. Bye-bye.
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