What's your favourite small wonder, and why?

[Immortal Wombat]

Well?

[steelehc]

Tie between Forbidden Palace (less corruption) and Wall Street (free money).

Steele

[DrFell]

Forbidden Palace definitely - because corruption is such a killer without it, I usually place it in my first conquered territory.

[hetairoi22]

Forbidden Palace also.

PS: Why not make this a poll?

[Harovan]

Iron works, if it wouldn't be so damn rare. So it's also the FP.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by hetairoi22
PS: Why not make this a poll?

Cos I don't know what they all are, and I was hoping this thread would be a good way to get people to list 'em and their abilities.

But if you're all going to vote FP...

[kailhun]

Intelligence Agency:
Because it allows spy missions. In my .bic I've put espionage after literature so that it plays a much bigger role in my games. Forbidden Palace much less because I've reduced corruption and other buidlings have the same effect (Pentagon, Mil. Academy, Intelligence Agency).

Robert

[DrFell]

Yes I wish more espionage was possible MUCH earlier - like it was in civ2 with writing. At the very least sabotage and steal tech should be available for civs you are at war with.

[dunk]

Forbidden Palace. Yay. I got so sick of the corruption, I made a mod to increase the "maximum number of cities" to 1000 for each map size.

Wall Street is good too. Fobidden Palace is the best though.

[dunk]

Oh, I thought you only needed an embassy to steal techs.

[DrFell]

You do but I don't think you can do it at war - I've not yet tried. If you can then it's not so bad. I prefer diplos though (you can do something about them).

[Shadow_Cougar]

Well, the small wonders have less effect on the game.

FP is hard to get without a Leader rush. You really need it someplace where it is too expensive to build.

Heroic Epic only slightly increases your GL chance.

Military Academy allows 1 city to produce armys, at the expense of a Great Wonder. If armies were more useful, this might be a decent option or if it allowed you to build armies everywhere.
If this didn't give you the best unit of the age, most people would bypass it (like they do espionage).

Pentagon - allows you to have a larger mostly useless unit?

Battlefield Medicine is nice, but by the time you get it, modern era armies move so fast that the fight is over before they get a chance to heal. I have used it to conduct raids. I drop off some old troops to cut rail and resource lines, but that will cost you in war weariness.

Intelligence Agency might be useful, but it is easier to just bypass Espionage and go for something useful. Espionage needs a unit or city improvement to make it worthwhile. Espionage missions are too expensive. I think it is cheaper to just rush a few more offensive units and crush your foe.

[DrFell]

For one you shouldn't need to build an IA to get espionage options. For two, they should bring back diplos I think.

[Qilue]

Forbidden palace followed by IA.

FP as discussed above.

IA because I can then place spies. I agree espionage ops are too expensive, but a spies can provide much more usefull infomation than mere technology. Knowing what units your enemy has is vital to planning an effective defence or offense.

[Moonsinger]

I like the spy agency & the hero epic.

[Salvor]

FP is the most useful and has the biggest impact by far.

If you're considering a space race, it's hard to ignore the Apollo Program, though.

IA is useful for seeing enemy troop strengths and for goading other civs into declaring war, but not much else.

Iron Works can theoretically make for a productive city, but if you're lucky enough to get one, it's likely to be in a place where corruption would make it almost worthless. And you can't plan ahead since you don't even know where it'll be possible until you research Steam Engine.

The others, IMO, are mostly fluff. They have their minor benefits, but I build them more for the culture than anything else.

[godinex]

FP and Wall Street