Ancient Era
The most important era comes with the most S-Tier wonders. Each wonder is evaluated not only for its inherent benefits but also in the context of the player’s overall strategy, civilization choice, and the specific challenges of each game stage. This nuanced analysis highlights the importance of adaptability and strategic planning in Civ 6.
Pyramids
- Long-Term Benefit: Offers a significant long-term advantage by giving an extra charge to all builders. It’s like basically having a free builder for every 3 built.
- AI Competition: Frequently built early by the AI, making it difficult to secure.
- Strategic Importance: Viewed as a crucial wonder for its universal utility across all victory types.
Oracle
- Great People Points: Provides a substantial boost to great person point generation, particularly beneficial in a city with multiple districts and Pingala’s Grant promotion (+100% Great Person points generated per turn in the city).
- Faith Economy: Reduces the faith cost for patronizing great people, enhancing the value of faith as a resource. Easy to snatch Great Engineers.
- Game Stage Impact: Considered one of the top wonders for its ability to influence early to mid-game dynamics significantly.
Hanging Gardens
- Benefits: Boosts growth by 15% in all cities and provides additional housing, making it one of the preferred early wonders.
- Game Impact: Helps achieve critical early population district (4,7,10) milestones faster.
- Strategic Placement: Particularly effective with certain leaders like Eleanor for non-violent domination strategies.
Temple of Artemis
- Benefits: Provides substantial food and housing, with extra amenities from nearby camps, pastures, and plantations.
- Location-Dependent: Its effectiveness heavily relies on the city’s location and nearby resources.
- Investment Concerns: Sometimes seen as over-investment in a city that might already perform well, especially if it’s the capital.
Etemenanki
- Specificity: Best suited for cities with abundant Marsh and Floodplain tiles.
- Conditional Effectiveness: Its utility varies greatly depending on the geographical setup of the map.
- Strategic Synergy: Can be powerful in combination with the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes Pantheon.
Stonehenge
- Purpose: Allows players to instantly start a religion or get a free Apostle.
- Situational Value: Highly situational; can be very useful if still available unexpectedly in the later stages of the game.
- AI Behavior: Often built quickly by the AI, making it a competitive wonder to acquire.
Great Bath
- Utility: Considered to have limited use because it arrives early when players have other priorities.
- AI Competition: Frequently built by the AI, necessitating an early start if desired.
- Strategic Use: Mainly valued for an Era score boost if available in later periods like the Classical era.
- Specific Scenarios: Mentioned as potentially useful in Apocalypse mode to game the system with soothsayers, but this is seen as a poor return on investment.
- Overall View: Regarded more as a wonder for aesthetics than practical utility.
Classical Era
While some wonders like the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus are universally beneficial, others like Petra and the Terracotta Army have more niche roles. Each of the wonders has its unique strengths and situational advantages. Jebel Barkal and Colosseum stand out for their ability to significantly influence the game in their respective areas, while Machu Picchu, Great Library, and Colossus offer more specific or nuanced benefits. The choice of which wonder to pursue should align with the player’s overall strategy, civilization strengths, and the specific challenges of each game stage.
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
- Utility: Provides a strong bonus by giving an extra charge to all Great Engineers.
- Strategic Synergy: Highly effective when combined with other wonders like the Oracle or in faith-based games.
- General Impact: Considered a top-tier wonder due to its broad utility and synergies with various game strategies. Wonder-rushing Great Engineers have a strong impact on the game.
Colosseum
- Benefits: Provides culture and amenities to the city and all cities within six tiles.
- Strategic Value: Extremely beneficial due to its amenity and culture output. Its impact can be quite broad on the early-mid game if positioned strategically.
- Limitations: Building it requires an entertainment complex with an arena, which can be a significant investment early on, especially in non-cultural games.
Jebel Barkal
- Benefits: Provides 6 iron per turn in Gathering Storm, plus 4 faith to cities within six tiles.
- Strategic Importance: Highly valued for its iron generation and significant early faith bonus. Trade iron or use for pillaging/war. Invest faith into expansion with settlers and builders under Monumentality.
- Building Constraints: Its requirement for a desert hill makes it somewhat challenging to build, but in the right location, it can be a game-changing wonder.
Colossus
- Benefits: Grants an additional trade route and gold.
- Utility: Trade routes are a critical aspect of Civilization VI, making the Colossus a valuable wonder for nearly any type of game.
- Comparative Advantage: While it competes with other wonders like the Great Lighthouse, its easier building requirements and the universality of its benefits make it a highly desirable wonder.
Great Library
- Benefits: Offers science bonuses, great works slots, and ancient and classical Eurekas.
- Weakness: Must be built early, as it offers Eurekas for ancient and classical technologies which might be already researched by the time it’s built. It synergizes most with Babylon that benefits specifically from the eurekas due to its abilities.
- General Assessment: While it can be competitive to build and offers some late-game benefits, its situational nature often makes it less of a priority compared to other wonders.
Terracotta Army
- Utility: Offers a promotion level to all current land units and benefits archaeologists.
- Situational Use: Most effective for Domination when built in a city that has been conquered mid-war, providing a significant boost to an ongoing military campaign.
- Comparative Value: Rated higher than the Statue of Zeus due to its potential game-changing impact during warfare.
Great Lighthouse
- Benefits: Offers +3 gold, an admiral point, and +1 movement to all naval units.
- Strategic Value: Considered highly valuable for any game involving warfare, particularly for its benefit to naval movement. It is especially useful for moving land armies quickly via embarkation.
- Limitations: Its utility is somewhat situational, being more relevant in games with significant naval or embarked unit movement.
Petra
- Benefits: Enhances desert tiles significantly, offering more food, gold, and production.
- Specific Use: Best suited for cities located on the edge of deserts. It’s a popular choice due to its transformational effect on otherwise weak desert cities.
- Emotional Attachment: While its strategic impact may be limited to enhancing a single city, it holds a special place in players’ hearts for its aesthetics and “yield porn”.
Statue of Zeus
- Benefits: Provides units and bonuses towards anti-cavalry unit production.
- Strategic Niche: More valuable in domination-focused games, particularly for civilizations that benefit from anti-cavalry units.
- Requirement Constraints: Its reliance on having an encampment with barracks limits its general utility.
Machu Picchu
- Benefits: Grants additional adjacency bonuses from mountains to Commercial Hubs, Theater Squares, and Industrial Zones in all cities.
- Strategic Impact: Its utility is quite specific, enhancing cities built near mountains. However, its overall game impact is limited, as these districts are not typically built next to mountains.
- Overall Value: While it has the potential to generate significant bonuses in the right geographical setup, its situational nature places it lower in terms of general utility.
Medieval Era
In Civilization 6, Medieval Era wonders vary greatly in utility. Kilwa Kisiwani, an S-tier wonder, excels in boosting empire-wide yields, particularly in science and culture victories. Angkor Wat and Alhambra in B-tier offer situational benefits like population growth and military policy slots. Chichen Itza and Huey Teocalli, placed in the Era Score tier, are highly dependent on specific map features. Mont St. Michel and University of Sankore are moderately useful, particularly in religious or trade-focused strategies.
Kilwa Kisiwani
- Strengths: Provides significant bonuses from city-state suzerainty, boosting empire-wide yields.
- Impact: Considered one of the best Medieval Era wonders, especially effective in science and culture victories.
- Rating: Firmly placed at the top of S-tier for its broad utility and potential game-changing impact.
Angkor Wat
- Advantages: Provides +1 population and +1 housing in all cities.
- Utility: Highly beneficial in wide (many cities) strategies due to its empire-wide population and housing boost.
- Placement: Contemplated as low A-tier but placed at the top of B-tier due to its situational nature.
Alhambra
- Benefits: Offers two amenities, a general point, and a military policy slot.
- Strategic Value: Seen as more situational, especially for domination-focused games. It’s not on a direct path for science-focused strategies.
- Overall Rating: Placed at the lower end of B tier due to its specific utility and requirement for an encampment.
Mont St. Michel
- Key Points: Grants all Apostles the Martyr ability, beneficial for generating relics.
- Use Case: Particularly effective in religious games focused on relic generation.
- Positioning: Placed in the middle of B-tier, acknowledging its specific but potentially significant impact in religious strategies.
Kōtoku-in
- Advantages: 20% faith in the city, Warrior Monks – not so much.
- Relevance: Faith heavy city can benefit from 20% boost, especially if this wonder is built in the same city as Kilwa.
- Assessment: Rated in B-tier, considering extra faith income for religious and cultural victories.
Petra
- Attributes: Transforms desert tiles within its city, significantly boosting their output.
- Specialty: Ideal for cities on the edge of deserts, dramatically improving otherwise weak tiles.
- Placement: Ranked number one in the Era Score category, reflecting its emotional appeal and transformative effect on specific city landscapes.
University of Sankore
- Benefits: Increases science and faith, with additional science for trade routes to the city.
- Strategic Consideration: Its effectiveness is tied to having a desert tile and being a trade hub, making it very situational.
- Ranking: Positioned in the Era Score category due to its highly specific requirements and limited universal appeal.
Chichen Itza
- Features: Enhances rainforest tiles with additional production and culture.
- Limitation: Its utility is heavily dependent on preserving rainforests, which often conflicts with standard development strategies.
- Ranking: Positioned at the bottom of the Era Score category due to its limited practical use in efficient gameplay.
Huey Teocalli
- Attributes: Benefits lake tiles with food and production, and provides amenities.
- Applicability: Extremely map-dependent and only useful in maps with significant lake presence.
- Evaluation: Rated low in the Era Score category because of its highly situational nature.
Meenakshi Temple
- Advantages: Boosts faith and enhances Gurus.
- Relevance: Mostly beneficial in faith-focused games for its specific utility in enhancing Gurus.
- Assessment: Era score. Gurus are not that important.
Renaissance Era
The Renaissance Era wonders in Civ 6 range widely in their impact and utility. While wonders like the Forbidden City and Potala Palace stand out for their significant contributions to various strategies, others like the Casa de Contratación and Torre de Belém are viewed as having limited practical use. The choice of wonders in this era is highly dependent on the specific game strategy, victory conditions, and the map’s geographical features.
Forbidden City
- Advantages: Provides culture and a highly coveted wild card policy slot.
- Utility: Considered very valuable due to the flexibility offered by the additional policy slot and early construction timing.
- Ranking: Placed in low S-tier, balancing its universal appeal against other top-tier wonders.
Potala Palace
- Benefits: Offers culture, faith, a diplomatic policy slot, and a diplomatic victory point.
- Strategic Importance: Valuable for its policy slot, and key in games focusing on diplomatic victory.
- Placement: Ranked at the top of A-tier, indicating its significant impact but not as universally game-changing as S-tier wonders.
St. Basil’s Cathedral
- Key Points: Provides relic slots, boosts religious tourism, and enhances tundra tiles.
- Use Case: Effective in specific cultural strategies, particularly those focusing on religious tourism.
- Positioning: Placed at the bottom of B-tier, acknowledging its potential impact in cultural strategies but limited appeal in other game types.
Casa de Contratación
- Benefits: Offers 3 Governor titles and boosts for cities on non-home continents with a governor.
- Strategic Value: Seen as marginally useful for games focusing on governors but generally not a must-have. Nzinga could negate her negative non-home effect and Spain can gain strategic advantage.
- Overall Rating: Positioned in the Era Score category due to its specific utility and the requirement of being adjacent to a Government Plaza, which is often used for adjacency bonuses.
Venetian Arsenal
- Strengths: Doubles naval units produced, beneficial for naval-focused strategies.
- Strategic Consideration: Potentially powerful in maps with significant water presence.
- Evaluation: Situational usefulness and emotional attachment.
Great Zimbabwe
- Features: Boosts gold and provides benefits tied to bonus resources and trade routes.
- Limitations: Highly situational, depending on map layout and the city’s specific placement.
- Evaluation: Rated in the Era Score category, as its practical use is limited and overshadowed by other wonders.
Taj Mahal
- Attributes: Increases era score from historic moments.
- Relevance: Limited utility as it only affects moments that already grant 2 or more era score.
- Assessment: Rated at the very end of the Era Score category due to its minimal impact on overall gameplay.
Torre de Belém
- Advantages: Enhances international trade routes and grants a building to cities on non-home continents.
- Drawbacks: The benefits are considered minimal and very specific to certain game scenarios.
- Ranking: Positioned as the worst wonder in the Era Score category, offering very little practical use.
Industrial Era
These Industrial Era wonders offer a range of utilities, with Big Ben standing out for its economic benefits and the Statue of Liberty being pivotal for diplomatic victories. The Bolshoi Theatre and Hermitage provide cultural advantages, particularly in terms of great works and artist points, but are more situational. Ruhr Valley’s production boost is useful in science-focused strategies but less impactful in other game types. The choice and prioritization of these wonders are heavily influenced by the player’s overall strategy and victory conditions.
Big Ben
- Benefits: Adds an Economic Policy slot, increases the treasury by 50% upon construction, and provides additional gold and Great Merchant points.
- Strategic Value: Highly valuable due to the extra policy slot and substantial economic boost. Especially beneficial if timed right for a significant treasury increase.
- Ranking: Placed in the middle of A-tier, considering its overall utility and impact on economic strategies.
Oxford University
- Benefits: Provides three Great Scientist points, two great work of writing slots, a 20% science bonus in the city, and awards two randomly chosen free technologies upon completion.
- Strategic Value: Highly valuable in science-focused games for the significant boost in scientific progress and the potential to unlock key technologies.
- Ranking: Positioned in low A-tier, considering its substantial impact on science strategies. However, its late-game placement and random nature of the free technologies can sometimes reduce its effectiveness.
Bolshoi Theatre
- Features: Generates Great Writer and Musician points, provides slots for great works of writing and music, and awards two random free civics upon completion.
- Utility: Offers solid benefits in a culture-focused game but has limited impact in other scenarios.
- Evaluation: Positioned in high B-tier, acknowledging its value in cultural strategies but limited appeal elsewhere.
Ruhr Valley
- Attributes: Increases production in the city and adds production for each mine and quarry.
- Strategic Importance: Considered powerful in a high-production city, often used for science victories.
- Ranking: Positioned at the bottom of B-tier. Its late-game appearance and specific requirements limit its broader impact.
Hermitage
- Advantages: Provides three Great Artist points and four great work of art slots.
- Context: Primarily useful when running out of slots for great works, particularly in longer games.
- Assessment: Placed at the bottom of B-tier, given its specific utility in cultural strategies and limited impact in other game types.
Statue of Liberty
- Key Points: Directly provides diplomatic victory points, making it crucial for diplomatic victory strategies.
- Utility: Essential for diplomacy-focused games and also significant for non-violent domination strategies because of loyalty bonus.
- Placement: Ranked in low B-tier, reflecting its critical role in diplomatic victories and specific scenarios like playing as Eleanor.
Hungarian Parliament (Országház)
- Advantages: Increases diplomatic favor per turn from being the suzerain of city-states and offers cultural benefits.
- Context: Particularly useful in games focused on diplomatic victory or influence over city-states.
- Assessment: Positioned at the bottom of B-tier or high Era score. Its utility is highly situational, dependent on the player’s focus on diplomatic strategies and relationships with city-states.
Panama Canal
- Features: Creates a canal district that allows naval units to pass through, and provides additional gold.
- Utility: More of a visual and strategic novelty, allowing for unique naval movement options. However, its practical value in most games is limited.
- Evaluation: Placed in Era score. While it can be a fun and interesting project, its strategic utility is often overshadowed by other more impactful wonders and developments.
Modern and Atomic Eras
The wonders from the Modern and Atomic Eras in Civilization VI offer varying degrees of strategic value, primarily enhancing culture and science victory paths. Their effectiveness is often contingent on specific game conditions and strategies, with some being more situational or arriving too late in the game to change the course of a victory significantly.
Eiffel Tower
- Advantages: Increases the appeal of all tiles in your civilization.
- Strategic Value: Extremely beneficial in culture victory games, particularly when combined with national parks and other appeal-based improvements like seaside resorts to boost tourism output fast.
- Ranking: Likely in the high B or low A tier for culture-focused strategies due to its significant impact on tourism generation through increased appeal.
Broadway
- Benefits: Provides great writer and musician points, slots for great works of writing and music, and a 20% culture bonus for the city. Also gives a random Atomic Era civic boost.
- Strategic Value: More significant in a culture-focused game. The great work slots, especially for music, are valuable due to their scarcity. The 20% culture bonus in the city has limited impact late in the game, when the focus is on sources of tourism.
- Ranking: Slightly above average in a culture game, potentially placed in the higher end of B-tier. Not as critical in other types of games.
Cristo Redentor
- Advantages: Doubles tourism output of seaside resorts and religious tourism, and prevents the diminishing effect of Enlightenment Civic on religious tourism.
- Contextual Usefulness: Particularly valuable for boosting tourism in a culture victory game, especially if the player has focused on seaside resorts or has a significant amount of religious tourism.
- Assessment: Likely placed in B-tier for culture-focused strategies. Its impact is tied to specific game conditions, such as the presence of seaside resorts or a strategy involving religious tourism.
Amundsen-Scott Research Station
- Advantages: 10% Boost to science and production in all cities, with additional bonuses for the city its built in with snow or snow hills tiles.
- Strategic Value: Potentially powerful in science-focused games but is often considered too late in the game to have a significant impact.
- Ranking: Despite its appealing bonuses, likely placed low due to its late-game availability and specific location requirements, possibly in Era Score tier.
Biosphere
- Benefits: Enhances power generation and provides tourism from power-generating improvements.
- Strategic Value: Can be useful for culture victories where power generation aligns with tourism generation, but often seen as too specialized and situational.
- Ranking: Likely placed lower in the tier list, such as in Era Score, due to its specific requirements and the stage of the game at which it’s available.
Golden Gate Bridge
- Benefits: Provides amenities, appeal to certain tiles, and tourism bonuses for specific improvements in the city it’s built in.
- Strategic Value: More of a situational wonder, offering specific benefits that depend heavily on city placement and available tile types.
- Ranking: Generally considered lower in the tier list, possibly in high Era Score or low B tier, due to its situational nature and the late stage of the game at which it becomes available.
Estadio de Maracana
- Advantages: Provides culture and amenities to all cities in the civilization.
- Strategic Value: Can be useful for boosting culture in the late game, but often viewed as too late to make a substantial difference.
- Ranking: Probably in B tier, given its universal benefit to culture but limited impact due to late availability.
Sydney Opera House
- Benefits: Offers culture, great musician points, and slots for great works of music.
- Strategic Value: Similar to Broadway, it’s beneficial in culture victory paths, especially due to the valuable great music slots.
- Ranking: Likely placed in the B tier. It’s useful for culture victories but comes late in the game, limiting its overall impact.