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Hello everyone. I wanted to pick your brains on when is the appropriate time to build different wonders?

I have seen many players recently do palace as their first wonder into tower, however there are many examples of players doing tower into academy etc.

@H2O_ Does a great job of explaining his thought process of china here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZ1n5EDoBc

However, he doesnt discuss why he is choosing tower first and academy second in this matchup.

Anyways, I am just looking to figure out when are good times to build different wonders in the first and 2nd age up. If this has been discussed already somewhere and I am missing it, hook me up with the link!

Thanks friends!

SubZeroWinters

PS. A side question. In regards to the palace, is their an optimal option of unit batch to choose? What i mean by this is: What is the most cost efficient batch choice from the summer palace? I usually set it for the cav/cav but have heard that might not be the most cost effective way to run your palace.

i would like to point out the time that aizamk went to age 2 with the disciple thingy, because he was facing an all-in russia rush.

i fucking orgasmd multiple times when i saw that video for the first time

Lol if @H2O_ ever logs in here he will have a shitload of random notifications.

Usually you go Summer Palace for the colonial age to get the nice food boost and Porcelain tower to the fortress age to get a very significant eco boost. Sometimes people will use different wonders in their BO but i think it is pretty occasional. Long term play is usually favored to short term play so that's why you don't see Confucian Academy or White Pagoda that often. The Summer Palace is often kept on CKN+Qiang but it doesn't make a big difference really, you should just go with what you feel is appropriate to the situation. In the fortress age it's either Forbidden Army or Territorial Army.
Oh, the Summer Palace is often built first because its bonus doesn't scale with the age it is built in (besides for the food amount, the production speed of banner armies is always the same), while other wonders such as the Porcelain Tower gives you a better bonus if you use it for a later age.

I think summer palace produces the old han stuff way faster than the territorial army. Thats what it feels like at least. So I never switch it.

momuuu wrote:I think summer palace produces the old han stuff way faster than the territorial army. Thats what it feels like at least. So I never switch it.

It's probably because of the difference in the cost.

Build the summer palace to colonial to get the 400 food to age up and the tower to fortress. Usually you set your tower on wood for houses, I also like to send 1000 w for houses and to put the tower on food or gold. If you are rushed, age up with 8 skirmishers.

There is the Acergame build where you build the tower to colonial and the academy to fortress and use it to play very agressively. I don't think it is good. You can also do the Mitoe build - build the summer palace with 0 vills and gather resources to age (no 700 g), then send 700 w (optionally 300 export after 700 w). It is more vulnerable but stronger in the long term.

The optimal army is usually the old han one, but it depends on the situation.

In my opinion, there's no other option for Colonial. Summer Palace is just better in every single way: it generates more resources than the Colonial Porcelain Tower in age 2 while giving you 400f on top of it. It gives you both early and mid-game benefits, whereas the Porcelain tower would only give you mid-game benefits, and these benefits would be less than what you get from the Summer Palace even if you didn't send 400f. Not to mention the Summer Palace covers a massive amount of space in front of your base, providing you with a good shield against rushes.

I usually put the Summer Palace on Old Han (Chu/Pike)—although Standard Army (Chu/Steppe) is fine too, Steppe can usually pick off a vill or two before being caught and also do some scouting—and once I'm Fortress I switch it to Territorial Army (Skirm/Sword) unless I'm planning to go Industrial. I find that Forbidden Army (Cav) takes too long to train, and you'd rather just have the Territorial units sooner.


As for Fortress wonders, you should almost always go for Porcelain Tower unless you need to hold a timing or you've had units in your base all game, then the 8 skirm are almost essential for survival. There are some aggressive Fortress builds where 8 skirm > tower, but even here it's a close call sometimes.

territorial army on summer palace seems the most useful as it doesnt train slowly like the cav one and also china just needs more skirm vs most civs that spam goon vs them anyway (can only train 3 skirm at a time)

Hazza54321 wrote:territorial army on summer palace seems the most useful as it doesnt train slowly like the cav one and also china just needs more skirm vs most civs that spam goon vs them anyway (can only train 3 skirm at a time)

If China builds two war academies they can train 6 skirm at a time

deleted_user wrote:

Hazza54321 wrote:territorial army on summer palace seems the most useful as it doesnt train slowly like the cav one and also china just needs more skirm vs most civs that spam goon vs them anyway (can only train 3 skirm at a time)

If China builds two war academies they can train 6 skirm at a time

if my mom had a dick she would be my dad

white pagoda can be really good vs aztec, iro and russia but in all other cases summer palace is best age 1

white pagoda is the only wonder you should be using to get up to age 2 @jesus3 can tell you all about it

I beat our most beloved top8 players russia with a disciple rush some time ago, so it's def. the best wonder

The biggest reason not to get Summer Palace in Colonial is so you can get Summer Palace in Fortress. It's 400 food vs 1000 food, the extra food is nice for getting you Iron Cap Prince's Army or Beiyang Army, if it's your taste, or it can help slingshot you toward Industrial Age.

You should also consider hitting Temple of Heaven early; Transcendence really punishes your opponent if they decide to go after your monk, or they fail to micro properly to eliminate your units since it can instantly turn your red units into green, and what's more, the ToH effect doesn't scale with age ups so it's good early game and nothing else.

Is there also a real reason for going Porcelain Tower over Temple of Heaven? The free villagers typically match or outperform the Porcelain Tower in terms of economic output, and Transcendence is nifty early on, whether to deny villager casualties or refloat red units.

No, the porcelain tower provides more resources than the villagers from the Temple of Heaven and it is unraidable. However i think that the temple is a valid option too sometimes.

Aiz seems to usually go tower first and does well