NEVER build Colosseum, Notre Dame, Capitol, Royal Albert, Space Needle, Lotus Temple, nor Gaea Statue!

Who knows what the developers were thinking when they made these clunkers, but there is NO REASON for anyone to ever build a Colosseum or Notre Dame.  Land and forge points to raise a GB are precious and both are better spent on something other than these!  The Space Needle, Lotus Temple, and Gaea Statue are just as worthless, but new players don't get access to, or stumble into those as often; by the time you get to Modern and above, you've usually learned to recognize garbage when you see it.  

The Capitol and Royal Albert Hall (Fat Albert?  if you want supplies boost that bad, build a 4x4 Lighthouse which is cheaper) are not as shockingly bad as the rest on this list, but it's close, and there are much better options.

The Death of Alcatraz

If not for GvG, the Alcatraz would have been obsolete 5 years ago. It was only useful for GvG ever since the space ages released, boost inflation started, and we started winning lots of current age troops in various ways. When GE 5 was released last year, GE started giving even more troops in place of diamonds.

And I'm saying this as an owner of a level 152 Alcatraz, it is dead. If this is a game only about your current era (which it is now with GvG gone) then Alcatraz is already obsolete. I have never built a single barracks for SAJM and I have 3-5K troops of every kind, none of them made by Alcatraz. You don't even really need rogues to play any more with the massive amount of boosts that have been released in the game, and there are other ways to win rogues now too.

As soon as I feel like I have a lifetime supply of whatever I may want or need, Alcatraz is getting deleted.

Great Buildings - How to choose what to build.

Now that we have covered the 2 extremes, the most valuable essential GB's and the worst stinkers never to build, everything else falls in between and some of this is  down to personal play style.  You can certainly live without most of the rest of the GB's; how I picked what to build is it had to offer a unique ability I could not get any other way and that would justify the land and FPs to raise it.  These days, event buildings are so good, most Great Buildings just do not measure up at all.

Another way you can judge a GB is if you have no desire to raise it up really high, like to level 30 and above, then you probably don't need it any more and it may be time to delete! (especially good criteria when playing higher ages, when you have the means to raise it, but don't.)  Sometimes the game changes and several GB's that used to be essential (Hagia) or at least useful (Dresden, Babel, Cape) later "aged out" of the game, became worthless, and had to be deleted.  The long list of "NO" not recommended GB's fall into this category.

A few Great Buildings may be useful for a short time and they could take up temporary residence in your city while you're progressing through the lower ages, or the special goods boost from the AI Core may be helpful to speed up Arctic and Oceanic ages.  Be prepared to delete the LIMITED USE GB's when they have outlived their usefulness (which will happen quickly.)

The Seed Vault and the claims of thousands of diamonds per year at level 100

There are some people who swear that aiding 140 friends plus 80 guild members and 80 neighbors every day would net you thousands of diamonds per year if your Seed Vault is level 100, but there are several problems with that logic. First, it's not a small thing to get a GB to level 100 (a couple of months even in this age of over-powered event buildings and forge points literally growing on trees.)

Second, it's still a large GB, 5x6, that's the same space as 5 wishing wells (3 shrunk to 2x3 and 2 regular size 3x3.)  I personally don't waste space in my main city for items that I'm only keeping in the hopes of getting the 1% chance of diamonds, and Seed Vault is just a giant wishing well.  It's fine if diamond farming is your focus I guess, but in my main city I need boosts, goods, units, fps - the things to play the game, not farm for diamonds.

Third, the claim that you could possibly mot/pol 140 friends, 80 guild members and 80 neighbors daily is highly questionable, and here's why.

• Hoods will be unreliable for regular mot/pol, whatever calculation was used on 80 neighbors should be cut in half:

  • I haven't seen 80 members in the hood for a long time, it's typically 70-75 max

  • Rivals quests call for fights when nothing else is open and sometimes you HAVE to fight with your hood, not Aid them all.

• Guilds don't typically have 80 members, and if they do, half of them are inactive because it's an open join guild with few requirements. Whatever calculation was used on 80 guild members should also be cut in half.

• Friends list, if you manage to maintain an active list of the 140 max allowed, which is difficult, at any given time when you aid them 20-30 people will have nothing to aid and therefore it doesn't count towards any Aid rewards - you just get the coins! If you aid someone when there is nothing to aid, there is no chance at regular aid rewards of blueprints, no chance at aid goods (Truce Tower,) no chance at BP rewards (Rainforest,) no chance at diamonds from Seed Vault!

• Self-Aid and Mass Self-Aid kits: most people have no choice but to self-aid and as this problem gets worse and more people mass self-aid themselves, there will be less available for anyone else to aid whether friends, guild, or neighbor.  As pointed out above, if there's nothing to aid because they self-aided everything, you get NO chance at Aid Rewards of any kind from any of the Great Buildings.

I just don't find it plausible; sure the Seed Vault may over time make you a few hundred diamonds per year, but my experience with it in the past (admittedly years ago and mine was only level 6) was that I won 50 diamonds 3 or 4 times a year, and it wasn't worth it.

Great Buildings - Double Collecting!

When you're donating to a guild member's GB, and it's at the last few forge points, leave 1 point to let the owner finish the level.  What this does is let the GB have a chance to finish it's 24 hour timer so the owner can collect from it one more time before it levels. Once the owner has collected from the GB, they can add the remaining 1 point to level it up and collect again right away (double collect!)

Also, if the owner has their city on a schedule (which most of us do) then letting them finish the last point of the GB level will allow them to sync with their other GB's and buildings in the city to keep the same collection time.

The only 3 GB this does not apply to is Statue of Zeus, Temple of Relics and Terracotta Army - all of which have no 24 hour collection timer; they give passive boosts only and so can level up at any time.

Please try to remember this courtesy of leaving the last FP for the owner to add when helping others build their GB's - everyone appreciates a chance to double collect as their GB levels up!

That being said, it's not always possible to work out the timing for a double collect.  It can be hard to catch and only works out for me about half the time.  It's a nice bonus to try for, but you can't expect it to work out every time - someone is always trying to lock up a spot in the rewards, someone from friends or neighbors comes along and finishes it, someone isn't thinking and just puts on the last couple FP to help, etc.

It's not worth creating animosity over it if you miss a double collection.  Remember that people putting FP on your GB is mostly a good thing!  Let's just keep in perspective there are worse things to happen in the world than missing a double collection opportunity.

Everyone here has one special thing in common, we like this game and decided to play it together.  Sometimes mistakes happen, someone didn't think or didn't get the memo.  It can be frustrating, but don't turn on your team :)