Cultural Wonders guide — The best ones to claim

Similar to a 4X strategy game like Civilization, Humankind allows you to construct cultural wonders. However, the mechanics are vastly different and influence plays a key role. Still, you might obtain some nifty bonuses, including extra fame and stability. Here’s our Humankind guide to help you out with the best cultural wonders or world wonders for your empire.

Note: For more information, check out our Humankind guides and features hub. You may also take a look at our beginner’s guide to learn about the basic mechanics and early-game progression.

Humankind: Cultural Wonders guide – Claiming the best Wonders in your campaigns

In Humankind, wonders have to be claimed by an empire using influence, preventing others from selecting it. It’s different from Civilization where anyone could build a wonder. This means that the race isn’t who can build the wonder the fastest, but who can amass enough influence the fastest. It’s also worth mentioning that each time period from the Ancient Era onward has several wonders to choose from. Oh, and if you don’t want a particular wonder from an era, you don’t need to pick one at all.

Note 1: The further you progress in the game, the higher the influence cost when claiming wonders. Once you do attempt to construct them, make sure that there’s a valid tile. Moreover, you won’t be able to claim a new wonder if you haven’t built the previous one that you selected.

Note 2: Likewise, wonders are considered “shared projects” in that multiple cities can lend their industry output to help complete the building. Additionally, you can speed up the construction of wonders, instantly completing them if you wish by using up a city’s population.

Wonderful bonuses

Below, you’ll see the table for all the current world wonders in Humankind. Be reminded that every wonder you complete adds +100 fame score, as well as +2 detection/+2 vision range for districts. Likewise, wonders provide extra stability to the city, enough to actually prevent most instances of rebellions and unhappiness.

If there’s time, I personally like building Stonehenge during the Ancient Era. It’s all because of the extra faith generation you can get (which is actually important since followers of your state religion can synergize with science boosts later). There are, however, a couple of notable picks down the line.

First, there’s Angkor Wat which you can get during the Medieval Era. Assuming you’ve generated a lot of faith already, then you’ll have a ton of extra food to go around. Second, there’s Machu Picchu from the Early Modern Era. The city that owns the territory you build this on will provide 50% of its food to all your remaining cities. It’s possible to instantly have a massive food surplus.

Later if you were able to expand further to control more cities/outposts/territories, I suggest claiming the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, and Christ the Redeemer. Going “wide” in a sense, and having these Cultural Wonders in Humankind, help ensure that you’ll have loads of boosts to grow your empire.

Humankind is available via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox Game Pass for PC. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.