A question on Wonders?

[JewC Jew]

I'm to understand that $2 = 1 happiness. So all the best economic wonders appear to be +5 happiness. But what about the Great Monument? It gives +4 happiness, then you get another one for what ever Government you choose, then if you choose a government with an additional happiness boost, like Monarchy, then wouldn't that put the boost to +6 happiness, plus you get the effects of the gov't, like with monarchy, -5% initial infra cost.

Is this right, or did I miscalculate somewhere?

And if this is right, what would be the best wonder to get first? And if this right, I don't see why anything else would be better.

[TheBFG]

You use:

+4 for the GM

+1 for the fact that your people will like your government

+1 for the fact you choose a government with a +1 effect.

The problem in the logic you've used is that you can get at least one of the 2 "+1"s also without the GM. So when you buy a GM you don't get a improvement of 6 happiness over your previous state, at the most it will be a +5 improvement.

To think about it another way:

Lets say your people want a totalitarian state, and that's what you choose, then you already have the +1 for that. If you then buy the GM and switch to Monarchy you get an extra +4 and an extra +1 for the fact you have monarchy, but you don't get an extra +1 for choosing what they want, because you already did.

Likewise if originally you would have gone against your people and you chose Monarchy anyway, then that would have given you +1 from itself. Then getting the GM gets you the +4 and the +1 for now making them agree with Monarchy, but there is no extra +1 for choosing monarchy, since you already had that.

In fact, out of all the +5 wonders the GM is the last one you should get, since it can be less than +5: At times when your people already want a Monarchy, then you would be already getting a +2, and the GM only adds +4. So on average the GM is really only a +4.9 wonder.

[Zangmonkey]

You are not getting a +1 happiness bonus from the GM, you are avoiding a -1 Happiness penalty.

There is a chance that your people will desire a +1 happiness government and thus the GM is pointless.

[JewC Jew]

Ok, that makes sense, thanks for the hints