Can more than one empire have it? Sometimes in the hover I see "The Siamese are getting this effect".  And then I try to buy up all remaining items but I don't seem to get the effect.  Is it locked when an empire gets it? I don't even know how to get it.  It says "you need 2/4 + research patronage". So I get 2 and have patronage, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.  This seems rather poorly documented.

I would argue it is well documented - the Patronage technology actually unlocks the manufactory , not all wondrous effects. It is clearly labeled as an extractor and it also shows in your building menu. The game does not obfuscate it.

Same goes for the fact that you only need a single resource in your empire to build that manufactory on it. The rest of the copies can come from trade with other civilizations. Same happened throughout history - tea was blended and prepared by the British even though they did little of the production themselves. Gemstones have been cut and set in jewels all over Europe even though most of the raw stones come from Africa and Australia.

In essence, the wondrous effect goes only to the civlization that has built the manufactory for that resource. Everyone else gets the normal effect.

Yes mechanic makes sense but the description is misleading because it says you must “exploit” at least x of y resources although in reality it should say you must “have” because importing also counts

Well, in French exploiter is used in the sense of manage, run. Not literally posses. The translation to English can be better, I concur.

They recently changed Glaciers to Icebergs for example.

Its a shame because at first I thought the manufactury created a single copy of a new resource that you could trade to another empire (as well as for yourself, like a normal resource).  Instead it’s just a “I want all of these”

Last game, I was able to build like 5 manufactories in about 12 turns, which was absolutely bonkers. I think there should be an increasing cost for each successive manufactory built

The Hanging gardens also act as manufactory, I wish the tooltip explained it that it would activate the wonderous effect because you wouldn't notice it otherwise upon early playthroughs and just think its a more expensive artisan quarter.

Oh snap, I thought you jsut had to have that number lol welp now I have to remember to build a manufacture as soon as I am able.

Garytop wrote:

The Hanging gardens also act as manufactory, I wish the tooltip explained it that it would activate the wonderous effect because you wouldn't notice it otherwise upon early playthroughs and just think its a more expensive artisan quarter.

Agree, the tooltip for Hanging garden is not clear that it actually is a luxury manufactory. Right now you may think it is just a normal resource extractor which would be a very weak wonder effect.

This is the part I did not know until the end of the Co-op game we just finished:

"...you must exploit x of those luxuries, as long as you have at least one in your cities or territories and can build the manufactory..."

I had the majority of all resources on the planet, but barely any of those resources were in my territory. I kept asking myself - why does it not say I have the Wonderous Effect; I own the majority of every single resource in the game! Bingo! That last part of the sentence from above explains now why.