WONDERS (ver1.0): Hosted by EnochF

[Lancer]

Willco,if they put what you just said straight into the game it would be a much better game.

[Kerris]

What I would like to see is that once a Wonder is completed, on a stat screen somewhere, the name of the Wonder with who built the wonder and the year the Wonder was completed.

[JamesJKirk]

Rather than have a Drugs wonder, it'd make more sense to have a pharmaceuticals advance and have the negative effects of drugs come after that, similar to how communism decrease the power of cathedrals in Civ2.

[Glacier]

Seems to me that once you reach the MODERN era then most 'Wonders' are no longer one shot builds. For example say you build the tallest building in the world - well anyone can do that and once one civ has it there is nothing to stop another civ building there own tallest building which exceeds yours by a few meters.

What I suggest then, is that you have some wonders that can be built as many times as civs want because they are not inherently one shot deals. So you'd have such things as:

- World's Tallest Building
- World's Longest Bridge
- World's Longest Tunnel
- World's Biggest Shopping Mall

and so on. These Wonders would bring in tourism and would gain 'gold' and 'happiness' for the owning civ until such time as someone built something bigger. Of course you could always then build one bigger.

[monolith94]

Oh boy, my first venture onto the CIV 3 suggestions for firaxis.
Let's get down to business.
1st of all, my eyes are nearly popping out of my head because no one has mentioned the Potala, one of the greatest, imho, structures in the world!!! This building was a center of learning, spirituality, and government for a culturally advanced society. This proposed wonder would be for the non-fanatical religious government that Firaxis should create.

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"Love your enemy, for he teaches you patience!"
-Dalai Lama
Read "The Third Eye" - T. Lobsang Rampa

[yin26]

-=*BUMP*=-

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CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

**(un)Officially Making Lists for Firaxis Since SMAC Enhancement 3!**

[SnowFire]

Sieve Too: Your wonders are waaaaaay too powerful.

I agree that switching production is silly, but otherwise, the AI would be in big trouble. There's a big race to build this one wonder- and now there's nothing for those built up resources to go to. A good human could buy right before the AI finished (like they do now), and instead of getting a consolation SP, now they have nothing. Of course, if you want it that way, SMAC has that lovely little switch in alpha.txt to make it so that occurs...

"Meowser: No two cities can build the same wonder at the same time, no switching production midway"

Why not? Now all I have to do is start the wonder, and even if that city generates a measly one resource/turn, no one else can build it and that wonder is guarenteed to me. That would defeat the ENTIRE purpose of wonders, and it'd be a race to "who can discover the technology for a wonder first."

"Eggman: Evolving wonder efects as ages progress (several agree)"

"Eggman: Maintenance costs for aging wonders"

What's wrong with obsolecence? I don't like this idea; if a wonder is going to cost you money, it should be upfront, and it should always cost that amount of money (doesn't it have to be maintained when it's young, too? But the costs are so insignificant compared to national budgets...)


"Meowser: Suggests limited re-buildable wonders: only an option in a "race" to build a wonder; the second civ to build receives a happiness bonus rather than the standard wonder effect."

Don't like this idea either. Just allow them to change production, not make "The Good Library" instead of "The Great Library."

"Meowser: Suggests wonders be tied to specific civilizations (no Egyptians = no Pyramids)"

Ack! Kill this idea right now. Again, rewrite history, don't repeat it.

[Diodorus Sicilus]

-First Post in this (New) Thread-
Look at "Wonders" in Game Terms - what do they do in the game? They provide either a special advantage/attribute to one city, or to the entire civilization. Now look at actual historical (or semi-historical) human projects and undertakings that did the same thing:
PYRAMIDS - were tombs: the effect was to keep the population busy between planting and harvesting for X years while they were being built, and act as riches deposits after the king was buried in them with all his loot - and they acted as tourist magnets from at least 500 BC (Solon of Athens the first recorded tourist there) - How do you put any of this in terms of Advantage to Civ or City?
STONEHENGE - acted as a religious center and possibly an astronomical calendar. Could be interpreted as a boone to agriculture (food production) and Happiness - religious contentment - in the Civ
GREAT WALL - defensive value to the entire kingdom - but only where it weas actually built in a landscape that provided invasion routes to be blocked.
DRUGS - are at best a mixed blessing to any society. Previous Post was correct: Antibiotics is a better 'Wonder' because they increased survivability tremendously among the sick and injured - they also had a major effect in WWII, in that wounded men were more often returned to service than buried, for the first time. Even more important, though, was:
GERM THEORY - Louis Pasteur revolutionized medicine and life: effective birth rates and pop increase soared when the infantry mortality rate dropped by orders of magnitude, life spans increased, way was open to actually have soldiers survive their wounds: this is the major Medical Wonder of the modern period.

Some Civ-wide 'Wonders' are a mixed blessing: a major Religious Wonder, like a fabulous religious center (Hagia Sophia, St Peter's Basilica, Kamakura Buddha, for instances) might result in better Happiness (religious contenment) but also in reduced Science and Growth (people are TOO content)
ARISTOTLE'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF KNOWLEDGE
- this is my candidate for a 'mixed blessing' wonder: Aristotle influenced so much scientific thinking that later Europeans took everything of his as gospel, and it actually stifled research - if it weren't in accord with Mr. A, it weren't Proper. Thus, Aristotle would give a big bonus to ancient Science, but as time went on it would reduce your Science until it was a negative. Another Advance (Scientific Method?) would Obsolete it altogether - not another Wonder, because if someone else got that Wonder, you're civ would be handicapped past reality...

[Machiavelli_boy]

I think all of you pose very intresting ideas for how Wonders should be handled in Civ III. One thing i didnt really like when i was first reading about Call to power was the wonders. Things like contraception and Ramayana didnt really seem like "wonders" to me. Where is my colosus? Where is my Pyramids? But when i played the game its abstract wonders really grew on me and i took as much enjoyment in trying to be the first one to build stonehenge as i was to build the great library. But i still think there should be lots of old school style wonders in Civ III while borrowing a cue from Call to Power and having these more abstract wonders. One idea that i thought was really intresting was having windows 95 as a wonder. I think the main things that should be looked upon are
1. Making wonders balanced and not having incrediblly powerful (Great Library) or useless (AI entity) wonders.
2. Have strong wonder movies. These always gave me a great sense of satisfaction after finally completed a wonder. Make sure they are similar in nature to Civ 2's wonders and not these CG graphic little numbers like Call to power had.

[DarthVeda]

I suppose by drugs you mean antibiotics? That should be a discovery with benefits, not a wonder.

Natural wonders shouldn't have too large of a benefit on your civ.

Some wonders that should be included:
All of the 7 wonders of the world
SDI (The program, not individual defenses)
All the Civ2 wonders
Project to build the H-Bomb (eliminates Nuke Pollution--HBomb fallout is localized)
Carnegie Steel Co. - Free Factory in all cities
Three Gorges Dam--Free Power to all Cities

I'll think of more later.

[Travathian]

Ziggurat at Ur, Mesopotamian.

This was the center of the city, for religion and wealth.

For those of you who don't know . . .
A Ziggurat is kind of like a pyramid, cept its rectangular and has the very top cut off, similar to those the Aztecs built, only its a few acres across at the top.

[Darkstar]

Forgive me if this has already been posted and I missed it but...

I think that there should be National Special Projects. Wonders would be Unique Special Projects that could only be built once, and that would confer some special bonus (SETI Program = +25% Research all cities), or open new possibilities (i.e. Manhattan Project allows the production of nuclear war heads), or enables the ability to build Special Projects that follow in its footsteps (Hoover Dam is a Wonder that gives an Hydro-Electric plant in all cities owned by Nation on its continent. Once built, it permits the building of Continental Hydro-Electrical Power (CHEP) systems which act as Hydro-Electrical Plants in all cities owned by Nation on Continent. In addition, Nation that owns Hoover Dam gains +50% bonus towards building CHEPs.

Special Projects could also be used as mechanisms to adjust Social Engineering if the SE system used is similars to SMACs (only more granular). This would represent the time and resources, training, etc that it takes to turn a nation that thinks that bathing is religious crime (i.e. Health -3), and enables demons to enter you, to a society that prizes health and clean living conditions and hygene (i.e. Health +3 rating).

-Darkstar
(Knight Errant of Spam)

[Ufa]

I think that everyone is missing the original point of the "Drugs Wonder." It was suggested that drugs be one of the negative side-effects of a Wonder being built.

In addition, (yes, Enoch, I like this "random" thing even though it bites me all the time) what if the completetion of all required advances for a Wonder did not guarantee you would think up the idea for the Wonder immediately? Do something like a 5-10% cumulative chance each turn that you'd think it up.

Ex. - The leap from "Hey, we can build bricks now" to "Cool, let's go build some Pyramids" more than likely won't happen in one year. This could also slow down the people who store 10 billion shields (looking at the ceiling and whistling) and wait for their favorite advance to come along : in a multiplayer game, it's more fair across the board, and give others a CHANCE if they aren't the first to discover a tech.

[ErikNYC]

I like the idea about not being able to switch Wonders after another Civilization completes the one you were trying for.

And if you don't switch, you usually end up with a lot of production points, and it sucks to end up paying 200 points for one legion unit, or whatever the game switches you to.

I suggest that once a Civ completes a Wonder, all the other Civs who were developing that same Wonder automatically convert whatever production points they had acquired into a related trade, science, happiness, etc, bonus based on the Wonder they were developing.

For example, the Egyptians complete 'The Pyramids' first. If my Civ was developing the same Wonder, and only was up to about 175 production points by the time the Egyptians built it, spread 175 food between all my cities. It would not be as good as having a granary in each of my cities, but it will still give me some benefit for working on the Pyramids for so long. It makes more sense to do that then to suddenly switch all my workers who had been concentrating on building Pyramids to another Wonder, or taking all those points and spending them on a Library or Temple.

Thus, the loser in the "Leonardo's Workshop" race might get a burst of productions points torwards any new units they were building. The "Sun Tzu's War Acedemy" losers might be able to cash in their production points to promote a number of their current units to veteran units, based on whatever formula Sid and Brian come up with.

I am not trying to come up with the actual specifics of what the Wonder losers might get (the examples above are crude at best), but rather just put out that general idea as a more realistic alternative than switching Wonders or reassigning the production points to just any new troops or improvements.

[Mo]

There should be some way how you could share the effects of a wonder with an allie.

[Stefu]

I still complain about too Amerocentric wonders.

What shocks me that there is not single Russian wonder in Civ2. Or CTP. In fact, only wonder that is in East Europe is Copernicus' Observatory.

Here's some Russian Wonder ideas:

Motherland Statue
Summer Palace
Red Square
Kremlin
St. Basils Cathedral

And, some internationals.

Taj Mahal
Angkor Watt
Potola
Stupa of Wild Goose
Giant Buddha Statue (This might have some special name as well, but I can't remember it.)
Black Rock of Kaba
Great Zimbawbe
Ibn Battuta's Travels
Stonehedge

[Lancer]

Natural wonders! What a great idea..Grand Canyon

Also a natural wonder could be born in one of your cities..take Cherl Tiegs for instance.The greatest known example of anti-gravity in existance.



[This message has been edited by Lancer (edited May 24, 1999).]

[wheathin]

More Wonders:

Tycho Brahe's Observatory
Diderot's Encyclopedia
Francis Bacon's Royal Society
Sultan <name?>'s Forge (for cannons!)
Mines of Potosi (new world silver)


Sure these ideas are fairly euro-centric, but for post-Rennaissance science and industry (1550-1780) you're pretty much stuck in Europe.

FWIW, I think the idea of "Building" a "Natural Wonder" is ludicrous. Maybe if they were placed in the game map at random it'd work, like SMAC terrain features. Otherwise, it's silly.

wheathin

[Sieve Too]

SnowFire: Why are my wonders too powerful? Consider the time they become available: Insutrial Age, when you have Factories, big cities, railroads, most land already claimed and lots of existing improvements. At most, my suggestions will cut 1 turn off the time to build Universities or Battleships. Right now it is too easy to "sandbag" once you get to the modern era. Giving a boost to warmongers can only help and nothing there is even as powerful as Sun Tzu. IMO, Wonders like SETI, Hoover Dam and Mike's Chapel are the type that are too powerful.

[EnochF]

Whoops! Moving on...

[Isle]

I see three ways to solve the issue of "the Internet" wonder:

1. Make it a nation wide improvement, build it one place, make it count everywere. That way all civilization can build it. In fact this functions just like an advancement, except its build for shields and coins, not science.

2. Make a city improvement called Internet-backbone, and let "the Internet" wonder count as a backbone in each city. Other civs can still build the backbone and get internet effect, but only one city a time.

3. Also have the Internet-backbone improvement, but make "The Internet" a diplomatic option, i.e. connecting two countries net. To make it atractive, the backbone improvement will have to scale to the number of cities connected, f.x. +5%/+10% research per city connected.

I would chose the last, because its the most realistic, and is much more concrete than a diplomatic joint-research treaty.

[EnochF]

Everybody who has comments in after the 50th post, re-post your comments in Version 1.1, please!

[EnochF]

Well, things have certainly died down a bit. Not just in this thread, either. It looks like the blizzard of ideas has settled down to a nice, quiet snowfall.

By all means, keep the ideas coming, but I think all the new and radical ideas have been put forth already.

However, don't be hesitant to post even if only to

(1) Agree or disagree with someone else's suggestion. We need to know which of these ideas would be accepted by the gaming community as represented by you.

or (2) Simply list a few ideas you have for specific Wonders and their effects. (Don't worry if your "wonder effects" are mired in Civ II terminology or make use of a CtP effect or SMAC game variable.) I am keeping track of every Wonder idea submitted to this forum.

I'll keep an eye on the thread, and I'll want this one to close at 50 posts. Wonders (ver 1.1) and every new thread after that will continue on to 30 posts.

[Depp]

Just make the wonders never go obsolete, like in SMAC

it might not be relistic but much more fun for sure

[Depp]

Just make the wonders never go obsolete, like in SMAC

it might not be realistic but much more fun for sure