Wonders o' the world... the root of all evil?

[TheLimey]

I was just thinking about the singular reason for jumping ahead or falling behind of the AI in every single game of Civ, Civ2 or CtP, that I've ever played... Wonders of the World

Does anyone really think that wonders are wonderful anymore... after a few dozen games? To me, and I might be a little cynical but, they are just another very expensive city improvement that costs no maintainence, 'breaks' the game balance for a while before going obsolete.

There are too many of them... and usually the most productive civs (like 2 or 3) gain most of them anyway... making them seem even more ordinary (ho hum... another wonder), and unbalancing.

What to do?

Play without wonders? Maybe, although it might be a little duller, and moves away from the original civ concept, and doesn't recognise the great engineering feats of past civilizations.

Allow any civ to get any wonder? Nope... then wonders will be even more like city improvements

I finally settled on allowing each civ to build one wonder; this achieves two purposes; it gives a civ personality. For instance, you might retain the Cohort wonder, giving that civ a Romanesque feel. Since there isn't a production race, there isn't a winner take it all bonus.

The Wonder could go obsolete at some point, at which time it possibly gets replaced through SLIC with another updated wonder in the same style as the old one, keeping the same personality going.

Not that i'm looking for the game designers to implement these ideas... but they are things that should be included (maybe ) in a 'Play CtP2 as it should be' mod.

Or thats my 2c on the matter, anyway.

[Slingshot]

WONDER-ful idea.

No really, I mean it!

How about this.

- Start Game
- Pick your Civ
- Pick your Civ's attributes
(eg. one of: population bonus, science bonus, military, trade, etc.)
- The bonus (or combination?) is only realized when your civ makes its wonder. That wonder must be guarded with all due care, because it is the source of you civ's enhanced performance.

[wheathin]

You could reach a similar result by having each civ only be allowed to build a certain number of wonders, maybe subdivided by age (you can only build one of each 'set' - one ancient, one modern, etc.) You would want to make a bee-line for the one wonder you want before the AI does, and then you can use it to build your strategy around.

While I have had some games like this in Civ2 and CtP, especially in the early stages, where each civ gets a Wonder at about the same time, those experiences are rare. And they usually ended up being the most challenging games.

This allows that even the slowest civs get a Wonder, unless you're playing with more than 8 players, although that could be solved by a user preference choice at the start of the game ("number of civs?", "wonders per civ?").

It also prevents the lead player from running away with the game. If you're ahead in science, all you get is first pick in the new age. If you want to deny the wonders to other players, you have to crush them.

WOW... I like this idea...

You can only get more wonders by taking them from other civs. If AI civs don't build the wonders, they don't get built - so maybe you don't want to eliminate your enemies too quickly!

If a certain ability seems good, there could be more than one Wonder that has it at the same time - maybe Ramayana, Oracle, Hanging Gardens are all ancient Wonders, each allowing +2 happiness in all cities, but now each must be built by a different civ because no one civ can build them all. This also eliminates the risk of one Wonder advantage (or combo) being too powerful. If Edison's Lab is unbalancing, let there be two (maybe a CERN Wonder), so an AI will get one too! Alternatively, if you allowed maybe 2 Wonders per age, and you build Edison, you'd have to forgo getting London Exchange to keep CERN out of the AI's hands.

Maybe this could be implemented in SLIC in CtP?
[This message has been edited by wheathin (edited June 22, 2000).]

[Harlan]

I really like the idea as expressed by Wheatthin. Picking your wonder at the start of the game doesn't work for me at all. Like the ancient Egyptians are gonna know they'll want the Internet in 6000 years? But a limit to the number of wonders you can build by age, that's the ticket.

Instead of having wonders tend to make the stronger stronger and the weak weaker, the effect would be more even. The amount of wonders allowed per age would depend on how long the ages will be. It might also depend on how many players (imagine if youre playing with 2 civs in a game vs. 9). But the main point is, have a strict limit.

This idea is so good it should go in the standard CTP2 setup, not just a SLIC addon. At least have it as an option when you start the game.

[DiscoveryOne]

I like it! Just a few changes, though. First of all, you want to make sure that if you gain a Wonder by conquering another city, you still keep at least some of its benefits -- a good reason for going to war, and for protecting such cities well. Secondly, I'd allow maybe two or so Wonders per age, with some repetition of effects. Lastly, I'd jack up the number of ages to perhaps eight. (Something that needs to be done anyway, I think.)

[TheLimey]

Yes... the point is that I'm trying to think of something that will be implementable in SLIC, so that we're not reliant upon Activision for what is potentially a one-of-a-kind game balancing idea.

I think that one wonder per age is a better idea, because you HAVE to pick and choose your effect... and in some cases they should be less dramatic than certain current wonders (I.E. London Exchange) A player who picks London Exchange should not get more science than the player who picks 'Oxford University' for instance, so the effects will have to be looked at carefully.

I still maintain one (or perhaps 2 at the most) wonders per civ would make them more wonderful, and players less reliant on tried and true tech paths.

Perhaps the benefits you gain from your 'Lighthouse' wonder will make you go the seafaring route through the tech tree, for instance.

You might even be 'gifted' a specific unit type based on the wonder... so 'Cohort' would give the ability to build Legion, and Pyramids 'Chariots', and Valhalla 'Norse Axemen' and so on.

I think since there will be 8 civs... that you'll certainly need to duplicate some desirable game effect properties, so having multiple Happiness bonus wonders in an age would be a very good idea.

[TheLimey]

I hope you're listening MrOgre/StSwithin ... this seems to be popular and if i'm not mistaken not too complex to implement idea; a limited wonder (per age) option in the game creation.

I agree with your ideas Harlan.. but why do you think that number of civs should matter so much? Why not still limit them in the same manner, and provided there is a set up option, you could pick what you were comfortable with.

DiscoveryOne... yep... I agree with you... a very well made point. 8 ages though? the game is going to be from 4000BC to 2300AD yes? so what additional ages were you thinking of? Of course, there may already be 8 ages, and we just don't know it yet

EDIT: damn typos
[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited June 22, 2000).]

[Slingshot]

What if wonders of the world helped everybody out?

For example, a cure for cancer. The major benefit of discovery would be the way other nations look at you. When I say nations, I mean its population and not necessarily its leader. Imagine trying to start a war with the civ that developed the internet. You're people are angry at you because they think this civ is not so bad.

How about a trade wonder that helps everybody out, but gives the builder limited control over the price of trade resources? This way, a nation could maximize the profitability of a resource that it has a lot of.

[St Swithin]

Making it so that a civilization can only build 1 wonder is totally doable in SLIC. You can also create "requirements" which would complete a "wonder" - for example, if the ISP improvement were built in every city, the civilization would achieve the Internet wonder. This can also be done via SLIC.

[TheLimey]

I thought about it in this way;

At some point early in the tech tree or perhaps at the very start have a wonder that will trigger that player getting additional advances, just to allow the creation of wonders, that aren't linked into the tree, at least in a reachable way. Kinda like plumbing

Say the initial one is called ANCIENT WONDER 1

So, firstly, you don't know what the other civ is building, which seems sensible.

So... the AI starts to build it... and completes it, when it does... triggers a SLIC event handler, that removes the dummy wonder from the city, and replaces it with one chosen from a list, programmatically.

The conditions could ensure that the wonder was unique, and perhaps even appropriate to fit in with that players other wonders, if more than one wonder per player per age, is permitted.

Since the dummy wonder was destroyed, the AI may (ok, 'will' rather than 'may' ) think that it needs to rebuild the thing, so the tech that allowed its building should be removed from that player at this point.

One question; at this point you may need to record the progress of the other AI's (and the humans) of the Wonder in question, since its completion however brief may trigger the 'obsolescence' of the other civ's wonder projects; depending on timing of course. Will this be the case?

However, if SLIC 2 works like MrOgre says it will, we may be able to 'overload' or create an 'exception' on the event, so that it aborts the building of the dummy wonder, and achieves all the other effects we're looking for.

At this point, the human is informed of the event, and the AI has its fully operational, and non-repeatable wonder o' the world.

At the turn of the age, the wonders go obsolete, and either at the beginning of the age or at some point in the tech tree of that age, there are more trigger points, more dummy wonders and the whole thing repeats.

===

St.Swithin> Can you see any problem in this set up?

Are there appropriate building/wonder/tech creation and destruction functions in SLIC 2?

Can we decern unit/improvement/wonder production progress with SLIC? And set it to a different value if necessary?

[DiscoveryOne]

Here're my ideas for the Ages of humankind:

Ancient
Medieval
Renaissance
Industrial
Atomic
Information
Interplanetary

The Atomic and Information Ages might be combined, I suppose. Another might be added at the end, as I don't really know what the future will hold in the next 300 years. There might also be a Heroic or Mythic Age added at the beginning.

[TheLimey]

Sounds like a plan to me.

Your idea where the players 'pick' their wonder at the start is fine. The human player should pick one at the start from a list say, and the AI civs get random picks.


Shouldn't be a huge deal to implement in SLIC, unless there are some huge holes in its functionality.

Anyone else like the idea?

[TheBirdMan]

I have one between ancient and medieval.

Call it Age of great migration, say from 200AD to ????

I just thought of something, kinda of dealing with wonders.

In Multiplayer you have the option to exclude any wonder/unit you feel like. This would be nice for single player. Actually it's not to important because you can just take them out using the txt. files. But it would be nice to be able to exclude them in PBEM and Hotseat.

[TheLimey]

The genetic age, that human civilization is taking its first tetering steps into, is upon us now... thats the next age

[MidKnight Lament]

This probably isn't going to be terribly constructive, but I'm not all that opposed to the old system. It is true that wonders help unbalance the game, but I'm not sure that that's where the balancing needs to be done. To me it sounds a bit like treating the symptom rather than the cause.

Plenty of other ideas were also raised to try to make sure that civs don't just run away with the game. I don't know that I'd be happy if I couldn't build half the wonders.

- MKL

[TheLimey]

If you've not tried it... how do you know?

[Chuckles]

Of all the ideas floating around this one is really good. It would be exciting to play a game where you only get one wonder per age.

[Palpatine]

Chuckels is right. With one wonder every epoch you really have to decide which way you are going to take through history.

And in real history. Which nation built up more then one "wonder of the world"?

-The power of the dark side is with him-
Emperor Palpatine

[DiscoveryOne]

Another idea which I thought might be neat would be that each civ has the ability to create the same Wonders, which might cut down on a player having an extreme advantage.

Perhaps for each age, each civ could build three Wonders -- for the ancient age (as for example), a Great Temple, a Marvelous Tomb, and a Book of Wisdom. These Wonders would all have the same bonuses, and the player could name them (or the computer could, with default names) to match the civ that they play, much as one does with the ruler's name. If I am Greek, they'd be The Parthenon, The Mausoleum at Hallicanarsis (sp?), and The Odyssey.

This might prevent the aforementioned lopsidedness possible with Wonders, while retaining (and enhancing!) the "feeling" of running a unique civilization. Plus, these would be things that all civs would have. Didn't most ancient civs have a Great Temple of some sort?

There might also be Unique Wonders (such as The Lighthouse) with unique characteristics that you could also name with an appropriate title, but they might be fewer and more expensive.

BTW, several civs had multiple wonders in the real world; it just depends on what they considered wonderful!
[This message has been edited by DiscoveryOne (edited June 27, 2000).]

[TheLimey]

I agree, D1. We should include both ideas in a mod... play it out and see how it works.

The standardized effect wonders sound like they would work great in a multiplayer game.

[Pintello]

Hi Palpatine,

You asked what civilization ever built more than one Wonder of the World, there are many answers. The first answer is the Greeks who built the Colassus of Rhodes, the Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, and the Great Statue of Zeus as well as the Great Library of Alexandria. They also built the Parthenon and maybe one or two other Ancient Wonders, I don't remember, but their seems to be a few more.

Another civilzation to have built more than one Wonder is the United States of America. The Americans built the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, the UN, the Empire State Building, the Panama Canal, and the St. Louis Arch. All of which have appeared on one or more Wonders of the Modern World lists. Then there are the Wonders of the World that don't appear on any list that the US is also responsible for. Those are the Interstate Highway System, the US Constituion, on which many of the world's other constitutions are based on, the Internet, the cure for Polio and many other world affecting diseases, probably even AIDS and Cancer in the not too distant future. Also, lets not forget the Apollo Program. There are many other things that the US has done that would also qualify as World Wonders.

Come to think of it, the Egyptians are responsible for a couple of World Wonders too. Those would be the Great Sphinx and the Great Pyrimids. I am sure that if we kept thinking, we could come up with some others. The Babylonians for example who create Hamurabi's Code, the Hanging Gardens, and the Ishtar Gate. Or how about the Romans. They build great Aqueducts, the Colosium, the first Empire Wide Road System, call it the very first Interstate Highway System, and they created the Pax Romana. The only 200 year stretch of history that saw no wars in Western Europe and whole Mediterrainian World.

So as not to be completely Western centric here, lets also consider the Chinese. They built the Great Wall and the frist true nation state in the full sense of the word. This is what the Confusius Academy represent in CTP.

The point is that many civilizations have built mutiple things that could legitimately be considered Wonders of the World, whether they appear on any list of Wonders or not. These Wonders that different civilizations have built are what helps give them their national character.

When you think of the Chineese, what is one of the first things you think about? Yep, the Great Wall. When you think of the Egyptians what do you think about? The Pyrimids and the Sphinx. When you think of the Greeks what do you think of? The Parthenon and if you are familiar with their history, you also think of the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Great Lighthouse. When you think of the US, you think of the Apollo Program and many other of the amazing feats of engineering that the US is responsible for such as the first working airplane.

Having a nation build multiple Wonders if it can afford them is entirely consistent with history. Historically it is the most powerful nations of their days that build the Great Wonders of the World and those wonders give the nations who built them character. After all what would the Egyptians be with out the Pyrimids and the Sphinx, or the Romans be without the Colosium and their roads?

I think CTP and its Wonder system should be left alone as it is. If you want something different, St. Swithin has already told you that you can change it with slic. After all, what would any Civilization Game be like without Wonders to build?

Regards,
Timothy Pintello

[DiscoveryOne]

I agree that there is some imbalancing with Wonders, but I don't really like limiting them too much. Tim is right when he outlines the many Wonders that some powerful civs have had. (BTW, thanks for mentioning my hometown's Gateway Arch -- take that, Atlanta!)

I think that the method that I outlined above would be an effective compromise. Probably half of all real-world Wonders are just variations on a theme; nearly all cultures have made at various times Great Temples, impressive tombs, road or canal works, and important religious books. But as I'm sure Tim and many would agree, many Wonders are quite unique! (How many Great Walls are there? Hadrian can't touch that one!) I think that no matter what is done with Wonders, some unique ones must remain (although I'd like to have names reflecting the building civ).

Trivia time! (I just learned this.) What real-world civilization made the largest pyramid of all time?

[St Swithin]

The Aztecs. It's in Cholula, MX.

[wheathin]

Glad to see the support for the X-wonder-per-age idea!

I recognize that the building of "Wonders" is central to the Civ franchise, and I enjoy trying to crush the world and collect every possible Wonder. I too would be reluctant to set the defaults in the game to "No, you can't build them ALL." - it would piss off too many die hard Civers at first and give you totally terrible initial word-of-mouth.

But I like the idea that it is implementable in SLIC (although I don't see how, myself).

D1 - If every Civ builds the same WOnders, it reduces the re-playability of the game and the sense of many different paths or options. I like choosing between Labyrinth, Stonehenge, or Ramayana depending on the game, the enemies, and my particular situation.

While each civ hay have a historical Wonder (China's Wall, England's Stonehenge, etc.), trying to force players down one specific road seems too limiting, and not at all in the wide-open tradition of Civ. If the Chinese lived in a land of small islands and dense jungles, would they still have built a Great Wall? Of course not - so why force a human player or AI to do the same? "Ramayana of London" and "Confucius' Academy in Oporto" are what make the game fun and thought-provoking!

Allowing numeric limits on Wonders forces players to adapt to their surroundings, as well as enhancing the balance between human and AI.

[TheLimey]

Pintello>

This is a serious suggestion, because serious players recognize it as a game inbalance.

We're not suggesting the loss of all wonders, just a limit.
[This message has been edited by TheLimey (edited June 28, 2000).]

[DiscoveryOne]

St. Swithin

Nope. It's the White Pyramid, in China. Second in height is the Great Pyramid of Khufu, and second in volume is the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan.

[Big Dave]

quote: Originally posted by St Swithin on 06-22-2000 08:08 PM Making it so that a civilization can only build 1 wonder is totally doable in SLIC. You can also create "requirements" which would complete a "wonder" - for example, if the ISP improvement were built in every city, the civilization would achieve the Internet wonder. This can also be done via SLIC.

St Swithin,
What I'm asking may be alittle harder, but if a line of forts were build across a land mass or around the current border(with a minimum of (for example) 15 forts) could this be construed as a Wonder by the game, e.g. The Great Wall? And could a 2nd, lesser wonder be achived by the same feat, e.g. Hadrian's Wall?

I guess what I'm trying to find out is do the "agregate wonder" components have to be in a city, or could they be outside a city but within a civ's borders?
Thanks,

------------------
Big Dave

A bad pun is its own reword.
[This message has been edited by Big Dave (edited June 29, 2000).]

[meriadoc]

Since there are times that I play Civ and try to get all of the wonders for myself, there are times that I don't go for any of them, and then there are times where I only go after one or two, I think that the game would be ruined if you couldn't go after all of the wonders yourself. However, having an option to limit the number of wonders that you could get might be interesting - as an option.

------------------
The Electronic Hobbit

[WesW]

I like the option of linking wonders with SLIC. Say, you set up a group that would allow you to build a unique unit. Ancient armies tended to specialize in unique units before gunpowder started homogenizing armies. This forms the basis for Age of Empires, Starcraft, and other games.
With SLIC, you could write it in so that, if a civ builds a Wonder that gives it a unique unit, it would be unable to build the others that give specific units, at least in that age. You could also group things by land, sea, special attack, etc.
I would also like for this concept to apply to happiness Wonders, for example. If you build one of these, it gives a good benefit, if you have more than one in effect at the same time, you run into the concept of diminishing returns. Grouping wonders would force the AIs to spread out their wonders' effects over different areas, and therefore maximize them. This could apply to gold, science, and other categories of wonders.

Another really neat thing would be the ability to "turn on" wonders dependent on the number of civs and the map size you are using. If you have a game with few civs, fewer numbers of happiness wonders would be available, for example. Mod-makers could play with this, and expand it if they want to play with, say, 24 civs on a custom-sized, XXL map.

I hope that the Activision guys are still reading these forums. I plead with you guys to give examples of as many SLIC triggers as you can in files that are specifically for mod-makers. That way, we can cut-n-paste our unique ideas into the standard examples you give us, like the way we study problem examples and imitate them to learn math.