is the concept of pre-building wonders just plain ludicrous?

[philler]

I happen to think so!

it's like, you want to build the Great Lighthouse.
you're not able to build it yet because you don't know map making, so you start building say, the Great Wall, and somehow, just a few years before this wonder which has required several hundred years of work is complete, you decide to turn it into a lighthouse?!?

Puh-leeeeaaaaze, that makes the least sense in the history of nonsenses.

so ok, maybe it's just a game, but I would find it much more interesting if you actually needed to have the technological knowledge to build something when you start building it.

Or, if several civs are building the same great wonder at the same time, and you're not the one to finish it first, well, too bad for you, you're not changing it to some other wonder or any other building for that matter...
"Well, you know, we were close to complete the Hoover Dam, but then we figured it would make a nice forbidden palace!"

no more stuff like that please.

I could conceive that you can change the type of a building while it's being constructed.
you're building an university and you realize you need a hospital, you can always use the existing infrastrucure that is already built.
A 50% penalty on the already built infrastructre would make sense to me though (as it used to be with Civ 2 if I remember correctly).

but with wonders? 100% shield loss, period.

so, what do you think?

[Spec]

On monarch and higher, until industrial age, it would be really hard to get a wonders, even almost impossible. That's what I think.

[philler]

not necessarily , as all the other civs would be playing by the same rules.

[Spec]

Originally posted by philler
not necessarily , as all the other civs would be playing by the same rules.

Did you ever play on emporor or deity? It doesn't play by the same rules as you do cuz the AI has bonuses and advantages over you. You HAVE to buy the techs from the AI, it discovers them before you (for me, until industrial age where I catch up and take the lead) so they start building them before you.

[Jaguar]

I think it depends. If you're talking about The Forbidden Palace and the Pentagon I don't think it is an issue. You were still gathering building materials/making a structure. However, switching Cure for Cancer to the Pentagon doesnt.

I think you should be allowed to expedite wonder production, though. Not too much, or that would be cheap. I remember in civ2 how whenever I got the message that some other civ had nearly completed something, I'd buy it.

[Seghillian]

If you knew anything about history you wouldn't ask such a silly question.

It's a known fact that when the Pharoes first ordered construction of the Pyramids, the contractors were ordered to make prefabricated subassemblies which could make up into The Great Lighthouse, The Great Wall, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon(!) or even a Forbidden Palace in case they heard that the Americans had already built the Pyramids before them.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Seghillian
If you knew anything about history you wouldn't ask such a silly question.

It's a known fact that when the Pharoes first ordered construction of the Pyramids, the contractors were ordered to make prefabricated subassemblies which could make up into The Great Lighthouse, The Great Wall, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon(!) or even a Forbidden Palace in case they heard that the Americans had already built the Pyramids before them.

Everybody knows that!!

[Tarquelne]

Of course it doesn't make "sense" - but no less than many other things about the game. I think switching from amost-desired wonder to a "consolation prize" wonder makes for better gameplay - the "cascade" of wonder building triggered by the completion of one wonder can make the wonder race much more interesting. I suspect that the AI would also do much worse with another system, and I like having to really compete with the AI for wonders.

1) Use of Palace to pave the way for a Wonder - though this isn't a big deal, esp. if the AI does it.

2) Decrease in either the frequency of GL's for Militaristic civs, or a decreace in a GL's ability to rush wonders. I've stopped playing Militaristic civs because the Militaristic + HerEp combination just seems to generate too many leaders. Maybe I've just been lucky, but maybe not.

Greatly increasing the value of armies, or the creation of some other GL use, could also help. Hmm.... how about they give a chance to immedietly take over any non-capital enemy city?

[godinex]

no... thanks, i prefer the actual way

[Technoron]

Ah.


Is it realistic to turn a big huge wall stone wall into a big huge bronze statue? Hardly.

Is it realistic to have two nations racing each other to see who can build a big huge wall first, and the loser has to tear his down? Not really.

Does it make sense to have an empty lot this year and and a massive pyramid next year because George Washington came to town? Uh....no.

I see the ability to switch from one wonder to another as a functional compromise between shield penalties and stockpiled caravans/freight/supply. Taking a big city out of the loop for 35 turns and coming up empty for it would not get any thank-you's from players. Having a bunch of multi-purpose camels sitting around just in case we got the urge to build a really cool statue was kinna strange too.

I think freight was removed to prevent the tech leader from automatically building all the wonders one turn after getting the tech, and leader insta-build was added to create a chance for the guns crowd to take some wonders away from the butter crowd. Dunno. It seems to me the tech leader always has the best units and is therefore the guy with all the leaders too.

Cripes.


Just push the "I believe" button and everything will make sense from now on...

[Aeson]

I think it has more to do with giving the AI a chance. I haven't seen the AI use a palace pre-build for a wonder, but they switch from wonder to wonder all the time. A player can make a reasonable estimate of whether or not a wonder is possible to build. The AI seem to start every wonder available, whether they have any realistic chance to build it or not. Some of those builds end up being switched to save some of the AI's production.

[philler]

how about a 50% penalty when switching production from a wonder to something else then?

come to think of it maybe my 100% penalty suggestion was too radical, as one has to keep gameplay in mind.

[Aeson]

I always thought that 50% was about right for building to building switches. In any project that needed to be scrapped, there would be work done that could be transfered to another project. Organization of a workforce, collection of raw materials, and other things would all be transferable. In some cases the buildings might be similar enough to only need slight modifications. A Library could very easily be converted to a Courthouse for instance. Unless they determined a % for switching from each build to another, there would always be unrealistic results whatever the arbitrary % was set at though. Not much of an Aqueduct build would help in producing a unit of Cavalry. If you set the % low to account for that, then the other more closely related projects would be the unrealistic ones.

[dowish]

If we are going to use commen sense here, it would make sense that if a civ beat you in building a wonder by one turn, you should still be able to finish it, after all, if you translate it to real life, all you'd have to do finish painting or carpeting or whatever. While sometimes I wouldn't mind being able to have a wonder also, I think they did a good job of balancing all the issues, i.e. not wasting resources and turns by letting you switch, keeping wonders special by only letting one exist. I do wish that they would let you rush build by maybe 50%, using say both gold and population.

[Andrew Cory]

In real life, certain wonders spur "copy-cats". Take the World Trade Center, for example. When it was new, it was the tallest building in the world (well, they _both_ were) Then a bunch of other cities built "Twin Towers", so that by the time they were destroyed, the World Trade Center towers were only the 5th tallest in the world. There is no reason that only one civ. would be able to build, say, pyrimids or somthing...

Perhaps the special benifit to wonders only acures to the civ. that builds it first, but the culture of the wonder can go to any civ. that has it under construction when the wonder is newly built...

[Optimizer]

Do you remember The List for Civ 3?

There was an idea of replacing Wonders with "World's Greatest" of different city improvements.

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Optimizer
Do you remember The List for Civ 3?

There was an idea of replacing Wonders with "World's Greatest" of different city improvements.

Do you have a link for that? How would it work?

[Barchan]

I recall posting on this topic before. I also think it's a bit silly to switch, but then again I also think it's retarded to stop the project in the first place. It's not like if the Egyptians and Babylonians are racing to build a Hanging Gardens complex and the Egyptians finish first, Hammurabi would say “Ah, crap; we were 95% finished, too. Well, f--k it, tear the whole thing down then!” They’d just finish the project and have “a” Hanging Gardens not “the” Hanging Gardens.

My proposal would be that once you start a wonder, you either finish it or lose the production, period. However, the Civ that finishes a project first builds the Great Wonder and gets all the benefits from it. Furthermore, once the Great Wonder is completed, no other Civ can initiate a similar wonder. However, any Civ that was working on the wonder can still finish it, but it confers no special benefits and only half the culture points. So, I’d have Great Wonders, Wonders, and Minor Wonders.

Let’s take Germany, France and Russia. Germany and France start building The Great Library. Germany finishes first and gets a Great Wonder, and also gets the tech benefits and five culture points a turn. France finishes a great library Wonder a few turns later, but gets no tech benefits and only 3 culture points a turn. Russia, jealous of France’s library, cannot start to build a great library since Germany has already finished The Great Library. Since there are no Minor Wonders to be build along these lines, Russia’s out of luck.

Finally, leaders should only be allowed to rush Palaces, Forbidden Palaces or Minor Wonders. This, one could argue, is fairly logical in that a great leader might be able to relocate his government’s seat more quickly than otherwise could be done or can tackle a national project with greater efficiency. But I agree that it’s ludicrous that even the best leader of all time could cause the Great Wall to be built overnight.

[Pius Popprasch]

Well, the Persians and the Babylonians were building the Hanging Gardens. Babylonians came in first and Egyptians had to rename their Gardens to Pyramids.

[Barchan]

Originally posted by Pius Popprasch
Well, the Persians and the Babylonians were building the Hanging Gardens. Babylonians came in first and Egyptians had to rename their Gardens to Pyramids.

"So, Shaka, what do you think of our wonderful Pyramid?"

(scratching his chin) "I don't know, Cleopatra, it looks an awful lot like Hammurabi's Hanging Gardens."

"No, no, it's a Pyramid. The Hanging Gardens were built last year. This is *completely* different. Look, you can store grain in it!"

"Huh? It looks identical to the Hanging Gardens except for that little conical pointy bit on the very top. Flowing water and everything. (squinting) Are you *sure* it's not a garden?"

(shrieking) "IT'S A PYRAMID, RA-DAMMIT! A PYRAMID!!!" (breaks down weeping)

"Uh, right. Hey, Cleo, I've gotta go. Stupid Gandhi refused to give me Iron Working so I'm gonna clean his pacifist clock. Later"

[Carver]

Originally posted by philler

so ok, maybe it's just a game, but I would find it much more interesting if you actually needed to have the technological knowledge to build something when you start building it.

Actually, most great projects require the invention of new technologies and processes while work continues. The "Big Dig", Boston's mamouth underground highway project, has required new methods of moving earth and escavating Boston's land - much of which was actually landfill and, thus, of a less solid consistency.

The shield carryover may be unrealistic, but for gameplay reasons it is absolutely necessary. What's also unrealistic is not being able to cash rush a wonder. If you've got enough coin you can have anything you want (other than true love ). The cash rush should be very expensive so we would only do it a few times per game, but it should be an option.

[Adagio]

I have an idea how a problem like the wonder thing can be changed, by making it more real and same time also make it more intersting (I think ).

When building a wonder and you want to change it to another wonder it would cost the 50% penality (as mentioned by someone else), but if someone finnishes the wonder then the others are "finnishing" their building too. What I mean is lets say the Egyps builts the Pyramids, the Aztecs had finnished more than 50% of the Pyramids, for the Aztecs the building of the Pyramids then leaves them with some extra culture points instead, let's say they get 50% of the culture the "real" Pyramids get (I don't remember the number, but let's say it's 6 culture for Pyramids, then the more than 50% finnished Pyramid becomes a "minor" Pyramid which gives 3 culture points). But these minor pyramids doesn't get the advantages of the Pyramid, only the culture.

For those nations who haven't finnished the Pyramids more than 50% they have to switch (with the 50% penality) to something else.


EDIT:

But most important of all, it needs to be optional and by default "off", so we don't get all those whiners saying they prefer the old way.

[philler]

I like that idea!

[Blaupanzer]

There's really no reason to bring RL into this discussion. None of the Wonders under discussion, to the degree they ever actually existed, were built in a race with other builders. Many of them have lesser duplicates in other parts of the world, e.g., China's Great Wall vs. Roman Hadrian's wall, or Aztec/Mayan pyramids vs. Egyptian pyramids. Logic would say to apply the effect of each Great Wonder to the whole culture or continent in your cities, and the lesser Wonder to the city in which it is built with 2/3 the culture. This would require revising the wonders to have a broad, less-per-city effect, versus a higher one-city only effect, e.g. Great Newton adds 10% to science in general, lesser Newtons add 50% to only one city. Newtons may only be started after discovering the tech and before Great Newton is built. All Newtons started finish as Newtons or all shields are lost. (Note we could rename the small "Newtons," National Universities or some such.) The interchange of shields between Palace, FP, and small wonders would still be permitted but none of these may be converted to a Great Wonder race item. This would prevent the shield loss associated with losing the Great Wonder race without allowing a Pyramid building project suddenly becoming a sea voyage around the world or a 700 mile long wall in the desert turning into a bronze statue in a seaport.

[Jaybe]

No, it is NOT ludicrous, and
No, it does not really make sense, but

It IS Civilization!

[Captain]

I posted this idea in another thread but maybe it applies here better. What do you think?

---paste---

Is it possible to change all the large wonders into small wonders?

I've never understood why if one country builds something, another can't duplicate it? I admit that being the first to do so should have a big bonus (like a culture bump of 200 points or something), but why not being allowed to build it at all?

If they were all small wonders, then we wouldn't have to worry about humans exploiting AI stupidity. The AI wouldn't waste shields a la civ 2 style, and peaceful builders wouldn't be crippled a la civ 3 style. It doesn't remove any "strategic depth" while it does allow the AI to play better.

one more thing, since all wonders are now possible, the overall cultural victory isn't any easier since IIRC you have to have 2x the culture of your nearest rival to win.
The only question now is, can the AI handle it?

---
if you want to prevent everyone from building all the wonders, just have the benefits split amongst the number of identical wonders in the world. It would hurt the existing civ's who built it already, but once there's three already built and receiving 1/3 bonus, would you really want to build another for 1/4 of the benefits? (see, the decrease to existing civs benefits slows down .5, .33, .25, .167, .14, .125 whereas the incentive for building them decreases rapidly.) First civ to build it would still have the one-time bonus for being the first.

[zlandar]

The rule changes for the wonders from Civ2 to Civ3 were probably done for the AI's favor. In Civ2 it was too easy to always beat the AI to the punch, since I would always have multiple cities in midproduction with enough money stockpiled. You would get the message an AI was about to complete a wonder, and BAM! hose the AI by rushing a wonder. Civ3 seems to be a compromise, letting you have one city producing a palace but not letting you rush build or receive an imminent wonder completion by the AI. Changing wonders was probably kept so people wouldn't tear their hair out from losing all that production. Playing on Monarch I usually don't get wonders until the Middle Ages, I can't afford to let a city start building one because I need the production for settlers or military units. Besides it's alot funner to take the wonders from the AI by force.

[raw]

Pre-building wonders is kinda dumb, but then so is working on something for hundreds of years and then when someone else builds it, you completely abandon it. It would be better to split the effects of wonders, and change the split for ancient and modern.
For instance, ancient wonders would give their special effects for the first built wonder, but other civs would get wonder points for building them also(ie. the colossus can be built by more than one, but only the first gets the trade effect, but all get points and culture).
On the other hand, modern wonders can be built by all, and the first civ finishing it is the only one that gets the wonder and culture points for it(ie, hoover dam can be built by everyone, and everyone get the special effect for all the cities on the continent but only the first civ get the wonder and culture points).

RAW

[Captain]

Originally posted by raw
Pre-building wonders is kinda dumb, but then so is working on something for hundreds of years and then when someone else builds it, you completely abandon it. It would be better to split the effects of wonders, and change the split for ancient and modern.
For instance, ancient wonders would give their special effects for the first built wonder, but other civs would get wonder points for building them also(ie. the colossus can be built by more than one, but only the first gets the trade effect, but all get points and culture).
On the other hand, modern wonders can be built by all, and the first civ finishing it is the only one that gets the wonder and culture points for it(ie, hoover dam can be built by everyone, and everyone get the special effect for all the cities on the continent but only the first civ get the wonder and culture points).

RAW

Sounds the same as turning them all into small wonders and adding a few more conditions/effects. I like the ancient/modern split you came up with. Great idea! It would need some tweaking but it would solve many problems.

[DrFell]

I don't like the idea, because it would make wonders even more worthless than they are right now. Imagine you're a couple turns away from completing a wonder, and someone beats you to it. 300+ shields wasted right there. Why bother even trying to build the wonder then, when there is the risk of that happening? Just build 5 knights for roughly the same cost, and go out and take the wonder off of the civ who built it, or get some extra land by razing and replacing some cities. Already I don't bother building wonders on deity level unless I get a great leader (then forbidden palace is generally the first choice). That's just the way I play, but why make wonders worthless for everyone? The game doesn't need to be made even less 'civilized' than it already is.