This thread is for brainstorming about Great Wonders which are appropriate to Dune. As of 1.4.x, the set of wonders is very close to vanilla: some names and art has been changed, but each wonder almost exactly corresponds to a vanilla wonder.

What wonders and effects make sense for Dune?

Shield Wall
(replaces Great Wall)
http://i33.tinypic.com/28858ci.jpg
+2 GPP (?)
Barbarians cannot enter borders on this continent
+50% Great General Emergence


A natural wall of rock situated near Arrakeen, the primary city of Arrakis,
the Shield Wall was used by the inhabitants of the city as a natural defensive
barrier against storms, invasion, and sandworm attack. The shield wall's
extremely useful positioning meant that the city of Arrakeen could be built
directly behind it.

When Paul Atreides made his devastating attack on the Padishah Emperor,
he first used atomic weapons to blast a hole in the shield wall so that his
forces could get through. After Paul had established himself as the emperor,
this hole became a problem, as it let in storm winds and might let in a worm.
The hole was therefore compensated for by the addition of a quanat, a large
reservoir of water, being placed where the section of wall once stood. This
prevented sandworm infiltration, but most likely did not hinder storms.

A geographic feature doesn't really make sense as a Wonder.

I'll try and brainstorm when I have the time, and take a list of the handful of existing ones which *do* fit pretty well.

Note that one from my tech design was Project Amal, which provides 10 free spice resources, at the Artificial Spice tech.

I hope i didnt missed, but i didnt found nothing in relation to Gholas.
May be BTl only wonder that lets say increase % of EPs in all cities? Or just spawn Infiltrators with buffed starting XPs and special ghola promotion?

I hope i didnt missed, but i didnt found nothing in relation to Gholas.
May be BTl only wonder that lets say increase % of EPs in all cities?

There is a BTl late game building, axlotl tanks. It gives you an experienced unit. You can find more details at the end of the "Tleilaxu mechanics" thread.

There is a BTl late game building, axlotl tanks. It gives you an experienced unit. You can find more details at the end of the "Tleilaxu mechanics" thread.

Ah yes, axlotl tanks is thing that create gholas , indeed. Heh, well huge amounts of information you ordered and implemented here :P :goodjob:

A geographic feature doesn't really make sense as a Wonder.

I'll try and brainstorm when I have the time, and take a list of the handful of existing ones which *do* fit pretty well.

Note that one from my tech design was Project Amal, which provides 10 free spice resources, at the Artificial Spice tech.

I partially agree, but at the same time it's the best replacement of the Great Wall I could find.
And note that this wall was blasted through but later Atreides built a huge quanat, a large reservoir of water, as a protection from desert raids and a water storage. So something about "Great Quanat" could do the job, preventing barbarians and making the whole area around the city to be a "fresh water" source. This wonder should be expensive though.

How about an idea to turn more on "Project" side (mixed with actual building wonders as well) , like it is in SMAC. The problem, there is not nearly enough wonders, as buildings, in canon Dune lore.
But there can be plently of projects, breakthoughts, giant scale covert secret collaborations and , intrigues and coups.

Well, the canon is not a problem. We could always think out some "appropriate" wonders, for the gameplay and fun. That's the point of this thread.

Cool. I've been meaning to start this thread.

Sources of ideas:

1. The Dune collectable card game has loads of cards - the full list is here (http://www.geocities.com/sherlockazulu/card_library_all.htm). I'm sure there's some good ideas.

2. The Dune Encyclopedia (http://www.thedune.ru/duneenc/download/DUNE_ENCYCLOPEDIA.pdf) might yield a few ideas.

3. The trusty Dune Appendix (http://www.indopedia.org/Dune_terminology.html) is another source.

I'd prefer some wonders that have original effects not just reskins of the vanillas ones. I can post a list of suggestions at the weekend.

not just reskins of the vanillas ones
Well it's quite easy to make a new building or an animated building with any effects, so there's no need in reskins :).

I partially agree, but at the same time it's the best replacement of the Great Wall I could find.

Why do we even need a great wall replacement? The barbarian smugglers aren't really a threat at all, so all it does is keep out Worms and so protect your spice harvesting operations - and does that really make sense? I'm not sure that its very thematic.
(Also I forget; does it keep out sandstorms?)

Why do we even need a great wall replacement? The barbarian smugglers aren't really a threat at all, so all it does is keep out Worms and so protect your spice harvesting operations - and does that really make sense? I'm not sure that its very thematic.
(Also I forget; does it keep out sandstorms?)

There is a point, it will be awesome if mod will have something new, new original features, and wonder types, to be stand-alone game, like, great example, FFH.
Lets say some wonder which enhance city to 3 square bfc can be good with all that spice, also Cultural wonders sre very importan, to grab all that deep desert far spice.

I should have been more clear, by 'reskin' I'm not referring to graphics - I mean wonders where the gameplay effect is exactly the same as a vanilla wonder. It is OK to have some of those, but I'd like some interesting new gameplay effects.

I've tried to come up with a few things that might make good wonders to get the ball rolling. More vague concept than specific effects.

Existing ones I like:

Barraka Monastery
Sayaddina Monastery (using Monastery twice is a bit bland - School perhaps?)
Suk Academy
Wet Planet Conservatory
Underground Reservoir

Other ideas:

Cave of Birds - a place of refuge, so perhaps a defensive bonus
Tuek's Sietch - trade bonus or bonus connected with offworld goods
Weather Control Satellite
Guild Spy Ring - espionage
Propaganda Corps - happiness
Grand Armory
Manual of the Friendly Desert
Relic Emporium - happiness/financial
Legend of Ampoliros
The Keep of Arrakeen

Cave of Birds - a place of refuge, so perhaps a defensive bonus

Maybe its like one of the vanilla wonders that gives a defensive bonus in all cities?

Tuek's Sietch - trade bonus or bonus connected with offworld goods

I like this. Maybe +3 trade routes in this city, and a +50% foreign trade yield?

We should remove the trade routes from the current Landsraad embassy wonder, and make that really just the UN wonder (and with a huge culture output).

Weather Control Satellite
Interesting... maybe this could do some combination of:
a) block storms from entering your borders (they disappear when they try)
b) increase terraforming rates within your borders
c) decrease terraforming rates outside your borders

Guild Spy Ring - espionage
How about "Guild Intelligence Bureau".
Gives a huge espionage point output in that city.

Propaganda Corps - happiness
+2 happy in all your cities?

Grand Armory
Bonus xp to all new produced units (like the pentagon)

And maybe an Imperial War College, which gives bonus xp to new units in just that city, and an increase in great general production rate.

Manual of the Friendly Desert
I don't like the name. How about "Quality stillsuit factory", or "Desert adaptation".
Maybe it could give the desert warfare 1 promotion to all units produced in it?

Relic Emporium - happiness/financial
I'm not sure this makes sense. If you're trying to mimic the very late-era things like people selling fake stillsuits and crysknives and other artifacts, that is a little beyond our timeline, and only really makes sense for Mahdi and Quizarate religions.

Legend of Ampoliros
Why should this be a wonder? The Ampoliros is just an old story about a flying-dutchmen type spaceship.

The Keep of Arrakeen
Huge defense bonus, and culture bonus, and espionage bonus?

Maybe we could make House Shield Generator a national wonder, which gave the benefits of the force shield, but came at a much earlier tech? So at the very beginning of the game, each faction still has 1 big shield generator left that they can build to defend a particular city?

We should remove the trade routes from the current Landsraad embassy wonder, and make that really just the UN wonder (and with a huge culture output).

The Landsraad Embassy *is* the UN building. I have changed most of the text of the resolutions to remove "U.N" and I did remove the single currency resolution which gives a global +1 trade routes.

Manual of the Friendly Desert

That's straight out of the book. It's the book included in Fremkits.

Legend of Ampoliros doesn't work, you're right.

The Landsraad Embassy *is* the UN building. I have changed most of the text of the resolutions to remove "U.N" and I did remove the single currency resolution which gives a global +1 trade routes.

The Landsraad embassy building also gives +2 trade routes in all your cities, which is a huuuge benefit. It is both the UN *and* the great lighthouse, where every city is coastal.

That's straight out of the book. It's the book included in Fremkits.
Yeah, but it doesn't sound right for a wonder. Maybe a Fremkit factory or something instead?

The Landsraad embassy building also gives +2 trade routes in all your cities, which is a huuuge benefit.

That benefit has been there since 1.0. I thought it was same as vanilla. I have removed that for the next patch.

Yeah, but it doesn't sound right for a wonder.

I don't think wonders need to be restricted to things that sound like buildings. They can represent significant achievements, breakthroughs and organisations too. Vanilla has Heroic Epic, National Epic, Red Cross and Rock N Roll as Wonders.

Having a named book or two in there would be good from a fluff perspective because there are several named literary works in the novels.

As are Secret Projects in smac - breakthroughts...

I think there are two ways to come at this.

The way we have tried is to come up with things that might make good Dune themed wonders and then come up with effects. This has so far yielded a small number of ideas so far, and may yield a few more.

Another way is to decide on the effect of a wonder and then come up with a Dunish name and concept for it.

We could start by looking at the effects of the wonders we currently have - which are the just vanilla ones renamed. Which of the existing wonder effects do we think are worth keeping?

For example, the Aql Monument gives a Monument in every city. This is quite a handy effect for Dune Wars, but we can probably come up with a better name, concept and art for the wonder and review its position in the tech tree.

Perhaps it would be good to review the existing wonders, select the ones with gameplay effects that serve a useful and not unbalanced purpose in Dune Wars and then rebrand them with more Dunish flavour. We can tweak gameplay effects as we go.

If we combine these with some original ideas from the Dune theme (which I hope will develop given time) then perhaps we can start moving towards a better list of wonders.

It is also worth thinking of original gameplay effects of wonders in other mods that might fit this mod.

I will try to think about this and add some ideas at some stage. I think we will have a mix of keeping/tweaking existing ones, having Duneish things that we find a purpose for, and having effects that we need to find a Duneish name for.

I hope that with 1.6.4, we will have a full set of UU and UB. We will still need to refine the unit art a lot, and the building art a little, but the big part should be behind us.

Then I propose the main feature in 1.6.5 should be redoing wonders. So let's focus on the wonder re-design.

A while back, early August, I created a spreadsheet which shows all the vanilla wonders and also all the DW wonders. I have attached the sheet. The sheet is from version 1.4.3. Since then we have redone the tech tree and renamed a small number of the wonders; so the sheet is not completely up to date. But the vanilla wonder summary should be helpful and the DW section is at least a starting point.

Some Wonder ideas.

Current wonders to keep intact:
Aql monument. Free monuments. (Aql: the test of reason)
Suk Academy
Bakka.
Istislah.
Landsraad Embassy.
Intergalactic Comm. Tower

Current Wonders to rename:
Oracle of Hajra. Rename Cogitor Philosopher.
Temple of the First Moon. The effect is reasonable, not sure what it should be called though.
Sayyadina monastary. What is the name of the Monastary on Caladaan where Paul's mother gets sent? This might be appropriate. Move it to theocracy tech though? 1 Wonder at Faith, at most, I think.
Great filmbook library. How about Filmbook Archives?
Hagia Sophia. I think the effect is good. A name that fits? Put it at Sand farms tech?
Dar-Al-Hikman/Oxford University. Rename to Arrakeen University.
Chouhada Academy/Pentagon. Rename to Imperial War Institute.
The Atomics Project. Rename to House Atomics.

Current wonders to keep name (new effects):
Wet planet conservatory. Gives +1 health in all cities, +1 happy in all cities, requires mushtamal. (Extra population doesn't really make sense)
Fai Water Tribute. Gives +1 water income in all cities. Requires: Imperialism? Water Discipline? Desert Rites? (this tech is pretty weak for non-Fremen).
Palace of Carhag. Requires: Harsh Conditioning. (Or: dungeons of carthag. Rabban's seat, where his secret police imprisoned and tortured dissenters or resistors. ). -100% war weariness in this city. -25% war weariness in all cities on this continent. +12 espionage points. +4 culture. Provides +2 great spy points. Can convert 2 citizens to spy.
The Imperial spaceport. Requires Spaceports tech (being renamed frigate transportation?). Gives +100% trade route yield in this city, gives +3 free trade routes. +2 trader GPP, allows 2 citizens to be converted to trader.

New Wonders
Project Amal. Requires Artificial Spice tech. Provides 8 free spice resources.
The Assassin's Handbook. Requires Mind training tech. Gives +12 espionage, +100% espionage in this city. Provides +2 great spy points. Can convert 2 citizens to spy.
Order of Mentats. Requires mentat logic tech. Provides 1 free scientist, 1 free trader, 1 free spy.
The Citadel. Provides +25% defense in all cities (stacks with other bonuses). Requires ??? tech?
Amtal role (extreme quality testing. philosophy that to understand a thing, you must know its limits; know what can destroy it.) Requires Desert Rites tech? Units in this city have -50% tech uprgade costs.
Azhar book. (collection of Bene Gesserit religious writings). Gives +1 gold, +1 beaker to all state religion buildings.

Good feedback/ideas.

Another idea:

Spice Orgy Chamber at Water of Life tech
Perhaps both of +50% Golden Age Length and starts golden age.

I'm happy to do some collation of the ideas we have so far in the next few days.

Sounds good.

Also, some of the ideas from the spice sdk change thread were good.

A few more:

National wonders:
Political Center, +100% culture, requires Imperialism?, Culture of Dune?
[Other names: Civil service, Political Capital, Seat of Government]
Requires Great Houses? Landsraad tech?

Propaganda corps, +100% espionage. Requires Great Houses?

Guild exchange. +100% gold. Requires 5 guild banks.

Military headquaters. +100% military production.

Selected breeding +100% GPPs. Requires genetic manipulation.
[The idea being the Duneish idea that particular genetic strains in the great houses make for superior people. Very anti-earth of course, given the effects of aristocratic in-breeding....]

I have collated a lot of the ideas so far, added some new ones, renamed a few and stuck it all in a spreadsheet. Hopefully, the column headings are pretty self-explanatory. I haven't entered any of the costs as I figured these need to be completely recalculated.

According the David's spreadsheet, we have around 27 World Wonders and 15 National wonders in Dune Wars currently. My spreadsheet has 26 World and 7 National so it the National ones that need expanding or we need to move some WWs to NWs and come up with a few more of both.

If we can calculate costs and tighten up the effects of those in the spreadsheet then we could proceed to implementation. This would leave some space to add more wonders when good ideas come along later, or we when identify a need or a gap in the tech tree.

Great List!!
I thin kthat Fine Stillsuit Maker may give just free Stillsuit promotion to units build in city (types that can have such promotion), i am not sure that 1 healthy is proper bonus to fine stillsuit maker.

Also we can add wonder of Shuloch canyons, where they bred worms for sale. (Sandworm breeding Pits, Sandtrout Canyons)?

Also i dont like name of Qizarate shrine. Simple if you playing as Alia and someone other builds Alia's temple ..... it will be very odd. I propose to name it using word of Hajj.

Some thoughts on this list.

There is no reason why Wonders that have similar effects to vanilla need to necessarily be identical.
For one thing, I suggest toning down the culture amounts on every Wonder.
Otherwise, the cultural gains from getting religions that boost culture (Imperium) or new techs (culture of dune) are too small.
There is also no need for wonder obsolescence.

So for example, for the Stone of Prophecy, I would suggest instead:
+3 Culture, +2 GreatPerson (Great Prophet); Free Monument in Every City; (Double Production with stone)

I don't really like:
+3 Culture, +1 GreatPerson (Great Scientist); No Unhealth from Population in this city
for the Wet Planet Conservatory. The effect just isn't that useful; health isn't really that big a problem in the mod, particularly beyond the early game.
I would also prefer to see this long before Arrakis Transformation tech.
How about: -1 water, +1 happy in all cities, +1 health in all cities, requires climate controls tech.

Fortress of the Mudir Nahya
Pretty non-transparent name. Maybe make it Dungeons of... to make it clearer what this is supposed to represent.

Tuek's Sietch
I like the idea, but I worry that the name could be too nontransparent for people who don't remember who Tuek is.
Maybe something like "Smuggler's Den"?
Also: maybe it should be at Offworld Trade?

House Shield Generator
I like this idea. The idea would be; basically each faction had one big force shield generator left over from before the Catastrophe, but can't make more.

Fine Stillsuit Maker
I'm not sure that this one really makes sense.
You don't really need stillsuits in the cities, or not to the extent that higher quality ones would make a difference.
Stillsuits need to be something that effects the desert.
not sure how.

There is no reason why Wonders that have similar effects to vanilla need to necessarily be identical.

Agreed. I was just copying and pasting to speed up the process.

For one thing, I suggest toning down the culture amounts on every Wonder.

So for example, for the Stone of Prophecy, I would suggest instead:
+3 Culture, +2 GreatPerson (Great Prophet); Free Monument in Every City; (Double Production with stone)

Sounds reasonable.

Pretty non-transparent name. Maybe make it Dungeons of... to make it clearer what this is supposed to represent.

OK.

I like the idea, but I worry that the name could be too nontransparent for people who don't remember who Tuek is.

Fine with putting it at Offworld Trade, but generally I disagree that transparent names are essential for Wonders. If we make all the Wonder names self-explanatory then there won't be much Dune flavour left. For example, in vanilla why does the Hagia Sophia give +50% worker speed? Very few of the vanilla names indicate the effects. The first time you play vanilla you have to look up the fact that Hagia Sofia doubles worker speed. It is not obvious, but once you know you know. Wonders should be exotic and you expect to have to look up their effects. The only way to avoid this is to have Wonders called Extra Trade Routes Wonder, etc.

Wet Planet Conservatory. The effect just isn't that useful; health isn't really that big a problem in the mod, particularly beyond the early game.
I would also prefer to see this long before Arrakis Transformation tech.
How about: -1 water, +1 happy in all cities, +1 health in all cities, requires climate controls tech.

You don't really need stillsuits in the cities, or not to the extent that higher quality ones would make a difference.
Stillsuits need to be something that effects the desert.
not sure how.

Let's scrap the Fine Stillsuit Maker, and go with your version of the Wet Planet Conservatory. Having two health related wonders seems unnecessary.

I like this idea. The idea would be; basically each faction had one big force shield generator left over from before the Catastrophe, but can't make more.

Probably because it's your own idea ;). It does seem like a good one though.

We also need to think about the wonder building resources Stone and Marble.

I'm sure we can do better than vanilla names for these.

I thought that maybe we could rename Marble as Guild Assistance to represent the Guild a bit more in the mod.

As has been pointed out before Stone doesn't seem like something that would be scarce when the most common terrain is called Rock. We have discussed replacing with Iron Ore, but then we'd need to pick which wonders it would make sense for Iron Ore to speed up. A lot of the wonders don't look like they'd have much steel involved in their construction.

For example, in vanilla why does the Hagia Sophia give +50% worker speed?

Damned if I know :-)
A lot of the vanilla wonders are weird, because most real historic wonders don't really *do* anything, they're just pretty buildings.

I do not feel strongly about not using Tuek's Sietch, I can go either way.

Probably because it's your own idea
It is? Huh. I'm brilliant.

We also need to think about the wonder building resources Stone and Marble.

I would rename the stone resource Ore - that way we don't have to specify what kind of ore, and have it mostly just as a tile booster, with a little bit of wonder assistance.

I don't think "Guild Assistance" really works; the Guild is scrupulously neutral, there is no way they would ever really pick favorites to provide assistance or materials too. And even if they did, this assistance certainly wouldn't be something that you could then retrade on to other other factions (the Guild helps faction Y on faction X's say-so, because faction X builds a contract and then trades it to Y??).
I think the Guild is already fairly prominent, with the Homeworld screen, and then Guild banking.

I think its problematic really to have a trade-good that does nothing but boost wonder production, it is inherently weak relative to the others, and it isnt' something that you would logically ever want to trade to other factions, because you're racing for the same wonders.
The only time its worth trading to your enemies is when there isn't a wonder it can be used for, in which case it has no value.

I don't think "Guild Assistance" really works; the Guild is scrupulously neutral, there is no way they would ever really pick favorites to provide assistance or materials too.

You may be right that it is too weak compared to other contracts, but how about calling it "Offworld Labor"? That seems to fit the concept well. Also, historically, a lot of cities that built wonders had to get their materials from a long distance away. So it seems like something we could model.

Perhaps you could expand the list of buildings that are speeded by Offworld Labor (or whatever we call it) to include selected buildings that are not wonders to make it a more attractive contract choice.

We can also slightly generalize the idea of a contract. A contract is represented by a "fake building". So far, all the "fake buildings" give three copies of whatever resource it is. We could use any existing building tag for these "fake buildings". For example, some buildings use a flag iWorkerSpeedModifier. In vanilla, the Hagia Sophia gives this. An "Offworld Labor" contract could give this, which speeds up everything.

With some work, a specific civics tag could also be relocated to buildings. The only related civics tag I can find is also iWorkerSpeedModifier, which is used by Serfdom, but I thought there were some other worker speed related effects around somewhere.

It seems like we should have something, somewhere, which speeds up wonder construction, if we are not able to find any interesting resource for it. Vanilla has two such resources (marble and stone), plus another 3-4 resources which help for 1-2 wonders each, like ivory or gold or copper.

how about calling it "Offworld Labor"

This seems reasonable (or Offworld Materials), but it does not address my core concern with a tradeable good that only boosts wonders:

The only time its worth trading to your enemies is when there isn't a wonder it can be used for, in which case it has no value.

This would be a better way to go about it I think:
include selected buildings that are not wonders to make it a more attractive contract choice

I could imagine several buildings that would build faster with materials and technology imported from offworld:
Force shields, factories, frigate transportation (was: spaceport), etc.
Would it be interesting if the resource basically gave a 5% bonus to all building and wonder construction?

but I thought there were some other worker speed related effects around somewhere
There is a tech that increases worker rates, lategame. Otherwise thats it atm; one civic, one tech. Which is pretty decent, really.

It seems like we should have something, somewhere, which speeds up wonder construction
I don't think that this is a particularly important mechanic, but if it is, then I suggest the Ore resource (renamed from Stone) is probably sufficient. It could just be a 25% increase to basically all wonders that are physical structures.

This seems reasonable (or Offworld Materials), but it does not address my core concern with a tradeable good that only boosts wonders:

I agree it does not make sense for a *tradeable* offworld resource. But I do not think all the offworld contracts *need* to be tradeable. I was thinking that winning the offworld labor contract could act just like Serfdom or Hagia Sophia and give a +25% worker increase to you, with no ability to trade it further. It seems like something you might rush the landing stage for, and it may be an interesting tradeoff against all the other tradeable contracts.

I was thinking that winning the offworld labor contract could act just like Serfdom or Hagia Sophia and give a +25% worker increase to you

This sounds good to me, efficient design and easy to code. Design = win.

Some good model for some wonder
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=185956

I think this is a pretty good list. I rarely go for cultural wins, and that is one key aspect of wonders. Is there any good way to tell from the list, whether a cultural win would be too hard? For example, how do the total culture bonuses from the wonders in the first 5 tiers compare to vanilla? How about the overall total if you built all the wonders?

@ AnotherPacifist, from the HOTK threads I know you have a lot of experience with cultural victory; does the list make you interested to try a cultural victory in DW, or does it seem too hard or too easy?

I like the idea of the weather control satellite, and it is easy to add. That is much better than the Great Wall graphic, which has bothered me.

Could you add a column for building art? Some of the existing DW wonders have worthwhile art. Some of the vanilla buildings we haven't used yet may be worthwhile also. We need to have "some" art, even if it is poor, for each one before the data can be entered.

We have agreed to replace the marble contract with offworld labor. What about stone? Shall we just remove all the double-speed effects of resources from the sheet? Will that make a cultural victory too hard?

We need to think about what a cultural victory would really entail, in a Dunewars context. IMO, culture here is mostly political influence. Do we have an idea that with enough political influence, someone could take power? How would this be different from a Diplomatic victory?
Maybe diplomatic victory is uniting the Landsraad, whereas a cultural victory is gaining enough political power to make your house Emperor?

I think cultural victory, if included, should be tilted towards factions like the Bene Gesserit.

But the primary gain of more culture, which isn't present in vanilla, is more spice terrain coverage.

IMO culture from most buildings and wonders should be low enough that Noble specialists and the Imperial religion buildings are worth pursuing. If this makes a cultural victory infeasible, so be it.

Could you add a column for building art? Some of the existing DW wonders have worthwhile art. Some of the vanilla buildings we haven't used yet may be worthwhile also. We need to have "some" art, even if it is poor, for each one before the data can be entered.

I can do some work lining up the art this weekend.

Attempting to maintain progress on this, I have assembled some passable art for the new Wonder list. It is a combination of the current Wonder Art with some other buildings attached that I have found in other mods.

The Stone of Prophecy - in attachment
Troubadour Company - in attachment
Suk Academy - in attachment
The Doctrine of Istislah - in attachment
Landsraad High Council - current High Tribunal
Orbital Comms Network - current Spice Foundry
Cogitor Philosopher - current Great Memorial
Sanctuary of Bakka - in attachment
Propaganda Corps - in attachment
Filmbook Archives - in attachment
University of Arrakis - in attachment
Sandworker's Union - current Fai Revenue Service
Imperial War Institute - same as now
Wet Planet Conservatory - current Bakka
Fai Water Tribute - in attachment
Dungeon of the Mudir Nahya - current Chouhada Academy
Tuek's Sietch - in attachment
Spice Orgy - current Legend of Usul
The Assassin's Handbook - in attachment
Order of Mentats - in attachment
Amtal Rule - current Aql Monument
Azhar Book - in attachment
Weather Control Satellite - use Communication Satellite for now - needs to be customized - change colour etc
House Shield Generator - use Force Shield - we can change shield colour to distinguish
Project Amal - current Intergalactic Comms Network
Guild Exchange - in attachment
Military Headquaters - in attachment
Political Center - in attachment
Banqueting Hall - current Obelisks of Muad'Dib
Chamber of Visions - in attachment
Guild Research Facility - in attachment
Cave of Birds - in attachment

Some of these can probably become permanent fixtures with a reskin. Others will need a better replacement in the future.

Cool! I forget; did we manage to fix the weird height issue that some graphics were having?

Which weird height issue do you mean?

This was a long time ago; maybe this was long-fixed. But where for example building some wonders was causing a huge giant mega-forceshield graphic to appear.

Yes, there was one wonder (the former Oracle of Hajj) which was intended to be built way outside the city limits. This is replaced as of 1.5.4 or thereabouts.

I am not going to have a chance to work on wonders for a while yet. I want to work on some sdk stuff such as the spy missions and the AI colony site selection. However, wonders are purely xml, and only three xml files are involved.

Would anybody be interested in taking on the project of modifying buildinginfo, buildingclassinfo, and artdefines_building to put in these wonders? I think this is one of the top three remaining problems in the mod. (The other two are AI colony site selection and getting a rough balance in power between the civs.)

The requested feature for yield/commerce from a bonus is working well enough to use, see this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8675341&postcount=49). You can apply that patch over 1.6.5 and then add the buildings.

On the topic of buildings ...

A small redesign of the technocracy/ixian buildings is at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8671940&postcount=207) with some comments a few posts down.

While looking for wonders that give cheap upgrades, I came across the tsentom1 python wonders (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=284188) thread. I hadn't seen these buildings before. The effects may be interesting to look through. I can probably adapt the python from any of them.

But, a few of the buildings are nice. I borrowed five into the attached zip.

* Bath of Mohenjo-Daro - middle eastern bath - a late game water wonder?
* Trade Fair of Troyes - big tent, water seller maybe?
* Trafalgar Square - a big monument, I am sure we can use it
* Terracotta Army - Chinese, but it looks dunish; many soldier statues
* Ishtar Gate - a triumph arch, I am sure we can use it.

Each directory contains an artdefines xml fragment with the scale and pathnames.

To be clear: are you talking about effects, or just art?

The E-bank effect seems interesting; some kind of Guild tie-in?

The trade fair seems pretty weak, and its hard to interpret the effect.

The King Richard's Crusade provides an interesting effect idea for the Mahdi religion. Maybe the shrine, or temples (or we could create a cathedral for it?) should auto-create Zealots?

Trafalgar square effect doesn't make a ton of sense for Dune - or did you just mean the art?

The Terracotta army effect suggests an interesting possibility for deathstills. Maybe deathstills could give water in the city for any units killed in the city (or killed assaulting the city)?
And we could move the +1 water effect to say Sietch, as a Guard Station UB.

Ishtar gate art looks cool, but the effect doesn't make much sense for Dune.

To be clear: are you talking about effects, or just art?

My primary interest was the art, which can be integrated with a few lines of xml and will help us towards getting rid of all the non-dunish wonder art. If any of the effects seem *critical* to Dune, I can merge the python, but that is nonzero effort and I think I am the only active python programmer on the mod.

Would anybody be interested in taking on the project of modifying buildinginfo, buildingclassinfo, and artdefines_building to put in these wonders?

I'll take it. I'm off work next week so this will be a good little project. I'll aim to have it done by next weekend. The Weather Control Satellite will also need your code skills, but I can enter it without effect initially.

One thing that also needs figuring out are the costs for the wonders - any thoughts how we can determine decent values?

I came across the tsentom1 python wonders thread. I hadn't seen these buildings before. The effects may be interesting to look through. I can probably adapt the python from any of them.

Some of the art can probably find a home, and it is worth skimming over all the effects to see if that stimulates any new ideas. I think we can probably still support another 5-10 wonders in addition to those outlined so far.

If any of the effects seem *critical* to Dune, I can merge the python, but that is nonzero effort and I think I am the only active python programmer on the mod.

Understood. None are critical, they're just in the "wouldn't it be neat if" category. Low priority. I agree that the art looked neat.

But for the long term, I agree that:
I think we can probably still support another 5-10 wonders in addition to those outlined so far.

I'll take it. I'm off work next week so this will be a good little project. I'll aim to have it done by next weekend ... One thing that also needs figuring out are the costs for the wonders - any thoughts how we can determine decent values?

Excellent! For costs, as a starting point, just find a vanilla wonder of the same tech tier (x position in the tech tree) and use that. We can tune later, but that will give the right order of magnitude.

Babel tower model just released: http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=13722

Wonders Patch

Here is an initial patch, incremental over 1.6.5, with the work I have done on the new wonders.

Notes:

* I won't describe all the new wonder effects - the pedia is your friend.

* The pedia links need sorting out as many of them currently point to random vanilla entries. I would like to come up with flavour text descriptions for the pedia when I get a chance.

* Icons are not yet done, so there are lots of plague skull icons instead. If someone fancies helping out with the icons... ;) Otherwise I can look at it at the weekend.

* Costs roughly based on Era - probably they will need tweaking based to factor in their effects. An alternate and more interesting way to make wonders more expensive or harder to get is to add building requirements for them.

* The Weather Control Satellite has the placeholder effect of +1 commerce on desert tiles (similar to vanilla Colossus) as the proposed effect needs custom code.

* Three techs were left completely empty by the changes: Frigate Transportation, Distrans, Holtzmann Generators. We have previously agreed that the late tech tree needs redesign anyway so Distrans and Holtzmann Generators could feed into that redesign. I put the Guild Research Facility on the Frigate Transportation tech just so it wasn't empty - perhaps we could rename the tech to Guild Embassies or Guild Relations.

* Changed the Water Shipper to Polar Water Shipper, now gives +0.5 water per Polar Ice connected.

* I need to put a dome or something over the Wet Planet Conservatory graphic

* The House Shield Generator might not work too well as it is. I have entered it as obsolete with Ablative Shields, but the defensive bonus is not obsoleted according the pedia. Also, the graphics clash when you have both Force Shield and House Shield Generator in the same city - weird Russian doll type situation. Really the blue Force Shield should replace the old red House Shield Generator.

* I added the House Atomics project (or ritual?) back. It is exactly the same as the Manhattan Project in vanilla. I haven't tested whether Nukes are now buildable. I was thinking perhaps it would be better to have a National Wonder for Nukes - there is a bAllowsNukes in building infos so I guess this is possible.

* Renamed the Industrialism tech to Mechanization

Download Link (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?im1mymynizf)

We can refine the new wonders with feedback. We still need another 10 or so wonders I reckon, some National and some World. Perhaps we can review the empty looking techs and see if any ideas emerge that way, or bear it mind for the late tech tree redesign (which is worth a new thread).

Looks great! I put it on top of my local 1.6.5 installation and everything comes up in the pedia. Civcheck found one error; in buildingclassinfos for Tuek's Sietch, the default building is BUILDING_ARTEMIS when it should be BUILDING_TUEKS_SIETCH.

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We definitely need a strategy for making DuneWarsText.xml friendlier to multiple developers. Having to cut/paste for all six languages is a pain. So I maintain DuneWarsText.txt and then there is a script DuneWarsText.tcl which performs the cutting and pasting for the languages automatically. Unfortunately this script is in a different programming language "tcl" and you do not have that programming environment installed. Since you have directly added stuff to DuneWarsText.xml, the next time I run the script I will overwrite your new entries.

The first problem is, the pedia and strategy references in the buildinginfos.xml file point to vanilla wonders. That one, you can fix although it it tedious. The second problem is, adding the entries into DuneWarsText.something.

Let me try to convert DuneWarsText.tcl into an executable which you can run. Then you can update DuneWarsText.txt also, instead of trying to maintain the xml file directly.

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In other news, I have done 90% of what I wanted to do for the 1.7 version. As I have mentioned I would like people to perform an install test of that. There is no perfect solution, but I propose to upload a 1.7 beta 1 which does *not* have your new buildings. People would need to test each release separately. Then you can incorporate any wonder feedback into another 1.6.5.x patch, while I incorporate any 1.7 feedback into 1.7 beta 2. Finally, this weekend, I will integrate your buildings into 1.7 and release the whole thing. What do you think?

Good job Deliverator.

I suggest we merge Frigate transportation into the Spaceports tech. That is what I thought we were renaming when I suggested Frigate Transportation; what was the old name of Frigate Transportation?

I will try to get a more concrete proposal for late-game techs, wonders, units, etc. out at some stage, I haven't really had a chance.

Let me try to convert DuneWarsText.tcl into an executable which you can run. Then you can update DuneWarsText.txt also, instead of trying to maintain the xml file directly.

OK, here it is. Please download this file (http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mgjmn2tjw2j) from mediafire and unzip it. You will now have a special purpose program which reads DuneWarsText.txt from the present directory, and writes DuneWarsText.xml into the same directory.

This will enable us to maintain DuneWarsText.txt and automatically generate the other languages without cut/pasting. The first time, this may be a small pain to you, because you will have to find the text you added to DuneWarsText.xml and paste the English part into DuneWarsText.txt. After this initial pain, I think it will be much easier for us to share DuneWarsText.txt.

Looking through the Wonders, a few thoughts:
House Shield Generator is over-priced relative to its value. Maybe its bonus should be 75%? Could it just block construction of a Force Shield, rather than becoming obsolete?
The Azhar book comes too early for its power; move it to Divine Mandate?
Fai Water Tribute is supposed to give +1 water in all cities, not +1% water.
The Sanctuary of Bakka seems out of place. Why does a Fremen legend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakka give a large GPP bonus, and why is it available at Fanaticism tech?
Propaganda corps should probably give great spy points. Also feels a little early; maybe it should be at Law of Arrakis? I dunno.
Some wonders build double with Marble; I thought we were removing marble, and having the Offworld Labor instead?
Political center could move to Imperialism
War Institute could move to Military-Industral complex.
University of Arrakis could move to Academies.

We feel maybe a little light on wonders still?

But great job in general!

Some wonders build double with Marble; I thought we were removing marble, and having the Offworld Labor instead?
Yes, I have locally removed Marble in 1.7. So either deliverator or I should remove the bonus rate for marbel before 1.7.

We feel maybe a little light on wonders still?

Deliverator has said the same thing. I think what we are missing is the inspiration. Looking at the existing wonders, can you think of anything which is missing?

Looks great! I put it on top of my local 1.6.5 installation and everything comes up in the pedia. Civcheck found one error; in buildingclassinfos for Tuek's Sietch, the default building is BUILDING_ARTEMIS when it should be BUILDING_TUEKS_SIETCH.

Ah, that explains why it wasn't showing up in the tech tree.

We definitely need a strategy for making DuneWarsText.xml friendlier to multiple developers.

I didn't actually add any new text for the wonders to DuneWarsText.xml yet. It is fiddly to create entries for the separate languages, so a utility could speed up the process.

Edit: I see you have posted the utility - I will try it out.

Then you can incorporate any wonder feedback into another 1.6.5.x patch, while I incorporate any 1.7 feedback into 1.7 beta 2. Finally, this weekend, I will integrate your buildings into 1.7 and release the whole thing. What do you think?

Sounds like a reasonable plan.

I suggest we merge Frigate transportation into the Spaceports tech. That is what I thought we were renaming when I suggested Frigate Transportation; what was the old name of Frigate Transportation?

We can do this. Alternatively, I wondered whether we could move Satellites to that position. It feels like perhaps there should be an intermediate tech between Academies and Spaceport.

House Shield Generator is over-priced relative to its value. Maybe its bonus should be 75%? Could it just block construction of a Force Shield, rather than becoming obsolete?

Can one building block another like this? The price and bonus can be altered.

Fai Water Tribute is supposed to give +1 water in all cities, not +1% water.

I thought it did - but I'll check it out.

The Sanctuary of Bakka seems out of place. Why does a Fremen legend Bakka give a large GPP bonus, and why is it available at Fanaticism tech?

It is at Fanaticism in order to spread out the wonders. The concept is pretty nonsensical I agree. I think some kind of Wonder at Fanaticism that gives GPP might be appropriate - representing great people rallying to a cause. So perhaps we can simply rename?

The Azhar book comes too early for its power; move it to Divine Mandate?

Agree it comes too early, but Chamber of Visions is at Divine Mandate (from memory). I was trying to avoid multiple wonders at any tech since we don't have many to go around anyway. Where should I put Chamber of Visions?

Propaganda corps should probably give great spy points. Also feels a little early; maybe it should be at Law of Arrakis?
Political center could move to Imperialism
War Institute could move to Military-Industral complex.
University of Arrakis could move to Academies

These seem like reasonable changes.

Some wonders build double with Marble; I thought we were removing marble, and having the Offworld Labor instead?

I agree with the proposal of adding Offworld Labor (+25% worker increase) and Ore (+25% wonder speed to physical structure wonders), to replace Stone and Marble. I can do the Stone into Ore change, and add the boost to appropriate wonders - removing any Marble boost as I go.

I think what we are missing is the inspiration. Looking at the existing wonders, can you think of anything which is missing?

Perhaps we can think about tsentom1's wonders some more, and as I suggested look at the weaker techs for inspiration.

I think what we are missing is the inspiration
Agreed. I will think more.

Alternatively, I wondered whether we could move Satellites to that position. It feels like perhaps there should be an intermediate tech between Academies and Spaceport.

I would argue that having Frigate Transportation tech (the guild lets you fly frigates around from city to city and up to heighliners in orbit) could come before having weather-control satellites.
So we could move the spaceport building to the Frigate Transportation tech, and then replace the Spaceports tech with the Satellites tech.

So perhaps we can simply rename?
This seems reasonable.

Where should I put Chamber of Visions?
Hmmm. I dunno.
You could move it to Water of Life, and move spice orgy to Jihad.
I'll think about it more when I have the tree in front of me.
Its not necessarily a crime to have 2 wonders at a tech, but we should avoid it when possible.

Perhaps we can think about tsentom1's wonders some more
I've lost the thread were we had this link and thought a few of their effects might fit. Which thread was it in?
* * *

While we're changing techs, it was suggested that Sand Farms become an AND requirement for ecologiocal control (or whatever the arrakis transformation pre-req is), and that we have sandfarms give +1 commerce to windtraps and insect farms (after reducing the windtrap base commerce).

I've lost the thread were we had this link and thought a few of their effects might fit. Which thread was it in?

This one. From post 51 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8679617&postcount=51)

Sanctuary of Bakka
So perhaps we can simply rename?

It sounds like what we want here (if we have this at Fanaticism) is something like the old quote "Never doubt that a small group of committed idealists/citizens can change the world - it is the only thing that ever has."
Some random thoughts:
Officer corps, Dedicated cadre, True Believers, Inspiring Leadership, Mantle of Prophecy, Mantle of Greatness, Social Activism, Enthusiastic Support, Idealistic Zeal, Messianic Cult.

But should Fanaticism really be encouraging great people? Its a bit out of theme; fanaticism usually inspires groupthink, not outstanding individuals.

Another possibility: move the Cogitator (free tech) to Benevolence, and move a great-person yield wonder to Social mobility? It seems to make more logical sense there. Philosophical Academcy, Universal Education, Great Institute.
Or we could have a large +GPP national wonder (like the <forgotname> Epic in vanilla).

I also like adding a +GPP % yield to the Axolotl tank building.

This one.

I'm blind, I skimmed that page twice and missed it....
Thanks.

The E-bank effect and Terracotta army effect seem most promising.
"CHOAM Holdings" as an E-bank?

Otherwise the best thnig is probably to look at weak techs and try to think of something logical there.

RAZZIA: a semipiratical guerrilla raid

Another wonder idea:

Razzia Command - Gives Morale (+1 movement) or Tactics (+30% Withdraw Chance) promotions to units built in city and 100% War Weariness to Enemies. Requires Stillsuits or Maula Pistols or Jihad and move Chamber of Visions.

Alternately, make a new promotion that yields more gold from pillaging as in TheLadiesOgre's Promotions DLL modcomp (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333969).

Other wonders that give free promotions might a good way to expand the Wonders list some more.

Another vanilla effect that we aren't using yet is "No anarchy when changing civics and religion" (Christo Redentor)

RAZZIA: a semipiratical guerrilla raid

Another wonder idea:

Razzia Command

Seems reasonable. Maybe Desert Topography?

Gives Morale (+1 movement) or Tactics (+30% Withdraw Chance) promotions to units built in city and 100% War Weariness to Enemies.

That seems a powerful. How about just the war weariness?
+30% withdraw or +1 movement are both very powerful promotions.
Maybe war weariness and flanking 1 (10% withdraw)?
Maybe only applies to melee and guardsmen units?

Alternately, make a new promotion that yields more gold from pillaging as in TheLadiesOgre's
The other possibility is the Fall Further style Raider promotion, that automaticalyl pillages a tile that you move over if you are at war with the enemy.

But the AI is very bad at pillaging and raiding (start on desert tile, move to pillage, move away again), so this would likely advantage the human player.

We should also look at improvement pillage values. Forts are worth nothing, and many others have pretty low values. I think water providing improvements (dew collectors, wells) could probably have higher pillage values; you steal water.

Another vanilla effect that we aren't using yet is "No anarchy when changing civics and religion" (Christo Redentor)
I don't really like this effect. I dislike Wonders that basically make traits irrelevant, or that can substitute for an entire trait value.

Guild research facility graphic is not scaled properly.

http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac149/Ahriman_pics/GRF.jpg

GRF: I thought it was because that city got took over by the new wonder--didn't think much about it when I built it.:)

Guild research facility graphic is not scaled properly.

Thanks. I'll sort that out.