Some natural wonders NEVER appear...

[El Caballerion]

Is there a ratio to how often certain wonders appear? For instance, it seems like Grand Mesa comes in about 9 out of 10 standard size maps, but I have only seen The Fountain of Youth in perhaps 1 out of every 50 maps.

 

[megabearsfan]

Since the Fountain of Youth is a "mythical wonder", it has a MUCH lower spawn rate. I'm not sure what the exact spawn rate is, but if you look in the XML files, you can find it. El Dorado also has a very low spawn rate, but it is higher than FoY.

 

[joncnunn]

FOY indeed is rarest of them all.
El Dorado is second rarest.

But going the other direction, there is a massive tie for most common wonder (Well over half of all natural wonders share the same most common frequency)

 

[vivalamexico]

Never seen King Solomon's Mines.....

 

[otaman1]

Never seen King Solomon's Mines.....

King Solomon's Mines is on an island in the middle of no where in my game. I wonder how that happened.

 

[vivalamexico]

King Solomon's Mines is on an island in the middle of no where in my game. I wonder how that happened.

is it a one-hex island?? because if it is, it could be another useless NW (hello krakatoa)

 

[njmfff]

It might have to do with terrain features too.

I've often seen Lake Victoria, KS Mines, Uluruu, Rock of Gibraltar.
Great Barrier Reef and Krakatoa are usually there, but often unusable.

Grand Mesa, Barringer Crater and Old Faithful seems to be in every one of my games.

El Dorado and Fountain of Youth happen from time to time, but only in jungles. 2 times El Dorado happen was with Spain, once just a few titles away from my starting position. I just blasted through social policies.

 

[Koiranputki]

King Solomon's Mines is on an island in the middle of no where in my game. I wonder how that happened.

I think you mean Krakatoa, which is often out in the middle of the ocean with no other land around....but, on rare occasions it is close enough to be reasonably workable.

And if you are playing as Spain and get to it fast enough, it gives you a nice Science boost which, of course, diminishes, in a relative way, with time.

KSM is always on a continent. I've had some really nice KSM sites... KSM's probability is, if I understand all this correctly, 4 out of 100, which makes it about as rare as FoY and Eldorado..... All the other wonders are 10 out of 100...though Lake Victoria I can't really remember at the moment.

A pattern that I've noticed which I can't figure out is that there seems to be something in the way maps are generated that if you start a new game the probabilities for wonders are not totally reset.

In otherwords if I've just had a game where Eldorado made an appearance, it no longer surpises me if Eldorado appears again....though you may not know this until all wonders have been visited which can be well into the game.....

 

[GKShaman]

Are wonders usually tied to maps? I've seen mount kailish a ton

 

[joncnunn]

Never seen King Solomon's Mines.....

I frequently see it; but it's always it what otherwise would be a very terrible city location. (In games that have this, I find it near one of the poles in the middle of tundra.)

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

IIRC, Kailash and Grand Mesa are tied for highest probability

 

[sendos]

I'm playing as Spain on earth map (small size)...and after 200 turns of exploring, I still can't find a NW. I wonder whether the game settings automatically disabled them...

 

[Tabarnak]

<Where Type="FEATURE_CRATER"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>5</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_FUJI"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>5</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_MESA"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>15</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_REEF"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>0</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_GEYSER"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>15</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_FOUNTAIN_YOUTH"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>3</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_POTOSI"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>15</OccurrenceFrequency>

<Where Type="FEATURE_EL_DORADO"/>
<OccurrenceFrequency>5</OccurrenceFrequency>

Coral Reef always there if map have some ocean tiles?

Edit : These numbers are probably wrong. Just realized that's for Vanilla or GnK.

 

[tide15]

I came across El Dorado two tiles from my capitol once. Talk about good luck!! but that was once. I've only had it twice.

 

[Jampine]

General rule of thumb for the wonders are: The better the bonus is, the less likely it will appear.
For example, Solomon's mines and the fountain of youth have strong bonuses, but rarely appear, whilst old faithful and the grand mesa have quite a good chance of popping up. Still doesn't mean they'll be in good spots though

 

[reddishrecue]

That all comes with the randomness of the map generator and depends on the map size. Not all natural wonders appear but if you want to take a look at them, they are in the terrain and features section in help. I've seen lake victoria appear too many times along with Mt.Kilimanjaro.

 

[Koiranputki]

That all comes with the randomness of the map generator....

...and this is what I speculate about...just how "random" is the randomness of the map generator. I like to think it is totally random....likely rolling dice.....that everything starts from a clean slate, but some of the map "outcomes" I've seen when I start a fresh game has me thinking that there is a "randomness" process going on that I don't quite grasp...????

As I said above it no longer surprises me that if after having Eldorado in a paticular game, Eldorado reappears in rather quick succession in subsequent games....and the same with some of the other wonders. At least intuitively it does not seem random....but... ????

 

[Abraxis]

Wonders that aren't in the game never appear

 

[PhilBowles]

I frequently see it; but it's always it what otherwise would be a very terrible city location. (In games that have this, I find it near one of the poles in the middle of tundra.)

I've seen it in all-jungle areas with no resources anywhere nearby (not even bananas). The issue I have with KSM isn't that it's often in useless areas, it's that it's often in areas with little or no other production.

A 6-production tile is very good, but is of much less use without other tiles producing the same resource than any of the other resources generated by NWs; by itself it's not even that much use in the earliest game.

Wonder that aren't in the game never appear

Yes, the Grand Canyon's bonus must be amazing, since it's so rare I've never yet seen it in a game...

I think you mean Krakatoa, which is often out in the middle of the ocean with no other land around....but, on rare occasions it is close enough to be reasonably workable.

There's no reason KSM can't turn up on a one-tile island, since that counts as a continent. I've seen Sri Prada in that kind of situation before now.

 

[Abraxis]

Oh, I also had King Salomon's mine in my last Carthage game, also on a small island, though pretty well centralized.

Spoiler :

There's actually a continent just to the left of it with all the other civs, grabbed east india company and those elephants for Carthego Nova, would have been such and awesome trade hub, but I accidentally overwrote the save one morning