Dune Wars Wonders

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

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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

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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

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

Tuek's Sietch

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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

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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

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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.

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

Ahriman said:

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)

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Sounds reasonable.

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

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OK.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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

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It is? Huh. I'm brilliant.

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

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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.

Ahriman said:

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.

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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"

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Ahriman said:

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

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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

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