First impressions: Wonders still suck (big time).

Gene Vault works really well with Master Control.

I fail to see how.
Master control also works for self built worker.

It buffs Workers, Gene Vault provides free Workers. That's clear synergy.

Whether or not that's cost-effective at the higher levels of play is another matter entirely, but Wonders are meant to be used at all difficulty levels. So it could be great synergy in lower-levelled games, especially on anything above a Small map.

Well that's not really my point. What I meant is that Master Control as no influence over whether or not Gene Vault is worth it, which was the conversation. It doesn't depend on your acquisition of the second wonder. Master Control synergize with workers in general. MC has no weight in the balance between GV and self-made workers.

Gorb said:

It buffs Workers, Gene Vault provides free Workers. That's clear synergy.

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No, that's not synergy with the wonder, that's synergy with the workers (aka no synergy) - Gene Vault gives you workers that you could also have built during that time.

If the Gene Vault gave workers terrain immunity (every tile costs 1 movement), then yes, THAT would be real synergy with Master Control. But the Gene Vault in its current state doesn't have any unique synergy bonus.

Gorb said:

Interesting. Again, it's fun to see other players' perspectives - I play for sheer enjoyment, for example. I don't care about efficiency; I've got a game sitting here right now as I forum browser on the other monitor. I've always found this genre of games a good way to de-stress, maybe do some RL scheduling on my phone, etc. I enjoy Domination, and then Affinity. I rarely bother with Contact just because it seems so fast. Fast isn't what I want out of the game, and given complaints about game length I'm not that surprised a lot of people don't mention it much.

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I am not a competetive player, so I am in for the fun as well. It's just a different type of fun.

If you just want to play around and do stuff that's fine. It's basicially how I played before the Fall Patch (Terrscape everything, finish 2 Virtue trees and win on turn 380). But then you don't need to balance things anyway.

I want that the game challenges me at least a bit every now and again, to force me to take a look at the map, to adapt and to the situation and to make decisions with real impact. One review for BE (I think it was the Escapist?) pointed out the problem in that regard: CIV BE is just a Katamari Ball of mostly pointless decisions that stumbles to the inevitable end, with 95% of the player choise ultimately resulting in almost nothing.

To be fair: CIV5 isn't mich different from that. I'll need some early techs before I can set my tech path to the modern era, but it is ultimately the same problem. But CIV5 gives at least a bit more choise during the mid game, so my approach varies a lot more.
Endless Space suffers the same fate. I can set my tech path on turn 1, but it also allows some hefty pre-game customization where I can create really unique races.

My favourite part of this thread? It makes me think everyone has still forgotten that the Daedalus Ladder is a wonder.

At all the people that mock Gene Vault, that's enough. Its very good wonder for bigger maps. Sure, its bad for small maps. But Huge maps do exist. Ya know?

I fail to see reasoning behind, give X for Y population wonders.

They are pretty weak. No, they are terrible.

Callonia said:

At all the people that mock Gene Vault, that's enough. Its very good wonder for bigger maps. Sure, its bad for small maps. But Huge maps do exist. Ya know?

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exactly! Also, quick and marathon speeds do exist.
I wonder if the devs were audacious enough to balance wonder effects for all map sizes and all speeds

player1 fanatic said:

I fail to see reasoning behind, give X for Y population wonders.

They are pretty weak. No, they are terrible.

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well, at least, it's a step forward from give X per every city

Callonia said:

At all the people that mock Gene Vault, that's enough. Its very good wonder for bigger maps. Sure, its bad for small maps. But Huge maps do exist. Ya know?

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That's actually a really good point.

Also I'm going to start a game now and try to make gene vault work. Let's see how it goes

The overall wonder design is a lot better, the main complaints seem to be about how they fit into the overall game plan and the exact numbers they provide. Compared to the previous iteration, this is a big step forwards.

I think the late-game conundrum is a general one, though, and the problems with wonders at this stage is just a bit of a symptom, not underlying cause. A lot of these outer ring wonders would be a lot better if you upped the numbers a tiny bit but delayed affinity (and contact) victories so the game gets to affinity 15-16ish before the game is over with ~300-400 turns before people get a non-military victory.

At the moment, there is just not enough game to let a lot of the wonders breath.

In Firaxis defense, in response to all the people talking about winning in just over 200 turns: You should realize that victories this fast are only possible because of the AI's shortcomings. If you simply beelined that Mindflower in a multiplayer session while neglecting defenses as usual, that would be an open invitation for invasion and defeat. This does make the wonders overall slightly better than they are given credit for. It isn't fair to speak of balance in terms of what you can achieve just by abusing the AI. Still, most of the end-game wonders look far too weak and will probably never be worth building in a competitive game.

Ryika said:

No, that's not synergy with the wonder, that's synergy with the workers (aka no synergy) - Gene Vault gives you workers that you could also have built during that time.

If the Gene Vault gave workers terrain immunity (every tile costs 1 movement), then yes, THAT would be real synergy with Master Control. But the Gene Vault in its current state doesn't have any unique synergy bonus.

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Master Control can both have synergy with Workers, and with another Wonder that grants you additional Workers.

What is a "unique" synergy bonus? Nobody every claimed that a particular synergy was "unique". Why are you stating things that people never claimed?

Acken said:

Well that's not really my point. What I meant is that Master Control as no influence over whether or not Gene Vault is worth it, which was the conversation. It doesn't depend on your acquisition of the second wonder. Master Control synergize with workers in general. MC has no weight in the balance between GV and self-made workers.

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A dependency from a design perspective is forced synergy; a reliance to make either party better as a pair, but weaker individually. This can be used in good design, but frequently isn't (RPGs and MOBA heroes tend to rely on forced synergy / gimmicks in design sometimes, as an example). The fact is that some form of synergy exists between the two Wonders. Unlike, say, the Resurrection Device and Xenonova which look to have related effects, but in reality affect two separate parts of the Health mechanic (unhealth, and Health). You could have no (or a small amount) of unhealth, which renders one of them pointless even when paired with the other. Or no positive Health, which renders the other one pointless. Master Control benefits Workers, and Gene Vault provides Workers. Of course you can build your own, but that doesn't mean that the two Wonders don't complement each other.

Gorb said:

Master Control can both have synergy with Workers

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No. Synergy means that 2 bonuses enhance each other. Master Control does not have a synergy with workers, it has an effect on (/enhances) workers.

Gorb said:

and with another Wonder that grants you additional Workers.

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No, that's not synergy either, because you could just build the workers and get the same effect without building the Gene Vault. By your definition anything that has an effect on anything else has a "synergy". "I just built a farm, that's a synergy with population growth! And it was built by a worker, so workers have a synergy with population growth, too!"

If the amount of workers you can build was limited and the Gene Vault allowed you to get more workers than that limit allows for, then yes, THAT would be synergy, because you get more workers than you could otherwise and these workers would also be more efficient.

The synergy effect is with the actual work done, not the worker per se.

... and sure you can always say "I can build my own workers". That can be said about most wonders (I can get my own energy, my own resources, ..., ...). Some wonders are really wonderful on some maps and almost worthless on other. Many wonders are situational, Civ 5 or Civ BE.

DemonMaster said:

The synergy effect is with the actual work done, not the worker per se.

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No, that's an enhancing effect, as it's a one-sided bonus. The wonder enhances the workers by making them work more efficiently. The workers do not improve the wonder.

DemonMaster said:

... and sure you can always say "I can build my own workers". That can be said about most wonders (I can get my own energy, my own resources, ..., ...).

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Well, yes and no. There's a limit to how much of each resource you can get from buildings and wonders allow you to go beyond that limit. The Vivarium for example gave you +2 food and the Gene Vault allowed you to get +3 food. There is no alternative building that could have gotten your city the +3 food on top of the +2 food at that time, so the effect of converting production into an additional, lasting food-bonus is unique - you will always be able to have a total of 3 more food that you could have had without that wonder. Getting additional workers is not.

Synergy is when two forces work together and the outcome becomes more than you put it. I.e. 1+1=3.

Gorb said:

Interesting. Again, it's fun to see other players' perspectives - I play for sheer enjoyment, for example. I don't care about efficiency; I've got a game sitting here right now as I forum browser on the other monitor. I've always found this genre of games a good way to de-stress, maybe do some RL scheduling on my phone, etc. I enjoy Domination, and then Affinity. I rarely bother with Contact just because it seems so fast. Fast isn't what I want out of the game, and given complaints about game length I'm not that surprised a lot of people don't mention it much.

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Exactly. Civ has never been a game to rush to a "victory condition". The game is over when I say it's over. The journey is in building an empire, not the victory screen. Saying I don't go to war because it makes the game longer is kinda missing the point of the game, no?

I had over 70 cities in my last game. As long as there is a good city location left, I'm still expanding... and I prefer larger maps. I usually "win" before turn 400, but I've had a couple that were longer since I don't focus on victory conditions until the game seems like it's ready to be over. I do keep AIs from victory though.

DemonMaster said:

Synergy is when two forces work together and the outcome becomes more than you put it. I.e. 1+1=3.

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Once again, yes and no. 1+1 is never 3, the additional value comes by adding multiplicative effects (aka effects that enhance each other) into the equation. We can actually do an easy mathematical example here.

Let's say a city has 10 food and we take a bonus that adds 2 food and another bonus that adds 3 food. Is there a synergy? No.
Because 2 food + 3 food equal 5 food on top of the 10 that are already there.

However, if one wonder gives 5 food and another wonder gives 20% growth, then these wonders DO have a synergy with each other, because they both have an effect that enhances the bonus of the other wonder (aka they get multiplicative bonuses). As soon as we have a situation that includes base yield + multiplier that's when a synergy comes into play.

That's true for other scenarios, though it's a bit harder to grasp. If you have a wonder that adds +1 moves (base value) and a wonder that removes all movement cost (thus adding a %-value by cutting a percentage of the movement cost in rough terrain) you have an effect that makes the outcome become greater than it's parts - a synergy.

Now, a wonder that just gives you workers in a different way than normal production gives them does not have a synergy with a wonder that makes workers move faster. That wonder only ENHANCES the worker, it adds a fixed value. No multiplicative bonuses are in play.

legalizefreedom said:

Exactly. Civ has never been a game to rush to a "victory condition". The game is over when I say it's over. The journey is in building an empire, not the victory screen. Saying I don't go to war because it makes the game longer is kinda missing the point of the game, no?

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Many people play the game for its tactical aspects. If you don't that's fine, but saying that there's only one way to play it and yours is the right way is just nonsensical. Obviously, this thread values wonders from a perspective of a somewhat efficient strategy, so if you play the game differently then your perception may vary.