How about natural wonders?

Sian said:

would make more sence if it was nile that had 'chance of flood' ... nile floods once a year

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I know, but Egyptians used the flood for their benefits (irrigation). So flood was more of a positive event for them.

I think Baraque's effects are a bit too high, for what are basically tourist locations. Natural wonders are going to be gains mostly in commerce and culture. I think Natural Wonders will be more akin to some of the random events (Great Beast, Image on a Wall) though with slightly greater effects.

Here are some:

Tallest Mountain. Each landmass has a tallest point, which will be a random mountain (or hill if no mountains exist on the land mass)
Effect:
If Mountain: +1 in all surrounding tiles. +1 if in a city's cross
If Hill: +1 on tile

Source of a River. Discovering the source of any river. The entire river must be in your map. None of the river can be within your cultural boundaries.
Effect: Immediate gain of +20

And some specific ones:

Grand Canyon.
Uluru (Ayer's Rock)
Angel Falls
Victoria Falls
Devil's Tower
Effect: Tile gains +1 , +1 +1 if in a city's cross

Mouth of the Amazon: The the mouth of the longest river generated by the map contains this.
Effect: +1 in all coastal tiles adjacent to this.

Hidden Valley: A hard to get to valley was found
Effect: +1 , +1 on tile, +1 +1 if in city's cross

Ruins of an unknown Civilization (This differs in that no known civ lost a city there)
Vast Crater
Massive Caverns: A large deep cavern system was found
Effect: +1 on tile, +1 if in city's cross

rather than searching for them they should be there from the start, but you don't know it's a wonder then cos to you it's just the mountain or canyon for example thats always been there. When you have enough information about the world it would be declared a wonder. hundreds of natives probably knew the great conyon but it wasn't until they realised, or were told, that it's like no-other, that it became a wonder.

This is a terrific idea. However, I don't really like the idea of explorer's searching individual tiles for wonders. Instead, I think they should be like goodie huts, where we send scouts and explorers out to find special tiles. When they reach the tile, you get a bonus (culture, gold, etc.).

pxpdoo said:

Now let's all just be honest, we're hoping Firaxis is reading and we hope to give them ideas for Civ 5 lol

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Actually, reading this thread made me think...Man, I'd love it if they remade SMAC...

Frostite said:

instead of building them, how about they nautraly occur (depending on the location and the things affecting the land such as trees, mines, global warming, desert, rivers or w/e) and they give happiness bonuses and give tourism events more occurring (increase in money because of tourists in that one area)

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Um, isn't this what happens already with random events in BTS (you get +1 coin because there's some special herb foudn there or somesuch).

For the idea of a "true" natural wonder that gives civ-wide benefits like built wonders ... I guess I see the point of view if you think civ is "Sim-Empire" but I'm clear how it improves a "3x" game. All it odes is add an extra random variable to the game, some kind of goodie hut on steroids that keeps on giving instead of just a one time thing.

I hope I'm spelling "Fjords" correctly.

My understanding is that Norway uses their Fjords to generate all their hydro-electric power...

-- SJN

jflint said:

Actually, reading this thread made me think...Man, I'd love it if they remade SMAC...

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I second that. I want a new SMAC more than Civ V, easily.

It seems to me that the point of this is really to have terrain be more unique. As it stands, all continents on a given map type are usually identical. Maybe there's a resource or two different, but it's not that big of a deal. I like the idea of having particular natural wonders that are worth something, though I think those natural wonders mentioned so far are WAY overpowered.

I like the idea of exploring, but % of map revealed and what not is silly, since it's pretty easy to reveal almost the whole map if you set a couple of ships/explorers to auto-explore. Having the explorers hunt for points of interest in a given area seems to me a good idea, but the benefits should be relatively small... small boosts to culture or science or whatever. Otherwise you'd just spam dozens of these things to hunt for really nice wonders.

The big question is whether the benefits should be fat cross or civ-wide. I guess it could vary, but generally speaking it should probably be individual cities. Basically they should act as super-resources, of which there is only one of a given item in the world, and its benefits are unusual and more powerful than a resource.

So it would be kind of like the random event, but souped up and something you could try to "make" happen with an explorer.

Examples from the real world:
Great Barrier Reef - Big boost to science, small boost to commerce.
Mount Everest - Big boost to culture, small boost to commerce.
Natural Harbor of _____ (Rio de Janeiro?) - Big boost to commerce, small boost to culture.
Uluru - Big boost to culture, small boost to happiness.
Niagara Falls - Big boost to happiness, small boost to culture.
Grand Canyon - Big boost to production, small boost to science (I can't really justify that, but some wonder has to get it...).
Tazmania (or Galapagos) - Big boost to science, small boost to culture.
Fjords - Big boost to health, small boost to production.

Y'know what I just thought of that might also be interesting to implement? Drugs... they play a pretty big role in modern life, even on the world stage, but there's no mention of them whatsoever. I guess they'd just be a plague for one civ but a cash bonus to another?

I posted a similar idea to this a long time ago. Basically, I was thinking of another type of city - a Tourist City or something like that. Instead of cottages, mines, farms, etc, the city would have shops and restaurants, attractions and so on. City buildings would have different affects as well. They would be primarily for providing gold to the civ as opposed to beakers. Kind of like a specialized holy city.

I still think it would be a great addition. Maybe only 1 or 2 per map so having a tourist city would be rare and fun to play with.

Wow, all these great ideas really make me wish I knew how to implement them in Python/SDK! I sure hope someone who knows what they're doing takes this up as a project!

Couple of comments/suggestions

There were no natural wonders (per se ) until at least the invention of paper, while there was a big hole in the ground in Arizona that looked real pretty, it was just a big hole until is was "discovered" by an explorer and publicized in the press, Same with Everest and a lot of other natural wonders.

The Nile river on the other hand was known because a large civilization was sitting on it and then other civilization depended on the food coming from it for years.

So the natural wonders would have to pop up based on tech available, with most coming after paper.

I like the tourist city idea, just make it so it provide money and culture and it can only be built near a natural wonder, if you build on top of a natural wonder, you destroy it, with the exception of building forest preserve (since there is no preserve wonder ) For an extended wonder, like the Nile river, it ould only apply to the one square designated as the wonder.

There should also be a cultural benifit civ wide for having that square in your territory, but nothing else civ-wide. All other potential benefits should be local to a city cross.

Lastly, The Grand canyon should maybe instead produce small amounts of science, culture, and commerce. The Nile or Mississippi are the ones that should get production benefits.

Just some thoughts,

There must a "Tourism" Tech to improve further the natural wonders , right?

I'd like unique and local land features to affect the city they're built on, more than specific "wonders". A bit like in SMAC indeed. An area could be "oil fields" and eventually squares would give more production... Mineral rich hills... Natural harbours have been mentionned and could increase commerce. Mesopotamian fertile crescent... yeah. Something that you can graphically see on the map too.

Hia

I wonder why they didn't include natural wonders in civilisation IV BTS but they have implemented it in their new game Civilisation Revolution, at the bottom of this article it does mention it

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/828/828213p1.html

I just hope some one mods it in for Civ4 some how. great ides by the way guys.

Natural Wonders is a genius idea. It would also make use for a new "great explorer", which could either instantly find a natural wonder or instantly reveal X% of the map. Now that would be awesome.

ICNP said:

"Look Mom that Rock is shaped like a face!"
"That means it provides 2 additional commerce Jimmy."

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Thats a really good one!

Another great idea - that was already done - in SMAC!