Contest: Design a Wonder public poll

Kael · Jul 3, 2006

Its time to vote. Please read the following submissions and consider them with the following criteria:

1. Would it be fun?
2. Does it fit the flavor of FfH?
3. Is there a design need for this wonder?

Personally I think we had some excellent submissions. Im hoping to post my responces to each to let everyone in on why we picked the ones we did. I think the four we included for you to pick from all score very high on each of the above 3 areas. So its up to you folks to decide which you like most.

Here are the submissions:

Thunderwing said:
Celestial Forge
Requires: 1 Enchantment, 1 Life, 1 Mithral

All industrial buildings (i.e. increased shield output, allows units) that produce unhealthiness no longer produce it. All that do not produce unhealthiness produce 1 culture. The celestial forge adds +10% hammers to production in its home city.

Nikis-Knight said:
Shrine of the Conqueror
National Wonder
2X production w/ Marble
Availible with Honor (tech)
cost 300-500 hammers.

May only be built after your civ has had a Hero of level 10 or higher die. (Hero refers to any non-armeggedon World unit, even if they don't get hero promotion.) If more than one such is already dead for the builder, the Shrine is dedicated to the Hero with the most exp. Preferably the shrine would list the hero's name, i.e., shrine of Saverous or so forth.

+5 culture/turn
+3 GPP points --if you don't mind other civs potentially getting adventurers, I'd make it that, otherwise prophets.

Preferably each Hero's shrine would have a different additional effect or two depending on who it was, although this may be hard as there are many heros in now, second best would be each type of hero has a different shrine. Examples:

Order/bannor Heroes: no maintence from this city, units built here have free demon slaying.
Veil Heroes: +5 science, units built here get scourge free.
Overlords heroes: Free mind mana, units built in this city get magic resistance free
Runes/dwarves Heroes: +15% defense, Units get free march.
Leaves/elves Heroes: +1 happiness, units built here get free woodsman
Barnaxus/golem heroes: +4 hammers/turn, golems built here start at level 2 (any one free promotion w/o prereqs, iow.)
Baron Duin Halfmoon: Units built here have 10% chance to have werewolf (spread lycanthropy.)
Orthus: +1 food, free city raider promotion to barb units.
Dragons: +2 extra culture, units built here start with courage.
other Mage Heroes: Free spell extension to units built here.
Vampires: +1 Unhappy, no penalty for any pop. sacing in this city (rush or feed), units built here have 10% chance to start with vampirism.
War Machine: Provides iron, siege units built here start with bombard I.
etc.

If it is doable to make one different for each hero, then civs could maybe be able to build one for each hero that they have had die.

bebematos said:
The Eyes and Ears Network (national wonder)
Technology: Trade.
It Requires 5 Inns to be build.
You acquire any technology 3 realms you have an open border treaty already have.
You know the technology the realms you have an open border treaty are researching.
You get warnings when a realm starts building a wonder and when it is nearly done.
The city is more resistant to secret ops actions.
Flavor: A secret ops isnt only special agents actions. It is also the construction of a extensive network of informants that feeds the realm with a great deal of info about its friends and foes.
Role: A builder national wonder. It have sinergy with a focused tech research program and turns the open borders treaty a more complex option. Allows builder player a early alarm against world shattering armaggedon spells.

khanjackal said:
The Mithril Coinworks

World Wonder

Available with Mithril Working and Currency

Gives a +10 Gold for every Mithril worked by the Player, and +15 gold for every Mithril worked by enemy civilizations.

Also gives a +10% Trade Route increase across the Player's civ.

Adds 4 Unhealthiness to the City that builds it.

Possibly requires a river. May be too much complication.

I tell you what, Stovil, these coins are almost impossible to counterfiet, they're accepted across the known world, but as for the those nasty leftovers from the smelting, we just dump them in the river. Out of sight, out of mind.

Kael · Jul 3, 2006

I wrote this big long post that went through all of the submitted wonders that weren't picked by the design team and why. It was over the 30,000 character limit and I clicked close on the warning message which blanks the post. :mad:

So Im not going to be retyping it. The short of it is that we cut some very good submissions because they would be impossible/to difficult to code. And we cut some because they weren't unique enough.

Although we need some submissions that are just statistical differences, they typically wont win in contests like this where we are really looking for more creative ideas. The curse of that is if the idea is to creative it may not be possible to code and then it gets cut as well. So we are really looking for submissions that fit in a very narrow band that may have little to do with the actual quality of the idea.

I hesitate to even say that we cut ideas that we cant code because I dont want people to not enter future submissions that they believe will be impossible. I would rather have creative ideas that cant be done than uncreative ones that can. We have the same guidelines on the design team, dont keep from submitting an idea jjst because you think it cant be done.

But I wanted to let those of you know, who may be confused why your very creative idea wasn't included in the poll, that it probably had more to do with my own shortcomings as a coder, than yours in coming up with a good idea.

Kael · Jul 3, 2006

saved 2 .

Starship · Jul 4, 2006

Had to go with Eyes and Ears Network. It's a great reason to have open borders, and adds diplomatic depth. (I usually never allow it)

Shrine of the Conqueror would have been my second choice.

eerr · Jul 4, 2006

I like all of these wonders, but i prefer shrine of the conquerer
perhaps though, it should include "any" level 10 unit if possible,
(any unit that makes it to level 10 is a hero in my book, regardless of the hero promotion)

Nimbus · Jul 4, 2006

I think The Shrine most captures the flavor/spirit of FFH2 the most. Also makes a person much more willing to send that very high level hero out into battle, which is always a good thing.

Kael · Jul 4, 2006

Updated the 2nd post.

woodelf · Jul 4, 2006

Kael said:
Updated the 2nd post.

Chalid's post in the private forum is a good explanation for most exclusions. Definitely a lot of good ideas came out of this. I think 2 of the 3 I loved couldn't be done.

Jono · Jul 4, 2006

woodelf said:
Chalid's post in the private forum is a good explanation for most exclusions. Definitely a lot of good ideas came out of this. I think 2 of the 3 I loved couldn't be done.

Just out of curiosity, which were those?

I chose the Eyes and Ears Network because it was, well, what I believe was most creative.

Kael · Jul 4, 2006

Of the ones the team submitted we vetoed The Fortress of Mist, Kylorins All Seeing Eye and The Clouded Walls because we couldn't figure out any way to code them. There were a few others I liked but also weren't realistically doable.

Your probably wondering about Paradox. That one would have been difficult to do, but it could be done. I was more concerned with the reprcussions of adding it. We assume that all wonders are unique. If we added paradox then we wouldn't be able to make that assumption anymore. From that point one any checks I do for specific wonders would have to take Paradox into account. So it would be a substantial SDK change to make, and it would make life harder for us down the road.

But Paradox was a great submission. I had never even considered doing that before. I know you guys enjoy competing and hopefully seeing your ideas made into something in the game. But for me, I want ideas I have never thought of.

Jono · Jul 4, 2006

Kael said:
Of the ones the team submitted we vetoed The Fortress of Mist, Kylorins All Seeing Eye and The Clouded Walls because we couldn't figure out any way to code them. There were a few others I liked but also weren't realistically doable.

Your probably wondering about Paradox. That one would have been difficult to do, but it could be done. I was more concerned with the reprcussions of adding it. We assume that all wonders are unique. If we added paradox then we wouldn't be able to make that assumption anymore. From that point one any checks I do for specific wonders would have to take Paradox into account. So it would be a substantial SDK change to make, and it would make life harder for us down the road.

But Paradox was a great submission. I had never even considered doing that before. I know you guys enjoy competing and hopefully seeing your ideas made into something in the game. But for me, I want ideas I have never thought of.

Thanks, I'm not really disappointed that Paradox didn't make it, same with Schism. These contests just push me to create. I would've never thought of either without these contests and I look forward to the next one.

Maniac · Jul 4, 2006

If Shrine of the Conqueror was included, I'd try to get one of my early heroes get killed asap. I assume this is not really the effect one would desire to get.

Re The Eyes and Ears Network, if it was included, I would suggest to scale "You acquire any technology 3 realms you have an open border treaty already have." with how many civs are in the game.

dreiche2 · Jul 4, 2006

Kael said:
Of the ones the team submitted we vetoed The Fortress of Mist, Kylorins All Seeing Eye and The Clouded Walls because we couldn't figure out any way to code them. There were a few others I liked but also weren't realistically doable.

Well, I wished someone would have pointed that out to me in the discussion thread when I listed some suggestions

, but maybe it wasn't clear at that point if it was doable . Thanks for the explanations though, it feels not so demotivating when you know the reasons.

About the poll: The idea of the shrine is nice, but all the different effects may be somehwhat confusing (even if only one set of them will be activated in the end).

I also like the network. Should it really be a national wonder, though? hm...

Jono · Jul 4, 2006

I also like the network. Should it really be a national wonder, though? hm...

Same here... It seems like an interesting idea, but it's kind of powerful for a national wonder.

bebematos · Jul 4, 2006

I think the Eyes and Ears should be a national wonder because it's role. Knowing that the other realms you get the technology freely if he has a open border treaty with three other realms that have the technology will make the option to trade technology more complex, and will make the players more aware of the treaties that the other realms have with each other. And obviouly will make also the decision to sign a open-border treaty more complex also.
The info effect of the wonder are there to help the builder player against the world-breaking armaggedon spells, and allow smart teching choices to take full benefit from the tech sharing effect.
The subversion effect is there only to create some tension to where to build the wonder. I know it will be a nightmare to make the AI use it right.
The wonder is quite powerful, but there is a requirement to be build, 5 Inns, or 3 to Kuriotates, and there is no production cost listes. I think balance could be made with cost tweaking, as making it a World Wonder would cut a lot of it's flavor.

Hian the Frog · Jul 4, 2006

Eyes and Ears are too powerfull. If you play on a large map with at least 7 ai civs, it's easy to have 3 open border treaties. So you can lower your research to make money and begin the built of a powerfull army to attack, invade and conquer a neighbour. So, no to this wonder.

The shrine seems more interesting. Nobody is happy to lose a hero and most of all a 10+ level one. So building a shrine for this great man/woman is like a kind of gift for his/her lost. Meanwhile, i would only include real national hero. I mean civ specific ones, not those like Baron or religious ones. That's just my opinion.

The Frog.

Jono · Jul 4, 2006

Tech trading speeds the game up too much. I play without it, making Eyes and Ears a great asset, too great to be a national wonder.

didolover · Jul 4, 2006

the eyes and ears is a cool thing but i agree it could be a national wonder as any nation with a network of inns could build one in 'reality' (i mean heck, even ghana has a secret police)

but i voted for shrine cuz it is in keeping with the ffh idea of play styles - each civ has to figure out if the thing is worth it for what they are doing (are you kidding? id love "march" on all my units!)

its also creative - i dont know if the art can be done - but each one could be a different design (like a 3D of the civ flag or something) - it makes the cities look more distinctive

finally i think its cool they will have the name of the hero - i rename a lot my good units so it would be neat to have the "Shrine of Elf Whacker" ... :ninja:

Jono · Jul 4, 2006

Hey, Kael, is there going to be another contest before 2.14? If so what type (that is if you know

)?

Xuenay · Jul 4, 2006

Kael said:
I wrote this big long post that went through all of the submitted wonders that weren't picked by the design team and why. It was over the 30,000 character limit and I clicked close on the warning message which blanks the post.

Ouch.

This is the reason why I've learnt to write any long forum posts in Notepad or some other text editor first.

(And since I'm curious - in retrospect, I don't really even think it was a very interesting submission myself, but your thoughts re: Mana Shell?)

Contest: Design a Wonder public poll

Which wonder would you most like to see added to FfH?

Celestial Forge

Shrine of the Conqueror

The Eyes and Ears Network

The Mithril Coinworks

Deity

Deity

Deity

Warlord

Emperor

Prince

Deity

Bard

Emperor

Deity

Emperor

Apolyton Sage

Prince

Emperor

Chieftain

TR Designer and XML

Emperor

Chieftain

Emperor

Prince

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