Vokarya's Workshop: Wonders

Zorn said:

Small observation:
The Kremlin does not produce culture, unlike any other wonder (that I am aware of).

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There are several other Wonders that don't produce culture: Three Gorges Dam, Space Elevator, and several of the Transhuman Wonders. I think it all depends on how much artistic impact the Wonder had. We could go back and revisit culture values for all Wonders at some point.

Sogroon said:

Just thinking: Shouldn't it provide some Civwide bonus too?

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I thought about that, but I don't think it's necessary. I could easily add it.

Two Wonders that I'm not sold on their ideal placement on the Tech Tree are Three Gorges Dam and Space Elevator. I think they are both an era too early in placement.

Three Gorges Dam is currently at Plastics. In regular BTS, this is a Modern Era tech, while we have it in the Industrial Era. I don't mind Plastics being in the Industrial Era (as that is when they are developed, with Bakelite in 1907 and nylon in 1939), but I think that Hydro Plant is getting completely overshadowed by Three Gorges at the same tech. Also from the historic standpoint, Three Gorges Dam wasn't completed until 2012, well into the Modern Era. The placement makes more sense if one thinks of it as Hoover Dam, which it is in the first 3 Civ games, but I think it's a good thing to not have so many American wonders and from a gameplay standpoint, it should be difficult to get lots of clean power this way (Three Gorges is very strong on a big-landmass map). So I think it's better off pushed into the Modern Era.

With the Space Elevator, we don't have the material technology yet to build this. Given where we have put the dividing line between the Modern Era and the Transhuman Era, I think we should have to have a Transhuman Era tech to represent actually having the materials necessary for this to work.

So this is what I think we should do:

• Move Three Gorges Dam to Composites
• Move Space Elevator to Superstrong Alloys

Let me know if you think this will work.

I like it, I feel the same about these Wonders.

Moving Three Gorges Dam further up would also make not building dirty power plants while waiting for it an untenable tactic, so I agree.

Makes little sense to go from no widespread power to sudden free electricity for an entire continent

One of the things that I love to do is to take an element that's already included in this mod and develop it. I would like to do some things with the Ancient Relics resource. It doesn't seem to do all that much right now: it provides +1 and +5% commerce to Museums, and figures into the Adventure Tours and Mile High Travels corporations, counting as one of their resources and a small commerce bonus with their stores.

Additional Relic Creation
First of all, I don't see Ancient Relics spawn all that often on the map. This is an Event that will spawn more Ancient Relics. It can trigger on any City Ruins tile you own that does not have any other resources on it and once you have Astronomy. It's modeled after the Treasure spawning event, but it has a lot more choices.

You have two or three options when this event triggers. First, you can loot for a Treasure unit. Second, you can leave the ruins in place and spawn an Ancient Relics resource.
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Third, if you have Scientific Method when this event triggers, you can pay to build an Archeological Site immediately.
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This was a surprisingly difficult event to code. The big issue is that Ancient Relics are normally allowed only on Desert, Marsh, or Jungle/Grassland tiles. I'm using a Python call to place the Relics because it doesn't have to obey spawning restrictions. The XML can check to make sure that the tile is free of other resources when the event triggers, so you won't have to worry about losing another resource to this. If we added more options to where Relics could be found, I wouldn't have to use so much Python. The second tough part was the Help code -- the mouseover text for options 2 and 3 are built almost exclusively in Python; I actually had to hard-code the "Requires Scientific Method" text because there is supposed to be a BugUtil function for that, but it doesn't seem to work. This, however, does.

Mile High Travels Reworked
The second thing that I noticed when I was looking at what Ancient Relics could do is that Adventure Tours and Mile High Travels have the exact same resource consumption: Ancient Relics, Clam, Horse, Ivory, and Whale. I don't like this very much, so I had an idea of reflavoring Mile High Travels as luxury travel and giving it a new set of resources consumed: keeping Ancient Relics, but making it consume Gold, Silk, Hit Movies, Hit Musicals, and Hit Singles.
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The Rosetta Stone
Finally, I thought it would be nice to give the Renaissance another Wonder. (Renaissance is actually one of the hardest eras to find Wonders for.) The Rosetta Stone requires Nationalism tech and can be built in a city with Ancient Relics in its city vicinity. It provides three main bonuses: +1 from all Museums you build, 3 additional Ancient Relics resources that you can trade, and 2 free Specialists per Ancient Relics or City Ruins in the city vicinity. I don't think there is normally a reason to keep City Ruins around, so I'd like to give City Ruins at least one minor usage.
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Sounds like some pretty good ideas, especially the Rosetta Stone one.



I think I'll have a chuckle if I ever see a set of "Ancient" Relics being spawned from a recently razed city in AD years though

The volcano eruption event also reduces Cottages and their line into City Ruins often as well. It'd be amusing to be in like, 2035AD and raze a city or have a cottage be ruined and then have some ancient relics pop up on top of them later

I promised the Louvre a long time ago when I asked for the Wonder-capacity increasing mechanic. Whenever possible, I try to avoid doing something only once; for example, the Wonder-cap boost goes on the Sphinx (to encourage pairing it with the Pyramids without forcing it), the Shrines (this is for a future idea), and the Louvre.

I'm going pretty simple with the Louvre's effects for now: a standard +8 culture/+2 Artist GPP, +10% culture in all cities, and +3 Wonder capacity. This might change depending on what happens when we get around to the Great Works project, but I'd rather develop more stuff for what we already have rather than spin off in another direction.

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Cool! And great THX for the whole ancient artifacts stuff.




EDIT: Does wonder capacity affect National Wonders too, or World Wonders only?

Sogroon said:

EDIT: Does wonder capacity affect National Wonders too, or World Wonders only?

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World Wonders only. I don't think National Wonders really need a bonus. As far as NW placement goes, the only city I worry about when I play is my Heroic Epic + West Point + Red Cross + Secret Army Base unit-builder city. Boosting National Wonders would make that too strong and wouldn't really affect anything else.

Three ideas:

Hanseatic Leage:

According to its history it could have a little negetive side effect, that is increasing national rebelliousness. After all those cities had their own laws and so on.


Berlin Wall

• once built in a city, that city is automaticly liberated becoming builders vassal (of course cannot be built in capital and needs minimal city size, maybe 10)
• gives a one time boost to espionage and national stability
• gives a free G.Spy (or G.Diplomat or G.General or randomly one of the 3)

So it would be a one time sacrefice for a one time bonus.
Balancing is still needed IMO, its just a basic idea.

Great Shrines

You want to change Shrines to real World Wonders.
How about adding the Village hall line some +WonderCap bonus?

• City Hall +1
• Metropolitan Adm. +2
• Capital Adm. +3

So if you cannot build your shrine due to limit reached in a city at one time you only need to wait for the city to grow bigger.

Again, REV changes. I think we established that not everyone likes REV, or in cases like me, doesn't have the computer power to support it,

Tolni said:

Again, REV changes. I think we established that not everyone likes REV, or in cases like me, doesn't have the computer power to support it,

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I really don't get your point. What's the matter with rev changes? What computer power has to do with it?

I don't use Revolutions either, but that doesn't mean I begrudge its very existence or maintenance.

There are a million ways to set up a game! That is the reason I play this game. I can pick and choose what I like and what I don't like and create MY special scenario.
RoM-AND effectively doubles the BTS game experience. Hooray!

I've still got a list of Wonders I want to include. Some are to shore up a weak technology or reinforce a mechanic. A few are structures that I consider so iconic that it feels wrong not to have them. I'm going to do a few for my next build and then introduce more when the time is right.

One of the really iconic Wonders that I want to include is the Venetian Arsenal. I'm giving it a simple but huge effect: +200% production of Water units. Keep in mind that percentage bonuses are totaled and then applied to base production; the bonuses don't interact. If this still proves to be too much, we can bring the number down, but I want it to be pretty high to begin with.
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Of course, I try not to do anything only once. In this case, I have a second Wonder as a sibling; I don't think Land units need any production bonuses, but Air units could use something. Willow Run was a gigantic aircraft factory built near Detroit during World War II to mass-produce B-24 bombers. It provides +100% production for Air units. With technology bonuses to Improvements, base productions are much higher by the end of the Industrial Era, so the percent bonus here is lower.
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To me, they seem more like national wonders, giving a production bonus without any other truly unique effect, along the lines of Moai Statues and Heroic Epic (or was it the other Epic? I always confuse them ).

Noyyau said:

To me, they seem more like national wonders, giving a production bonus without any other truly unique effect, along the lines of Moai Statues and Heroic Epic (or was it the other Epic? I always confuse them ).

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I could imagine them as NW too.
Maybe I feel Venetian Arsenal 50% WW and 50% NW, but Willow Run is 99% NW in my mind.

but they are good ideas anyway

Maybe I should go higher on the bonuses. I do want them to be worth the title of World Wonder; how does +300% sound? I don't want to do XP bonuses; I want to draw a line between production and training, and both of these are production to the core.

Exactly because they are pure production I believe they fit better as National rather than World Wonders.

A World Wonder should have something truly unique to it, not just extra hammers.