Uniques: The New Frontier

With the advent of the Unique Building, I think more windows are opened for Uniques types of other things. These include: wonders, improvements, and abilities.

Examples:

Byzantium: Unique Wonder Bonus for Hagia Sophia
Effects: -50% Worker Time spent building improvements
No Missionary Limit
+50% Missionary Production
Obsoletes at Steam Power

Japan: Unique Improvement: Shogun Castle, replaces Fort.
Effects: Regular effects + No City Raider Bonus on fort attacks


Ottomans: Unique Ability: Seige can destroy Walls

Things like these add flavor to civilizations. They add balance and expand range if they can be balanced.


Feel free to think of any others..

For example, I have a set that could add flavor and balance to a decent, but plain civilization

Egypt: Unique Wonder Bonus: The Pyraminds
Effects: Enables all government civics
Enables all labor civics
City more likely to generate Great Engineer
Unique Ability: 'No Upkeep' for Slavery
Unique Improvement: Nile Farm: Farms +2 :hammer on regular tiles, +1 :hammer on River Tiles
Requires Civil Service


In CIV context, these things add amazing more possibilites. Made into a Civ-5, they could really define what civilizations are powerful. Of course, balancing might be a challenge, but if just Wonder Abilities were added, a world of new ways to play are as well. Plus, Wonder Abilities and wither one of the others would be a manageable addition in theory. The above is an example of how a civilization can still be balanced with these bonuses.

The List

Ottomans: Unique Ability: Seige can destroy Walls

Byzantium: Unique Wonder Bonus for Hagia Sophia
Effects: -50% Worker Time spent building improvements
No Missionary Limit
+50% Missionary Production
Obsoletes at Steam Power
Unique Ability: No religion modifiers (Adds a historical and balanced attitude)
Ina patch, if this proves too detrimental: Unique Ability: Maxed Religious Modifiers (+3, -1)
Unique Improvement: Aristocracy, replaces Town
Effecrs: Regular effects + 1 food (Adds a minor, but distinct push)


Japan: Unique Improvement: Shogun Castle, replaces Fort.
Effects: Regular effects + No City Raider Bonus on fort attacks
Unique Ability: +50% culture under Mercantlism
No city flipping under Mercantlism

Arabia: Unique Ability: 100% Missionaries Success in Cultural Borders
Missionaries have 50% if attacked (A minor, but slight push to help the bad civilizations)
Mongolia: Unique Improvement: Ruins, replaces City Ruins
Effects: +200% clear time
+1 WW for each ruin against enemies

Mali: Unique Wonder Bonus: University of Sankore
+5 beakers from all Religion buildings
City more likely to generate Great Scientist.

Ethiopia: Unique Ability: Nearby Mountains increase :strength 5% each Peak

Inca: Unique Improvement: Terrace, replaces Farms, available at Masonry
Acts as a regular farm, except:
+1 :food on hills
+2 :food, 1 :hammer on Mountains
Unique Ability: Workers, Scouts can use Mountains; +5% beakers for each civlization not met in by 500 B.C., decreases as more civilizations are met

Greece: Unique Ability: No Emancipation anger
Unique Improvement: Maritime Colony Waters, replaces Fishing Boats
Doesn't consume Work Boat at first use

Rome: Unique Improvement: Raven, replaces Fishing Boats
Causes Collateral Damage to enemy ships and units inside if landed on
In a patch, if this is way too weak this could be added: 2 turns to pillage

I think at an even higher level this could re-open the possibility of bringing some sanity back into the way religions and wonders distribute throughout the world, so maybe there should be, not just unique wonder build bonuses, but unique relgion founding bonuses (and have the founding of a religion based on a percentage chance per turn after required techs are researched, rather than "first to discover" a given tech).

For some examples,

Rome:
Unique religion bonus: Christianity (+50% bonus to the per-turn chance of founding Christianity after the discovery of Theology)
Unique wonder bonus: The Apostolic Palace (+50% build bonus)

Chinese:
Unique religion bonus: Confucianism (+50% bonus to the per-turn chance of founding Confucianism after the discovery of Code of Laws)
Unique wonder bonus: The Great Wall (+50% build bonus)

etc.

Some new religions would have to be added for some civs, such as Druidry for Celts; Olympian Pantheon for the Greeks; Shintoism for Japan; and so on.

NarutoAvatarDBZ said:

With the advent of the Unique Building, I think more windows are opened for Uniques types of other things. These include: wonders, improvements, and abilities.

Click to expand...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

OK, let me try to put that somewhat more coherently and constructively:

Please, no. I hate unique buildings and unique units, and this would only make it worse. A lot worse.

Things like these add flavor to civilizations. They add balance and expand range if they can be balanced.

Click to expand...

But even if you like "flavour" (which I admit, I very much don't - because it seems to me to be cosmetic differences instead of putting effort into real strategic and gameplay differences) why is it a good idea to limit it ?

China, for example, is a nation whose real-world history is non-trivially influenced by being a large contiguous chunk of land on one side of a large continent. If, in a game of Civ, you happen to be playing China, and you happen to find yourself starting on an archipelago of smallish islands, it seems to me your optimum strategy will be different, your growth pattern will be different, and making the unique units and religious bonus or whatever be exactly the same in that situation just makes no sense to me, nor does it feel like fun.

I'm all for expanding the rnage of the possible, but I would like to see it done by including about four times as many techs, improvements, units etcetera, so that everybody could choose whichever ones suit their situation, but no individual game is going to be long enough for anyone to cover more than a fraction of the possibilities. (Unless we want a much longer but more linear game, which I could go for myself.)

Chokonus would be just as useful defending an island as defending a land mass.

And Japan's on a small land mass but their UU is still land-based.

Skallagrimson said:

Chokonus would be just as useful defending an island as defending a land mass.
And Japan's on a small land mass but their UU is still land-based.

Click to expand...

Which seem to me to be arguments making my point; that if you started off on an archipelago this might not necessarily be the choice you'd make.

Here's an example - in the Civ III Rise and Rule mod the Polynesian UU is a replacement for your first-tier basic stone-age warrior, with the special ability of being able to make an amphibious attack. (I forget the unit's actual name at the moment). This is something that if you happen to start in the middle of a large continent is pretty pointless, and if you start off in an archipelago can be really useful, particularly when the AI habitually plants cities on single-square islands.

It seems to me that it would be far preferable for anyone to be able to get that unit, perhaps at the cost of an optional tech or two early on, if they are stuck in an archipelago and would really benefit from it, rather than it being something only the Polynesians get - and get no use from at all if the game you are playing at the moment has the Polynesians way inland on a large continent. If I were playing landlocked Polynesians it would seem to me that the UU being pointless would be a distinctly unfair disadvantage compared to being able to focus my research in some other direction towards some other non-standard untit better suiting the situation.

Lots of things are pointless in Civ. You ever start with fishing in a landlocked start?

Skallagrimson said:

Lots of things are pointless in Civ. You ever start with fishing in a landlocked start?

Click to expand...

Um, that lots of things are pointless strikes me as a problem. Hence a suggestion aimed at fixing it, which is part of the point of having a Civ Ideas forum in the first place, no ?

Unique units and buildings make perfect sense, replacing ordinary objects with additional bonuses for every civilization. We already have leader traits, which basically are additional unique abilities--every Civ gets a different combo. These could easily affect terrain improvements (like Financial affecting Coast and Cottage tiles, that jumps to mind). They could add, and I would point out that modders already have, more traits that affect particular terrain types or improvements.

But a wonder is already unique! By definition there is only one per game!

I see no reason to add additional "unique" benefits to wonders for a particular civilization.

There would be also unique corporation and religion

Mongols:
Unique wonder: Forbidden Palace
Unique corporation: BMP(Big Mongolian Pastures)
Unic Religion: Mongo-islamic politheism
Unique ability: Every 2 cities conquered, the next 2 cities loose %percent protection
Unique improvement: Horse pasture( doubles horse production)

What? You can't be serious! Unique made-up corporations and religions?

All the corporations are made up any way...why have 30-some additional corporations in the game when there are enough already? The row of icons on my city screen would stretch across the entire world!

I thought the fact that religions were distinct from the individual cultures was the point! You have different "culture mixes" in each of your cities based on your culture per turn and your neighbors...the religions are more of an over-reaching tool that may create religious alliances and such.

I also see no reason why every civilization needs a unique improvement--can you think up of 30-some bonuses? Why not just have some unique abilities benefit particular terrain improvements? Why do we have to make this more complicated than it needs to be?

Because for me its fun and adds flare. Have to agree with you on the corporations and religions though.

Also, no civilization needs a Unique Unit. They Don't need traits, or Unique Buildings. They got them because it stops if from becoming dull.

Wonder Bonuses add different way to play for each civ. Most people won't build the Space Elevator, but say it came at Computers as on civ? A lot more people would use it as that civ/

Improvements, again add more range of choice and depth. I don't know about you, but complicated things like Civ 4 are fun, as long as they are understandable.

Hold on...you are arguing against unique units, traits, and buildings, but you are for unique wonders?

I am also not arguing unique improvements are too complex, I am saying that an upgraded improvement can be one of several abilities a civilization has. I think you may have misread my post (or I may have mis-posted my intention).

No, I"m not arguin against them, I'm saying your point argues against all stuff like that.

Yes, and you're right I misread your post ..

My only point is that these are options in a world to explore.

The main one I qould love to see is The Wonder Bonus, because some wonders are just awful. If they had more incentive, say a Parthenon that didn't obsolete.....

Some wonders are awful because people don't use them properly--as in, run extra specialists when you build the Parthenon. You shouldn't be able to exploit every wonder bonus every game--if you are, move up a difficulty level. Or, try to play the game a little differently...for example, I never built Angkor Wat until I played a "priest economy" as Saladin where I ran several priests to get shrines + settled great prophets to generate cash.

One wonder in particular is horrible because it is in fact useless (the infamous "Chicken Pizza"). I always figured its bonus of +25% city defense was more appropriate for the Great Wall, and it could receive +1 happiness for corn, rice, wheat in all cities or some other different bonus. However, that's the only wonder I can think of that is totally useless. For a game with how many, 1 is a pretty good track record.

That, in my eyes, doesn't invalidate the fact that wonders are already unique. A "unique" ability should replace a normal ability (as in, others gets X while I get Y). Also, it should have an opportunity cost (as in, you don't get trait AB by selecting BC). However, you can have multiple Aggressive or Creative civs in the game, but you can't have more then one wonder.

If I were to assign some sort of logical requirement for a unique ability, then I would select both. You might be able to argue that civilizations are inherently unique and thus fail the first condition I specified, and thus unique units and buildings should also fail, but my counterargument is that a game called Civilization should retain unique civilizations, and there is a good precedent in my favor.

Or just nerf all wonders for everything except culture bonuses. Then only culture-hounds will bother building them.

Do you know how badly the game would be changed if there was no good Shrines, Ironworks, or even +100% Culture wonders. Almost every single victory condition would get harder, problematically so. If you include the GP bonus, then Great Peolpe would be leagues harder to get.

The game needs to change. Shake stuff up. Maybe even go for the "r"-word when the developers aren't looking.

Skallagrimson said:

The game needs to change. Shake stuff up. Maybe even go for the "r"-word when the developers aren't looking.

Click to expand...

I don't think that they really avoid reality all that much. They just skim over it in tricky situations occasionally. But for the most part, the game does try and satisfy quite a lot of realistic elements. (IMHO)

No, they hate "realism", trust me.