A new take on Great Wonders

I've been thinking a lot lately about the conflict between realism and gameplay in the Civ series, and how often (and severely) the former gets sacrificed for the latter. Usually those conflicts and the resulting sacrifices of realism are inevitable and necessary, so no big deal, but it's fun to imagine how realism might be improved without damaging gameplay.

It occurs to me that the series might gain a lot in the realism department if it treated Great Wonders similarly to how it treats Civ V religions. The way it is now, civs compete to build a static set of Wonders (each with a static set of benefits), with only one winner emerging from each such competition; what if instead of this, all civs who complete a Wonder are considered to "win" a set of benefits, with the specific benefits being chosen by the builder from a single elimination pool, as with religious tenets?

This kind of system would have two important gameplay advantages, and two important realism advantages. For gameplay, it would guarantee that any civ who embarks on a Wonder construction would come away with something beneficial, and it would allow civs to custom-tailor their Wonders to suit their empire. For realism, it would remove the absurd idea that Civ A's decades-long construction project would go poof! into a pile of coins upon the construction of another project halfway around the world, and it would remove the equally absurd intrinsic association of a specific building with a specific set of advantages. (Like, a set of really huge pyramids doesn't necessarily have anything to do with consolidation of workers to the state. It could just as easily be a religious thing (and it was that as well), or a financial thing, etc.)

A few details & clarifications:

• Instead of a certain tech or SP unlocking a specific Wonder, it would unlock a generic "Wonder Project", which multiple civs can build and complete.
• When a civ completes one of these Wonder Projects, it can choose from a pool of unique benefits, along with customizing the other aspects of the Wonder: its name, its picture / map appearance, etc., exactly like a religion.
• A given Wonder Project's pool of benefits would contain only those benefits that make sense for the tech/era. For instance, if a Wonder Project were unlocked by Currency, that Project's possible benefits would be mostly economic in nature and primitive in scope. The list of possible pictures/appearances would also be linked to the tech/era.
• Each time a benefit is selected it disappears from the pool.
• Multiple civs can build each Project, until all benefits attached to that particular tech are exhausted. For instance, if there are 5 benefits in the pool assigned to the Currency Project, 5 civs can build the Project.
• Some especially important/landmark techs could unlock Projects with multiple benefits, and/or particularly important benefits. This would preserve the rush to beeline certain techs to get those really important benefits.
• Things like Great Person slots and +culture/faith/tourism/whatever could be included as benefits, allowing further customization. For instance, each Wonder could automatically grant +1 culture, with a chooseable benefit being an additional +4 (say) culture, if the Project were associated with a cultural tech. If the Project were associated with a religious tech, perhaps +5 faith could be a chooseable benefit. Etc.

Basically, imagine getting to choose a mini-religion at numerous different points in the game, each one adding something unique to your empire while contributing to your ongoing strategies in the game. I feel that a system like this would make games much more interesting, and open up entirely new strategies and opportunities. It would also remove a lot of the frustration at being beaten to a Wonder; the competition would still be there, as everyone would still want that really juicy Wonder benefit, but it would no longer be an all-or-nothing proposition. Other benefits would be available, allowing all sorts of backup synergy possibilities.

More than anything else though, this would remove the rather silly (non-)realism concept of one civ having to abandon work on some pyramids just because a civ halfway around the world finished a similar project. Each civ would likely come away with multiple Wonders, each one a testament to the civ's uniqueness and chosen path.

Granted, this would require a lot of work. The gameplay balancing alone would be daunting; having to test each benefit, solo and in combination with all other benefits, would be no mean feat. And of course the need to create pictures / gameplay icons / spoken quotes / etc. for a huge list of Wonders would be a large commitment of resources. Assembling the list of potential Wonders itself would also be difficult, though I imagine that would actually be pretty fun; it would allow the developers to use all sorts of buildings and things from around the world: X number of interesting buildings tied to economy; X number tied to science; X to warfare; etc.

What do y'all think? I'm just musing aloud here.

If you wanted to go for realism, then the 2nd civ should be allowed to complete the Wonder project. The realistic effect would be that it would dilute the effects that the 1st has been enjoying. After all, how singular would the accomplishment be if a 2nd civ matched it? Or a 3rd? Or a 4th? The task completed would be impressive, but not as impressive as at first thought. So, say, a 1st place winner gets 3 benefits. #2 completes and they both now have only two benefits. Then #3 comes along and they all now have just one benefit. Once #4 arrives, there are NO benefits to anyone, other than the Victory Point scores each received for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place finishes.

Teaching the AI to pick the optimal benefits might be the biggest task. I don't see an easy way to do it, unless you make some picks so strong that they are to be picked every time (if you're the first to complete the project). Other than that it seems like a fun system imo.

@CaptainPatch: I hope you won't work on Civ VI because (unless I've misunderstood it) your idea sounds terrible. No offense but 'diluting' your deserved benefits has no place in Civ (or any game) imo.

We could consider a "wonder" to be the ultimate in the "first come first serve" realm of capital infrastructure development, a sort of "natural monopoly" that, once cornered by a particular civ, is useless when built by a second civ. A city can only use one library; a second would be redundant and therefore useless. A civilization can only use one National College; a second would be redundant and therefore useless. The World can only use one Great Library; a second would be redundant and therefore useless (or at least would fail to catch on).

This isn't a terribly realistic specific example, but it illustrates the principle: the advantage accrues to the first civilization to actually implement the grand vision suggested by the new technology.

Tarvok said:

We could consider a "wonder" to be the ultimate in the "first come first serve" realm of capital infrastructure development, a sort of "natural monopoly" that, once cornered by a particular civ, is useless when built by a second civ. A city can only use one library; a second would be redundant and therefore useless. A civilization can only use one National College; a second would be redundant and therefore useless. The World can only use one Great Library; a second would be redundant and therefore useless (or at least would fail to catch on).

This isn't a terribly realistic specific example, but it illustrates the principle: the advantage accrues to the first civilization to actually implement the grand vision suggested by the new technology.

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Yep, that's exactly how I rationalize the current all-or-nothing approach to Wonders. I do not picture partially completed Great Libraries simply disappearing when the primary is built in a faraway land; I imagine them being finished, but with their global impact being negligible, as that particular conceptual path had already been trodden by another civ.

The problem with this, though, is that in order for "global impact" to be felt, there must be a global community. Or at least global awareness. To put it in your words, in order for The World to need only one Great Library, there must be a "World" to speak of. The above rationalization works much better after the Global Congress, when all civs have met one another, but during Ancient through Medieval times...well, it's a bit ridiculous. The construction of the real GL in Alexandria, for example, had absolutely no effect on civilizations in Mesoamerica or east Asia, who weren't even aware of Egypt. A global monopoly on the ancient-world concept of "super-awesome library to hold All The Scrolls" makes no sense. A series of regional such monopolies growing through time would make sense, but would of course be far too complex and difficult to incorporate into Civ's simplistic progressions.

(Naturally, when looking back through time, it is easy to apply such a global lens. Had the Early Classic Maya constructed something like a Great Library a few centuries after the one in Alexandria, historians could look back and say "well that was pretty awesome, but Alexandria was still the first", if they were so inclined. This could perhaps translate into the all-or-nothing system of Wonder benefits. But of course, in the game, Wonder benefits are felt immediately, not following globalization, so that kind of after-the-fact lens doesn't really apply.)

INice thread. I was always thinking: Why not treat ALL WONDERS more like the national wonders, so that everyone can build them? They should maybe be more expensive and one could exclude the other, eg. you can build one in each era, at a great cost? Just thinking.

I disagree with most of this.

First of all, wonders should be unique, that is why they are wonders. If every civ could build the pyramids, they are no longer a great wonder.

Now to the TC's ideas. I feel this is too complicated and overly convoluted. What is wrong with a wonder having a certain benefit? You could start to get into the problem that the wonder benefits have to be very generic. Imagine having something like the great lighthouse, but it gives the effects of Petra. You used the example of the pyramids, but they have always been an exception it seems, most wonders seem to make sense to what they do.

I also feel it totally diminishes the wonder by us just totally customizing it. Maybe that's just me. Feel free to disagree.

Lastly, I don't think it solves anything except perhaps that your hammers could potentially go to nothing. But is that really a bad thing? Wonders should be a calculated risk I feel. I don't want to be able to put hammers towards a "wonder" and then always get one. It may not have the benefits I wanted but who cares. "Oh crap everyone, this can no longer be the pyramids, lets now make this a lighthouse."

It seems even more gamey to me than how it is now.

Yzman said:

I feel this is too complicated and overly convoluted.

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Yep, that it definitely is. I don't see this realistically happening. Just letting some thoughts out. It's really Firaxis's fault for giving us a customizable religion system; that's kinda opening Pandora's Box, as that kind of intricate customization would enhance a number of features. Great Wonders are only the most obvious (to my eye at least).

Yzman said:

What is wrong with a wonder having a certain benefit? You could start to get into the problem that the wonder benefits have to be very generic. Imagine having something like the great lighthouse, but it gives the effects of Petra. You used the example of the pyramids, but they have always been an exception it seems, most wonders seem to make sense to what they do.

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But that's exactly my point: why couldn't the Great Lighthouse have had the effects of another Wonder? What in history necessarily precludes such a development, other than, y'know, the way it actually turned out? The Great Lighthouse could just as easily have borne religious significance, and had purely symbolic naval meaning. Or it could have showcased an astonishing new technological advance, in pyrotechnics or astronomy. Or it could have accomplished something like the Pyramids, unifying civilians into a coherent workforce. There is nothing inherently impossible or even unlikely about such things. Currently, the game interprets it as having tangible naval benefits, but why must that necessarily be the only interpretation? To answer your question directly, there's nothing "wrong" with the current system; it's just so unimaginative. Limiting.

Now, you're right, it would be difficult to explain how the Great Lighthouse would approximate something like Petra, with specialized desert bonuses. There is a danger of making things so generic, making everything possible, that you wind up with meaningless combinations. But I've addressed this already: each Wonder Project's details would be constrained to the era/tech/SP that allowed the Project. A civ would only be able to choose naval bonuses, a naval appearance, etc., upon building a Wonder Project opened up by a naval tech. A civ would only be able to choose martial bonuses, etc., upon building a Project opened up by a military-oriented tech. And so on. There would (and should) be limited crossover, of course--naval techs have much to do with economy, for instance, especially in the ancient world--but the kind of theming I've described here would remove the possibility of generic meaninglessness.

Yzman said:

I also feel it totally diminishes the wonder by us just totally customizing it. Maybe that's just me. Feel free to disagree.

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Do you think that the new religion system diminishes the resulting religions? If so, then yes, this proposed system would probably make you feel the same way. There's no difference between what the current religion system does for the concept of world religions and what my proposed system does for the concept of world wonders: each breaks down the notion that X thing must always carry Y connotations. A notion that makes particularly little sense in a game that lets you reimagine history. If we're allowed to reimagine Christianity in a totally different light, why not reimagine the Oracle? The only difference here is in the scale of the reworking.

Yzman said:

Lastly, I don't think it solves anything except perhaps that your hammers could potentially go to nothing. But is that really a bad thing? Wonders should be a calculated risk I feel. I don't want to be able to put hammers towards a "wonder" and then always get one.

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Fair enough. I'm somewhat ambivalent about this particular point, as I can see the value of making Wonders the huge calculated risks they are now, for sure. But that's a gameplay judgement, and my thinking here is mostly from a non-gameplay perspective. Wonders aren't just about adding power to your empire; they are about customizing it, making it unique, leaving a megalithic marker of the empire's existence. I feel that every civ, on every difficulty level, on every single playthrough, should have the guaranteed opportunity to build Wonders that convey a sense of specialness, of "yeah, that's MY civ that just erected that unique thing". ...but, for sure, that's my own subjective opinion.

Yzman said:

"Oh crap everyone, this can no longer be the pyramids, lets now make this a lighthouse." It seems even more gamey to me than how it is now.

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No, I think you've misunderstood a bit. You wouldn't be setting out to build the Pyramids, or any specific thing at all. You would be focusing on a concept, the specific manifestation of which is relatively meaningless. In game terms, you would be building a "Wonder Project", not "The Pyramids" (or whatever), and the Wonder Project's final form, and function, and name, and appearance, and details, etc., would be selected following the Project's completion. Thus instead of having your little workers working on X building, they would be working on--in Tarvok's words below--"capital infrastructure development" that wound up taking the form of X.

There would be no sense of "hey ho, we're building these awesome Hanging Gard...oops!, no wait, we're making a honking long wall instead"; the final form would be selected upon completion. Again, instead of focusing on a Thing, you would be focusing on a concept: you, as the ruler, are setting out to make a landmark statement concerning your empire's economic development, and whether it turns out to be a clocktower, a mountain city, a castle, a rocky facade, a huge bronze statue, or something else entirely, you will have succeeded. (Until all possible benefits from that potential pool have been selected, of course. ) I just like the idea of that, and I think it's more in line with what this game series professes to allow us to do.

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

Camikaze said:

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

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...oops. How embarrassing. Not sure why I didn't post here originally.

Thanks!

I feel I have to elaborate. Take the "pyramids". Many early cultures built them. Why shouldn't all civilizations be able to build them? So if you have the resources, the know-how and the dedication why shouldnt you be able to build one? Then you have different buildings and monuments. Every civilizations have them, or had at least. Why should the game stop you from wanting to build a huge monument?

I always play on Immortal (when i feel like winning) or Deity (when i feel like loosing ; ). And I LIKE to get wonders. Just on these difficulties (at least on deity) u really cant or shouldn't get them as capturing them from the enemy is more feasable. Then again if you step down to Emperor it's so easy to get them you can practically get them all. it's like an all or nothing mechanic and I really don't like it.

How many times did you quit an early game because you got beaten to a wonder by 1 turn? It's not funny at all in my opinion. On a good day I'll say OK, it was risky and I can spend this gold on a worker or settler, but thats not the point, what you wanted was a wonder. Something to shape your civilization.

One idea I had was that wonders be built in stages, something like the palace or throneroom sequence in Civ 1 or 2, just that they gave benefits and you had to put resources into it. Or maybe achieve something special to gain the next level. You could expand on your palace, build great towers, pyramids, lighthouses, caves and castles as much as you liked, and they didn't ALL HAVE TO BE IN THE CAPITOL

Ok. Elaboration done

It might be nice if a wonder slot was tied to each tech. You'd build the Masonry wonder and get the choice of Stonehenge, Pyramids, Great Wall or Terracotta Army while taking the benefits of one of those or some others.

So each wonder is tied to a number of techs while each bonus is tied to a tech type. Some would scale with eras so they aren't too powerful early game or weak late game. The Forbidden Palace can only be built from a Medieval tech but if nobody takes its bonus, you get 3 delegates from the Statue of Liberty.

I rather like this idea. In all honesty, Civ is a franchise that could do with an overhaul of base mechanics. The concept of Wonders was fine when the games were more limited, but now that time has marched on and those limits are lifted, revising one of the core concepts of the series is a viable, and potentially needed approach if the games are to grow and develop.

Roald Amundsen said:

I feel I have to elaborate. Take the "pyramids". Many early cultures built them. Why shouldn't all civilizations be able to build them? So if you have the resources, the know-how and the dedication why shouldnt you be able to build one? Then you have different buildings and monuments. Every civilizations have them, or had at least. Why should the game stop you from wanting to build a huge monument?

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Well, I do feel that the game needs to preserve the uniqueness of World Wonders. I'm not arguing that multiple civs should be able to build local copies of the Wonders; I think that would be a bad thing. For realism as well as for gameplay. (In terms of realism, of course any civ with the resources, know-how, and dedication can create big pyramids, but what makes the Pyramids special & unique isn't their physical construction. The specialness lies in the unique intersection of construction, religion, state organization, etc., that was present in ancient Egypt. Likewise, the specialness of the Great Wall doesn't lie in its mere length; it lies in what the wall contributed to history, what it represented, etc. These are things that are unique to the cultures that produced the Wonders, and that uniqueness should be preserved in the game.)

So, no, I think that each Wonder should be unique in the game. The elaborate alternative I've described is intended to leave the uniqueness alone, and achieve two new things: greater personalization of the concept of Wonders (via disassociation of a particular Wonder from particular gameplay benefits), such that each civ can decide for itself how it wants to represent a particular groundbreaking civ-defining societal achievement; and the ability for all civs to achieve Wonders and thereby establish their uniqueness, minus the current cutthroat competition for Wonders and the related all-or-nothing nature of the investment.

I feel that Civ5 has made strides toward this conceptual reworking of things, particularly with G&K and BNW. In G&K, we get a reworking of religion along exactly the lines I've talked about in the thread; whereas in Civ4 you could found Islam, in Civ5 you can create your own religion, pick benefits and flavors, pick a symbol, and call that "Islam". The designers could have gone the Wonders route and had each game religion reflect its historical equivalent, but they didn't; they allowed us to build religions from the ground-up, achieving the same sort of disassociation I'm suggesting with Wonders. In BNW, we see some Wonders disassociated from techs and moved to social policies & ideologies, which weakens the individual competition for them (by changing the competition from "everyone who has researched the tech" to "everyone who has researched the tech and opened the SP tree") and guarantees that the Wonders are spread out a bit more. What I'm suggesting here merely combines these two ideas and takes a few more steps along that path.

As a tangent, re: something else I've been thinking about lately, I find the religion change in G&K to be curiously at odds with how Civ5 changed the concept of civs' UAs. One of the premises I'm arguing for in this whole thread is that Civ should give us the ingredients of history and allow us to combine them in all new recipes to produce an entirely new "dish", separate from real-world history. I mean, that's what we're doing in the Civ franchise, right? We can have the Spanish build the Oracle, conquer England and France, found Buddhism, and ultimately fall to the might of the Aztecs. Pretty rad. Well, upon first loading up Civ5 vanilla, I was dismayed to see how the game had taken a step back from that sort of "recombination of historical elements" by forcing each civ to have a very specific, historically related, UA. Far from allowing you to envision Spain (for example) in a totally new way, the new UA concepts tie each civ much more closely to its historical analogue, thereby ensuring that each civ becomes some variant of its real-life version. If you play Arabia, you're going to focus on caravans, religion spreading, and oil. If you play the Danes, you're going to do lots of coastal invading and focus on pillaging. Etc., etc. (Or at least, that is what you are heavily pushed toward.) I found that very disappointing, and I was therefore puzzled at what G&K did with religion, which is the exact opposite thing.

Now, of course, ALL of the Civ games have portrayed the civs in ways that correspond to history. But in Civ4, and the earlier versions, those ties to real-life analogues were much looser, much less specific. Industrious = +50% to Wonder construction; Creative = +2 culture per city; etc. These are broad nods to historical tendencies and flavors, nothing at all like the super-specific engagements with historical analogues we see in Civ5.

So, in a way, what I'm proposing with this Wonder system is totally counter to what Civ5 did with civ UAs (which I dislike), while furthering some small steps in the other direction taken by G&K and BNW (which I like). Subjectivity abounds; make of it what you will. Just thinking aloud.

Lochlann said:

No, I think you've misunderstood a bit. You wouldn't be setting out to build the Pyramids, or any specific thing at all. You would be focusing on a concept, the specific manifestation of which is relatively meaningless. In game terms, you would be building a "Wonder Project", not "The Pyramids" (or whatever), and the Wonder Project's final form, and function, and name, and appearance, and details, etc., would be selected following the Project's completion. Thus instead of having your little workers working on X building, they would be working on--in Tarvok's words below--"capital infrastructure development" that wound up taking the form of X.

There would be no sense of "hey ho, we're building these awesome Hanging Gard...oops!, no wait, we're making a honking long wall instead"; the final form would be selected upon completion. Again, instead of focusing on a Thing, you would be focusing on a concept: you, as the ruler, are setting out to make a landmark statement concerning your empire's economic development, and whether it turns out to be a clocktower, a mountain city, a castle, a rocky facade, a huge bronze statue, or something else entirely, you will have succeeded. (Until all possible benefits from that potential pool have been selected, of course. ) I just like the idea of that, and I think it's more in line with what this game series professes to allow us to do.

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The very starting of a great wonder is to hire an architect. Do you think the architect will elaborate the form of the wonder at the last minute ? no, it's done at the roots. So I think Yzman understood it well. Realistically, your idea is no more great than the actual system. It's like in old Civs when you had the possibility to switch from a wonder to the other without losing the shields.

To make it realistic you would have to make wonders buildable by everybody with the same benefits, like classical buildings. But it doens't mean everybody would build everything. Any civ would have to build what it needs. The risks associated with a wonder construction are that it takes a long time, you can't switch to unit construction without losing your wonder hammers (or a part of them : a system of decay would be good), so in case of attack you are more vulnerable. Wonders construction should be longer too, so you should truly evaluate caustiously when and where to build them.

What about a Wonder slider of sorts?

Basically anyone can produce a Wonder once they've unlocked it using any/all of the economic resources hammers: ) of their choice up until a deadline. When the time is reached you take all the versions of a wonder that have been built worldwide, compare which is "best" and the game picks a winner which becomes the World Wonder.

So it would work like this: Masonry unlocks the ability to build pyramids. Since you happen to have a stone with bonus production and a religion you assign some of your production and some of your culture to pyramid building. At the deadline in 2000 BC it turns out you've built the best Pyramid and the game lets you know when some ancient scholar releases a list crowning yours as the winner. The civs that didn't win are rewarded to a lesser extent with a building based on what they put in.

As far as a wonder having differing benefits, each wonder could have a specific set of abilities.. up to one for each type of resource. So for the Pyramids example it has 5 abilities, one production related, one growth related, one culture related, one science related and one wealth related. Since you used stone and religion, your Pyramids gets strong production and culture abilities.

The trick would be you'd need a good system to compare and choose the winner of a wonder race. You could factor in time like if all your resources were in 1000 years earlier. All economic inputs aren't created equal so you probably can't have just one hammer is the same as one science or one food. The wonders themselves could reflect this, like if the early game wealth and science are the hardest to come by, then they'd also be the strongest abilities to unlock on the pyramid wonder. And you don't just have to stick to the basics. You could have a specific wonder requirement be based on % of water tiles revealed that contributes to your Great Lighthouse, or # of cities captured for a Triumphal Arch.


Well anyways, I got the idea after reading the thread. It's pretty similar except instead of choose your own wonder after you finish it, you're choosing your own wonder as you build it. I don't like the idea of not knowing what you're building as that would be like pushing a bunch of rocks together and hoping they stick. : P

i like a mechanic in the Wonders of the Ancient World scenario very much.
you have to generate 1000 gold, or 500 xp, or something, to unlock a wonder, and then you can start building it. so there is less competition for particular wonders and wonder construction isnt that risky. maybe a threshold should increase also, like for the pantheon.

killmeplease said:

i like a mechanic in the Wonders of the Ancient World scenario very much.
you have to generate 1000 gold, or 500 xp, or something, to unlock a wonder, and then you can start building it. so there is less competition for particular wonders and wonder construction isnt that risky. maybe a threshold should increase also, like for the pantheon.

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+1
maybe the required gold or XP would depend on the Production cost of the Wonder?

knightmare13 said:

+1
maybe the required gold or XP would depend on the Production cost of the Wonder?

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yes there are different requirements:

Naokaukodem said:

The very starting of a great wonder is to hire an architect. Do you think the architect will elaborate the form of the wonder at the last minute ? no, it's done at the roots. So I think Yzman understood it well. Realistically, your idea is no more great than the actual system. It's like in old Civs when you had the possibility to switch from a wonder to the other without losing the shields.

To make it realistic you would have to make wonders buildable by everybody with the same benefits, like classical buildings. But it doens't mean everybody would build everything. Any civ would have to build what it needs. The risks associated with a wonder construction are that it takes a long time, you can't switch to unit construction without losing your wonder hammers (or a part of them : a system of decay would be good), so in case of attack you are more vulnerable. Wonders construction should be longer too, so you should truly evaluate caustiously when and where to build them.

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Ah, but see, the "misunderstanding" I was referring to concerns my intention with this proposed system. Not the concept of the realism of architectural design.

Of course you're right, it's unrealistic to imagine a project suddenly morphing into a totally different thing at the end of its creation. Obviously. But is that any more unrealistic than centuries of work on a megalithic construction suddenly going "poof" because another empire halfway around the world, whose existence you've never even dreamed of, completed a similar construction?

There is simply no way to represent Great Wonders with utter realism fidelity while keeping the game a game. That's a given. As I said initially, there will always be a struggle between game elements and realism elements. What I'm talking about here is choosing a brand of unrealism that most accurately captures the essence of what Great Wonders represent. Again, my focus here is on the concept of a Great Wonder being the culmination of a civilization's unique view of, or approach to, or advancements concerning a particular concept. The empire-wide ramifications (read: game benefits) of a Wonder are a result of this culmination, and have nothing to do with its existence as a particular physical building; therefore what I've suggested opts for the unrealism involved in "building-switching". The current brand of unrealism, decried earlier in the thread, strikes me as far more preposterous than the idea of an architect switching to a different building at the last moment.

(Moreover, the way I've phrased things above, with each civ embarking on a building entitled "Wonder Project" rather than on a specific building, contributes a suspension of disbelief that helps with getting past this brand of unrealism. Thinking of it as "my empire is embarking on a grand project" instead of "my empire is building the _____" makes it easier to imaginatively retcon the physical building process.)

You're correct in comparing this to the old Civ games, where building-switching was allowed, but there's a key difference here: the candidates for this switching would all be conceptually similar to one another. Once complete, the possible manifestations of the Wonder Project would all represent the same kind of empire-wide ramifications (game benefits), and thus would all be economic, or naval, or martial, etc. It's not like you'd be switching from a massive investment in faith development to a massive investment in economic prosperity, which is the kind of thing we saw in the earlier games: switching from the Oracle, representing one kind of "civ uniqueness" (manifesting as game benefits), to the Hanging Garden, with a totally different kind of uniqueness/benefits.

Of course, none of this matters to those who are concerned more with the physicality of the building. To that way of thinking, yup, this is pretty grossly unrealistic. But that strikes me as a superficial interpretation of what Wonders are meant to be. Given that non-realism is unavoidable to some extent, fudging things concerning architectural realism is far less problematic than the kinds of non-realism currently present.