First impressions: Wonders still suck (big time).

[Bandobras Took]

I'm glad you get a good laugh, at least you keep entertaining the rest of us too.

On top of having no idea about what you're talking about when it comes to Civ4 and Civ5 you're trying to refute the argument that wonders make little sense from a strategic point of view with the argument that it's in fact okay because you can still make them for giggles on Mercury difficulty. I'm so convinced they did a good job now.

Actually, the thrust of my post was that it's ridiculous to blame the designers for following in the footsteps of previous games. The essence of most of the parts from posts I quoted could be boiled down to "X is worthless because I win at this time." (or "X is worthless because I don't expand after this point"). It's something that's been said as far back as Civ 3 or even Alpha Centauri. I can't speak for earlier because I didn't have much internet access back then.

And yes, when discussing wonders in the context of designer decisions, it is totally valid to reply that they went with things that they thought looked cool, regardless of whether they were actually mechanically effective. Sometimes catering to the giggles crowd will make fans with other priorities wonder what's going on.

How cool would that be if on top of being able to spam wonders on low difficulty they were actually good ?

Obviously that would be ideal. But there are more reasons than mechanical effectiveness to want to build a wonder.

But that's the thing. Even if I were playing on Mercury I wouldn't make them because I can see that their bonuses are weak (again, not all). I fail to see how the fact that you can make them on a lower difficulty somehow make them better or worth it.

You're looking at it backwards. If your priority is to build Wonders, don't play on a victory where you can't afford to mess around with stuff like that. This has been true in every iteration of Civ. Granted that there are players out there who have the skill and knowledge to grab wonders regardless of difficulty level (Obsolete's Civ 4 games come to mind), my hunch is that most aren't at that level, given the comments, even here, about not being able to divert to leaf techs because of AI victory dates.

Nobody will start to argue that the wonder is actually okay because you can have fun making it on Prince.

On the contrary, if a person is having fun making it on prince, then the game has done its job for that person -- entertaining them.

I just don't get where this mentality comes from. If you don't care whether or not a wonder is good then how does that affect you that someone would like them to be good ? If you make them regardless of their value why do you even care about a discussion about their value ?

It was actually the idea (since gracefully retracted) that the designers are idiots for failing to cater to a specific subset of the player base.

Here's a news flash: I find your characterization of me quite insulting.

It seem like you're saying if I'm winning to easily then it is my fault for trying too hard.

Not quite. I'm saying that if you have to forego game elements because you've chosen a difficulty level that gives you a shorter time span, you shouldn't be surprised that those elements fall by the wayside. It's also unreasonable to expect the designers to build the game around the hardest difficulty level, which is most distorted by AI bonuses, rather than the default difficulty level.

However, I did lump your post in accidentally when it was a separate point:

The game does not require you to do enough to win. Thus these wonders, some of which are impressive, aren't necessary.

Here it's necessary to remember that they can't cram in too many conditions that will make the lower difficulty levels anything but. I'm rather glad that there's little actually necessary to win; it makes for a more free-form game. Which may be why:

This game I can win on the highest level and I'm not trying especially hard.
Civ 5 was big enough that the things I did which were probably inefficient at least seemed like a good idea and I'd have to have done some careful analysis to determine otherwise. Civ 5 felt like I was building a civilization to stand the test of time, and part of that was that it took time. A week and 450 turns for a civ 5 game. BE I do 300 turns in an afternoon.

It seems like you want me to play the game like Sim City which has no way to win and you just make your own goals. That play style worked in that game because it had complex interacting systems and you couldn't tell how everything would work out until you tried. In BE I know how it will turns out. If I go straight for victory, I'll probably win. If I take a detour in tech I'll lose, and that detour won't open up a lot of new element for me to enjoy playing around with because I was so close to winning anyway I no longer need to build up a colony.

This is all accurate. I will point out simply that there are those who have enjoyed not only BE but previous games in the Civ series as well by making their own goals/imposing their own restrictions. Madscientist's RPCs in Civ 4 were a particularly stirring example.

I know how to have fun. I have had some fun playing this game, but in many ways the game has worked against that.

If strategizing in a strategy game is the wrong, baby I don't wanna be right.
That was the fun comment. This is the efficient comment that serves a purpose:
If strategizing in a strategy game is the wrong way to play, then I think there is a flaw in the game.

I don't think strategizing is the wrong way to play. It's well to remember, on the other hand, that it's not the only way to play.

What a given person is going to find fun is subjective. Again, the main thing I was against in this thread is that if the designers don't agree with a given subset's idea of fun, the designers must somehow be ignorant/defective.

 

[Acken]

Actually, the thrust of my post was that it's ridiculous to blame the designers for following in the footsteps of previous games. The essence of most of the parts from posts I quoted could be boiled down to "X is worthless because I win at this time." (or "X is worthless because I don't expand after this point"). It's something that's been said as far back as Civ 3 or even Alpha Centauri. I can't speak for earlier because I didn't have much internet access back then.

And yes, when discussing wonders in the context of designer decisions, it is totally valid to reply that they went with things that they thought looked cool, regardless of whether they were actually mechanically effective. Sometimes catering to the giggles crowd will make fans with other priorities wonder what's going on.

Cant speak for Civ3. CivBE isn't in the same situation Civ4 and Civ5 are regarding wonders. No idea what you're talking about when you say it follows previous game design. If you don't see the difference no wonder you don't understand my (our) arguments.

Obviously that would be ideal. But there are more reasons than mechanical effectiveness to want to build a wonder.

Yes. Like Lore, Wow factor etc. Stuff some customers have said CivBE lacks. That patch didn't fix that. Granted some got interesting new bonuses.

You're looking at it backwards. If your priority is to build Wonders, don't play on a victory where you can't afford to mess around with stuff like that. This has been true in every iteration of Civ. Granted that there are players out there who have the skill and knowledge to grab wonders regardless of difficulty level (Obsolete's Civ 4 games come to mind), my hunch is that most aren't at that level, given the comments, even here, about not being able to divert to leaf techs because of AI victory dates.

That didn't make any sense at all. On one hand you admit you can get the wonders regardless of difficulty and on the other you say I shouldn't play in a way that doesn't allow me to get them. This isn't a dichotomy between "wonderwhoring" vs not doing that. I'm not wishing that the strategy is to wonderspam your way to victory.

BUT I clearly stated it's not about not being able to grab them. It's about their effectiveness. About trying for better balance. The play level doesn't matter in the slightest. They're not a good strategical option, period.

Granted, not all of them are terrible. But for a patch aimed at balancing them it falls short.

On the contrary, if a person is having fun making it on prince, then the game has done its job for that person -- entertaining them.

And so what ? How is that relevant when talking about balancing wonders ?

Oh wait I think I know where this is going. The next step is you telling us that since the majority fit that profile and don't care about balance in a strategy game, it doesn't matter.
Just say it so that I can say I disagree that it's a healthy approach to designing a TBS and don't lose more of my time responding.

Not quite. I'm saying that if you have to forego game elements because you've chosen a difficulty level that gives you a shorter time span, you shouldn't be surprised that those elements fall by the wayside. It's also unreasonable to expect the designers to build the game around the hardest difficulty level, which is most distorted by AI bonuses, rather than the default difficulty level.

They should design the game around having options that make sense. That's like the earth relic quest. Are you going to defend the "No maintenance" option because some guy has fun with it ? Wouldn't you rather say "Hey maybe giving 2ept per relic would be more balanced and the idea would still be the same" ?

It's your choice to be content but to me that sounds like an apology of a poorly balanced game.

I could also make the argument that there also isn't only single player where you can put the AI on kindergarten mode. But MP is dead anyway.

I don't think strategizing is the wrong way to play. It's well to remember, on the other hand, that it's not the only way to play.

What a given person is going to find fun is subjective. Again, the main thing I was against in this thread is that if the designers don't agree with a given subset's idea of fun, the designers must somehow be ignorant/defective.

Please explain how better balance would diminish the fun of someone not caring about it ?
Also it's not about trying to say the devs are idiots or something. I don't really care. I'm just here to discuss whether or not the wonders suck, that's the thread title. I agree they suck. Whether or not that's by design is 100% irrelevant to me.

This 100% sounds like the conversation I had with Kutuzov the other day. Where I was making the argument that putting affinities into the tech web isn't a good idea because it limits your options for optimal play. He was making the argument that it's actually okay because at lower levels you can get random techs and still win. I still fail to this day to see how his argument is a counter to mine. If you don't witness the balance issues then great for you but stop acting as if they don't exist or don't matter. Fixing Apollo play and wonders won't suddenly make Mercury boring that's total nonsense.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Not quite. I'm saying that if you have to forego game elements because you've chosen a difficulty level that gives you a shorter time span, you shouldn't be surprised that those elements fall by the wayside. It's also unreasonable to expect the designers to build the game around the hardest difficulty level, which is most distorted by AI bonuses, rather than the default difficulty level.

What game elements am I forgoing? In civ 5 I needed production, resources and happiness for conquest, great people, archeology, and culture buildings for tourism, money and random other things for diplomacy, and science and production for a spaceship. All systems that directly related to a victory and could support other victories. Many goals and ways to build up your nation to meet goals, and aside from conquest you couldn't do any of them before the final third of the game. Religion probably wasn't necessary and I wasted a lot of time on it for something but I had fun so I often took piety anyway despite people saying it sucked. I also didn't always take tradition or rationalism despite everyone thinking you always should.

Now what goals does Beyond Earth have? Settle earthlings takes land and time, and maybe units to protect but not really. Emancipation needs production and a few resources then you throw units into a hole. Transcendence you build some buildings and wait. Contact you need luck some energy and time. None of these involve a system other than having some cities and the base function of that. World congress, religion, tourism don't exist. Affinity as it is, is just an extension of the tech web. I don't know what all these fantastical element I'm missing out on are. New Terran Myth? Terrascapes? I build plenty of Terrascapes even though they're not very efficient. Rocktopus? I built some of them. Didn't need them because by the time I got them I was well on by way to winning so they probably just slowed me down,
Building a colony supports a goal. But passed a certain point you're only building more cities to support the building of more buildings which you use to build more buildings. All these things are supposed to be a means to an end. If they serve no purpose then they are just a means to more means.
I looked for quite a while to find a screen shot from a Simpsons episode which shows Bart building a giant Lego brick out of Lego bricks, and then I'd post a pic for something like the Eiffel Tower made in Lego. It would illustrate that I want to build a colony towards a purpose, like the Lego Eiffel Tower. However if I'm just building something to build more something then all I'm doing is building building materials out of building materials, like a Lego made from Lego, that just ends when I get bored.

I only ever play with just conquest victory now because any other victory is over too soon and I don't need to keep a colony improving.

What I find very strange is that you are describing exactly the way I play. I want to do all the stuff the game has. I just want it to support a goal, while you seem to want to lop off the end of the game and just play the middle forever.

I don't think strategizing is the wrong way to play. It's well to remember, on the other hand, that it's not the only way to play.

What a given person is going to find fun is subjective. Again, the main thing I was against in this thread is that if the designers don't agree with a given subset's idea of fun, the designers must somehow be ignorant/defective.

Forgive me for thinking a strategy game should be about strategy. I bought this game expecting more strategy than I got. I don't know what you expected but you seem to have gotten what you wanted, so it can't be strategy you wanted because that is lacking and you're trying to talk me into believing I shouldn't be playing this strategy game for the strategy aspect.

Yes, there are other ways to enjoy this game. One could pop the disk out and eat it. If that is what one enjoys. But I bought a strategy game, so I expect some strategy from it. Even if it was the tastiest disk ever, that might make it a successful product in that aspect, but I think improving the strategy would be a good idea rather than trying to convince be I"m wrong to want strategy from a strategy game. Would improving the strategy hurt the taste? I don't know, but I'd rather they improve the strategy in the strategy game rather than be told to eat the disk and enjoy it like others do. Especially when (this is where the metaphor really falls apart) I have stated that I have enjoyed eating the disk before, but also the strategy aspect. Why is it wrong for me to expect both? Why is it wrong for other to just want the strategy and why is it right for other to be happy only eating the disk?

I don't think any of this was the designers intention as you seem to think. I think they set out to make a strategy game and all the pieces aren't coming together yet. There's no way they intended to make a sandbox game with no end goals. I don't think the designers are defective, I think the product is and that's not a judgment on them. That's just life. However you seem to want to say the game is just fine and that if we don't think it's fine it is our failing.

 

[shaglio]

This is actually an excellent point, and made me realize that with a tech web it is probably harder to balance everything, not just wonders.

I brought this up a long time ago in a thread far, far away: maybe the Tech Web isn't such a great idea after all. My reasoning had to do with the lack of a race with the AI to get to the “next big stick,” which many people find compelling. A linear Tech Tree provides competition with the AI to beat them to a tech that allows you to build a building, unit, Wonder, etc. that gives you a leg up on them. “This battle isn’t going well, but if I can just upgrade my Longswordsmen to Musketmen before the AI does, it’ll help turn the tide of war.” With a Tech Web, everyone is off researching in different directions, so that frenzied need to beat the AI to a specific tech isn’t there.

Now here’s another example of the Tech Web’s shortcoming: balance. I won’t get into the details since Acken already did it so eloquently in Post #111.

 

[liv]

I have the same feeling about the web - it does not work.
Especially as they tried to force linear mechanics on top of it (with the affinities) and the science victories.
They kept the idea of wonders and make them depend on the web as well which just seems not to work.

I know some argue that the web would work if the tiles were different and resources more localized and your paths on the web then would change.

either way, changes needed. They needed to be more daring and take out more of teh familiar civ things to make it work

 

[Ryika]

Well, I think the web COULD work, if it was redesigned quite a bit. If the jumps between rings were much bigger (thus "beelining" outer techs was harder/impossible), then we'd already have a more open and interesting version of the traditional tech-tree. The wonders would need to be placed on the main techs so that some real rivalry can happen and so that it's an interesting decision between jumping to the next ring to compete for some of the wonders or adding some more leaf techs for additional boost.

But of course other mechanics would need to be changed as well - the exponential growth in how much science you can get during the game for example.

 

[Lexicus]

I brought this up a long time ago in a thread far, far away: maybe the Tech Web isn't such a great idea after all. My reasoning had to do with the lack of a race with the AI to get to the “next big stick,” which many people find compelling. A linear Tech Tree provides competition with the AI to beat them to a tech that allows you to build a building, unit, Wonder, etc. that gives you a leg up on them. “This battle isn’t going well, but if I can just upgrade my Longswordsmen to Musketmen before the AI does, it’ll help turn the tide of war.” With a Tech Web, everyone is off researching in different directions, so that frenzied need to beat the AI to a specific tech isn’t there.

Exactly. Even in a tech tree, there is probably some trade-off between the level of linearity and the ease of balancing things properly.

To speak to Minor Annoyance's point, I agree that BE ought to be a strategy game rather than a sandbox game.

If they had wanted a sandbox game they should have made a sandbox game. A fun strategy game demands a convergence between what is cool (the "giggle factor") and what is mechanically effective.

I really think the design philosophy in this regard ought to follow the Civ IV Engineering quote:

The designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

Everything that does not serve some strategic purpose should IMO be cut from a strategy game (barring things like Easter eggs I guess). If they are designing a strategy game by just throwing stuff in that they think will be cool that is a problem.

But I don't think that's really how they designed/are designing this game.

 

[Ryika]

Turns out Ectogenesis Pod is even worse than we thought:

<Row>
<PlayerPerkType>PLAYERPERK_WONDER_ECTOGENESIS_POD</PlayerPerkType>
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_ECTOGENESIS_POD</BuildingClassType>
<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
<FlatYieldPerPop>0.2</FlatYieldPerPop>
</Row>

So that's 1 food per FIVE pop.

 

[player1 fanatic]

So, is it confirmed it is city pop. only?

 

[Ryika]

Yes it is, tested that just yesterday.

 

[Gamewizard]

Turns out Ectogenesis Pod is even worse than we thought:

<Row>
<PlayerPerkType>PLAYERPERK_WONDER_ECTOGENESIS_POD</PlayerPerkType>
<BuildingClassType>BUILDINGCLASS_ECTOGENESIS_POD</BuildingClassType>
<YieldType>YIELD_FOOD</YieldType>
<FlatYieldPerPop>0.2</FlatYieldPerPop>
</Row>

So that's 1 food per FIVE pop.

Good catch. I built it in my recent game and at 12 pop I knew I was missing a food somewhere.

 

[player1 fanatic]

So... 2 extra food from wonder, in city of 10 population?

That is... I can not even...

 

[Ryika]

So... 2 extra food from wonder, in city of 10 population?

That is... I can not even...

Well, if you liked that wonder, wait until you hear what the Quantum Computer can do for your empire: LITERALLY NOTHING.

Because if there's not some weird stuff going on with my game files (after verifying my game files and removing custom dlc), then both, the Orbital Unit Duration nor the Free Maintenance for Orbital Units do not work.

 

[Acken]

I'll have to check that with a test game.

 

[Ryika]

I did the same thing just now. Deleted Cache, dlc, didn't use mods. Without edited game files. Still doesn't work. Promethean doesn't seem to work either for me. Though I have seen people say they used that wonder and it seemed to work.

It's funny because the game files actually show these bonuses and I can't really see any mistake with them. So is it indeed my installation and not a problem with the game itself?

 

[Acken]

Alright I can confirm that Promethean and Quantum computer do not work at all.

And Ecto Pod is 1 per 5.

 

[Dux1]

Alright I can confirm that Promethean and Quantum computer do not work at all.

And Ecto Pod is 1 per 5.

Seriously? Is anyone testing these patches? This is just shameful.

 

[Cymsdale]

Ugh, I just built Promethean to find it did jack for me.

Is the intention only for it to counteract unhealth from improvements? Because I was hoping to counteract the unhealth from having a giant ass city.

 

[Ryika]

Ugh, I just built Promethean to find it did jack for me.

Is the intention only for it to counteract unhealth from improvements? Because I was hoping to counteract the unhealth from having a giant ass city.

Hahaha... ha... ha. Good find.

You're actually right, it does remove all Health Penalties you get from Improvements and thinking about it now it actually becomes quite obvious that it is (at least in some way) supposed to work that way, because Unhealth from Improvements actually shows as "Unhealth from Cities".

So the idea behind that is that you can spam a horsehockyton of Manufactories in one city? Not sure why you'd ever want to do that. Still sounds like a horrible wonder to me - but at least it does seem to do -something-.

 

[Acken]

Oh yeah okay. Kind of misleading and another one to add on the pile.