St. Basil's Cathedral

blackcatatonic

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Is it just me, or is it daft that this wonder buffs tundra tiles in its city and yet doesn't require tundra in the city to be built?

I almost never get to build it because the AI's built it in a desert city somewhere...
 

kaspergm

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Seems like an oversight. I really hope they'll change it. You could say it still makes sense for AI to build it for the secondary effects, but it's really frustrating to lose it to an AI in the middle of a desert.

... Although I guess we'll just see the same situation as with Chichen Itza / Petra, i.e. AI building it on the only tundra tile within city's range.
 

Tech Osen

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Well, the problem with making it require tundra is that the real Cathedral stands in Moscou which does not lie in the tundra areas of Russia.

 

Hakan-i Cihan

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Well, the problem with making it require tundra is that the real Cathedral stands in Moscou which does not lie in the tundra areas of Russia.

At least the city which builds it should have tundra within its workable radius. Moscow does also have tundra nearby (sort of).
 

Scaramanga

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It has relic slots too, so it's not as situational as Petra in terms of terrains. It's hard to tell what the primary and secondary effects are but it's probably intended to boost a tundra start and is right in Russia's wheelhouse.
 

blackcatatonic

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Well, the problem with making it require tundra is that the real Cathedral stands in Moscou which does not lie in the tundra areas of Russia.

Then it probably shouldn't buff tundra tiles.
 

Dragabond

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To be fair, I've also seen the AI build Petra in a 1 tile desert when there were no other desert tiles within workable range. The AI just builds wonders in dumb locations.
 

Archon_Wing

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It's a multipurpose wonder meant mostly for culture though the tundra bonus I think is the least important of its abilities.
 

Tech Osen

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It doesn't., I say this to you as Russian

I think a lot of people don't realise just how big Russia is. And I'm saying that living in the Netherlands, one of the smallest countries in the world. :p
 
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It doesn't., I say this to you as Russian.
And yes, you might want this wonder for relic slots and tourism boost even if you control no tundra tiles.

I will second this as someone who has written extensively on the Russian/Soviet military and has spent 'way too much time studying Russian terrain maps - if the Wonder was meant to be terrain-specific to the Moskva area, it woulds enhance swampy forests...

But the OP touches on a larger question, which is that terrain is very badly handled in Civ VI in general:
rain forest and regular forest are mixed in the middle of the map
tundra is supposedly a viable city start location for ANYBODY in 4000 BCE
No one in the game ever learns how to navigate on a river, so rivers have no effect at all on travel or trade
The massive variety of terrain and vegetation in the world can only be handled by having random Natural Wonders while the rest of the map is Generic forest, rain forest, plains, marsh, grassland, desert or tundra and all Resources are fixed in place from the start of the game.

Specifically to this topic, Tundra was home only to a very specialized (reindeer-based) nomadic lifestyle before the late Renaissance Era, and even then the only cities in Tundra area were on the coast - nothing inland could be supported before the railroads of the (in game terms) Industrial Era. Tundra should be exploitable and enhanceable only in the late game. Before that, you place your city on the nearest forest/forested swamp tile and extend city radius into the tundra, as, for instance, to exploit a Fur resource (see, for example, Vologda or Novgorod in Russia, both of which got rich on the fur trade, but neither of which are on the tundra itself: they are both in notoriously swampy areas (both Soviet and German troops referred to the area north of Novgorod as "The A**hole of the World" in WWII!)

We need both a lot more variety on the terrain and a lot more restrictions on the viable starting positions for cities in 4000 BCE on that same terrain.

If I were redoing based on its actual historical effects St Basil's, I'd perhaps keep the relic slots, but make it increase Religious Pressure and Loyalty from the city and boost both Tourism and Gold from Tourism from the Modern Era on.
 

Archon_Wing

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That would make the wonder completely useless.

It's why some liberties have to be taken at times.
 

Scaramanga

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I think a lot of people don't realise just how big Russia is. And I'm saying that living in the Netherlands, one of the smallest countries in the world. :p
So every country looks big to you? :p

If Moscow is sub-tundra the wonder should definitely not require tundra. The tundra yields add some Russian flavour though and help with starts in that terrain.
 

AmazonQueen

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So every country looks big to you? :p

If Moscow is sub-tundra the wonder should definitely not require tundra. The tundra yields add some Russian flavour though and help with starts in that terrain.

But since the wonder is based on a historical building wouldn't it make sense for it to have bonuses that would've worked for the historical building?
 

Scaramanga

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But since the wonder is based on a historical building wouldn't it make sense for it to have bonuses that would've worked for the historical building?
Maybe the relics slots are historical although I don't know any famous relics there.
I've rationalised that since there are no seasons in the game tundra in the case of this wonder is a generic snowy landscape.
 

kaspergm

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I think this is a classic example of gameplay trumps realism. Personally, I don't care if it was build on Tundra in reality. In game context, it seems pretty clear to me that the wonder is intended as a tundra-Petra. As such, it should require tundra.
 

Scaramanga

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I think this is a classic example of gameplay trumps realism. Personally, I don't care if it was build on Tundra in reality. In game context, it seems pretty clear to me that the wonder is intended as a tundra-Petra. As such, it should require tundra.
The current requirement that it be next to the city center (kremlin) is already restrictive enough.
 
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