An radicle idea for building wonders

[chrissifniotis]

A while back after playing Wonders of the Ancient World, I started thinking about a similar way to construct the wonders in the default game. I've since been developing the idea and want to put it up to get more ideas in tweaking elements and get feedback.
To maintain a certain order of how the wonders are unlocked I've divided them into ten, and upon the release of Gods and Kings twelve, groupings based on theyields each wonder produces. The general conditions employed to unlock the wonders are each eligable city requires a city improvement present, one of any other element - this ranges from a tile to a technology, or even to another city improvement, and a counter based on the group in question. National Wonders simply require a set number of city improvements to be built in the nation, but only a city with that improvement can build the wonder. Each grouping specifies a greater guideline to the conditions, but some wonders do differ from the general rules;

Fertile Wonders - These wonders benefit your food supply and produce more citizens. The general rule for Fertile Wonders are a city improvement, a tile and an adaquet national population count.

Spoiler :

Temple of Artemis reqiures a Temple, a Forest and 18 citizens in the nation.

the Great Lighthouse requires a Lighthouse, a Coast and 18 citizens in the nation.

the Hanging Gardens requires a Garden, a River and 25 citizens in the naiton.

*The Great Lighthouse is listed here for its ability to discount the mailtainance of the Lighthouse city improvements, which increases in Water Tiles.

Industrious Wonders - These wonders benefit your productivity of your cities. The general rule for Industrious Wonders are a city improvement, a mined resource and resource counter of the strategic resorces.

Spoiler :

the Pyramids reqiures a Stone Works, Stone and 9 Strategic Resources.

Ironworks requires 7 Forges within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Forge.

the Statue of Liberty requires a Forge, Iron and 53 Strategic Resources.
(This may appear like a great deal of resources, but by the time you enter the Industrial/Modern Era is about the time you should not be using any Iron or Coal, which in turn helps a great deal to the tally.)

*The Pyramids is listed here for its ability to increase the speed at which your workers build, which can be construed as Industrious.

Commercial Wonders - These wonders benefit your treasury and buying power. The general rule is a city improvement, a Luxury Resource, and a set amount of gold in the treasury to be used as a deposit.

Spoiler :

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus reqiures a Monument, Incense and 185 Gold to spend on materials for the wonder.

the Colossus requires a Forge, Bronze Working, and 185 Gold to spend on materials for the wonder.

National Treasury requires 8 Markets within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Market.

Machu Picchu requires a Mountain, Gold and 300 Gold to spend on materials for the wonder.

Big Ben requires Economics, Stone and 625 Gold to spend on materials for the wonder.

Technological Wonders - These wonders benefit your research ability. The general rule is a city improvement, a technology, and a technology counter. The required technology does count in the technology counter.

Spoiler :

the Greal Library reqiures a Library, Writing and 9 complete technologies.

National College requires 10 Libraries within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Library.

Oxford University requires 9 Universities within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a University.

the Porcelain Tower requires a University, Education and 20 complete technologies.

Artistic Wonders - These wonders benefit your culture at a general level, affecting the your city borders grow and the availability of Social Policies. The general rule is a city improvement, a Luxury Resource and a level of culture points adaquet for the composition of the wonder. These are not cummulative points, the culture required to invest into the wonder must by present.

Spoiler :

Stonehenge reqiures a Monument, Stone and 185 Culture Points.

Angkor Wat requires a Temple, Stone and 300 Culture Points.

Hermitage requires 9 Museums within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Museum.

Sistine Chapel requires a Monestery, Acoustics and 500 Culture Points.

the Louvre requies a Museum, Castle and 750 Culture Points.

Sydney Oprea House requires an Opera House, Coast and 1250 Culture Points.

*Sydney Oprea House is listed here because of its side effect of increasing the Culture output of a city by 50%

Religious Wonders to be released...

Militaristic Wonders - These wonders benefit your armies strength in battle. The general rule is a city improvement, a second element too varied to be specified and a level of combined Combat Strength.

Spoiler :

Statue of Zeus reqiures a Monument, Mountain and a Combined Arms Strength of 185.

Heroic Epic requires 7 Barracks within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Barracks.

Bradenberg Gate requires a Military Academy, Military Science and a Combined Arms Strength of 750.

the Pentagon requies a Great General, Radar and a Combined Arms Strength of 1250.

Protective Wonders - These wonders benefit your armies and cities ability to defend themselves and their country. The general rule is a city improvement, Stone specifically, and a combinded total Denfesive strength of your cities.

Spoiler :

the Great Wall requires a Wall, Stone and a total of 250 Defense Points.

Himeji Castle requires a Castle, Stone and a total of 400 Defense Points.

the Kremlin requires a Wall, Castle and a total of 500 Defense Points.

Popular Wonders - These wonders benefit the happiness of the nation. The general rule is a city improvement, a quarried resource and a level of Happiness at the time of building a wonder. The excess happiness needs to be maintained during the entire construction of the wonder, if happiness drops to 50% of the original target construction ceases and is able to be continued when the happiness level returns to the target level, if happiness drops to 25% of the original target, construction is lost and needs to be restarted at a later time.

Spoiler :

Circus Maximus requires 12 Colosseums within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Colosseum.

Chichen Itza requires a Stone Works, Stone and a Golden Age. If the Golden Age ends before the completion of the wonder, the happiness level simply needs to be maintained at >1.

Notre Dame requires a University, Stone and a National Happiness level of 20.

the Forbidden Palace requires a Wall, No Palace, and a National Happiness level of 25.

Taj Mahal requires No Golden Age, Marble and a National Happiness level of 25.

Eiffel Tower requires a Broadcast Tower, Iron and a National Happiness level of 62.

Philosophical Wonders - These wonders benefit the birthrate of your Great People. The general rule is a city improvement, Stone specifically, and a total amount of Great Person Points to invest into the wonder. The points are drawn equally across the cities as well as Great People.

Spoiler :

National Epic requires 10 Monuments within the nation. The National Wonder can only be built in a city with a Monument.

the Hagia Sophia requires a Monastery, Stone and a total of 300 Great People Points.

Political Wonders - These wonders benefit your culture in a specific manner, purely affecting the rate of Social Policies. The general rule is an element too varied to specify, a particular Social Policy, and a completed Social Policy Tree

Spoiler :

the Oracle requires Incense, the Tradition Policy and the complete Liberty Tree.

Cristo Redentor requires a Mountain, the Aesthetics Policy and the complete Freedom Tree.

:c5espionage: Diplomatic Wonders to come...

Spoiler :

the United Nations require Globalization, Palace and knowledge of all other nations.

*The United Nation is listed here because of its ability to trigger the Diplomatic Victory.

I know it's a bit lengthy, but feedback and ideas are immensely appreciated.

 

[FeiLing]

Great ideas. Now you only need to find someone to make a mod from/with it^^

Some of the numbers though are too high, in particular the defense values needed for the protective wonders. Don't wanna wait to be able to build the Great Wall until industrial era or be forced to play a domination game (these are defensive wonders in the first place, why would I need 20 puppets to be able to build them?).
And 9-10 building requirements for the national wonders is insane. I've not once built that many cities. Only gotten them very very late in the game through annexing and with puppets of course you don't have control over it (moreover a puppet is basically is never gonna build an opera house).

 

[Brichals]

I really like this idea.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

This would unfortunately force most of the wonders to change the thing they give once construced. the Lighthouse gives a FREE lighthouse, but if you already build it in the same city ou won't get it for free (At least i don't think you do)

 

[awesome]

so you get two lighthouses in that city~

 

[therottweiler]

THis seems rather biased towards wide instead of tall empires.

 

[civplay]

THis seems rather biased towards wide instead of tall empires.

That. Also happiness wonder that require a certain amount of happiness really defeat there point. Other then the tech requirement there really shouldn't be any other requirements. Maybe stone can give production to certain wonders. Or a resource of iron can give production for the Effle Tower you should still be able to build it w/o a source of iron for gamming reasons. Overall even the requirement to have built all building X in each city to build natinal wonders is a nusiance.

 

[The_Quasar]

hmm... this would make it virtually impossible to play on the highest levels, as you need national wonders badly, but you can't build as many cities as are suggested in the opening post or you'll lose.

Same thing goes for many of the numbers listed in the other wonders.

How could you possibly do a 1CC without being allowed National Wonders, and virtually no others either?

Please consider too, that some people don't play on Huge maps... a requirement of 20 Puppetted cities on a Small map is ludicrous.

While some of your ideas have merit, others have not been thought through for all possibilities. I would be interested to see you rewrite it completely, taking other things into consideration.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I think a system that the Wonders of the Ancient World is a nice way

You need to earn certain number of Culture Points to be able to build The Louvre for example.

 

[Brichals]

hmm... this would make it virtually impossible to play on the highest levels, as you need national wonders badly, but you can't build as many cities as are suggested in the opening post or you'll lose.

Same thing goes for many of the numbers listed in the other wonders.

How could you possibly do a 1CC without being allowed National Wonders, and virtually no others either?

Please consider too, that some people don't play on Huge maps... a requirement of 20 Puppetted cities on a Small map is ludicrous.

While some of your ideas have merit, others have not been thought through for all possibilities. I would be interested to see you rewrite it completely, taking other things into consideration.

Well it would be a very different game that is all. It would need a lot of balancing but its probably doable. The favouring wide empires thing is a good point, but Civ5s system now that balances wide vs tall is really smartly done and better than the previous versions imo.

 

[CYZ]

THis seems rather biased towards wide instead of tall empires.

Yup, most wonders are impossible to get for a tall empire...

I don't like this idea. It's too much limitation to be honest. That works in a scenario where Wonders are a goal in itself, but in the normal game wonders are there to help you reach a certain goal.

 

[awesome]

the national wonders could just be have such and such in every city and maybe a resource. that would be pretty much the same as they are now, only without the tech and wouldn't change the post that much. the world wonders would have to be a bit different, i'm not really sure how to change those. i would say just require a certain average of happiness/whatever per city and maybe a resource for them, but i don't know.
like for example, you'd need an average of maybe 70 hammers and some copper per city to get the statue of liberty, maybe 5 or 10 culture per city and some stone for stonehenge.

 

[chrissifniotis]

Okay, mixed reviews so far, that's good.

Just to get it out of the way and for the record I can understand how the setup looks very, for want of a better word, biased towards wide empires; that's how I play - expand a bit, infrastucture the place, expand a bit more, infrastucture more, start working on wonders, then BAM! Double my size with a low income, build profit generating and happiness buildings, then BAM! Another explosion. My long games tend to result in an empire of about 45-60 cities, no puppets. And yes, they are low level games, I'm not great but I don't care so much anyway.

But back to the topic at hand; it seems that one of the big problems is the overuse of conditions to unlock the wonders, that can be easily rectified with simply figuring out what is and isn't realistic in game, with time I can work on it. Another problem is the Happiness Counter, I won't deny that it was thought up on the fly with the other counters. With the restructuring of the conditions I'll look into that as well.

In light of this and the other problems I fell compeled to ask two questions, on of which being very imporant;
1) Are the conditions of the United Nations wonder adaquet as they are right now?
I ask this because the conditions of the UN wonder are not as easily affected by whateveer changes I might add to the lists, so as it is right now I call into question its workability.
2) What made the WOTAW system work was its elegance and simplicity in the counters. If we remove all the other condidtions of the wonders and simply left counters, would there be a need to introduce a second condition?
This is very important as it asks whether or not any other conditions are even nesseccary to implement in an already workable system, for so the counters have proven workable. The respounce from this question will be the motivating factor to compiling a reasonable and workable set of conditions.

Just a reply to TheKingOfBigOz; from what I understand about the wonders, the maintainance is free, so even if a Lighthouse is built in a city, with the Great Lighthouse present the maintainance cost of the Lighthouse is reduced to 0, or at least that is how I understand it.

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

 

[Pouakai]

Haven't got the time to read through, but looks interesting - this post is merely a subscribing one to keep the topic

 

[bhavv]

Sorry, but this looks like a horrible idea to me. I don't like running wide empires at all in Civ V.

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[tetley]

I like wide empires all the way and in general I like where this is going. IMHO, we need more wonders which benefit tall empires and are virtually impossible to build with wide. example: Statue of Liberty requires that you have no puppet cities. What we need is a "you can't have everything" game.

 

[CYZ]

Hmm... Not sure I agree, it would mean you are set for a certain path. ''Going for a tall cultural empire? Well, 50% of the wonders you simply cannot build, but here's a few wonders only you can build and you don't have any competition''.

It's all limiting the choices of a player and thus creating set strategy paths...

 

[tetley]

If we kept the number of wonders the same and made half of them unavailable depending on your play style, I would agree, but if if we doubled the number of wonders and made half that unavailable, it increases the choices. Especially if some wonders were in some grey area, where it may or may not make sense depending on who you ask.

 

[CYZ]

If we kept the number of wonders the same and made half of them unavailable depending on your play style, I would agree, but if if we doubled the number of wonders and made half that unavailable, it increases the choices. Especially if some wonders were in some grey area, where it may or may not make sense depending on who you ask.

You're right ofcourse. But if we doubled the numer of wonders and made them all available to everyone that would be the highest amount of choices.

Right now only the national wonders have a real limitation (Machu Pichu and such are exceptions imo), but still you can choose to build them in any situation. They're never truly excluded, this is also strengthened by the fact they're not world wonders.

I still don't see how putting such a limitation on wonderbuilding is a positive thing to be honest. I don't mind some way of favouring choices (being able to build it faster with a certain resource/policy/terrain). But these ideas go too far and will set you up for a certain strategy and buildpath.


Edit: Just an idea I had for making wonders more exclusive without a hard limitation. You can put in a world wonder per era that you can only build if all techs in that era have been researched. So if you want the ancient era wonder you're best bet is not to get many techs in the classical era but focus on fully researching the ancient era first. Or you can just research what you want but then you'll get the wonder much later or another civ will have gotten it already.