Wasn't planning on getting into this so soon, but a news item gob-smacked me this morning, so here goes . . .
Some sample questions that I think need to be answered:
1. What changes in the Wonders, or the Wonder mechanics, and the Natural Wonders, do we need/want in Civ VII?
2. Do we want to bring back National Wonders?
3. Do we want the ability to even start a Wonder be absolutely restricted (as in Humankind) or simply made so specific as to requirements that it is almost always restricted?
4. What different 'bonuses' or goodies do we want from Wonders?
Now to start with the news item that made me grin like a demented wombat:
Stonehenge, one of the absolutely perennial Wonders in 4X gaming (it's in Humankind as well as the Civ franchise) it turns out, was a Second Hand Wonder. That is, they have discovered evidence that a stone circle of the same size was in Wales, at Waun Mawn, 140 miles from the current Stonehenge, but only 3 miles from the quarries where the big, iconic 'blue stones' at Stonehenge were quarried. AND evidence that one of the blue stones at Stonehenge was originally erected at Waun Mawn 400 years or so before Stonehenge was started, and then later moved!
So, replace Stonehenge with Waun Mawn? Make Stonehenge, in certain very special circumstances, Mobile?
ALL Wonders from the Civ games are, I think, up for discussion, but the Civ VI versions are a good place to start a discussion. There are several that leap out as 'problematical' in their consequences and effects:
Stonehenge - see above post. Hanging Gardens
Civ VI Effects: Increases growth in all cities, + Housing in this city COMMENTS: By all accounts the Gardens were built as an Amenity, specifically to keep elements of the ruling family Happy. How this translates to Growth is not obvious Oracle
Civ VI Effects: + Culture, + Faith; Patronage of Great People costs less Faith. Districts in this city provide + Great Person points of their type. COMMENTS: The Temple of Pythian Apollo at Delphia was a Religious Wonder and Political/Personal Advisor: How this translates into more Great People, especially Great Engineers or Great Scientists, is not obvious Great Bath
Civ VI Effects: Grants bonuses to Housing and Amenities. City tiles are immune to flood damage. Adds Faith to every tile where flood damage was prevented. COMMENTS: There is NO evidence that the ‘Great Bath’ had anything to do with Flood Control, or even Irrigation. It may, in fact, have been a place of religious ablutions. Relating it to anything as abstract as Flood Control is more than a stretch. Petra
Civ VI Effects: + Food, + Gold, and + Production on all Desert tiles for this city (non Floodplains)
Must be built on Desert or Floodplains without hills COMMENTS: Actually, Petra IS built in hills, so the placement is dead wrong Colossus
Civ VI Effects: + Gold, + Great Admiral Points, + Trade Route capacity COMMENTS: The Colossal statue of Helios was a thank you gift to the Sun God and had absolutely nothing to do with trade or navies or great admirals. If it had any relationships, it was to bronze casting and sieges, since it commemorated the delivery of Rhodes from the siegeous efforts of Demetrios Poliorcetes (“Beseiger of Ciies”) Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Civ VI Effects: Grants a free Great Admiral when completed. All Great Admirals can use their retirement ability an additional time, and Great Engineers have an additional charge. COMMENTS: This was a fancy tomb of a local ruler. Halicarnassus was a commercial and trading city state, so if it had any effect, it would be on Great Merchants. not Great Admirals Huey Teocalli
Civ VI Effects: + Amenity from entertainment for each adjacent Lake tile, + Food and + Production for each Lake tile in your empire. COMMENTS: This was a big ol’ Aztec Temple, so really should have a Religion/Faith Component of some kind. Chichen Itza
Civ VI Effects: + Culture and + Production to all Rainforest tiles for this city COMMENTS: “Chichen Itza” was the entire City: the structure shown as the Wonder is the Temple of Kukulcan and should be called that. Another Temple Complex, in the game with no religion/Faith component. Angkor Wat
Civ VI Effects: + Population in all cities when built, + Housing in all cities. COMMENTS: Another Temple Complex, in fact the largest in the world, but no hint of any Religion/Faith bonus in the game. Since it was also the center of a large and elaborate water control/irrigation complex, (which the Pop and Housing bonuses presumably reflect) This is the Wonder that should have the Great Bath attributes and then some. Portala Palace
Civ VI Effects: + Diplomatic Policy slot, + Culture, + Faith COMMENTS: Portala Palace also held a huge religious library, which should be represented by Great Work of Writing or Relics slots St Basil's Cathedral
Civ VI Effects: + Relic slot, Grants + Religious Tourism to the city in which it is built, bonus Food, Production and Culture on Tundra tiles, and contains additional Relic slots. COMMENTS: St Basil’s was built nowhere near any tundra and has had nothing to do with tundra tiles/land since. On the other hand, it is an absolutely unique architectural structure even compared to other Orthodox cathedrals, which might make a better basis for its Effects. Oxford University
Civ VI Effects: + Science in this city, awards 2 randomly-chosen free Technologies when completed, + Great Scientist points per turn, + Great Works of Writing slots. COMMENTS: This comes much too late in the game for Oxford, which started gaining prominence at the beginning of the Renaissance Era, not the Industrial. Statue of Liberty
Civ VI Effects: Awards Diplomatic Victory point. All your cities within 6 tiles are always 100% Loyal COMMENTS: The Loyalty is appropriate, and the Diplomatic more indirectly, but the Statute as a symbol of Immigration and therefore Growth is missing Eiffel Tower
Civ VI Effects: All tiles in your civilization get + Appeal.
Requires: Steel Tech COMMENTS: Again, a Wonder Too Late: the Eiffel was not made of steel, but wrought iron, and is a symbol of Industrial Era Technology, not Modern Era. Also, the bonus to Appeal is much later: when it was built, it was considered an Eyesore!
General Comments on Cv VI Wonders:
The greatest effects from Wonders are in the generation of Great Works/slots and Great People: 18 out of 97 Wonders (Pre-NFP, when I originally wrote this) generate those, and another 14 Wonders generate Culture one way or the other, so, basically, 1/3 of all Wonders are related to the Cultural game. At the other extreme, only 6 Wonders have any direct effect on land or sea military units and accomplishments, so the Domination Game is not a Wonder game - quite the opposite.
In between, Gold and Trade-related Wonders total 12, the same as Religious Wonders and more than any Wonders related to Happiness/Amenities or Production or Diplomacy/GovernorsEnvoys. BUT there are another 4 Wonders in the game that are religious structures that have no religious component at all in the game. Were this to be corrected, then Religious Wonders would be second only to those generating Great People points or Great Works slots, and some of those also have religious (Relics, Religious Art) effects.
The other interesting point is that ALL of the 7 Wonders affecting Growth (Food Supply, fertility) and the 3 that directly affect military units are in the first half of the game. Only Policies and Improvements can directly help your Growth rate later in the game. Likewise, only 4 Wonders directly affect Science, so, again, only Projects, Improvements, Districts, and other non-Wonder mechanisms will get you to a Science Victory. On the other hand, their scarcity makes the Science Wonders all that much more important: Great Library, University of Sankore, Oxford University, and the Amundsen-Scott Station should be on your priority list if Science/Science Victory is your focus, but it will require building cities in deserts and tundra to get all of them. Hello Sweden!
I want wonder tiles to be workable so you don't have dead tiles, especially since districts aren't the most desirable tiles to work till the late game, which makes the Natural Wonders that give district adjacency like Paititi so annoying.
3. Do we want the ability to even start a Wonder be absolutely restricted (as in Humankind) or simply made so specific as to requirements that it is almost always restricted?
The problem with restricting to first come first serve is that there are so many variables involved in getting and finishing a wonder. Like say I want Statue of Liberty but I'm going for a science victory I won't get to it first but I can maybe still get it because I've unlocked Industrialization and can build it faster which allows for a variety of playstyles that a lock-in mechanic wouldn't.
If the devs can make it work I'd prefer getting some "lesser" wonder for not finishing first. Like you don't finish the Colosseum so you the Lesseum that only gives +1 culture/loyalty/amenities but I'm not sure how would work with the policy card wonders or something like Angkor Wat because you can't get .5 population. You would have to start within a reasonable amount of time after unlocking it, so no starting the Colosseum in the Industrial Era and then getting the Lesseum for not finishing first, and get "lost" production towards whatever you produce after the wonder. Also, maybe you are locked in to building the wonder until finished unless some declares war on you.
Another possibility is to classify Wonder as to the general Bonus Effects: Religion, Commerce, Military, Production, Great People, etc. Then provide a choice of 'Wonder' in each category and general time-frame/Era.
So, IF Stonehenge is the Ancient Religious Wonder, in the Ancient Era or general time-frame you might get a choice of:
Gobekli Tepe (Anatolia, 9500 BCE)
Stone Henge/Waun Mawn (3500 - 2200 BCE)
Tarxian Temples (Malta, 3600 - 3000 BCE)
White Temple (on the Anu Ziggurat in Uruk, 3500 BCE)
Goseck Circle ("woodhenge", central Germany, 4900 - 4700 BCE)
Some of these have other 'auxiliary' attributes: Stonehenge and Goseck as calenders, the Anu Ziggurat and White Temple as a 'kernel' around which a city developed, etc. That means they should not all be identical, but share the basic attribute of Starting a Religion, perhaps. That means the principle could be extended to Wonders throughout the game, in each Era perhaps categorizing the Wonders according to a Basic Bonus: Religion, Science, Commerce, Military, Loyalty, Food, etc.
Should Civs get a 'special bonus' for building their own Wonders or should there be Civ Specific Wonders?
I don't think so, although I play frequently with a 'personal goal' of building all the Wonders from the Civ I'm playing. The problem is, as said, that some Civs are Wonder Heavy and others distinctly Wonder Light, and some Wonders aren't related directly to any Civ in the game: Petra springs to mind.
Also, Civ Specific, I think, can better be done with a National Wonders mechanic or by making the requirements to start a Wonder more onerous so that the In-Game situation will make a Wonder effectively Civ-Specific, but not necessarily the same Civ all the time regardless of the situation.
Should Civs get a 'special bonus' for building their own Wonders or should there be Civ Specific Wonders?
I don't think so, although I play frequently with a 'personal goal' of building all the Wonders from the Civ I'm playing. The problem is, as said, that some Civs are Wonder Heavy and others distinctly Wonder Light, and some Wonders aren't related directly to any Civ in the game: Petra springs to mind.
Also, Civ Specific, I think, can better be done with a National Wonders mechanic or by making the requirements to start a Wonder more onerous so that the In-Game situation will make a Wonder effectively Civ-Specific, but not necessarily the same Civ all the time regardless of the situation.
I feel like Firaxis really values the play as you choose element to Civ to restrict things like wonders to a specific civ or give those kinds of bonuses. Maybe something like an unique "lesser" wonder for each civ to go along with UU and UI. Say, everyone can build the Colosseum but only Rome can build the Circus Maximus that gives a lesser effect.
Stonehenge - see above post. Hanging Gardens
Civ VI Effects: Increases growth in all cities, + Housing in this city COMMENTS: By all accounts the Gardens were built as an Amenity, specifically to keep elements of the ruling family Happy. How this translates to Growth is not obvious Oracle
Civ VI Effects: + Culture, + Faith; Patronage of Great People costs less Faith. Districts in this city provide + Great Person points of their type. COMMENTS: The Temple of Pythian Apollo at Delphia was a Religious Wonder and Political/Personal Advisor: How this translates into more Great People, especially Great Engineers or Great Scientists, is not obvious Great Bath
Civ VI Effects: Grants bonuses to Housing and Amenities. City tiles are immune to flood damage. Adds Faith to every tile where flood damage was prevented. COMMENTS: There is NO evidence that the ‘Great Bath’ had anything to do with Flood Control, or even Irrigation. It may, in fact, have been a place of religious ablutions. Relating it to anything as abstract as Flood Control is more than a stretch. Petra
Civ VI Effects: + Food, + Gold, and + Production on all Desert tiles for this city (non Floodplains)
Must be built on Desert or Floodplains without hills COMMENTS: Actually, Petra IS built in hills, so the placement is dead wrong Colossus
Civ VI Effects: + Gold, + Great Admiral Points, + Trade Route capacity COMMENTS: The Colossal statue of Helios was a thank you gift to the Sun God and had absolutely nothing to do with trade or navies or great admirals. If it had any relationships, it was to bronze casting and sieges, since it commemorated the delivery of Rhodes from the siegeous efforts of Demetrios Poliorcetes (“Beseiger of Ciies”) Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Civ VI Effects: Grants a free Great Admiral when completed. All Great Admirals can use their retirement ability an additional time, and Great Engineers have an additional charge. COMMENTS: This was a fancy tomb of a local ruler. Halicarnassus was a commercial and trading city state, so if it had any effect, it would be on Great Merchants. not Great Admirals Huey Teocalli
Civ VI Effects: + Amenity from entertainment for each adjacent Lake tile, + Food and + Production for each Lake tile in your empire. COMMENTS: This was a big ol’ Aztec Temple, so really should have a Religion/Faith Component of some kind. Chichen Itza
Civ VI Effects: + Culture and + Production to all Rainforest tiles for this city COMMENTS: “Chichen Itza” was the entire City: the structure shown as the Wonder is the Temple of Kukulcan and should be called that. Another Temple Complex, in the game with no religion/Faith component. Angkor Wat
Civ VI Effects: + Population in all cities when built, + Housing in all cities. COMMENTS: Another Temple Complex, in fact the largest in the world, but no hint of any Religion/Faith bonus in the game. Since it was also the center of a large and elaborate water control/irrigation complex, (which the Pop and Housing bonuses presumably reflect) This is the Wonder that should have the Great Bath attributes and then some. Portala Palace
Civ VI Effects: + Diplomatic Policy slot, + Culture, + Faith COMMENTS: Portala Palace also held a huge religious library, which should be represented by Great Work of Writing or Relics slots St Basil's Cathedral
Civ VI Effects: + Relic slot, Grants + Religious Tourism to the city in which it is built, bonus Food, Production and Culture on Tundra tiles, and contains additional Relic slots. COMMENTS: St Basil’s was built nowhere near any tundra and has had nothing to do with tundra tiles/land since. On the other hand, it is an absolutely unique architectural structure even compared to other Orthodox cathedrals, which might make a better basis for its Effects. Oxford University
Civ VI Effects: + Science in this city, awards 2 randomly-chosen free Technologies when completed, + Great Scientist points per turn, + Great Works of Writing slots. COMMENTS: This comes much too late in the game for Oxford, which started gaining prominence at the beginning of the Renaissance Era, not the Industrial. Statue of Liberty
Civ VI Effects: Awards Diplomatic Victory point. All your cities within 6 tiles are always 100% Loyal COMMENTS: The Loyalty is appropriate, and the Diplomatic more indirectly, but the Statute as a symbol of Immigration and therefore Growth is missing Eiffel Tower
Civ VI Effects: All tiles in your civilization get + Appeal.
Requires: Steel Tech COMMENTS: Again, a Wonder Too Late: the Eiffel was not made of steel, but wrought iron, and is a symbol of Industrial Era Technology, not Modern Era. Also, the bonus to Appeal is much later: when it was built, it was considered an Eyesore!
I feel like a lot of this Firaxis coming up with an idea for a wonder and then finding the best fit given the time frame they wanted the wonder in. I don't have too big a problem with that because you can have Legions fight Samurai so I think strict historical accuracy is necessary but always welcome. Also, going off this list the game would veer way to heavily in religious gameplay at the expense of other methods.
Also, I assume the Mausoleum originally effected Admirals because it's where Artemisia ruled.
Wonders should be unlocked by action, not science. Some, sure, but f.e. conquest should unlock conquest related wonders. Not all should double down on their effects though, some should go against it and reward counterintuitive play. And some should by this way allow for some catch-up mechanics. The unlock mechanisms should be complex, so that building a wonder stays wondrous, and not a must go to, if you want something. Like Petra, if you settle a desert city. Also, such bonuses should go, no magic yields.
Lastly, I found Stonehenge always to be a strange wonder, since it should literally be built right at the start of the game. Mechanically, it's also most often a bad investment of production. That's another part, where the move towards diverse and hard-to-get unlock mechanisms shine. That way, one can lower the production costs and allow that to be spent elsewhere.
Firstly, I'd like for there to be a list of wonders, say 7 per era, but the number that are buildable in a game is restricted. So for instance on a standard map there are 7 possible wonders in the classical era, but only the first 3 can be built.
If we are sticking to building them with production then I'd like the "construction method" to be for a city to run a "wonder" project. When you hit x production, you get to select and place a wonder on the map (Unsure if it should be completed or not, from a gameplay perspective I'd prefer completed but it is cool watching a wonder be actively constructed on a map). This way if two civs are going for the same wonder, the civ that hits x production (from the wonder project) second simply pivots all their production into a different wonder. Gets rid of the whole "You are two turns away from building this massive complex but oops someone else built that exact thing so now we just give up" feeling.
Really though I think wonders should be "bought" with culture points. Like, what is a wonder if not a structure that an empire has expended much of its cultural energies into ?
I don't think national wonders are needed with a couple of what are essentially national districts.
I think that a wonder should 'suit' the civ that built it. A civ 6 example might be if Sydney Opera House boosted the appeal of all coastal tiles.
I do have a question though - do people prefer "iconic" wonders or "functional" wonders (For example Dujiangyan dam in China). I think I prefer iconic but spread throughout the world (so for example, a maximum of two wonders per era per "world region") but I'm sort of next to the fence on that one.
The question is what civs would some wonders be considered part of?
Would Stonehenge only be constructed by England, despite it being built by people that predated the England that we know in the game?
Same goes for Petra, which would be considered part of Arabia, but built by the Nabateans which was part of pre-Islamic Arabia.
Also the Great Bath, Alhambra, and the Potala Palace etc. come to mind as not being part of any civ unless you count that as India, Spain and China.
Then there is the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or lately it's been theorized that it was actually in Nineveh, which would be the Assyrians.
A basic and constant part of the Civ Franchise, now alongside animated Immortal Leaders and continuous 6000 year old Civilizations, is the idea that a "Wonder" is not tied to any particular Civ and can potentially at least, be built by anyone. I'd be very surprised if they stepped away from that in Civ VII
On the other hand, a great many people have commented on the frustration of getting a Wonder 'stolen' from you by another Civ, so I would suspect that some kind of mechanic that either gave you a Consolation Wonder or Wonderette for missing the Wonder or made the selection process exclusive so there was no competition during the actual Construction Phase might be the way to go.
Making the selection exclusive, though, might just push the competition back to the selection process, so that while you are addressing the prerequisites for selecting the Wonder you still get 'beaten out' by someone else getting there first.
Historically, of course, there was no real competition. Nobody else even tried to build Pyramids as massive tombs the way the Egyptians did, and while Lighthouses were built many times, there was only one Great Lighthouse, only one Colossus.
BUT that was because the requirements/need to build them were pretty specific: Alexandria's Pharos went up because there was already major Trade and traffic from that location (side of the Nile delta towards Sicily, Greece, Rome) and the traffic needed a navigation guide. The Colossus was built because Rhodes had withstood a major siege and wanted to thank their patron God. IF you could only start the Colossus in a coastal city within X turns after it withstood a siege, how many games are going to see any Competition for it?
The most important thing about Wonders is to not read too much into their "bonuses". The bonuses exist to effectively give you a LUA/CUA-worthy reward, which for most of these wonders is a very, erm, 'out-of-the-box' interpretation of their historical background. Realistically you could rig the wonders so each of them just give flat yields, but where's the fun in that?
I'd advocate keeping them as they are, but for the sake of argument I will propose a posible change:
Instead of World Wonders that follow a pre-set blueprint, replace them with 'projects' of some sort. 'Projects' such as an offering to the gods that will give you a Great Prophet or an edifice that will make it easier to lure traders to your ports.
> Option 1 Utilitarian: you know the bonus you're getting in advance, but the form the building will take depends on your Civ's primary culture. A religious wonder for the English may take the shape of Stonehenge, but Greece or Rome may build something similar to the Oracle, while an asian culture might instead build a giant Buddha statue.
> Option 2 Cultural: Or, every Civ has an assigned set of possible World Wonders they can construct, but upon completion have to choose a 'Dedication bonus'. Is this wonder dedicated towards enlightenment, splendor, the gods or trade? You are given a list of pre-determined bonuses (like you are with pantheons) and choose one. This bonus remains exclusive to your Civ, and any invaders will have to either reassign the bonus or make do with a passive yield trickle instead.
just for the sake of argument here's a list of what 'Option 2' would look like for England and France:
Spoiler:
English Wonders
Ancient:
- Stonehenge - We know this one (Shared with Celts)
> Must be built on Flat lands
- Uffington White Horse - A giant image of a horse carved into a hill
> Must be built on a Hill
Classical:
- Glastonbury Tor - A well-known burial mound in Somerset, furnished with a medieval tower
> Must be built on a tile without Fresh Water
- Aquae Sulis - A roman spa resort located in the city of Bath.
> Must be built on a Fresh Water tile
Medieval:
- Oxford University - One of the Oldest universities in the world
> Must be built adjacent to the City Centre
- Tower Bridge - An iconic bridge and landmark yet to appear in Civ
> Must be built adjacent to a River
Renaissance:
- Westminster Palace - Known under its informal name, 'Big Ben'
> Must be built adjacent to a River
- St. Paul's Cathedral - A well-known neogothic cathedral in London
> Must be built adjacent on a hill.
Industrial
- Crystal Palace - A former Exhibition Centre located in Hyde Park
> Must be built adjacent to a City Centre
- Blackpool Tower - A landmark adorning one of England's most beloved beach resorts.
> Must be built adjacent to coast
Modern:
- Angel of the North - A large Bronze statue adorning a hill in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear.
> Must be built on a hill
- Tate Modern - A well-known Modern Art Museum
> Must be built on flat land
Atomic:
- Edenva - Also known as the Eden Project, a series of Biospheres situated in Cornwall.
> Must be built adjacent to a forest or National Park
- The Shard - Currently the tallest building in all England
> Must be built adjacent to a City Centre.
French Wonders
Ancient:
- Steudadoú Karnag - Neolithic Site in Bretagne comprised of menhirs standing in an astrological formation.
> Must be built on a featureless tile
- Dolmen de Bagneux - One of the largest Dolmen found in France, located in the Loire and Maine department.
> Must be built on a Forest tile
Classical:
- Jardin de Vestiges - An open Air museum in Marseille, would take the shape of a natural harbour as a Wonder
> Must be built on a coastal tile
- Tournai Cathedral - A well-preserved Romanesque Cathedral, located in present day Belgium but built by the Frankish empire
> Must be built adjacent to a River.
Medieval:
- Mont St. Michel - Same as in Civ 6
>Must be built on a Coastal tile OR on Marsh OR on Floodplains
- Notre Dame - Same as in Civ 4 & 5
> Must be built adjacent to a River
Renaissance
- Basilique du Sacré-Cœur - The iconic Basilica located on the Montmartre Hill in Paris.
> Must be built on a Hill
- Versailles - The most famous of France's many royal châteaux.
> Must be build on a tile with Breathtaking Appeal
Industrial:
- Arc du Triomphe - Another iconic Parisian landmark that hasn't made it into Civ yet
> Must be Build adjacent to the City Centre
- Eiffel Tower - I wonder insult your intelligence by explaining what the Eiffel Tower is
> Must be buit adjacent to the City Centre
Modern:
- Louvre - See Civ 5
> Must be build adjacent to the City Cente
- Maginot Line - A series of fortifications build by erstwhile Defence minsiter André Maginot, represented in game by a single large fortress.
> Cannot be build adjacent to a City Centre
Atomic/Information:
- Millau Viaduct - An epic bridge spanning an entire valley near the village of Millau
> Must be built on a flat tile with at least two adjacent Hills or Mountain tiles.
- Puy du Fou - A 'traditionalist' Theme Park priding itself on the absence of 'americanized' attractions such as rollercoasters.
> Must be built on a flat tile with at least one adjacent Forest tile.
Each of these wonders can only be built during their respective Era. Fail to complete it, too bad, you lose out on the bonus. Wonders would have to be unlocked by some mechanic. Researching a tech? Reaching a Golden Age? Reaching a certain amount of population? Something.
Wonders that are no longer of use can be 'decommissioned' (read: destroyed, which spawns a Dig Site later in the game) and replaced by other Wonders, Districts, Tile Improvements or other.
From a design perspective BOTH of the options I proposed run into problems. Option 1 ties several wonders to the same ability while Option 2 would require the implementation of 10ish Wonder Models per Civilization, in addition to a wide array of bonuses you can pick from. In other words: we would be SWIMMING in potential Wonders and each of them would lose its identity in the process, nothing more than a wee bit of extra superfluous flavour. The second problem would be deciding HOW you unlock them. As all Wonders are now Equal, it can no longer be done by progressing through the Tech Tree, at least, not in the traditional sense.
So, I prefer the system currently in place. As a-historical something as a 'Wonder Race' is, Civ remains a game and requires several layers of competition. Building Wonders is a very easy way to implement it and I'd rather it remained that way. Besides, if there are fewer Wonders to build, it increases the 'Epicness' of completing one.
(though I do feel we need more late-game wonders, specifically as an additional means to improve Tourism for Civs that don't have a fancy UI or missed out on the GWAM race)
Likewise, I'm perfectly a-ok with Natural Wonders the way they are. Appeal should be made more relevant however, but that's not a point of contention for this particular thread, is it?
I've got ideas.. I'm not sure how good they are but here we go.
The 'wonder race' - It can be fun at first when learning the game. After 5 years now i'm either stacking cards and Magnus and chopping out wonders quickly or building a wonder to reduce the amount of city management. Also considering turns are 50 years when your building the Pyramids being able to build them in 1 or 2 turns is realistic.
Cost - wonders are the one building that makes sense to me to be able to build with gold. There are some wonder like the coliseum that were built in places that had enough locals to do the work most of them were built in places that likely attracted people in. Let me convert gold to production for a wonder and allow me to run a project in any city with a specialized district to add production to a wonder.
Anytime you build a wonder it should increase the output of your specialists. This fixes two problems - underpowered specialists and that it's often better to capture a wonder then to build it. That allows a turn limit to be places on the abilities of a wonder while making it still worth the cost. After the turn limit the wonder becomes a ruin that attracts tourists.
> Option 1 Utilitarian: you know the bonus you're getting in advance, but the form the building will take depends on your Civ's primary culture. A religious wonder for the English may take the shape of Stonehenge, but Greece or Rome may build something similar to the Oracle, while an asian culture might instead build a giant Buddha statue.
> Option 2 Cultural: Or, every Civ has an assigned set of possible World Wonders they can construct, but upon completion have to choose a 'Dedication bonus'. Is this wonder dedicated towards enlightenment, splendor, the gods or trade? You are given a list of pre-determined bonuses (like you are with pantheons) and choose one. This bonus remains exclusive to your Civ, and any invaders will have to either reassign the bonus or make do with a passive yield trickle instead.
I feel like under these options you would have trouble when it comes to designing certain civs.
The Cree and Mapuche come to mind as civs that would not have any pre-set wonders to choose from and would really limit the selection of civs from the Americas that aren't post-colonial nations barring the Aztec, Maya, Inca and the Muisca with Païtiti.
Cree and Mapuche can be assigned structures that were built in the area by their ancestors, and by the Canadians/Chileans that came after them. Likewise, a 'modern era civ' such as American can take its ancient/classical/medieval wonders from the English pool (which is then expanded to accomodate to them). (and you're already seeing how this is already turning more complicated by the second)
But yes, that is one of *many* reasons why I think it's best to leave Wonders as they are, with just minor adjustments to how they work for the player. The advantages of flavour and optimization don't rly wage up to that, sadly.
@Lord Lakely, I agree that Civ-Specific Wonders, although they can be worked out for many of the Civs, can't be reasonably found for all of them without invoking 'generic' Wonders to fill in and in that case, why bother?
On the other hand, I do like the idea of 'Era' or relatively timely Wonders - it always seemed to me to be pretty problematic that someone would wait until the Modern Era to build a classical temple, for instance, yet delayed Wonders seem to be a near-constant feature of the game now.
And @The googles do nothing, while Gold is certainly necessary for a lot of Wonder building, it is not necessarily the most important Resource. Virtually every Wonder requires some kind of specialized knowledge and expertese to build, whether it's quarrying and moving large stones for Stonehenge or large-scale lost wax bronze casting for the Colossus or the intricate stonework and architectural engineering skills required to erect a Gothic or other monumental cathedral/temple. I can see this being represented several ways:
1. Require X amount of Specialists to build a Wonder, either Civ-wide or in the city where it's being built.
2. Require a Great Engineer or other type of Great Person to build the Wonder - this would require generating more Great People in the game, but that's not necessarily a Bad Thing - they don't require personal animation or 'movie' clips and the designers could invoke a lot of curently-left-out people into the game. On the other hand, it could also be pretty restrictive, if a Wonder costs a Great Person every time.
My personal choice (so far!) would be to redesign almost all of the requirements for Wonders - less terrain requirements, many of which don't make much sense now anyway, but more specific requirements in Tech, Civics, in-game actions and Events, and possibly Great People, Specialists, Government Type, and even Religious-Specific Wonders to 'soak up' some of the mass of Wonderous Temples and religious sites built over the centuries.
As stated already, I don't think Civ VII is going to do away with the basic design of Wonders in the game: available to any Civ in the right circumstances, competitive to a degree (but note, with the fairly specific current terrain requirements, Civ VI is somewhat less competitive than previous Civ games when it comes to Wonder grabbing) and Permanent once built.
That last, though, could be up for change: destroying a Wonder on purpose should get a Civ Massive Diplomatic Penalties, but be possible, and Natural Disasters, in very circumscribed circumstances, should at least damage Wonders - where is the Colossus, the Pharos, or the Museum of Alexandria today? I think to include this, though, the Bonuses from the Wonders would have to be available (with effort) without the Wonder: right now, in too many cases, the bonus from the Wonder cannot be replicated by any other action, which makes the Wonder, literally, irreplaceable.
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