Design a Wonder contest (public poll)

[Ekolite]

Wooooo! Thanks everyone for voting. I'm sure the team will balance it a bit...

 

[zxcvbnm]

A question about the other entrys: if they get to the game, will their authors have a chance to write the pedia entrys or is it just for the winner?

 

[Kael]

I have no problem with the person who origionated the idea writing the pedia entry as long as it seems fitting.

 

[zxcvbnm]

So who should start writing?

No, no sneakpeek attempts at all...

 

[Ekolite]

Oh.. Am I supposed to write the pedia entry?

 

[Kael]

Oh.. Am I supposed to right the pedia entry?

Its up to you, you are welcome to if you'd like. For people who like to write its cool to see your entry in the mod with your idea, but if you arent a writer sort of person its not a big deal.

 

[zxcvbnm]

But how can we know, besides the winners, which entrys will make it to the game? So we won't be writing in vain

 

[White Elk]

Also, people who are claiming I designed this because I enjoy having ridiculous advantages over the AI playing 'broken' evil civs, WTH! No... I thought up the wonder whilst readin about the Calabim in the pedia and that's where the flavour for it comes from, I did not intend to make evil civs ridiculously powerful and hadn't considerred the effects of Tower of complacency/unyileding order, I said evil civs only because I thought it fitted in more with evil civs then good ones.

I don't actually agree that evil civs are overpowered and 'broken' anyway. ...

I didn't intend for what I said to be taken that way. I didn't think you "enjoy having ridiculous advantages over the AI". I just meant that since the wonder was limited to evil civs, I thought you had the power of the Sacrifice the Weak civic in mind when designing it. Which I don't and didn't judge at all. On the contrary this is one of the first combinations which I will seek to play. I enjoy having a massive city center, and your wonder takes that to a whole new level. The only reason I didn't vote for it was because of the alignment restriction. I think an FOL civ running the Guardian of Nature civic with nothing but Ancient Forests in their expanded fat cross, will also be a very powerful combination. I don't mind the power of your wonder because the fun of it is so great. I think it might be a tad overpowered but I wouldn't call it unbalanced unless it was alignment restricted. I think its a great idea and I will enjoy having it in the game (I just hope it doesn't come too late). Thank you for your great design.

Like you, I also don't think evil civs are overpowered. But I do think the Sacrifice the Weak civic which only AV players can use, may be a bit overpowered. But all things considered I don't really know that it is actually unbalanced. But your wonder with this civic and no unhappiness limits, is extremely powerful I think. So I think it should be allowed for all. This will give the evil civs some competition for it. Which I think will add a little extra balance. Besides, its such a cool wonder with so much potential, that I'd like to build it in every game I play.

 

[White Elk]

It wont be so overpowered as you all[almost] think. Having THE tower in THE city with AV will be very hard to acheve and that is worth a price. If only the AI in shadow will remember to build wonders [a thing that I saw it has problems now] then it will be a very difficult task. Also like someone pointed out, the third ring would have to be taken from another city. I do not expect anyone to plan his cities so he has such space available.

It wouldn't be very hard to get the Tower of Complacency in the same city as the Slums. Another way to ignore the happy cap is to use a Law III Arcane unit to cast Unyielding Order in the city. And having the AV in the city is as simple as building an Acolyte. But you can still run the Sacrifice the Weak civic if your AV so it doesnt matter if the city itself is AV. If it happens to be the AV Holy City then it will be much easier to build the Meshamber of Dis though.

I don't really buy the argument for overlapping tiles. Having (or relocating) the palace in the slum city and running the God King civic makes it not much sacrifice to deny the border cities a few tiles each. Already under normal situations I will often have cities which lose tiles to another more powerful city. And its pretty easy to plan ahead for building the slums in a new city or a recently conquered one. This is made easier if only evil civs can build the wonder... because theres less competition. But its as easy as pie to build it in a new city specifically selected for use of the thrid ring when you plan ahead to spawn a Great Engineer or get to Engineering first. I've done this for wonders like the Mercurian Gate so I can build the wonder in a newly settled city right where I want it.

All that said... I like the wonder and think it will be alot of fun. Especially for FOL and Veil civs. But if the team doesn't make it available to all alignments, then I will. If available to all then I don't have any balance concerns since all civs would have the opportunity to build it themselves. I do think its a very powerful wonder, but I also think that its fun for that. And I can't wait to build this thing in an OCC. Also for an Elven supercity, a Metropolis of Dis, a Municipality of Malakim etc etc

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Slums definately need to cause unhappiness and even more unhealthiness. It is the health penalty that stops it from being overpowered.

 

[White Elk]

The Sacrifice the Weak and Guardian of Nature civics greatly reduce the effects of the health penalties. So that method of balancing kind of makes it more unbalanced since there are two religion specific civics which greatly reduce the penalties.

 

[Ekolite]

Ok sorry I misunderstood what you were saying. I aggree that if the slums are given huge penalties in health and happiness it will actually make it more unbalanced. Like White Elk said, FOL and AV civs would have no real problem by this compared to other religions. Maybe the slus should increase maintainence costs or something?

@Kael- I think I'd prefer one of you to write it, I'm not the writing sort

 

[Senethro]

I liked the maintenance cost penalty. But if you really needed a big penalty to put on it, what about removing the city's access to mana resources due to mages refusing to work in such a disgusting city?

 

[Ekolite]

You mean the cumulative bonuses? eg, for every life mana +1 health? Yeah, maybe it could stop you from being able to build a lot of buildings in the town, mage guild, training ground, brewery etc.

 

[White Elk]

I like the increased maintenance as well. I don't have any ideas for balancing besides simply not putting any alignment restrictions on it. And I do think it should have some minor health costs, but not something real big since that would tip the balance in favor of religion specific civics. Beyond that and a hefty hammer cost, does it really need much more?

But what can be done for the poor Kuriotates? I remember reading at how challenging the addition of the sprawling trait was. I can imagine that adding a fourth ring will exponentially increase that difficulty. Perhaps to the point of a fourth ring not being able to be implemented? If so then should they have an alternate use of the wonder?

 

[Ekolite]

Hmm, maybe they could draft units or something? Would it be too difficult to code a forth ring for them?

 

[Senethro]

If you denied the city access to mana resources it would be unable to build units/wonders which required mana. So if you were trying to make a super-uber-city by a God-King capital CoaTS (nice acronym!), it would be unable to construct the Towers of Mastery.

It would force specialisation, rather than throwing everything you have in one city in a braindead manner.

 

[Xuenay]

Civilizations already have forbidden units and forbidden buildings. Making one wonder forbidden for the Kuriotates is no big deal, and probably the easiest approach.

 

[xienwolf]

I don't personally think it needs too much balancing, I like to see how it can balance itself out Though I do agree that with something to remove your unhappy faces it does make things less capable of self balance. So if any balance is added, it ought to be a health penalty (maybe doubles the Unhealthy faces per population? That means that once you break your health cap all new people take 4 food instead of 3 (or 3 instead of 2 under Sacrafice the Weak).


As for saying that nobody would plan ahead and it'll take tiles from other people, we must play differently. In Civ IV you are penalized for number of cities, so I make sure to spread them as far as possible. Back in Civ III I would stack cities so that the fat crosses neighbored perfectly and there were maybe 6 unworked tiles per 5 cities in my empire. But in Civ IV, I space out all of my cities at the LEAST such that they would be able to run a 3rd Ring. Especially my capitol when I know that I don't have to worry about cultural push. It is rare to have any city within 10 tiles of my capitol.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I like to see how it can balance itself out

Wanted to propose it myself. Let see how it is doing first and then tweak it.

As for saying that nobody would plan ahead and it'll take tiles from other people, we must play differently. In Civ IV you are penalized for number of cities, so I make sure to spread them as far as possible. Back in Civ III I would stack cities so that the fat crosses neighbored perfectly and there were maybe 6 unworked tiles per 5 cities in my empire. But in Civ IV, I space out all of my cities at the LEAST such that they would be able to run a 3rd Ring. Especially my capitol when I know that I don't have to worry about cultural push. It is rare to have any city within 10 tiles of my capitol.

Yup, we play differently. A small empire is a better-to-defend empire. Also the penalty for the distance from your capitol is important for me. Altho it may be something as a habit from vanilla, dono. Has it really changed that the distance does not matter now?