Favorite World Wonder ideas

[mitsho]

Sorry, I use BlackCFC, I think it's much prettier I now changed it to DarkRed, but that was premature, DarkGreen is much easier to read. Well, not gonna change it again

 

[rhammer640]

I think the breakdowns you are using make it hard to balance based off of location. Europe may have 15 but how does that break down by civilization? Greek, Roman, English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Italian....all very major civilizations and should have representation.

North Africa/Middle East: Thats Ottomans, Byzantines, Egyptians, Babylonians, Abbasids, Omayads, Carthaginians, etc.

East Asia: China (multiple dynasties), Japan

I think this makes my point, if we break down the areas by civilizations or Peaks of power by different nations then see how the wonders break down that might be better.

As for your point about stuff being destroyed and civs we no nothing about because of that, i dont think thats a good reason to include more sub sahara wonders based off of the fact that there were probably more in that area but they were destroyed so we don't know about them.

 

[Thalassicus]

I think this makes my point, if we break down the areas by civilizations or Peaks of power by different nations then see how the wonders break down that might be better.

I agree completely. There have been hundreds of civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa, and the entire region has only 1 wonder in the current game. It's got a much lower wonder-to-civilization representation.

To put it visually, the game gives civs in the purple area more wonders than all the civs in the blue areas combined. Thousands of civilizations have few or no wonders to represent them, their time period, or region of the world. The suggestions in this thread include lots of fantastic wonders to choose from in the blue areas to improve the game's representation of humanity as a whole.

 

[Ahriman]

Long post:

Spoiler :

Edit: here is what each wonder symbolizes in a metaphorical context:

For the wonders I'm concerned about (Gotthard, Panama, Puma Punku, Nazca) the metaphorical link here feels much weaker than that of the wonder you are removing.

the role of infrastructure developments during the Industrial Revolution, and the achievement of gradually unifying the economy of Europe over the next two centuries

Pretty vague, and we already have the role of infrastructure investments from railways by actually building railways. Imperial Britain feels much more important.

Panama Canal - the time period of overt United States imperialism around 1900, including the Spanish American War.

Here the metaphor is reasonable, but the canal just feels really odd as a happiness booster, and really odd as a wonder constructed in a particular city. Whereas Eiffel Tower for Belle Epoch Paris is more straightforward.

Puma Punku - the architectural achievements of ancient South American cultures, without access to the draft animals or concrete of Eurasian civilizations.

This feels like it is covered better by Machu Piccu. Whereas Renaissance Italy isn't covered by anything.

Nazca Lines - constructed by the dominant culture in this region of South America

But that culture was fairly small and AFAIK never really had any contact with anything outside a small area. Whereas the Byzantines and Ottomans were hugely significant.

Here is the era/regional distribution I'm proposing. Europe continues to have more wonders than any other region

Here's the thing though: Europe, including North Africa and the Middle East, was an area of hugely dominant cultures that affected the rest of the world. There were other dominant civilizations in South Asia, China, and Japan, and to some extent SE Asia, Mexico/central America and Incas. Sub-Saharan Africa really didn't have dominant civilizations other than those on the Niger. Nor did North America (other than Mexico) or central Asia or the Pacific.

* * *

Gotta disagree with you here. Architectonically (?) speaking, the Gotthard Rail Tunnel is a much bigger feat than a single clock tower.

I don't think you read what I wrote. Big Ben is not about a clock tower, it is about Victorian Britain. Big Ben (or the Crystal Palace) are good representations of Victorian Britain and huge international empire. The Gotthard Rail Tunnel really isn't, its just a particular engineering feat not really linked to much of a broader theme.

* * *

There have been hundreds of civilizations in sub-Saharan Africa,

Not very big or significant ones.

civs in the purple area are represented by more wonders than all the civs in the blue areas

Civs in the purple area had more aggregate impact on the world than civs in the blue areas.

I don't think Eurocentrism is a sin, as long as it includes North Africa and the Middle East and Persia. Those were most of the Great Powers.

I would add more Persian or South Asian wonders for "balance" long before I would add more Sub-saharan African or non Aztec/Maya/Inca New World wonders.

 

[mitsho]

I think he means civilizations that are in the game.

But I don't think that's a good starting point. For one, can you name a Dutch Wonder? But also if you turn it around? Do we count Angkor Wat as none, or give it to Siam since it clearly represents South East Asia. Does the CN Tower belong to the one Canadian City State? Where do we put Christo Redentor? or Alhambra, it's not really Arabian (but Berber), but it's in Spain...

Maybe instead of the regions Thal had we can take the old Culture groups from civ3 out of the duster. They had European, Mediterranean (i.e. Ancient/Classical Civs), American, Middle East and a Generic Asian. The question of course stays wether American means Native American Civs or also included the USA (and the CN Tower ). I don't know really

EDIT: @Ahriman, I adressed the symbolics side in the very next sentence, the Gotthard can be linked to the large industrial infrastructure projects, it's just a symbol of "German" Engineering, as Neuschwanstein is. Just because the US and England destroyed their railways and don't value them at all, doesn't mean they not very significant elsewhere, from India to Japan. But I'm disgressing a lot here I think. After all, I do agree that we should have a wonder from Britain, see the other sentence you clipped away

EDIT2: @Thal

• With Nazca, we're back to the question wether wonders should appear when the technology is appropriate or when it was actually built date-wise. Chichen Itza has always felt strange that late, but it was traditionally put in the Medieval Era in Civ. In the end, both options work, but Nazca feels just more Ancient because of the technology needed to build
• Gotthard is a Swiss Tunnel, but then the Swiss are just South Germans, and a few French and Italian people. the country originated in the Holy Roman Empire, as did the Netherlands and Bohemia, two of were succesfull in their independence fight, one wasn't. But the culture stays really similar, I actually understand Dutch quite easily... I'm not actually sure what nationality the head engineer was, he could very well have been French Swiss, but I'm extrapolating a bit here for the effect

 

[Kakafika]

I will sorely miss Notre Dame if it is replaced... I've loved that wonder ever since it made its debut in Civ IV

 

[rhammer640]

I didn't mean civs in the game, more civs of great importance to history.

I actually meant the opposite than I think you took my comment Thal. If we break down the cultures with the most impact etc then we could look at the wonder breakdown a bit better, such as making sure Renaissance Italy keeps one wonder etc. Maybe list the wonders and the civs they represent and see where that chart leaves us.

Such as:

Stonehenge->Ancient Celtish
Oracle-> Greece
Hagia Sophia-> Byzantium

etc. Then see if any main ones are missing or if some have too many etc.

 

[Thalassicus]

Europe, including North Africa and the Middle East, was an area of hugely dominant cultures that affected the rest of the world. There were other dominant civilizations in South Asia, China, and Japan, and to some extent SE Asia, Mexico/central America and Incas. Sub-Saharan Africa really didn't have dominant civilizations other than those on the Niger. Nor did North America (other than Mexico) or central Asia or the Pacific.

I do not feel this opinion accurately represent human history. By the beginning of the 14th century, the African empire of Mali was the source of almost half the Old World's gold, and the search for new sources of gold was a major driving force of the Age of Exploration. That expansion dramatically changed Europe and the world at large. Firaxis viewed the Malinese important enough to include them as a civilization in Civ 4.

In addition to that, the specific sub-Saharan wonder we proposed is believed to be constructed by the Kingdom of Aksum, a dominant trading partner between Rome and the Indian Ocean which existed for eight hundred years. It was the first major civilization in the world to adopt Christianity. Surely you can agree that's an important milestone in history. That religion became the largest faith in the subcontinent, and the Askumites were likely a factor in its spread throughout Africa.

Native American culture and the Iroquois in particular directly influenced the construction of the constitution of the United States, which in turn affected all the other constitutions and republics that followed. Civilizations growing spices in the East Indies influenced trade routes throughout all of history, and were a driving force during the age of exploration.

In addition to these counterexamples, it was not possible for civilizations like you're thinking of to develop or survive in many regions of the world, due to factors like climate, disease, and natural resources. It doesn't make the accomplishments of people who lived in those regions any less significant. It just means their achievements were lost to history, especially since others wrote most of that history.

Our views of the subjective importance of different civilizations is mostly based on which records survived, and which countries happened to be closet to James Watt's birthplace.

If we break down the cultures with the most impact

This isn't feasible, for the reasons described earlier:

Upheavals and conquest destroyed a lot of information about ancient civilizations. We would know almost nothing about Greek, Roman, or Egyptian history if not for the random chance of medieval Arabic scholars and lucky findings such as the Rosetta stone. A little bad luck in history and we wouldn't know who the Greek god Artemis even was. How much else like that has been lost in history? We can't know for sure, so we have to weigh the importance many non-European wonders on their own merits, separated from the cultural contexts that are often long gone.

Many civilizations dominant in non-European parts of the world did not have the stone or draft animals to construct wonders that would last. It doesn't matter how powerful a culture/economy is if the resources or technology were not available to build lasting wonders. Even if they could build such structures, societies with non-European value structures might have placed less importance on building big monuments, and more importance on practical needs.

For those and the other reasons I've discussed, I'd like to focus on the intrinsic cultural, religious, scientific, and economic importance of each wonder, and less on the civilizations that produced them. This is the plan.

 

[Ahriman]

I think we find a few missing with that kind of scheme, though as always its hard to make a classification.

Modern North America -> Pentagon, CS Tower
Aztec Mexico -> ?
Maya -> Chichen Itza
Inca -> Maccu Picchu
Ancient Celt -> stonehenge
England -> Oxford University
British Empire -> Big Ben
France -> Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower
Rensaissance Italy -> ?
Iberia -> Alhambra (sortof)
Modern Germany -> Neuschwanstein (sorta)
Russia -> Kremlin
Rome -> Circus Maximus
Hellenic world -> various
Byzantine Empire -> Hagia Sofia
Ottoman Empire -> Hagia Sofia (sorta)
Ancient Egypt -> pyramids
Arabia -> <desert boosting one whose name I forget>
Babylon/Assyria/etc. -> Hanging gardens
Persia -> ?
India -> Taj Mahal
Khmer/Thai (not really fair to mix?) -> Angkor Wat
Japan -> Himeji Castle
China -> Porcelain army, great wall, great firewall

Others that could maybe be included in the list: Carthage, various Niger, Mongols?

 

[Ahriman]

By the beginning of the 14th century, the African empire of Mali

Like I said, other than those on the Niger. Mali = on the Niger.

In addition to that, the specific sub-Saharan wonder we proposed is believed to be constructed by the Kingdom of Aksum

I have no objection of dropping Notre Dame and taking the Churches of Laibela - as long as France keeps the Eiffel Tower.

Native American culture and the Iroquois in particular directly influenced the construction of the constitution of the United States,

I think it is a reach to suggest that native American culture was a significant influence on the US constitution when compared to the influence of Enlightenment Europe.
The US is not a construction of indigenous north americans, it is a construction of European colonists.

In addition to these counterexamples, it was not possible for civilizations like you're thinking of to develop or survive in many regions of the world, due to factors like climate, disease, and natural resources.

Agreed. Which is why those areas don't need to be represented.

. It doesn't make the accomplishments of people who lived in those regions any less significant.

It doesn't make the accomplishments less significant in some kind of moral sense, we're not saying they're inferior. But Civilization is a game about the arcs of human history, about the rise and fall of empires. Peoples in isolated areas that didn't really influence anything much *are* less significant to the great arcs of history.

Our views of the subjective importance of different civilizations is mostly based on which parts of history survived

Survived and dominated. Which is what the game Civilization is about.

on the intrinsic importance of each wonder

This is inherently subjective, and the plurality of vocal posters (which doesn't of course represent the majority of mod-users) seem to question some of the choices.
Obviously, it's your mod, but I think you're going a long way away from a balance and enhancement mod by eliminating a whole bunch of European wonders.

My specific objections are to removing Wonders representing from Imperial Britain, Renaissance Italy, France, and the Byzantines/Ottomans. I think it is hard to say that those civs didn't produce significant Wonders when compared to pre-Inca Peru or Bolivia.

And I think it is pretty hard to say that Puma Punku is instrinsically more wonderous than the Hagia Sophia.

 

[rhammer640]

ignore this post, haha i changed my mind about posting it as Ahriman said it better than my post did

 

[Thalassicus]

This discussion highlights how subjective our view is of the importance of different civilizations. It's a lot easier to decide on the significance of a wonder itself than the civilization that created it. Why represent one civilization but not another? This is one reason why I did not include this factor on the list of criteria for the vote. It's not possible to come to any conclusions about it.

Our views of the subjective importance of different civilizations is mostly based on which parts of history survived

Survived and dominated. Which is what the game Civilization is about.

I pointed out earlier our knowledge of an ancient civilization does not directly correlate to its importance. It's only by random chance that we know what we do about ancient Egyptian culture - without the Rosetta Stone its writing would likely still be indecipherable.

If we knew nothing about Egypt's culture, would that make the Pyramids any less wondrous?

You're implying that what think happened accurately represents what really happened, and that's not usually the case. The fragmentary nature of history is the main reason why the perceived importance of civilizations cannot be a major factor we use in choosing world wonders. I agree it's a factor, but I don't plan to weigh it as much as the 3 criteria in the original post, which we used for the original suggestion thread, the votes here, and the plan going forward.

 

[Ahriman]

No, as I pointed out earlier this is wrong. It's just a fluke of history that we know what we do about ancient Egypt

It is *not* a fluke of history that we know that ancient Egypt was hugely significant and influenced many other civilizations. We know this from observed histories and archaeology - you didn't need to be able to translate hieroglyphics to know that. We know it from Greek and Hebrew writings. We know it from the buildings they left and the technologies they discovered. None of these require the Rosetta Stone. Yes, the Rosetta Stone meant that we knew more about the specifics of what happened, in a way that we haven't been able to understand say some of the South American knots, but we know that the Incas had a big empire and the Nazca culture didn't.

There isn't some yet-to-be-discovered civilization in North America or Africa or Australia that had a big impact on much of the rest of the world.

Our knowledge of civilizations does correlate with importance. It isn't exact, but by and large important civilizations left marks on what followed, whether physical, technological or cultural. Particularly for anything in the last 2,000 years. We can be fuzzy on civs from 4,000 years ago, but that isn't really what this debate is about. Its pretty clear that Imperial Britain and Renaissance Italy and Ottomans and Byzantines were important. There isn't some equally important civ that we just don't know about because of a fluke of history.

The subjective nature of history is why I do not feel the perceived importance of a civilization is a factor we can use in choosing world wonders

I don't think the subjective nature of history means we can't conclude that the Italian Renaissance wasn't more important for the world than the Nazcas or Bolivians.

 

[Thalassicus]

Our knowledge of civilizations does correlate with importance. It isn't exact, but by and large important civilizations left marks on what followed, whether physical, technological or cultural.

Here are some counterexamples:

• The Indus Valley civilization is usually agreed to be one of the most important early founding civilizations of humanity, yet we know very little about its society, because the writing left behind is indecipherable. It's unlike any known language.
• Egyptian writing would be equally indecipherable if we didn't discover the Rosetta Stone.
• Incans used rope for writing instead of stone, so we know less about their society than the Mayans, yet the Incans probably had a bigger impact on world history due to their presence when the area got conquered.

These are just the examples we know of. How many other civilizations have lost their history through time? We don't know, so we can't make accurate judgements about the importance of these societies.

Even for societies we know about, importance does not always correlate to wonder-building. The Mongols had different value systems and resources than European civilizations, so they didn't build many giant marble temples, but this doesn't mean the Mongols had less impact on human history than Greece.

 

[Ahriman]

Incans used rope for writing instead of stone, so we know less about their society than the Mayans, even though the Incans has a bigger impact on world history due to their presence when the area got conquered.

But we know that the Incas had a big empire. We don't need to be able to read their writing to know that they were significant, or to know that the Maya were significant.

Even for societies we do know about importance does not always correlate to wonder-building

Ok, but again, there are big important wonder-building empires that you'd like to remove the Wonders of. "Doesn't always correlate" doesn't mean "there is never any correlation". By and large, we know the civs that had a big impact on history. The Mongols were definitely one of them, but Tonga wasn't, and nor were the Iroquois.

Anyway, I think I've posted enough here, I'm taking up too much thread-space, and we're getting off track. I think most of your proposed changes are fine, but I oppose not having an Imperial Britain wonder (either keep Big Ben or replace with Crystal Palace or Westminster), I oppose not having a French wonder (I would keep the Eiffel Tower), I oppose not having a Renaissance Italy wonder (arguably the Duomo is better than the Leaning Tower) and I oppose removing Hagia Sophia (one of the greatest architectural buildings of the world, and represents the religious influence of the Byzantines and the Ottomans). There seems to be some support for these opinions from other posters.

No argument about the subjective nature of history suggests that these civs weren't hugely important and influential, and that they weren't Wonder builders.

 

[Thalassicus]

As you said, since we don't seem to be getting anywhere on that topic, I'll try to address your specific concerns. I'm willing to add just the wonders that can't be represented in any other way, and replace wonders we seem to agree on. We can wait and discuss the more controversial ideas in the upcoming weeks. None of this is going to get done for at least another few weeks anyway. Does this sound okay?

The cultures you're concerned about have the following wonders:

• England
  Stonehenge
  Big Ben
  Oxford University
• Italy
  Leaning Tower of Pisa
  Sistine Chapel
• France
  The Louvre
  Eiffel Tower
  Notre Dame
• Turkey
  Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
  Hagia Sophia

With the earlier suggestions, they would have:

• England
  Stonehenge
  Oxford University
• Italy
  Flavian Amphitheatre
  Sistine Chapel
• France
  The Louvre
• Turkey
  Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Each culture keeps at least one wonder to represent it. I feel it makes sense to replace some redundant wonders with ideas from the "blue areas," civilizations and eras which have less representation. I'd like to represent a broader crossection of the history of the human race.

 

[rhammer640]

I agree with Ahriman above, I only think wonders should be removed if there is good reason why it is being removed, not just to replace it with a wonder from a different region.

Example:
France has 3 wonders, eiffel tower and notre dame. So I would say scrap notre dame and louve.

Pisa could be taken out cause its not really a wonder in my opinion, it wasn't supposed to lean, but it should be replaced with another from Renaissance Italy like i suggested before duomo.

Taking out Hagia Sofia for example would have to have a really good reason, but there are no other wonders from the byzantine/ottoman empires which should most definitely have a wonder represented. (edit, see below)

Basically I think it should first be decided which wonders people think would be ok to remove and would have a really good reason for it. Then we could decide what would replace it after that.

Edit:
I say keep hagia sofia and scrap mausoleum and keep eiffel tower and scrap louve

Also this is why i suggested having a chart of existing wonders per civ

 

[Ahriman]

England
Stonehenge
Big Ben
Oxford University

Celtic British Isles is rather different than Imperial Britain linguistically, politically, culturally, etc. And Oxford university is a national wonder that often doesn't show up, and is rather different to Victorian Britain.
I'd much rather drop Oxford than Big Ben/Crystal Palace, England was a minor power when Oxford uni was established. Perhaps one of the early German universities would fit as a replacement, and that would get some German content in?

Its also not really fair to count ancient Rome as the same as Renaissance Italy.

I had forgotten the Sistine Chapel and the Louvre, that is a good point. I guess my main problems there are that the Panama Canal seems so weird as a wonder that you build outside of a continental isthmus (and happiness so bizarre as an effect), and Puma Punku seems so totally unimportant and so weird as a great person effect. If you want a mesoamerican wonder, why not something Aztec/Mexican?

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

Persian, not Turkish/Ottoman or Byzantine. Also, not in the main game, right?
How is replacing DLC only wonders going to interact with the DLC?

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm okay with dropping Puma Punka. You pointed out earlier that Machu Pichu is a very similar wonder from the same region. I'm not really hard-set on most of these wonders, just the overall idea of more variety.

I included all Italian time periods together because most areas don't have a wonder to represent them for any time period.

It's easy to alter their effects/names/icons of DLC-specific wonders. For example, I replaced the Temple of Artemis's archer production bonus with an archer experience bonus. It's usually the same code as replacing non-dlc wonder effects.

 

[mystikx21]

Part of the problem with the per country critique is that these are countries with a couple of arcs or long periods of dominance. Italy has a modern era and ancient Rome and the papal states or Renaissance. All of which have had some influence on humanity as a whole in the form of innovations that I described earlier.

I am fine with removing some old wonders (or some GK additions). But I think the criteria for replacement should be stronger than the criteria for addition. I think it strays too far from the mod to go out and overhaul the wonders for cultural diversity reasons. Cultural diversity is interesting for its own basis but I don't think overrides what the major achievements "are". Adding something from Mali or Mexico plays well with that idea. Adding something from Papua New Guinea (or even the Iroquis) doesn't. As an example.