Favorite World Wonder ideas

[timbuktu]

Flavian Ampitheater? So we will have Colloseum, Circus Maximus and Flavian Ampitheater. I think this is too much of this kind. Let's give something from Far Asia or Africa in this place!
For example:
1) Potala Palace with effect: whenever player loses city which has the same belief, gains extra units (free to choose?) + large amount of gold + ability to purchase non military units with faith with discount.
2) Wat Phra Kaew: no player can declare war to the builder in next 30 turns

@ThePsyborg, yea you're right, but not only Ancient Astronaut theory, it could be Lost Civilization theories e.g. Atlantis.

 

[mystikx21]

The currently proposed improvements are:

Wonder | Replaces | Role | Reason
Large Hadron Collider | -new- | free techs|most votes
Itaipu Dam | -new- | late game production bonus|unique bonus
Panama Canal | -new- | trade bonuses|unique bonus
Banaue Rice Terraces | -new- | food on hills|unique bonus
Nazca Lines | -new- | empire +% faith|unique bonus
Wat Phra Kaew | -new- | gives religious buildings lategame culture/science/gold value|unique bonus
Churches of Lalibela |Notre Dame| great prophet| Askumites were first major civ to adopt Christianity
Duomo di Firenze |Leaning Tower| great person bonus (Hagia Sophia becomes happy/faith)|more inspiring Italian wonder
Flavian Ampitheater |Mausoleum| great merchant & colosseum|commonly cited as a world wonder
Parthenon |Statue of Zeus| great general bonus|more influential
Hollywood |Neuschwanstein| tradable movie luxury resource|represents impact of movies on humanity
Bell Labs |Hubble Telescope| space race bonuses|more influential and realistic for a space bonus
Heidelberg |Oxford| free tech|represents German engineering

Just as a point of order, I had figured on Heidelberg as representing German philosophers and mathematicians/scientists outstripping British achievements in those fields (eg: Gauss+Kant+Liebniz>Newton, something like that) where engineering could go into better tanks or cheaper armies and British achievements in political philosophy and economics had social policies or Big Ben/Crystal Palace to speak for them.

 

[Skobrin]

Any of the wonders could have possibly been made by extraterrestrials, or the flying spaghetti monster. Should we really be concerned about that?

Honestly though, I'm a little concerned that you're adding too many wonders at once which could easily reduce the tension that comes with competing for wonders that support your strategy.

 

[GenjiKhan]

What do you guys think about changing the "Great Firewall" classification of "World Wonder" to "Project"?Along with that,The Pre-requisite technology could be moved to "Globalization" .

 

[Ahriman]

What do you guys think about changing the "Great Firewall" classification of "World Wonder" to "Project"

It is not too strong as currently designed (it is probably the weakest wonder in the game). I see no reason to make a change which has no effect except to:
a) Make it unbuildable with a great engineer
b) Prevent it from benefiting from the various UAs, resources and social policies that affect wonders.

 

[Seek]

The main effect of making the GF a project would be:

c) Buildable by every civ.

 

[Ahriman]

The main effect of making the GF a project would be:

c) Buildable by every civ.

True, I forgot that. But why is that desirable? Do we want every civ to become immune to espionage? Why eliminate an entire mechanic?

 

[Seek]

I'm not certain it is desirable, but thought it was worth pointing out. Another idea would be to make the GF a project unlocked by a SP in Order or Autocracy, which at least has more flavor..

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

it's likely that he didn't think about this point actually and just wanted it not buildable with GEs

 

[GenjiKhan]

I'm not certain it is desirable, but thought it was worth pointing out. Another idea would be to make the GF a project unlocked by a SP in Order or Autocracy, which at least has more flavor..

Well,It wouldn't make sense to block players that adopted Freedom tree to build the Great Firewall,mainly because something similar to a Great Firewall is being adopted in USA(but more related to widespread vigilance and less related to direct censorship);

it's likely that he didn't think about this point actually and just wanted it not buildable with GEs

Not exactly . The main reason to change Great Firewall from Wonder to Project is because such kind of thing isn't exclusive of one country in the world .

 

[Ahriman]

The main reason to change Great Firewall from Wonder to Project is because such kind of thing isn't exclusive of one country in the world

Neither is basically any other Wonder. It's not like Himeji castle is fundamentally different from other castles, or that the Kremlin is particularly different to other fortified government centers, or that the CN Tower is fundamentally different from other tall buildings or towers.

The Wonders mostly represent the people who did something First or Biggest or Most Impressively.

 

[mitsho]

That's a pretty elitest view of what culture is. Hollywood has far more impact on far more people than all the paintings hanging in the Louvre.

I've been away and busy in Real Life and there's been many posts in that time, but I wanted to point out that my comment there was meant to be sarcasm. I've got no problem with the replacement . I really need to stop being not totally direct in my internet comments....

As for the Great Firewall, I'm against turning it into a project. Not every civ should be immune to espionage and why fix something that works game-play wise? Generally speaking, I think we should get back to being as close to the base game as possible (where the base game works, of course).

If we are going to rename Oxford University, then I would suggest renaming all the National Wonders to more generic names. It's as strange to build Heidelberg everywhere as it is to build Oxford everywhere. The Hermitage is a single building, whereas the Heroic Epic refers to a general concept that you can find for nearly every civ: Robin Hood for the English, the Song of Roland or Charlemagne for the French, the Founding Fathers for the Americans, the Iliad for the Greeks, and so on. Anyone of those could take the place of the Heroic Epic, but it would feel strange to build 7 Iliads, not?

Why not rename Oxford/Heidelberg to National Institute of Technology or just National University? Hermitage can become National Museum, and we could also have a National Stadium (or Olympic Stadium) as a Happiness National Wonder. The same problem arises with the Holy Palace versus Apostolic/Potala Palace (or Borobodur, Temple of Solomon/Heaven, etc. ...). In any case, I would like to have a bit of consistency in these names, either go distinct names or generic names for all of them. (I prefer generic ones).

 

[Ahriman]

I've been away and busy in Real Life and there's been many posts in that time, but I wanted to point out that my comment there was meant to be sarcasm.

Sorry, my bad. That's the problem with the internet; you can never be sure when people are being serious or not, because any comment, no matter how seemingly bizarre, has someone who *is* saying that seriously.

Generally speaking, I think we should get back to being as close to the base game as possible (where the base game works, of course).

Yeah. I worry a bit that while incremental changes over time are ok for mod users, the cumulative shock of all the changes will be too much of an adjustment for people used to vanilla, and people who try the mod out will be discouraged and switch back to vanilla.

I'm fairly agnostic on the national wonder name changes. I'd be fine with "National University", and national college could be "National Academy" - I think "Academy" a la Plato and the like feels more ancient/classical than "College", and using both College/University might be a bit weak. "National Museum" would be fine.

Would it be possible to hardcode link a different name for each civ? I guess to do that you'd have to create a UB version for each civ. Possible, but maybe not really worth the UI clutter for a minor flavor improvement.

The change Oxford -> Heidelberg was just intended to try to highlight some of the German Enlightenment discoveries. Modern Germany often gets underrepresented in Civ, or limited to Panzers.

Holy palace sounds a bit boring, though I see your point. One thing would be to have different names for different religions (ie Apostolic Palace for Christianity, Temple of Solomon for Judaism, Potala Palace for Budhism, etc., and leave Holy Palace for anyone who uses a non-default name).
But then you have the decision of what to do for civs that don't found a religion. Would it make sense to limit such a wonder to only civs who have founded a religion?
That might not be possible in code terms either.

 

[Thalassicus]

Now that our 4 weeks of discussion are complete and the poll's over, let's narrow down the finalists. I've highlighted the ideas I'm considering to add in bold. If these are successful we can revisit the other finalists later. What are your thoughts?

Wonder | Replaces | Role | Reason
Large Hadron Collider | -new- | free techs|most votes
Itaipu Dam | -new- | late game production bonus|unique bonus
Panama Canal | -new- | trade bonuses|unique bonus, 2nd most votes
Banaue Rice Terraces | -new- | food on hills|unique bonus
Nazca Lines | -new- | empire +% faith|unique bonus
Wat Phra Kaew | -new- | gives religious buildings lategame culture/science/gold value|unique bonus
Churches of Lalibela |Notre Dame| great prophet| Askumites were first major civ to adopt Christianity
Duomo di Firenze |Leaning Tower| great person bonus (Hagia Sophia becomes happy/faith)|more inspiring Italian wonder
Flavian Ampitheater |Mausoleum| great merchant & colosseum|commonly cited as a world wonder
Parthenon |Statue of Zeus| great general bonus|more influential
Hollywood |Neuschwanstein| tradable movie luxury resource|represents impact of movies on humanity
Bell Labs |Hubble Telescope| space race bonuses|more influential and realistic for a space bonus
Heidelberg |Oxford| free tech|German philosophers, mathematicians, scientists

 

[Ahriman]

I think this sounds good.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I still think Panama Canal has no business being a buildable wonder in a civ game, I'd see it more fitting to a natural wonder instead.

 

[Ahriman]

I still think Panama Canal has no business being a buildable wonder in a civ game

I strongly agree, but I'm willing to tolerate it. We don't always get what we want.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yeah, I'm not going to lose any sleep if it gets added

it's still worth addressing though: this is stuff that's going to get outright added to the mod, so it should pass through rather stringent "quality control" . I feel unlike all the other proposed wonders, this one is definitely going to raise some eyebrows, and for good reason. it's just not very fitting, kinda like an immersion breaker or something that immediately stands out as "modded in" .

since there is no shortage of other possible wonders that would not have this issue, I think including it along with the others would be a mistake

 

[mystikx21]

Good like that.

I happen to like the Canal myself, but I agree there may be issues implementing it effectively and realistically. Nazca was the one that stands out most for me as I think that could be a national wonder bonus instead.

 

[Ahriman]

Nazca was the one that stands out most for me as I think that could be a national wonder bonus instead.

Agreed, I'm not sure where it will fit in the tech tree or gameplay wise, but I don't feel strongly about it.