King Solomon's Mines

[ExpiredReign]

I've just stumbled upon this feature for the 1st time and frankly it is quite underwhelming.

It only provides 6

Surely a religious site of that significance would attract some or benefit?

And as the game progresses it could attract tourists!

Also it is flagged as 'impassable'. Could reasonably change this. It is after all a 'mine'.

 

[albie_123]

I think tourism and production would be absolutely perfect for them.

I'd also like to think of a way to balance Mt. Kilimanjaro... as it stands right now, it's incredible!

 

[stackpointer]

I think tourism and production would be absolutely perfect for them.

I'd also like to think of a way to balance Mt. Kilimanjaro... as it stands right now, it's incredible!

I've had a barb camp spawn right next to Mt. Kilimanjaro twice now. Now I know barbarians can get high altitude training... I need to get better at handling them.

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, Kilimanjaro is too strong.

King Solomon's Mines don't have anything to do with Religion, they're just the imagination of a 19th century British guy. I don't know what they have to do with Production but it seems the Developers wanted to have a production wonder.

I'm in favour for renaming these mythical wonders anyways. Is the Fountain of Youth even in the game? Haven't seen it in quite a while. One could rename that one easily, I've got a harder time finding an appropriate name for King Solomon's mine, the NW just looks too much man-made...

6 though is quite fine at the start of the game, not sure what you'd add there to make it better. There are enough wonders, but why not, it's better than (already exists) or (not special enough).

 

[Ahriman]

I'd prefer to cut the fantasy natural wonders completely (Fountain of Youth, El Dorado, King Solomon's Mines). I don't think they fit in a historic game. It's fine for some fun in the Race for Africa scenario and the New World Scenario, to encourage exploration, but it's weird in the main game.

And the altitude training from Kilimanjaro is fantasy too.

 

[Brannock]

I'd prefer to cut the fantasy natural wonders completely (Fountain of Youth, El Dorado, King Solomon's Mines). I don't think they fit in a historic game. It's fine for some fun in the Race for Africa scenario and the New World Scenario, to encourage exploration, but it's weird in the main game.

And the altitude training from Kilimanjaro is fantasy too.

And Krakatoa gives science?! This is totally ahistorical!

 

[Thalassicus]

I plan to balance the new NWs like I did the old ones. The main problem with natural wonders is they rarely effect the game... hm...

I just had an idea - create the natural wonders at a random location midway between major civilizations. Do you think this would work? It would greatly increase their chances of influencing the game. I'm currently very familiar with map creation code, so now would be the time to try it, before the knowledge and motivation slip away.

 

[mitsho]

Hmm, probably not for all of them. One or two why not. Aren't CS often placed around those NW?

I like that they are a bit random, we don't want everything to be too easy to see (hey, NW there, so the next civ is equal tiles behind it...)

One other thing I could see: Religious NW are strongest in the very early game. Theoretically they'd be best in the range of the capital so to help you get a Pantheon (probably not a good idea). To easier get a religion, they could be placed near some civs by chance?

Or just do something with the religious wonders so they're not placed on islands far away (also true for Religious City states whose role I'm not so sure about...)

 

[Ahriman]

If they're midway between capitals, would that make it too easy to figure out where they were? I like that they reward exploration, and influence city placement, and add some mild flavor. I think that is all that we should ever expect natural wonders to do. I don't think we should want them to effect the game all that much.

 

[Thalassicus]

It would not be possible to tell exactly where the other leader is, or how far away they are. I'll create an image to demonstrate.

 

[Thalassicus]

Think of the zone between the 40-yard lines of a football field. The natural wonder randomly appears somewhere in that zone between the two teams. However, we don't know where the midline is!

All we know is the other team's about the same distance from the wonder. They could be anywhere in a large circle. Some intuition and experience might help us figure it out, but we can't know for certain.

The key differences are the wonder will exist in an important area, and not controlled by a citystate.

 

[Ahriman]

Ok, seems fine. But is really that different to random placement?

I guess one thing I do find is that natural wonders are often near lots of mountains, and so are in terrible city locations. Does this have anything to do with the fact that some natural wonders are treated like mountains for various other purposes (movement, etc.)? Might they also be treated as mountains in map creation?

 

[mitsho]

I have no idea how American Football works

But the picture makes sense. (Wondering as well about the mountain issue9

Still, I don't see the need to make them as competitive, and a mid-game (non-religious) one might even make me settle in remote locations. They are fine as a bit of flavour. What percentage of the wonders would you want to get placed like that btw.?

 

[agc28]

Is there a way to ''easily'' modify the Communitas map script to make MORE natural wonders appear in the game? If it is not too much trouble, can you let me know where to look and how to mod the code..?

I love natural wonders..I would like to see more than 7 NWs on a huge map. Maybe at least 11 or 12, or even all of them in one map.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman, mitsho
That's the thing: randomly picking tiles means the NW usually goes somewhere too distant or weak to influence the game. I see an important NW perhaps 1 of 10 games; the others are too remote from any civilization to matter, or in desolate areas we don't want to settle. A different method could ensure they appear places that matter.

@agc28
Natural wonders are created by a different AssignStartingPlots file shared by all maps. The communitas map script does not alter their placement. I don't remember what controls the quantity. I'm feeling excited about this, so I'm going to give it a try tomorrow.

 

[Ahriman]

A different method will ensure they appear in areas that matter.

Ok, that sounds promising. Good idea!

 

[Thalassicus]

I should have just said "we can improve on vanilla." I guess detailed thoughts about how to code the algorithm were unnecessary.

 

[Ahriman]

A few thoughts then:
a) Don't have their yields count in map creation. Create the map balanced with resources, then place the natural wonders on top, so that the local areas with the natural wonders are in fact superior locations.

b) For sea/coastal wonders (Gibraltar, Krakatoa, Great Barrier Reef) it might be useful to have (or to create) some minimum count of non-mountain land tiles near them (eg within a 2 radius or 3 radius). I often see Gibraltar on the end of a long thin promontory, or Krakatoa off next to some 2 tile island, so they're not going to have cities near them.

c) I can see that putting them between civilizations might make them matter more, since those areas are probably slightly more likely to be contested.

d) Yield balancing them so that they are all decent but none are game-breakingly overpowered will help.

e) +1 tourism yield in modern era for all of them?

 

[mitsho]

The communitas map script does not alter their placement. I don't remember what controls the quantity.

Judging from the various world maps that shipped with vanilla, I'm going to guess and say map size rather than the number of civs in the game. It's a complete guess though

 

[Thalassicus]

@Ahriman
I completely agree about A, and was thinking the same thing. It will actually be necessary to place them after yield balancing since their location will depend on leaders who have already been placed.

I also agree about B and D. I had some code way back in Vem that got wonders like Gibraltar to appear in better locations, but it didn't work after G&K changed the wonder placement code.

The rest sounds good too.

@mitsho
You're right, the quantity's probably in the Worlds table that controls map sizes.

Edit:
agc28, copy this to the top of the CEP_Options.sql file located in the mod folder. I think this should work, but I have not tested it. Change the quantity to whatever increase you want:

UPDATE Worlds SET NumNaturalWonders = NumNaturalWonders + 2;

If there's any problems it will likely show up in this file:

Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Logs\Database.log