zinferno said:
My critique is more along the lines of categorization and definition versus gameplay mechanics, although I certainly have a few questions otherwise. Okay, maybe it covers all aspects.. whatever. *laughs*
First of all, thanks for the feedback! This is exacty the kind of suggestions/critisisms/etc. that I am looking for. You obviously put a fair amount of time and thought into your post, and it is much appreciated! Now on to the specifics...
Art Museum wonderful inclusion, although not sure about the Great Artist req.
I added a fifth ability for each of the Great People; the Art Museum was a logical choice, as it fits under the 'Artist' heading and is typically something that is started by someone that would be passionate about art, and not simply exist in every/any city.
Boot Camp This seems to me, being former military to be more along the line of a National Wonder than a city building. This is because are much more a national institution than a municipal one. Consider that fact that the US has one bootcamp for each of it's armed forces nationwide, not one in each city. It might also make sense to make a higher set number of barracks for an appropriate level, and even give it a higher than +2 xp per unit trained from that specific location. Want to make sure that it doesn't get too redundant with the Pentagon wonder, but i would look closer at that wonder to see how a better fit might happen.
As it stands right now, the Boot Camp requires 2 barracks to build; I myself wasn't quite sure if this was enough, either. I didn't want to go so far as to make it a national wonder though, as this didn't quite seem enough (and would become too similar to the West Point wonder). I'll go ahead and up it to require 4 barracks. Does upping it to 3xp sound fair? I don't think that it is redundant to the Pentagon (or any other building that gives XP) as the benefits can either be stacked or spread out to each of the cities, providing another layer of strategy.
Buddhist Pilgrimage, Christian Pilgrimage et.al. - Is this really a building type? The only manner i can think it might be appropriate is for the religious holy city alone but even then I don't see the necessity since it seems that the holy wonders constructed by Great Prophets seem to take care of this with their coin making abilities. Considering the number of religious buildings available (temple, monastary, cathedral/shupa) I don't understand the necessity.
As with the Art Museum, the Pilgrimages are intended to serve as a fifth ability for the Great Prophet. It effectively turns the Great Prophet into a super-missionary: as long as you have the requisite technology, they can convert any city of any civ (including ones that you do not have open borders with) to any religion without fail! As a side effect, it allows you to spread a religion that you did not found. Additionally, the Pilgrimage slowly spreads the religion to nearby cities. This can be even more useful if you're going after the new religious victory. I've also got some ideas for some religious-specific wonders that I haven't yet implemented that will make this even more important (more details on those later...)
Labor Union I think that Liberalism and Industrialism as a pre-requisites make more sense historical speaking. Corporations shouldn't be a requirement since labor unions have been around in the US for a long time as started by the socialist movements during the major industrialization movements over a hundred years ago.
Honestly, I'm not to particularly happy with the name of this building; I knew what I wanted the Great Engineer's fifth ability to be, but I didn't know what to call it that would fit; Labor Union was all I could come up with. I'm going to stick with it for now until I get a better idea. As far as the tech prereq's are considered, I have no problem changing them. However, you mention that the Labor Union should be available before Corporation, yet (in the Civ IV tech tree, anyway), industrialism comes significantly later... which do you think I should go with?
Military Academy Seems redundant to the West Point National Wonder.
As with several of the other things mentioned, the Military academy is the Great General's fifth ability. It is not redundent to West point, though, as it has different requisites (Great General vs. Level 5 Unit) and provides a different bonus (+3 XP and +25% military unit production). Additionally, it can be stacked with West Point to provide an even bigger boost.
Mill Redundant to the watermill and windmills
I added the Mill for two reasons: to provide a mid-game building to boost production, and to provide a second use for the strategic resources in the game (and take advantage of this unused mechanic in the XML files); without this building, most of the resources are either redundant (eg, you only need bronze or iron to build swordsman) or obsolete rather quickly (eg, horse). As with the Labor Union, the name is the only thing that seamed to fit. I'm opened to suggestions for other buildings that would fit...
Ranch Redundant to pasture and camp improvements and strictly speaking is not a city improvement per se. Name a major city with a ranch downtown? This is just not an urban improvement.
Same deal as with the Mill... I'm open to suggestions for something else to call it...
Science Museum along the lines of art museum, great inclusion.
Same deal as with the Art Museum; it serves as the fifth ability of the Great Scientist.
Sewer System another obvious great inclusion although seems more like a research item than anything else.
This one I took directly from Civ II, in which it served a similar purpose. Research or not, it would still need to be constructed in each of the cities; the research aspect is represented by the ability to build it.
Stock Exchange redundant to Wall Street national wonder. Not all cities have stock exchanges. However perhaps the alteration of this to a Commodity Exchange would remove this. Still would seem more appropriate as a national wonder or project.
Yet another building that was to serve as the fifth ability for a Great Person (in this case, the Great Merchant). I was kind of conflicted as to the name as well, since it is similar to the Wall Street in form and function (in the game and in RL); in a similar manner to the sewer system, I took the name and function directly from Civ II and Civ III. I prefer your idea of naming it a Commodity Exchange, though; this also seems to fit the Merchant persona better... Thanks!
Superhighway - inappropriately named IMHO. Renaming Interstate or Freeway system might seem better and remove confusion. My first thought was internet based.
Another building that I took directly from Civ II (in Civ II, it provided +1 trade/commerce on each road/railroad). I could easily rename it to interstate or freeway though, as these both convey the same thing... any thoughts on this?
What about something along the lines to a city Wi-Fi with the internet project as a prerequisite? Could be a culture an happiness modifying improvement. Make sense now that you consider that many US cities are researching them and they are definitely a municipal possibility. (Chicago, San Francisco, etc).
Interesting idea... how would you suggest that this one be implemented? My main concern is that it would make science research too cheap... especially in conjunction with a few of the other wonders that I am intending to add in (more details on these later).
Cure For Cancer NO Unhealthiness? Seems a little too much IMHO. I mean is all unhealthiness from populations REALLY because of cancer. I think a health bonus would be better utilized.
GrinningSatyr had the same thoughts in his post, earlier (on page 2). I've already got a plan laid out to resolve this balance issue, and make it mirror RL a little better...
Fort Knox Culture bonus seems a bit high for something that the general populace would never have access to. Does a big storage vault really have as much culture ability as the Eiffel Tower, Hanging Gardens, etc?
Conceeded. I will reduce the culture to 4. Although, Fort Knox was/is
significantly more than just a storage vault; it consists of over 3800 buildings, including the U.S. Armor Armory Center, the U.S. Army Armor School, the U.S. Army Recruiting Command and the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armor (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Knox). I really wanted to have this wonder only provide a gold boost to the Sergeant specialist, but the XML files don't allow for this...
Knights Templar Instead of Guilds, Banking should be a requirement since the Knights instituted the first banking systems in Europe during the Crusades. It's only one more tech step, so it doesn't change the timeline too drastically. The culture bonus is a bit high for a military wonder IMO, but the GPP makes sense.
I took this wonder right out of C3:C, including it's starting tech. I could easily change move it to banking, but to me it seems to fit better with the same tech that allows knights.
(Note: this is one of the wonders that will eventually be a religious-specific wonder)
Leonardo's Workshop - just don't seem a necessity. Seems redundant to the actual workshop improvement and while I sense the connection to Da Vinci, I think the Great Scientist or Artist ablities take this into consideration.
Again, I took this wonder right from Civ II and Civ III (although I had to change the function, as the XML doesn't allow for the same mechanics). It serves a completely different purpose than the workshop improvement, and is a particular workshop of great significance; I also don't see it as being any more redundant by name than the already-existing Globe Theatre National Wonder is to the Theatre Building. As with everything else though, I appreciate your feedback and I am open to suggestions...
does anyone else have any thoughts about this...?
Sun Tzu's Art of War Seems redundant on the Heroic Epic National wonder.
Yet another Wonder that was inspired by Civ II and Civ III. However, this wonder provides a different bonus than that of the Heroic Epic. True, you could use the XP from the Heroic Epic to give your unit the Drill I promotion, but in a city that gives a unit a fair amount of XP, your 3rd promotion requires 5XP, and your fourth one requires 7XP... this free promotion doesn't add to this scale.
The Colosseum Seems to me that it should only give bonuses if Slavery is a civic. Of course I have no idea if you can attach bonuses like that to Civics.. *shrug*
To my knowledge, this is not possible (at least, not without python, which I am trying to stay away from as the AI cannot anticipate such code changes).
The Great Wall In order to be balanced, first off it needs to be rather expensive. As seems that Construction would be a better balanced choice than simple Masonry for a requisite. To allow free walls to every city after a second level research item is just horribly unbalanced. Let's look on a historical sense. According to the tech tree, you have Stonehenge (2950 BC), Great Pyramid (2560 BC), and Parthenon (432 BC) at this level. The Great Wall was completed in 214 BC in RL so wouldn't it makes sense to delay it until the Construction research item as to keep a sense of balance and realism?
Still
another wonder that I took directly from Civ I, II, and III (in which all of them had the Great Wall buildable at the same time as the wall). As far as the cost is concerned, I based it on the same cost ratio that was given to the Stonehenge wonder compared to the Obelisk building (ie, 3.5:1). But, since the walls do not obsolete like the obelisks do, I'll go ahead and increase it to, say, 5:1 (making it cost 250 instead). If I where to change the tech that makes it available, what tech would you suggest I move it to?
Great General, Sergeant - I don't understand the necessity of these especially with the promotion system already in place.
First a little background on my thought process here: Each tech, building, and wonder in the game has a flavor assigned to it (gold, growth, science, military, production, culture, and religion); Each of the Great People in the game have the ability to research a tech related to each flavor, with the exception of the military and growth flavors. As such, it seemed fitting to add a Great Person for each of these categories; from this, the Great General and the Great Agriculturalist units were born. The Great General can be upgraded to most any unit (except for naval, mounted, helicoptor, or armor) in the game; when upgraded, the unit retains the quite powerful 'Leadership' promotion (that can only be obtained from a Great General upgrade). This promotion can then be stacked with any other promotions that you choose to give this unit. I am still working out a bug with this unit, though: when the unit is 'born', it does not have any XP from buildings or civics; I may have to add this later through python...
Shamanism Hate to do this, but this is nearly the same as the Paganism religious civic. They go absolutely, without a doubt, hand in hand so this inclusion does not make sense.
I can definitely see where the two might overlap, but so do many other of the civics options (for instance, Universal Suffrage and Emancipation); I also don't see them as being identical, so I'm not too concerned about that aspect. My original concept for Shamanism was intended to be witch doctors and the like, but in all my research 'Shamanism' was the only title that seemed to fit the tense and/or parts of speach of the rest of the civics. Although, As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not very happy with the way the whole 'Health & Social' civic category turned out... most of them are too similar. I will likely be revisiting them in a future release. Any and all sugestions are welcomed...
You have some great ideas, but i would be cautious in some areas not to be so redundant in your scope and think of how RL institutions are in a historical sense. It would not only make your job easier in the designing of the mod to par down some of these, but would also help maintain a better balance in the game. Overall though there are so cool additions and alterations. I look forward to seeing the mod as it is developed further.
Thanks again for the feedback. I am trying to be careful that I only add things that make sense, aren't redundant, and (most importantly) add a strategic element to the game, without throwing off the balance. I'm hoping that, as I continue to refine the mod (and perhaps bring some more people in on it), I will get plenty of feedback from the community to help keep these points in check. Also, consider yourself added to the credits for the mod for these valuable insights that you have contributed! Thanks again!
Note to all who read this post: this is
exactly the kind of feedback that I am looking for! (though, that's not to say that I don't want other types of feedback as well...

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