Natural Wonders brainstorming

[Leoreth]

Okay, so here is what I think about Natural Wonders right now:

• Natural Wonders are always placed on geographically accurate locations on the map. Not all available Natural Wonders will be placed on the map in every game, however. The placement logic will make sure to spread Natural Wonders roughly equally between continents. Some Natural Wonders of the same type (e.g. mountains, volcanoes, waterfalls) can be mutually exclusive, so that never all of them appear in the same game.
  
• Natural Wonders do not inherently start out revealed. Some Natural Wonders require a technology to be revealed. If you have the reveal tech, or if the wonder does not require a tech to be revealed, it will become visible on the map when a Scout or Explorer moves unto the tile or it is covered by your culture. If you have the reveal tech, Natural Wonder visibility is traded along with map trades.
• Natural Wonders can be explored. All Natural Wonders require a technology to be explored, although sometimes the explore tech can be identical to the reveal tech. If you have the explore tech, you can explore a natural wonder by moving an Explorer into the the tile. The first player to explore a Natural Wonder will receive a bonus. You do not know if a Natural Wonder has been explored yet or not, but you will receive a notification when someone you have contact with explores a Natural Wonder. Natural Wonders that are connected cannot be explored anymore.
• Natural Wonders can be connected. Natural Wonders are able to be connected if they are on a workable tile, i.e. they need to be in your city radius and covered by culture. If that is the case, the working city needs to fulfill a requirement that is specific to the Natural Wonder, for example build a specific building. Once the Natural Wonder is connected, the city receives a bonus. Connecting does not require a specific tech, but sometimes it is indirectly limited by techs that unlock the required building etc. Natural Wonders that have been explored can still be connected, however Natural Wonders that are already connected cannot be explored anymore.
• Natural Wonders can be improved. This is essentially unrelated to Natural Wonder specific mechanics, but certain Natural Wonders can receive improvements. Common improvements for Natural Wonders are Nature and Marine preserves, but it is also possible to add Pilgrimage Site or Research Station etc. as Natural Wonder specific improvements.
• Natural Wonders can become obsolete. If a Natural Wonder becomes obsolete, the effect from connecting the Natural Wonder expires. However, the Natural Wonder is still considered connected. Obsolete Natural Wonders can still be explored and improved.
• Natural Wonders may influence terrain yields independently of all the above mechanics, especially in combination with some improvements. Techs and buildings (especially Tourism and Hotels) can increase the yields of some Natural Wonders further.

Open questions:

• How can maritime Natural Wonders be revealed/explored? Currently leaning toward: Caravels or any ship carrying an Explorer.
• How can impassable Natural Wonders be revealed/explored? Some Natural Wonders are peaks and therefore impassable. I don't think it's satisfying to make those Natural Wonders passable to units that can reveal them, because before they are revealed they look just like (impassable) peaks, so it would result in tedious clicking on various peaks to see if they are secretly a Natural Wonder. Current idea: impassable Natural Wonders are revealed as soon as they are in line of sight of a Scout or Explorer. Since those Natural Wonders are usually mountains, that is plausible. Revealed Natural Wonders become passable to Explorers so they can explore them.
• Should there be a late game Explorer unit? What would it be?
  
• Can similar mechanics be applied to cultural historical research and archeology? We talked about prehistorical sites and city ruins before in this context.

Technical concerns:

• Almost all of the above is very close to resources, so that will be the way to implement Natural Wonders. This also means that Natural Wonders cannot share their tile with a "real" resource, though.
• The only downside I can see here is for interconnected Natural Wonders that span multiple tiles, like Pantanal and the Great Barrier Reef. In that case we could still place special features with unique art on the tile, along with a (maybe invisible) resource. In any case all Natural Wonder mechanics should be implemented with resources.
  
• Connecting a resource to a city is easiest implemented as a "quest" through the event system. Natural Wonders could tie into the quest system in other ways too, and the "holy mountains" quest should be removed.

Any other concerns? Something I missed? Responses welcome.

 

[ozqar]

I think it would also be interesting if great artists, great prophets, and great scientists could do something with them. For example, they could also be able to explore them for an additional bonus to what the explorer would get. The obvious examples would be in the form of additional culture of science for their nearest city, but other thoughts could be that exploring them with a great prophet could lead to the religion expanding to a few more cities.

. Alternatively, they could provide additional benefits to the buildings and actions of these great people. For example, if there's a NW in the city radius, the academy gives a higher science yield than normal, or the culture bomb gives a higher amount of culture points than normal, or perhaps cities in the vicinity of natural wonders are more likely to be chosen as founding places of religions.

Another thought would be to slightly randomize their location. I think It'd be ok to find Mt Everest anywhere in the Himalayas and if the Great Barrier was slightly east or west or had a different shape, but it remained in its general location, that would be interesting (and still realistic). On the other hand, I see that this would be a problem if NW would be making (random) resources unavailable - but perhaps the game can be set to not place them on tiles with existing resources.

 

[Force44]

I second the idea to get great persons involved with great natural wonders. Especially late game great prophets.

But overall the proposed implementation of natural wonders feels like a skipping of phase 1 and going straight for phase 2. I would have been perfectly happy with them being placed on the map as unique bonus resources. With further elaboration on them as either modmods or as the overall direction of the mod requires.

The quests with explorers (essentially creating a new unit for a new mechanic, which is reminiscent of spies to me) might become a bit convoluted in conjunction with core gameplay.

Having said that. In the past I have argued for more contingental gameplay (quests triggered by certain conditions) and this is right up that alley. So overall I am just really curious how this will all pan out!

~​

suggestion on the lategame explorer unit.

Conservationist, national unit (perhaps even a maximum of 3 would be too much)
Invisible, ignores terrain movement costs
moves 2 or 3 tiles per turn.
can board both ships and airplanes (I guess this would be the tricky part)
can be used to build nature preserves (perhaps sacrificed)
can perhaps be used to reforest (deforested) tiles.

Perhaps a late game great prophet could be turned into a certain amount of conservationists. (enabling the persue of more great natural wonders at the same time beyond the limit of the amount of legally allowed conservationists, or else get some nature reserves (almost) instantly)

~​

And Yes, please! to the archeological sites. I think it would be a great tool to include civilizations that failed to have a lasting impact on current civilizations (in the game)

~​

One final point of concern

The exclusion by connection feels a bit harsh.

The reward for pursuing discovering a great wonder (by an explorer) might get unbalanced either way (simultaneous to powerfull and to weak (because you only can get the second reward (connection) once you received the first award (exploration)))

A possible remedy would be to give all players that have explored the wonder a bonus upon completion of the connection of the great wonder. (A traderoute, or perhaps even trading company (like the silk road, the proper ingame term escapes me atm ) comes to mind)

 

[Leoreth]

I think it would also be interesting if great artists, great prophets, and great scientists could do something with them. For example, they could also be able to explore them for an additional bonus to what the explorer would get. The obvious examples would be in the form of additional culture of science for their nearest city, but other thoughts could be that exploring them with a great prophet could lead to the religion expanding to a few more cities.

I think letting great people explore natural wonders makes things a bit too complicated, both for the player and the implementation, because then on top of everything else you also need to keep track of which unit can explore which wonder. Just as a point of explanation, I do not expect many of the natural wonders that were significant early in history, especially as holy sites, to be explored at all, but quickly covered by culture and then connected right away.

The way great people can come into this is a) in the requirements to connect a natural wonder (e.g. having a settled great prophet in the city) or b) they could build the special tile improvements for natural wonders, e.g. great prophets can build pilgrimage sites, great scientists can build research stations etc.

. Alternatively, they could provide additional benefits to the buildings and actions of these great people. For example, if there's a NW in the city radius, the academy gives a higher science yield than normal, or the culture bomb gives a higher amount of culture points than normal, or perhaps cities in the vicinity of natural wonders are more likely to be chosen as founding places of religions.

I think the right way to do this is in buildings increasing natural wonders yields, including Academies or Museums.

Another thought would be to slightly randomize their location. I think It'd be ok to find Mt Everest anywhere in the Himalayas and if the Great Barrier was slightly east or west or had a different shape, but it remained in its general location, that would be interesting (and still realistic). On the other hand, I see that this would be a problem if NW would be making (random) resources unavailable - but perhaps the game can be set to not place them on tiles with existing resources.

Oh right! I wanted to include this in the open questions section but then forgot. I definitely could see natural wonder locations being randomised on a couple of tiles. For example, Mount Everest can be on its accurate location or another peak on the surrounding tiles.

I second the idea to get great persons involved with great natural wonders. Especially late game great prophets.

I think if anything prophets would be more connected to early natural wonders and their role as holy sites rather than later?

But overall the proposed implementation of natural wonders feels like a skipping of phase 1 and going straight for phase 2. I would have been perfectly happy with them being placed on the map as unique bonus resources. With further elaboration on them as either modmods or as the overall direction of the mod requires.

If they are just fancy resources, natural wonders are pointless to me. The interesting element is the discovery aspect. And it's important figuring out what this is supposed to look like to implement it in the right way.

The quests with explorers (essentially creating a new unit for a new mechanic, which is reminiscent of spies to me) might become a bit convoluted in conjunction with core gameplay.

Quests with explorers?

Having said that. In the past I have argued for more contingental gameplay (quests triggered by certain conditions) and this is right up that alley. So overall I am just really curious how this will all pan out!

Me too.

suggestion on the lategame explorer unit.

Conservationist, national unit (perhaps even a maximum of 3 would be too much)
Invisible, ignores terrain movement costs
moves 2 or 3 tiles per turn.
can board both ships and airplanes (I guess this would be the tricky part)
can be used to build nature preserves (perhaps sacrificed)
can perhaps be used to reforest (deforested) tiles.

Perhaps a late game great prophet could be turned into a certain amount of conservationists. (enabling the persue of more great natural wonders at the same time beyond the limit of the amount of legally allowed conservationists, or else get some nature reserves (almost) instantly)

Interesting. Not sure I see the connection to great prophets. Boarding airplanes is too complicated, but giving them the paradrop ability (representing small aircraft etc.) would be useful and definitely distinguish them from Exploreres.

One final point of concern

The exclusion by connection feels a bit harsh.

The idea here is that you cannot "discover" a natural wonder that is already an established part of another civilisation's culture later on. Like if Mount Fuji is on Japan, it is integrated into Japanese culture already (i.e. "connected"), and therefore a European explorer cannot show up centuries later to "discover" it. That doesn't make sense and we avoid colonialist implications that way. Same in the reverse for Asian explorers finding natural wonders in Europe.

This leaves natural wonders that are never culturally covered (e.g. Africa, Australia, South America) or those that are in areas where civs are not expected to unlock the techs to connect a natural wonder before the arrival of explorers to be discovered later in the game. The latter represents natural wonders that are too remote to be explored earlier even by civilisations who lived there (e.g. Mount Everest) or which had no special significance to locals before a specific technology made that the case.

The reward for pursuing discovering a great wonder (by an explorer) might get unbalanced either way (simultaneous to powerfull and to weak (because you only can get the second reward (connection) once you received the first award (exploration)))

No, you can get the connection without exploration. And if a wonder is connected, it cannot be explored anymore.

A possible remedy would be to give all players that have explored the wonder a bonus upon completion of the connection of the great wonder. (A traderoute, or perhaps even trading company (like the silk road, the proper ingame term escapes me atm ) comes to mind)

Having a guaranteed benefit for everyone just for sending a unit on a tile is boring to me. The interesting aspect is the race to be the first to find and explore a natural wonder.

That said, another concern that crossed my mind in this context is the AI. The AI will likely not pursue natural wonders as rigorously as the player, making the race to discover things first a lot less challenging. And I do not want natural wonders to be a bunch of goody huts for the player to collect because there is no competition. It's probably a good idea to relax the requirements for the AI a bit, such as allowing any unit to reveal/explore and connecting natural wonders simply with cultural control + tech.

 

[Enyavar]

Open questions:

• How can maritime Natural Wonders be revealed/explored? Currently leaning toward: Caravels or any ship carrying an Explorer.
• How can impassable Natural Wonders be revealed/explored? Some Natural Wonders are peaks and therefore impassable. I don't think it's satisfying to make those Natural Wonders passable to units that can reveal them, because before they are revealed they look just like (impassable) peaks, so it would result in tedious clicking on various peaks to see if they are secretly a Natural Wonder. Current idea: impassable Natural Wonders are revealed as soon as they are in line of sight of a Scout or Explorer. Since those Natural Wonders are usually mountains, that is plausible. Revealed Natural Wonders become passable to Explorers so they can explore them.
• Should there be a late game Explorer unit? What would it be?
  
• Can similar mechanics be applied to cultural historical research and archeology? We talked about prehistorical sites and city ruins before in this context.

Technical concerns:

• Almost all of the above is very close to resources, so that will be the way to implement Natural Wonders. This also means that Natural Wonders cannot share their tile with a "real" resource, though.
• The only downside I can see here is for interconnected Natural Wonders that span multiple tiles, like Pantanal and the Great Barrier Reef. In that case we could still place special features with unique art on the tile, along with a (maybe invisible) resource. In any case all Natural Wonder mechanics should be implemented with resources.
  
• Connecting a resource to a city is easiest implemented as a "quest" through the event system. Natural Wonders could tie into the quest system in other ways too, and the "holy mountains" quest should be removed.

Any other concerns? Something I missed? Responses welcome.

The basic concept is solid, I think. About the open questions:

• I would suggest that Frigates (improved Caravels) may also carry Explorers; given how the 18th century maritime explorers went about their discoveries with Frigates. I'd also say that ship types of their respective time should be enabled to make explorations on their own: Coastal ships starting with Galleon should be able to explore the "Straits of Gibraltar", "Malakka Straits" or "Gulf of Aden" (all absolete with Compass, and all yielding a marginal bonus), the ocean-worthy ships should be able to explore "Cape of Good Hope" and "Cape Hoorn" (obsolete with Thermodynamics) and so on. The Late Game should enable submarine explorations of "Mariana Trench", "Great Kelp Forest", "Atlantic Black Smoker" and "Pacific Black Smoker" (on variable locations, and since they're off-coast, not connectable).
  
• I think that all Wonders should be possible to explore from one tile adjacent, which automatically solves the "impassable" exploration. After all, the unit has to sacrifice one entire move/turn (or, maybe, several turns, depending on the wonder! The explorers didn't succeed at Mount Everest for the first time!)
  
• There is a very late game explorer unit already there: The satellite, just give them the "Exploration" button. A "Field Researcher" unit for the Industrial Era might be prudent, but just as a graphical update from the Explorer, with maybe 3 moves and slightly better defense values.
  
• You mean, uncovering artifacts from places where big battles have been fought, or where a city has once been razed? That sounds interesting, I think a Field Researcher of Force44's Conservationist would be necessary. Although I think that such an exploration should just trigger an event with options to either store the artifact in a museum (culture bonus), use it for research (science bonus) or sell it on the market (gold bonus). There could be some special case... The exploration of the Titanic with a submarine would give a movie resource!

As you suggest, the wonders are revealed once the player got the prereq tech and/or when they are first seen by a ship that is able to explore them.

But also, maybe there could be a quest about Natural Wonders that are revealed to a Nation that a player has contact with but that are neither explored nor connected yet: "Our sources in Portugal claim that their seafarers have sighted the Sugarloaf Mountain. If Spain sends an expedition now, we may explore it before them!"

 

[Force44]

To take away any misconception I might have caused about great prophets.

I envision them as great philosophers/visionaries (although not as cool as the kind from the 80's cartoon)
(eg Jane Goodall, although I am not convinced it is appropriate to ascribe the term great person to people still alive or recently deceased. Bobby Fischer was one of the smartest and most influential persons of his generation but some of his convictions could be described as, putting it mildly, questionable) The recent conservation of precious nature is (in my opinion) in large part due to them.

I brought them up because I feel late game great prophets are underpowered compared to the other great people (although personally I find no fault in that per se)

~​

For not completing a wonder you receive failgold. (afaik you receive nothing for failing a quest, but the first time I failed a quest after I started persuing said quest was when I collapsed due to instability )
Is there some kind consolation prize for not being able to explore a wonder after committing resources to the attempt?

(this hints at a concern for motivation to try to persue exploration of a wonder at all. But in all honesty I find this concern so miniscule I am not convinced it even warrants a response. The worst case scenario is some gameplay clutter.)

~​

I want to conclude by admitting I find it hard to give constructive critisism on this particular subject. Compared to Leoreth on this subject I am easily pleased. There might be some things I would try different for a first attempt (I would for examle lean more toward a naval explorer line of ships with the caraval being one of the ships in the 'upgradetree') but I am convinced the implementation as it is proposed now will be (also, and probably just as much if not more) lots of fun!

 

[Leoreth]

Is there some kind consolation prize for not being able to explore a wonder after committing resources to the attempt?

What resources have you committed? The Explorer?

(this hints at a concern for motivation to try to persue exploration of a wonder at all. But in all honesty I find this concern so miniscule I am not convinced it even warrants a response. The worst case scenario is some gameplay clutter.)

I see this whole feature as a fun piece of side content that allows you to interact with the map in additional ways at a time where most of it is already revealed, not an obligatory activity to mix max your civilisation. I think revealing the world map (especially on a random map, so not RFC) is one of the most fun aspects of the game, so this is a small element to capture some of that. I also see it analogous to the circumnavigation achievement, just a fun thing to do that needs a small to medium bonus which you could easily do without. I see most exploration rewards on the same level as that.

Compared to Leoreth on this subject I am easily pleased.

oof

There might be some things I would try different for a first attempt (I would for examle lean more toward a naval explorer line of ships with the caraval being one of the ships in the 'upgradetree')

That sounds a lot more convoluted than what I have in mind. Besides the natural wonders themselves, the point should be integration with other existing game elements (as many as possible) instead of requiring the addition of even further content to make it work. I think conceptually the idea does not warrant that degree of expansion.

 

[Steb]

Very nice ideas. Here are my comments and suggestions:

• Natural Wonders do not inherently start out revealed. Some Natural Wonders require a technology to be revealed. If you have the reveal tech, or if the wonder does not require a tech to be revealed, it will become visible on the map when a Scout or Explorer moves unto the tile or it is covered by your culture. If you have the reveal tech, Natural Wonder visibility is traded along with map trades.

That would make Natural Wonders the only thing that is revealed when standing on the tile, as opposed to having it in the line of sight of the unit. I think it would make their discovery too tedious. Making NWs revealed by the line of sight would also take care of the issue with impassable mountains. A possibility: scouts/explorers can see NWs in their line of sight, but other units must stand on the tile?

Regarding exploration, it makes sense to have a requirement to be on the tile (or adjacent to it for mountains).

• Should there be a late game Explorer unit? What would it be?

Having a late game unit (probably available in the late Renaissance, e.g. at Scientific Method or Measurement) would be cool. Names that come to mind are "naturalist", "geographer", "field researcher", "archaeologist"... but they are all somewhat too specific. Maybe the best way to do it would be to give a graphical upgrade to Explorers, and give them new abilities like spies, workers and settlers get.

• How can maritime Natural Wonders be revealed/explored? Currently leaning toward: Caravels or any ship carrying an Explorer.

Somewhat tangential, but I have a request: could all ship units be given the Caravel and Submarine's ability to carry Great People, Explorers and Spies? These units represent a single person or at most a small party, and there's no conceptual reason they wouldn't be able to board any ship unit. Ideally, there would be too kinds of slots: regular ones and single-person-unit ones. But if that's too complicated, just add the latter to every ship unit that doesn't already have slots.

---

Lastly, this may be the right time to bring back my idea about Great Explorers. We will need rewards for exploring NWs, and I think a point bonus towards the generation of a Great Explorer would make sense. (This is in addition to getting points from simply uncovering more of the map.) Thus discovering NWs becomes worthwhile as you accelerate the generation of GPs which can be used for golden ages, techs, the space race (a connection between explorers and the space race would make sense), etc. Allowing GPs te be obtained in a manner different from usual is desirable, in my opinion. This can be in addition to other NW effects.

 

[Leoreth]

Very nice ideas. Here are my comments and suggestions:

That would make Natural Wonders the only thing that is revealed when standing on the tile, as opposed to having it in the line of sight of the unit. I think it would make their discovery too tedious. Making NWs revealed by the line of sight would also take care of the issue with impassable mountains. A possibility: scouts/explorers can see NWs in their line of sight, but other units must stand on the tile?

Regarding exploration, it makes sense to have a requirement to be on the tile (or adjacent to it for mountains).

I considered that, I'm just worried that it trivialises the discovery aspect, since exploration is just getting the requirement tech and moving the unit on the tile. Maybe it should be different depending on the natural wonder? It makes sense to see peaks from a tile away, less for things like cave systems or waterfalls.

Having a late game unit (probably available in the late Renaissance, e.g. at Scientific Method or Measurement) would be cool. Names that come to mind are "naturalist", "geographer", "field researcher", "archaeologist"... but they are all somewhat too specific. Maybe the best way to do it would be to give a graphical upgrade to Explorers, and give them new abilities like spies, workers and settlers get.

Hmm, there's also Geography, but both that and Measurement come rather quickly after Exploration. I was thinking something more late Industrial or Modern. Best generic term I can think of is expedition, which I associate with 19th century onwards exploration efforts, and can be a geographic or archeological expedition. Expeditioner is a rather uncommon word but the best I can think of at the moment.

Edit: or alternatively, the current Explorer unit is renamed Adventurer (fitting for the type of New World exploring archetype this is obviously meant to represent) and we can name the later unit Explorer instead.

Somewhat tangential, but I have a request: could all ship units be given the Caravel and Submarine's ability to carry Great People, Explorers and Spies? These units represent a single person or at most a small party, and there's no conceptual reason they wouldn't be able to board any ship unit. Ideally, there would be too kinds of slots: regular ones and single-person-unit ones. But if that's too complicated, just add the latter to every ship unit that doesn't already have slots.

The slots are always the same, it's just a rule what a unit can carry. In principle it's possible to give this ability to all other units, but I am somewhat worried about how the AI would handle it.

Lastly, this may be the right time to bring back my idea about Great Explorers. We will need rewards for exploring NWs, and I think a point bonus towards the generation of a Great Explorer would make sense. (This is in addition to getting points from simply uncovering more of the map.) Thus discovering NWs becomes worthwhile as you accelerate the generation of GPs which can be used for golden ages, techs, the space race (a connection between explorers and the space race would make sense), etc. Allowing GPs te be obtained in a manner different from usual is desirable, in my opinion. This can be in addition to other NW effects.

This is a very good idea and a much better generic reward for discoveries than having small bonuses for every natural wonder exploration. It would even allow to give a significant exploration reward for the first to explore and a small one for everyone after that.

I'm currently thinking about what a Great Explorer could do and will come back with ideas shortly.

 

[Leoreth]

The recent discussions on natural wonders as a way to reward exploration gave me a half crazy idea: what if there was a new type of great person called Great Explorer?

I imagine Great Explorers to function similarly to Great Generals and Spies: the more you explore, the closer you are to getting one. Each newly discovered land tile could grant some points towards a threshold. The amount of points can be modulated: higher if using an explorer unit, lower if you are not the first to discover the tile, etc. Discovering a natural wonder or a faraway civilization could grant extra points. Discovering land through a map trade grants nothing. This way, original exploration is rewarded with more than just knowledge.

What would Great Explorers do? I’m not sure yet. They could be settled like any other great person, have an associated building, and maybe conduct a « great expedition » akin to Great Merchant trade missions, granting science or other things according to how remote you send them. Think of expeditions like Darwin’s or Amundsen’s. Great Explorers could also be used for exploring although that would be a little circular (then again, generals and spies do work in a somewhat circular fashion). I think they should also be able to start golden ages, as empires devoting resources to exploring the world is characteristic of prosperous periods. Another idea is that they could play a role in colonization, maybe founding cities on other continents without consuming a settler or upstarting such cities.

Eventually there will be a shortage of things to discover, and no more Great Explorers will be born. This is realistic.

What I like most about this is that we'd be able to grant figures like Columbus and Magellan and Cook the status they deserve. Usually they are lumped with the merchants (or artists for Polynesia) but it doesn’t really fit all that well.

(It goes without saying that I volunteer to research Great Explorer names if this idea is ever adopted)

(quoting this here for reference ...)

I would associate the concept of a Great Explorer with the following archetypes:
- ancient Cartographers/Geometers
- medieval long distance travelers (Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo)
- naval/colonial explorers (Christopher Columbus, Hernando de Soto, Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook)
- geographical expeditions (Alexander Humboldt, Henry Stanley)
- archeologists (Heinrich Schliemann, Howard Carter)
- extreme adventurers (Tenzing Norgay, Roald Amundsen)
- astronauts etc.

That's a diverse set of people but it's rather coherent, and they all do feel out of place in other types of GP to some extent.

Like you suggested, they could work like generals and spies, by having their own bar that is filled by things you do on the map:
- uncover all tiles of a region (more if you are the first to do so, regions would need to be introduced for oceans)
- reveal a natural wonder
- explore a natural wonder
- be the first to circumnavigate the world (replacing the standalone achievement)
- be the first to discover America
- be the first to discover Australia
- be the first to circumnavigate Africa
- be the first to visit all tiles on the North or South pole
- completion of space projects

For the smaller ones above, the reward should be very small unless you are the first to discover/explore.

As for abilities, here are my ideas:
- as a unit, they should have a fast movement rate, ability to enter foreign territory and all terrain, invisibility, additional sight radius, maybe: can relocate between friendly coastal cities like relocating air units
- start a Golden Age
- join city as a Great Conservationist: yields culture and science
- join unit as a Great Admiral: provides experience to naval units, unlocks special promotions (or built into the initial promotion): +2 movement, +1 vision, can enter foreign territory, can blockade, invisible, +2 cargo
- perform Great Expedition: probably to a Natural Wonder? yields research depending on the distance to the natural wonder
- perform Excavation: on city ruins: consumes the ruins and yields research
- perform Travel Report (there's probably a better word for this): in another civilisation's city, yields culture/relations/GPP (?), based on the distance to the city, its culture and number of wonders, visibility of those cities for X turns
- perform Colonial Venture: +X population and a free worker in Y overseas cities
- build a Museum: probably suits Explorers more than Artists, although museums of art and (natural) history both exist, we can either let artists build something else or even let this be a shared building between them
- build Trading Company: Trading Companies could be changed from a National Wonder to a GP building, maybe with different stats because there may be duplicates of it then
- can hurry space projects

Obviously, not all of those are applicable to all sorts of Great Explorer listed above, but that's also the case for other types. All of these would probably be too many abilities though.

 

[Leoreth]

I forgot an important consideration, do we have a Great Explorer unit model, or a way to make one from existing other unit components?

 

[merijn_v1]

C2C has a Great Hunter GP. I think that model is suitable for the Great Explorer.

EDIT:
I can't find it as a standalone model in the downloads, but I did find this. (for the VD modcomp)
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/ethnic-artstyled-greatpeople.15273/

EDIT2:
I found a female (modern) model:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/lara-croft-modcomp.14776/

 

[Leoreth]

For the female modern one. why not.

 

[Leoreth]

I also found this interesting map that is relevant to the tile exploration aspect of this (areas explored by Europeans by time period).

 

[merijn_v1]

This is the model I was looking for.

Spoiler :

 

[Steb]

Some thoughts on the proposed Great Explorer abilities:

- as a unit, they should have a fast movement rate, ability to enter foreign territory and all terrain, invisibility, additional sight radius, maybe: can relocate between friendly coastal cities like relocating air units
- start a Golden Age

These make sense.

- join city as a Great Conservationist: yields culture and science

Name sounds too specific; "naturalist" maybe? I'm not sure what this is supposed to represent exactly. What does it mean to "settle" a great explorer?

- join unit as a Great Admiral: provides experience to naval units, unlocks special promotions (or built into the initial promotion): +2 movement, +1 vision, can enter foreign territory, can blockade, invisible, +2 cargo

Sounds a bit convoluted. Also, "Great Admiral" connotes a military type of unit. Maybe "Great Captain" would be better.

- perform Great Expedition: probably to a Natural Wonder? yields research depending on the distance to the natural wonder
- perform Excavation: on city ruins: consumes the ruins and yields research

These could be merged into one action. Also, let's keep in mind that bulbing techs is an action of all standard GPs, so this would have to be more interesting, since it requires more effort.

- perform Travel Report (there's probably a better word for this): in another civilisation's city, yields culture/relations/GPP (?), based on the distance to the city, its culture and number of wonders, visibility of those cities for X turns

This is probably inspired by Marco Polo, but it sounds maybe more in line with Great Statesmen and Spies? Makes me think the Great Statesman diplomatic mission action could be improved somewhat.

- build a Museum: probably suits Explorers more than Artists, although museums of art and (natural) history both exist, we can either let artists build something else or even let this be a shared building between them

Indeed. Great Artists building museums has always felt a bit off: artists aren't the ones building the venues for showing their art! A better building for GAs, I think, would be an Art School. It can be understood as a place where art is taught, but also as a "school of art", i.e. founding a new artistic movement. That's definitely a thing that Great Artists do and that has had a big impact in some places. E.g. Viennese Secession, Bauhaus, impressionism, etc. It could keep the same effect as the museum.

The museum can get some new effects and be given to explorers. It could also be called "Natural History Museum"; "Museum" is too generic for a special rare building. Cities may have dozens of museums, but often there are only a few important Natural History Museums in even entire countries.

- build Trading Company: Trading Companies could be changed from a National Wonder to a GP building, maybe with different stats because there may be duplicates of it then

Yes! Trading companies take forever to build, I think making them a GP action would help the colonial era get going. Great Merchants could be given the action as well.

- can hurry space projects

Do we want Great Explorers to help with the space race, or to be rewards from the space race? (Or both?)

Hmm, there's also Geography, but both that and Measurement come rather quickly after Exploration. I was thinking something more late Industrial or Modern. Best generic term I can think of is expedition, which I associate with 19th century onwards exploration efforts, and can be a geographic or archeological expedition. Expeditioner is a rather uncommon word but the best I can think of at the moment.

Edit: or alternatively, the current Explorer unit is renamed Adventurer (fitting for the type of New World exploring archetype this is obviously meant to represent) and we can name the later unit Explorer instead.

"Expedition Leader"? Simply "Expedition" (would it fit even though it's not a title given to a person)? I'd leave "explorer" for the Age of Exploration.

Do we want to give a free Great Explorer when discovering some tech first? Exploration would be the obvious choice, but it's very close to other techs that give a free GP. I don't think there are any such techs in the Middle Ages, so Compass or Cartography would fit. Alternatively, Spaceflight? Tourism?

 

[Leoreth]

Name sounds too specific; "naturalist" maybe? I'm not sure what this is supposed to represent exactly. What does it mean to "settle" a great explorer?

I would say it's a former explorer settling down to focus on education, either in a university or a more public institution like a museum, even more modern celebrity explorers doing outreach via documentaries or public speaking would fit, in my opinion. For example, after exploring South America, Alexander von Humboldt was instrumental in shaping the Prussian education system. But it could also just be Jacques Cousteau making sea life documentaries.

Sounds a bit convoluted. Also, "Great Admiral" connotes a military type of unit. Maybe "Great Captain" would be better.

Well, it would be somewhat militaristic. The idea is that civilisations that were successful in exploring usually also had naval dominance in that time period.

These could be merged into one action. Also, let's keep in mind that bulbing techs is an action of all standard GPs, so this would have to be more interesting, since it requires more effort.

Yes, that's why I did not include the ability to bulb techs itself. It could be made interesting by a) scaling with distance in such a way that it can outscale normal bulbing with sufficient distance, b) scale better with game progression (where bulbing becomes less valuable over time) and c) by just giving a free amount of beakers that you can spend on current research freely and without potentially being limited to two techs. Gameplay wise, it would be a more engaging having to find a natural wonder and using the ability there than just bulbing wherever, similar to the Great Merchant ability. (By the way, I really like the Great Merchant ability and tbh would like if the amount of money to be gained was even more differentiated to make it more interesting.)

I could also always introduce an "exploration" flavour to associate with techs, I did something similar with an "admin" flavour when great statesmen were introduced. This way Great Explorers would research techs associated with them, if that's desired. A positive side effect would be that we could condition certain AIs, such as Isabella, Joao and Elizabeth to focus more on naval/exploration techs, something I wanted to do at some point anyway.

Agreed that it could be the same button and name though.

This is probably inspired by Marco Polo, but it sounds maybe more in line with Great Statesmen and Spies? Makes me think the Great Statesman diplomatic mission action could be improved somewhat.

Yeah, there should be sufficient differentiation. Every new great person kind of encroaches on existing great people types, especially those that do not have its own "resource" associated with it unlike those others. I still think representing this would be nice, and getting a benefit from traveling to and having good relations with faraway civilisations.

Maybe the inherent suitability of Great Explorers to reveal a lot of territory quickly is enough to represent this though.

I wish there were more mechanics about cultural exchange that Civ4 is sorely lacking in in my opinion, but other ways that I could think of to represent this are:

• jumpstart the trade income modifier from sustained trade (that I want to change anyway, right now it is too easy to get in my opinion)
• procure a resource you do not possess that is native on their territory (you would receive an additional copy of the resource, like movies etc. are provided by wonders from nothing)

The problem with those are that they are not inherently related to the civilisation being far away.

Indeed. Great Artists building museums has always felt a bit off: artists aren't the ones building the venues for showing their art! A better building for GAs, I think, would be an Art School. It can be understood as a place where art is taught, but also as a "school of art", i.e. founding a new artistic movement. That's definitely a thing that Great Artists do and that has had a big impact in some places. E.g. Viennese Secession, Bauhaus, impressionism, etc. It could keep the same effect as the museum.

I don't know if it makes sense for an art school to improve great people birth rate?

The museum can get some new effects and be given to explorers. It could also be called "Natural History Museum"; "Museum" is too generic for a special rare building. Cities may have dozens of museums, but often there are only a few important Natural History Museums in even entire countries.

True, but unless there is a specific museum building to be built in every city, the distinction does not matter that much.

Do we want Great Explorers to help with the space race, or to be rewards from the space race? (Or both?)

You have a good point that a game mechanic should not be the product of a given interaction and also improve said interaction. I usually avoid this kind of tight coupling because it leads to runaway effects and it's more interesting if activity in one area of the game translates into bonuses in another area.

That said, maybe having it be both works here as well? Mostly in the sense that the space race is not the primary source of explorer points, so feeding Great Explorers into space projects will not nearly give you the equivalent amount of explorer points back. I see having it both ways more as an opening to funnel a previous culture of exploration (for example, which is historically accurate, from having a preceding period of pioneering in the flight sector) into jumpstarting a space program, and likewise to at least get some explorer points out of completing space projects even though you are behind in the space race.

Another idea I had is having a late game enabled Great Explorer action that represents a generic "Space Exploration" mission. When expanding the space race I considered adding a repeatable project that would just represent generic missions like launching probes to explore other planets and landing rovers on Mars etc. I decided against that, but maybe it would work better here? Still though, part of the reason I decided against it was that I could not think of a good effect besides providing some bulk research, which conflicts with bulbing and/or the above exploration action, and is probably not very worthwhile late in the game.

Do we want to give a free Great Explorer when discovering some tech first? Exploration would be the obvious choice, but it's very close to other techs that give a free GP. I don't think there are any such techs in the Middle Ages, so Compass or Cartography would fit. Alternatively, Spaceflight? Tourism?

Sure. Intuitively it should be in the Renaissance because that's the age of exploration after all. Among the appropriate techs that could take it, I think Geography has the least value right now.

 

[Force44]

Idea for differentiating 'burning' a great explorer from 'burning' an already established great person.

Bulbing technologies with a great person is the most valuable if you can do it asap. I find that often it is hard to time my normal research right to get the most out of the great person I am about to receive.

Being able to combine different great people to get their maximum researchpotential would alleviate this burden a bit. Perhaps a great explorer could count as a blanco great person?

(either alone or in combination with another great person, since accumulating Great explorer points would happen independently of the accumulation of 'regular' great person points this combination would be a tiny bit more potent than combining two regular great people)

After all, the combined efforts of great people yield results far greater than their individual contributions.

(That is, unless they are Newton and Leibnitz )

 

[Steb]

Well, it would be somewhat militaristic. The idea is that civilisations that were successful in exploring usually also had naval dominance in that time period.

We can already attach Great Generals to naval units already, and well-known admirals are included in GG names. This is a case where it's better to differentiate great people types, IMO.

Gameplay wise, it would be a more engaging having to find a natural wonder and using the ability there than just bulbing wherever, similar to the Great Merchant ability. (By the way, I really like the Great Merchant ability and tbh would like if the amount of money to be gained was even more differentiated to make it more interesting.)

Agreed.

I don't know if it makes sense for an art school to improve great people birth rate?

Not less than museums, I'd say. One could argue that a city with a lot of artistic activity attracts all sorts of creative people and boosts output beyond the artistic fields.

True, but unless there is a specific museum building to be built in every city, the distinction does not matter that much.

Yeah, you're right. Museums really could be a regular building, but we probably don't need it.

Sure. Intuitively it should be in the Renaissance because that's the age of exploration after all. Among the appropriate techs that could take it, I think Geography has the least value right now.

That works, but Geography is sandwiched between two techs that give a free GP—Economics and Scientific Method. Not sure if that's good (because you have to choose between the three) or bad (because a tech leader can get all three in quick succession).

 

[Leoreth]

Not less than museums, I'd say. One could argue that a city with a lot of artistic activity attracts all sorts of creative people and boosts output beyond the artistic fields

Fair, but I feel like museums are more crossdisciplinary than art schools. Also we should keep the effects of different buildings distinct, whatever they are.

Yeah, you're right. Museums really could be a regular building, but we probably don't need it.

Yeah, the current placement of the Museum building is more the rarer natural history museum. I could see a regular museum building later in the game that does something like +1 happiness per 30% science rate or the like.

That works, but Geography is sandwiched between two techs that give a free GP—Economics and Scientific Method. Not sure if that's good (because you have to choose between the three) or bad (because a tech leader can get all three in quick succession).

Good point.