New Natural Wonders

[Virtual Alex]

This whole thread is a huge overreaction. Like another poster said if 500 gold or +10 happiness will auto-win you the game, then you need to move up. I understand Slowpoke is exceptional and plays on Diety already so I guess for a player like that any "player advantage" would be seen as bad. But the VAST majority of players on this forum are probably at the king-emp level, and the VAAAAAST majority of players that do no post on any forum are probably lower than that and are happy to get these advantages. It will be fun.

This talk about Fraxis catering to "those people" is a very silly thing to say. The people who visit a forum and study the game are not the majority of players. We are of course no less important, but it's easy to see 70% of the forum up i arms. But I think if you look at the entire civ playing population most of them are happy to get "treasures" like these.

Third, the games these do appear, they will appear in an AI's border 90% of the time actually making the game harder for you (even Slowpoke!). And it also gives you an excellent and enjoyable incentive to go to war with a particular civ to get control! I would love that. I would fight a war over-seas just to get the fountain.

It would also be a great thematic event in my game. I would declare war with someone on my quest to get the fountain. Then I would send a huge army all the way there, have a big bloody slog fest, screw up my economy, murder millions and finally i have it. And then I can be left alone in the darkness screaming "BUT AT WHAAAAAAAT COOOOOOOST!!!"

I love it.

 

[Ahriman]

If you are winning a game simply because you got 500g then you need to bump up the difficulty several levels...

Nonsense. An extra settler in the very early game is a huge advantage.

 

[builer680]

Some were complaining AIs aren't competitive enough but as soon as Luck might give them an edge over *any* opponents, people raise hell in this forum (once, again!).
Whadda'ya'want, exactly?
Propaganda or cognitive experimentation with gameplay factors?
A superb balancing metronome synchronized to your own personal definition of perfection?

I highly recommend stop playing any games, right now. You simply don't fit the topo of hilarity where any given (fun, strategic, historical, flavor, fantasy, bonus, context -- such a list is much longer than you may guess!) functional components will always screw your heads to paranoia & irrational thinking.

Too easy, too tough, too this, too that.
If you can't afford to cope with CiV ruleset *as designed* -- maybe others do find their payback in many ways. And while you can always wreck everything right where you want by modding whatever suits your tasty intellect, i doubt (let me insist) that too would somehow become satisfaction enough.

Critics beware, you're a negative influence even to your own self-endulged moody swings. Next step, schizophrenia.

Using big words doesn't make you smart. Feigning exasperation by asking questions like "whaddya want" only distracts from the topic and adds nothing.

Nobody is saying it's game breaking for the AI. The AI can't win even with thousands of gold advantage and bonuses to units, production, and culture. The AI is stupid, everybody knows that.

It is game breaking for the HUMAN player both against the AI, and most especially against other HUMANS. Even if they're rare, the cases where they do appear completely turn THAT game on its head, immediately so in the case of getting 500g on turn 5.

Quit pretending you're the only voice of reason among a gaggle of complainers. Nothing anybody is saying here is unreasonable. Magical wonders and uber bonuses that tilt the scales as much as magic healing properties, or 500g on turn 5 by sheer luck, are ridiculous. They simply don't belong.

Holding them up as cool reasons to go to war with other Civs is tunnel vision. What about the Civs that can't reach them because of tech limitations like no Ocean Embarkation, with them on another continent? They just got screwed till the Renaissance Era. That is imbalanced.

Cool and different tile bonuses are a good idea. I like how NW's have different yields now. But some (500g, 10 happiness/turn, and magic healing promotion) stick out so obviously by being imbalanced that they need to be changed.

Also you spelled "indulged" wrong.

 

[Sneaks]

To be clear on a point I made earlier, these amount to auto-win buttons for players who get them that play Immortal/Deity. These rewards are the MOST imbalanced at the highest levels. The reasoning being that the player will be able to vastly exploit them, while the AI will not. (Please read earlier in the thread for the full reasoning).

 

[Virtual Alex]

Those player are a tiny demographic and should not be catered to. If the game was made to be competitive to the absolute best players in civ then it would not be fun for me, or most likely you.

500 gold, or an extra settler, or 10 happiness will not win me a deity game any time soon.

 

[magnus333]

Also, sorry if we're being overly aggressive magnus, this must be a rather annoying way to break 8 years of lurking XD

Nah, I knew it was coming.

I was vehemently against them when I first saw them as well, for just about every reason all of you are stating. But after many games with them I concluded that they add a ton of fun to the game. That really trumps everything IMO.
Plus my experience is that they are not game-breaking, game-changing yes, but breaking no.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Argue with the points they are making...

Sic-- AtteSmythe;

Bonuses of the same magnitude as established mechanics. Natural wonders that are natural, not man-made. Inclusions that are more historical than mythological.

I *DO* agree with his reasoning.
What i don't agree with is the fact that Vanilla_Gameplay mechanics *must* be handled in as many ways as there is different opinions... including mine.
I had hoped that the tremendously complex & of huge importance patch 1135 could finally bring peace to this board at least within some reasonably fair levels.
But as proven by reactions (both in scope & evaluation), that too will possibly never happen.
It's sad.
I can also be mad for being slapped or wrongfully interpreted, btw.

 

[Mathew]

I don't understand all the complaints here. Yeah they don't actually exist, but like someone else said they had a huge influence through history regardless, so I see no issue with their inclusion.

Additionally, if you find that their inclusion is game breaking than no one is stopping you from turning them off (and instructions have already been included in this thread on how to do that!

 

[Renergy]

The Natural Wonders coming in the first expansion:
...
Area-51
...

Area-51: Gives you Nanotechnology, with all the prerequisites.

 

[Sneaks]

Those player are a tiny demographic and should not be catered to. If the game was made to be competitive to the absolute best players in civ then it would not be fun for me, or most likely you.

500 gold, or an extra settler, or 10 happiness will not win me a deity game any time soon.

I agree that the game should not cater to its elite. However, this is an instance where the addition did not greatly alter play for the standard King player. Wonders that were intended for use in a DLC Scenario were added to regular gameplay because they could be fun. I compare this instead to the changes in policy picking or promotions. In both cases, a large reason for that change was because of how the elite players were exploiting a mechanic. In both cases, the change was made optional. Here we again have a change that will be utterly exploited by elite players, but this time with no capacity to turn it off other than modding or editing game files. This will have MP effects as well, where in a competitive environment, a wonder of this nature can completely alter the strategic balance of play.

Again, I do not think they should be removed from the game, because I do see their value as content. However, given their very uneven mechanic, I do believe they should be optional.

 

[builer680]

Nah, I knew it was coming.

I was vehemently against them when I first saw them as well, for just about every reason all of you are stating. But after many games with them I concluded that they add a ton of fun to the game. That really trumps everything IMO.
Plus my experience is that they are not game-breaking, game-changing yes, but breaking no.

Have you seen them in MP?

 

[builer680]

I don't understand all the complaints here. Yeah they don't actually exist, but like someone else said they had a huge influence through history regardless, so I see no issue with their inclusion.

Additionally, if you find that their inclusion is game breaking than no one is stopping you from turning them off (and instructions have already been included in this thread on how to do that!

Can't for MP, everyone has to have the same version.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'd live with them if they toned them down a bit. I'm no power-player, either, but it seems easy to see that a free 500 gold out of the gate=settler=double the size of your Civ at no cost to you.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I don't understand all the complaints here. Yeah they don't actually exist, but like someone else said they had a huge influence through history regardless, so I see no issue with their inclusion.

Additionally, if you find that their inclusion is game breaking than no one is stopping you from turning them off (and instructions have already been included in this thread on how to do that!

The problem is they existed as something you couldn't reach, not as something that was fought for. They're fairly immersion breaking (although so was the GDR and I got over that). In addition, Ponce de Leon didn't go searching for the Fountain of Youth any more than Arthur went searching for the Holy Grail (he didn't).

 

[Mathew]

Can't for MP, everyone has to have the same version.

Right so for the time being, gather a group of people together and have everyone make the same changes for your MP games.

Then petition Firaxis to make it a game option you can choose at the setup screen.

No it's not ideal, but it's not impossible to overcome the issue either.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

First thing that came to my mind when someone mentioned a "Niagara Falls" landmark was that it should provide a production bonus (perhaps increased even more if you build a hydro plant). That and gold. Not so much culture.

I'd say it has Diplomatic implications as well, Ontario/NY. Great Lakes, Border patrol, Windsor/Detroit. That sort of stuff.
Oh, hold it, i should retract this tiny paragraph -- we must argue the topic at hand.
Fountain of Youth is the Human Genome towards Immortality myth as much as the Philosopher Stone to Gold alchemy quest brought out Atomic micro_synthesis of the minds.
But that doesn't count or add either to a thread rationale?!

 

[Txurce]

I was vehemently against them when I first saw them as well, for just about every reason all of you are stating. But after many games with them I concluded that they add a ton of fun to the game. That really trumps everything IMO. Plus my experience is that they are not game-breaking, game-changing yes, but breaking no.

Trying to recap, these two Wonders should appeal to the vast majority of players, since they fall into a luck category the average game player considers fun.

They are considerably less appealing to the smaller group (including me) who find them anti-immersive and/or prefer a more equitable game based more on strategy. In SP, the better the player, the more distorting these Wonders are.

If indeed the AI is programmed to go after the Fountain en masse, then it could well be game-defining, possibly even a curse! This still goes against strategic purity, which is why I prefer it in a scenario, but it could make for the very occasional interesting goal-centric game.

This last perspective could well apply even more to MP. The FOY is so overpowered that it could spawn an instant alliance against the player who has it. (Hence "the curse.")

The "game-defining" argument doesn't apply to El Dorado in SP, since the 500g will have been spent, and the AI presumably will view the owner simply as an early very successful civ.

 

[Mathew]

The problem is they existed as something you couldn't reach, not as something that was fought for. They're fairly immersion breaking (although so was the GDR and I got over that). In addition, Ponce de Leon didn't go searching for the Fountain of Youth any more than Arthur went searching for the Holy Grail (he didn't).

This is a fair point, but again. Disable them, change their name, do whatever it is you have to do to make yourself happy and then if enough people ask, Firaxis will likely add the ability to disable them in the game setup.

 

[builer680]

Right so for the time being, gather a group of people together and have everyone make the same changes for your MP games.

Then petition Firaxis to make it a game option you can choose at the setup screen.

No it's not ideal, but it's not impossible to overcome the issue either.

The problem with that is that I play in a league, or rather just started playing in a league yesterday.

I'm 0-6 in it so far, though in normal lobby games I haven't lost yet. Go me! But if I win my first league game because I got 500g that the others couldn't, I'll feel like i cheated. Heck I may even just quit that game.

Best option would be to have "fairy tale wonders" be something you could turn off.

 

[Toady]

Can't for MP, everyone has to have the same version.

Heh i feel you....Civ V and multiplayer heh what a nasty joke... even Civ II was more MP friendly than Civ V.