New Wonders: Part 3

[rhammer640]

I personally dont like the free building provided by wonders at all on any of them cause if i have already built that building it makes the wonder less desirable in that city, it makes me have to hold off some times with a certain building cause i know i want the wonder there.

 

[sukritact]

I think modders who specialize in world wonders designed art for several of these. Panama Canal and the Dam have 3d ingame models already in G&K... the stuff is there, but disabled.

I don't think there are 3D models for any of the wonders yet (except the two you've mentioned.)

Anyway, just so people know of all the wonders in this batch have art (icons and splash screens) made for them except for Bell labs.

2 new world wonders:
LHC (Ambrox: LINK)
Wat Phra Kaew (Mine: LINK)

6 replacements:
Bell Labs
Panama Canal (Ingame)
Hollywood (Mine and Pouakai's: LINK)
Churches of Lalibela (Mine and Pouakai's: LINK)
Flavian Ampitheater (Ambrox's: LINK*)
Parthenon (Ambrox: LINK)

*IMO, this would be a much nicer splash screen:

Spoiler :

Oh, and while more flavorful, I'd rather there be no free religious buildings from wonders for balance and gameplay.

 

[Ahriman]

It makes sense for a Great Mosque to be... a mosque.

So give it the effects of a mosque tied into it, but let the player still buy a "second" mosque in that city.

I don't think its fun to be pushed away from building the Great Mosque because I am already following a Mosque religion.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Ahriman's idea to simply add the mosque effect to the wonder itself does fix the issue. if there's a consensus that that boost is needed, then I think it's definitely the best idea.

 

[rhammer640]

How do others feel about wonders that provide buildings like the great library giving a library?

Id rather we just boost the wonder to not need to give a free building, when i go tall i have no problem building a library and the free one is just not exciting at all.

 

[Thalassicus]

That's a reasonable idea. I actually did boost the Great Mosque if you noticed: it gives a prophet and missionary spread now, while its original effect was basically just the missionary spread. It probably doesn't even need any other bonuses.

The topic is not important to me either way, which is why I didn't mention free buildings on most wonder effects. I think one where it does make sense is the Flavian Amphitheater. It's a different tech path from Colosseums so that 3 happiness could be helpful. What do you think? I could just make the wonder itself give 3 happiness. One nice thing about the free buildings is they're at least different, instead of the same simple yields we see in most places.

 

[Ahriman]

How do others feel about wonders that provide buildings like the great library giving a library?

I'm fine with these. The only issue is the religious follower buildings because they have a differential impact across civs.

 

[mitsho]

I still think it's more fun

And the Flavian Amphitheater is a good example of where it also makes sense for gameplay.

Btw. I think this thread provides good information on which Vanilla Wonders need a boost. It's good to see that a lot of these wonders on the latter places have already been changed in GEM/VEM.

 

[mystikx21]

Ahriman's idea to simply add the mosque effect to the wonder itself does fix the issue. if there's a consensus that that boost is needed, then I think it's definitely the best idea.

Fair enough. I am pretty sure that's what it already did in default + adding a free mosque. That seems reasonable.

 

[mystikx21]

I get what you're saying mitsho. Besides, the free buildings are a case where fun and realism outweigh other considerations. It makes sense for a Great Mosque to be... a mosque. What else would it be? I'm going to stick with it.



Rice terrace main role is food to hills, so they require a hill city. The Lalibela (we gotta spell that right) churches are mainly intended to provide a faith bonus

Working on it. Harder on a smart phone to spell check all the Ls and is.

I wasn't concerned with it requiring a hill city, I was checking if it provides the bonus just to the city it is in (like the Flavian bonus or the Rice terraces) or to any city. I assume if it's a flavor thing, it's just the city it is built in.

I think if we go with the idea of giving the mosque/cathedral bonuses but not the actual buildings themselves, I'd stick the "mosque" on Djenne, a "cathedral" on Lalibela, and a "pagoda" on either Wat (Angkor personally because it otherwise just has a one-time bonus. A powerful one, but just the one).

A monastery (which shouldn't conflict as much) on Sistine, Hagia, or Wat Phra Kaew could be fine too (though Hagia would be very powerful then)

Free colosseum on Flavian makes sense. Consider also that colosseums can be further improved by policies. So you'd could get extra happiness and culture from the wonder itself, and extra happiness and culture from the colosseum if you picked both honor and tradition (a strange combination to be sure... ) That could be a very powerful culture/happiness wonder as a result.

 

[Ahriman]

Just to be clear; I don't think that we should require that the rice terraces should require that the city is build on a hill; they should merely require a hill be nearby; even that isn't really needed, since the benefit is already tied to hills so it will only boost hills. The existing desert boosting Wonder doesn't require the city be built on a desert, right?

I can easily imagine a city on a flat piece of land would still benefit from good terracing on all the surrounding hillsides.

 

[mystikx21]

Just to be clear; I don't think that we should require that the rice terraces should require that the city is build on a hill; they should merely require a hill be nearby; even that isn't really needed, since the benefit is already tied to hills so it will only boost hills. The existing desert boosting Wonder doesn't require the city be built on a desert, right?

I can easily imagine a city on a flat piece of land would still benefit from good terracing on all the surrounding hillsides.

Petra does require it at least be next to a desert. That might be a reasonable requirement instead but I would worry about the AI impact like I already have to with Machu Picchu.

 

[Ahriman]

Petra does require it at least be next to a desert. That might be a reasonable requirement instead but I would worry about the AI impact like I already have to with Machu Picchu.

I don't think I understand your proposal.

I worry more about the AI being unable to build wonders because it doesn't consider the requirements during city placement than I do about the AI building the wonder in a city that doesn't help. That's why we changed Maccu Picchu (and hopefully observatory eventually?) to mountain-within-2-tiles rather than adjacent mountain.

Adjacent hill or hills-within-2-tiles would be fine for the terraces; I think only buildable in cities on hill tiles would be too restrictive.

 

[mystikx21]

Adjacent hill or hills-within-2-tiles would be fine for the terraces; I think only buildable in cities on hill tiles would be too restrictive.

This. I worry about Machu even with the two tile restriction. The AI isn't very good at city location so I can build it many games without worrying about when the AI does as I can always tag a mountain tile for it and it generally won't be able to compete at all.

The hills requirement with some hills nearby would help to tell the AI when it is more useful to build it, but would also restrict it a bit, which I worry about. Hills are more common, so as long as it's a 1 or 2 tile restriction, it's probably fine.

"On a hill" wasn't very good I agree.

 

[Thalassicus]

@mystikx21
Oh yes, the churches are a local bonus to the specific city, while the other stuff is a global bonus. I've clarified this in the list.

@Ahriman
The "requires hill city" Rice Terraces is due to technical limitations in the files. We can't copy the Petra method because deserts are terrain, while hills are plots. Each tile has both a plot and terrain type. The requirements we can do are:

• Hill city plot - true/false
• Flat city plot - true/false
• Mountain plot within 1 tile - true/false
• Mountain plot within 2 tiles - true/false
• Nearby terrain - any terrain type
• Prohibited terrain - any terrain type

 

[Ahriman]

The only things we can do are A) requires hill city or B) can be built anywhere.

Ok. I would tend to allow it to be built anywhere, but we can implement it for now with the hill requirement and then see how it goes.

 

[Thalassicus]

I'm okay with "build anywhere." The wonder does give some basic food, and we can compensate for AI limitations with extra bonuses somewhere. It's one of those situations where making it fun for the human is probably more important than the AI's decisions. Chances are they will sometimes build it in a good spot.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I agree with no prereq, the effect boosts hills... why would you ever build it with no hills nearby?

I truly hope the AI is smart enough to understand this kind of stuff :/

 

[Ahriman]

I truly hope the AI is smart enough to understand this kind of stuff

I suspect it might not be, but a dud wonder for the AI is probably less important than a frustrated human player who built their city *next* to the hills they wanted to use the Terraces for.

 

[Thalassicus]

The AI does not look at the effects of buildings to make decisions. It uses the AI priorities. You could give a building 1 income with 100 maintenance, and the AI would build it right away if you set a high priority. This is why finding good AI priorities is incredibly important, and I can use more help with that in the other thread.