New Wonders!

[mitsho]

Hard Caps are not fun. And I'm also not sure they make sense.

If you are always in the top wonders category, why not try a difficulty level higher? (or a larger map or more civs) Because while I can often get a wonder that I absolutely want, I never get all that I would like. And especially as the game goes on, that gets more difficult.

When I counted the wonders available, one thing gets clear, that there are too many early game wonders and not enough late game ones. So that is where I see the change needed. But then you are right, if someone can run away with building wonders there, that's unbalanced. But I don't think that's the fault of the wonders, but of the gameplay itself. After all, if someone manages to capture two capitals by the Medieval Age, chances are high that civ wins the game as well, no?

On the other hand, there are a few fun, but not overpowered effects. Take the VEM Stonehenge effect. But the new Faith effect is necessary as well to give the opportunity to found a religion by building if you want to. So do we kick out the effect, change the Terracotta Army (&put it earlier) or create a new wonder?

Or, say a modern era wonder that gives you pop growth equal to bring a size 1 city to size 15 (but a size 15 only to size 23 or so). Might be quite useful to bring an amazing city site up to par (i.e. Brazilia). So while I would be cautious to add new wonders, this thread is for brainstorming any ideas that could be fun or nice to have as wonders And again, there's a severe lack of industrial-information era wonders. And nobody has challenged me so far on that statement, so I keep on believing it

 

[wobuffet]

This ended up being far longer than I intended... sorry for going a bit off topic at times.

Hard Caps are not fun. And I'm also not sure they make sense.

You're right, certainly a per-city wonder cap would probably be a bad idea. The root of the problem I have isn't really Wonders at all... a better solution (and indeed the solution that VEM implemented for the base game!) is to give the AI a variety of benefits: e.g., combat, the AI purchase system, per-civ yields, and per-era Science boosts (throughout the game, not just at the beginning).

Do you really think all hard caps are not fun though? Don't you think being able to have 13 air units based in one city is not too fun, gameplay-wise?

If you are always in the top wonders category, why not try a difficulty level higher? (or a larger map or more civs) Because while I can often get a wonder that I absolutely want, I never get all that I would like. And especially as the game goes on, that gets more difficult.

Fair point. I do plan to move up (I wanted to start lower to learn the expansion's new mechanics), but I really don't like how harder difficulties – without Thal's mods – restrict gameplay options so. You almost never have a shot at building early-game wonders yourself, for example.

When I counted the wonders available, one thing gets clear, that there are too many early game wonders and not enough late game ones. So that is where I see the change needed. But then you are right, if someone can run away with building wonders there, that's unbalanced.

I actually figured this was intentional, from a game design point of view. Mid- and late-game wonders are inherently more disruptive to game balance, because it puts tech leaders in a position to gain even more benefits than the numerous ones they already enjoy (superior units in combat, higher-yield buildings, higher tile yields, etc.).

Putting most Wonders in the early game increases their strategic viability for Civs who don't intend on becoming tech leaders, especially given the flexibility of the early parts of the tech tree.

I think increasing the hammer costs of later game wonders would help this somewhat, so that a tech-leading, wonder-mongering Civ would have to give up lots of turns to go after so many wonders. Then it'd be more likely that average-Science output Civs have a shot at mid-game wonders, too.

But I don't think that's the fault of the wonders, but of the gameplay itself. After all, if someone manages to capture two capitals by the Medieval Age, chances are high that civ wins the game as well, no?

Very true. Now that I think about it, why should World Wonders' benefits accrue to anybody but the original builder? I'm having trouble thinking of any plausible scenario where this feature serves to make gameplay more interesting rather than just contributing to the snowball/runaway civ effect.

On the other hand, there are a few fun, but not overpowered effects. Take the VEM Stonehenge effect. But the new Faith effect is necessary as well to give the opportunity to found a religion by building if you want to. So do we kick out the effect, change the Terracotta Army (&put it earlier) or create a new wonder?

I liked the VEM Stonehenge expand-to-3-tiles effect too, even if in practice it didn't make much difference (if you're going Cultural, you'll be grabbing lots of tiles easily anyhow. I guess it makes settling adjacent Cities a bit easier though).

I think another, lesser (and/or slightly later in the tech tree) Faith Wonder would be nice. Maybe Solomon's Temple (Construction?), or Ark of the Covenant (Sailing or Optics) even... with +3, +3, +1Engineer point or something.

Or, say a modern era wonder that gives you pop growth equal to bring a size 1 city to size 15 (but a size 15 only to size 23 or so). Might be quite useful to bring an amazing city site up to par (i.e. Brazilia).

Do you mean a straight, lump sum of ? That would definitely be interesting to try out...

 

[Stalker0]

I realize I'm a bit of a party pooper here, but do we really need new Wonders?

I think for purposes of brainstorming its a good discussion to have. But ultimately we shouldn't throw in an extra wonder just because we had this discussion. Only if we find a wonder that:

1) Make a lot of sense in game flavor.
2) Fills a mechanical gap that we feel is lacking.

I would be perfectly happy if after the two week brainstorm we decide to change nothing, but if a "gem" does come out of this, why not use it.

 

[Ahriman]

I think increasing the hammer costs of later game wonders would help this somewhat, so that a tech-leading, wonder-mongering Civ would have to give up lots of turns to go after so many wonders.

I'm totally the opposite on this. I think there are *few* enough advantages to a tech lead. There are very few passive advantages of tech in Civ5, the new buildings aren't that much more efficient than the old ones, and unit upgrading feels like it is quite expensive compared to previous versions of Civ, and the tech catchup bonus means that the tech leader has a much more inefficient rate.

If you're ahead on tech, you should have a much better shot at getting wonders. If you make the wonders more expensive to build, then you're just making them less cost-effective; barely better than building buildings that have similar effects.

Now that I think about it, why should World Wonders' benefits accrue to anybody but the original builder? I'm having trouble thinking of any plausible scenario where this feature serves to make gameplay more interesting rather than just contributing to the snowball/runaway civ effect.

I definitely think that conquering wonders should give you their (passive) benefits. If you spend lots of time building wonders instead of a military, that should make you a prime target for invasion.

Or, say a modern era wonder that gives you pop growth equal to bring a size 1 city to size 15

How is a size 1 city going to build such a wonder without a great engineer?

 

[headcase]

Here are some more ideas that can be modified\added to as seen fit. The numbers are pure guesswork.

Cairo Citadel (World Wonder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel
- Requires Engineering
- cost: 400 hammers (it was built in the 12th century)
- +4 culture
- +2 apples
- +7 defence in the city it was built in (no further HP)
- +50% Great General production
- +2 apples in all citadels in civ's borders
- 1 GE point
- Deliberately high hammers; players can take a painful beeline for it, or race for it when it's more feasible. The +2 apples per citadel is about as creative as I can get (in general, for wonders) without getting close to anything already in vanilla. It represents the sophisticated series of aquaducts used with the citadel which would, for gameplay reasons, inspire all citadels built.

Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa (World Wonder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Kom_el_Shoqafa
- Requires Mathematics
- cost: 290 hammers
- +7 culture
- 1 GA point
- So basically it's a slightly more expensive Terracotta Army that uses Math instead of Construction. Simple wonder.

Ely Cathedral (World Wonder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ely_Cathedral
- Requires Theology
- cost: 300 hammers
- +3 culture
- +1 faith
- Free Cathedral in this city (+3 culture, +1 faith, +1 happiness, artist slot)
- 25% discount on all purchases of religious units with faith (but not buildings)
- 1 GA point
- Great Mosque of Djienne with culture and faith flipped; less help with faith, but generates more culture. I'm not satisfied with the 25% discount, but was trying to give it a religious ability different from the other two theology wonders. The other plan I had was "cost of Great Prophets increases by 50% less than normal for each one generated".

Flavian Amphitheatre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum
- Requires Drama and Poetry
- cost: 250 hammers
- +3 culture
- +1 faith
- +2 happiness
- Free amphitheatre, barracks, shrine, and colosseum (maintenance removed) - 310 hammers worth of buildings
- Couldn't think of anything interesting on this one either, so thought that having lots of free old buildings would help differentiate it from the rest. Theoretically some of the buildings would already be made, but still get maintenance savings. Was thinking of adding a +15% production bonus for land and sea units but may be pretty powerful (at least in the short term) as is. It seems like a bargain, but unless planned for, some of the buildings will have been made, and none of the benefits are enjoyed until completion (which also makes it risky if there is a race).

National Theatre OR auditorium (National Wonder)
- cost added per city is higher than other NWs if possible; don't want to give wide empires a quick happy win here.
- Requires Printing Press (same as theatres)
- Requires theatres in 75% of cities (or whatever is normal for GEM)
- +5 happiness
- +3 culture
- This is like Circus Maximus with 2 more culture.

National Gallery (National Wonder)
- cost same as normal NW
- Requires Drama and Poetry (same as amphitheatres)
- Requires amphitheatres in 100% of all cities
- +2 culture
- +33% culture in this city
- Purely added to help give taller empires more culture, especially for a cultural victory. The 100% requirement is to prevent empires from getting it as they grow.

Public Administratation (National Wonder)
- cost same as normal NW
- Requires Civil Service
- Requires Aquaduct in 75% of cities (therefore requires Engineering)
- +12 apples are equally spread across all cities
- (edit) 1 free policy, if this can be worked into the balance for cultural victory
- definitely one where I'm not sure which number would be appropriate.

 

[mitsho]

How is a size 1 city going to build such a wonder without a great engineer?

What's wrong with building a wonder with an engineer? You've spent a lot of time into getting the great person points, so?

(but yes, it wasn't the perfect example of what I was trying to say, doesn't make the statement wrong though)

 

[Ahriman]

What's wrong with building a wonder with an engineer?

Nothing. It's just, I wouldn't want to design a wonder with the main intent being to have it constructed with a great engineer. Feels too narrow.

 

[Seek]

Not to mention a GE would not produce enough hammers in a one-pop city to come close to finishing any late-game wonder.

 

[headcase]

ARPANET (world Wonder)
- Requires Telecommunications
- Cost: 1250 hammers (possibly add cost for each city owned if tall civs need help)

- +3 culture
- +10% production of units, spaceship parts, and team projects in all cities
- All future influence gains with CSs are increased by 25%
- Get Internet Team Project (below) for free upon completion of ARPANET.
- Allows other civs to build the Internet Team Project

- Some help for a science victory balanced by the tech needed being split away from Apollo (edit: and hubble) and only 10%. The influence gains will help either block or win a UN victory (which is on the same tech path), while being the first to have internet will help for a cultural one, and the tech can be beelined to.

Internet (Team Project - one per civ)
- Requires Telecommunications
- ARPANET must be completed in the world
- Cost: 500 hammers (fairly cheap)

- +25% culture in all cities(!)
- +25% Great Person generation in all cities.
- Instantly learn all techs known by 33% of civs.
- Spies steal technologies at double the rate

- Civs that are behind should build this as soon as they get Telecom. The ARPANET builder gets to enjoy it first though.

Wikipedia:
Random event after building Internet:

A group of citizens in your civilization have founded a website called Wikipedia! People from around the world can put together their combined knowledge into this encyclopaedic resource.

a) Invest into the project to hire expert contributors and maintain the servers (-500 gold, +15 science, +5 culture in this city)
b) Invest into forks of the project that explore fictional works in detail (-500 gold, +5 science, +15 culture in this city)
c) Let the governor handle this (+5 science, +5 culture in this city)

 

[Tarquelne]

Re: Brasilia

Reading the suggestion, I assumed the wonder would be elsewhere and the effect would be applied via lua. (Because that's how they did Brasilia, though with COBOL rather than lua.)

 

[Moriboe]

possibly add cost for each city owned if tall civs need help

I tried this for all post-medieval world wonders costs, adding 5/10/15 (era-dependent) per city. Definitely not unbalancing and, when far ahead, not breaking your supremacy.

I also added a 3% production penalty for each wonder already in the city. There should be no "wonder hogging" city specialization imho. From a realism perspective: the population in cities with lots of wonders are content, making funding for new ones harder to get. People in cities that don't have any on the other hand want to compete with those who have, making it easier to build new ones.

But to go back on topic: I like headcase's suggestion! I am in favor of a comeback mechanic like this. Makes the game world less stale and is pretty realistic (China comes to mind) too. Tech leaders should have built up an advantage by this point by having better infrastructure and more wonders. If not (extreme tech focus) do they really deserve to get the win unchallenged? And without threats the endgame would be too boring to sit through anyway.

 

[mitsho]

I tried this for all post-medieval world wonders costs, adding 5/10/15 (era-dependent) per city. Definitely not unbalancing and, when far ahead, not breaking your supremacy.

I also added a 3% production penalty for each wonder already in the city. There should be no "wonder hogging" city specialization imho. From a realism perspective: the population in cities with lots of wonders are content, making funding for new ones harder to get. People in cities that don't have any on the other hand want to compete with those who have, making it easier to build new ones.

Interesting mechanisms

I guess these should be looked at in a general Tall vs. Wide vs. Conquest type of balance stage. I'm not sure Tall empires need cutting back right now, with Religion helping wide civs more and spies making runaways harder. Although I do like the Production Penalty per wonder (perhaps capping off at some amount) from a realism point of view.

As for the Internet as a catch-up national project, that fits as well. It may be a bit too strong in that we do want a science race at the end after all. So again, might be too much to code now (better get the rest running) and see what exactly is needed. I have not enough experience with late game gameplay in G&K yet to make any informed judgement...

 

[Ahriman]

Not to mention a GE would not produce enough hammers in a one-pop city to come close to finishing any late-game wonder.

Though that in part I think is because late-game wonders are over-priced. I think in general late-game wonders mostly aren't that great a deal; they aren't that much more powerful than previous ones, but there are many fewer turns left in which to use them.

 

[headcase]

I also added a 3% production penalty for each wonder already in the city. There should be no "wonder hogging" city specialization imho. From a realism perspective: the population in cities with lots of wonders are content, making funding for new ones harder to get. People in cities that don't have any on the other hand want to compete with those who have, making it easier to build new ones.

This is a great idea.

 

[wobuffet]

Though that in part I think is because late-game wonders are over-priced. I think in general late-game wonders mostly aren't that great a deal; they aren't that much more powerful than previous ones, but there are many fewer turns left in which to use them.

Really? The CN Tower and Hubble seem crazy powerful to me, and the Sydney Opera House and Cristo would each save tons of turns when pursuing a Cultural Victory.

The Pentagon, is a little weak, sure – esp. since there's not too much upgrading left by that point in the game. The Eiffel Tower has saved me from ness many a time. The Statue of Liberty I'm not quite sure about... I don't feel I've used it to its fullest extent, and it's hard to tell how much good it's doing.

 

[Ahriman]

The CN Tower and Hubble seem crazy powerful to me

I dunno, I find they don't make that much of a difference to total civ power, as compared to their build costs, given how late they come.

The Eiffel Tower has saved me from ness many a time.

Cumulative happiness from the Eiffel Tower over the course of the game seems considerably lower than that from earlier happiness wonders - and yet the tower is more expensive.

I also added a 3% production penalty for each wonder already in the city. There should be no "wonder hogging" city specialization

Why? If you want to devote all your resources to Wonder construction, you should be able to do so, and it makes sense to do it in a city optimized for production. Reducing the ability to specialize cities seems to me like deliberately undermining the strategic element of the game.

 

[Tarquelne]

Why? If you want to devote all your resources to Wonder construction, you should be able to do so, and it makes sense to do it in a city optimized for production. Reducing the ability to specialize cities seems to me like deliberately undermining the strategic element of the game.

Yeah... but:

A high production city is still very useful, even if Wonders aren't what it's producing.

If players are made to build Wonders outside a single highly-optimized high-production city it should make the Wonder race more competitive.

It'd help Wonderless-civs catch-up, and pro-catch-up mechanics are generally a good.

It'd foster more "interesting decisions." ("Where do I build?" rather than "Of course I will build it in production-optimized Aliceville.")

 

[bwoww78]

It'd foster more "interesting decisions." ("Where do I build?" rather than "Of course I will build it in production-optimized Aliceville.")

... thereby increasing usefulness of great engineers (a potential product of one's high production city(ies).

 

[Ahriman]

If players are made to build Wonders outside a single highly-optimized high-production city it should make the Wonder race more competitive.

Why do you think the Wonder race is insufficiently competitive? If you are first to the tech by a good amount of time, you *should* be able to get the wonder if you want it.
Sticking arbitrary penalties on is boring, and losing wonder races when you won the tech race is not-fun at all IMO.

It'd help Wonderless-civs catch-up, and pro-catch-up mechanics are generally a good.

I don't think Wonderless civs *should* catch up.
Too many arbitrary catchup mechanics are not good; they punish success.
Its also one thing to have catchup mechanics for a player that is ahead in general vs a player that is behind in general. It is quite another to have catchup mechanics for a player that is ahead in *one particular area*.
If I build a lot of wonders, that has a big opportunity cost; I have fewer cities, smaller military, maybe lower pop. That's the downside I should face from concentrating on wonders. Why should I face another extra penalty too?
We don't penalize civs who build/buy all their military units in one city (indeed, we reward that through various mechanisms, like stacking free XP buildings). We don't penalize civs who do most of their gold production in a single city (with lots of trading posts).

Its often the case that a wonder-oriented civ like Egypt takes lots of wonders, but remains otherwise small/weak. They aren't very powerful, they just have lots of wonders - and are a ripe target for invasion.

Also, it isn't clear to me how a particular city is necessarily "optimized for wonders". Its not like there are buildings that provide a production bonus just for wonders. All you want is a high production city, but that could be good for lots of things (including military).

thereby increasing usefulness of great engineers

I do not find great engineers to be lacking in usefulness.

 

[Dunkah]

Why do you think the Wonder race is insufficiently competitive? If you are first to the tech by a good amount of time, you *should* be able to get the wonder if you want it.
Sticking arbitrary penalties on is boring, and losing wonder races when you won the tech race is not-fun at all IMO.

Yes your opinion. I happen to think otherwise. I don't believe that winning the tech race should gaurantee you a wonder. Wonders should be based partly on Tech but also should be balanced by terrain and resources available to the Civ. If you are not on the coast then sorry you can't build the Great Lighthouse or the Colossus... should be the same with all of the other wonders.

If one happens to slip down to me because no one else has the "means" to build it then hah hah I just got lucky!

Why should wonders be left to tech alone?