New Wonders!

[Moriboe]

All you want is a high production city, but that could be good for lots of things (including military).

Sure, but no other thing is as crucial as getting that wonder. My main reasoning wasn't stimulating catch-ups but this:

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

For me, having a mega wonder-city killed immersion, yet it was the optimal way to play. Opportunity costs remain quite low if the city is just one of many; the stuff that city isn't building can easily be distributed to other cities. It's only the initial game phase where the opportunity cost is high. And the penalty is not yet or barely present in it. Also the penalty isn't arbitrary for a human, but for the AI, maybe.

I do agree with you that for small nations the penalty makes less sense and bites more, probably too much. That's why I combined it with the higher costs for large empires, to even it out.

 

[mystikx21]

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?

None of that is to say that there should be penalties for wonder accumulation in one location. It says that if you have a good spot for wonder production or save up an engineer, you can catchup on opponents who are out-teching on the wonders or that you have a few wonders that have terrain specific requirements that may not be easy to accommodate (coastal production especially). None of these require tech-race supremacy.

The better argument was immersion or encouraging more decision making. But then, I already try to spread out wonder construction to help optimize GP production (this is the "artist" city, the "merchant city", etc).

 

[bwoww78]

But then, I already try to spread out wonder construction to help optimize GP production (this is the "artist" city, the "merchant city", etc).

FWIW, this is exactly what I do. Hence my mention of GEs usefulness (for better or worse) earlier as I only produce them occasionally in my production heavy city (most likely my capital)

 

[Zaldron]

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.

If wonder hoarding is a problem (and I'm not convinced it is) surely there are better ways to solve it than arbitrary penalties in cities that already have wonders. Doesn't the opportunity cost of building the wonder and the chance to miss it already make it well balanced? If it doesn't then we just need to increase the cost of wonders until the opportunity cost is balanced.

 

[Zaldron]

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.

I've never seen the CN tower in action but it seems powerful. Hubble is *really* strong indeed. I think a single scientist and the factory would be fine.

Note that as I see it (with the VEM versions) Sydney is *significantly* more powerful than Cristo for cultural wins. Cristo just means that your artists are more effective, but even when it's -10% as in baseline G&K that only works out to, I would approximate, around 10-20 total turns (I'm assuming that because the expense of policies increase at the end it works out to between 1-2 policies worth of culture at about 10-15 turns per policy).

 

[Tarquelne]

Why do you think the Wonder race is insufficiently competitive?

Because that's the way it's seemed in my games. Esp. when I'm the one in the lead.

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.

I don't agree. I think you should have an advantage, but not as much as you seem to want.

Sticking arbitrary penalties on is boring, and losing wonder races when you won the tech race is not-fun at all IMO.

Of course arbitrary penalties are boring. That's why everyone here is putting some thought into a discussion about useful mechanisms with "realistic" or gameplay rationales, if not both, that'll be an overall improvement to the game.

I don't think Wonderless civs *should* catch up.
Too many arbitrary catchup mechanics are not good; they punish success.

First, there's that word again.

Second: Do we need to discuss why some catchup mechanics are a good idea? It's trivially true that "too many" catchup mechanics aren't good. It's pretty much determined by "too many." Now... how many are too many?

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?

To make the game more challenging.

Yes, there are opportunity costs. The question is are the opportunity costs really so high that a penalty isn't in order? Esp for a human player, who is likely to optimize to a greater degree than the AI.

We don't penalize civs who build/buy all their military units in one city...

That's all true.
Two other true statements: Wonders aren't military units. Wonders aren't gold.

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.

Perhaps, but I haven't seen it.

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).

A city optimized for wonders rather than one optimized for military production is a city that's favored bonus-to-production over buildings that give xp for military units.
It's also likely to skip or lag behind in other buildings because it's busy building wonders.

So the idea is rather a-historical. Raw industrial cities - ones that emphasize production over everything else - weren't Wonder magnets.

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

Me either. But I don't find the idea of increasing the usefulness of engineers to be a stopper.


Please bear in mind I'm not pushing for the idea. (ATM at least - I'm undecided.) But
a) I think it's interesting and deserves discussion.
b) I don't think there's anything really hard to understand about why it might be desirable.

Cost and Opportunity cost...

If it doesn't then we just need to increase the cost of wonders until the opportunity cost is balanced.

Yeah, that's a strong possibility. And that's what a % penalty mechanic does on Wonders after the first, but with a built-in catch-up mechanic.

And I do believe we could use more catch-up mechanics.

 

[mitsho]

Thal, do you have a hard cap on how many wonders you want to implement as well as with the buildings? What's the stance on the usefulness of late game wonders regarding tech leads and cost? (expensive and powerful or spread out and generally useful?)

More late Game Wonders, some are new, some are already done, but I want to have the overview (didn't include my earlier proposals of Trans-Siberian Railway, Gotthard Tunnel, Maracana and Wembley):

The Golden Gate Bridge
Link to existing wonder
The Golden Gate bridges comes at the same tech as the Suspension Bridge and gives 1 and 0.5 per population as well as a free Suspension Bridge.

Hollywood
Link to existinge wonder
Takes the effect of Cristo Redentor which in turn can give or or a Free Social Policy.

Three Gorges Dam
Wonder splash already exists.
Either +5 on Hydro Plants or +4 per city or even better, a sum of production equal to the amount 4 or 5 city state alliances would give and be distributed in the same way culture or food from city states is at the moment.

Panama Canal
Wonder splash already exists.
+1 :c5movement: and +1 sight on ships, +20% commerce nationwide, not in the cities.

The Channel Tunnel
+25% commerce in the city, +1 and +1 on sea tiles.
(A sea site late game booster)

London Sewers
The construction of large sewers allowed the growth of the city into a metropolis.
+20 in city

Crystal Palace

+2 and +5 from traded luxuries (incoming).

World Exhibitions btw. would be another one of those national Projects that give you a bonus as long as no other civ has built it. The system would be simple

• Bonus stays as long as no other civ builds it, mostly local city yields boosted.
• Production cost grow every time you build it. I.e. the first one is 200 , each additional is 50 more. This count is per civ which means that a lagging civ can build them much cheaper.
• The proposed list so far goes World Exhibition (culture), Worlds Tallest Building (gold), Worlds Longest Bridge (production), Olympic Games (city states like you), Largest Prayer Site (faith), World Cup (happy).

 

[Zaldron]

Cost and Opportunity cost...

Yeah, that's a strong possibility. And that's what a % penalty mechanic does on Wonders after the first, but with a built-in catch-up mechanic.

And I do believe we could use more catch-up mechanics.

I would absolutely rather have wonders more expensive across the board than get an arbitrary stacking penalty for building them in the same city.

I completely disagree that we need more catch-up mechanics. Unless done extremely well like VEM RAs and G&K spies they just aren't fun, and first and foremost as a game Civ is supposed to be fun. What we need is to make the AI less prone to getting far behind in the first place, and then the need for catch-up just goes away.

 

[Tarquelne]

I don't think there's anything to be gained disputing how fun or needed catch-up mechanisms are. Seems based too much on personal taste and individual experience with the game - it'd have to be a long discussion.

OTOH, this "arbitrary" thing is both un-constructive and, IMO, quite irritating.

ar·bi·trar·y
   [ahr-bi-trer-ee] Show IPA adjective, noun, plural ar·bi·trar·ies.
adjective
1.
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
2.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.
3.
having unlimited power; uncontrolled or unrestricted by law; despotic; tyrannical: an arbitrary government.
4.
capricious; unreasonable; unsupported: an arbitrary demand for payment.
5.
Mathematics . undetermined; not assigned a specific value: an arbitrary constant.

"Toward a goal not personally desired." isn't covered by any definition I can see. Yet, looking around, that seems to be the way it's often used. (Yet such disagreement could easily be considered "arbitrary".)

And if all the sudden we're abandoning the idea that mechanics can and should sometimes be included simply to improve gameplay, the stacking penalty could represent increasing disinterest for major projects in a city that's already quite proud of what it's got, or resistance within a civ to repeatedly sponsoring such projects in one city.

 

[Ahriman]

capricious; unreasonable; unsupported:

This is the intended usage. A penalty against stacking wonders would feel strange, when there are no penalties against other forms of city specialization.

And most of us do not feel that such a restriction would improve gameplay. There are already reasons to choose to build particular wonders in particular cities; to specialize in production of a particular type of GP or because the wonder gives a bonus that is suited to a particular city (eg food in a research city).

 

[Tarquelne]

This is the intended usage. A penalty against stacking wonders would feel strange, when there are no penalties against other forms of city specialization.

Capricious? I doubt the penalty idea was proposed as a whim or on-impluse, and I certainly found it much more worthy than that. And I didn't post capriciously. (I can tell - I was there when I posted.)

Unsupported? I cited several advantages to the idea. And others thought the idea OK. That you found that support unpersuasive makes it.. unpersuasive. But whether or not it's unsupported in the sense that the reasons given actually lead to the conclusion the penalty has some benefits should, I think, get better treatment than "it's arbitrary." That seems more like an accusation than a counter-argument.

Unreasonable? That seems very much a judgement call - there's nothing I can really point to and say "See, it's not." Though given the response to "unsupported" above I will claim that calling the penalty "unreasonable" strikes me as being arbitrary.


I think the word you're looking for is "inconsistent," though "unprecedented" may be both more accurate and less prejudicial. Or, focusing on "feels strange" perhaps simply "different"?


Sorry to go so "meta" on this. But in my RL environment calling something "arbitrary" is a pretty big deal and it's important to distinguish between what's actually "arbitrary" and what is merely disliked.

 

[AlpsStranger]

What about the World Trade Center?

I'm actually serious. The game has the colossus even though it was destroyed so it makes sense.

 

[mitsho]

It does, but why the World Trade Center, and not the Burj al-Khalifa, Taipei 101, the Petronas Towers, Shanghai Financial Center, the Sears Tower or going further back the Empire State Building? In the end, the World Trade Center was just two rather simple and similar towers, what made it famous was their place in the NY skyline and the way they were destroyed. And given that, I'd rather prefer some geographical balance, i.e. outside New York. That having said, it doesn't really matter, if a good splash screen is made, that will be used.

Though there is the second problem of finding a good effect for another supertall skyscraper, and we already have the CN Tower... I'd rather have the Central Park as a world wonder as it's not as much a cliche as another tall building

 

[albie_123]

On the topic of 'wonder cities':

I think the issue is that wonders, while taking a huge production investment, end up providing most of the uses that buildings do. Why build a granary when you've got the Hanging Gardens? Why build a shrine when you've got Stonehenge?

Obviously, some wonders should be city-bonuses. But I think making more wonders either global (eg. Cristo Redentor) or unique (eg. Pyramids) ensures that while wonders are great, other buildings are necessary.

 

[mystikx21]

On the topic of 'wonder cities':

I think the issue is that wonders, while taking a huge production investment, end up providing most of the uses that buildings do. Why build a granary when you've got the Hanging Gardens? Why build a shrine when you've got Stonehenge?

Obviously, some wonders should be city-bonuses. But I think making more wonders either global (eg. Cristo Redentor) or unique (eg. Pyramids) ensures that while wonders are great, other buildings are necessary.

VEM has/had a few of those in addition to the vanilla "uniques".
Examples:
Stonehenge provided the city with its 3 tile borders instantly (plus a lot of culture).
Kremlin made all cities instantly 2 tile borders if not already (including new cities), and border expansion faster.
Cristo made super artists
Pentagon: heal all units.
Angkor Wat added one-time 40 influence to all CS.
In addition to their actual bonuses, several wonders provide normal buildings for free.

I consider the point a good one. Wonders are more interesting if they're distinctive. Trick is that if you get too distinctive, it becomes more like one time bonuses like free social policies or free techs.

 

[albie_123]

Those are all perfect examples of how VEM made wonders truly unique, and also combatted wonders turning cities into super-cities. Thanks for listing more, I don't have access to the game at the moment.

Like I said: There should be a few wonders that are geared to making super-cities, for example, the HG. Most, if not all, of these wonders should be early to mid game, in my opinion.

 

[wobuffet]

In my latest game (Emperor difficulty, and only my 2nd game on G&K), I managed to build 23 World/Great Wonders as the tech leader – and I didn't even build the Great Library! No other Civ managed to build more than 4.
(screenshot:

Spoiler :

)

Either it should be more difficult to maintain a tech lead (like VEM did, to some extent), and/or Wonder-spamming by human players should be made more difficult. It just seems to me that, once you're in the tech lead, it's almost always a good idea to rack up the Wonders.
Many Wonders are inherently more useful to human players than to the AI anyhow, because they encourage micromanagement of Specialists, etc.

Maybe a +% per-era Wonder production modifier for AIs?

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 don't think it's more expensive in terms of turns, is it?

 

[Seek]

@wobuffet: I've found G&K immortal to be equatable with VEM emperor. I'd suggest moving up.

 

[wobuffet]

@wobuffet: I've found G&K immortal to be equatable with VEM emperor. I'd suggest moving up.

I do plan to! Firaxis' idea of making things difficult is much less fun than Thal's, though... which is why I'm on this forum, I suppose.

 

[Thalassicus]

I plan to add the difficulty adjustments to the next stage of Gem, which will include the more intelligent AI gold spending. I'm convinced the main problem for the AI's economic weakness is it does not choose buildings well. It's surprising because the code I created is very short, and didn't take much time to write. I think the root problem is Firaxis did not set up building "flavors" well... the flavor values should be a probability to get the structure (20 twice as likely as 10 in vem), not absolute tiers of value (10 always built before 9 in vanilla).