No More Eternal Wonders

Soundwαvє ▼

Warlord
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It's rare to we see antique wonders today, because they had been destroyed by natural disasters, wars and even because of revolutions or power change. So why in civ they resist so long?

Also each 100 years should add certain income due to tourism.

Just a thought
 
Well a lot of wonders do lose their benefits, but retain the culture boost.

If you were to destroy wonders after a reasonable amount of time, what would be the justification for allowing normal buildings to remain, when surely they would need replacing every once in a while?
 
Soundwαvє ▼;9032516 said:
It's rare to we see antique wonders today, because they had been destroyed by natural disasters, wars and even because of revolutions or power change. So why in civ they resist so long?

Also each 100 years should add certain income due to tourism.

Just a thought

Why ? tourism isn't 50 years old actually !
 
Those buildings are general buildings.... Market (there is a market for the medieval, renascence, modern age), Barracks too, etc... So there is no need for it... but wonders don't, they are the same all the time. I'm not saying that we need to destroy them, but they should have less chance to survive as they have today (Almost 100%) just if someone raze the city.

Actually many people even in the past liked to see old things. Not how we do today but it's something that generates money.
 
I agree. Many wonders were destroyed by some combination of earthquakes, wars, social changes, ect. It's weird how the 6 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world were destroyed a long time ago, yet in civ4, they almost always last throughout the game. I guess the only way for a wonder to be destroyed would be to capture and raze the city it's in. It'd be nice if they improve this for civ5.
 
I agree. Many wonders were destroyed by some combination of earthquakes, wars, social changes, ect. It's weird how the 6 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world were destroyed a long time ago, yet in civ4, they almost always last throughout the game. I guess the only way for a wonder to be destroyed would be to capture and raze the city it's in. It'd be nice if they improve this for civ5.

I`m not so sure. I`m a wonderaddict myself and I know quite a few others too. It would make sense to loose more wonders if realism was the objective, but then Civ woudn`t be Civ for me anymore......
 
Soundwαvє ▼;9034501 said:
Those buildings are general buildings.... Market (there is a market for the medieval, renascence, modern age), Barracks too, etc... So there is no need for it... but wonders don't, they are the same all the time. I'm not saying that we need to destroy them, but they should have less chance to survive as they have today (Almost 100%) just if someone raze the city.

Actually many people even in the past liked to see old things. Not how we do today but it's something that generates money.

So we can assume that normal buildings are upgraded and renovated and kept viable throughout the entire course of the game, but we can't assume that wonders are kept in a good condition?
 
The system is fine the way it is because your people would naturally protect the wonder and repair it over time since they'd have pride for it.

I think an earthquake or volcanic eruption should be the only execption,but then Civ5 would have to have faults and all this geographic extra stuff....maybe Civ6...
 
I think an earthquake or volcanic eruption should be the only execption,but then Civ5 would have to have faults and all this geographic extra stuff....maybe Civ6...
Having a wonder you invested so much time and effort building be wiped out by a random event would not be fun, thus it should not happen. (Honestly, all it would do is induce me to save-scum.)
 
Your point is interesting, but how could it be implemented? The thing is, differently from real life, when a player build a wonder, its empire last to the end of the game, so it's not possible that another empire take out your wonder or your people stop liking it. Maybe obsolete wonders could be destroyed, randomly, by bombardment. I dunno, it's the kind of thing that would only frustrate the player.
 
When I think about Wonders that no longer exist like the Great Library for example, they still in my mind are linked to the civilization that created them and add to the cultural heritage of that civ.
In a way, by no longer existing, they have achieved a legendary or mythical status that actually increases their cultural value to that civilization.

So, with some of Sid Meier's words from GDC ringing in my ears, I would suggest we think about what Firaxis did with dark ages...(i.e. they didn't add dark ages because they would not be fun so they added golden ages instead) and if you really want to destroy an ancient wonder through in game events then that should be possible, but the effect should be positive and the destroyed wonder is given legendary status, continues to provide its benefits and from then on adds even more culture to the owning Civ.

The actual mechanism for the additional culture would need some thought...
Perhaps it would continue to give the current level of culture to the host city and a small 1-2 point culture bonus to every other city. In addition, legendary wonders by their nature would not be subject to capture and could only ever benefit the original owner (at the time they gained legendary status), and even if the host city was lost (captured or razed) the original owner would continue to gain the benefits of the wonder and the legendary bonus in other cities.
 
The actual mechanism for the additional culture would need some thought...
Perhaps it would continue to give the current level of culture to the host city and a small 1-2 point culture bonus to every other city. In addition, legendary wonders by their nature would not be subject to capture and could only ever benefit the original owner (at the time they gained legendary status), and even if the host city was lost (captured or razed) the original owner would continue to gain the benefits of the wonder and the legendary bonus in other cities.
I think realism collides with gameplay here. If someone beats me to a must-have wonder, I want to be able to go capture it. Plus, on an aesthetic level, making wonders capturable conveys the sense that you're actually building a building, not just spending your production to unlock some abstract and intangible special ability.

And there are a few wonders that just stop making sense if they're not capturable. The Great Wall and the Hoover Dam spring to mind; it's supposed to be the actual structure that provides the benefits, so whoever's in possession of the structure should definitely get them.
 
Seems to me the only way to replicate natural disasters would be through "random events", (barring scenarios or whatever) which would simply be frustrating, as has been stated.

Conquest, on the other hand, I think is feasible. Why not include a very small chance that a wonder will be destroyed on capture, much like normal buildings can be? Of course, certain wonders should be exempt such as the Great Wall, maybe the pyramids, etc. but more conventional wonders like the Great Library or the Parthenon would be (and have been) completely susceptible to collateral damage. I think the "legendary status" idea upon losing a wonder is a little too abstract, but maybe if a wonder were destroyed on capture, ruins would be left that would retain the cultural advantage and lose all the others?

Whatever happens, the risk of losing wonders, however small it might be, would further increase the priority of protecting wonder-heavy cities, the prospect that you can just recapture them all would be null.
 
I think realism collides with gameplay here. If someone beats me to a must-have wonder, I want to be able to go capture it. Plus, on an aesthetic level, making wonders capturable conveys the sense that you're actually building a building, not just spending your production to unlock some abstract and intangible special ability.

And there are a few wonders that just stop making sense if they're not capturable. The Great Wall and the Hoover Dam spring to mind; it's supposed to be the actual structure that provides the benefits, so whoever's in possession of the structure should definitely get them.

I'm not suggesting wonders should not be captureable, merely that if we allow for the random destruction of wonders then after their destruction they should continue to provide benefits to the owner at the time of destruction. Wonders can get razed in the game already and I would imagine the destruction would be a rare event (like razing) which for most wonders would occur after their effect (other than culture) have expired. Perhaps it could even be restricted to wonders that have expired?
Regardless, if you are worried you may lose the ability to capture a must-have wonder that capture is surely urgent and likely to happen when the wonder is still young and effective.
I do sympathize with your point about certain wonders that actually physically cause their effect but without introducing subclasses of wonders that behave differently based on whether they are conceptual versus tangible there will always be problems in this area.
 
I do sympathize with your point about certain wonders that actually physically cause their effect but without introducing subclasses of wonders that behave differently based on whether they are conceptual versus tangible there will always be problems in this area.
I certainly don't think we should introduce such subclasses. But I think that in the absence of this distinction, we should treat all wonders as tangible by default. It's more straightforward and intuitive.
 
I agree. Many wonders were destroyed by some combination of earthquakes,But its depends upon earthquakes points 6 or more ...
 
In Civ IV you can easily make Wonders go obsolete with a certain tech. Its an XML tag like this

<ObsoleteTech>TECH_THEOLOGY</ObsoleteTech> in Civ4BuildingInfos.xml.

In fact this field is used to obsolete some wonders and also
some buildings do go obsolete, namely Monastery.

In Civ, you have city maintenance which justifies the continuation of many standard buildings. The market is being maintained, the Wonder loses its...Wonder.
 
Maybe you can have the choice of destroying a wonder for immediate benefit, like when wonders got taken apart for their materials, maybe they can also get naturually destroyed over time and you have to create restoration crews to undo this damage or keep it under control
 
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