[Extension] [POLL] More Wonders for VP

What is your opinion on Flavoured Help Texts unique for More Wonders mod?

  • I like them and I use them every game

  • I use them from time to time to check how they perform

  • I use them only to give some feedback to the author

  • I prefer original version, but I don't mind them

  • I prefer original version, but I played with them few times

  • I don't like them in their current state, but I think they can be improved

  • I don't like them and disable them every game

  • I like them, but still I think they can be improved


Results are only viewable after voting.
Monopolies should work, because all CS resources have them (even those added by @HungryForFood). Can you post this on Github VP if you are sure it doesn't work?

I have noticed for a long time in mod or building modifications that this doesn't work but @HungryForFood already answered the why.

What do you mean by positioning lua?

UniqueWonderRequirements.lua seems not to work but there is nothing in the lua logs (only in modpack, otherwise no problem for the moment)

I found in VP wikia that base CS resources give 2 :c5gold:, so I gave some flat yield to this too. But if you are sure that it does not work, I can pass it to building.

I must verify, I will confirm you
 
Do not bother. I moved all yields andbonuses to from Egg to Ahu.
 
v0.5.19 on github. One step before next official release.
  • Fixed wonders with spawned resources (Wieliczka, Falun, Lavaux);
  • Fixed Tern Egg and Ahu yields;
  • Added missing texts. Now all of them are reworked;
Some thoughts:
  • I must check once again all changes from this version before official release.
  • I still remember that Policy and Ideology wonders have to be taken into account in MaximumEra requirement, but it will be topic for v0.7 probably.
  • Still art for new wonders is not finished, but I have no time to replace temporary ones with better versions. Any help?
 
An idea for a wonder of Greenland (maybe for rationalism)

Kvanefjeld (Ilimaussaq intrusive complex)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvanefjeld

Give uranium resource
+2 :c5gold: and +2 :c5science: for all quarries and mines of the city.
Production of buildings in all cities 10%:c5production: faster and generate a small quantity of :c5science:
 
An idea for a wonder of Greenland (maybe for rationalism)

Kvanefjeld (Ilimaussaq intrusive complex)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvanefjeld

Give uranium resource
+2 :c5gold: and +2 :c5science: for all quarries and mines of the city.
Production of buildings in all cities 10%:c5production: faster and generate a small quantity of :c5science:
I would say it is Natural Wonder.
 
Speaking of Natural Wonders, should the Wielickzca Salt Mine be turned into a Natural Wonder instead and have one of the ideas in reserve replace it? The way I see it is that it would make more sense as a Natural Wonder as you can't really build the salt, just the mine only.
 
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Topic of Natural Wonders is delayed. For now the priority is to finish this mod. I don't know if this is even possible, to add more natural wonders to VP. Probably without help of some dll guy it is not.


Sorry for 0.6 delay. I will try to check everything tomorrow and release it on Monday or Tuesday.
 
Can anyone explain how to use the Github version? I don't know what a modbuddy is supposed to be.
 
UniqueWonderRequirements.lua seems not to work but there is nothing in the lua logs (only in modpack, otherwise no problem for the moment)

Finally lua files work perfectly in modpack. The problem came from the fact that, with the last version of VP, it's necessary to remove an inGame.lua which is in the Community Patch. And now I can experiment "More Wonders for VP" with friends and it's really cool :goodjob:
 
Hi -- am currently doing some thinking about my experiences with the mod, but more urgently:

Is there anything in the latest github version that would lead to popups displaying "TXT_KEY_WONDER_xxxx_HELP_CUT" or did I compile it wrong on my local machine?
 
I made modification, but sometimes it goes crazy, especially if you try to build wonder with IGE. Try to load the mod or compile it again. I don't know why it works, but once per 10 cases doesn't.
 
Played with the mod for about two days, and I'm probably gonna be the first to have negative opinions on the current state of how this mod over-restricts and in some cases even has entirely bad restrictions that defeat the entire purpose of researching a technology for that wonder in the first place. ...
Conclusion: Unfortunately for me, I'm not enjoying this version as much as I thought I would. Some restrictions are over-bearing and make you remember way more than you should, or just ruin the entire point of even researching a technology. Some victory types also feel gimped by the requirements and restrictions that they start to feel less valuable overall.

Unfortunately, after having played a game with this mod (about 9 hours), I need to concur with some of SolutionIt's points. I go into detail on how I played and the context of my critiques in this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ders-for-vp-unique-city-states-others.656113/
But as balance input, I'll try to compress some of that. Apologies if I come off as mean, it's too late.
  1. Wonders are now too hard to build, instead of being spammable: too far in the opposite direction. Some conditions are too hard to meet, and that turns wonders from grand strategy goals into random lootboxes.
  2. I do not agree with the fanciful tooltips. I think they obscure information while giving advice that is often self-evident.
1) Too hard to meet requirements, too random to build
I'll start by describing some of the dates wonders were built in my last game. More details about this game are available in the thread. I will add some qualifications first. I was not playing with the outdated wonders mechanic, but if I was, there probably would've been even fewer. Also, the number of built wonders is probably artificially low, as I was playing as Pineappledan's Phoenicia and therefore I could not spam wonders empire-wide. Finally, I was on Prince and Epic speed and doing war. However, I think this is a good representation of how the game stands with mid-level AI. If you want more reasons on why my experience is atypical, read that linked thread.

By turn 211, there were a total of 9 wonders built. The Statue of Zeus was built on turn 223, ~730 AD in the in-game calendar for reference. Mausoleum was built on turn 258. Colossus, 266. Parthenon was built on turn 323, well into when most civs were Medieval. Ggantija in turn 333. Buddhas of Bamyan, 324. More egregiously, I saw a good number of Neolithic wonders pop much, much later. I think the outdated wonders mechanic addresses the symptoms of this problem while not noticing that it may be worth addressing the root cause.

I am not saying this to complain about historicity. Rather, I am concerned that this mod removes the ability to tactically choose to pursue certain wonders. For example, in base VP, you would pursue Pyramids if you wish to go wide, Zeus if you wish to early-rush, Stonehenge if you wish to go all-in on religion, Mausoleum if you're going Tradition and want a supercity, and Artemis if you want to go tall. But in this mod, you can't make these choices because Pyramids has a flat/river restriction, Zeus needs Marble/Stone and an active war, Stonehenge needs flat/grassland/not coast, Mausoleum needs Coast+Hill+Quarry (why? part of the point is that so you can get SW without a quarry), and Artemis needs fresh water and a camp. You have almost no control whether you can build these or not, because this is so early that if you don't beeline them, someone will beat you to them. The salt mine needs 2 mines, Nazca needs plains+hill+camp, but Karnak basically just needs a habitable desert. So you'll never manage Stonehenge and Mausoleum in the same city and you have no idea if your Capital will be able to even get Mausoleum or Zeus, just for starters. The early-game wonder race unfortunately becomes a matter of pure rng.

This is a problem that I think can be solved. I honestly think you can get rid of some of the requirements for a lot of the wonders, and simply the fact that you have to compete for them will stop most major wonderhoarders. I don't agree with all of Solutionit's points -- in particular, I think Zeus should not have requirements, Pyramids should not have requirements, Mausoleum should not have requirements -- anything that's early should have less requirements, if any at all. I also don't really like the "Needs peace"/"Needs war" wonders. If I'm building the Great Wall, a player could just switch their attitude, and then I can't build it anymore. On the other hand, if I'm actively at war, I want to be building units, not wonders. But if I peace out and my opponents go to neutral, which is quite possible in classical, I can't build the wall anymore. Few of these scenarios feel good.

I think there's a distinction to be drawn here between what I'm going to call "tactical wonders" and "terrain wonders". In base VP, Petra, Colossus and Great Lighthouse are the early game "terrain wonders". They have a terrain requirement because they wouldn't make sense without it. Petra needs the desert because it buffs the desert. Colossus needs coast because you need coast to use cargo ships. Great Lighthouse needs coast because if you don't have coast, you don't have a navy. Everything else remains an option because that makes player choices, beyond which map to pick, meaningful.

For that reason, I also have to echo SolutionIt in that Policy Wonders should not have strict terrain restrictions. That situation universally benefits wide empires, and also you're already investing a lot into unlocking the wonder in the first place. I think the Group Wonder approach is a very good one for forcing choice and variety without making it entirely map dependent. What the player wants as opposed to what they have to work with.

Finally, I think it's unreasonable to expect players to plan their cities based on the incredibly idiosyncratic requirements of so many different wonders. You're already considering eventual working range, monopolies, hill, river, mountain, for fresh water and defensive purposes. Adding potential future wonders, when there's no easy way to know what potential future wonders could be built in that tile, is way too complicated to actually plan around.

2) Too much specificity is lost in fanciful/fun flavor text.
I didn't chime in when this was originally brought up because I thought it might be worth a shot and I didn't want to discuss something that I hadn't played, but now that I've played it I really don't like it. I want to preface the following by saying that it's a very creative idea and I can see the effort you put into it, but writing to be both creative and informational is hard, which is perhaps why Firaxis didn't even really try.

Apologies in advance, but my commentary will sound a little bit like I'm criticizing your writing. That's not my intention. My intention is to point out that the most effective way to convey the information is the most boring way.

Let's look at the new text for the Globe Theater.
"Globe Theater unites all artistic proffessions in one wonder (+2GAP/Artist ARtist, Writer Writer, Musician Musician) but its much stronger focus on literature is obvious (Great Writer; +2 Writing Work: Gold). This wonder is so influencial, that people's tastes change according to your will (-1 Sad Face Boredom, -1 Sad Face Sad Face Urbanization).

Right off the bat, there's some real ambiguity here. I can guess that art specialists get +2 GAP each, but the second one loses me. Do I get gold to great works of writing? Do I get a free Great Writer? And the last one is completely confusing. Do I get -1 Boredom locally, or globally? -1 or 2 Urbanization locally, or globally?

Now compare to the text in VP:
+2 culture. +2 GWW slots (+10 gold if themed), Free Great Writer, -` Unhappiness from Boredom, +2 GAP from Writers, Artists, and Musicians in all Cities, -1 Urbanization from All Cities.

This is much more clear, much more obvious, and I know exactly what I'm getting and why I would build it. This is a wonder that's already in base VP, so most people have some idea what to expect. But what about new wonders?

Take Kuk for example:
Kuk, thanks to unique agricultural techniques turned Marshes (+1 prod, +1 science) into rich soil. Use its power to continue development of your huge city (+1-% food, +5% prod/New pop).
Is the bonuses to marshes local or global? Is the pop bonus per citizen, or on citizen birth? If I was playing this modmod for the first time, I would have no idea what this wonder does.

On another point, the Sistine Chapel:
"Make sure to build it, if you aim for a cultural victory."
What purpose does this line serve? Surely if a player is aiming for a cultural victory, they know a building that gives +10% culture will help them get there? Unfortunately, while the idea of helpful, flavorful tooltips sounds good on paper, most of them as it stands don't say anything beyond what a competent VP player could figure out on their own.

It is incredibly hard to write something that is flavorful and that usefully conveys information about numbers better than just the numbers themselves. I don't think anyone could write something flavorful that's as effective as just the straight up numbers and barebones description of bonuses. I think tooltips should go back to the VP baseline, and any helpful tips or tricks should be relegated to a section in the civilopedia if anything. And I think that a strategy section in the civilopedia entries wouldn't be a bad idea.

(Also, does anyone else find it awkward that the Jewish religious wonder gives gold on faith purchase?)


Overall, I'm sorry to say that the mod is not in a state that I enjoy playing. I will probably not include it in my next few playthroughs because I rarely feel as if I can make meaningful decisions about which wonders to pick as opposed to being controlled by the terrain. Functionally, an extra river requirement on the Eiffel Tower means that I try to build it in a secondary city instead of my capital -- not that much more variety. I think the mod would benefit greatly from more playtesting from more people and a critical balance pass. With permission, I'd like to outline a design proposal for organizing the mod more around player choice than terrain restriction. Even though I do not enjoy the state of the mod, I do not wish to impose more than I already have.
 
Unfortunately, after having played a game with this mod (about 9 hours), I need to concur with some of SolutionIt's points. I go into detail on how I played and the context of my critiques in this thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ders-for-vp-unique-city-states-others.656113/
But as balance input, I'll try to compress some of that. Apologies if I come off as mean, it's too late.
  1. Wonders are now too hard to build, instead of being spammable: too far in the opposite direction. Some conditions are too hard to meet, and that turns wonders from grand strategy goals into random lootboxes.
  2. I do not agree with the fanciful tooltips. I think they obscure information while giving advice that is often self-evident.
1) Too hard to meet requirements, too random to build
I'll start by describing some of the dates wonders were built in my last game. More details about this game are available in the thread. I will add some qualifications first. I was not playing with the outdated wonders mechanic, but if I was, there probably would've been even fewer. Also, the number of built wonders is probably artificially low, as I was playing as Pineappledan's Phoenicia and therefore I could not spam wonders empire-wide. Finally, I was on Prince and Epic speed and doing war. However, I think this is a good representation of how the game stands with mid-level AI. If you want more reasons on why my experience is atypical, read that linked thread.

By turn 211, there were a total of 9 wonders built. The Statue of Zeus was built on turn 223, ~730 AD in the in-game calendar for reference. Mausoleum was built on turn 258. Colossus, 266. Parthenon was built on turn 323, well into when most civs were Medieval. Ggantija in turn 333. Buddhas of Bamyan, 324. More egregiously, I saw a good number of Neolithic wonders pop much, much later. I think the outdated wonders mechanic addresses the symptoms of this problem while not noticing that it may be worth addressing the root cause.

I am not saying this to complain about historicity. Rather, I am concerned that this mod removes the ability to tactically choose to pursue certain wonders. For example, in base VP, you would pursue Pyramids if you wish to go wide, Zeus if you wish to early-rush, Stonehenge if you wish to go all-in on religion, Mausoleum if you're going Tradition and want a supercity, and Artemis if you want to go tall. But in this mod, you can't make these choices because Pyramids has a flat/river restriction, Zeus needs Marble/Stone and an active war, Stonehenge needs flat/grassland/not coast, Mausoleum needs Coast+Hill+Quarry (why? part of the point is that so you can get SW without a quarry), and Artemis needs fresh water and a camp. You have almost no control whether you can build these or not, because this is so early that if you don't beeline them, someone will beat you to them. The salt mine needs 2 mines, Nazca needs plains+hill+camp, but Karnak basically just needs a habitable desert. So you'll never manage Stonehenge and Mausoleum in the same city and you have no idea if your Capital will be able to even get Mausoleum or Zeus, just for starters. The early-game wonder race unfortunately becomes a matter of pure rng.

This is a problem that I think can be solved. I honestly think you can get rid of some of the requirements for a lot of the wonders, and simply the fact that you have to compete for them will stop most major wonderhoarders. I don't agree with all of Solutionit's points -- in particular, I think Zeus should not have requirements, Pyramids should not have requirements, Mausoleum should not have requirements -- anything that's early should have less requirements, if any at all. I also don't really like the "Needs peace"/"Needs war" wonders. If I'm building the Great Wall, a player could just switch their attitude, and then I can't build it anymore. On the other hand, if I'm actively at war, I want to be building units, not wonders. But if I peace out and my opponents go to neutral, which is quite possible in classical, I can't build the wall anymore. Few of these scenarios feel good.

I think there's a distinction to be drawn here between what I'm going to call "tactical wonders" and "terrain wonders". In base VP, Petra, Colossus and Great Lighthouse are the early game "terrain wonders". They have a terrain requirement because they wouldn't make sense without it. Petra needs the desert because it buffs the desert. Colossus needs coast because you need coast to use cargo ships. Great Lighthouse needs coast because if you don't have coast, you don't have a navy. Everything else remains an option because that makes player choices, beyond which map to pick, meaningful.

For that reason, I also have to echo SolutionIt in that Policy Wonders should not have strict terrain restrictions. That situation universally benefits wide empires, and also you're already investing a lot into unlocking the wonder in the first place. I think the Group Wonder approach is a very good one for forcing choice and variety without making it entirely map dependent. What the player wants as opposed to what they have to work with.

Finally, I think it's unreasonable to expect players to plan their cities based on the incredibly idiosyncratic requirements of so many different wonders. You're already considering eventual working range, monopolies, hill, river, mountain, for fresh water and defensive purposes. Adding potential future wonders, when there's no easy way to know what potential future wonders could be built in that tile, is way too complicated to actually plan around.

2) Too much specificity is lost in fanciful/fun flavor text.
I didn't chime in when this was originally brought up because I thought it might be worth a shot and I didn't want to discuss something that I hadn't played, but now that I've played it I really don't like it. I want to preface the following by saying that it's a very creative idea and I can see the effort you put into it, but writing to be both creative and informational is hard, which is perhaps why Firaxis didn't even really try.

Apologies in advance, but my commentary will sound a little bit like I'm criticizing your writing. That's not my intention. My intention is to point out that the most effective way to convey the information is the most boring way.

Let's look at the new text for the Globe Theater.
"Globe Theater unites all artistic proffessions in one wonder (+2GAP/Artist ARtist, Writer Writer, Musician Musician) but its much stronger focus on literature is obvious (Great Writer; +2 Writing Work: Gold). This wonder is so influencial, that people's tastes change according to your will (-1 Sad Face Boredom, -1 Sad Face Sad Face Urbanization).

Right off the bat, there's some real ambiguity here. I can guess that art specialists get +2 GAP each, but the second one loses me. Do I get gold to great works of writing? Do I get a free Great Writer? And the last one is completely confusing. Do I get -1 Boredom locally, or globally? -1 or 2 Urbanization locally, or globally?

Now compare to the text in VP:
+2 culture. +2 GWW slots (+10 gold if themed), Free Great Writer, -` Unhappiness from Boredom, +2 GAP from Writers, Artists, and Musicians in all Cities, -1 Urbanization from All Cities.

This is much more clear, much more obvious, and I know exactly what I'm getting and why I would build it. This is a wonder that's already in base VP, so most people have some idea what to expect. But what about new wonders?

Take Kuk for example:
Kuk, thanks to unique agricultural techniques turned Marshes (+1 prod, +1 science) into rich soil. Use its power to continue development of your huge city (+1-% food, +5% prod/New pop).
Is the bonuses to marshes local or global? Is the pop bonus per citizen, or on citizen birth? If I was playing this modmod for the first time, I would have no idea what this wonder does.

On another point, the Sistine Chapel:
"Make sure to build it, if you aim for a cultural victory."
What purpose does this line serve? Surely if a player is aiming for a cultural victory, they know a building that gives +10% culture will help them get there? Unfortunately, while the idea of helpful, flavorful tooltips sounds good on paper, most of them as it stands don't say anything beyond what a competent VP player could figure out on their own.

It is incredibly hard to write something that is flavorful and that usefully conveys information about numbers better than just the numbers themselves. I don't think anyone could write something flavorful that's as effective as just the straight up numbers and barebones description of bonuses. I think tooltips should go back to the VP baseline, and any helpful tips or tricks should be relegated to a section in the civilopedia if anything. And I think that a strategy section in the civilopedia entries wouldn't be a bad idea.

(Also, does anyone else find it awkward that the Jewish religious wonder gives gold on faith purchase?)


Overall, I'm sorry to say that the mod is not in a state that I enjoy playing. I will probably not include it in my next few playthroughs because I rarely feel as if I can make meaningful decisions about which wonders to pick as opposed to being controlled by the terrain. Functionally, an extra river requirement on the Eiffel Tower means that I try to build it in a secondary city instead of my capital -- not that much more variety. I think the mod would benefit greatly from more playtesting from more people and a critical balance pass. With permission, I'd like to outline a design proposal for organizing the mod more around player choice than terrain restriction. Even though I do not enjoy the state of the mod, I do not wish to impose more than I already have.

Yeah I just saw this whole flavor text thing once I figured out how to set up the github version. First time I played this mod was without the repository version just to clarify before I get on to my slightly different viewpoint. I played a skyrim mod before that tried something like this before and basically made it impossible to ever understand what exactly was going on with a skill you just bought. Lot of people complained about it in the mod and somebody literally went through the trouble of doing a modmod just to fix those descriptions. That stuff just doesn't work without the hard numbers to tell you what happened, and I understand it can be disabled but it is something that takes time away from the important part of the mod and is likely to eventually be phased out by everyone just looking to get a good picture of what they did.

Anyways I think trying to meet a middle ground might work better. I had this thought about a week or two ago when I was thinking of updating to the newest version of VP for the Phoenician Civilization. Instead of adding really out there restrictions for all wonders, why not make it so that the newer ones have that and in particular make it so stronger ones have stricter restrictions, forcing the player to go out of their way to actually settle a city in a specific spot. In a way it'd make a good comeback mechanic if you started in a really poor spot or just didn't get the lead you need and it would be unlikely for someone who is in the lead to waste their time getting that wonder if they don't outright need it since they have bigger fish to fry. You could even make it so that the base wonders aren't even touched, and all restrictions are applied to the new wonders while still toning them down? Another interesting way to handle this which would probably be way easier to balance and keep track of would be to implement wonder city limits that can only be increased by adopting policies. This is good in two ways since it would reward culture victory civs more with the opportunity to build these wonders in smaller empires while still restricting the wonder count. Best way to implement this would be to reward to each and every policy in-game some kind of way of increasing a cap. Good start would be having tradition do the most, and specifically applying it to the capital? Only problem I see with this is there being a similar mechanic in VP already related to that.

Besides the ideas thrown out in the previous paragraph, another issue I feel could become more common is how these heavy restrictions actually help civs who can expand more than the ones who need to show some restraint. Wide Empires are able to complete these restrictions more effectively which tips any victory type in the game more towards their favor. I certainly noticed how when I was trying to do a cultural victory with a civ that needs to stay small (Egypt) I was being forced on many occasions to settle more, which hurts my tech and policy acquisition.

To be honest I'm at least glad someone else sees it how I see it for the most part when it comes to removing the strategy of going for certain techs just to get the wonders in it. I also want to implore Adan-Eslavo to first not be discouraged since this is obviously a really big project, but second to also take a moment to playtest the original and understand why the restrictions worked better than his. One reason I can say they worked better is because trying to actually build all the wonders even with their more lax requirements was pretty much impossible without either the perfect start or basically cheating.

Anyways I'm gonna go ahead and continue my playthrough with the current github repository version as of this time and give my feedback later on what wonders might need to be toned down with the current restrictions design. Thank you for your hard work adan!
 
I think that not all wonders should be built in every game, so restrictions idea is good. But I also agree that some wonders have too strong restrictions and I agree that stronger restrictions should apply to new wonders and base VP wonders should have less restriction
 
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