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.
- 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.
- 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 I was not playing with the outdated wonders mechanic, but if I was, there probably would've been even fewer.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 I think the outdated wonders mechanic addresses the symptoms of this problem while not noticing that it may be worth addressing the root cause.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.