Q for Firaxis: Why no speeding of Wonders?

[Grashnak]

Originally posted by polymath
Or Prince Charles? Ralph Nader?

Hey, I thought we were talking about GREAT leaders. If you want to introduce Prince Charles or Ralph Nader into the game, you'd need a new category of Marginal Leaders (ML) or Irrelevant Leaders(IL). Or you could introduce the Talk Radio small wonder, which would allow you to build Dumb Asses (DA).

The main benefit of a DA would be the lowering of your nation's education level.

:ripper:

 

[polymath]

Good idea, it could be something your spys could do in another Civ's cities - Create Dumb Ass Leader! Actually, thinking about George Bush......

 

[Proteus]

Maybe you could invent peaceful Uses for Great Leaders.
For example calming angry Citizens down, as long as the Leader is in Town.
I think of such special Leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King were. Both had a great Influence on the Masses.

Maybe you could have two different kinds of Leaders.
Military Leaders who are created by Combat and who have the ability to create Armies.
Peaceful Leaders who are created by certain Circumstances as discussed in this Thread, who have the ability to calm angry Citizens down.
Both kind of Leaders would share the ability to rush Wonders.

 

[Cerryl]

The old way was too cheesy and outright lame: Save up a buttload of caravans/freights, start wonder, send them all to rush it and it's done.

Ditto with the notice someone's about to complete one, just not challenging at all.

 

[daffyduckmw]

I agree that it would be nice to have a peaceful way to get leaders. I've only played three games, but my play style just lends itself to a peaceful trading civ and I haven't gotten to try out a leader yet. I've gone a whole game without a war.

Building wonders can be a pain but maybe I'm just used to CivII style rushing. Still, if you're given a way to rush why should it only apply to warmongers?

I like the idea of a very slim chance of a leader with each discovery or maybe getting a leader by being the first to get a select tech or two.

 

[boca]

How about this

We can have several types of peaceful leaders
Scientfic Leaders:
Can rush Science related Wonders (Isaac Newton College, Manhattan Project) and produce extra science in the city where they are

Cultural Leaders:
Can rush Cultural related Wonders (J.S. Bach Cathedral, Shaeskpeare Theater) and produce extra culture in the city where they are

Religious/Social Leaders:
Can rush Religious or Social related Wonders (Oracle, Universal Suffrage) and produce happy citiizens in the city where they are

Comercial Leaders:
Can rush Comercial related Wonders (Wall Street, Adam Smith) and produce extra gold in the city where they are.

What do you think?

 

[Proteus]

It sounds really good.

I doubt, that they will implement such extensive Changes like we suggested into the current game , but I really hope, that they take our Ideas into account for Civ IV

 

[boca]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS

If you have any ideas on difficult to achieve feats that would provide a chance of getting a GL through peaceful means, I'd love to hear them.
Dan

Well, Dan was asking for Ideas, so maybe there is a chance

 

[ahenobarb]

I had a "Not-So-Great Leader". The Greeks attacked an archer I had, wounded him, but he became elite. Attacked again during the same Greek turn, won again and spawned a great leader. Attacked again in the same turn (the elite now a 2/5), archer dies, great leader dies, and I never got to move him!!

Here lies our great leader, if only he had slept late that day ...

 

[Dwarven_Megalomaniac]

Why is it hard to concieve of a peacefull civ creating a great leader?

Was Gandhi not a great leader?
What about Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha?
What about any of the dahli lama's?
Nelson Mendela?

Also, why is it unlikely that a civ who's currently peacefull can not create a great leader (for military use)? All the great military thinkers of the American civil war studied together in peacetime.

 

[ironfang]

Peacefull great leaders could be produced with the proper formula.

Based on Cultural Points:
First GL: 200 CP
2nd GL: 800 CP
3rd GL: 1600 CP
4th GL: 3000 CP
5th GL: 6000 CP
6th GL: 9000 CP

The basis of this is that once your nation has engaged in War, it no longer can gain a Peacefull Great Leader. I think this will force people to try and remain peacefull at all times at virtually any price to get their GL's, and it removes the exploit of just allowing "only civs who start wars".

ironfang

 

[ironfang]

BTW you could also have a "Peacefull Golden Age" if peacefull civs meet the following criteria;

Cultural Points without War: 5,000

Great Wonders: Oracle, Sistine Chapel, Cure for Cancer, etc..

Polite with All World Leaders


This would make it real difficult for peaceful civ to enter Golden age, but it would be ALOT of fun!

ironfang

 

[Akka]

You could have two kinds of Great Leaders : the Military Leaders (Heroes, or Generals, or anything like that), who would appear just like they do in the game, but could only be used to build an army.
And the Civlian Leaders (Genius, or Saviors, or anything like that) whose only purpose is to rush a wonder.

I have also another solution, and I would like to have your opinions about it : armies and leaders add nothing to the depth of the game, they are rather like "bonuses" (same as the one you gain in the shoot-them-up when you kill a big enough number of ennemies), they waste three small wonders that could have been used to generate more interesting effects, and they rise question about the balance between military and peaceful civilizations. So I propose to just get rid of them, and instead try to find something really innovative.
(I guess I'm about being flamed for that )

 

[Sam_Catchem]

I think Peaceful leaders (if there were any) could help with corruption. Maybe, build something like a second forbidden palace or something. You know some sort of special wonder for peaceful civs, just to balance The Heroic Epic, etc. for Militaristic civs.


To get them should be pretty rare.....but if you do get them it should be pretty powerful.

 

[Quboid]

I think Great Leaders should be made from Tech advances (great scientest) or WLTK days (great entertainer or politician). Maybe 1/25 chance from tech, don't know about WLTK days.

They could also have a peaceful use - maybe cheering up a city for a while or something.

 

[boca]

That is exactly what i suggested Xain.
Take a look!

Originally posted by boca
How about this

We can have several types of peaceful leaders
Scientfic Leaders:
Can rush Science related Wonders (Isaac Newton College, Manhattan Project) and produce extra science in the city where they are

Cultural Leaders:
Can rush Cultural related Wonders (J.S. Bach Cathedral, Shaeskpeare Theater) and produce extra culture in the city where they are

Religious/Social Leaders:
Can rush Religious or Social related Wonders (Oracle, Universal Suffrage) and produce happy citiizens in the city where they are

Comercial Leaders:
Can rush Comercial related Wonders (Wall Street, Adam Smith) and produce extra gold in the city where they are.

What do you think?

 

[LoneWolf5050]

Just investigate the enemy city/cities that is/are building the same wonder. Then you'll know if you have a chance of building it before they do. Costs gold, and you need an embassy (or spy if you're at war), but it sure beats wasting hundreds of shields only to be beat out at the last minute by the evil French.

--LW

 

[Eliezar]

I'll just put my two cents in that I prefer the way wonders are done in Civ III to either of the previous Civs. Although its been awhile I think in the first Civ the computer players cheated on wonders. In both civ 1 and 2 it was WAY too easy to get all or almost all of the wonders. I like Civ III and the risk/reward for wonders. And human players can normally get the wonders they want because they are smarter than computer players.

Step 1 make a super shield city. Computers can't do this near as well.

Step 2 start a very expensive civ improvement 10 to 20 turns before you think the wonder will be available.

Its that easy, but you can't dominate the game by getting all the early wonders in Civ III.

Eliezar

 

[Kiki]

I like the idea of a peaceful Great Leader who can do things like increase culture slightly, reduce corruption moderatly, and make people happy/content.

The peaceful Great Leader shouldn't be too powerful though.

The military and peaceful both can hurry a wonder.

I agree with certain techs (but CIV III needs MORE techs, especially in the Modern Age!!!!!) and more Wonders too! I miss the Wonder Movies there too. Firaxis did a bad idea on making less techs, wonders, and excluding wonder movies. Firaxis should fix those things except wonder movies if they can.

Techs should have like a very small percent of getting a peaceful GL like 2%. WLTK day like 2% and cultural expansion of a city like 4%. Being Polite to all civs for like 125 turns is like 6.25% Making a small wonder too should increase your chances of getting one like Heroic Epic.

 

[Flak]

Originally posted by Dan Magaha FIRAXIS
I think the main reason that wonder rushing was made less easy was to make the building of a wonder more of a significant game moment. It means a lot more to complete a wonder in Civ III than it did in Civ II.

It also balances out armies quite a bit because when and if you get a great leader you really have to choose what to do with that leader -- army or wonder? An army of strong units can really help crack a well-entrenched city when you need it, but a wonder can help you with other things, so it gives you a tough choice to make.

Dan

The only problem with this argument is that the wonders have, in general, become less powerful. It seems like you should do one or the other. Make them impossible to rush OR make them less powerful. Not both! Atleast not for fun purposes...

joespaniel said:
Unfortunately, in the real world, all the truly "great" civilizations were militarily powerfull and aggressive.

The plunder and enslavement of other nations made them what they were.

Thats life, thats what all the people say...

Yes but the times when these mighty civilizations created some of the magnificent Wonders of history, they were often experiencing great periods of peace and were at the peak of the cultural development and influence.

Times of war do not inpire Great Wonders historically. Indeed war tends to inspire technological develpment.

powzapbif said:
Failed Wonder
It would be interesting to have a Failed Wonder wonder. This would be built if the wonder being built was built by another civ before the wonder was completed. It would have to be over 75% complete for this to happen. The Failed Wonder would give 1 culture but no other benifits.

This could prevent the "Great Switchover Effect" when a wonder is built and all the civ's switch build tasks.

What an awesome idea! It doesn't throw away game balance but gives some respite from the wonders race. Very cool! I wonder if there won't be some way to implement something like this in a future editor...