[GS] St. Basil's Should Only Be Allowed on Tundra

[Hogimus]

As title says, St. Basil's should only be allowed on tundra. It's very frustrating when you find a great spot for it, get close finishing it only to see the AI has built it no where near tundra. I know it has the relic slots, but I don't think that is why most people built it (besides Khmer players).

 

[bite]

Indeed, it is surprising that it is still not

 

[blackcatatonic]

Been saying this for a while now!

 

[kaspergm]

In b4 "but Moscow is not on Tundra" crowd.



... I agree, btw, should require Tundra.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Is it not quite overpriced for a rather small benefit? So while it may be cool to have, maybe it should not be priced in the 900s to begin with and if the ai want to waste that sum and not even get the tundra bonus, maybe there is something wrong with the ai priorities?

Still making it tundra instead of being next to CS would make sense given its bonuses and also probably make the ai play somewhat better.

 

[leandrombraz]

The AI should also only build it if the city have a certain amount of tundra tiles, at least 3-4 tiles. Same for all the Petra like wonders. I feel personally offended when the AI build one of these wonders in a city that can't benefit of it. In my last game, Mali built the Chicken pizza in a one tile rainforest. Mali, of all Civs. They should be building Petra, Jebel Backal but noooo, they wanted Chicken Pizza, MY Chicken Pizza!!!! THIS SHALL BE KNOWN AS THE CHICKEN PIZZA WAR!!!

 

[iammaxhailme]

I sort of want the Tundra part and the Relic part to be part of 2 separate wonders...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I sort of want the Tundra part and the Relic part to be part of 2 separate wonders...

Given it is unlocked with reformed religion, you are pretty much ment to have a religion or atleast Heavy faith infrastructure so the relic slots are justified. Spending alot of Culture and then alot of production just to get a rather minor tundra bonus is not justified I would say, and thats if you even get it as pretty much every city can build it due to only needing to be next to the city center.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

I don't see a point why. Moscow has a freezing winter but it's not all year round winter.
Besides. I rarely see AI joins the race to build Oracle and I often finished it as if there's no one else want to do.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i agree that it should be tundra locked and also as mentioned above the AI should really be smart enough not to built wonders that will not benefit them. just because they can built it should not mean that they need to built it.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Their preferred wonders are The Stone Henge, The Hanging Gardens (so being built within first 50 turns if game begins in ancient era) and Temple of Artemis.
AI may be fond of The Pyramids as well. they like Jerbel Barkal and Apadana but not Petra.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Their preferred wonders are The Stone Henge, The Hanging Gardens (so being built within first 50 turns if game begins in ancient era) and Temple of Artemis.
AI may be fond of The Pyramids as well. they like Jerbel Barkal and Apadana but not Petra.

Great Bath and Machu Picchu seem to be favorites among the AI crowd: always go fast, and always seems to be a competition to build them - I've seen Machu in progress in four out of nine AI Civ's in a single game, and I don't think I've ever seen that much competition for anything else.

I'm really, really torn about St Basil's. On the one hand, a little better coding would keep the AI from building 'useless' Wonders or 'mis-placing' Wonders where they aren't worth the Production that goes into them.
On the other hand, neither St Basil's Cathedral nor Moscow IRL are anywhere near Tundra, so it's a Wonder with 'fake' effects in the first place.
On yet a Third Hand, St Basil's is close to being a "Russia Specific" Wonder, because Russia is the one Civ (at least that I've played) that is 90% guaranteed to start in the middle of, or at least on or near, Tundra in every single game. Canada now appears to be close to that percentage of Tundra starts, but I haven't played Canada or had it in enough games to confirm.
Give St Basil's a Tundra tile placement requirement, though, and you may be making it a Wonder that is largely limited to Russia, Canada, or Sweden when Christina is looking to settle as many different terrain types as possible - but if Sweden doesn't get a Tundra city early, it will be hard put to match the production in a Near Start of Game Russian or Canadian metropolis by the Renaissance Era when St Basil's becomes available.

 

[Sostratus]

On the other hand, neither St Basil's Cathedral nor Moscow IRL are anywhere near Tundra, so it's a Wonder with 'fake' effects in the first place.

On the other hand, arguing St Basils shouldn't require tundra because moscow isn't near tundra sort of steps on the wonder's own effects and the ability of the russian civ, since very few russians live in "tundra." In fact, most of Russia & canada by area isn't even defined as a tundra biome. Civ6 seems to interpret for flavor mechanics that basically, places that get super cold in the winter, are "tundra enough." After all, pop culture thinks of russia and Canada as snowy inhospitable places on par with Hoth.
See also: the Hockey Rink must be built in tundra, which is a fairly unrealistic requirement given that even San Jose has a hockey team. In the tundra, nature is your hockey rink!

IMO the bigger argument against tundra tile placement is that it also has a "next to city center" rule which would really interfere with city placement on tundra bordering regions. (Tundra biome in game usually isn't big enough to actually fill an entire city's terrain in the first place.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

On the other hand, arguing St Basils shouldn't require tundra because moscow isn't near tundra sort of steps on the wonder's own effects and the ability of the russian civ, since very few russians live in "tundra." In fact, most of Russia & canada by area isn't even defined as a tundra biome. Civ6 seems to interpret for flavor mechanics that basically, places that get super cold in the winter, are "tundra enough." After all, pop culture thinks of russia and Canada as snowy inhospitable places on par with Hoth.
See also: the Hockey Rink must be built in tundra, which is a fairly unrealistic requirement given that even San Jose has a hockey team. In the tundra, nature is your hockey rink!

IMO the bigger argument against tundra tile placement is that it also has a "next to city center" rule which would really interfere with city placement on tundra bordering regions. (Tundra biome in game usually isn't big enough to actually fill an entire city's terrain in the first place.)

Yes, right now St Basil's is hard to build simply because the city that can take advantage of its Tundra Bonuses is also a city that is working marginal tiles up to that point and so may be really lacking in Production or enough Growth to take advantage of its own working area. But that is a general problem with any Wonder that requires to be built in marginal terrain: like Tundra, Desert, or Marsh (until you can get an IZ up with Bonuses and Adjacencies, try getting enough production out of an extensive area of Marsh tiles to build anything!)

On a more general note, I feel cheated when a game purports to be historically based or has historical elements in it, and utterly botches the historical elements. Especially since there is no reason for that other than simple lack of application: St Basil's Cathedral as a Wonder does not have to have an artificial 'Tundra' connection, nor does Russia have to have a Tundra connection, except among people with only the most ephemeral knowledge of Russia and Russian history.
I'll give you an example, though: in 1812 Napoleon had already lost over 300,000 men before September. During the infamous 'Retreat from Moscow" he lost less than 100,000 men. The Russian SUMMER killed three times more troops than the "Russian Winter" did.

 

[bbbt]

I will say otoh Russian Orthodox Churches (and Ukrainian, and Serbian) do love their relics, so that part is at least accurate. Though often the relics are just small remnant body parts (or the entire body) of the prior monks/priests

 

[kb27787]

As title says, St. Basil's should only be allowed on tundra. It's very frustrating when you find a great spot for it, get close finishing it only to see the AI has built it no where near tundra. I knohiw it has the relic slots, but I don't think that is why most people built it (besides Khmer players).

And Kongo... You'll find me building it in the midst of lush rainforest. The double tourism part alone makes it worth the cost.

Stop crying and learn to do Magnus chop... In my experience the deity AI almost always never build it once they reach the civic unless their city has tundra anyway (not talking about those t200 wonder builds just to get era score though)

 

[Tech Osen]

In fact, most of Russia & canada by area isn't even defined as a tundra biome. Civ6 seems to interpret for flavor mechanics that basically, places that get super cold in the winter, are "tundra enough."

Tundra is by definition without trees yet in Civ 6 we see plenty of tundra tiles with forests (which should be called taiga). It's a simplification of reality.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Tundra is by definition without trees yet in Civ 6 we see plenty of tundra tiles with forests (which should be called taiga). It's a simplification of reality.

The simplification is in Civ using Terrain to stand in for Climate. Specifically, Russia does not have particularly extreme Terrain: some tundra and taiga in the north, some deserts in the areas south and east of the Urals, but most of Russia where most of the Russians are is swampy forest, rolling grasslands, or flat plains (steppe). It's the Russian Climate that is extreme, with an annual temperature range in central Russia of over 60 degrees C.

But I suspect it will be a Cold Day in Astrakhan before we see a Climate model in Civ . . .

 

[Tech Osen]

But I suspect it will be a Cold Day in Astrakhan before we see a Climate model in Civ . . .

It's one of those things that some people would love and others would hate. Though it's amusing that there is no climate system while there is global warming...

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's one of those things that some people would love and others would hate. Though it's amusing that there is no climate system while there is global warming...

More importantly, it would be strictly a Climate model, because the Civ VI time scale makes a Weather Model utterly impractical. But Weather is what people are usually thinking about: the winters of 1812 and 1941 that finished off invading armies in Russia, for instance, were well within the normal Climate pattern, but exceptionally severe as individual events. So, any "Climate System" would wind up being complete Fantasy, or a system of Random Weather Events coupled with an extension of the current "Climate Change" - which should have included the historic climate variations already, but that's a topic for another Thread entirely.