Theory re: Lackluster Wonders

[Rolaran]

So, it's pretty clear that a number of the Wonders in this game are just... not worthwhile. Some of the biggest offenders, ones that deliver a trivial yield for resources expended and/or whose effects are dwarfed by the Almighty Trade Depot, are the New Terran Myth (+4 Culture), the Holon Chamber (+5 Science), the Tectonic Anvil (+9 Production) the Daedalus Ladder (+3 Food, +2 Health), and Nanothermite (+4 Energy, +30 City Defense).

Now, all of these deliver nothing but a boost to one or two yields. And in a fairly large city (which one that's looking at putting up Wonders needs to be), it's barely noticeable. But for each of those wonders, consider how they look if you go back and stick the following two words on the end...

"Per City".

It might not instantly fix them, but it certainly makes them more attractive for a wide player. Empower all your cities at once from the capital, start plunking down super-outposts, reactivate the ol' ICS... all possible.

Furthermore, the Civilopedia lore seems to support this concept, with the New Terran Myth being a prevalent cultural concept that spreads across the entire cultural milieu, the Daedalus Ladder being some kind of extreme self-improvement program, and Nanothermite being a proprietary nanochemical compound (Holon Chamber and the Tectonic Anvil are a little less clear-cut in this regard, but a case could probably be made).

How about it? If these affected every city, would they make more sense? Would you consider building them as a viable strategy? Would any now become too powerful?

 

[Haggbart]

With trade routes being pr city and health penalties not limiting expansion I think the last this game needs is more stuff that are pr. city.

Rather just adjust the yields.

 

[ahawk]

Tectonic Anvil is the only one I'd disagree on, because that's a lot of production and when added to internal trade-routes should help build the end-game planetary wonders very quickly.

But otherwise, I sort of agree that a few of the wonders could be buffed a fair amount and still be just average. I mean, New Terran Myth is miserable when you consider that +4 yield is actually equaled by a number of standard buildings once you factor in building quests.

Really, once you factor in the amount of turns spent to build a couple of these wonders, they end up being actually less effective than skipping them and going on to build certain standard buildings. But what makes this really, really silly is that some wonders that also have a special ability (Markov Eclipse) have higher total yields than wonders that have either no special ability or a lousy one.

Wonders are just not balanced right now. They'll probably buff wonders and nerf trade-routes in the very first patch, I'd imagine.

 

[Fabio1701]

I do think many of them are not interesting , but not inly because of the small yield. Mostly because the mechanics are boring. Rather than giving more of a yield, a wonder should change some gameplay mechanic to make it really interesting.

 

[Wolfman2032]

I do think many of them are not interesting , but not inly because of the small yield. Mostly because the mechanics are boring. Rather than giving more of a yield, a wonder should change some gameplay mechanic to make it really interesting.

I never played much of 5, but in Civ4 that's how a lot of the wonder's worked. Great Wall stops barbarians from entering your borders, or the Pyramids which unlocked all government civics. They generally had effects outside the realm of being stronger building. The equivalent to the Pyramids in this context could be something that allowed you to pick Virtues from a specific tree out of order, for example.

 

[Arcaian]

I never played much of 5, but in Civ4 that's how a lot of the wonder's worked. Great Wall stops barbarians from entering your borders, or the Pyramids which unlocked all government civics. They generally had effects outside the realm of being stronger building. The equivalent to the Pyramids in this context could be something that allowed you to pick Virtues from a specific tree out of order, for example.

Picking them all out of order may be a little too powerful. Could be some early game wonder that lets you pick a single Tier 2 virtue for free or something like that though?

 

[Tomice]

I do think many of them are not interesting , but not inly because of the small yield. Mostly because the mechanics are boring. Rather than giving more of a yield, a wonder should change some gameplay mechanic to make it really interesting.

It seems like lazyness or lack of production time. A wonder that just has raw yields is super-easy to code. One that changes gameplay in a meaningful way is much harder to implement and a possible source of bugs.

 

[defiler]

Aparently, Holon Chamber gives a free tech too
There is even a tread on the forum, and I see it first hand when I was doing the achievement to build all wonders, its in the game code but not on any tooltip or civilopedia
Which one is wrong we don't know

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My guess is that the New Terran Myth was supposed to be a faith-oriented wonder that wasn't changed as faith got tossed from the game.

Aparently, Holon Chamber gives a free tech too

It does. But they forgot to add a HELP tooltip to visualize this for the user.

 

[Wolfman2032]

Picking them all out of order may be a little too powerful. Could be some early game wonder that lets you pick a single Tier 2 virtue for free or something like that though?

Yeah, I was just throwing an idea out there without much thought about balance.

 

[Agent_TBC]

Until the trade route yields get crushed its gonna be impossible to balance any of this stuff.

 

[s0nny80y]

The military bonuses and free virtue wonders are powerful, especially since your military upgrades while on the march, without having to return borders and spend energy.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Right now the only way to get these wonder to be useful is to get the wonder empowered mod.