Wonder building can be a PAIN

[Zouave]

One of the more annoying and frustrating aspects of Civ III are the new rules for Great Wonders.

No longer can we use caravans from other cities to speed up production.

No longer can we stockpile caravans from any city to expedite that production.

If we can't finish a Wonder the shields do not go into Wealth; they are usually just lost.

No longer can we even use gold from the treasury to hurry up the production of the Wonder.

No longer do we get warnings that another civ is about to complete a Wonder we're working on.

No longer can we continue producing an already completed (by another civ) Wonder and then switch to a new one as we finish another civ tech advance.

All we can do to speed up production is sell city improvements - and that is a worthless pursuit as they don't give many sheilds and we never know when they will be needed. Unless of course another civ completes a Wonder, beating us by a few turns, and we go to back with autosave and then sell those improvements. Since the AI cheats so much, so what?!

Suggestion:

Why not allow half of the production for a Wonder we were working on, now completed by another civ, to go into Wealth? It makes for a fairer less frustrating game. Enough shields are lost to corruption without throwing away many decades of work on a Wonder.


Yes, the Investigate City option can be slightly helpful (though costly) in keeping track of others' progress on Wonders - assuming you have relations with them, not always probable with the early Wonders.

 

[DrJambo]

Nope, i think it is better the way its is...

This way it keeps you on your toes about building your wonder... after all the Ai never got warnings that you were about to finish the wonder, so why should you! Investigate the cities to check up on them, obviously first using the wonder screen to see which cities are building them though

btw you are probably the most negative person i have witnessed on these message forums...

I personally love the game, just get annoyed with the late industrial invalid page faults that keep appearing!

 

[Rushton]

I think the wonder part isn´t strict enough!

To be realistic you shouldn´t be able to change from one wonder to another when you are pipped to the first one. All that happens is i get wonder numbers 1 and 2 and an AI gets the next one.

I mean: "hey boss the Zulus have pipped us to the great wall. What do we do with our 80% finished wall?"

"Why don´t we add a few towers to it and call it.....i dunno....the Sistine chapel!"

As if :crazyeyes

Paul

Or maybe we could call it Universal Sufferage! :aargh3:

P.S But if I miss by a couple of turns I do admit to reloading sometimes.

 

[Jimcat]

Despite the frustration level, I like the current wonder production scheme.

In Civ1 or Civ2, if you had a high production level, you could crank out enough Caravans to build any wonder in a turn or two. This would result in the human player winding up with practically all of the wonders and an unassailable advantage.

In Civ3, you have a couple of moderating factors to this. There's no rush building of wonders unless you have a Great Leader. Therefore, if you commit a city to a Wonder, it's going to be building that Wonder instead of a lot of settlers, workers, military units, or other improvements. You'd better be able to support the rest of your empire while that city is completing its great project.

Corruption also assures that you won't have a large number of "industrial powerhouse" cities, so the number of wonders you can commit to at any one time is limited. The overall effect of this is to increase the value of the wonders by increasing the trade-offs you need to make to build them. It also makes the game a little more interesting with respect to the wonders being spread out among the various cultures of the world.

If you want to win the Great Wonder race in Civ3, there are two paths to take.

1. The Warmonger strategy. Fight wars and generate plenty of leaders. Use the leaders to hurry your Wonders. The drawback of this is that war slows down your production and economy. More peaceful civilizations may get the technology to begin new Wonders before you do. And while you're romping over your next door neighbor, the peaceful traders in the other hemisphere may be getting too large and advanced to conquer.

2. The Trader/Scientist strategy. Try to stay in peace all the time. Crank up the happiness, use "We Love the King" days to reduce corruption and enhance the economy, and play the science broker. If you trade techs wisely, you'll get a commanding headstart on any Wonder before your rivals get the tech required to start it.

Of course, even the most peaceful player will want a small war or two, if only to generate leaders to create the Heroic Epic and rush the Forbidden Palace. You may get these anyway as the land fills up and population pressure prompts your enemies to fight wars of conquest. Just remember the wise words of the old Roman general: "Let he who wants peace, first prepare for war."

 

[Cerryl]

The way that it is now is fine, in Civ 1&2, methods used to speed wonders, or starting a wonder, loading 3 caravans into and changing it into a city improvement was just pure cheese.

It's a risk/reward thing now, nothing like Starting the Pyramids and having some other civ finish it when you got 2 turns left and all those shields gets converted into 30 shield temple.

When that happens, I take out the civ that built it if I can.

If the game's not hard, why bother.

 

[seghillian]

Originally posted by Rushton


I mean: "hey boss the Zulus have pipped us to the great wall. What do we do with our 80% finished wall?"

"Why don´t we add a few towers to it and call it.....i dunno....the Sistine chapel!"

LOL Rushton! Equally, of course, I can't see our chief saying "Hell! - Tear the damn thing down then!"Actually, I daresay we could just finish our wall regardless and get quite a bit of benefit from it...

I used to like to build all the Wonders in CIV and CIV II but that's no longer possible (except maybe at Chieftan level or something). No matter - I can live with the game the way it is. The only thing that does bug me about the new arrangement is that Wonders CAN be rushed - but only by warmongers - there's no benefit for the builders or the peaceniks. I don't want to go to war simply to create leaders - and you can't get leaders by wiping out Barbs. So, although an express aim of the design was to encourage other ways to win than warfare, here again, a massive boost is handed to the militaristic civs - the "mongol rush" strategy is still with us, as it has been since CIV I.

It would be nice to be able to create GL's by some other method than warfare - (eg first to develop certain techs - first to build x quantity of a particular improvement or whatever) just to give the builders a strategic option here.

 

[OneInTen]

It's not like it's that hard to build wonders if you plan well for it anyway - I'm playing a game at the moment where I plan to build all the great wonders (monarch difficulty) while staying on my own little chunk of island (ie never building ships).

So far I'm at the end of the ancient era and have 7/7, so I'm pretty confident that with some clever planning I can continue to build them all.

If it was just a matter of building caravans and getting every wonder in one turn ... well ... *yawn*

 

[seghillian]

Originally posted by OneInTen
It's not like it's that hard to build wonders if you plan well for it anyway - I'm playing a game at the moment where I plan to build all the great wonders (monarch difficulty) while staying on my own little chunk of island (ie never building ships).

So far I'm at the end of the ancient era and have 7/7, so I'm pretty confident that with some clever planning I can continue to build them all.

I find this very difficult to believe OneInTen. Are you saying you've done this on a random map with no great leaders (because you haven't met other civs)? I would have thought that's impossible, but I'd be interested to hear how you managed it.

 

[OneInTen]

Random huge map, no contact with other civs yet, 11 other (random) civs.

Playing as the Persians, because I figured industrious is important for getting the Pyramids quickly, and religious allows temples on the cheap and close to the oracle.

Started on a river with 3 cows which helped, and found a settler in a goody hut ... so that allowed me to build only one settler in my capital and still get a quick start. Found my second city on another river and used it to pump settlers to all parts. Beyonds that, it's all about prioritising the techs which are going to get you wonders, and building palace placeholders at the right time to ensure you get the wonders quickly when you get the tech.

My civ is pretty weak in other ways because of this though (fairly poor military). Since I'm playing a defensive game I don't care much about that though.

I can post a save game if you still don't believe me.

 

[loki]

I agree, it's not that hard. Though it requires a bit of luck. Here's what I do (regent, huge) : chose an industrious civ and get an island where you can't be bothered. Then, build your capitol, build a warrior, then build a settler while your worker is putting mines and roads just everywhere around your capitol to maximize production. After you get that first settler, start building the Pyramids in the capitol right away.
Usually i will get the pyramids this way. And then, i almost awlays miss the Oracle. But, playing the egyptians, the pyramids trigger the Golden Age, so my capitol can crank out the Oracle in 23 turns, whihch is almost enough to beat the switching AI to this wonder too !
To get the rest of the wonders, have the palace building city trick. And one final note, try building a coastal city soon so you can aim for the colossus and the Great Lighthouse.

Most of the time you will get almost all the wonders, the exception being the Oracle and (colossus or G Lighthouse).

loki