Wonders -- as used in CEP

[Stalker0]

It may be dropped, there are after all enough early wonders around. However, I feel a "wide food wonder" would be a niche that is not yet filled. What about +1 food on hill farms?

For situations like this I go back to our original mission. Our primary goal is a balance patch, not a content patch.

In general, we should on addressing balance issues in the game.


So the first balance question: Do we have too few wonders in the game?

My thinking is no. There are plenty of wonders to build in the early eras if nothing else.


Do hill farms need a buff?

Again, I think not. Farms on river hills are absolutely amazing, I almost always farm those hills instead of mine them. No balance issue there.


My concern is that we designed this new wonder...so now we are all looking for somewhere to put it...we feel the need to make it worthwhile. But the case should fall the otherway...we should assume any non core wonder we have considered is off the table....and requires a strong justification to bring back on the table.

 

[Funak]

For situations like this I go back to our original mission. Our primary goal is a balance patch, not a content patch.

In general, we should on addressing balance issues in the game.


So the first balance question: Do we have too few wonders in the game?

My thinking is no. There are plenty of wonders to build in the early eras if nothing else.


Do hill farms need a buff?

Again, I think not. Farms on river hills are absolutely amazing, I almost always farm those hills instead of mine them. No balance issue there.


My concern is that we designed this new wonder...so now we are all looking for somewhere to put it...we feel the need to make it worthwhile. But the case should fall the otherway...we should assume any non core wonder we have considered is off the table....and requires a strong justification to bring back on the table.

Banue Rice Terraces isn't really a new wonder, it replaces the hanging gardens as a food-wonder. I do however agree that the food on hills bonus (which actually never was on it when I played CEP as far as I remember) is way too weird and would either be too bad or way overpowered for inca depending on if it worked for terrace farms or not.

 

[Funak]

I think the main thing we need to discuss at the moment is the policylocked wonders and how we want them to work. The way I see it we have 3 different ways to do it:

1. You make a wonder that matches the strengths of the policytree and enhances your ability to do what you do. Most vanilla wonders fall into this category (notable exception being exploration and louvre)

2. You make a wonder that provides what the tree doesn't provide to somewhat combat the trees weaknesses.

3. You just assign random wonders to the policytrees without caring about if they make sense or not.

 

[mitsho]

Stalker, you make some good points. I personally wouldn't be opposed to just rename a few wonders to combat the eurocentricness and show new players other wonders and banaue fits perfectly. But yes, we don't need it, I was however just brainstorming.

As for policy-tree wonders, I'd go with another way:

4. You have a wonder that is too strong or useless (and needs to have a condition to it)* or whose supposed benefitor can't build it normally.

*also applies to Macchu Picchu - Mountains or Borobodur - Holy City
**Conquest wonders built by wondermongers before a conqueror may build it -> put it into honor.

I would go this way and if a certain wonder is useful for anyone, why do we need to put it behind a trigger?

I would go with a mixture of 4. and 2., i.e. the proposal of putting the Oracle behind piety as a buff to the tree sounds reasonable to me. Tradition however doesn't need a wonder, it already has the bonus to building all wonders after all. (I'm not sure a clear opinion can be given on the later trees at the moment )

 

[Funak]

I would go with a mixture of 4. and 2., i.e. the proposal of putting the Oracle behind piety as a buff to the tree sounds reasonable to me. Tradition however doesn't need a wonder, it already has the bonus to building all wonders after all. (I'm not sure a clear opinion can be given on the later trees at the moment )

I personally think we should stick to one wonder per tree, if the tradition wonderbonus bothers you then just remove it, it is silly in the first place.

 

[mitsho]

Nah, it's not silly. And I'm just saying that rather than force a wonder onto a tree "because we have to have symmetry across the board", look at what makes sense gameplay wise. That may be 0 or 2 wonders per tree. But of course, that's my subjective opinion as well and we're never gonna agree on that one anyways

 

[Funak]

Well since everyone here seems to have died I'll just Write my basic thoughts on which wonders to place where.


Tradition: Banue Rice Terraces (the dismantled 10% food from ToA + some flat food would work fine here)

Liberty: Honestly no clue, I'm not sure there are any early wonders matching where we want to go with liberty.

Piety options:
1. Wat Pha Kaew (10% gold&culture from shrines and temples), not sure about this one either
2. Hagia sophia (Free Great Prophet)
3. Great mosque
4 Borobudur

Honor options:
1. Statue of zeus
2. Terracotta army
3. Remade ToA

Honestly extremly hard, but we need to start somewhere.

Also it would be great if someone could get a leaderthread started today so we get a chance to finish or atleast get started on leaderdiscussions this weekend.

 

[Stalker0]

Banue Rice Terraces isn't really a new wonder, it replaces the hanging gardens as a food-wonder.

Thus making the Hanging Gardens....a new wonder



As to the discussion around Policy Locked Wonders, the only wonder right now that I have issues with is the pyramids and liberty. Both from a power sense (I think the pyrarmids are weak) and also thematic (Egypt is geared towards tradition).

 

[guto8797]

One thing I noticed that perhaps can be fixed with wonders is trade route range. You see, in the whole game there are 3 techs that increase trade range. 3! If as Venice or Portugal you get a start far away from coastal cities you are screwed! So i tought, waddabout adding "Extend sea trade routes" to things like the colossus, adding a Suez Canal wonder, or even having the lighthouse extend a bit sea trade route range?

 

[skodkim]

Thus making the Hanging Gardens....a new wonder.

As mentioned before please be aware that Hanging Gardens has a new function with CBP. I would definately oppose to removing this wonder.

\Skodkim

 

[Stalker0]

As mentioned before please be aware that Hanging Gardens has a new function with CBP. I would definately oppose to removing this wonder.

\Skodkim

I was actually talking about about Bananue Rice Terraces. Effectively the hanging garden was changed...and BRT was created with HGs original function.

It still amounts to adding a new wonder. I personally am a big proponent that every addition (new unit, new wonder, new promotion, etc etc) should have a strong justification for its inclusion....and as this is a balance patch the primary justification should be balance.


So am asking to be sold on the BRT...what does it bring to the table that makes it worthy of inclusion?

 

[skodkim]

It brings a whole new effect that has never been seen in CiV before, making the city able to work tiles four tiles away. Its a rather cool effect that can enable you to work resources you could otherwise not have worked, can influence your city placement, etc. Imho its one of those things that adds a new and unique effect to the game. We're already working on making wonders more distinct - this is it...

Edit: sorry, we're you still talking about banaue (brt)

\Skodkim

 

[Funak]

BRT replaced HG as a foodwonder because it made more sense historyvise, HG got move to providing happiness instead effectively replacing Notre dame.

And I know you're not going to buy this as a reason but the main reason why BRT replaces HG is because it actually provided a huge amount of food unlike the HG which if it existed probably was more of a monument than something actually useful.

 

[Gazebo]

As mentioned before please be aware that Hanging Gardens has a new function with CBP. I would definately oppose to removing this wonder.

\Skodkim

Wait, it does?
G

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I think he's using whoward's City Working Distance mod.

 

[skodkim]

It does. Hanging Gardens makes the city able to work tiles four tiles away. Furthermore (I think) it provides a free Garden.

\Skodkim

 

[Funak]

It does. Hanging Gardens makes the city able to work tiles four tiles away. Furthermore (I think) it provides a free Garden.

\Skodkim

It did not do that the last time I played CEP, thats for sure.
The effect itself is fun, if not a bit too powerful.

 

[skodkim]

It did not do that the last time I played CEP, thats for sure.
The effect itself is fun, if not a bit too powerful.

This isn't a CEP effect, it's from the balance patch.

Yeah, may be powerful but it's fun!

\Skodkim

 

[NarrativeKnight]

Banaue Rice Terraces - This needs to stay in game because removing the extra food wonder which has been in game forever isn't something we should consider. If you remove this then the Hanging Gardens needs to be changed to a food wonder possibly with an added effect.
Great Library - This should stay the same. I always get it when I can and use the Free Tech to get another tech so I can start building a wonder earlier which makes a significant difference.
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - This is the only ancient gold wonder so we should keep it and just give it better effects. Halicarnassus was a rich coastal capital and much of the tax money was spent on making the city beautiful and filled with statues and marble buildings. That is the reason for gold from stone and marble in the city. As the Stone Works no longer requires stone in the city why not make the Mausoleum give a free Stone Works and trade route and Merchant GP points. Not sure why even this mausoleum would be a source of happiness any way. Mausolus was popular so his death was not a source of happiness. Move the Pyramids over to Calendar with Stonehenge and bring stone works over to Masonry. This sounds like a better fit to me anyway. Stonehenge and the Pyramids were the two structures that defied modern engineers the longest for discovering their methods of being built.
Statue of Zeus - It was mentioned earlier and I completely agree that some kind of cost reduction for troop maintenance is necessary for this wonder. If you don't help pay for the troops then they just become something to disband for money.
Stonehenge - I believe due to reasons noted above that Stonehenge also deserves a GE point just like the Pyramids. The +5 faith is the better option. Giving it a GE point is reason to not let it be built from the start instead of researching for it.
Temple of Artemis - Take away the 10% growth and give it to the Banaue Rice Terraces wonder and reduce the actual food down to 4 or 5. The temple then would give 20XP to archers built in the city or 50% increased XP gain for all range units made by every city. You could add the 15% production bonus as well for the archer only and only in the city with the wonder.

Those are the changes I would make for the Ancient Era wonders. The ones I didn't mention are of course fine as they are written in CEP. I think these changes would make of all of the ancient wonders worth building and make for interesting decision making in every game.

 

[NarrativeKnight]

Colossus - 10 GPT is too much. Isn't that the reason they took away the gold from each water hex? The trade route and cargo ship are good but add GM points and possibly tourism. Being coastal and incredible actually made this a tourist type attraction before it fell. Actually I think all of ancient wonders should have tourism benefits starting in the modern age and possibly the classical ones to a lesser degree as well. The Colossus seems like it would have been able to establish tourism early due to its being coastal and a trade center.
Great Lighthouse - As above I believe the Great Lighthouse could also be a source of early game tourism. I think the 20 xp for ships doesn't quite replace what was taken so how about adding a 5% bonus to ship production too?
Hanging Gardens - + 6 happiness is a bit much but the free garden is good. Can we make the Hanging Gardens add + 1 happiness for each happiness building in the city? Start with + 2 on its own along with the Garden.
Oracle 5 culture is definitely too much. 3 culture plus the free policy seems like it should work fine.
Parthenon - Once again I believe that 5 culture this early is just too much. Reduce it to 3 culture.
Terracotta Army - Once again I am going with changing the 5 culture to + 3 for this wonder.

This seems to be all we should need to do for the wonders of the Classical Era. This could be the point where start trying to add length to trade routes if they are scalable by map size.

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