WONDERS (ver1.1): Hosted by EnochF

[EnochF]

Go ahead and post here while I'm cooking up the summary of the previous thread. 'Kay?

Oh, and, er, close ver 1.0, please, yin, or whoever's in charge...

[EnochF]

Let's try this again. Here's the summary for the last thread.

WORLD'S GREATEST: Ecce Homo
By paying double the shield cost, a civilization can build a World's Greatest city improvement, which grants a small bonus for that city (double effect, as in +100% gold for marketplaces, 4 citizens happy for temples, etc.) Another civilization can pay double that to outdo the current World's Greatest. A temple = 20 shields, the first World's Greatest = 40, someone else spends 80 to outdo them, etc.
Pythagoras: Suggests limited timespan for world's greatest.
kmj: Suggests "bidding" for world's greatest. Suggests world's greatest can go obsolete, i.e. World's Greatest Marketplace loses all bonuses upon discovery of Banking.
Glacier: World's tallest building or longest bridge/tunnel could provide extra gold or happiness.

PROGRAMMABLE WONDERS: EnochF
A long series of flags allows players to redefine current wonders and create new ones to a much larger extent. Any Wonders dropped from the final release of the game might still persist as possible game effects to be used by scenario and modpack designers.

WONDER DETERRENTS: Ufa
Random negative effects for more powerful wonders. Leonardo's might leave a percentage of units not upgraded. Lighthouse has a chance to burn out each turn.
EnochF: As an alternative to random effects, use constant negative effects instead. Increased pollution or corruption in the host city, slight happiness reduction for the civ, high maintenance cost in gold, or something along those lines.

WONDERS OFF OPTION: kmj
An option in the game menu to disallow all wonder effects (and even the ability to build wonders). Alternatively, an option to "tone down" wonders, maybe decrease effects by half wherever possible.
Ufa: A "modifier" for wonders, like Civ II's modifier for barbarians
Mark_Everson: Disallow wonders that count as an improvement in every city. Wonders that never go obsolete are unbalancing.
Ecce Homo: Suggests Pyramid be city improvement, thus Great Pyramid = world's greatest

DISALLOWING "RACES TO BUILD": meowser
No two cities in one civilization can build the same wonder at the same time.
CyberShy: No races allowed at all.
kmj: Races between two civilizations should be discouraged but not disallowed by the game. A message appears, such as, "Sir, the Egyptians are believed to be working on a similar project. Shall we continue?"
SnowFire: Disallowing switching production would severely handicap the AI. A player can always buy the wonder at the last minute, leaving the computer with a great deal of wasted production.
ErikNYC: Left-over production could be converted into trade, food, science, or some other variable related to the Wonder being constructed.

EVOLVING WONDERS THROUGH THE AGES: Eggman
Wonder effects which change as the ages progress. Pyramids act as granary early on, then change to gold bonus. Olympic Games provide extra gold, cease to function in Renaissance, then increase happiness in later ages, etc. Aging wonders may incur higher and higher maintenance costs.
EnochF: All obsolete wonders generate tourism gold.
SnowFire: Aging wonders should not incur maintenance costs simply because they are obsolete. However, maintenance costs for certain Wonders may be feasible.
EdCase: When a Wonder goes obsolete, adds 10% to income of the city.
Depp: The game's more fun when Wonders never go obsolete.

LAND ENGINEERING WONDERS: Diodorus
The Great Canal, for example, requiring explosives, modern engineers, allows trade routes. The Polders may reclaim land from the sea. A Great Wall which actually acts as a physical wall along the civ's borders.
Ecce Homo: Canals, bridges, walls could be city improvements. The World's Greatest Canal could have effects resembling Great Canal.
kmj: Land engineering Wonders are limited by the surrounding terrain, no Great Canal by water

RE-BUILDABLE WONDERS: meowser
Only if two rival civs are building the same wonder, the second civ to complete the wonder receives a "compensation" bonus of happiness or gold. The first civ receives the standard wonder effect.
Fugi the Great: Civs can build the same Wonder and call it something different.

NATURAL WONDERS: CyberShy
Effects are conferred upon a civilization simply by having the wonder in its territory.
Taedott: Natural wonders are a resource, no benefits unless "improved."
meowser: Natural wonders appear on Earth map, or randomized on map like SMAC geographical features. Size: 1 tile, offer resource bonus, can be "improved" to provide tourism.

VISIBLE WONDERS: EnochF
Certain Wonders would appear in the city radius as impressive graphics. They would not confer any bonus to the worker on that square.
meowser: Visible wonders should be vulnerable to pillage (without direct assault on the city).
Ecce Homo: All Wonders should be visible. If it's not visible, it's not a Wonder (Women's Suffrage, Internet, Emancipation Act are thus disallowed)

"CULTURE" PARTLY DEFINED BY WONDERS: Trachmyr
Part of a larger system suggested in other forums. The Wonders a player builds help define a new game element called "culture," which may affect a civilization's war readiness, science, economy, government, even graphical representation on screen. A fairly radical reordering of traditional Civ. Bears resemblance to "social engineering" as found in SMAC.
Darkstarr: Special Projects could be mechanisms for adjusting social engineering.

CULTURAL WONDERS: meowser
Certain Wonders are only constructible by certain civs. Which civ can build which Wonder may be randomized at the beginning of the game.
kmj: Disagrees with cultural wonders, warns against "factions" rather than civilizations.
(Many disagreements)

UNCERTAINTY OF WONDER EFFECTS: CyberShy
Effects of wonders should not be predefined. Effects of the Wonder should only become clear to the builder X number of years after it is built.

GRADUAL WONDER OBSOLESCENCE: Zorloc
Wonders should not cease all effects on obsolescence, but gradually "phase out" over a few turns.
Zakalwe: Suggests something similar for captured wonders. Effects do not take effect immediately.

COOPERATIVE WONDER BUILDING: meowser
Certain limited Wonders could be jointly built by a conglomeration of nations. United Nations is an obvious choice.

SHARED WONDERS EFFECTS IN ALLIANCE: meowser
Also suggested in the Diplomacy list. All civs allied with each other receive the effects of each other's Wonders.
(Several agree)

WONDER CATEGORIES: Ecce Homo
Certain Wonders are not dependent upon shields (resources) to be built. Scientific Wonders built by beakers, Economic Wonders built by gold.

WONDERS WITH UNIVERSAL BENEFITS: Ecce Homo
Growing out of Sieve Too's Internet Wonder. Many wonders provide benefits to all civs, i.e. the Olympic Games open to all who choose to participate, Wormhole Sensor, Apollo, Manhattan, etc.
willko: Disagrees. Wonders should have localizable benefits to the city they are built in (e.g., Lighthouse only functions at X distance maximum). Any wonder with a "universal" benefit should have a separate "non-universal" benefit, i.e. Manhattan Project also grants +25% science.

WONDERS AS A CIVILIZATION-WIDE PROJECT: meowser
Wonders are not built on the level of the city at all. Instead of being a city project, they are built by the entire civilization, using X% of total production or some such thing. Wonders thus do not appear in cities but in a special "wonder screen."
Fugi the Great: Wonders built by engineers or terraformers rather than X% of production. Increase costs of Wonders.

NAME YOUR OWN WONDER: kmj
Hoover Dam may be called Aswan or Three Gorges or London Dam. Forbidden City may be called Imperial Palace, Throne Hall of Persepolis, Palace of Versailles or Atlanta Palace. The Agency may be called FBI, CIA, KGB, KLA or KMJ Killer Squad.
Trachmyr: The game should suggest a few key names.

LANDSCAPE LIMITED WONDERS: kmj
Lighthouse only in coastal city, Hoover Dam requires a river. Only applies to certain Wonders.

SMALL WONDERS: willko
Suggests a huge number of wonders (rather than Wonders) with small effects, usually increased trade. Examples: Space Needle, Leaning Tower, etc. Rather than huge Wonders with sweeping effects like Pyramids, have countless small wonders with tiny, localized effects.

INTERNET WONDER: Sieve Too
A suggestion that provoked a huge response of support. The Internet wonder would provide benefits to not only the host civilization, but all civilizations with the Computers advance. Sparked the discussion about "universal" wonders.
anachron: Internet should be a technological advance, not a Wonder.

HUMAN GENOME PROJECT: anachron
Should have military ramifications, such as the ability to infect an enemy city with genetically engineered virus and start an epidemic.

SEVEN WONDERS PER AGE: mrtemba
Every age should have exactly seven Wonders.

SPECIAL PROJECTS: Darkstarr
"National Special Projects" is the general category, of which Wonders are a subset. Wonders are unique NSP's, but certain NSP's would be rebuildable. Certain Wonders could enable the construction of other NSP's.

DELAYED AVAILABILITY: Ufa
Merely having researched the appropriate technology does not immediately allow the construction of the Wonder associated with that technology. There is a cumulative chance each turn that someone will "think up" the Wonder, making it available for your civ to build.

Next up, the complete list of Suggested Wonders.

[wheathin]

Unique Wonders
To mis-paraphrase Highlander:

"Why must there be only one?"

Wonders should only be those things that are not reproducible, i.e. things that either really have an advantage to the first person to build them, or, similarly, things that when built by one Civ PREVENT their construction by another. Everything else should go into a category of Improvements that can be built by all civs, but that have civ-wide effects and can be built in only one city.

Thus, there are plenty of prestige benefits to completing a circumnavigation of the earth, or being the First to land on the moon, but there is no reason that someone else can't do it as well.

Perhaps a solution is to allow some of these single-city improvements to funciton as mini-wonders for the first civ to build them until another civ builds one of them. Then, the mini-Wonder would function as just like the rest of them. If reputation/regard/ego is important, then a civ could continue to reap a small lasting 'national pride' benefit from completing the first one. (i.e. Russia still taking pride in space accomplishments, etc...)

wheathin

[J.DeMobray]

Just a few quick thoughts regarding "Natural Wonders":

1) Since no one is suggesting ludicrous idea of going out and telling your Engineers; 'Yeah, this looks like a good place to build the Grand Canyong, lets go for it.', I imagine that the idea is that these Wonders should be randomly seeded on the map.
People, please. Didn't CTP teach us anything? I know that I personally have terrible luck with starting locations. Ask me sometime about the joy of starting on a fifteen square peninsula connected to the South Pole.
Everyone who has crusaded against 'rich get richer' type Wonders should automatically be against randomly seeded "Natural" Wonders. It seems obvious to me that the civ with the largest territory would naturally get more "Nature."

2) Besides look pretty on postcards and corporate logos, what exactly do you propose that Mt. Fugi do? How about Mt. Everest? Every turn have a % chance to subtract 1 from the population of the closest city (Crazy mountaineers and extreme sports types?)

3) Isn't "Natural Wonders" some kind of crappy gift / useless junk that you would never buy yourself style store in Shopping Malls the world over?

[J.DeMobray]

Er. . . Grand Canyon, that is. I hope that was obvious but I'm still quite humiliated.

[Atahualpa]

Sorry, I am new to this thread. My wonder suggestion would be a moonbase wonder. This wonder would create a base on the moon. You then could colonize the moon ala Colonization (maybe fighting against marsians or moonians).

ATa

[EnochF]

Here's a radical idea I just thought up.

If your Great Library is ever captured, your civilization is in danger of losing all the technologies it provided! Or alternately, your civ will lose as many of its most advanced technologies as the Library provided. Existing city improvements and units based on those technologies will cost twice as much to maintain, though they will not disappear.

I mean, Civ is a game where Dark Ages never happen. Until now...

[monolith94]

Sacreu bleu! STILL no Potala as a wonder! I can hardly believe my eyes!

------------------
"Love your enemy, for he teaches you patience!"
-Dalai Lama
Read "The Third Eye" - T. Lobsang Rampa

[EnochF]

Well, pardonnez moi. I thought it was a typo. (What is it? Sounds like a new low-fat butter substitute.)

[kmj]

Seems like nobody has brought up the topic of when wonders go obselete, so I figure I'll mention it. Please, make every effort to make sure that wonders go obselete at a reasonable place. Also, I hate how in CtP 6 wonders go obselete with the same advance. Each advance should make no more than one wonder obselete, unless there is good justification. Of course, that's just my opinion.

[Sieve Too]

Bird, I like you idea for Eiffel Tower. I would add that you should limit so great a power since the U.N. and GW Wonders just force peace which can then be broken. Instead of just no sneak attacks, how about the ET civ gaining an unbreakable alliance with every civ? Of course, the ET civ could break the alliance with no reputation hit, and afterwards the ET Wonder would have no effect on the other civ.

While no one could sneak attack the civ with ET, Spies could still steal techs and cities could still be bribed. Also, ZOC would be eliminated. The ET civ would thus have the nuisance of AI units wandering around its territory, sitting on its roads, and building cities in inconvenient locations. Even still, it would be quite a powerful wonder.

[Bird]

Sieve Too: WOW, you really want to juice it up. I think that's a game breaker, however, unless they make the AI REALLY good. You would never have to fight two wars at once and you could always park your offensive force outside the enemy civ's cities until ready to attack without fear of a preemptive strike. IMO, that's just too much of an advantage.

If my suggestion doesn't seem strong enough, how about precluding an attack for 2 turns, rather than one?

[monolith94]

Ah, good, now theres the Potala!

------------------
"Love your enemy, for he teaches you patience!"
-Dalai Lama
Read "The Third Eye" - T. Lobsang Rampa

[Bird]

I don't want to start a debate about the relative strengths of CIV II's existing wonders, but the Eiffel Tower's effects should be addressed. No one ever builds it unless they have nothing else to do, and it has no use in MP. My suggestion is that no civ, AI or human, can sneak attack the civ that has Eiffel Tower. It must declare war first, and thus be subject to the first attack. IMO, this adds real juice to the wonder, but does not make it game decisive.

[EnochF]

Okay, okay.

LIST OF NEW SUGGESTED WONDERS:
Abu Simbel
Admiral Nelson's Fleet: increased ship strength/movement, maybe
Alaskan Oil Pipeline
Alfred Nobel's Foundation
The Almagest (Ptolemy's Almagest): boost to science
Angel Falls
Angkor Wat
Aristotle's Encyclopedia of Knowledge: boost to ancient science, but gradually declines to become a hindrance to science later on; eventually goes obsolete with Heliocentrism
The Aswan Dam
The Aztec Temple in Tenochtitlan
Banaue Rice Terraces
The Bay of Fundy
Borobudur Temple
Carnegie Steel Corporation: boost to production, I assume
The Channel Tunnel: connects two cities (must be constructed between two civilizations, maybe?)
The Clock Tower (Big Ben)
The CN Tower
The Colosseum
Diderot's Encyclopedia: science
Drugs
Empire State Building
Fedreal Bureau of Investigation: veteran spies, effects of spy in every city, better protection vs. rival spies/diplomats/corporate branches, etc.
Francis Bacon's Royal Society: science
The Gateway Arch
The Grand Canyon
The Great Barrier Reef
The Great Canal
Great General Staff (Großer Generalstab)
Ibn Battuta's Travels
Iguaçú Falls
The Iliad: double movement rate of settlers and clerics
Imperial Navy Shipyard
Itaipú Dam
The Kaaba: happiness
King Asoka's Edict
KGB: same as FBI
Krakatoa Island
The Kremlin
The Leaning Tower
Lucasfilm
Machu Pichu
The Marianas Trench: underwater natural wonder
Mars Colony
The Mausoleum
The Mayan Temples of Mikal
Mines of Potosi
The Moai Statues
Mont-Saint-Michel
Mt. Everest
Mt. Fuji
Mt. Kilimanjaro
Mt. Rushmore
Niagara Falls
The Olympic Games: happiness wonder, buildable in early ages, goes obsolete in renaissance then "turns on" again in modern times
Paricutin Volcano
The Parthenon: happiness
Petra
The Petronas Towers
The Polders: reclaiming land from the sea
Potala
The Queen's Dominion
Red Square
St. Basil's Cathedral
St. Peter's Basilica
SDI
The Shwedagon Pagoda
Statue of Zeus
Statue of Cristo Redentor: happiness
Stupa of Wild Goose
Sultan's Forge: boost to gunpowder units/cannons
Sydney Opera House
Taj Mahal
Temple of Artemis
Temple of the Inscriptions
Tennessee Valley Authority: increased public works, maybe...
Three Gorges Dam
The Throne Hall of Persepolis
Trans-Siberian Railroad
Tycho Brahe's Observatory (Uranienborg): science
Victoria Falls
Ziggurat at Ur


[This message has been edited by EnochF (edited May 25, 1999).]