Wonder "construction"

[LzPrst]

There's a slight problem IMO concerning certain wonders in civ3 and their creation. that a city with a high production should produce the pyramids or the hoover dam seems reasonable. but that the city with the most production should be the one to produce for example the manhattan project or the sistine chapel seems to me unreasonable.
the building of certain wonders should be revamped. ie the great wall could be made so that it would have to be built in several cities. after all we dont say "the great wall of beijing", its the great wall of CHINA, indicating a certain level of cooperation (or organisation of forced labor ) the manhattan project should be based on science production, the colossus would have to be built in a city that had a high trade income, and certain cultural wonders would be based on the city's culture rating.

I'm too tired to outline this further, and for all I know someone might have mentioned something like this before, but here it is. comments please...

[War4ever]

sounds difficult to implement, although i agree with your premise.

[LzPrst]

since the entire game enginge is being built from scratch I dont see the big problem. the programmers at firaxis are after all professionals (I hope) and this shouldnt be too hard. Just make each wonder a separate unique building with special requirements. cause after all, thats what they are

[Jamski]

I don't see why most wonders like that couldn't be built in the same way as the spaceship - you need all the components.

One think I really want to see return is the possibilty of rushing wonders either with cash or with caravans. Have to use leaders (nerfed now with Conquests) means building wonders simply takes too long to be fun.

-Jam

[LzPrst]

My point is that most wonders shouldnt be "buildable". Some like the great wall should, and the pyramids, would be based on construction, while others should be "granted" if a city has certain requirements fulfilled, cultural and trade based. I want that the people in a civ have more freedom and that they do things on their own sometimes, with good and bad results. wonders would be among the good stuff. also a lot of the wonder effects would have to be changed and made obsolete. the pyramids are NOT nationwide granaries!!!
Italy did not get cheaper soldier upgrades because Leonardo da Vinci worked out a bunch of stuff (it should have effects more like darwins voyage...) things like that need fixing.
And no rushing wonders, cause great works shouldnt be buildable in 1 turn, thats why they're great, cause they took a lot of time and effort!

[lajzar]

So does the first civ to meet the criteria immediately get the wonder, or is it a case of x% per turn once basic criteria are reached?

Either way, this seems dodgy. No pain no gain I say. Building a mighty city is something you should want to do anyway. To get a big city and then be rewarded on top of that by being granted a wonder seems unbalancing. And if you weaken the wonders enough that it isn't, then they cease to be great.

I agree with teh idea of having varied prereqs for the wonders (and everything else), but you should still have to build the things at the end of the day. It's a game mechanic to be sure, but we need to include opportunity costs to help balance the wonders.

[Plotinus]

I've never liked the current system. I've toyed with the idea of distinguishing between "construction Wonders" and perhaps "cultural Wonders" or "scientific Wonders", which are produced in different ways, but I'm not sure how it would work. Perhaps you could somehow "trade in" culture or science points of a particular city for a Wonder - that is, say that any points generated there go into building a Wonder instead of improving your culture or research? Maybe. There's certainly scope here for some imaginative ideas, I'm sure. But I absolutely agree that something ought to be done about this.

[LzPrst]

Ok, example. I want the sistine chapel. In order to build it I must first have a cathedral in the city, the city must be of a certain size, there must be at least 1 artist (see artist thread) or entertainer if no artists in civ4, the city must have a certain cultural rating, the cathedral itself must have a certain cultural rating, and finally some reconstruction would be necessary warranting production points. Does this seem ok?
Same with leonardos workshop, scientist needed, a certain extra amount of gold must be spent every round while building it, no production required for building it, just time. and maybe some other factors.
Pyramids, go production! maybe a small cultural requirement?
Colossus, at least so much trade generated, must have a harbor (maybe), must be coastal city (also maybe), production required. tech: trade and bronze working (provided that trade will be a tech).

etc etc... smells better now?

[alva]

I don't see why most wonders like that couldn't be built in the same way as the spaceship - you need all the components.

[lajzar]

The complex prereqs is a good thing, but some care should be taken.

Tke that collossus example. The principal benefit of the wonder is a trade bonus. So having X trade should not be a prereq for it. Otherwise, the wonder and teh preexisting values will compound together to create something potentially unbalancing in the game.

I do think all wonders should require significant production shields though. It perhaps isn't realistic, but it is teh only way to ensure a built in opportunity cost to balance the wonders. If one wonder requires science to 'build', another gold, and the third traditional production, neither of these will restrict your ability to produce the other; there is no opportunity cost involved.

One thing that should be introduced is a maximum number of wonders per city. Perhaps a max of 1 per complete 5 population units (you don't lose wonders if your population drops though, unless the city is razed), and a rest of 20 turns between consecutive wonder projects in the same city.

[LzPrst]

One thing that should be introduced is a maximum number of wonders per city. Perhaps a max of 1 per complete 5 population units (...), and a rest of 20 turns between consecutive wonder projects in the same city.

something like this would have to be implemented. or the colossus should have some other effect.

concerning the colossus however, it was built at the harbor of rhodos as a means of impressing visiting traders. noone builds the colossus in a city with little trade anyway so a certain requirement for trade should be implemented.

I do think all wonders should require significant production shields though. It perhaps isn't realistic, but it is teh only way to ensure a built in opportunity cost to balance the wonders.

then you end up with the city with the most production building all the wonders. its just insane, you get "wonder clustering" which IMO shouldnt happen. I think its better my way cause then a civ located in "unproductive" terrain will at least have a chance at getting some wonders by specializing in other areas. I also think that specialization should be the way to go in general. a civ can decide to specialize all on one style, for example allowing a smaller civ dedicated to technology to outpace a bigger civ that has other priorities. also, the bigger your empire, the harder to keep it together. huge empires dont last, but in civ they're forever dominant.

[lajzar]

But in real life, cities don't specialise. Certainly not to the extent that any sensible player would if that was made into a useful strategic element of the game.

Anyway, I think the max number of wonders per city coupled with the enforced no wonder buildings period in a city after finishing a wonder would go a long way towards ending wonder clustering.

[alva]

But in real life, cities don't specialise.

Huh?
Harbor cities: both industrial and fish

There are food cities too (well area's, but they aren't represented) with low population but very much food production.

etc.

[LzPrst]

cities dont specialize, but civs do, or can. national priorities will decide how much and what your cities will produce. for example, the mongols decide not to be big on science and channel their efforts into building lots of horsemen, while the greeks decide to stay defensive and peaceful and be big on tech. the individual cities would then be non-specialized in relation to each other but would be considered specialized in production/military or science/technology compared to other civs that dont have the same priorities.

What if we eliminated "production" as we know it. instead you allocate production in each city like you do the tax/science/luxury rating nationally. that way a city with many people and lots of trade would have potential for greater production, but could decide to make cash or science instead. terrain modifications such as mines would increase the max production capacity and give extra "free" production.
it makes sense, sort of, you pay your people to work with this or that and they do. in order to train soldiers or build improvements you dont need a mine in the mountains you need people to make the weapons and construct the buildings, and fill them.

theres a lot of things i'd like to see implemented as well, like soldiers in the field being like the workers, they require population points to build, however, I'd like to eliminate population points as it is now. the game should keep track of population "levels" and not show them, instead you'd be shown the number of people in the city. then you could implement the "recruit from population" idea. for example: In the city you would have different population numbers like "Total Population", "Available Population" (recruitable) and finally "Active Population" (the workers and producers)
example: you're building a spearman, when construction of the spearman starts 1,000 people would be removed from the "available" and "active" population categories, and would be considered "in training". they'd still be considered part of the total population as long as they remain within the city, but not part of the "Active" or "Available" population. as long as they were in the city they'd be fairly cheap to maintain but if you sendt the troops out of the city, they'd cost more. if you sendt them to another city they'd be part of the "Total" population there and would again be cheaper to maintain. this way war would be expensive (as it should be) but keeping a reasonable military wouldnt bleed you dry. of course if the troops took over an enemy city they'd still be considered in the "field" as they have to actively keep order and maintain security.

where does this rant belong?

[Richard I]

I'm sick and tired of the whole consept of competing to be the first civilisation to complete a wonder. I would like ALL wonders to be small wonders, so that you can build every wonder when it suits you. This would be more realistic since there ARE in fact lots of pyramides, great walls, oracle-temples, great palaces etc. in the world. Some wonders have to be renamed, though. Hoover Dam would become Great Dam, Shakespeare Theatre - National Theatre, and so on. I would also like to see the effects of wonders changed. You shouldn't be granted free Granaries, Barracks etc., but perhaps be granted free maintenance of certain buildings in stead. If you build a great temple with oracle(s), your peoples faith will become stronger, resulting in generous gifts to the temples in your cities, wich will again pay for every temples maintenance. What do you think?