wonders

[grap1705]

This thread is for all comments and ideas on wonders:

- new ones
- cancel some
- modify others
etc...

Comments on wonder movies, or lack of, rather belong to the atmosphere thread.

[grap1705]

And I inaugurate the thread with this idea of a new wonder:

SECRET SOCIETIES

Whether secret or merely not very opened, many groups or societies or fraternities influenced and still influence decision making in the world. We all know of the Free Masons, heard of the Illuminati, Opus Dei, read of transnational oligarchic groups such as Concil on Foreign Office, Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, etc... the whole conspiracy literature is full of them, the media much less so...
Where is the truth? What is their real impact? That's for each of you to decide but for the game purposes, I think that would make a nice wonder:

Secret society wonder would in fact enable you to have influence over some of the powerful citizens of other countries. Applied to the game, that means democracies and republics (providing the Civ2 feature of having a senate or parliament overrule the leader) would be much less likely to reject your diplomatic offers and much less likely to wage war against you.

Of course, if another civ builds it first, you will endure the limitations set by your senate or parliament, and might have to launch a coup d'état (change regime to communism or fascism) to get free hands and "deal" with that civ the bloody way...

Obviously there could be only one of those in the game so this is intended to be a major wonder, not a minor one. In real life, of course, various secret societies are competing one against the other to expand their influence, but there is still much work to do before we try to really simulate reality.

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MAFIA / TRIADES

We could also consider having a second similar wonder but that would have economic effects instead of political ones:
- increase corruption and therefore reduce profits and productivity, as well as science output which is profit dependant, in one or several target countries, or all other countries, that's to be debated in the perspective of the game balance.
- bring back some of the corrupted money into your economy
And we could call it Mafia, or Triades, so as to not always be Occident centered.

But if this is implemented, then other civs must be able to build a minor wonder called "anti-mafia tribunal" or "the incorruptibles" so as to counter the mafia-triade corruption incidence. But may be not counter it at 100%? May be just 80%? The mafia-triade wonder would therefore keep some economic advantages, while being diplomatically a obvious malus.
And so as to not make things definite if you want at some point to change strategy and try to better your diplomatic relations, you can also build the anti-mafia minor wonder, so as to nearly annihilate the mafia-triade wonder effects and get a diplomatic praise for your anti-crime efforts.

I know that sounds a bit like doing something and cancelling it after, but isn't it what happens when you build a wonder which effect is cancelled later by the discovery of some technology? you'll have benefitted from it at least for some time.

[Boardwalker]

Helle everybody.

Want to introduce my general ideas on quite a different concept concerning the whole game. Due to the fact, that my idea is strongly connected to the wonder stuff, I decided to post it right here.

Some might say, it would be a step backward, but I personally think it could make the whole game much more interesting.

In general I would prefer a mixture of the original Civ - Tech-Tree and the idea of the Continental Congress of Colonization.

Some users already mentioned the idea of implementing a tech-tree, that promotes by itself (and in connection with population size, time, and so on) that is not dependant by the amount of money that is spent to research new techs.

Actually I like that idea. And I would combine it with the representation of somethign as the Continental Congress.
My idea is quite simple. In every era, the world's history had excellent genius' in every respect.

I would make up five general categories:
1. Politics and social-system
2. Economy
3. Military-and maritime
4. Culture and Entertainment
5. Technique

Every Civ has to establish kind of an advisory - congress including five historial persons each representing one of the 5 categories. Thus every prom is just able to be in charge for one single civ, they could "represent" the Great Wonders, I always wanted to have abolished.

I imagined my idea that way, that these proms would have to appear in order of their specific era. And thta they might undergo several restrictions: For example I see no point in having an advisor as an almigty Emperor in Despotism.

A civ would benefit by an advisor in different ways. I could even imagine, that every Advisor could have edges as well as flaws.

You would have to set milestones in every era, where the differebt civs have to decide, which member they want to appoint.

For example: The researching of a technology as philosophy (which I always regarded as underrated) could be the point, where the civ has to choose its member for the Politics and Social system category. The last civ, that reseahrched that echnology, would get the last remaining prom in this category.

This would leed to a numerous different possibilities to develop the own civilization.

Another pint in this respect could be, that every civ has just one Advisor only available for itself. This one would only have positive effects for the civ and could represent the character of the civ as well (expansionixtic, militaristic and so on).

Please don't mind my English, and please don't damn my ideas.

Cheers, Boardwalker

[Tripledoc]

I like the general idea of a more dynamic advisor system.

It reminds me of Master of Orion II, where from time to time various advisors would offer their services and offer advantages in various fields, and sometimes even new technologies. Of course they came at a price - and usually the better services they provided the more expensive they were.