Wonders in Civ5

[Kuciwalker]

I think a lot could be done to improve wonders in Civ5.

I've seen several complaints (with which I agree) that there are too many wonders in Civ4, which makes them a bit silly and unstrategic. Wonders are supposed to be something you compete for. There are also a lot of relatively weak wonders, which don't really add to the game at all. If you have the spare shields and a favorable resource you might build them, but otherwise you might as well skip them.

I also saw a remark that one person liked the caravan system of Civ2 because it made wonders an empire-wide effort. Caravans were, of course, really unbalanced.

The first part of my proposal is to restrict the number of wonders in the game. Say at most 20 - 7 per "era", with Ancient/Classical, Medieval/Rennaissance, and Industrial/Modern each being an era. Also, make each wonder powerful - not just useful, but powerful in a way that will significantly improve or alter your strategy if you get that wonder.

The second is make wonders much, much more expensive, and introduce a hammer slider alongside the commerce slider. Wonders are built using shields from the whole empire. If the slider is at 50%, every city diverts 50% of its shields to the wonder, and if the city isn't hooked up to the trade network they're completely wasted. This means that building a wonder will really hurt newly founded cities, which represents another strategic choice - while building a wonder, your empire has trouble expanding, or waging war.

You would get to select which city got the wonder, but each city could only get 1 wonder from each era.

As an example in Civ4 terms, here's what the Ancient/Classical Era wonders could look like:

Pyramids - grant access to all civics.
Great Lighthouse - +2 trade routes in all coastal cities, 200% trade bonus in all coastal cities (or similar). (This would often amount to ~10 extra commerce per coastal city, which might or might not be too powerful.)
Great Library - Gain any tech known by two other civs (the original function)
Great Wall - No barbarians can enter your borders, +30% strength in all defensive combats within your borders
Parthenon - +200% GL generation
Oracle - Any free tech within the era, even if you can't research it yet
Collossus - +1 commerce in all water tiles (not just for that city)

Some of these could expire, and obviously all of them would need to be tweaked and balanced, but they all have the potential to be a lot more interesting than wonders in Civ4.

(Oh, and bring back Leo's Workshop! Free upgrades!)

[greenday_234]

Pyramids - grant access to all civics.

Don't you think that would be rediculously overpowered? As is stands now early access to representation during early game growth is pretty strong. I can only imagine the advantage recieved from having access to state property in the BC's.

[Qwertqwert]

The Colossus is already like that, and all those (with perhaps the exception of the Oracle) are just way to powerful. The country who builds it ends up with such an advantage that it makes it impossible for other counties to survive. This is espicially true with the Pyramids and the Parthenon they way you have it.

There are some wonders which are pretty weak (the most notably so are Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame), but making others ridiculously powerful won't help that.

I personally think there should be more wonders, however many wonders would have reduced effects and reduced costs. The reduced effects could range from earlier obsoletance (that should be a word), to having empire wide effects reduced to only city wide, or lower the culture/GP points, anything like that, but something that makes all wonders pretty weak, but also they should be cheaper, and there should be more.

[Crossfire]

Some of the early wonders are very strong already. Early on I consider the happiness bonus the best part of the Pyramids and what allows me to out grow the other civs. The extra resources harvested usually allow me to get other wonders that I wouldn't be able to build with 3 less pop in my 5 biggest cities. Only later do the GP bonus' come into play.

[Egbert]

I think wonders SHOULD NOT be particularly powerful. They should only provide incremental advantages. If a wonder is too powerful you may have the situation which means whoever gets the wonder wins. A wonder should not suddenly shift the whole balance of power. I say this because I think Civ is all about "turn advantage" or getting asmall edge and working it up in incremental steps.

Umh, imagine having both the Collosus and/or the Great Lighthouse on an islandsmap asCiv4 is now (huge advantage).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Qwertqwert
The Colossus is already like that

No it isn't, it's just one city.

and all those (with perhaps the exception of the Oracle) are just way to powerful. The country who builds it ends up with such an advantage that it makes it impossible for other counties to survive. This is espicially true with the Pyramids and the Parthenon they way you have it.

Unless the other country goes for one of the other wonders, or builds a big empire and army while the other civ is trying to get the wonder.

There are some wonders which are pretty weak (the most notably so are Sistine Chapel and Notre Dame), but making others ridiculously powerful won't help that.

Sistine Chapel is actually quite good now.

I personally think there should be more wonders, however many wonders would have reduced effects and reduced costs. The reduced effects could range from earlier obsoletance (that should be a word), to having empire wide effects reduced to only city wide, or lower the culture/GP points, anything like that, but something that makes all wonders pretty weak, but also they should be cheaper, and there should be more.

Yay, more of the same. Low-cost, ineffective wonders just aren't interesting strategically.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by greenday_234
Don't you think that would be rediculously overpowered? As is stands now early access to representation during early game growth is pretty strong. I can only imagine the advantage recieved from having access to state property in the BC's.

1) Representation isn't even as good as Hereditary Rule a lot of the time

2) State Property in the BC's would eliminate the effects of nonexistant corporations, eliminate the distance maintenance for your small empire, and give +1 food to Watermills and Windmills you can't build yet.

[greenday_234]

2) State Property in the BC's would eliminate the effects of nonexistant corporations, eliminate the distance maintenance for your small empire, and give +1 food to Watermills and Windmills you can't build yet.

Right...and it would also allow the player to expand almost limitlessly with little or no consquence not mention adding CoL's courthouses to that. I guess thats not what makes it powerful though. I suppose the windmill factor is the thing we should focus on.

Point is, your 'small' empire would have no point in being 'small' anymore. With a great deal of open land still left you'd be a fool not to try and spam as much of it as you could. Aside from that "apparently minor" bonus there would be no drawback to running state property as you pointed out.

State Property or not, it seems rather intense to allow one player to run the entire table of civics while the rest of the world gets to wait thousands of years to have the same advantage. In some cases, near the end game.

[Kuciwalker]

Remember, we might not even have civics in their current form in Civ5.

[Blaupanzer]

Lots of wonders works to the advantage of the AI, which tends not to bee-line for wonder-related techs. Like the incremental effects better than explosive changes.

[greenday_234]

Remember, we might not even have civics in their current form in Civ5.

Maybe not but I assumed we were starting with the baseline assumption that all other things remain static based off this statement:

Pyramids - grant access to all civics.

If we are not to assume a static environment for the sake of discussion, then there would be no way of discussing the strength/weakness of a Civ5 Pyrimads, let alone any other wonder, unless you explained how you think new civics/wonder affected area should work.

You've explained how acquiring wonders should work in Civ 5 and you've explained what they should do but not how the affected areas, civics in this case, should be changed and or balanced, thus the discussion is mute and impossible to have.

I don't necessarily disagree with the hammer slider either, however it does make me nervous as there are already 3 sliders the player has to grapple with and adding another could make it far more difficult or impossible to optimize the various opportunity costs. Maybe they could reduce each to increase by increments of 5 percent? Maybe they could get ride of a slider? How do you really see Civ5? It has to be more than a superficial discussion of tweaking wonders.

[Kuciwalker]

You've explained how acquiring wonders should work in Civ 5 and you've explained what they should do but not how the affected areas, civics in this case, should be changed and or balanced, thus the discussion is mute and impossible to have.

1) moot

2) it's not impossible to discuss whether wonder should be more powerful and more expensive or less powerful and cheaper, with general examples presented as analogies to Civ4.

[Kuciwalker]

Maybe not but I assumed we were starting with the baseline assumption that all other things remain static based off this statement:

Sorry, no, that was an example of how you might implement this concept in Civ4. The effects themselves aren't terribly important (as they won't be implementing this concept in Civ4), and I didn't spend more than 5 minutes coming up with them so they aren't particularly balanced. The point is, you'll play a very different game if you get, say, my Great Library, whereas you can't say the same for almost any wonder in Civ4.

[greenday_234]

If we were initially using them as analogies to civ4 then what is the point in mentioning this:

Remember, we might not even have civics in their current form in Civ5.

You seemed to state this as an argument against my point in relation to State Property. But that wouldn't be a good argument if we are making analogies to Civ4, in effect it would be moot I think I may be confused on this point.

I didn't spend more than 5 minutes coming up with them so they aren't particularly balanced

One thing we can agree on. Yet you seemed to attempt to refute that earlier. I personally feel that balance is a good thing. Requires more strategic thought on behalf of the player. The larger the advantage you give him, the less he has to think. Maybe this is where we disagree?

The point is, you'll play a very different game if you get, say, my Great Library, whereas you can't say the same for almost any wonder in Civ4.

True...but different isn't necessarily good is it? I'm sure a modder could, for instance, make a UU that comes with every single in-game promotion or create a nearly indestructable death-bot that only one player can use, it would change the dynamic of the game thats for sure, but does that truely make it better? I'm sure I'm coming off as hostile, tone is often lost in forums, and I'm not trying to be, but I guess I don't know what your point is in this regard. No one was arguing difference in gameplay with your wonders, they were agruing their balance, or well, at least I was.

[Kataphraktoi]

Wasting your time here, kuciwalker IMHO

Let me just say that if all the wonders are socalled ''overpowered'' then none of them are. Reducing wonders and making them better=