Is the Tower of Babel a Wonder in Civ 3?

[monkspider]

The Tower of Babel is featured in a number of screenshots, including a place on Babylon's Civ of the week page where confirmed wonders such as the Great Wall and the Pyramids appear on the Greek and Egyptian pages.
It would certainly make an interesting choice for a wonder. What could it's benefits be? Culture related perhaps?

[Provost Harrison]

Could be. It would make an interesting wonder and is thought to have certainly existed in one form or another...

[The diplomat]

I wonder what the benefits of the Tower of Babel would be? more culture?

[monkspider]

I'm thinking it would almost have to be culture related. If i recall my Old Testament studies well enough, it seems that all the people in the world (or at least the mesopotamian region) were working together on this great tower before disaster befell the project in the form of a very po'ed diety. Said Deity also saw fit to curse the people with having different languages of sorts. So the whole thing seems very intertwined with the cultural aspects of the game (E.g All peoples of world working on one project, culture in the game expands your borders, even taking over foreign lands, etc.)

[St Leo]

Is the Tower of Babel a Wonder in Civ 3?

I hope not; next we'll get El Dorado and Shangri La as wonders of the world.

Anyways, the Tower of Babel is a legend based on the Babylonian ziggurats (such as the Hanging Gardens). They were great works of engineering built for spiritual purposes, whatever that translates as into Civ3.

[jsw363]

The Tower is NOT a wonder. The screenshots don't show the tower in the cityview screen, nor do they show the tower on the tech tree.

The Tower of Babel was supposed to reach heaven and God punished the people who built it. It didn't provide any benefits because it wasn't completed. It would run counter to the Bible to have the Tower completed. It's sort of an "Anti-Wonder" since it brought only destruction and problems to the people who built it. You'd have no reason to build something like that. So to conclude there's no evidence and no reason to include it as a wonder.

[Rasputin]

Actually the literal translation means the Tower of Babel "..Contained the Heavens ..." which means it was a great scientific breakthru for that time in that it mapped the entire Solar system....

[Urban Ranger]

I wouldn't give a hoot to the OT account of the Tower of Babel. I see no reason why it should be a wonder, though.

[Rasputin]

Wonders ???

And which of the wonders are realistic anyway, its jsut an abstract way of bringing a bit of fun to game. I mean why did building the pyramaids make citys grow quicker!!!

[Inverse Icarus]

it was even better in civ 1, the pyramids let me get communism in 3000 bc

[Gramphos]

Why is the Tower of Babel shown in the main menu?

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Gramphos
Why is the Tower of Babel shown in the main menu?

well, they have to show something, black screens don't sell to well

it was said somewhere, i believe on a video from e3, that it is the Tower of Babel in the main screen, but the higher you go, the newer the architecture styles will get. So it's not really to Tower of Babel.

[The diplomat]

Didn't Firaxis explain that the famous painting of the Tower of Babel was their inspiration for the feel of the game? Perhaps, the tower of babel on the civ3 site is just a reminder of that inspiration?

[Patriqvium]

Originally posted by Lemmy


well, they have to show something, black screens don't sell to well

it was said somewhere, i believe on a video from e3, that it is the Tower of Babel in the main screen, but the higher you go, the newer the architecture styles will get. So it's not really to Tower of Babel.

Bingo. If you look carefully at the Civ3 web page tower, you'll notice that the architecture changes from a Bronze Age walled city to a medieval castle, then into some steel girders, and finally into the Alpha Centauri spaceship.