Wonders : Leaders, Chopping wood, and disbanding...

[Yaga]

...I'm a little concerned about the inability to increase the completion time on Great and Minor Wonders.

I've run into this most frustratingly when trying to build the Forbidden Palace on a new continent, because of the corruption percentages keeping my production down to two or three shields.

It appears the *only* way to build a Great or Minor wonder is to either wait for the city's natural production time, or spend a leader to finish the building in one turn.

Other method's I've tried, all of which have failed:

- Disbanding units within the city gives you no shields towards completion of a Wonder

- Chopping down trees within the city radius similarly gives you no shields towards production

- Switching production to a normal improvement, then implementing one of the above two methods, then trying to switch back grey's out the option of producing the Wonder

- Rush Buying a normal improvement, then attempting to switch to the wonder similarly grey's out the Wonder as an option for production

Which means that one must rely on obtaining a Leader if you don't want to wait the 1-300 turns to completion. Granted, there is the 'creep' method of building the palace closer and closer, but when a sea / ocean / other Civ seperates you and the desired final location, you're still going to have to wait. More importantly, you're 'wasting' a few hundred shields throughout the creep.

As for the Leader, since combat is the only way to obtain both the Leader and the Elite unit that spawns him, you are required, if following this path, to wage a war and hope the odds roll in your favor. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this, at least in my current game (Regent) is that dispite having had 8 Elite units over the past few hundred turns, and countless combats in total (2 World Wars, 1 of which lasted over 200 years and had 6 of 7 opponents at war with me for at least part of the time) I've yet to spawn a leader from sending my Elite units into battle. Worse, of the 8 only one remains. All this despite being the dominant Civ on the map, having laid waste to two other Civs, (and having to raze their cities lest corruption get very out of hand) and having 3k+ Gold in the bank and another 300 coming in, per turn, at 3.5.2 taxes under a Democracy. Oh, and why, do you ask, am I so interested in establishing a strong presence in the far-off land? Oil. 2 of the 5 Oil resources on the map are within the target city's radius. Soon everyone and their motherland will be trying to kill me to obtain that Oil.

Personal frustrations aside, it appears then that unless you go to war and become 'lucky enough' to have a leader spawn, you have 1-300 turn wait to complete something like the Forbidden Palace.

I'm concerned, ultimately, because the otherwise expedient option of chopping down trees and disbanding units doesn't work. (Apparently the Forbidden Palace, to return to my example for a moment, doesn't use any wood, horses, or require any ex-military persons in its entirety)

On the one hand, this could merely be and obstacle / gameplay issue, one that makes it more challenging and requires management and game balance skills. Perhaps. Having read the various entires in the manual it would appear that this is a conscious decision on the part of the designers, to specifically exclude all forms of increasing production, save for a Leader.

I'm curious what others think about this: About the restrictions on methods to hurry production, lack of ability to have the whole of your empire contribute to this 'magnificent and awe-inspiring project' and ways you might suggest tweaking this aspect, in future releases; and if you think such tweaking is even necessary.

I'll finish here by listing some ideas I have had, that I feel would be true to both the challenge and dedication the developers have included in building a wonder and to the desire for maximum gameplay.

- The 'Host' city for a Wonder, Great or Small, is the primary source of materials for its construction. Other cities, however, can provide materiels on a per-turn basis, either through a percentage (an empire-wide tax, using that mechanic) a special citizen (like a tax-collector or scientist, in only select cities) or though a build queue option (imho, least desireable) : Just as the whole of the Empire benefits with the Wonder's creation, so does the whole of the empire contribute to its creation*

- The building of the Wonder rallies the workers of that city which builds it: *They* have been selected, from all the citizens, with the honor of its construction: Corruption is reduced as the whole of the city's inhabitants, even if only for a time, put aside some of their petty wont and theivery to its edification (Corruption lowered significantly for the duration**)

- Just as Mobilizing for War rallies the whole of the Empire to produce more resources, to obtain more from the land and work harder in factories, so goes the Mobilization to build the wonder: (Shield production doubled in all worked squares - does not address issues of corruption per se**)

- Cities around the Empire come to the aid of the Wonder's construction, donating some of their own resources, contributing workers to the cause, etc., so impressed are they with the project (A unit which can be moved to the city and contributes to "Help build WONDER" a la Civ 2**)

[ *note : "Wonder Tax" would only be available when a wonder is in production. If multiple Wonders were being built, the "Tax" would be distributed among all of those in the process of construction equally ]

[ ** Just as the option to queue a Wonder is greyed out when attempting to switch to it after using the disband / rush buy / chop down trees, so would *all* non-Wonder options be greyed out should one of these options be used : Wonders are all or nothing, and after the rest of the Empire has contributed to its creation, the Host city is obligated to build a Wonder, or admit defeat and cease production all together ]

Thank you for your time,
Yaga

[yin26]

I like your Wonder tax idea.

[Grumbold]

I can understand the desire to squash the unit disbandment benefit, otherwise the camel stockpile of Civ2 would just become a unit stockpile in Civ3. I'm less enthused by the idea that planting and harvesting forests inside that city's sphere of influence is somehow inappropriate. The only answer I can come up with is that the AI would have a headache so they banned it.

The surviving records showing the demands King Edward placed on the English counties when building castles all over Wales to pacify the country are simply staggering. Each one would be told to supply whatever they had most of, be it stone, wood, skilled artisans or unskilled laborers. The same intensive civilisation-wide effort ought to be possible for Wonders. The ability to transfer a small amount of food or production between cities seems to have been cut out of Civ3 just to simplify things for the AI again. It is totally against sense and historical events to expect a distant or conquered province to build the means of its own pacification with only its own reluctant resources.

[Yaga]

It is totally against sense and historical events to expect a distant or conquered province to build the means of its own pacification with only its own reluctant resources.

Hrm...good point Grumbold. Of course, my mind is wondering about who it was that built the Roman architecture that still stands today - loyal Roman citizens, or slaves from far off lands?

I think there is some precedence though, both in looking at the real world Wonders and the treatment of conqured people in general, for great Empires to use the whole of their citizenry to complete great projects - China worked many to death in building the Great Wall, Early Europeans used the people native to South America to mine for gold, then took that gold home. The British Empire, through economic force, was able to use the people of Eqypt to dig and explore the Pyramids, which were themselves built with slave labor. Colonial taxes were levied by the British to pay for the Armies in the American Colonies. America had significant economic gain due to the institution of slavery, and later to immigration of Asians and Europeans who did hard labor completing the Intercontinental Railroad, Hoover Dam, and Panama Canal. The Third Reich put many to work in factories which had previously created the very guns and other munitions which defeated them. German scientists were instrumental in the American and Russian nuclear programs, some of whom were under duress or were sympathetic to the political aims of their adopted homelands.

I agree with you that in many instances the workforce was very unhappy, and that an iron fist was required to keep them working; Some Wonders, like the Great Wall or Pyramids, would equally require heavy handed tactics to complete them. Others, like Universal Sufferage, Battlefield Medicine and Wall Street are more the creation of an institution, rather than a physical thing. Still there are those which require a bit of both, as with the Intelligence Agency, Manhattan Project and Apollo Program.

Rush Buys are certainly too simplistic a solution. I don't like the disbanding or the caravan option for the stockpiling reasons you mentioned. Still, I think there has to be some mechanic, hopefully that would not be too difficult to implement, that would allow for the Empire as a whole to contribute to a Wonder without compromising the spirit of the thing.

Yaga

[Grumbold]

I agree. The Romans used their Legionaries to produce many of their lasting monuments, like the roads, forts and walls. Others like the colloseum were built using low cost labourers. That is why I thought the worker/forest method was not bad. While they are not exactly troops their actions of planting and cutting forest provides impetus to the construction project, and they can be sent from all over the empire to help. Actually having military garrisons inside the town contribute too, either by suppressing corruption or by directly producing shields is another idea. I'd prefer the former - troops who sleep suppress corruption but they are not fortified if the enemy comes knocking.