A better policy for losing Wonder Races?

[Richelieu]

Originally posted by GI Josh
system works fine the way it is now. my only suggestion is to make the penalty even *worse*. right now you get "cascading" wonders when several civs are in the wonder race . . . when you switch from one particular wonder to something else (whether another wonder or not), you should get a 50% shield penalty. right now with the cascading, you have to watch not only the cities building your particular wonder, but any cities building any wonder, which is quite a few in the middle ages. shields should be specific to a specific wonder.

I agree. And i would even wipe out all shields assigned to that specific wonder. You don't win the race: you lose the shields.

[ACooper]

Keep things the way they are. You lose the race, you lose the investment. There are many parrallels in real life.

[ACooper]

In fact, I think all shields should stay with what's being produced and not carry over when you switch production.

[Yit]

Off the top of my head thought.

How about a 'wealth' counterpart, called 'investment' or something. It costs a billion shields, so all you are doing is 'investing'. If you are investing and you have more than enough to complete the improvement, you get automaticly get 1/2 of the shields needed to complete the wonder. However, if you don't have enough stockpiled to complete it, your shields get divided by 2.

Example:

Say you are investing, and you have 1000 shields stockpiled. Something spiffy comes up and you want it, say Sun Tzu's thing. Lets say it costs 400 shields. You convert from 'investment' to Sun Tzu's, and you start off with 200 shields towards it. However, if you only have 150 shields stockpiled, you would only get 75 when you cross over.

So, if you have 399 and someone beats you to Sun Tzus...just switch to invest ment, and wait until something else comes along.

Anyone like this idea?

[Zylka]

What a sad state of affairs the policy is now though

[sabrewolf]

i don't like the shield transferring either.
say, you're building the pyramids and get beaten by the AI short before completion... how should your workers be able to change all into something completly different (e.g. hanging gardens).

also, if i'm building a colosseum for 20 turns and then can just change to a unit? seems a bit strange.

but anyhow... it would suck even more if you'd always lose the shields, so i guess it's part of the game

[Hagbart]

This would probably be exploited very much, I don't think it's a good idea...

[candybo]

I think part of the point is to try to get players to keep tabs on what the other civs are doing via the embassies. If you wanna spend enough money after Lit, I think, you can see what any city is doing, and if you're behind..



OOPs! Forgot to vote

[YC4B4U]

Zizka's suggestion is the best idea I have heard in yonks. Even if no appropriate building exists - I am sure one could be created.

From the top of my head:-

Wonder - Second prize
Hanging Gardens - Gardens (increase happiness in city)
Great Wall - City Wall
Oracle - Temple with double effect
Great Library - Library with double effect
Sun Tzu - Hmm, I have no idea...
Magellans -

Okay maybe it needs a little bit more thought... but the idea still sounds good!

[Grumbold]

I'd prefer a complete step back from major wonder races that goes even further. Everyone should be able to build them, just like the small wonders, but there should be a modest extra benefit for being the first to do so. I.e. everyone can build a wonder that will decrease the cost of upgrading their military units, but only the first one to complete will be known as Leonardo's and carry a culture and commerce bonus. This would allow them to be useful without people scrabbling around to find ludicrous benefits to bestow for using them and no wonder would then become a game breaker.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'd prefer a complete step back from major wonder races that goes even further. Everyone should be able to build them, just like the small wonders, but there should be a modest extra benefit for being the first to do so. I.e. everyone can build a wonder that will decrease the cost of upgrading their military units, but only the first one to complete will be known as Leonardo's and carry a culture and commerce bonus. This would allow them to be useful without people scrabbling around to find ludicrous benefits to bestow for using them and no wonder would then become a game breaker.

Grumbold, you've just won my vote!

I have been thinking about something very similar for quite some time. Let's have - for every wonder - a certain benefit everybody will enjoy after finishing it. However, let only the first one to finish it be awarded with a reasonable extra (culture/commerce sometimes, a little bit stronger effect of the wonder at other times).

And then, do not allow switching production from/to a wonder. This way, the problem of wasted shields is gone and the strategy of "prebuilding" (which is a logical nonsense, forced only by the current game mechanics) as well. I guess it would make for a more fair/believable game.

It would be okay to get rid of the system of small/great wonders as they are now. There would be pairs of great/small wonders, like:

"Shakespeare's Theatre"-"National Theatre"
The former makes X citizens content and generates Y culture beakers, the latter makes X/2 citizens happy and generates Y-2 culture beakers. A really nice touch would be to have the great wonder named according to the nation that built it (like the current Shakespeare's Theatre would remain for the English, but become the Metropolitan Opera for the Americans, Bolshoi Teatr for the Russians etc.). It might be pretty difficult to find suitable names for every single combination though, I know...

Everybody would start with building a "National Theatre" (a small wonder, or "unique building"), however the first one to finish it would get the great wonder title and the small extra benefit.

Good point about making wonders less unbalacing from the gamepoint view then.