Internet GW - a cultural gamebreaker?

[David Murray]

I don't understand why the effects are only for cities on the same continent. Surely the whole point of the Internet is to allow people from all over the world communicate with each other--so surely the player should get research labs in ALL of his cities.

In fact, it should probably put a research lab in every single city on the entire map, all civs included! Globalization etc. So I think overall that the Internet is a bit of a let-down, something Firaxis chucked in for the sake of it. Quite disappointing really.

[WarpStorm]

Well, it would take less than a minute to change it in the editor to allow it in all your cities. There is no way to give it to everyone though. Although if there was, who would build it?

As far as the point of it goes, it was not built to allow global communication. It was built to allow the US military and academia to communicate. It took about 2 decades before industry and civilians in the USA really started to use it. It took about another decade before it went 'global'. There are still many parts of the world where the service isn't really there. In fact, less than 10% of people currently have internet access.

[HolyWarrior]

strange that Firaxis would put the Internet in the game, as it has the exact effect of the old SETI wonder in Civ1, plus the current culture effects.
In the notes for Civ2, Sid claims to have weakened SETI because it was too much of a gamebreaker, a case of "the rich getting richer".
OK, if that was true, why bring it back now?

[Mazarin]

I dont know how powerfull the Seti in Civ1 was...but I wouldn't consider the Internet overpowered: Pyramids give you one Granary in every city...you can double your growth from the ancient era till the modern Age: that's a powerfull wonder! The Internet just gives you research labs that you could build in 4-5 turns anyway... And the cultural effect isn't that important...100 culture points per turn aren't that much wehn you need 100.000 to win.

[CerberusIV]

I did actually edit the Internet to give a research lab in every city although this wasn't a factor in my game as all but two of my cities were on a single continent.

I suppose my real concerns are about two points. The main one is that this wonder not only effectively doubles your civs research but also does significantly boost culture. 80-100 points per turn is like suddenly having an extra 4 or 5 large cities with all the cultural improvements in place. I can't think of another GW that significantly affects two aspects of the game like this.

The minor point is that you get the research labs even in cities that don't have a library or university.

I just feel it can be a bit too powerful on some maps and will be trying to edit it down a bit.

[planetfall]

Sounds like your problem is you generate too much culture for the culture win. Strange that there is not an editor setting to change the culture value needed to trigger a culture win.

Besides turning off culture win, {my solution}, you could reduce/eliminate the culture generated by labs.

Re lab rat{superslinky}. labs do not generate culture but they generate the appearance of culture. Remember culture here is not "artistic taste and refinement" but solely "products of human work or thought created by a people at a particular time." Civ influence, i.e. "culture" in civ3 is not the same as culture in the real world. A better label might be civ political influence, but Firaxis voted for a one word label.

== PF

[David Murray]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
As far as the point of it goes, it was not built to allow global communication. It was built to allow the US military and academia to communicate. It took about 2 decades before industry and civilians in the USA really started to use it. It took about another decade before it went 'global'. There are still many parts of the world where the service isn't really there. In fact, less than 10% of people currently have internet access.

Well, what if there are military and academic institutions on two different continents...! I still think it should be for all cities, but unfortunately I don't play around with rules in the editor. Apparently, it can cause "unpredictable results" and so I stay well away from it.

Although I have no problem with the culture element. America is the de facto cultural ruler of the world, as we all know! And how could this have happened but for globalization, the international media and its latest accomplice, the Internet? I challenge anyone to prove me wrong....

[Saint Marcus]

On the one hand, historically speaking, there was only one "Internet" ever built; the U.S. Government established it along with the military and several academic institutions.

It was first build in Europe for the scientists there I believe. I think it was CERN.

[WarpStorm]

Marcus, I think that you are thinking of the Web, not the Internet. That was built by CERN in the early '90s.

ARPANet (which eventually grew into the Internet) was developed as a US defense research project in 1966.

A short history of the Internet can be found here

[piratebrun]

I was just going to post the same link!!