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**PrinceBolkonsky** · April 17, 2007, 12:15

Lets get things rolling with Wonders

I have been playing a number of games with members of this group. One to completion with theHappies (I lost) and several others still ongoing. I am having a great time! I have played board wargames all my life and I can say that CTP1 has a lot of strategic possibilities. When I joined I read through a number of threads seeking discussion of strategy and was saddened to find that most of the entries were about cheats and bugs. An interesting subject but not what I was looking for. So I thought I would start this thread.

I’ll get things rolling with some thoughts I have had about the use (or not) of Wonders. While the issue I bring up is not directly related to strategy, I believe Wonders themselves can inform and shape the Strategies chosen by human players like no other factor!

When I play CTP1 against the computer, I never build wonders. I leave the ‘wild cards’ for the AI. With human players it seems the general convention is to not allow the human players to build them but the AIs obviously can. An exception is often made for Emancipation Act and Wormhole Sensor as these are considered somewhat essential to play. This immediately made sense to me because I was aware that there are a number of (broken) Wonders that are unbalancing to the game. These are specifically Labyrinth, London Exchange, Edison’s Lab and the Internet. These four give such a technological advantage, either directly or indirectly, to the possessor that they usually will determine who wins the game. This at least, has been my general belief.

In practice as I gain more experience playing against humans, I have found that the Wonders have not been thrown out at all and in fact play an even greater and more unpredictable role than in my prior experience. This is because one can never be entirely sure which AI civilization will develop which Wonders or where they will do this. The only way to keep the wonders out of a game entirely is to only play against human players and agree not to use them. In this case you must play with only one or two other human players. Any more than this and the game will be painfully slow.

It is entirely possible that an AI will develop one of the ‘broken four’ right on the border or in the path of advance of one of the human players. This just happened in a game that I am playing against Papa Troll.

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(I had come from behind after a slow start (entirely my stupidity and lack of experience) and after a great deal of tech assistance from the benevolent Papa had just about arrived at the point where I thought I was going to lap him in technology! He had been busy running the world and patiently letting me concentrate on internal matters and I had more than caught up. Then he suddenly asked me how I thought my Civ was doing. I told him I had 25,000,000 ppl and 65 cites. He responded that he had 27,000,000 ppl and 45 cites. I thought “I must be doing OK! If left alone with more cities I will soon pull ahead in most categories”. Then I started reviewing as many factors as I could think of as I had a funny suspicion that I was missing something. Finally, I found it! I had overlooked that he had just acquired the London Exchange!* Now I know that his science rate is likely twice mine. Before this I bet my science rate was a little better than his. I can’t wait until the game is over so I can go back and check. Still, I have followed an aggressive strategy of investment in science and infrastructure and I think I can overcome his new lead given time and not sacrifice production capacity in the process. But I have no illusion of taking the science lead again unless I somehow wind up with the Internet or Edison. Had I obtained London Exchange first, Grampa would be in real trouble I can tell you!) -See the note added in my next post for a continuation to this drama.

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I use this anecdote to illustrate my point. Allowing the AI civs ‘only’ to build wonders makes their advent even more unpredictable. They truly become wild cards. The impact of wonders is greater not less by only allowing the AI civs to build them. I personally am not entirely opposed to this but I think a number of important aspects of the Civ design may be partially lost due to this restriction. I say design, I’m not sure it is all design but that is a different discussion. Suffice it to say the way things worked out there are certain dynamics between various Wonders that inform and shape each game specifically. By only allowing the AI to initiate Wonder development the Human players are potentially restricted from fully developing these dynamics. Indeed, I would venture that this subject is given much less thought than it deserves due to this general rule that the AI only can initiate and complete Wonders.

I’m sure there is much that I have not considered here and I am interested what others have to say. Next post I will discuss in greater detail some of these potential game dynamics caused by the use of certain wonders. Some wonders are fairly innocuous and others may have more power than I give them credit. The dynamics of many do not develop until the late game.

*The London Stock Exchange eliminates the maintenance cost in gold for all your city improvements. This money then becomes available as part of the surple that science takes its percentage of.

**PrinceBolkonsky** · April 17, 2007, 17:59

Wonders Part 2

The unpredictability of allowing only the AIs to build wonders can obviously work in favor of limiting the impact of wonders. This is what I understand the intent of the ‘No Human Wonders’ rule to be. The AIs will generally take a little longer than the organized efforts of the human player to build a wonder. If the wonder is built a little latter it has less of an impact because it will become obsolescent that much sooner.

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(This in fact is exactly what happened with the London Stock Exchange in my game with Papa Troll. No sooner did I become aware of the advantage Papa had gained by capturing this wonder than I inadvertently stopped his new tech growth in its tracks. I'm sure all you old-timers out there were thinking exactly the same thing. What is he talking about. He is not in so much trouble. Just build Robotics as soon as you can. Robotics makes the London Exchange obsolete.

This came to pass in following way. I had not long ago decided to develop the Computer advance, selecting it over Explosives. I figured I could steel, conquer or trade for Explosives with an AI anyway, which I did. I thought Computers would help me catch up and pass by Grampa in technology that much sooner. I was starting to get a number of fairly large cities and I decided to begin taking advantage of this population by building some of the science improvements in these cities that require specialists to really capitalize on. Adding Computer Center to the Academy/Publishing House/University science improvements should give me an impressive science rating. Normally, I depend entirely on a good economy and lots of trade to develop my science indirectly but with some large cities in the middle game I figured I'd see how well these expensive city improvements might pay off. My government is communist and as I have invested heavily in production based land improvements all along and Grampa prefers to play without the pollution turned on I decided that this government would help me catch up fastest.

After I completed the Computer advance I decided that jumping ahead to Robotics even though it would take many turns to complete might insure my safety in the near future by giving me a really tough obstacle for his Fascist gorillas to try to overcome. I also liked having more tile improvements that would increase my food and production totals even more. I lowered my pay and fed the masses keeping workday at a livable eight hour day. My first large city with a university came on line at about this time and I wound up building Robotics in about 12 turns. I wasn't thinking about how to stop the London Exchange. I was just trying to follow a strategy that would help me catch up. It turned out in this case that I had picked the right cource for now. The end result was that Papa Troll only had the London Exchange benefit for about 10 turns. Papa was not pleased! In fact he was very earnest about continuing the game as soon as possible the next night. He assured me that the play would be very interesting.

Perhaps, the right course will prove to be keeping me head down a bit longer?

The saga continues in a later post.)

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Only allowing the AI to build a wonder generally means it gets built later and will likely be around a few turns before it gets captured if at all. This gives the experienced player time to plan a strategy that will over come the effects of his opponent getting hold of a powerful wonder. The best plan is to make it become obsolete quickly. This works well against the Labyrinth and as I have come to find out with the London Stock Exchange.

This solution is not so easy with either Edison's Lab or the Internet. These are both long lived Wonders that take a long time to become obsolete. Most likely, they will become obsolete through the advances of the owning player and not the poor fellow trying to keep up. Fortunately, by the time these advances have become available the AIs are usually dominated by the Human players. The AI players are both gullible and without guile. Stopping the AI from building a wonder is much easier than stopping a human player. The big problem is finding where they are being built. If your opponent wants the wonder built and he is friendly with the AI player and closer on the board he can make it very difficult for you to stop the Wonder being built. This is a whole game in itself.

With the "No Human Wonders" rule. it is easy to see that fewer wonders will be built in such a manner as to provide their full effect upon the game. And the Human player will generally have to plan carefully to take the best advantage of a wonder or to thwart his opponent’s efforts to do the same.

But what of the more benign wonders. And what of those wonders that are designed to bring out the conflict inherent in the development of certain technologies and their consequences. Does limiting Human player initiation of certain Wonders dull certain aspects of Call to Power? I “wonder”, especially with regard to the late game. In my next post I will cover some of these dynamics that I feel may be diminished by not allowing humans to build wonders and consider whether this is unintentional and how this effects the character of play.

**iDestroy** · April 17, 2007, 18:05

I like to brag

my dad and i play a lot of civ against eachother. he's beaten diety so he's not bad. but my last game against him which was one on one, i gave him a 2 settler handicap, but it didn't help him because i found a city in a ruin on the first turn. I was on a very small island and he was on a continent which slowed down my expansion. Anyways he got every single wonder except stonehenge which meant he got the Labyrinth, London Exchange, Edison's Lab, and the Internet (the internet didn't help him any) but i still came back to destroy him. I'm not going to explain how but the game was way uneven in his favor. This just goes to show the main thing to this game is military strategy.

**PrinceBolkonsky** · April 17, 2007, 18:25

The main thing is military strategy you say

Hmmm. I look forward to our current game maturing to that point. I have to agree that good generalship can make up for a lot. However, an army with teeth and claws and even a serpents tail will fall apart without the body. In CTP as in the real world this is production and cash. In CTP I would say that he who has the intel can win the battle but this is only if he has played all along in such a manner as to have the resources. In my opinion you must be doing something right with regard to your economy to be able to pull off these defeats.

**iDestroy** · April 17, 2007, 18:46

i definitely had nice production but not as good as his. I was severely on the edge of dying. I was losing about 100 gold per turn but had plenty of gold due to some other genius strategic moves.

**Grandpa Troll** · April 18, 2007, 13:15

Re: I like to brag

Originally posted by iDestroy
This just goes to show he main thing to this game is military strategy.

Thats an interesting point to ponder

**PrinceBolkonsky** · April 19, 2007, 17:39

The Ancient Game Dynamic -Wonders Part 3

Early Game Dynamics and the Early Wonders

In the early game humanity is only beginning to develop the resources necessary to flourish. Land and population are the chief concerns but equally important is the development of a strong economy founded on trade. Along with trade, comes the initial contact between the young civilizations. This in turn allows the swift development of technologies that represent the classic institutions of civilization. Many of these however are too expensive for the bourgeoning young CIV and will generally slow development if pursued during the ancient period. Not surprisingly, the early wonders deal with the aspects of the game that deal with polulation growth, terretory expantion and trade.

Whittling Down the Ancient Wonders

There are two wonders among the early group that are mostly innocuous. These are Chichen Itza and Confucius Academy. Chiche effects the crime rate and because Call to Power has a at least one ‘broken’ form of government, Theocracy, the benefit of this wonder is not worth the effort. Theocracy is so much more powerful than it’s contemporary forms of government as to border on the bizarre. It is available early, has no drawbacks, and is the choice of every experienced player. Under a Theocracy your crime rate is very low anyway. Few players even build courthouse city improvements at this time much less the ill fated Chichen Itza experiment. The Confucius Academy limits the effects of distance on making far flung cities unhappy. The School for the Confused is of little value under the parameters preset within the various Governments in CTP. I believe this is a design flaw caused by the fact that games can be started with a large degree of variation in map size but with a static set of governmental parameters. Only on Huge or Gigantic does the Confucius Academy give a marginal benefit. As it becomes obsolescent later than other ancient wonders, it can be built fairly quickly later on if no other CIV has already built it.

There is one wonder among this early group that is all powerful, though using it effectively can bring on its obsolescence fairly quickly, the Labyrinth. It gives you free trade routes. As many as you can create based on the goods tiles you are working.In my opinion, it is one of the ‘Broken Four’ wonders. If the player temporarily lowers their science rate and or selects the right advances he can make it last a bit longer. However, you can count on your opponents not do this. An organized player in the right situation can derive a great trade advantage in this short period of time from the Labyrinth. Such a benefit can carry far into the future. As trade routes are the chief source of income and the driving force behind a good science rate in the early game, and the foundation of a good science rating in the later game, it virtually insures a commanding lead for any player that is expanding quickly with many trade opportunities. The Labyrinth has less of an impact on Huge or Gigantic maps and in games with fewer trade resources.

The First Dynamic

The strongest early game dynamic is the population versus land decision. Should I let my city grow in order to build things faster and learn quicker or should I send out my scouts and settlers to claim new lands, discover new things and find my rivals. During the first dash for land the experienced player generally forgoes population growth in favor of creating new Settlers for expansion. The urgency for trying to claim new territory seems fairly universal. This is the great Diaspora, the Exodus of our myth and religion. The mass settling process consumes the first quarter to a third of the game depending on map size. A good player begins blending in some population growing techs and city improvements early on. Whether this is to ‘prime the pump’ of settler creation or to build up production capacity to accelerate the construction of city improvements, or to build enough defenders to thwart an aggressive neighbor, all players find the need for larger cities early in the game. This demand will compete with the equally important necessity of expansion. The experienced player will manage this gracefully and with luck make these many decisions at the appropriate intervals.

To further express this fist dynamic CTP provides us with a few Wonders and the first of its Specialist class units the Slaver. Indeed all the rest of the Ancient Wonders deal either directly or indirectly with the problems of population growth and the challenges and opportunities of expansion.

Stonehenge increases population growth directly by increasing it by 20%. Enough said.

Ramayana increases happiness and either staves off revolt or increases productivity depending on how you want to look at it. The happiness of cities is increasingly a factor as a game goes on and the population of cities goes up. This wonder is important for the player that for whatever reason is going against the conventional wisdom of mass settling and instead is building fewer but larger cities early in the game.

The Philosopher’s Stone can bypass the process of exploration and open an embassy with every other CIV. This is especially valuable if you find yourself cut off from the main nexus of civilizations.

For the human player, if exploration and expansion goes remarkably well, the opportunity to become a predator nation may present itself. This opportunity must be weighed very carefully, because no factor in the early game slows the advancement of your CIV more than the demands of war. This is only slightly less true for a defensive war. Attempting to conquer a city protected by a Wall is often nearly futile before the Early Modern period and the advent of the cannon. To have success you will need a large army and the ability to replace those losses quickly. As the production of your army slows the larger it gets, the Sphinx is the ideal wonder to build if you truly feel an early war is to your advantage.

More often than not it is an AI that will build the Sphinx. If the AI CIV is an aggressive nation on the border of a human CIV you can count on CTP giving that nation many cheats in the form of extra units. Whether it is and AI or a human CIV that is the aggressor the ideal response is to build the Forbidden City. This wonder will force peace on an aggressor and help create allies for the beleaguered CIV. This should give the peaceful nation the breathing space to continue its development and not be drawn into an unwanted war.

Finally, our first specialists the Slavers can both increase your population at the expense of your rivals and also slow their expansion. On small and normal sized maps with lots of CIVs they can be very powerful. On huge and gigantic maps they are of less use and often are not worth the expense.

It is easy to see that from a design standpoint the wonders were tailored to not only help focus the attention of players on certain game dynamics but to also address certain inconsistencies. For instance a random game will sometimes begin with one of the human CIVs in an isolated and difficult position. In such a case the Philosopher’s Stone can be an essential part of recovering from a bad starting position. Sometimes, one player will begin the game next to an aggressive AI that may even build the Sphinx. In such a case the Construction of the Forbidden City will be essential if that player is not to fall behind technologically from the other, less troubled, human player. It seems that when Wonders are used to help adapt to an obstical they generally have a positive impact on play. But of course like anything they will be abused by crafty players to develop an unfair advantage and artificially unbalance the game. With experienced players even the most powerful wonders can add spice to the game. If one player builds the Labyrinth and the other player is savy he will do everything possible to close those trade routes, possibly building the Sphinx to make navel units less expensive. Such a situation could lead to an interesting trade war that would provide color to that specific game.

At their best, wonders can add variation, context and a uniqueness to each new game. It take experiance and jusdicious use but the benefits are obvious.

**iDestroy** · April 21, 2007, 20:13

the confucious academy is too good

usually when i play i build cities wherever, especially far away, and in the past i've had cities destroyed after one turn because the happiness was so bad. so the confucious academy would have been great for me, too bad i lost the race to someone else. now i almost always carry a war unit with my settler so when i settle a city it will have +1 happiness for martial law.

**PrinceBolkonsky** · April 21, 2007, 22:47

Confucious Academy

I see what you mean. I have had that happen to me occasionally as well. I just usually am unwilling to spend the production on this as things are generally pretty far along by the time I encounter this problem. Any earlier and its generally a fluke. Like I ran onto a city I new was emtpy.

Our play styles are obviously very different. I'm enjoying our game and looking forward to when we finally come to blows. I'm guessing with you it will be sooner than I think.

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