DESIGN: Wonders

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by HuangShang
well i think some should just be cost increases esp. for things like the bible

Anything that receives a happy bonus is already an excellent wonder, because it allows the player so much flexibility, with the empire sliders, or helping controlling pollution later, or using less garrison in your cities to attack someone. Extra happiness all the game is very effective, and allows the player to relax.

+2 happiness for Gutenberg's Bible would be too good, that and immune to conversion. IMO GB already has a nice flavour with only preventing conversion. You either need it or you don't. If it's got +2 happiness for the rest of the game, you definitely want it. It removes the choice if a wonder is that good.

build everywhere would not be very overpowered if they are obsolete early enough, ie. make all of them last just long enough to that it is better than building it everywhere but barely.

As i said i think obsoleting a "building everywhere" wonder is confusing and perhaps even annoying for the player. If i build Hagia Sofia for all Shrines, then it obsoletes somewhere later I have to go back and rebuild all my Shrines? It's just annoying that way.

Also people are still going to build the buildings if the wonder goes obsolete, so if you're getting +20% sci with Computer Centers then it goes obsolete, why not just let the wonder give straight +20% science and not Computer Centers?

The flavour of the wonder is that it gives the bonus of the building, and the bonus of not having to build the building. If it goes obsolete, it removes half the point of it.

It is kind of painful to make the building weaker to compensate for a wonder. In the case of computer center, it is late in the game and at that time the buildings have gotten better along, and I assume this is because of some inflationary effects

I agree, it's not the best way to solve the problem at all.

As I mentioned above, with really powerful "building everywhere" wonders, perhaps the only solution is to give the bonus straight (no building everywhere), but make it go obsolete. So the Internet gives +10% science instead, and goes obsolete at say Neural Interface for example.

For Central Matter Decompiler it's more difficult, because we can't make wonders reduce pollution.

Ramayana is too powerful, but I dont like making it obsolete. +1 happiness forever is not that unbalanced when u have stop one of your 2-3 cities for a long time in the early game.

Any wonder requires stopping your city building something so that's not an issue IMO.

If Ramayana was +1 happiness all game, it would be the best wonder again. It would remove choice from the wonders.

the real problem with overpowered wonders is that small nations cant actually use them to catch up no? is there a way to orient wonders to balance games more? as opposed to balancing effects?

It is a problem that wonders can just turn into a gift for the most advanced/biggest civs. Afterall if they research it first they build it first.

We really need to make it so wonders have to be chosen carefully, you can't simply start building every one that you research. We could say only 1 or 2 wonders per city? It would remove a lot of the cheesey-tactics involved in using a mega-production city to build all your wonders.

as for the pyramid, more gold is fun, but i had always wanted a +growth for the early game (like stonehenge). perhaps the pyramids, which IRL is undeniably the most ageless wonder (in fact we dont know how old it is and it still looks in good shape), should be a new type of wonder that gives a little of a lot: gold (100 still, its so small), growth (+2.5%), production (+1%), little happiness (-5% war discontent + -10% capital distance)

There is a food wonder missing early in the game, but i think that's for a good reason. Stonehenge was one of my favourites in CtP1. Extra growth is basically extra everything, and that early in the game, it would turn you into a powerhouse. I think that's why there isn't one.

Also remember we want to change as little as possible to achieve more balance and interesting gameplay. IMO Pyramids should keep its CtP2 flavour of giving gold in some form.

[HuangShang]

well i think some should just be cost increases esp. for things like the bible

build everywhere would not be very overpowered if they are obsolete early enough, ie. make all of them last just long enough to that it is better than building it everywhere but barely. It is kind of painful to make the building weaker to compensate for a wonder. In the case of computer center, it is late in the game and at that time the buildings have gotten better along, and I assume this is because of some inflationary effects

Ramayana is too powerful, but I dont like making it obsolete. +1 happiness forever is not that unbalanced when u have stop one of your 2-3 cities for a long time in the early game.

the real problem with overpowered wonders is that small nations cant actually use them to catch up no? is there a way to orient wonders to balance games more? as opposed to balancing effects?

as for the pyramid, more gold is fun, but i had always wanted a +growth for the early game (like stonehenge). perhaps the pyramids, which IRL is undeniably the most ageless wonder (in fact we dont know how old it is and it still looks in good shape), should be a new type of wonder that gives a little of a lot: gold (100 still, its so small), growth (+2.5%), production (+1%), little happiness (-5% war discontent + -10% capital distance)

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by E
treasuryinterest I think I made it for OnePerCiv buildings but it would be easy do to add it as a wonder. In playtesting it though I noticed that it would seriously crank out gold. I think civ3 capped it at 50 gold we can cap it at 1000 or whatever people think appropriate. not tough cold just an if gold > 1000 statement.

The human could really churn out gold...

as for overpower I'm opened to siuggestions. we can do this in the AE mod and it is possivble to do civ3-like smallwonders so we make it a building but available to all civs, once.

I wouldn't mind adding that to some new wonders, but it does take away the point of a wonder if everyone can build it.

I know those types of national wonders are supposed to allow you to specialise your cities more, but my concern is the AI would fail miserably at it. Without specific extra code to tell it where to build them anyway.

[Ekmek]

treasuryinterest I think I made it for OnePerCiv buildings but it would be easy do to add it as a wonder. In playtesting it though I noticed that it would seriously crank out gold. I think civ3 capped it at 50 gold we can cap it at 1000 or whatever people think appropriate. not tough cold just an if gold > 1000 statement.

as for overpower I'm opened to siuggestions. we can do this in the AE mod and it is possivble to do civ3-like smallwonders so we make it a building but available to all civs, once.

[Maquiladora]

Underpowered:

Pyramids - +100 gold per turn to the civ that builds it. It doesn't obsolete, but that's underpowered still, considering it costs the same as Ramayana. Over 500 turns thats only 50,000 gold.

Solution - increase gold? Or it could use the TreasuryInterest flag if its available for wonders? Then obsolete the wonder at something.

That's about it. The goldperroute wonders are somewhat underpowered, especially without more permanent non-piracy agreements, but there's no need to change them yet.

[Maquiladora]

Now i've attached a scan of the wonders...

[Maquiladora]

This thread is simply to discuss which wonders are overpowered or underpowered.

I've attached a scan of the wonders.

If we keep in mind that "building everywhere" wonders are generally overpowered already, as they give the building bonus everywhere, AND save production time in each city.

However I don't think "building everywhere" wonders should be obsoleted, as it's confusing for the player. But they do need to be a lot weaker as a result.

===

Here is what I believe are obviously overpowered:

Aristotle's Lyceum - doesn't obsolete, +20% science for rest of game.

Solution - +10% science, obsolete at Classical Education.

Central Matter Decompiler - "building everywhere" overpowered. Matter Decompilers are already an excellent building (-50% production pollution). They effectively allow you to increase your production with much lower pollution costs, that everyone else is struggling with.

Solution - difficult one, Matter Decompilers give -25% production pollution?

Chichen Itza - doesn't obsolete, -30% crime for rest of game.

Solution - obsolete at Theology (divine law?).

Field Dynamics Lab - doesn't obsolete, +35% science for rest of game.

Solution - +10% science? this is still a lot.

Genome Project - doesn't obsolete, +10% prod., +10% health (+1HP) for units.

Solution - only +10% Health.

Globe Sat - worldwide radar coverage, speaks for itself...

Solution - difficult one, maybe double build cost.

Gutenberg's Bible - doesn't obsolete, +2 happiness forever, eliminates conversion.

Solution - only give "Eliminates conversion"?

Zero Crime Bill - doesn't obsolete, -60% crime for rest of game.

Solution - -30% crime, obsolete at Neural Reprogramming?

Internet - "building everywhere" overpowered. Effectively +20% science (Computer Center) for rest of game.

Solution - +10% science for computer center?

Ramayana - +3 happiness for rest of game? yeah that's overpowered alright.

Solution - +1 happiness, obsolete Age of Reason.

===

Underpowered suggestions coming later.