1.0 - Introduction
2.0 - Groups
2.1 - Man-Made Structures
2.2 - Natural Structures
2.3 - Projects
2.4 - Items
2.5 - Ruins
3.0 - Effects
3.1 - Multiplier Factor
1.1 Before I continue I must want to say that the this model will not limit the number of wonders to
the number 7 as has been done in our world historically. Also many things that might have made it
to the "wonder" status never have because there was that limit of 7 and some things were just slightly
better.

2.0 There are 4 groups that will be listed here in the wonder model: Man-made Structures, Natural
Structures, Projects and Items.

2.1 Man-Made Structures: These are buildings, monuments and other great achievements created
by the human race. These are not things like Magellan's Expedition or the Apollo Program. Those
are Projects. There are various levels of status for Man-Made Structures which will be listed
below. The effects of Man-Made Structures changes over time and its effects can, if it isn�ft of
enough status, disappear.

Man-Made Structures Status Chart

Level Base %
Chance Max %
Chance Length
of Effect Length of Effect
Multiplier
Ordinary 98 N/A N/A N/A
Feat 1 50 2 1
Achievement .55 27.5 2 2
Monument .35 17.5 3 3
Wonder .15 7.5 5 4
Grand Wonder .05 2.5 5 5

Level: Various levels of structures. Ordinary being the lowest level, Grand Wonder being highest.
In order to build anything beyond Ordinary level the player must invest extra resources into its
construction.

Base % Chance: This represents the chance of building a type of structure with just the minimal
amount extra put into construction of the Man-Made Structures. The minimal extra is 100.01%
times the standard cost, rounded up to the nearest integer. If the player wishes to spend more then
the chance of a higher level increases at the expense of the Ordinary level. The �gWonder�h levels
double in chance every 1% for a maximum of 50% extra at which point it equals Max % Chance
column.

Max % Chance: This is the absolute highest possibility of creating a certain �gWonder�h level (with
the exception of the character model getting involved). The player must spend 150% of the normal
cost of a structure to get the chance. Any additional money is wasted. This is so that it allows
players to create grander structures while still keeping game balance by not having tons of wonders.
This also represents how things are viewed in reality. Just because something is more grand doesn�ft
mean everyone will think it is extremely wonderful. Also spending more money doesn�ft always
increase the chance of a more artistic designs.

Max Length of Effects: This is the length of time the structure adds bonuses to the area (the area
can vary). The numbers represent the levels from Immediate to Extremely Long Range. These
ranges will be discussed below.

Length of Effect Multiplier: The Length of Effect Levels are in turns. This column represents how
long each one is multiplied by in turns. This, too, will be explained below.

2.2 Natural Structures: Natural Structures are creations of nature known for either their size, beauty
or power. They are much more rare than Man-Made Structures which can be almost constantly
built. Instead, when a map is created Natural Structures are randomly placed around the map in
appropriate locations. These places will be hidden from the player and computer civs until several
turns after conquering and holding that square. Also social conditions must be favorable for this to
happen otherwise people will overlook it if they have the idea �gman must dominate nature.�h Just as
in Man-Made Structures there are various levels for Natural Structures, though not as many.

Natural Structures Status Chart

Level Number Appearing Effect Multiplier
Achievement 1:4480 1
Monument 1:9600 2
Wonder 1:22 400 3

Level: Various levels of Natural Structures, Achievement being the lowest and Wonder being the
highest.

Number Appearing: This is the ratio for determining how many Natural Structures are on a
particular world based on the total number of tiles. This is to keep things balanced regardless of the
map size. If there is any extra tiles that don�ft equal another Natural Structure then those tiles are
disregarded. This ratio is based on the standard tile size of 100x100km.

Effect Multiplier: This is how much the relative effects of the Natural Structure�fs Effects on the
area are multiplied by. This will be explained in more detail below.

2.3 Projects are revolutionary or extraordinary events, ideas or creations that reshape the way we
think of certain things or enormous feats that were previously never done because it was considered
to risky. Unlike any other type of achievement, many Projects require international help do to either
the sheer size of the tasks or the very nature of the Projects themselves. A few, such as being the
first to circumnavigate the globe, could be done by only one nation though.

Projects Status Chart

Level Min %
Failure Base %
Chance Max %
Chance Length
of Effect Length of Effect
Multiplier
Achievement 1 70 5 2 1
Undertaking 5 25 20 3 2
Project 15 4.5 50 5 3
Massive Project 25 .5 25 5 5

Level: Various levels of the Projects, Achievement being the lowest and Massive Project being the
highest. This represents importance of things such as mapping of human genes and first person to
successfully travel around the globe by a certain means have different impacts.

Min % Failure: This is the absolute best case scenario of a chance of success in attempting a given
Project. The player/Computer AI will not know the actual chance of failure (although they may be
able to get the relative, ie small or great) nor the Level. This is so they can�ft do much in the way of
number crunching to get the best results. Some things that will increase the risk of failure are:
spending less resources, attempting any Project on your own, adverse social conditions, etc..

Base % Chance: This is the base % chance of whatever Project is undertaken will be viewed by the
populous as. Several factors will way on the actual percentage. I�fm not sure quite how to do this
yet, but social conditions as well as advertisement and extra resources spent (perhaps this could be
part of the advertising?) so long as its not wasted would yield better results. The character model will
also help/hinder on this account.

Max % Chance: This is the absolute highest possibility of creating a certain level of Project (with
the exception of the character model getting involved). In order to have this high of level the project
cannot be a secret and has to have other nations and corporations involved as well some, if not all of
the things mentioned in Base % Chance.

Max Length of Effects: This is the length of time the structure adds bonuses to the area (the area
can vary). The numbers represent the levels from Immediate to Extremely Long Range. These
ranges will be discussed below.

Length of Effect Multiplier: The Length of Effect Levels are in turns. This column represents how
long each one is multiplied by in turns. This, too, will be explained below.

2.4 Items are similar in effect to Man-Made Structures, however there is a key difference. Items
are easily portable, Man-Made Structures, are well self explanatory. There are other smaller
differences, but that is the key point. Right now I�fm not sure if this model should handle Items or if
it should be left to the character model. The reason I�fm putting it here is because the same basic
principles that govern the creation and use of Man-Made Structures do so also with Items. Most
(about 90% I�fm thinking) of Items will be related to one of the Arts. The others will be historic or
have other purposes. Also about 30-60% will be religious in origin. Also Items can be stolen or
bought (however at set prices, varying on inflation).

Items Chart

Level Min % Chance Max % Chance Base % Creation Length of Effect
Multiplier
Achievement 80 10
Masterpiece 17.5 15
Artifact 2.45 50
Relic .05 25

Level: Various levels of what an item can be. From Achievement at the bottom to Relic status at
the best. These represent the different levels of importance to the populous. Something like the
Excalibur would be more important Hope Diamond. Items cannot be directly controlled by the
player. That is probably the only other major difference between Items and Man-Made Structures.

Min % Chance: The lowest chance per level of the importance the creation of a certain Item has.
This will be mostly affected by the character model and the social structure of your civilization (which
will also affect the type of Item produced as well if any).

Max % Chance: The greatest chance of a level of status for an Item without the character model
getting involved. Because of the character model�fs significance in this area the higher level status
Items, like Relics, aren�ft as great a chance of occurring as lower levels.

Base % Creation: This represents the base, not minimum, chance of creation of an Item. Again this
doesn�ft show the percentages if the character model is involved. Other things that can modify this
are basically social conditions as well as resources put into the Arts by the government.

Max Length of Effects: This is the length of time an Item adds bonuses to the area (the area can
vary). The numbers represent the levels from Immediate to Extremely Long Range. These ranges
will be discussed below.

2.5 - Ruins are more of a submodel of both Man-Made Structures and Items, but have enough
importance and differences to be places here. Ruins are things lost to time and rediscovered later.
Like Natural Structures these will be placed around the map at the beginning of the game.
However, in order to discover them it must be at least 1000 ACE and the civ must have a high
enough level of Archeology basic tech. Also Ruins can be entire villages or cities and not just a
single item. They can appear on there own tiles or on tiles with cites already on them.

Ruins Chart

Level Number Appearing
Small 1:1570
Moderate 1:3360
Large 1:7840

Level: Various levels for Ruins. I�fm tired of thinking up cool names for them right now so don�ft
bug me about the Level names.

Number Appearing: This is the ratio for determining how many Ruins are on a particular world
based on the total number of continental tiles. Continental tiles are any land tiles as well as tiles on
the continental shelf. This is to keep things balanced regardless of the map size. If there is any extra
tiles that don�ft equal another Ruin then those tiles are disregarded. This ratio is based on the
standard tile size of 100x100km. For the math I simply used the Natural Structures model of ratios
multiplied by .35.

3.0 Effects of these models vary a whole lot so I will just list the general effects.

�œ Tourism
�œ Migration
�œ Popularity
�œ Defense/Offense Bonues
�œ Social Modifiers
�œ Government Modifiers
�œ Basic Tech Bonuses
�œ Religious Conversion

3.1 Multiplier Factor is used to show the changes over time the various type of wonders and
achievements have on the world. There are 5 levels, though not all wonders or achievements will
reach level 5. T represents the time factor of multiplication in the models above.

One big problem with your man-made wonders is that there are no "ordinary" buildings, in fact generally no structures of any kind, in the economic model. You probably should at least read the introduction part to the economic model. There will probably be a few exceptions like aqueducts, fortifications, and port facilities, but there will not be the improvements of the sort you have come to be used to in civ. So I have some reservations about how exactly your conception of the wonder model works in terms of how the economic model works. What I had in mind for a building race in say skyscrapers is kind of similar to what you have outlined. In a case there would be a special building called skyscraper which could either achieve wonder status or not, and slowly fade into insignificance as taller structures appear. But it wouldn't work that way with respect to general infrastructure.

In terms of the man-made wonders I agree with your arguments that throwing money at a project would not necessarily result in a better wonder. However, I think that your approach in determining the level of the wonder is both overly complicated, and will frustrate players. At least if I understand your system IMO it will just become a large crapshoot, giving an occasional elation, and much more often disappointment. So although I agree with your assessment of what happens in the real world, I think it will make for a lousy game aspect...

I still have a problem seeing how items fit in with the general scope of the game. To have any real effect on the game they would have to be so powerful as to be ridiculous IMO. If you view them as window dressing for the character model that is OK as far as I can see, but I have trouble seen how a player not in extremely low level role-playing mode would be interested in them at all. I would welcome both of your comments on this because I still don't get it.

Chris, since you are the "Wonder Guy", how about sending me a clean copy of the base document? I'll then set up a new "Wonders Model" page, with the usual links. If either you or LGJ has a theme graphic you'd like me to use, send that along too!

This is excellent. You've identified the basic objects, and their behaviors. We can create a simple, workable object model out of this that will have a major game impact, and be very easy to use.

Should we do that work here, in this thread, or back in the OOA thread where we started? I'll assume back in the OOA thread, so we don't bore people with the details.

So I'll now post over there.

What I had in mind for a building race in say skyscrapers is kind of similar to what you have outlined. In a case there would be a special building called skyscraper which could either achieve wonder status or not, and slowly fade into insignificance as taller structures appear. But it wouldn't work that way with respect to general infrastructure.
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I really don't want to use this type of system although your method has the least amount of problems, it does still have many. First off we'll start simple and go to more complex examples.

Lets say 2 civs are in a race (Civ A and Civ B). We're assuming all things equal except where I explisitly say otherwise (FE same architeture basic tech level) Civ A starts their structure before Civ B. Civ A would normally get the shorter building than Civ B when completed. What however if Civ B is done first? What if Civ A has a slightly higher architeture level (say .02) but gets done first? What if the differance is only 1 turn apart or better yet the same turn and each is done on the same turn (ie everything is equal? Now add about 50 more civs competing. Also add the fact that say Civ C had to use some of its resources in other areas (such as agriculture to keep the population from starving). Lets say the race has been going on a while. If Civ C wants to enter at ground level it will have to spend an enourmous amount of money just to compete. This won't be as big a deal to the other civs because they already have other buildings that are produing revenue from the race. This makes it extremely difficult for Civ C to enter. Also what happens if the best building of that type gets destroyed?

This is just an overly complicated mess to solve who gets what. Although a good idea, in theory, in practicallity its not.

In terms of the man-made wonders I agree with your arguments that throwing money at a project would not necessarily result in a better wonder. However, I think that your approach in determining the level of the wonder is both overly complicated, and will frustrate players. At least if I understand your system IMO it will just become a large crapshoot, giving an occasional elation, and much more often disappointment. So although I agree with your assessment of what happens in the real world, I think it will make for a lousy game aspect...
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Well I also plan to incorperated the social factors in to it. Because of the way we're designing it so that we can incorperate so many differnt types of aspects and levels of wonders in this world as well as arbitrary ones there is no other way. Also creating wonders is like playing craps. well more like poker. You can do things to improve your odds, but you can't dictate what people think.

I still have a problem seeing how items fit in with the general scope of the game. To have any real effect on the game they would have to be so powerful as to be ridiculous IMO.
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Howso?

If you view them as window dressing for the character model that is OK as far as I can see, but I have trouble seen how a player not in extremely low level role-playing mode would be interested in them at all. I would welcome both of your comments on this because I still don't get it.
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You're saying that most people won't like the fact that they had someone create the Mona Lisa FE? The only real differance as far as usage is that items are portable and can go on tours, be sold (or leased) or stolen. There are other differnace, but those are minor points, ie details.

I don't see the model being messy for the player. Since the player can only build structural-wonders, I imagine a "wonders window" where the player can specify a province, an the type of structure (temple, etc) and a share% of total funds that must be spent in the wonder each turn. Money starts to accumulate there until a threshold is passed. The thershold depends on the magnitude of the wonder you specified. Once the threshold is passed, the province gets the wonder. Sounds simple and this can solve the problem of not having costs for ordinary buildings.

I think what's maybe difficult for this model is to get track of many bonuses from a lot of wonders without using much PC resources....
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It shouldn't be that difficult. It would check to see if a new time period (ie short term to moderate term) has come, it the creation will still effect anything that long and then change it appropriatly. If it checks and a time period hasn't change it uses the already incorperated formula instead.

Kull
Would there have been Pyramids without Imhotep? Hanging Gardens without Nebuchadnezzar? Eiffel Tower without Gustav Eiffel? I could go on, but you can see my point. Perhaps all man-made wonders should REQUIRE input from the Characters model. It would certainly eliminate the ludicrous "race" to build wonders. If you don't have Imhotep, you can't even conceive of Pyramids, much less build them. This is even more true when it comes to "items". No sum of money in the world can create the Mona Lisa. Only the genius of Leonardo da Vinci could do that. Something to think about.
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This is true, however the character and wonder models will be based around abstracts so someone like me (and many others) don't have to use characters and wonders from this world.

LOGO
I'm really wondering if all wonders should be availible to all cultures. For instance Romeo would never build a Pyrimid. The idea would make no sense to build and therefore would not be built. Most of roman arcitecture was concerned with funtion over form, which was the complete opposite with Egypt. Could we make it easier for some cultures to make artistic wonders and harder for them to make scientific projects? And obviosly a democrasy can't build huge statues of their kings
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If we did so we'd be using the cultural types already decided in the technology section. But I do agree with that. The thing is that it can be then unbalanced. Most "wonders" are in Europe/Middle East in ancient/medevil history. None were in the Americas. Also this may not be a concern if playing with more abstract wonder system since the romans would build a temple wonder, the Japanese a Shrine Wonder or the Moddle aged europe building Catherdrals.

All:
There've been several good comments I'd like to re-comment here. First, I think is true what Kull says about the relation between a person and a wonder. But I don't think this implies a strong link with the Char model. Based on some civ variables like how much freedom people have, we can determine how good environment is for creativity and then compute a chance for an item to appear. This probability represents the probability of a great artist coming up AND the probability of this artist creating a wonder-item.
About structural wonders, for sure we must not make the link with the Char model, otherwise players are obligated to be Nebuchadnezzar in order to build the HG, which I believe is a too restrictive rule. But what I really think is the most important element in Kull's argument is that the relation between persons and wonders shows there's no race at all about wonders. Civs didn't compete for building the pyramyds! Egyptians built them only because it was an expression of their culture and only because there was a "inspired" guy ruling there. I think this is the best argument to support the idea of abstract wonders. A player cannot say "I'm gonna build the pyramids" like in civ2, because it's simply senseless. A player can only say something like "I'm gonna build a great religious building", FE. The "wonders race" still exist, in a way... Civs without wonders won't have the bonuses civs having them, so you want your civ to build wonders, although the race is not now for a specific wonder like pyramids, but for simply having wonders and hopefuly more of them than your enemy.
The problem with abstract wonders is that players won't get that special sensation like in civ2 when they say "I have built the pyramids!". It's a flavor thing, but that makes you feel you're really playing a civilization game. A good solution for having abstract wonders and the flavor element would be a "labeling" procedure. This means we play with abstract wonders, but if the babylonians build a "city beautification wonder", then the player gets the message "you've completed the hanging gardens!" and from that moment and on, that specific wonder is called by every civ, "the HG". The wonder has exactly the same bonuses than any other wonder of that type and calling it HG is just that, a name. Most civs building "city beautification wonders" won't have a special name for their wonders, but some, as the egyptians, will. The french, FE, may label a CBW like "Eiffel tower". What do you think?

I share LOGO's concern about culture and its relation with wonders, but I think it's not too difficult to get things coherent. There are too aspects. First, what kind of structural wonders a civ is willing to build having a specific cultural profile?, and second, what kind of cultural profile people need to have in order to be influenced (affected) by a specific wonder? It's obvious the second point determines the first one. In fact, a civ will only build wonders with bonuses ad hoc with its culture, so a secular US govt will never build a giant temple. What we need is, then, to be a little more specific about a wonder's effects. FE, if you build a religious wonder, we need to specify what religion is affected. Or, if you make a project like the Apollo Program, we specify what kind of cultural attributes are needed for a people to feel proud of it and gain the wonder bonus. This system has two nice consequences:
1) A ruler can see what will be a wonder effect in his particular people's culture, and then decide what sort of wonder to build. In this way romans and modern democracies won't build religious wonders, but probably will prefer things like super bridges or projects. Or, tibetans won't care about the Apollo Program so they will never build it.
2) The wonder's effect duration is now built-in the wonder, instead of given in an ambiguous way. If pyramids only work for the polytheistic ancient egyptian religion, once egyptians adopt Islam the pyramids effect expires, but only because its effect is computed based on people's religion rather than in an absoulte fashion.

roquijad
Abour ruins, I think we can include both views. First, a few random sites with archelogical items from the nomadic human past. Second, "gameplay-ruins" generated after a city is destroyed by conquest, earthquakes or any other disaster modeled in the disasters model (total destruction is not a must and we only need to check for a "powerful enough" disaster). As you said it, not allowing the player to decide where to dig solves any problem with gamplay knowledge the player has about destroyed cities. Even more, archeological activity should maybe be handled by the economic model if people can get a profit from it through tourism, so the player has nothing to say about digging.
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There should also be some for cities that might not exist for the game, but were considered legendary (Atlantis FE) Actually the way we have it now I'm not sure how we can model the distruction of some place like atlantis. <> See the Mediteranian wasn't always filled with water. At one point during man's histroy, after cities were developed, the landbridge from present day Spain and Morocco that had acted as a dam was destroyed and flooded the entire mediterainian basin since it was below sea level. We have documents that back this up plus physical evidence that a bridge so to speak existed there until that time based on salt deposits. <> anyway the way the model is the couldn't be a vast flooding of this kind and this we couldn't have someplace like Atlantis.

There've been several good comments I'd like to re-comment here. First, I think is true what Kull says about the relation between a person and a wonder. But I don't think this implies a strong link with the Char model. Based on some civ variables like how much freedom people have, we can determine how good environment is for creativity and then compute a chance for an item to appear. This probability represents the probability of a great artist coming up AND the probability of this artist creating a wonder-item.
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Good idea.

About structural wonders, for sure we must not make the link with the Char model, otherwise players are obligated to be Nebuchadnezzar in order to build the HG, which I believe is a too restrictive rule.
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Still it should have if nothing else an optional link.

But what I really think is the most important element in Kull's argument is that the relation between persons and wonders shows there's no race at all about wonders. Civs didn't compete for building the pyramyds! Egyptians built them only because it was an expression of their culture and only because there was a "inspired" guy ruling there. I think this is the best argument to support the idea of abstract wonders. A player cannot say "I'm gonna build the pyramids" like in civ2, because it's simply senseless. A player can only say something like "I'm gonna build a great religious building", FE. The "wonders race" still exist, in a way... Civs without wonders won't have the bonuses civs having them, so you want your civ to build wonders, although the race is not now for a specific wonder like pyramids, but for simply having wonders and hopefuly more of them than your enemy.
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Almost exactly my point.

The problem with abstract wonders is that players won't get that special sensation like in civ2 when they say "I have built the pyramids!". It's a flavor thing, but that makes you feel you're really playing a civilization game. A good solution for having abstract wonders and the flavor element would be a "labeling" procedure. This means we play with abstract wonders, but if the babylonians build a "city beautification wonder", then the player gets the message "you've completed the hanging gardens!" and from that moment and on, that specific wonder is called by every civ, "the HG". The wonder has exactly the same bonuses than any other wonder of that type and calling it HG is just that, a name. Most civs building "city beautification wonders" won't have a special name for their wonders, but some, as the egyptians, will. The french, FE, may label a CBW like "Eiffel tower". What do you think?
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Here's the thing: When its released there will be atleast 2 scipting descirptions of wonders, one based on our world and another based on abstracts. People can then modify these all they want.

I share LOGO's concern about culture and its relation with wonders, but I think it's not too difficult to get things coherent. There are too aspects. First, what kind of structural wonders a civ is willing to build having a specific cultural profile?, and second, what kind of cultural profile people need to have in order to be influenced (affected) by a specific wonder? It's obvious the second point determines the first one. In fact, a civ will only build wonders with bonuses ad hoc with its culture, so a secular US govt will never build a giant temple. What we need is, then, to be a little more specific about a wonder's effects. FE, if you build a religious wonder, we need to specify what religion is affected. Or, if you make a project like the Apollo Program, we specify what kind of cultural attributes are needed for a people to feel proud of it and gain the wonder bonus. This system has two nice consequences:
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About the secular US gov. Your right there, but also you need to remember that wonders can be built by businesses, guilds, and general populous.

1) A ruler can see what will be a wonder effect in his particular people's culture, and then decide what sort of wonder to build. In this way romans and modern democracies won't build religious wonders, but probably will prefer things like super bridges or projects. Or, tibetans won't care about the Apollo Program so they will never build it.
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Well the romans still could build religious wonders. There gov wasn't divorced from religion.

Ruins: I like the idea, especially if there is a strong natural disaster model (which I hope there is, although I have my doubts because it is by far not the coolest sounding model to work on) but destruction of cities would be good still.
Another part which would be interesting is having small ruins at certain battle sites. If not actual archeological ruins just as monuments in places where you won the war against the Romans or where Gettysburg took place would be very good for nationalism and would promote tourism. This would also be great to give the player a feeling of realism and acomplishment, I know in Alpha Centauri I used to name hills after "great battles" I fought there, it would be really great if they had days celebrating these and renactments, you could say such things as huge victories are "wonders".

Charactors: I really like the idea of having actual charactors design your wonders. I'm against having an Eiffel Charactor pop up and only he could make the Eiffel Tower, I'm against any charactors with names because it makes it extremely unrealistic and annoying to know Einstein is going to come out with something spectacular before he did it. As alwase Charactors are optional so if it is turned off the social window will take over. Does that solve the problem?

Charactors: I really like the idea of having actual charactors design your wonders. I'm against having an Eiffel Charactor pop up and only he could make the Eiffel Tower, I'm against any charactors with names because it makes it extremely unrealistic and annoying to know Einstein is going to come out with something spectacular before he did it. As alwase Charactors are optional so if it is turned off the social window will take over. Does that solve the problem?
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As far as character names, they wouldn't be anything but that. Eistein wouldn't allow you to discover "Theory of Relativity" he'd just be an important scientist.

Names of wonders: I'm kind of warming up to the idea of not having real names for wonders. I don't remember ever getting that wonder's feel, I do remember being a little annoyed at how I build things like the pyrimids in Rome and it gives me something that has nothing to do with the pyrimids as a bonus and I hear nothing about it later. I'd like to be able to say "build a large wall" instead of The Great wall, then a kind of screen would apear asking me how I want the wall built, for example I could want a expensive, falling apart, un-maned, huge and uneffective like China's or a small (comparitively speaking), meduim priced, well preserved, military run, and extremely effective wall like Rome's wall across Britain. We could break the wonders into sub groups which could be custimizable to our liking. Things like relgios monuments, temples, goverment monument, capital city, plalace etc. could be in different menus. Any ideas? I really wish you would at least give my idea a chance.
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That was my idea all along.

Charactors: I really like the idea of having actual charactors design your wonders. I'm against having an Eiffel Charactor pop up and only he could make the Eiffel Tower, I'm against any charactors with names because it makes it extremely unrealistic and annoying to know Einstein is going to come out with something spectacular before he did it. As alwase Charactors are optional so if it is turned off the social window will take over. Does that solve the problem?
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As far as character names, they wouldn't be anything but that. Eistein wouldn't allow you to discover "Theory of Relativity" he'd just be an important scientist.

Names of wonders: I'm kind of warming up to the idea of not having real names for wonders. I don't remember ever getting that wonder's feel, I do remember being a little annoyed at how I build things like the pyrimids in Rome and it gives me something that has nothing to do with the pyrimids as a bonus and I hear nothing about it later. I'd like to be able to say "build a large wall" instead of The Great wall, then a kind of screen would apear asking me how I want the wall built, for example I could want a expensive, falling apart, un-maned, huge and uneffective like China's or a small (comparitively speaking), meduim priced, well preserved, military run, and extremely effective wall like Rome's wall across Britain. We could break the wonders into sub groups which could be custimizable to our liking. Things like relgios monuments, temples, goverment monument, capital city, plalace etc. could be in different menus. Any ideas? I really wish you would at least give my idea a chance.
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That was my idea all along. However you still cannot determine its effects and the level of the wonder. That's up to the populous.

[quote]Well the romans still could build religious wonders. There gov wasn't divorced from religion.
-- You're right, but from the roman cultural profile we at least can say it's less probable for romans to make religious wonders, which is good enough for wonders-culture coherency.

[quote]The prob with this is it doesn't allow for the later uses of tourism and other secular uses. It also doesn't allow for a resurgance in dead religions then.
--Yes it can. I probably didn't state my thoughts correctly. What I meant is you only define the wonder's effects in terms of what kind of people is affected, but you never set a ending point for the wonder. FE, pyramids can have an effect like "increases happiness for every polytheistic person in the civ". You can see that the wonder works all the time, even if the people change religion. Although in this latter case nobody gets happier, but the wonder still has its effect. If, for some weird reason, people turn to their polytheistic beliefs again, then the wonder starts to affect people again, but there's no need to specify when it's working or not. It just works all the time and its real effect depends on the type of population you have.
About tourism, I think all wonders should have a touristic effect by default, so a wonder has a specific effect and a touristic effect.

Yes it can. I probably didn't state my thoughts correctly. What I meant is you only define the wonder's effects in terms of what kind of people is affected, but you never set a ending point for the wonder.
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Um this may be a problem. There are some things that should eventually end if they aren't considered that great. That's why I put the levels in. The various lengths can change and may have some work arounds added, but some things will eventually fade with time until they are forgotten.

FE, pyramids can have an effect like "increases happiness for every polytheistic person in the civ". You can see that the wonder works all the time, even if the people change religion. Although in this latter case nobody gets happier, but the wonder still has its effect. If, for some weird reason, people turn to their polytheistic beliefs again, then the wonder starts to affect people again, but there's no need to specify when it's working or not. It just works all the time and its real effect depends on the type of population you have.
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But rarely is that the case. Not only that butit also could defeat the reason for building a wonder if it is to enhance the ruler's choice of a religion, if his is polytheistic and so are the rest. I know that other religions use things from other religions and we could incorperate that into it somehow, but your overbroad effect wouldn't work to well unless you were specifically building a universal shrine or something.

About tourism, I think all wonders should have a touristic effect by default, so a wonder has a specific effect and a touristic effect.
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But not to begin with. FE would most people until recently have gone to see the "Great Wall of China" for touristic reasons?

The fundimental technologies that allow a project to be taken on exist. We had we had done space travel before we landed on the moon and had gone around it several times. The new thing was we were landing on the moon.

Human Genome project we've had the technology for a while, its simply a long and tedius process to collect the data, sort it and file it. we're talking about an extrodinary amount of data here.

I also think you should charge for it.

As far as wonders go, I think the ideas are very interresting, but from a strategy standpoint I think it necessary to have at least some wonders availible that will be predictable, and with success pretty much guaranteed. For example, the Super Science City strategyin Civ II addsgreat variety to the game, especially multiplayer, where for the most part ICS and happy wonders tend to dominate. It would be unfortunate if something like a super science city strategy would become unviable because more likely than not at least one of the key wonders would either likely not turn out or would expire too soon .

I also think that it would be nice if there were a greater variety of single city wonders than in Civ II. Perhaps wonders that would allow for a super military city, a super tax city, and a super trade route city, just like a combination of wonders gives one a super science city in Civ II. This would allow smaller civs to compete much more effectively against larger ICS type civs, especially if these single city wonders were more expensive and less powerful for larger civs.

quote: Originally posted by Matthew on 07-23-2000 07:15 PM As far as wonders go, I think the ideas are very interresting, but from a strategy standpoint I think it necessary to have at least some wonders availible that will be predictable, and with success pretty much guaranteed. For example, the Super Science City strategyin Civ II addsgreat variety to the game, especially multiplayer, where for the most part ICS and happy wonders tend to dominate. It would be unfortunate if something like a super science city strategy would become unviable because more likely than not at least one of the key wonders would either likely not turn out or would expire too soon .

As far as predicatability is concered that may be harder to fulfill. Right now we're working on some standard earth wonders and achievments to base the abstract ones on, but even so, things will still vary, espically wonders because society might see that Michelangelo's chapel as not a great a wonder as the Taj Mahal. There will be some perdictability, but not entirely. The wonder structure is not civ2 type wonder structure. Its more realistic and slightly more complex as well as having no "magical effects."

quote: Originally posted by Matthew on 07-23-2000 07:15 PM I also think that it would be nice if there were a greater variety of single city wonders than in Civ II. Perhaps wonders that would allow for a super military city, a super tax city, and a super trade route city, just like a combination of wonders gives one a super science city in Civ II. This would allow smaller civs to compete much more effectively against larger ICS type civs, especially if these single city wonders were more expensive and less powerful for larger civs.

I also knew that many things weren't determined by the player when developing infra, but the model also gives a big, though not quite as big blow to this because it seems you cannot develope specific parts of the infrastructure.

Anyway this model is about abstract as it can get and still be functional. I am only even addressing it now because from what i think infra model will be in some fundimental ways coded in the next demo which will as i say make this model all but useless and i can't really make it any more abstract than it already is w/o making that model also useless.

Now i did say in the tech model i had a way of perhaps dealing with this, but i'm not sure, espicially if the AI itself cannot build specific structures.

The way would be that the infra model would continue to do as it is, but wouldn't include anything listed in this model which although may be part of the infrastucture, it has taken on an additional and new meaning wholly differnt. This would require checks every now and then to see if things appear as new wonders or achievements which could become complex, but i see no other way around it.

The abstract way that infrastructure is handled was outlined in Mark's economic model way before I wrote the details. It was there all the time. Mark has pointed this out to you in his very first reply in this thread. i can't see anything I've brought making this model useless. I feel that you're just overreacting.

Wonderbuilding (Special Projects and Manmade Structures) requires quite alot of extra resources, which the people by themselves are not expected to raise. I have already described how this could happen in the infrastructure thread: Beör was asking how he could build the Bismarck. I explained how he can build a big battleship (how to collect enough "military units" infraclass units inside a province to build a battleship, although he could build something else as well, f.e. some panzer divisions). The Bismarck was in fact a wonder of sorts (judging by the fear it inspired to the allied navies), so was the Yamato, the Hood, the Tenesee and any large capital ship of it's era. All navies had at least one big battleship built for them (even Greece had the legendary "Averof"), but not all battleships were wonders. So what did the Bismarck have that the Hood didn't? Perhaps due to slightly better tech, perhaps due to better design (random factor), perhaps due to larger budget, perhaps due to later construction date (which partly covers tech, but also involves maintenance), the Bismarck ended up being a wonder of naval engineering, instead of a mere achievement (one level above). So, in the one to one battle that judged their fate, the Bismarck sank the Hood. There were other battleships which, due to smaller size (f.e. Warsprite), didn't even reach the status that the Hood had, as capital ship of the Royal Navy. Btw, I know a whole bunch of people down at the OTF who would be fascinated by the prospect of making a wonder out of their favorite warship: unit-wonders are a must!

So this is what I propose: Each type of manmade wonder that costs anything (structures and projects) will be linked with one or more of the infraclasses of the game, according to it's proclaimed purpose. The Apollo program (or should I say the "manned mission to the moon" project) would be defined as 60% research and 40% transportation. The "big religious building" would be of course 100% religious infra. This way we can compute how much is needed in infra units (and thus in commodities) to build it.

Of course the same "wonder units" will not cost the same for each civ, so it is possible that civ1, after giving 50 transp infra units which cost it 40P+10S or 50CC for the world's largest bridge, gets beaten by civ2, who gave 60 units, for only 30P+10S or 40CC, because civ2 had better tech. Of course civ3 could do better, with 70 units, costing 56P+14S but only 42CC, becayse civ3 may have the same tech as civ1, but being an industrial nation, production is cheaper there.

This of course supposes that the tech level of infrastructure will be considered before the computation of the infra units and not afterwards (see my reply to Richard in the Tech 5.3 thread), so that 1 unit of transp.infra will mean the same thing for all civs and all times, regardless of tech advancement. See, at least something useful came out of this discussion: it helped us decide which way to go regarding the use of A; it makes sense only before the investment machine (If I'm wrong, somebody point it out to me, fast!).

Once a wonder is built and it's level is determined, it's effects can be determined in the same way. Each wonder must have effects according to the purpose it was built for. So the world's biggest bridge, which has cost civ3 70 transp infra units must have the effect of at least 70 transp infra units. Since it is special, it can have the effect of say, 80 transp infra units. If something happened and the bridge was a failure, it could end up having the effect of say 60 transp infra units. In some cases, this effect could be 0 (total failure). Apart from the infrastructure related effects, there will be other effects, as you have planned them out. Sometimes, a wonder may be a failure for the purpose it was intended, but prove to be beneficiary exactly because of these other effects. The great wall f.e. was unable to fend off the Mongols, but it is the focus of national pride for the Chinese. One might say that it was one of the many Chinese wonders that inspired awe to the invading Mongols, thus helping their cultural assimilation by the people they defeated, like the Greek artwork did to the Romans. So in a circumvent way, the Great Wall achieved it's purpose.

Wonders is a great example of what the infamous infrastructure units can be turned into. Such an object based interpretation of infra units will be also made for all military units (not just the wondrous ones), since the military model requires such a thing (differentiated military units). One could generalise this to all infraclasses, so that, in the end we would end up in a all-buildings game, just like in civ, civ2, ctp and smac. But I feel most infraclasses should be played abstractly.

Man-made Structures: Structures built by a sentient race of the planet. These structures can be buildings, statues, walls or anything of that nature. Man-made structures are immobile by there very nature. There are differnt levels based on the social models inputs and the resources put into the Man-Made Structure.

Natural Structures: Scrutures that occur without interferance my any sentient race. There are limited number on each planet. Natural Structures are by there very nature immobile. There are differnt levels based on the social models inputs.

Projects: Revolutionary or extraordinary events. These do not use new technologies or new ideas, but may by there very nature, spur those areas temporarily to achieve this status. The Apollo Program is one example. Despite what the current model shows i have decided to wave all levels of these and base all results on social indicators only.

Items: Small man-made creations similar in concept to Man-Made Structures save that these are by there very nature mobile. Also mnay of these, unlike Man-Made Structures usually do not rely on archietural technology levels.