posted May 19, 1999 14:38                

Natural wonders would be discovered through exploration.

A city would see the benefits of this wonder either a) as soon as it's built or b)when it reaches a certain size

posted May 19, 1999 14:58                

Ecce Homo: World's Greatest Improvement, a wonder-like game concept in which every city improvement has a corresponding World's Greatest that civs can compete to build
(many agree)

Enoch: Programmable wonders, the effects of which can be changed by players in game files.

Enoch: Visible wonders, which appear on the map in the city radius.
(several agree)

Ufa: Random negative side effects for powerful wonders.
(several agree)

KMJ: A wonders on/off option
(many agree)

Pythagoras: Limited timespan for World's Greatest (i.e., world's greatest marketplace provides no benefit upon discovery of banking)

Enoch: Constant, rather than random, negative effects for wonders.

Sieve Too: Diverse wonders in the early game, to avoid one civ building all wonders.

Sieve Too: Internet wonder, benefits for all civs with Computers advance
(many agree)

Meowser: No two cities can build the same wonder at the same time, no switching production midway

KMJ: Suggests bidding on World's Greatest, limited to one attempt per improvement per civ

Eggman: Evolving wonder effects as ages progress
(several agree)

Eggman: Maintenance costs for aging wonders

Eggman: Variable wonder effects dependent on government, state of war, age, etc.

Diodorus: Land engineering wonders, i.e. Great Canal, Polders, etc.

Enoch: Suggests wonders provide tourism gold upon becoming obsolete
(several agree)

Meowser: Suggests limited re-buildable wonders: only an option in a "race" to build a wonder; the second civ to build receives a happiness bonus rather than the standard wonder effect

Mr. Temba: Suggests seven wonders per age

Zorloc: Suggests wonder effects "phase out" rather than abruptly go obsolete

Trachmyr: Suggests game variable "culture," which is in large part defined by the wonders a civilization builds

Zakalwe: Suggests time delay for receiving benefits of a captured wonder, also a lower Civ score for captured wonders

Cybershy: Lists the original seven wonders; suggests more limited game effects; suggests wonders have unknowable effects (random, I suppose); argues against "races" to build wonders; several points raised, including local wonder effects, such as the Lighthouse

Cybershy: Suggests natural wonders
(several agree)

Stefu: Suggests less Eurocentric wonders
(several agree)

Stefu: Suggests separate wonder types, Economic, Monument, Scientific, Social, etc.
(several agree)

Meowser: Suggests "visible wonders" be vulnerable to attack (pillage)

Meowser: Suggests wonders be tied to specific civilizations (no Egyptians = no Pyramids)

Meowser: Suggests cooperation on wonder building; allied civs receive mutual wonder benefits
(many agree on other threads)

posted May 19, 1999 15:13                

I also don't think the Internet should be a wonder, because it is international in nature. Rather, it should be part of the technology tree. It would certainly be interesting to give it the "Great Library" effect, however - and historically accurate, imo. Research-sharing between nations, with the exception of military research (this
exception could also be incorporated), has become an accepted fact of international education. Using the Internet as a late-stage technology leveller would be, imo, better than having it as a wonder exclusive to a
particular civilization.

I like the nature wonders idea, but having them turned on and off seems unrealistic - being able to destroy them through war or pollution would be more practical. And if any wonders should have permanent effects, it should be these ones.

Also, the Olympic Games is an excellent idea - I can't believe it was skipped over in prior incarnations. A question though - should it be the early Olympics or the modern Olympics? I think it should be the latter, with strong diplomatic benefits. The stature of the early Olympics was not that of a wonder of the world.

I would also like to add my voice to those pointing out that too many wonders is not a good idea - it ruins the uniqueness of them (hence my point about the Internet).

posted May 19, 1999 15:19                

Internet: I would be equally willing to allow the Internet as a technological advance or as a wonder which benefits all civilizations with Computers.

One loophole just occurred to me, if the Internet is a wonder. A highly developed nation could impede the technological progress of its enemies by building the Internet in a small, size-1 city, and then disband the city and utterly destroy the Internet. Utterly unrealistic. So, that's one argument in favor of Internet as a tech advance.

posted May 19, 1999 16:10                

FBI is not a wonder. KGB, as both secret police and intelligence agency, was far more effective. Maybe we should take KGB instead.

Imperial Palace in Beijing is today the largest palace complex on earth. I would pick that palace as a wonder instead of Throne Hall in Persepolis.

Three Gorges Dam, if completed, should be counted as a wonder. This dam will several times larger than any existing dam on the world, since the reservoir it creats will displace one million people, raise the water level up to 70 meters, and generate electricty equivalent to dozens of nuclear power plants.

The Internet should replace SETI Program. The benefits of Internet are increases in happiness and research, the negative effect is increased vulnerability to spies.

Lucasfilm is too insignificant as a wonder. How about the Hollywood in general?

Drugs is a very interesting "wonder". I think this wonder will have both positive and negative sides, the positive being damages to all other civs, the negative being that everyone hates you.

Maybe we need to pick one canal out three: Panama, Suez, or Great Canal.

Anyway, those are my thoughts about individual wonders.

posted May 19, 1999 16:17                

I didn't make most of these suggestions, so I can't argue either way about drugs or Mt. Fuji...

I'm coming around to the KGB as a wonder instead of FBI, first because there are too many American wonders already, and second because it has more popular association with spies. However, I envisioned the FBI as a mostly internal wonder, one which protects against spies from outside, and I guess I've always conceived the KGB as an aggressive, international entity, secretly sparking revolutions hither and thither and inspiring the Truman Doctrine.

posted May 19, 1999 18:39                

Examples:
The Wormhole Sensor in CTP - all civs can see the Wormhole after a few turns.

The Olympic Games - all civs can choose to participate. If they do, they get happier, but they cannot make war with the owner.

The Internet - all civs get benefits if they have Computers.

posted May 19, 1999 21:03                

My biggest gripe is play-balance of wonders. Wonders that give you an improvement for all your cities and never expire are Waaaaay too good a bargain. At A Minimum, wonders that never expire and give an improvement's benefit should cost 10x the improvement. Mich's C. and Hoover's are Especially imbalanced because not only do they cost only of order 5x the improvement's cost, but there is no maint. cost for the benefits.

posted May 19, 1999 22:55                

I also agree that alot of WoW's are too strong and cost too little. Make them extremely expensive, and take a long time to build, make it so their effect wears off faster (WoW's from ancient times are useless now except to rake in money), and be able to add your own for scenarios. Make it so you can turn them off in the beginning of the game, maybe a higher score if you can live without there effects.

posted May 20, 1999 07:23                

how about the moai (sp?) -- the easter island "heads". they are pretty wondrous. god knows what they do, or what they would do in terms of game mechanics (anyone?), but imho, they qualify as a "constructible wonder". (more on that term below).

less seriously: how about crop circles? or tabloids, or rolaids, or coffee-holders for the automobile?

more seriously:

i'm really just rehashing a familiar argument about ctp: a loose definition of what a "wonder" is. i find things like "drugs" or "contraceptives" do not fit the bill as "wonders of the world". other societies and cultures could possibly co-opt some of these achievements almost immediately (whether due to economics, trade, or through the open exchange of ideas, etc.). wonders should mostly be a "localizable" phenomena (--why crop-circles wouldn't work: too easily generalizable). they should be only locatable in one specific city, the one that built it, otherwise, why is it so wonderful and why should a group of people work so hard to discover/build it? i agree that things like drugs, contraception, the internet can be great (even "wonderful") things, but in terms of that specific civ contrivance? no. how would drugs ever be eradicated off the face of the earth by destroying the city they were first created in? or why would that city be any more blessed eventually than all the other cities of the world after mass-production and distribution take place?

this is kind of like why i thought the manhatten project in civ2 should have also had another function, perhaps boosted science (maybe only by a measly 25% -- but by something) in the city it was built (i.e. as a result of the los alamos labs that were founded by the government's collection of scientists in the desert), instead of simply (whoopee!) allowing nukes. play-balance wise, in multiplayer against humans, it is not even worth building the stupid thing if other nations are nuke capable (hmmm, a lesson we could all take to heart).

sorry to wax so ramblingly (!) on this topic, but keep some of this in mind when suggesting wonders and their effects.

p.s. i also agree that is would be a mistake to make the wonders racially or nationally based (i.e. only let the egyptians build the pyramids, or don't allow the pyramids as a constructable wonder without the presence of the egyptians in the game). in the civ series, it has always been fair game for any tribe to claim any given wonder as their own. why change that open endedness now? the point of the game is that human history is our's (the gamer's) to determine!

posted May 20, 1999 09:23                

Wonders are something major in the game - they don't happen often and they only happen once, so the reward for building one should be not only lasting effects but also a nice interlude, a 'sit back and enjoy' type of thing.

Wondermovies in Civ2 were really good - however, after civ2 the new games that were similar to it had bad wondermovies -> SMAC is a great game but the wondermovies are not great at all but 'reasonable' instead and then I haven't even mentioned Ctp yet - there are many movies there but they take less than 10 seconds to finish (some are even done in 3 secs) and IMO are of inferior quality. I prefer to have less movies but of good quality.

posted May 20, 1999 13:07                

The world's largest damn could be called the hoover damn, or the Aswan dam, or the three Gorge's Damn, or maybe the London Dam.

For forbidden city, you have the Imperial palace, the Thronehall of Persepolis, palace at Versailles, or maybe the Atlanta palace.

For your secret police, there's KGP, CIA, FBI, KLA, IRA, or KMJKS (that's kmj killer squad).

This can be done for damn near all of the wonders. Even natural wonders. This would actually add alot to the game as far as recreating history (as opposed to just replaying the same history).

Another idea I like is require a certain type of terrain for certain wonders. (Dams in city on or near a river, Lighthouse only in coastal cities, Palace only in capital, etc.) Of course for nation-wide wonders, such as the great wall, it wouldn't matter.

Ecce- I really like your ideas on the Olympic Games and the Internet. While I think the civ that invents these should get some sort of bonus, I think that all civs should get benefits, provided they are technologically advanced enough. (Obviously the Olympics wouldn't require too much tech to be able to participate.) I think these too should be renameable by their creator.

meowser- I like your idea of a civ-wide project, it can be done just like allocating public works in CtP, but maybe with a maximum %? And for city-specific wonders, you should definitely have to choose where to put them.

I agree that the wonder movies in CtP were way too short. Especially since 13 gig harddrives will be commonplace by the time CivIII is released.

Ecce- don't you think that it would be weird if every city had pyramids. They only exist in two geogrphic areas in reality, don't they? I don't mind that once a civ builds a certain wonder, noone else can build it.

posted May 20, 1999 16:14                

The Queen's Dominion: Allows for more rapid expansion and terraforming by granting double movement to Settlers and Engineers (but not double speed work)

Admiral Nelson's Fleet: Allows quick building of the navy by cutting the cost of every naval vessel by 20 shields.

Imperial Naval Shipyard: The city that builds this wonder never pays shield support for naval units.

posted May 21, 1999 10:48                

two (relatively serious) thoughts on wonders:

1)

should you really be able to "switch" in mid-production? i mean think about it: you're working on the great library (scribes from all across the lands are gathering texts, architects laboring, etc.) when your network of informants from neighboring country x tells you that they have completed the darn thing, so next year (decade, century, etc.) you switch your labors towards the colossus. hmm. those books make a pretty mean foundation for that big guy. i dunno. it's a tough thing to do, but when you decide to put your people's efforts towards constructing such a huge breakthrough in human achievement, i don't think you should be able to pull a 180 and turn all their collective work into something else at the drop of a hat. electing to build a wonder should be a do or die kinda thing in my book. not to be taken lightly.

2)

on another topic, seeing how many architectural "wonders" that have been in civ games (from sid's to ctp), isn't it feasible to name tons of possible "wonders" that more or less only do one thing, namely increase trade (ie. the space needle in seattle, the eiffel tower, the leaning tower of pisa, mount rushmore, the pyramids, stonehenge, the moai of easter island, etc.). i say if we are to have arbitrary effects based on these architectural marvels ("what? our great monument to our ruler, the pyramids, has magically placed a granary in every city in the land? rejoice!") why not just pick a whole new slew of them just to have some different movies on this game.
on the other hand, i think a lot of these "repeatable" wonders don't add that much more to the game other than "flavor" if they were to extend only the "real-life" effects of their real-life counterparts. or maybe they could just be another generic city improvement: tourist trap. i dunno.

my opinion is that if it's going in the game, let's make it a wonder that has some palpable benefits that are somewhat rationally explainable (i.e. isaac newton's college, the great library, marco polo's embassy) as opposed to the ones with outlandish benefits slapped onto one of the great monuments to human constructive ability.

my two cents.

posted May 21, 1999 20:42                

What I suggest then, is that you have some wonders that can be built as many times as civs want because they are not inherently one shot deals. So you'd have such things as:

posted May 22, 1999 05:39                

------------------
CIV3 DEVELOPMENT LIST COORDINATOR

posted May 22, 1999 15:30                

I agree that switching production is silly, but otherwise, the AI would be in big trouble. There's a big race to build this one wonder- and now there's nothing for those built up resources to go to. A good human could buy right before the AI finished (like they do now), and instead of getting a consolation SP, now they have nothing. Of course, if you want it that way, SMAC has that lovely little switch in alpha.txt to make it so that occurs...

"Meowser: No two cities can build the same wonder at the same time, no switching production midway"

Why not? Now all I have to do is start the wonder, and even if that city generates a measly one resource/turn, no one else can build it and that wonder is guarenteed to me. That would defeat the ENTIRE purpose of wonders, and it'd be a race to "who can discover the technology for a wonder first."

"Eggman: Evolving wonder efects as ages progress (several agree)"

"Eggman: Maintenance costs for aging wonders"

What's wrong with obsolecence? I don't like this idea; if a wonder is going to cost you money, it should be upfront, and it should always cost that amount of money (doesn't it have to be maintained when it's young, too? But the costs are so insignificant compared to national budgets...)

"Meowser: Suggests limited re-buildable wonders: only an option in a "race" to build a wonder; the second civ to build receives a happiness bonus rather than the standard wonder effect."

Don't like this idea either. Just allow them to change production, not make "The Good Library" instead of "The Great Library."

"Meowser: Suggests wonders be tied to specific civilizations (no Egyptians = no Pyramids)"

posted May 22, 1999 23:21                

Natural wonders shouldn't have too large of a benefit on your civ.

Some wonders that should be included:
All of the 7 wonders of the world
SDI (The program, not individual defenses)
All the Civ2 wonders
Project to build the H-Bomb (eliminates Nuke Pollution--HBomb fallout is localized)
Carnegie Steel Co. - Free Factory in all cities
Three Gorges Dam--Free Power to all Cities

posted May 23, 1999 04:21                

This was the center of the city, for religion and wealth.

posted May 23, 1999 04:45                

I think that there should be National Special Projects. Wonders would be Unique Special Projects that could only be built once, and that would confer some special bonus (SETI Program = +25% Research all cities), or open new possibilities (i.e. Manhattan Project allows the production of nuclear war heads), or enables the ability to build Special Projects that follow in its footsteps (Hoover Dam is a Wonder that gives an Hydro-Electric plant in all cities owned by Nation on its continent. Once built, it permits the building of Continental Hydro-Electrical Power (CHEP) systems which act as Hydro-Electrical Plants in all cities owned by Nation on Continent. In addition, Nation that owns Hoover Dam gains +50% bonus towards building CHEPs.

Special Projects could also be used as mechanisms to adjust Social Engineering if the SE system used is similars to SMACs (only more granular). This would represent the time and resources, training, etc that it takes to turn a nation that thinks that bathing is religious crime (i.e. Health -3), and enables demons to enter you, to a society that prizes health and clean living conditions and hygene (i.e. Health +3 rating).

posted May 23, 1999 10:59                

In addition, (yes, Enoch, I like this "random" thing even though it bites me all the time) what if the completetion of all required advances for a Wonder did not guarantee you would think up the idea for the Wonder immediately? Do something like a 5-10% cumulative chance each turn that you'd think it up.

posted May 23, 1999 15:50                

And if you don't switch, you usually end up with a lot of production points, and it sucks to end up paying 200 points for one legion unit, or whatever the game switches you to.

I suggest that once a Civ completes a Wonder, all the other Civs who were developing that same Wonder automatically convert whatever production points they had acquired into a related trade, science, happiness, etc, bonus based on the Wonder they were developing.

For example, the Egyptians complete 'The Pyramids' first. If my Civ was developing the same Wonder, and only was up to about 175 production points by the time the Egyptians built it, spread 175 food between all my cities. It would not be as good as having a granary in each of my cities, but it will still give me some benefit for working on the Pyramids for so long. It makes more sense to do that then to suddenly switch all my workers who had been concentrating on building Pyramids to another Wonder, or taking all those points and spending them on a Library or Temple.

Thus, the loser in the "Leonardo's Workshop" race might get a burst of productions points torwards any new units they were building. The "Sun Tzu's War Acedemy" losers might be able to cash in their production points to promote a number of their current units to veteran units, based on whatever formula Sid and Brian come up with.

posted May 24, 1999 09:53                

What shocks me that there is not single Russian wonder in Civ2. Or CTP. In fact, only wonder that is in East Europe is Copernicus' Observatory.

Here's some Russian Wonder ideas:

Motherland Statue
Summer Palace
Red Square
Kremlin
St. Basils Cathedral

And, some internationals.

Taj Mahal
Angkor Watt
Potola
Stupa of Wild Goose
Giant Buddha Statue (This might have some special name as well, but I can't remember it.)
Black Rock of Kaba
Great Zimbawbe
Ibn Battuta's Travels
Stonehedge

posted May 24, 1999 12:19                

By all means, keep the ideas coming, but I think all the new and radical ideas have been put forth already.

However, don't be hesitant to post even if only to

(1) Agree or disagree with someone else's suggestion. We need to know which of these ideas would be accepted by the gaming community as represented by you.

or (2) Simply list a few ideas you have for specific Wonders and their effects. (Don't worry if your "wonder effects" are mired in Civ II terminology or make use of a CtP effect or SMAC game variable.) I am keeping track of every Wonder idea submitted to this forum.

posted May 24, 1999 13:06                

Also a natural wonder could be born in one of your cities..take Cherl Tiegs for instance.The greatest known example of anti-gravity in existance.