[.50] Old "World Wonder" construction bug, still there.

Dear Stardock,

There's an old bug that dates from Fallen Enchantress that is still in the (Legendary Heroes) game, and I believe it should get a fairly high priority. When someone is in the process of building a 1-per-game building (a.k.a "World Wonder"), no one else can attempt to build it. 

It could be "working as intended", which would be really odd (and very exploitable), but I believe it's not...

10,869 views 11 replies
Reply #1 Top

It is intended.  I don't think it's very fun to lose your progress on a wonder because someone else in the world finished it first.  It's not a bad mechanic in the right game (I tend to think there aren't bad mechanics, just mechanics that are bad for a specific game) but with all of our focus on the unit side of the game adding a management task on the city side doesn't seem great.

I also worry that when players get beat to a building by the AI they would reload their autosave and rush it, so it would be particuarlly bad for the AI.  But I could live with that if I thought it was fun.

Reply #2 Top

Maybe we can get a pop-up or notification when someone starts a world wonder? It would make the whole process a little more transparent.

Reply #3 Top

AI's should understand this rule and have a shot at queueing up a wonder when they get the appropiate tech.

 

Maybe starting a wonder should have an extra cost to discourage this- or have a fame cost to build wonders.

 

Reply #4 Top

Not even having the chance to try to out build another faction for a wonder just feels bad to me.

Reply #5 Top

If it is the exploit that people are worried about, maybe it should be the case that for world wonders you cannot change it's position in the que... You can cancel it's construction or you have to build it until it's done... but you cannot que it up for later construction, something that needs your sovereigns direction to build.

Or I think that limited world items (like world wonders) should not be able to move later in a que... once qued up they can only be moved forward in the que not backward.

But on the fun list here, not sure if it qualifies as fun...but it might make other players feel less cheated, knowing the AI has to build the wonder and if you attack the city building the wonder the AI then has to make a choice to stop construction completely and rush a defense unit or risk the fall of the city. Puts a whole new twist on how to stop somebody from building a wonder.

Reply #6 Top

In GC and GC2, there was no notification that another civilization had started building a wonder, and it was really frustrating to devote a planet to building a wonder instead of other things only to find out that one of the AIs had beaten you to it by one turn.  Here, you know that if it's available no one else has started building it, so you can grab it.  Parrottmath has a point about possibly not allowing it to be moved in the queue, but on the whole, from the standpoint of whether it's fun or not, I like this better than the GC way.

Reply #7 Top


Basicaly consider yourself as a winer in building race if you got that tech first.

I think its new aproach and i like it. We were so fit to old CIV or similar game ideas about wonders, so we probably couldnt accept it with ease now, but i think Derek ir right at this point, You racing not at building process, but at posibility to start it. After all wonders are great by idea to build it mostly. You first have to have an idea to build it and only then you can proceed with building.

I dont think you need a message. If you got tech for wonder and met all requirements and still have no building on meniu, then its clear conclussion - someone already started it.

Reply #8 Top

For those that want to have a build race as well as a tech race here is my compromise to the build problem.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/443203/page/1/#3346462

Basically, everyone builds a faction building at 90% of the cost of the world wonder. This faction "wonder" gives some bonuses related to the world wonder, but not great. The last 10% of the construction is a world wonder upgrade. Thus, once someone starts building that upgrade no-one else can build it at that stage and it is such a short amount of time that nobody will just que it forever denying computer players.

Reply #9 Top


Another solution would be to add the qualifier: world wonders can ONLY be selected for building IF they are the only item in the queue.

Naturally, one would also have to add: When a world wonder is in the queue, no other item can be placed in the queue.

 

If this were intrroduced, than I would be fine with Derek Paxton's justification of the matter. Without the above qualifiers however, it's just one massive exploit...

Reply #10 Top

The current method is probably best in a single player game, though probably very unfair to the AI and potentially frustrating to the player if the AI actually decides to make a wonder first. A bit hypothetical but if there was ever a MP version of this game a player could easily abuse this by having any settlement 'reserve' the wonder by starting construction (or even just adding it to the end of the queue if that counts) until such a time as the player has decided on a right city and then cancels construction and starts it in the proper place. Honestly I will probably abuse it like this even in SP just cause I hate being beat to a wonder :D

Reply #11 Top

I really like the idea of announcing when a player starts to build a wonder, so I don't make that tech such a high priority. I just jumped from one tech to the next trying to get a wonder, and both times I was blocked. That lies squarely on the frustration side of the Fun scale.

Parrot's suggestion of being unable to move World Wonders around the que is great. I'd like to take it a step further and say there can be nothing in the que at all when you start building it, to prevent players from queing up lots of unit and structures right before they select the World Wonder.