I know there's already been some talk of wonder construction on here, but there's a game-design specific question I wanted to bring up. 

What are your thoughts on the "winner-takes-all" method of wonder construction in 4X games? I usually end up ignoring wonder constructions completely on higher difficulty levels, because the risk of failure far outweighs the reward. Obviously I don't know the specifics about Humankind gameplay features, so this is more of a critique of a normal 4X mechanic in games.

Lore-wise, it makes no sense. History certainly has competition of wonder construction (tallest skyscraper, largest cathedral), but I struggle to think of an instance where the construction of a wonder was scrapped and discontinued because another civilization built it first. And even if production is scrapped, would the civilization have nothing to gain else to gain from it?

I know it's a game and not a history simulator, but even gameplay-wise, it confuses me to have a gambling mechanic that lasts so long. Disable your highest producing city for 15-25 turns for the lottery that no one else is going to try to build the same thing in that amount of time. Sure, if you fail you get some resources back, but that time spent building a wonder could have been multiple units or buildings. Failing puts you worse off than you were before, and if you fail it's likely because you're already behind. At best it is a continuing snowball effect that helps cities that are ahead.

Civ's "National Wonders" were a step in the right direction for me (especially when the cost of them scales with empire size). And EL has large, faction-specific districts + achievements that would probably translate well to Humankind, but they both still have winner-takes-all universal wonders. To me, it feels like a gameplay feature that detracts from the experience, but I don't even know if I'm alone in my opinion. Are most players satisfied with the norm of Wonder building in 4X games?

It might be interesting to have a hybrid system, where everyone can build a national wonder but various factors, such as how much time you spend on it, where you built it, how many other buildings you have in your empire, who built it first, etc. result in different amounts of fame. Basically, multiple people can try to build long walls (Hadrian's Wall vs. Great Wall) but while they both give benefits they give different amounts of fame based on how well you do them.

We'll not go into details yet, but I can tell you at least that the construction of Wonders in Humankind will not be "Winner takes it all"

It'd be kind of cool if the wonder system was analagous to the civilization system implemented in humankind, ie every nation can only build 1 wonder in a given category. For example, at the discovery of theology or something the player gets to pick only 1 of 10 cathedrals to be built (each with their own bonus), if they discovered it first they get to pick which bonus they like. Doing this would remove that wonder from the pool of available wonders.

ost wrote:

It'd be kind of cool if the wonder system was analagous to the civilization system implemented in humankind, ie every nation can only build 1 wonder in a given category. For example, at the discovery of theology or something the player gets to pick only 1 of 10 cathedrals to be built (each with their own bonus), if they discovered it first they get to pick which bonus they like. Doing this would remove that wonder from the pool of available wonders.

That would be neat. Maybe when you complete one you can also build another unclaimed one at a higher construction cost, allowing you to get a lot of fame if you're good at building.

Look up the Pyramid of Neferefre, the National Monument of Scotland, or the Hassan Tower. Great monuments are expensive, and there is a precedent for funding running out part way or the person in charge dying before it is complete. There is also a precedent for old monuments to be repurposed for building materials when they are no longer in use, including the Coliseum in Rome. Obviously the reason monuments aren't completed isn't that there is already a copy of the wonder, but the investment of time and resources into a failed project is a real threat historically.

To add onto the points earlier in the discussion, arn't survivng wonders supposed to be worth more fame? Like depending on random events/loss of a city, wonders can become damaged, thus causing them to award less fame at the end.

 like for example, The Hanging Gardens and the Collossus of Rhodes no longer exist(and not many people know about them), yet more people would know about the Pyramids of Giza or the Parthenon.

grug wrote:

Look up the Pyramid of Neferefre, the National Monument of Scotland, or the Hassan Tower. Great monuments are expensive, and there is a precedent for funding running out part way or the person in charge dying before it is complete. There is also a precedent for old monuments to be repurposed for building materials when they are no longer in use, including the Coliseum in Rome. Obviously the reason monuments aren't completed isn't that there is already a copy of the wonder, but the investment of time and resources into a failed project is a real threat historically.

Those are pretty interesting places I hadn't heard about :)

I see lack of completion benig replicated in-game when a player intentionally switches a city's production away from a wonder because the target of a war, a better opportunity, a new tech, etc. I've done that quite a bit in games, though it DOES make it more historically accurate to have a deadline of some kind so you can't just delay the wonder forever (that's one thing winner-takes-all handles), though I feel like that same deadline could be handled with the era system... it's always been weird to me when people build pyramids next to cathedrals.

strattactalk wrote:

To add onto the points earlier in the discussion, arn't survivng wonders supposed to be worth more fame? Like depending on random events/loss of a city, wonders can become damaged, thus causing them to award less fame at the end.

 like for example, The Hanging Gardens and the Collossus of Rhodes no longer exist(and not many people know about them), yet more people would know about the Pyramids of Giza or the Parthenon.

Civ dabbles with this a bit... it's kind of an interesting mechanic. I forgot which buildings/wonders, but the earlier you build it, the more tourism it generates later on and there's a religious building that outputs more faith based on how long it has been since the structure was damaged/pillaged. Kind of a different interesting take on things. We don't really know what kind of tourism/fame/faith trackers Humankind will have yet, though.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

We'll not go into details yet, but I can tell you at least that the construction of Wonders in Humankind will not be "Winner takes it all"

Thanks for the update! :) Very curious.

The EL system is good I think. We recover the invested Inudstry in the form of Dust. And we get funded back the strategic resources invested.

The losers must still be penalized, because otherwise everyone will always try to build the wonders, which removes the risk and the choice.

Jojo_Fr wrote:

The EL system is good I think. We recover the invested Inudstry in the form of Dust. And we get funded back the strategic resources invested.

In Civ the invested resources also returns in form of gold. Well, maybe less than spent, but that's for motivational reasons.

Well, we have some more details now from the blog! Apparently "artistic" cultures can claim wonders, giving them the exclusive right to build them if they want without having to worry about other cultures beating them too it part way through, and multiple cities can cooperate on building them.

I assume claiming a wonder is sort of like claiming a culture, in that if you meet certain criteria you can pick from several of them, which would avoid the whole "first to do it wins" problem. There's no guarantee of this though. I also wonder how difficult it is to be able to claim multiple wonders?

Dinode wrote:

Well, we have some more details now from the blog! Apparently "artistic" cultures can claim wonders, giving them the exclusive right to build them if they want without having to worry about other cultures beating them too it part way through, and multiple cities can cooperate on building them.

I really like the idea that multiple cities can cooperate to build a wonder. Really curious how the implementation of that turns out, both what they choose mechanically and how it feels in gameplay.

Dinode wrote:

Well, we have some more details now from the blog! Apparently "artistic" cultures can claim wonders, giving them the exclusive right to build them if they want without having to worry about other cultures beating them too it part way through, and multiple cities can cooperate on building them.

I assume claiming a wonder is sort of like claiming a culture, in that if you meet certain criteria you can pick from several of them, which would avoid the whole "first to do it wins" problem. There's no guarantee of this though. I also wonder how difficult it is to be able to claim multiple wonders?

May I ask you in which tread you read this? seems like a very interesting mechanic!!

VonHalzen wrote:

Dinode wrote:

Well, we have some more details now from the blog! Apparently "artistic" cultures can claim wonders, giving them the exclusive right to build them if they want without having to worry about other cultures beating them too it part way through, and multiple cities can cooperate on building them.

I assume claiming a wonder is sort of like claiming a culture, in that if you meet certain criteria you can pick from several of them, which would avoid the whole "first to do it wins" problem. There's no guarantee of this though. I also wonder how difficult it is to be able to claim multiple wonders?

May I ask you in which tread you read this? seems like a very interesting mechanic!!

In this blog post, with more details in the comments. https://www.games2gether.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/724-humankind-feature-focus-03-claiming-territory