[Freeciv-Dev] Re: [freeciv-data] Re: Re: Alternative nation dialog

[Mark Metson <markm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, aliaga wrote:

> Not quite, at least for some WoWs. Let more than one tribe have unsinkable 
> trirremes. Let everybody who can afford them build the Pyramids and have 
> free Granaries. After all, who should be able to build them in Egypt and 
> ban the Aztecs in Mexico to do the same? Some WoWs could get lowered 
> effects when other tribes had them too. Still other WoWs can get their 
> effects void or even reversed when certain other WoWs are built.

That is a truly weird power to attribute to a massive Ceremonial Burial
and/or Astronomical edifice. The population reverts to eating the
mummified dead in emergencies, perhaps? Hmmm, if so then the missing
ancient wonder, the Necropolis, may be more appropriate. I think the
foodbanks everywhere idea is better for a more modern era with food banks,
or associate it with one of the temples more directly relating to
predicting the cycles of the Nile, or that Biblical character who advised
the Pharoahs about the seven good years and seven bad years and thus
convinced him to build granaries.

Better for the Pyramids might be to count as a Temple in every city. The
Egyptians didn't stop at a few pyramids and a Sphinx (Sphinx Wonder: cause
all other civs to wonder what the heck you are up to for millenia
thereafter? ;-) They build many huge temples. Was the Necropolis Egyptian
too or was that Greek? Why is the Necropolis left out and so many
newfangled things that didn't make the real lists of Wonders added
instead?

> Well, you are making my point that some WoWs ought to be doable by 
> everybody :-)

Some of them are. For example multiplying the science output of a city by
1.5 can be done by everybody by means of a library and again with a
university. All the buildings are minor wonders. But I was simply making
the point that Astronomy is far more ancient than its rediscovery by
Europeans after the Dark Age. The plains of Nazca (sp?) may also be an
astronomy Wonder. Possibly there should be two maps, each thinking itself
the only World thus having its own Wonders, until some Expedition wonder
causes the maps to be joined. Although that kindof leaves out the use of
papyrus rafts to cross the Pacific way way back before the Trireme.
(Phoenicians, perhaps?)

> >Some chancy developments could be interesting. Some techs that may turn
> >good or bad, do your research and take your chances. Will your Cathedrals
> >bring happiness or centuries of Dark Age?
> 
> Exactly my thinking. Easier to see if more generic names for things could 
> be used, though.

Yeah, some of the large Egyptian temples were made on account of some
Pharoah or other who wanted to establish Monotheism, or at least make one
of the Gods dominate all the others. So maybe they were Cathedrals or
attempts at Cathedrals. Or Sistine Chapels / Places where Bach played the
organ (or whatever Bach did at some Church or other, what the heck is
that one about anyway? World's largest Pipe Organ maybe?) type of places.

The Painted Holy Place is another repeat from ancient times, the cave
paintings someplace in or near France are a very-ancient Wonder in the
modern era, possibly they were a Wonder in cavepeople times too. Spooky
that they happen to be paintings adorning what was probably a religious
spot too, another case of repeating a Wonder much later in history? Maybe
the Painted Caves should be obsoleted by the Sistine Chapel and the Great
Library obsoleted by the Internet, in both cases the obsoleting being by a
more modern thing that does the exact same thing. The Great Library never
was obsoleted in history, it was destroyed instead, and now we have the
Internet serving much the same purpose.

But what the heck was the Necropolis about? It really really ought to be
in there. Maybe there should be National Wonders as well as World Wonders,
maaybe each religion needs a big main shrine. The Pyramids or the
Necropolis may have been for their cultures what the Oracle (or the
Mysteries) was to its culture.

> See about Uranium: a bad thing to have nearby, even if you could get 
> beautiful crystal vases pygmented with it to boost your commerce. But 
> properly "deployed", awesome power, both for civilian and military matters. 
> Then again, if you make bullets with it, you could get in serious trouble 
> even if the things work as advertised.
> 
> Someone with a better imagination than mine take the example and make some 
> more generic one, please, but I believe the case is clear, IMHO.

There is actually a book titled "Entropy", I dont recall the author, in
which it is argued that nearly all of what we like to think of as
"progress" was in fact disaster upon disaster, basically entropy. It is
eurocentric, and points out that the steam engine was developed by Hero or
thereabouts (500 bc or so?) but did not become economically viable
compared to slaves until we dug below the water table mining for coal.
Which we did because we burned all our forests. But using coal made wagons
of fuel heavier, tearing up the roads. So we built tougher roads to allow
the heavier vehicles. But we started to run out of coal, so we were forced
to use oil. But oil too became a problem, etc etc etc...

> >Possibly name them more generically. I'd also like to see some Wonders for
> >the Modern era, such as The Internet, which functions pretty much akin to
> >the Great Library, another example of a Wonder that was destroyed
> >re-arising centuries later.
> 
> A really interesting option, being able to rebuild WoWs that did not pass 
> "the test of time".

The Great Library was destroyed, not obsoleted. Not sure about the
Collosus and the Lighthouse, but the Lighthouse's claim to fame may have
been "World's Tallest Building" like the World Trade Centre, rather than
any major effect upon seafaring. If a normal lighthouse was a city
improvement then it might make sense to have "The" lighthouse count as a
lighthouse in/near every city, but as it is it seems likelier it was just
the world's largest freestanding human-built structure. (Hmmm, other than
the Pyramids, maybe? They are something like 450 or 470 feet on a side if
I recall correctly.) If it really was a massive innovation in navigation
then maybe the Geo-Positioning System is the modern remake of it, and
before that some kind of radio beacon system.

> Some fun to have, too, if one player built a WoW and decided to call it 
> "The Tits of Venus" and have the effect of Women's Suffrage. Another reason 
> to beat him to it, hehehe.

Actually that one *is* a little weird to restrict to one nation. As I
recall the countries that came up with it tended to be democratic
republics or democratic (elected parliament) monarchies rather than, say,
hereditary republics or technocrat republics or other means of determining
the representatives who get to make decisions in lieu of actual referendum
(actual democracy). So maybe that one should be a different government
type, with pre-suffrage types being labelled as apartheid along with
others that systematically disenfranchise some large percentage of the
population. Unless we are going to have a "Mandella's Prisonterm" Wonder
for Black Suffrage, too? Again though, Women's had the vote in many places
and times. So its very suspect as a Wonder.

BB
MM

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