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Civilization: Beyond Earth |OT| - The Future of Mankind
- Thread starter Fragamemnon
- Start date
LurkerPrime
Member
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Of course it's not gonna make perfect sense, but it's just something cool. Don't think about it too much
that's amazing.After just getting a science victory in Civ 5. Really.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13559414&postcount=179
color coded tech web oh thank jeebus
color coded tech web oh thank jeebus
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Hehe
Well this is nice. Definitively a start and kind of lame all that wasn't at launch, but at least they are working on improving the game.
LurkerPrime
Member
Wondering the same thing.
In fact, I thought it already released until I checked the forums...
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Wait, so those patch-notes aren't live yet?
FFS
FFS
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Newp. Just some preliminary stuff that they're working on. Given that they've been so tight lipped on when it's coming out makes me think that it's gonna take a while.
I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, though.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Playing at 720p has been a real turd. Can't believe this made it past testing. Nobody in house used a 144hz monitor I guess.
marvelharvey
Member
The144hz bug really should've been fixed in the first 48-72 hours... it's been a month already.
Edit: I'm not affected, but I feel the frustration
Edit: I'm not affected, but I feel the frustration
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Is it the hardware of your monitor itself that's the issue? Setting the refresh rate to 60Hz in the display settings of Windows doesn't fix it?
edit: Or going windowed mode?
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
I don't know but I'm pretty sure people tried that stuff at launch.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I think windowed mode might be a workaround since the patch notes say
http://forums.2k.com/showthread.php...-144-hz-monitors!-Only-plays-in-WINDOWED-MODE!
AngmarsKing701
Member
I waited on this but will consider it during the holiday sale. Have the bugs been squashed or is it still a mess?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
No patch yet, so the launch bugs are still there, although I wouldn't really describe it as "a mess". I'd say that for most people, the game is a decent value at sale price.
No. If you don't have it yet, get Civ V with BNW. If you already have it, the few additions of BE aren't worth a purchase yet, even at sale price.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
New update about their patch. Seems like it'll be out soon. A few new additions since the last update.
http://steamcommunity.com/app/65980
http://steamcommunity.com/app/65980
Fragamemnon
Member
I'll definitely give this a play over the weekend if the patch goes live. Most of the changes look very much in line with the balance mods out there, which do substantially help the game out.
Unknown One
Member
Taking their sweet ass time to patch in the resolution fixes...
UnluckyKate
Member
Errand Signal about Beyond Earth :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M51p4LmPQ40
Can't recommend this channel enough. Let's raise the level of critical analysis in gaming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M51p4LmPQ40
Can't recommend this channel enough. Let's raise the level of critical analysis in gaming.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
While I somewhat agree with his assessment of the disconnect between the themes of not repeating the Great Mistake and what the gameplay itself actually encourages you to do in the game, I'm not so sure if that could be addressed without negatively affecting said gameplay.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
So while we all wait for this patch to drop, what are your folks' thoughts about the gameplay a month into release? How would you change the game?
For me, a few things stand out -
1. There's an overload of unimportant decisions and micromanagement.
The building quest system is an interesting idea, but in practice it is just another "pick A or B it doesn't really matter" mechanic that is subject to RNG(when it activates). When the choices are of such significance that they do matter, it's usually because one choice is a no-brainer compared to the other (for example the autoplant extra trade route, the institute free tech, the holosuite free virtue, the old earth relic +1 culture, and most of the early game +health choices)
The fact that these quests pop up randomly and the quest choices are invisible to the player before they build the building don't really add to gameplay depth, compared to the alternative of having them pop up after a set number of turns, and including the quest choices in the tooltip before you even build the building.
Trade routes are tedious to manage, especially after I'm juggling 10 cities at turn 100. I like how I can expand a lot and actually build an empire, but holy shit micromanaging all these trade routes is a pain in my ass. Especially with the bad UI.
Managing workers is also tedious, especially since "automate workers" is terrible at accomplishing anything.
The AI pop up all the time with worthless deals
Quests pop up for affinity and various other tasks that are pretty same-y every game and somewhat inconsequential, and reward me for doing things that I was going to do anyway, which is kinda pointless (but not always). A lot of the times they're bugged out, too.
I think I'd prefer gameplay that has me really ponder over a couple hard, gameplay-affecting choices every few turns, rather than click through a bunch of trivial or obvious ones every few turns.
2. Affinity and science are too closely intertwined, and this takes away flexibility.
Much like in CIv5. since is your most important stat for victory. Since the bulk of your affinity is gained through science, and affinity is the main factor in your military strength and your victory progress, science is now even more important. Almost too important. This skews the incentives so that you want to pump science at the expense of everything else.
I feel like this takes away from the intent of the Tech Web, whose non-linear structure, IIRC, was meant to give more flexibility and freedom of choice to the player, as opposed to the more linear tech tree in CIv5. However, even though I might want to try out this neat looking tech over here, I'm really doing myself a disservice by not instead choosing this other tech that will give me affinity points instead. What's the point of a tech web, if I'm somewhat forced to follow a particular affinity-guided path anyway?
3. The three affinities aren't that much different from each other, thematically and gameplay-wise
Based on prerelease info, I was thinking that the three affinities would play differently than they actually do in reality. Non-symmetrical factions make for interesting balancing (e.g. Starcraft's wildly different playstyles of Zerg, Terran, and Protoss). Harmony, Purity, and Supremacy play pretty much the same way, with the major differences being what victory conditions you do (which aren't that different, really), what strategic resources you use, and what units and upgrades you get access too (which aren't that different either).
It basically ends up being an arbitrary Ideology choice tied to your science but without the tourism mechanic of BNW to kill the happiness of your opponents. I liked the ideology system of BNW, but one of the reasons that it was a little weird to me was just the fact that OK, everyone just chooses and ideology and then bam, they hate the other ideology because reasons. Well, fine. We have history to help us understand why the different ideologies hate each other, but there really isn't any gameplay reason for me to hate the other ideologies, other than the tourism mechanic, which is neat.
With Beyond Earth, it pretty much is - I hate the other affinities because reasons. That's it. There's really no reason why I'd want to ally with factions of similar affinities over the others, gameplay-wise. Sure they get a positive diplo modifier because we share affinities, but that again is purely arbitrary.
4. The AI is fucking stupid as hell and prone to abuse
What would I do to change the game?
For one thing, fixing the AI's problems is pretty straightforward, but that's easier said than done.
As to the other points?
Balance the quest decisions so that they aren't no-brainers with usually one obvious choice.
Cut down the tedium. They have adjustments to the trade route UI in the next patch, so they are working on it.
Rework the affinity system and tie advancement into gameplay. How I play the game should be how the game determines what affinity I belong to.
The three affinities should have different goals in mind. Harmony wants to save the aliens and be one with the planet. Purity wants to make the planet more like Earth, which might entail killing aliens. Supremacy wants to roboticize everything which might entail encroaching on biological life that includes both aliens and humans. It should be sorta like a rock/paper/scissors dynamic. Some affinities share common ground. Harmony does something that both Purity and Supremacy hate. Purity does something that both Harmony and Supremacy hate. Supremacy does something that both Harmony and Purity hate.
Some random thoughts that may or may not be terrible:
Particular buildings or tile improvements generate affinity points per turn. Your initial plans on how you want to set up your first city might then drive your future affinity plans.
Harmony wants to work with aliens, so it gets a bonus for becoming allied. Perhaps Harmony players need to actively spread Miasma and help the aliens multiply on the planet. They get Harmony points for doing so.
Purity and Supremacy get some of their affinity points for killing aliens. Maybe they get science and culture too for killing aliens, which would give them a gameplay incentive to do so and thus make the Harmony player hate their guts for legit reasons.
Purity wants to terraform the planet to make it more Earth like. OK, so give them the ability to terraform. All Earth-like improvements give points to Purity per turn.
Why is it that in current games, Harmony and Supremacy players are incentived to build "TERRA"scapes, of all things. Why is that the ultimate tile improvement for all three factions? Give each faction their own uber improvement that works differently.
Perhaps Miasma on a Harmony player's tile adds +1 food or +something depending on what kind of tile/improvement it's on. Maybe Harmony units get increased movement like roads if they're traveling through adjacent miasma tiles.
Supremacy could take their adjacency theme and implement it into tile improvements as well. Sorta like Moais from Civ5. Arrays get +1 science for every node that is adjacent to it, or +1 production for every generator adjacent to it. Generators get +1 production for every adjacent manufactory, and +1 energy for every adjacent oil well. Or something like that. I envision large swaths of glowing electric stuff surrounding Supremacy cities, like the Machine City from The Matrix. Perhaps Supremacy magrails evolve into glowing data and energy transfer mechanisms that give bonuses to connected cities that Harmony and Purity players don't get.
If each affinity had a global counter as a prerequisite for their affinity victory, it would give players an actual gameplay reason to work together. For example, if a prerequisite for building the Mind Flower was that there had to be X amount of alien nests constructed and/or X amount of aliens bred, then that is a common goal that any Harmony players in game can work toward together. Maybe for Purity, one of the end game goals is to have had X amount of tiles terraformed, and so this is a goal that Purity players can work towards together. I haven't actually thought this idea through yet, so it could be terrible in practice, or lead to abuse, but I think it's a way to integrate incentives and gameplay. And hey, if you're going for a domination or contact victory, then fuck everyone else anyway/
For me, a few things stand out -
1. There's an overload of unimportant decisions and micromanagement.
The building quest system is an interesting idea, but in practice it is just another "pick A or B it doesn't really matter" mechanic that is subject to RNG(when it activates). When the choices are of such significance that they do matter, it's usually because one choice is a no-brainer compared to the other (for example the autoplant extra trade route, the institute free tech, the holosuite free virtue, the old earth relic +1 culture, and most of the early game +health choices)
The fact that these quests pop up randomly and the quest choices are invisible to the player before they build the building don't really add to gameplay depth, compared to the alternative of having them pop up after a set number of turns, and including the quest choices in the tooltip before you even build the building.
Trade routes are tedious to manage, especially after I'm juggling 10 cities at turn 100. I like how I can expand a lot and actually build an empire, but holy shit micromanaging all these trade routes is a pain in my ass. Especially with the bad UI.
Managing workers is also tedious, especially since "automate workers" is terrible at accomplishing anything.
The AI pop up all the time with worthless deals
Quests pop up for affinity and various other tasks that are pretty same-y every game and somewhat inconsequential, and reward me for doing things that I was going to do anyway, which is kinda pointless (but not always). A lot of the times they're bugged out, too.
I think I'd prefer gameplay that has me really ponder over a couple hard, gameplay-affecting choices every few turns, rather than click through a bunch of trivial or obvious ones every few turns.
2. Affinity and science are too closely intertwined, and this takes away flexibility.
Much like in CIv5. since is your most important stat for victory. Since the bulk of your affinity is gained through science, and affinity is the main factor in your military strength and your victory progress, science is now even more important. Almost too important. This skews the incentives so that you want to pump science at the expense of everything else.
I feel like this takes away from the intent of the Tech Web, whose non-linear structure, IIRC, was meant to give more flexibility and freedom of choice to the player, as opposed to the more linear tech tree in CIv5. However, even though I might want to try out this neat looking tech over here, I'm really doing myself a disservice by not instead choosing this other tech that will give me affinity points instead. What's the point of a tech web, if I'm somewhat forced to follow a particular affinity-guided path anyway?
3. The three affinities aren't that much different from each other, thematically and gameplay-wise
Based on prerelease info, I was thinking that the three affinities would play differently than they actually do in reality. Non-symmetrical factions make for interesting balancing (e.g. Starcraft's wildly different playstyles of Zerg, Terran, and Protoss). Harmony, Purity, and Supremacy play pretty much the same way, with the major differences being what victory conditions you do (which aren't that different, really), what strategic resources you use, and what units and upgrades you get access too (which aren't that different either).
It basically ends up being an arbitrary Ideology choice tied to your science but without the tourism mechanic of BNW to kill the happiness of your opponents. I liked the ideology system of BNW, but one of the reasons that it was a little weird to me was just the fact that OK, everyone just chooses and ideology and then bam, they hate the other ideology because reasons. Well, fine. We have history to help us understand why the different ideologies hate each other, but there really isn't any gameplay reason for me to hate the other ideologies, other than the tourism mechanic, which is neat.
With Beyond Earth, it pretty much is - I hate the other affinities because reasons. That's it. There's really no reason why I'd want to ally with factions of similar affinities over the others, gameplay-wise. Sure they get a positive diplo modifier because we share affinities, but that again is purely arbitrary.
4. The AI is fucking stupid as hell and prone to abuse
This is probably because the AI still thinks it's playing Civ5, because they sure do suck at playing Beyond Earth.
They don't know how to manage the tech web properly, and usually fall behind in tech (and subsequently, affinity) even on Apollo difficulty.
They don't know how to improve their tiles well.
They keep giving me fucking useless trade requests.
They are too passive a lot of the times, and will do nothing while you steamroll through the game.
Their valuation of resources is off. You can do the old pre-BNW tactic of trading for lump sums and then declaring war to get your stuff back. They fall for this every time.
Favors have potential as an idea, but they just end up being a simple IOU that doesn't have any special properties different from gold or tradeable resources.
They give up too easily and surrender all their gold or cities. Even if they have no gold to give you, I can ask them for 50 favors in exchange for peace and they'll agree. That means I can keep sucking their gold dry for the next 20 turns of peace with them by cashing in all those favors.
They don't know how to do anything with their airplanes except suicide them on my units. "Air sweep"? "Intercept"? what's that ?
As long as I have at least one good friend AI who I am in an alliance with, I can always sell all my shit to another AI for lump sum gold, then bribe that AI into declaring war on my ally, which automatically means I declare war on him, and then get all my stuff back. Then, after I make peace with the AI I just fought and took all his money/favors, if I timed it right when my alliance expired, and if my former ally is still fighting the other AI, if I renew my alliance with my former ally, I go right back to war with the other AI despite the peace treaty, so I can beat him up some more. This gives me less of a hit to my diplomatic score since I'm not the one directly declaring war. I'm just "helping" my ally out. lol.
They don't know how to manage the tech web properly, and usually fall behind in tech (and subsequently, affinity) even on Apollo difficulty.
They don't know how to improve their tiles well.
They keep giving me fucking useless trade requests.
They are too passive a lot of the times, and will do nothing while you steamroll through the game.
Their valuation of resources is off. You can do the old pre-BNW tactic of trading for lump sums and then declaring war to get your stuff back. They fall for this every time.
Favors have potential as an idea, but they just end up being a simple IOU that doesn't have any special properties different from gold or tradeable resources.
They give up too easily and surrender all their gold or cities. Even if they have no gold to give you, I can ask them for 50 favors in exchange for peace and they'll agree. That means I can keep sucking their gold dry for the next 20 turns of peace with them by cashing in all those favors.
They don't know how to do anything with their airplanes except suicide them on my units. "Air sweep"? "Intercept"? what's that ?
As long as I have at least one good friend AI who I am in an alliance with, I can always sell all my shit to another AI for lump sum gold, then bribe that AI into declaring war on my ally, which automatically means I declare war on him, and then get all my stuff back. Then, after I make peace with the AI I just fought and took all his money/favors, if I timed it right when my alliance expired, and if my former ally is still fighting the other AI, if I renew my alliance with my former ally, I go right back to war with the other AI despite the peace treaty, so I can beat him up some more. This gives me less of a hit to my diplomatic score since I'm not the one directly declaring war. I'm just "helping" my ally out. lol.
What would I do to change the game?
For one thing, fixing the AI's problems is pretty straightforward, but that's easier said than done.
As to the other points?
Balance the quest decisions so that they aren't no-brainers with usually one obvious choice.
Cut down the tedium. They have adjustments to the trade route UI in the next patch, so they are working on it.
Rework the affinity system and tie advancement into gameplay. How I play the game should be how the game determines what affinity I belong to.
The three affinities should have different goals in mind. Harmony wants to save the aliens and be one with the planet. Purity wants to make the planet more like Earth, which might entail killing aliens. Supremacy wants to roboticize everything which might entail encroaching on biological life that includes both aliens and humans. It should be sorta like a rock/paper/scissors dynamic. Some affinities share common ground. Harmony does something that both Purity and Supremacy hate. Purity does something that both Harmony and Supremacy hate. Supremacy does something that both Harmony and Purity hate.
Some random thoughts that may or may not be terrible:
Particular buildings or tile improvements generate affinity points per turn. Your initial plans on how you want to set up your first city might then drive your future affinity plans.
Harmony wants to work with aliens, so it gets a bonus for becoming allied. Perhaps Harmony players need to actively spread Miasma and help the aliens multiply on the planet. They get Harmony points for doing so.
Purity and Supremacy get some of their affinity points for killing aliens. Maybe they get science and culture too for killing aliens, which would give them a gameplay incentive to do so and thus make the Harmony player hate their guts for legit reasons.
Purity wants to terraform the planet to make it more Earth like. OK, so give them the ability to terraform. All Earth-like improvements give points to Purity per turn.
Why is it that in current games, Harmony and Supremacy players are incentived to build "TERRA"scapes, of all things. Why is that the ultimate tile improvement for all three factions? Give each faction their own uber improvement that works differently.
Perhaps Miasma on a Harmony player's tile adds +1 food or +something depending on what kind of tile/improvement it's on. Maybe Harmony units get increased movement like roads if they're traveling through adjacent miasma tiles.
Supremacy could take their adjacency theme and implement it into tile improvements as well. Sorta like Moais from Civ5. Arrays get +1 science for every node that is adjacent to it, or +1 production for every generator adjacent to it. Generators get +1 production for every adjacent manufactory, and +1 energy for every adjacent oil well. Or something like that. I envision large swaths of glowing electric stuff surrounding Supremacy cities, like the Machine City from The Matrix. Perhaps Supremacy magrails evolve into glowing data and energy transfer mechanisms that give bonuses to connected cities that Harmony and Purity players don't get.
If each affinity had a global counter as a prerequisite for their affinity victory, it would give players an actual gameplay reason to work together. For example, if a prerequisite for building the Mind Flower was that there had to be X amount of alien nests constructed and/or X amount of aliens bred, then that is a common goal that any Harmony players in game can work toward together. Maybe for Purity, one of the end game goals is to have had X amount of tiles terraformed, and so this is a goal that Purity players can work towards together. I haven't actually thought this idea through yet, so it could be terrible in practice, or lead to abuse, but I think it's a way to integrate incentives and gameplay. And hey, if you're going for a domination or contact victory, then fuck everyone else anyway/
marvelharvey
Member
I want to reply but I just got home and I'm drunk. Hopefully I don't have too much of a hangover tomorrow.
I dunno, politics and intrigue like this (outside of the hoodwinking of gold, which like you mentioned is its own separate issue) is what the diplomacy system in any 4X can and should be leveraged for.
Outside that, great post.
I'm personally getting the feeling that at its core BNW was meant to be an ICS game. That's totally fine as it differentiates it somewhat from Civ5, but at the same time there's a little too much pointless micromanagement to make it a satisfying ICS experience. A lot of improved automation will alleviate the fact. (Also trade routes need to be rethought, but that's a sentiment that has been beaten to death)
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Oh yes, definitely. The concept of alliances and treaties in and of itself is a good thing. I just thought it manifested itself in an overly-gameplay-exploitative way in some circumstances. I think that the more we can push the AIs to be perceived more as actual long term partners or adversaries, instead of chumps/pushovers, the more satisfying the experience.
I don't really know the perfect way to achieve this, but I find this excerpt from the lead designer from Civ5 to be enlightening.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JonShafer/20130218/186843/Revisiting_the_Design_of_Civ_5.php
It's actually interesting because for me personally, I tend to have a soft spot for whichever AI is lucky enough to be my friend first, and it actually becomes a somewhat significant choice sometimes if I want to stab my friend in the back for an extra 1000 gold, since that would have actual short term and long term consequences.
Thank you
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
It does seem more rapid expansion-friendly than Brave New World. It's an interesting balancing act with going tall or wide, and I'd like it if was more of an abstract, complex, strategic, and tactical decision rather than just comparing numbers or general philosophy. In Civ5BNW, tall 4 cities is usually optimal because of the harsh science penalty to more cities, and the OP nature of Tradition. In BE, rapid expansion is usually optimal because negative health is minor and the science penalties can be compensated for relatively quickly with trade routes, and a lot of the time the limiting factor on further expansion becomes a variable of how tired you are of micromanaging trade routes lol.
It would be nice to see an info screen that displays your expansion considerations. Let it tell you how your numbers will be affected if you found an additional city. Let it tell you how large or how much science/culture it would need to generate to offset your additional city penalty. It would give the player a better idea on whether or not it would be his or her best interest to expand.
The strategic and tactical nature of expansion should also be more heavily emphasized. I shouldn't want to expand to any old area with shitty tiles just because it's always better to expand. Likewise, I shouldn't want to not expand to an area with good tiles or resources just because it's always not worth it to inflict the additional city penalty on myself.
Primarily I should want to expand to areas that have good tiles and will allow me to grow a new city quickly enough to recoup my startup costs and become a net positive addition to my empire. Ideally, this location is also of strategic and tactical importance on the map for offensive and defensive purposes, and for space control.
I should want to expand to an area with shitty tiles primarily because it would give me control of a key chokepoint, or give me access to a rare but important resource, or let me cut off access to another important area and impede the AI's expansion plans.
I like how in Civ5, mid and late game strategic resources appeared on the map. This gave players a choice to either want to expand in the mid/late game to capture new resources, or to decide to keep turtling instead.
Cities and your area of influence are like pieces on a chess board. Their location and importance should always be a factor in decision making. Jockeying for power and territory is a major driver in interaction between players and is what drives alliances and wars, not arbitrary ideology choices with no gameplay repercussions.
Random Painted HIghway
Member
You kids out there playing video games should look to Shafer as a good example of what you can do with your lives. ah, I remember the days of old and being involved in team pbems with and against him in Civ3, and look at what he managed to do!
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yeah, I figured you had seen it before since you're pretty well versed in the genre, and I thought it might be a good excuse to post it anyway, for anyone else who might not have seen it yet.
Trying to program the AI to be human-like seems like an unrealistic goal with current technology. The personality route was a lot more successful. It was fun. Where would all our "lol Gandhi nuked me" stories be without it? heh.
To put it a little more in context...
p.s. I'm 31, unabashedly a virgin and well on my way to being a wizard. (I'm engaged though)
I'm sorry, but let's get real here. You have to play windowed if you are using a 120+ hz monitor. No, it's not the hardware who is at fault here as you suggested before.
Alright, than can happen. It shouldn't .. but it can. But it gets downright pathetic when this still isn't fixed one month later.
Then there are all the questionable gameplay/difficulty decisions, but I won't get into that as well.
Sale price for that isn't unrealistic.
You know how fruit goes on sale when it's rotten?
It's unrealistic to expect working graphic settings for a 1 month old title priced at 34.99€?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I wasn't suggesting any kind of fault on TDM's part or his hardware. I was trying to offer a solution to get the game playable. It's pathetic that there hasn't been at least a hotfix, but it does only affect a small percentage of users, and not in an "this game doesn't work at all" fashion.
Sale price is a decent value, IMO, but perceived value is quite subjective.
Man, I can understand the bad comments about this game, but I love so much its atmosphere that I simply can't go back to civ V. This will be much better after some expansions. Also, I wish they'd step up their arts department, those icons are so bland, also I miss those nice pictures you'd get in civ V after finishing a wonder or a research, and, with all this outer space theme, the potential was huge
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Man, I can understand the bad comments about this game, but I love so much its atmosphere that I simply can't go back to civ V. This will be much better after some expansions. Also, I wish they'd step up their arts department, those icons are so bland, also I miss those nice pictures you'd get in civ V after finishing a wonder or a research, and, with all this outer space theme, the potential was huge
Agreed. Some of the art is pretty meh. I don't like the blueprint wonder graphics, and the stats on them usually suck. The lore about them in the civlopedia is cool, but it's buried in the help files. These items are pretty esoteric and not immediately recognizable like Civ wonders, so they need to be a little more clear and upfront with the lore, IMO.
They should also be more prominent in your city graphics on the map. I really like the recognizability of the Colossus, Great Lighthouse, Stonehenge, Broadway, etc. on your actual city graphic, but when I look at my city, all I see is a giant blob of scifi shit. I wanna see wonderous things sticking out of my city. I loved the Great Wall of China effect where it actually made a wall around your borders. Gimma something like that. Make one of the wonders generate a huge dome forcefield around my territory.
Take the "wonders on a tile" concept of the victory wonders and extend that to some other normal wonders as well. That's a neat concept.