Procedurally generated Galactic achievements
Published on Saturday, September 16, 2023 By
Wonders have been done the same way in pretty much every 4x since the early civ games-you race other civs to build each one. It's stale and gamey and in a lot of space 4x's the wonders are pretty generic. Instead every civ could build it's own unique, randomly generated wonders. Here's how it could work:
-Instead of unlocking pre-made wonders with technology, a governor could propose a randomly generated wonder every time you earn a certain number of culture points. That galactic achievement would only be buildable on the planet of the governor that proposed it.
-The name would be randomly generated by combining a random adjective and a noun from a list, similar to the way a lot of things are named in dwarf fortress. it could also be named after the leader that proposed it, the planet it's built on, or named after the civilization that built it. The graphics would be randomly chosen from the existing galactic achievement sprites. No AI generation required.
-The galactic achievement's bonuses and adjacency bonuses would be randomly selected from a list of premade traits when the building is generated. The further down the tech tree you are at the time of generation, the better the available bonuses. Selection would be random but weighted based on the traits/stats of the governor that proposed it. For example, high intelligence leaders would be more likely to propose research-oriented wonders (%bonuses, extra tech points per turn, free techs, etc.) Leaders with the advocate trait might design a monument that boosts influence and tourism or gives you a few free citizens of a different species.
-The production/resource cost of the generated achievement would be based on its randomly selected trait and the loyalty of the governor that proposed it. Cost would also be higher for governors with traits like embezzler, gambling addict, corrupt, etc (but a gambling addict might propose an opulent casino that attracts tourists and credits!)
I'd love to hear what you think of this idea and if it's feasible. I believe it could all be done without using GPT because it's inspired by systems from dwarf fortress the predate GPT.