World's Fair (Civ5)

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File:Worldsfair(civ5).png

World's Fair (Civ5) Completion Art

Introduction

The World's Fair is an International Project in Brave New World. As such, it can only be initiated via the respective Resolution in the World Congress. It consists of organizing and conducting a world exhibition, where all nations showcase their cultural and scientific prowess. Once accepted, the international community starts organizing the Fair, which is done in practice by contributing Production Production towards it in cities around the world. When completed, the Fair is held and the contributors receive their respective rewards.

Game Info

International Project. Benefits nations which contribute to it as follows:

• File:GoldenCoup FirstPlace.png Hosted Fair (Highest contributor): Culture Empire Culture +100% for 20 turns
• File:SilverCoup SecondPlace.png Groundbreaking Invention (350 Production Production or more): Free Social Policy
• File:BronzeCoup ThirdPlace.png Exhibitor (175 Production Production or more): 500 points towards next Golden Age Golden Age

The minimum Production Production requirement for each reward assumes the game is being played in standard settings (Standard map with 8 civilizations and Standard game speed).

Strategy

The World's Fair Resolution is available immediately upon the founding of the World Congress. Its rewards will benefit any civilization. If you think you can win the race, it is well worth trying to enact this in the early stages of the World Congress, as it often comes around the time you are trying to get your first Factories and ideology. Winning the World's Fair can allow you grab those ideological tenets you really want.

The current completion status for the World's Fair can be determined by mousing over a city's corresponding World's Fair production icon from the world map. It shows the total percentage of the project that has been completed, and the player's specific contribution to it.

It is possible to calculate to minimum production required to obtain the First Place (Gold) reward. The total production needed to complete the World's Fair is

(value of production to qualify for Second Place) * (number of civilizations that started the game)

For example, in a game with 8 starting civs, and a Second Place (Silver) qualifying value of 350, the total production needed is 350 * 8 = 2800 hammers. Therefore, by contributing over 4 times the Second Place reward to the World's Fair - in this case, 1401 hammers - the First Place reward is guaranteed.

Though the exact production values necessary can be calculated and precisely attained, there may be an advantage to switching all possible production to the World's Fair (and other such Congressional events). By so completely dominating contribution to the project, the player may be able to not only win First Place, but also prevent other civs from reaching even the Third Place (Bronze) threshold, and thus receiving any bonus.

Historical Info

World's fairs originated in the French tradition of national exhibitions, a tradition that culminated with the French Industrial Exposition of 1844 held in Paris. This fair was soon followed by other national exhibitions in continental Europe, and eventually the United Kingdom.

The best-known "first World Expo" was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations". The Great Exhibition, as it is often called, was an idea of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, and is usually considered as the first international exhibition of manufactured products.

Since their inception in 1851, the character of world expositions has evolved, and three eras can be distinguished in that evolution.

The first era could be called the era of "Industrialization" and covered, roughly, the period from 1800 to 1938. In these days, world expositions were especially focused on trade, and were famous for the display of technological inventions and advancements. The world expositions of 1851 London, 1853 New York, 1862 London, Philadelphia (1876), 1889 Paris, 1893 Chicago, 1900 Paris, 1901 Buffalo, 1904 St. Louis, 1915 San Francisco, and 1933-34 Chicago were landmarks in this respect. Inventions such as the telephone were first presented during this era. An important part of the image of world's fairs stems from this first era.

The second era is the Era of Cultural exchange. The 1939–40 New York World's Fair diverged from the original focus of the world's fair expositions. From then on, world's fairs adopted specific cultural themes; they forecasted a better future for society. Technological innovations was no longer the primary exhibits at fairs. The theme of the 1939 fair was "Building the World of Tomorrow"; at the 1964–65 New York World's Fair, it was "Peace Through Understanding"; at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, it was "Man and His World". The fairs encouraged effective intercultural communication for the exchange of innovation.

The 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal was promoted under the name Expo 67. Event organizers retired the term world's fair in favor of expo.

From Expo '88 in Brisbane onwards, countries started to use world expositions more widely and more strongly as a platform to improve their national images through their pavilions; hence this era is known as the Era of Nation Branding.Finland, Japan, Canada, France and Spain are cases in point. In a world where a strong national image is a key asset, pavilions became advertising campaigns, and the Expo a vehicle for 'nation branding'. Apart from cultural and symbolic reasons, organizing countries (and the cities and regions hosting them) also utilize the world exposition to brand themselves.

At Expo 2000 Hanover, where countries created their own architecture, the average pavilion investment was about €12 million. Given these costs, governments are sometimes hesitant to participate, because benefits are often assumed not to outweigh the costs. Tangible effects are difficult to measure, but an independent study for the Dutch pavilion at Expo 2000 estimated that the pavilion (which cost around €35 million) generated around €350 million of potential revenues for the Dutch economy.

Today's world expositions embody elements of all three eras. They present new inventions, facilitate cultural exchange based on a theme, and are used for city, region and nation branding.