Improving Crappy Wonders

So there are some wonders out there that are situational; they're only worth building under certain circumstances, but when those circumstances come up, they pay off bigtime (Great Lighthouse on an Archipelago map? Can you say economy boost with every new city? Because I can! ICS lives!). Then there are other wonders that are either useless even in the situation they're designed for, or are designed for situations no one ever wants to find themselves in in the first place.

So what wonders do you think fall into that category, and what would you do to improve them?

In my mind, the four worst offenders are:

Chichen Itza: 25% defense bonus? If you have 500 hammers to throw away on glorified Walls, then you probably won't be fighting a defensive war
Angkor Wat: Fantastic wonder for when you're running a Priest economy. Too bad nobody does.
Shwedegon Paya: You mean that for only 450 hammers I could unlock religious civics that I'm already only a couple of techs away from anyway? Oh Firaxis, you shouldn't have!
The Hagia Sophia: Hey guys, since Serfdom is such a powerful Civic, what if we could spend a mere 550 hammers to be able to do the same thing, without having a pesky turn of Anarchy? Overpowered, you say? Well, that's just the way the game is played!


I have absolutely no idea what would make Chicken Pizza better. Maybe barbeque sauce. Mmmmm, barbeque sauce...

Angkor Wat is a tough call too. Adding in a free Priest or two might make it nicer, but unless your plan for victory relies on swarming your enemy with legions of Great Prophets, that might actually make life worse. Adding a hammer bonus to all State Religion buildings seems like a great idea... Only the Apostolic Palace already does that, and more.

Shwedegon Paya: Make it earlier. Forget the requirements of Aesthetics and Meditation, just make it available with Meditation. This would make it much more attractive. Being able to run Pacifism for early GP pops, running FR to get an early research bonus... It wouldn't be as good as the Mids, but it would certainly be attractive. Not to mention the fact that it would make the religious tech tree a more viable option.

Hagia Sophia: Free engineers. The Great Library of the hammer world. I've been in the Hagia Sophia. It's a huge feat of engineering. Engineers would be coming from miles around to look at it. How many free Engineers would be a question for balance, but that would make this wonder a viable option for me.

But this isn't just about me! I want to hear your opinions, too!

 

I have always thought Chichen Itza and the Great Wall should switch benefits. The Great Wall keeps barbs out and gives a city defense bonus, which is useful at that point in the game since there is not much siege equipment and culture is not as developed. Chichen Itza could give extra great general emergence irrelevant of where the battles are fought, so it would be useful for all types of warmongers.

I'll look at my notes for improving other wonders--I can't find my text file now.

 

That's a great idea, actually. The anti-barb policy is the main bonus of the GW, so that wouldn't hamper the wonder too much, and the universal Great General production would make the Chichen Itza nice for warmongers. Possibly throw in a free GG upon completion to sweeten the deal.

The other thought I had is to have the Chichen Itza count as a free Castle in every city. Castles are wonderful little buildings that no one ever builds because their pre-reqs and lifespan are so obnoxious. Free castles without walls and earlier on, though, that would make for a nice bonus. Still keeping the +25% to defense, but also throwing in a free trade route, and some extra espionage points for good measure.

 

The Space Elevator is the most useless as far as I can tell. Robotics is not a prerequisite tech for winning the space race itself, so that's an additional 8000 beakers and 2000 hammers to build it. At that price, you're better off just cranking out spaceship parts without it.

 

In addition to their former traits...

Chicken Pizza- +10% combat bonus +10% healing when fighting in tiles you are culturally dominant in, including cities. Free sentry promotion for all units produced from the city that built Chicken Pizza. Obsoletes with Artillery
Angkor Wat- Make it 450 Hammers, never expires

Shwedagon Paya-- City in which this is built no longer needs monasteries to produce missionaries (like Organized Religion but not having to use it) and gets +1 happiness per religion in it, free monastery in any holy city you own, all owned shrines generate 25% more gold, +1 gold and +1 happiness per cathedral

Hagia Sophia-- 1 free engineer, enables all labor civics, Free temple in every city on the continent with state religion. Free Shrine if Holy City of State Religion is owned (One time effect only). Defiance anger reduced to 2 unhappiness. 100% more culture from obsolete buildings. Expires with Mass Media. Costs 400 hammers

Space Elevator-- Requires Satelites, Superconductors, free observatory in every city, Doubles espionage production for all buildings that produce espionage.

Edit: more balanced suggestions below

 

Or instead of the promotion give all cities in your civ free walls.

 

I'm concerned you are adding too many different benefits to a single wonder. Don't fall into the castle trap!

 

lol crap I was trying to make changes for the past half an hour. But it's okay, we'll discuss my scrapped ideas too.

I've been long thinking of the free walls/castle thing, but I realized that doesn't solve the original problem people complain about-- you want to not sit at home to fight especially if you can dump the hammers on it. So I think a generalized combat bonus anywhere in your land would mean a lot more and add flavor. The other thing is that walls are easily installed and having a castle pop up in every city you conquer seems a bit too overpowered.

Maybe, though people might complain about those GPPs... though I guess that's why they built it?

Thanks. I took away the monastery thing because you could pop a bunch with it. But maybe if it was a one time deal, it'd be better. I also had an idea that you could build any missionary you want from the city as long w/o a monastary as you had the religion but that may be a bit clumsy. May as well just scrap the whole thing about monastaries/missionaries.

The Hagia Sophia must compete with the AP so I figured I had to come up with something outlandish to convince people to take this strange tech path. Though we can scrap the temples gimmick.

Yea I think Playa and maybe Hagia Sophia is too much, but will the others really be that overpowering compared to their alternatives?

 

Maybe the Space Elevator is fine (although I don't have much modern-game experience). But a (situational) free Combat promo, Sentry promo, extra healing, and city defense, along with culture and great person points? Sounds like a little much on one wonder.

 

Well, Chicken Pizza you must realize costs 500 hammers. That's as much as the mids, though it does come later. That is 10 catapults! (well err... 5 with stone) That is way more than the Great Lib or AP. And all those bonus does absolutely nothing in offensive wars. But I really think even 5 catapults would give you more bang for your buck if you're even thinking of warring. Though sentry was definitely something I just sorta threw in for the hell of it... perhaps limit it to recon and naval units?

I do admit to going overboard on Playa and Hagia Sophia because they are so irrelevant in my mind.

 

I didn't realize how many hammer that is,but your right 5 or 10 cats can make the difference and if you manage them well you can keep them.Lets just say that last night I saw the power in letting Saladin build the Collussus and letting me build up my economy/military might.

I built a ton of cats and stomped Saladin took COL and now I got my eyes on France who just built the AP....and Prince was supposed to be hard....lol


but yeah if I built the Hagia Sophia with the shrine bonues it would be an insane bonus for the game I'm in.It'd pay for all my new lands and then not to mention if I built it in Mecca to combine it with COL and throw in a Wall Street...

hmm...yeah maybe a few GE points more the what it gives now?

 

I guess I am not that good, though I just can't fathom anyone who's planning war is going to dump hammers for that and war. Or maybe burn a GE, I dunno.

Still, I guess we shall restrict it to melee and archery units especially when they didn't really have access to horses in that place or at least that's what Age of Empires II told me.

Yea, the shrine thing feels too gimmicky too... let me try again.

In addition to the current bonuses:
Chicken Pizza
10% bonus to melee and archery units within culturally dominant tiles. Free sentry promotion for all recon units. Obsoletes with Artillery.

Archon's thoughts: Why the hell is a city a wonder? I guess due to the longetvity of its buildings that it gives a defense bonus? Honestly, it may have been better for it to be a land version of the GLH. Unfortunately I admit to being ignorant about this particular error so...

This should fit with the defense-oriented theme Firaxis intended. And now that siege won't get the bonus, it would suggest you should build that instead. You probably will only build this if you are wonder spamming and are afraid of being invaded. But perhaps you would improve diplomacy instead of building this.

Shwedagon Paya
+1 happiness per religion in city where it is built, +25% shrine gold, +1 gold and +1 happiness per cathedral

Archon's thoughts: Big shrine, and thus we get more tourism! The theme of this building is free religion (why else would you get the thing) so we find a way to make religious buildings shine w/o a state religion?

In terms of in-game play, this will encourage people, even more so, to conquer a shrine and make a Wall Street city out of it and maybe culture victories could use some extra gold. But they don't need happiness and 3 gold isn't gonna help too much.

Hagia Sophia
1 Free Engineer, Enables all Labor Civics, Defiance anger reduced to 3 unhappiness. 100% more culture from obsolete buildings. Expires with Mass Media. Costs 350 hammers

Archon's thoughts: I think this about covers the legacy of the Byzantine Empire. I would say all legal civics due to the long living system of theirs but early nationhood sounds broken. The obsolete building culture is just for fun, but I like it so it highlights just how long lasting this version of Rome lasted and we still remember it to this very day. There is no doubt that Byzantine culture and influence still exists to this very day. The defiance anger reduction comes from well... the real life defying of the AP and great split that occured. It would seem fitting that the tech that contains Christianity effectively have two "rival" wonders that represent 2 separate institutions.

In terms of actual gameplay, I would still prefer the AP. But if I only get this, maybe I can protect myself a little better from it when they tell me to stop the war and get a GE to build some random wonder.

Space Elevator
Requires Satelites, Superconductors, free observatory in every city, +2 EP for all buildings that produce espionage.

Archon's thoughts: Well, if you built a gigantic elevator into the sky, I assume it'd be easier to observe the stars. This gives you a small research boost (but not big, as observatories will end up in cities that suck and every good science city should have had one ages ago.) and some espionage so you can tear down rival's spaceships while hindering their spies who are trying to do the same.

Overall, I think these changes would make them more interesting, more usable, but in general just so you can build for the novelty and fun as I believe other options are still superior.

 

I like the idea of getting more culture from obsolete buildings interestingly unique ability

 

At first, unlocking all labour civics sounded a bit useless, since odds are you'll have all but one of them open before you'd build the Hagia Sophia. Then the idea of running Emancipation that early in the game really began to appeal to me.

 

I have honestly been forcing myself to tech Democracy more due to Emancipation.I suck at cottaging lands with only one coin.Imagine having it a thousand years earlier...

Beast mode!

 

You can also switch into serfdom if SPI for workers on crack. :3

But yea, I'd really wonder about that super cottages early on; seems like a godsend when you are FIN but on the other hand, competition from caste system would still be pretty fierce as bulbing is still so strong from this point of the game. Maybe switch Sophia back to its original cost? I did cut it down from 500 after all as I feel it's crazy to be more expensive than the AP. And it still must compete with AP hammers/ diplo powers. Maybe go back to 450. Even if non-fin, you might be able to plaster cottages on just grassland when usually they are a huge waste when not riverside due to them taking so long to grow.

And then you can troll everyone for 1 unhappiness.

 

On Chichen Itza ( really, rhye has a point on renaming it to Temple of Kukulkan , especially after having a civ with a city of the same name :/ ) I always wondered if the wonder would not become decent just by making the 25% defense to not go away with bombing ... that and/or it to cut the number of units that can suffer col. damage inside a city ( that would have a pretty substantial effect ) ...

On the space elevator ... well, putting it back at computers would probably make it more worthwhile than it ever was ( as BtS needs more hammers in the ship most of the times than in Warlords/ Vanilla ... ), but even then you would need quite some more to convince me to build it Given the late nature of the wonder, anything short of a massive bonus will look underwhelming ... say, + 100% votes in the UN ( you would need to have control of a equator mountain to make a affordable SE without anything short of futuristic materials for the cable and fusion for the power , and that in the best case scenario where your economy can encompass most of world resources for quite a while. Besides you would control the gateway to the starts after finished, so a massive diplo related bonus is not out of hand )

 

For Chichen Itza, just make the first defender in each city not cost anything in maint.

 

Given how that is calculated in-game, it should just give a number of free units like Vassalage.

Many of my ideas for UBs and new wonders revolved around the sliders--I think, say, a hammer or gold bonus for each 10% on the culture slider would be unique among wonders and would fit well with the Hagia Sophia and late-Roman theme. Something like this:

Hagia Sophia
Cost: 550, 2x with Marble
Culture: 8
Great People Points: 2 (Engineer)
Requires: Theology
Workers build improvements 50% faster.
+5% hammers (or gold) in all cities per 10% culture slider.

The alternative is making the bonus more significant, but only in the city that builds the Hagia Sophia. Would you run 50% culture to get +100% gold or hammers in the city that builds it? Maybe to build another wonder before someone else gets it, or maybe if you have a specialist economy and turn the Hagia Sophia city into a massive merchant farm.

 

Chichen Itza: Priests +1 science. Then Angkor Wat will be more desirable when you have already CI.
Paya to Meditation.
Hagia Sophia: two free engineers.