Terracotta Army & Statue of Zeus

[ExpiredReign]

If I am correct in thinking this, the vanilla Terracotta Army gives free copies of all units and the Statue of Zeus gives greater experience to units, and we change that to TA gives an instant border increase for the building city and the SofZ gives a free General and more experience for generals.

To my mind the vanilla wonders are more suited to the theme and are better in gameplay.

Wouldn't it be better to revert those wonders to vanilla values?

 

[Delekhan]

Doesn't the vanilla Statue of Zeus give a combat bonus against cities, I think 15%? I don't believe it provides any XP boost.

And I agree, a free Great General is lame and inappropriate for the theme (conquest). Conquest-oriented players will be drowning in Great Generals, they appear so often for them. It's peaceful players that rarely get Great Generals and could use a free one, so to put it on a Wonder that requires Honor seems odd.

I do like the Border Push of the Terra Cotta Army. It's a pretty impressive effect to watch when it occurs. And certainly better than one free copy for each TYPE of unit (so if you have 4 archers, 3 swordsmen and 2 spearmen, you get 1 archer, 1 swordsman, 1 spearman. Lame, it's cheaper to just build them outright).

 

[ExpiredReign]

You might be right about the SofZ. I'm not 100% sure.

The point with the TA though is, if you want to fight early you will use your cities to produce units not wonders. And if you wait until later and possibly build some wonders before pushing for a conquest, then your borders are already nearly to that stage as it is.

I'm not too good on the balancing though so maybe someone else has some input.

 

[Delekhan]

Even in the capital, the city's borders won't even come close to the full size that the Terra Cotta Army provides until the mid-Industrial age, probably later.

It has several uses. It pushes out barbarian spawning points, making the space between cities safer. It provides wide line of sight that allows you to see much further out early on.

You can build it in a border city to foil another player's frontier cities without the diplomatic penalties of buying up tiles. And no matter where you build it, you can instantly claim a multitude of resources without waiting or purchasing tiles, which indirectly saves gold and creates happiness. And for conquest, it gives you a safe staging area closer to the enemy where you can gather your army for the attack.

And it just looks cool to see a classical age city suddenly expand to dominate an entire screen's worth of territory.

The Terra Cotta Army's border push is awesome, I think it should stay in. It's 20 times better than the vanilla effect.

 

[mitsho]

The Communitas Terracotta was more powerful in GEM when there were less things to do, now there's quite a flood of those effects around... It still is powerful though. The theme connection is that China under Huang Di was a big badass empire (= lots of tiles), what's the other connection? Do the Terracotta Soldiers get brought to life by a wizard?

I would like to see a wonder that doesn't require any tech to build though. (Stonehenge?)

The copy-your-army is gimmicky and cool (it should come with + 2 units free of upkeep though). I do like that one and it is one to keep. The Vanilla Statue of Zeus gives bonus vs. cities which is nothing special. It could stay I agree to have more military wonders, but I wouldn't want to lose border-effet.

 

[ExpiredReign]

...retreating to the back of the room...

Looks like I have been told.

Fair enough, I concede. Let's leave it.

Now, to change that annoying wonder splash text to show the correct info.