World Wonder Discussion

[keli]

Hi All, I thought we could have a thread about under- or overpowered wonders as they are a plenty.
Build: v1.16

I'll start with a few obvious underpowered ones:

1) Notre Dame: you can build cathedrals after 3 churches instead of 4.
I personally don't really see the appeal in this other than completing the UHV for France. I'm not really big on building cathedrals as happiness resources are attainable without problem. I would rather like to see it spreading your religion or not allowing Protestantism to take hold in your civ. Furthermore, you should be able to capture Rome/Venice, which then gets you to 4 cities where you can build 4 churches to get a cathedral anyway.

2) Burj Khalifa: you get +2 food and +2 commerce from desert tiles.
Has anyone ever built this? It takes an insane amount of hammer to build, especially if you consider that disadvantaged cities with a lot of unusable desert tiles should construct it. I would recommend a cut in hammer cost by at least 40% or adding a +1 hammer to the bonuses.

3) Atomium: you get +1 science bonus for each nuclear weapon globally
Since introducing the Nuclear Power requirement, there is simply not many nuclear weapons in the world, so this wonder is bonkers mostly. Maybe increasing the bonus to +5 or adding another nuclear weapon specific effect (like decreased building time of nuclear bombs) would help.

4) Tsukiji Fish Market and World Trade Center: +1 food on water tiles and +50% commerce from corporations, respectively
These would be great, but their hammer cost is quite high, not really worth to build them other than role playing.

5) Berlaymount: +2 possible defensive pacts and +1 specialist per defensive pact
This effect for 1000 hammers is really lackluster. Maybe an addition of improved relationship bonus after entering a defensive pact can be giving further meaning to this wonder.

6) Gardens by the bay: +2 commerce for each excess health
Same issue as the Burj Khalifa. It should be completed by small, hammer poor cities, but the construction cost is too high.

7) Harbour Opera: +1 food for each two excess happiness
Self-defeating wonder, which type of city can benefit from this effect? I would think that +2 happiness and/or food after each level of culture would benefit more.

8) Motherland Calls: a new unit is drafted after the defeat of a level 3 unit
There are not many level 3 units in the game usually. Production of a non-experienced infantry every 10 turn would help more.

+1) Hubble Space Telescope and Satellites in general
The bonuses are too small for this late era.

 

[Enyavar]

Hi All, I thought we could have a thread about under- or overpowered wonders as they are a plenty.
Build: v1.16

I'll start with a few obvious underpowered ones:

1) Notre Dam: you can build cathedrals after 3 churches instead of 4.
I personally don't really see the appeal in this other than completing the UHV for France. I'm not really big on building cathedrals as happiness resources are attainable without problem. I would rather like to see it spreading your religion or not allowing Protestantism to take hold in your civ. Furthermore, you should be able to capture Rome/Venice, which then gets you to 4 cities where you can build 4 churches to get a cathedral anyway.

2) Burj Khalifa: you get +2 food and +2 commerce from desert tiles.
Has anyone ever built this? It takes an insane amount of hammer to build, especially if you consider that disadvantaged cities with a lot of unusable desert tiles should construct it. I would recommend a cut in hammer cost by at least 40% or adding a +1 hammer to the bonuses.

3) Atomium: you get +1 science bonus for each nuclear weapon globally
Since introducing the Nuclear Power requirement, there is simply not many nuclear weapons in the world, so this wonder is bonkers mostly. Maybe increasing the bonus to +5 or adding another nuclear weapon specific effect (like decreased building time of nuclear bombs) would help.

4) Tsukiji Fish Market and World Trade Center: +1 food on water tiles and +50% commerce from corporations, respectively
These would be great, but their hammer cost is quite high, not really worth to build them other than role playing.

5) Berlaymount: +2 possible defensive pacts and +1 specialist per defensive pact
This effect for 1000 hammers is really lackluster. Maybe an addition of improved relationship bonus after entering a defensive pact can be giving further meaning to this wonder.

6) Gardens by the bay: +2 commerce for each excess health
Same issue as the Burj Khalifa. It should be completed by small, hammer poor cities, but the construction cost is too high.

7) Harbour Opera: +1 food for each two excess happiness
Self-defeating wonder, which type of city can benefit from this effect? I would think that +2 happiness and/or food after each level of culture would benefit more.

8) Motherland Calls: a new unit is drafted after the defeat of a level 3 unit
There are not many level 3 units in the game usually. Production of a non-experienced infantry every 10 turn would help more.

+1) Hubble Space Telescope and Satellites in general
The bonuses are too small for this late era.

• Notre Dame is very situational. You want this as Poland for example, where cathedrals are part of the UHV. Or as France because it IS a fricking French wonder. (Would you complain about the Temple of Kukulkan or about the Moai Statues when not playing the respective civ?). The original effect with "+2 Happiness in every city and never obsoletes" was overpowered.
  
• Burj Khalifa: Built it several times in the very late game after finishing all UHVs with some civ. It really shines in special places like Australia, Arabia, Egypt, Libya or Las Vegas (desert hills!). Arabia and Egypt can even build it in their core, increasing stability. I agree that the hammer costs are insanely high, but this is a fluff wonder. There is no Civilisation that depends on it. And the desert city with this wonder is fabulous. That said, I have not built it in Samarkand yet, as Turcs. Have to try that!
  
• Atomium: Only good for Great Scientist points and for Wonder-mongering. Like Nobel Prize, where the reward is similarly underwhelming. And don't get me started on El Escorial which is utter horsehocky.
  
• The Tsukiji Market is (when feasible) a must-have for me in the coastal core city with the most water tiles, whichever that is. If you can build this in Rome, as Italy (trade for Rice!), you get +8 food which translates in more population and more core/extension stability. Really really worth some effort. Build the Market as Indonesia in your Capital with +14 Food and then switch to Republic for food specialists. Yummy. Sadly, you can't reasonably build it in Ponta Delgada as Portugal: this is probably the reason why there are hammer costs that require some coastal mining hills. Like, you know, are available as Japan...
• WTC (and Metro) are nice-to-have fluff wonders, like Burj Khalifa. If you have the hammers to spare and a big honking city to build them in, go for it.
• Berlaymont+Multiculturalism+six defensive pacts with powerful trade houses makes for a powerful trade alliance. Theoretically!! The American UHV would be much easier to achieve if this wonder worked as advertized, but it doesn't. The additional defensive pacts are rarely coming into play, because most civs don't like you in the late game and wouldn't pact with you if their existence depended on it. Whoever you are.
  
• Harbour Opera: For another coastal core city to quickly gather more population there, but has high hammer coasts. And it's totally self-defeating, I agree: You have a city with +8 happiness? Translates to +4 Food, so the city quickly grows and you have +4 happiness and only +2 Food left. The owner of the Christo Salvador statue can theoretically make use of the Harbour Opera by switching to Despotism and back, and rush happiness buildings (Notre Dame Cathedrals!!) which decreases the population. So yeah, Harbour Opera is semi-bad. IRL the Opera was built to provide for a large but culturally challenged city, that should be taken into account when rethinking that effect.
  
• Gardens by the Bay: another late-game fluff wonder, not really worth it.
• Motherland Calls: Um. Level 3 means units of at least 10 XP. Those units should be around. This is a great wonder for military powerhouse players who produce units like that en-masse (baracks, pentagon, two military instructors in the production city and one small victory for that unit). Granted, when I play I try to not overbuild the military, which means in wars I need to minimize avoidable losses, which means this wonder doesn't fit my personal style much. I can count the number of "free" units I got this way on one hand - over about four games where I had the Motherland. And then there was the one game where the enemy tried to storm a city where I had six ancient longbows (or some such units) garrisoned - each of them level 10. The next turn, I had six new Mobile Infantry. Not really happening much, that. My suggestion for a changed effect would be: "for every 10 population in this city: +1 free Infantry Unit whenever war breaks out with another player". So the USA and their five allies gang up on you as Soviet Russia with Moscow having 20+ pop? 12 new Infantry, baby.
• Satellites start being worth something if you're the tech leader and build ALL the space wonders. At that point in the game, your big production cities can't build anything but military or satellites.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

• El Escorial is a niche wonder for Spain. The civ racks up high maintenance costs quite easily as it expands its colonial empire, and the gold bonus for each colonial city helps you keep afloat while not lagging behind economically for a while. However, I do somehow agree that the effect is a bit lacking. Maybe a free Great Statesman once you conquer your first colonial city in North and in South America, in addition to the current effect? Administrative centers help a lot in managing big colonial empires, but it could be overpowering.
• I think Level 3 is at 5 XP, Level 4 is at 10 XP. So maybe it's a bit easier to regain lost manpower?

 

[WhiteEyes]

I was about to write a thread about this for my first post but I'm glad somebody did it anyways!
Some of the wonders ingame aren't exactly underpowered but they just not useful enough for their historically respective civilizations.

• Krak des Chevalier: Too complicated requirements, Arab and Turks cant build it, Holy Rome hardly made it before switching to Protestanism, while Spain straight out abuses it.
• House of Wisdom: Expires too fast. 200% from GP bulb isn't really useful early on unless it lets you bulb 3 techs at once. And I almost never build both of it and The Spiral Minaret "historically" in Baghdad without Moors sniping one of them.
• Prambanan: Requires Hinduism, which oddly rarely spreads into Indonesia. Making only Khmer being able to build it in 600AD start.
• Saint Sophia Cathedral: Only useful for its Great Statesman Points. Should've been switched effect with the Hagia Sophia since +1 per Merchants benefits Byzantine more than the Russians.
• Silver Fountain: not sure how useful but I never saw AI build it, and I would rather build Keshiks.
• Gur e Amir: Nice effect but you don't need it after the first UHV. Cartography is hard to get as Turks rarely use the science slider.

 

[Enyavar]

El Escorial is a niche wonder for Spain.

Um... wait, I have to admit that I haven't played as Spain yet, just as other colonial empires like France, Portugal and England. How is El Escorial's mechanic different for Spain?

For my other games, the (roundabout) +50 onetime-wealth for a new city that that will then consume as much wealth per turn was never even "helping".

@WhiteEyes, those wonders are all niche wonders or lackluster.

• The Krak is great to have when you're Medieval Italy and have conquered Tunis. Neither Holy Rome nor France ever builds this in the Holy Land, they usually don't even get to conquer a city there.
• House of Wisdom is just not my tea (I really don't get how the bulbing mechanism helps so much; I rather settle my GPeople).
• The other four wonders are rarely built, but I have yet to test the Turks, last time I wanted to try them I discovered how the Persians are also fun and did them.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Um... wait, I have to admit that I haven't played as Spain yet, just as other colonial empires like France, Portugal and England. How is El Escorial's mechanic different for Spain?

I call it a niche wonder because the more colonies you get, the more money you get from the wonder. Spain especially benefits from this. Actually, also Portugal and England to some extent. BUT notice the Silver construction bonus. Also, Spain does not have the powerful maintenance-reducing UP that England does, so attempting to expand the colonial empire at the "historical pace" will surely send you bankrupt in a few turns, especially without the ocean trade brought by Optics. So I see it as somewhat really tailored for Spain. You can build it as someone else, but make sure to beeline Exploration and either secure Silver or get a Great Engineer.

I really don't get how the bulbing mechanism helps so much; I rather settle my GPeople

Bulbing helps a lot when either you're lagging behind technologically and your situation prevents you from keeping up, or you're aiming for tech-related UHVs. Yes, settling GPs may be a great investment, but sometimes it's not enough to help you keep up with techs especially when your economy can't keep up with it and/or you simply have $h!+ civ modifiers. I haven't played Arabia much so I haven't experienced the House of Wisdom effect yet, and I think the effect is a bit superfluous, especially since if Arabia can last and hold its historical territories for long enough, it can easily be tech leader without much need for tech bulbing.

 

[keli]

• Notre Dame is very situational. You want this as Poland for example, where cathedrals are part of the UHV. Or as France because it IS a fricking French wonder. (Would you complain about the Temple of Kukulkan or about the Moai Statues when not playing the respective civ?). The original effect with "+2 Happiness in every city and never obsoletes" was overpowered.
  
• Burj Khalifa: Built it several times in the very late game after finishing all UHVs with some civ. It really shines in special places like Australia, Arabia, Egypt, Libya or Las Vegas (desert hills!). Arabia and Egypt can even build it in their core, increasing stability. I agree that the hammer costs are insanely high, but this is a fluff wonder. There is no Civilisation that depends on it. And the desert city with this wonder is fabulous. That said, I have not built it in Samarkand yet, as Turcs. Have to try that!
  
• Atomium: Only good for Great Scientist points and for Wonder-mongering. Like Nobel Prize, where the reward is similarly underwhelming. And don't get me started on El Escorial which is utter ****.
  
• The Tsukiji Market is (when feasible) a must-have for me in the coastal core city with the most water tiles, whichever that is. If you can build this in Rome, as Italy (trade for Rice!), you get +8 food which translates in more population and more core/extension stability. Really really worth some effort. Build the Market as Indonesia in your Capital with +14 Food and then switch to Republic for food specialists. Yummy. Sadly, you can't reasonably build it in Ponta Delgada as Portugal: this is probably the reason why there are hammer costs that require some coastal mining hills. Like, you know, are available as Japan...
• WTC (and Metro) are nice-to-have fluff wonders, like Burj Khalifa. If you have the hammers to spare and a big honking city to build them in, go for it.
• Berlaymont+Multiculturalism+six defensive pacts with powerful trade houses makes for a powerful trade alliance. Theoretically!! The American UHV would be much easier to achieve if this wonder worked as advertized, but it doesn't. The additional defensive pacts are rarely coming into play, because most civs don't like you in the late game and wouldn't pact with you if their existence depended on it. Whoever you are.
  
• Harbour Opera: For another coastal core city to quickly gather more population there, but has high hammer coasts. And it's totally self-defeating, I agree: You have a city with +8 happiness? Translates to +4 Food, so the city quickly grows and you have +4 happiness and only +2 Food left. The owner of the Christo Salvador statue can theoretically make use of the Harbour Opera by switching to Despotism and back, and rush happiness buildings (Notre Dame Cathedrals!!) which decreases the population. So yeah, Harbour Opera is semi-bad. IRL the Opera was built to provide for a large but culturally challenged city, that should be taken into account when rethinking that effect.
  
• Gardens by the Bay: another late-game fluff wonder, not really worth it.
• Motherland Calls: Um. Level 3 means units of at least 10 XP. Those units should be around. This is a great wonder for military powerhouse players who produce units like that en-masse (baracks, pentagon, two military instructors in the production city and one small victory for that unit). Granted, when I play I try to not overbuild the military, which means in wars I need to minimize avoidable losses, which means this wonder doesn't fit my personal style much. I can count the number of "free" units I got this way on one hand - over about four games where I had the Motherland. And then there was the one game where the enemy tried to storm a city where I had six ancient longbows (or some such units) garrisoned - each of them level 10. The next turn, I had six new Mobile Infantry. Not really happening much, that. My suggestion for a changed effect would be: "for every 10 population in this city: +1 free Infantry Unit whenever war breaks out with another player". So the USA and their five allies gang up on you as Soviet Russia with Moscow having 20+ pop? 12 new Infantry, baby.
• Satellites start being worth something if you're the tech leader and build ALL the space wonders. At that point in the game, your big production cities can't build anything but military or satellites.

True, the Notre Dame might be useful for Poland, however this is a wonder that doesn't give you any benefit other than helping with the UHV.
I agree with your Motherland Calls proposal, actually that would be a lot of fun.

Regarding the Krak, I have never ever seen it built in any of my games. Also, it takes ages to complete in Jerusalem.

 

[Cacaso]

Christ the Redeemer: the effect does not match Brazil (without anarchy and minimal time in the exchange of policies), and also because it can build with Protestantism / Catholicism being the state religion usually USA and not Brazil that builds it (I suggest not allowing it with Protestantism) .

the effect could be exchanged for happiness / culture / an extra level of culture to calculate the increase in the trade route for the hotel effect. (to represent the happiness of the Brazilian people, the notoriety of one of the country's symbols, and the wealth of tourism)

 

[Enyavar]

Christo Redentor is the most powerful wonder and the game would be poorer without it.

Without that, my recent US victory wouldn't have been possible (needed to switch civics every turn).

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Christo Redentor is the most powerful wonder and the game would be poorer without it.

Without that, my recent US victory wouldn't have been possible (needed to switch civics every turn).

Just give the effect to some other wonder then. Trump Tower would fit the bill for a wonder that allows you to radically change your government every turn based on who had the president's ear most recently, heh.

Edit: Come to think of it, maybe this effect would fit a canonically German wonder best? Germany went from a constitutional monarchy to a liberal republic to a totalitarian dictatorship to a socialist workers' paradise all in the span of less than 40 years. Then again, they sure sacrificed a lot of Great States(wo)men during that time, literally in the case of poor Rosa Luxemburg.

 

[1SDANi]

Just give the effect to some other wonder then. Trump Tower would fit the bill for a wonder that allows you to radically change your government every turn based on who had the president's ear most recently, heh.

Edit: Come to think of it, maybe this effect would fit a canonically German wonder best? Germany went from a constitutional monarchy to a liberal republic to a totalitarian dictatorship to a socialist workers' paradise all in the span of less than 40 years. Then again, they sure sacrificed a lot of Great States(wo)men during that time, literally in the case of poor Rosa Luxemburg.

Nah, Trump tower would increase maintenance by 100% but 50% of all maintenance is converted to Gold.

 

[Cacaso]

Just give the effect to some other wonder then. Trump Tower would fit the bill for a wonder that allows you to radically change your government every turn based on who had the president's ear most recently, heh.

Edit: Come to think of it, maybe this effect would fit a canonically German wonder best? Germany went from a constitutional monarchy to a liberal republic to a totalitarian dictatorship to a socialist workers' paradise all in the span of less than 40 years. Then again, they sure sacrificed a lot of Great States(wo)men during that time, literally in the case of poor Rosa Luxemburg.

could move the current effect of the brandenburg gate to the wonder "Siegessäule" (this is a military monument), and then put the effect of the christ the redeemer (without anarchy and minimal time in the exchange of policies) to the brandenburg gate or even a wonder Reichstag.

The current effect of Christ the Redeemer is in my opinion very disconnected from Brazil, and it is also almost overpower in the hands of a player and almost useless in the hands of AI.

Another suggestion for the effect of Christ the Redeemer would be to generate two cottages in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro to represent the favelas, it may seem strange but it would be useful for the purpose of the game since the capital of Brazil has few land tiles available.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

could move the current effect of the brandenburg gate to the wonder "Siegessäule" (this is a military monument), and then put the effect of the christ the redeemer (without anarchy and minimal time in the exchange of policies) to the brandenburg gate or even a wonder Reichstag.

Brandenburg Gate is a bit early imo, Neuschwanstein would be a better fit.

 

[Leoreth]

Brandenburg Gate also is a military monument, it literally has the goddess of victory on top of it and everything. We're talking Prussia here.

 

[Cacaso]

Brandenburg Gate also is a military monument, it literally has the goddess of victory on top of it and everything. We're talking Prussia here.

leave Brandenburg Gate as it is and just add a wonder "Reichstag" with the Christ Redeemer effect (without anarchy and minimal time in the exchange of policies). We can add it to the Journalism technology(or representation/nationalism technology), with the requirement of Protestantism, making the wonder obsolete in Fission technology.
this shorter period would make the wonder not to be so overpowered (in the player's hands), and would also fit well in the German historical period.

And then find a new effect for wonder Christ the Redeemer

 

[borhap88]

I don't think that the Cristo Redentor effect should be transferred to a specific German wonder. The quick change of civics identifies Latinoamerican nations, where alternating periods of democratic and autocratic rule were frequent throughout the 20th century.

 

[BaneFire]

I think House of Wisdom is fine. Having played the Arabs more time than any other Civ (imo, they have the most fun UHV!), House of Wisdom is almost essential, as bulbing GS in the right time in the tech tree can net you something like 6 techs, which will propel you well into the lead often. My only suggestion would be to make it hammers cheaper or to make it harder for Moors toget.

 

[Vectors]

1) Tsukiji Fish Market is great, put in in NYC, adds another couple population in the core area, or, alternatively put it in Los Angeles (California rolls are from LA)

2) Motherland Calls: take Kiev, put in Ironworks, Military Academy, other military thing, stack a couple military instructors, churn out tanks like you are building T-34s

 

[Force44]

I´m curious about Motherland Calls: does it make a city (potentially) unconquerable? (do the units generated by the wonder get the experience from barracks, great generals etc.)

 

[Wessel V1]

What about the opposite? Endless attacking at 1%!