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Ancient Wonders Tome of Secrets Revamp!

DeletedUser12035

Guest
Hello everyone!

Just wanted to swing by and drop off something I noticed about one of the oldest Ancient Wonders in the game; the Tome of Secrets.

Someone put hard work into making this building by designing the artwork, animation and everything for it, yet it falls flat on its face in terms of usefulness. The primary attraction to this is the knowledge point gain ( in my opinion ), but it takes a herculean amount of effort and investment to get it to a mere 7 knowledge points per day...and at a size of 4x4, one could easily drop eight carting libraries and make 8 a day without the effort. The supply gain isn't incredibly efficient or reliable, and if you really want a supply boost there are plenty of other Ancient Wonders that do it far better.

I beg of you, my friends in development, please take a quick look at this Ancient Wonder and give it a little glory. It's such a forgotten gem at this point. Don't be afraid of making it more valuable...your counterparts over in Forge of Empires drop knowledge point equivalents, forge points, like candy and everything works out fine. Not comparing, but trying to point out that it's ok to be a little more generous with the output this Wonder can potentially give, especially for the investment that it requires.

Thanks for reading!

Respectfully,
- Achaean
Irregulars
 

Gargon667

Mentor
I completely disagree with basically everything above. It is not one of the worst AWs, it actually is one of the few non-military AWs that reatains a certain measure of usefulness even under current circumstances.
The only thing I could get on board with is to somehow try make it more useful for end-game players.

The primary attraction to this is the knowledge point gain ( in my opinion ), but it takes a herculean amount of effort and investment to get it to a mere 7 knowledge points per day...and at a size of 4x4, one could easily drop eight carting libraries and make 8 a day without the effort. The supply gain isn't incredibly efficient or reliable, and if you really want a supply boost there are plenty of other Ancient Wonders that do it far better.

This is the main problem: You got it exactly backwards. The KP part of this AW is of no significance, a nice little bonus, but no reason to build or upgrade the AW. You will never get the KP back you put in (unless you plan on waiting 10 years). You can get free KP from tons of other sources and usually a much easier way.

The real power of this AW is the supply production. It allows small cities to play the game without wasting their time and effort on zillions of WS which are the most useless and inefficient buildings in the game.
If I started a new town now, the ToS would be the first AW I build and I would upgrade it to lvl 6 before I even touched any other AW. No further upgrades are necessary as it auto-upgrades with your MainHall (extra ToS upgrades of course would increase supply prouction even more, but the upgrades become more expensive and since the AW is not meant to be kept forever it may be a waste of resources to upgrade it much beyond say lvl 11 IMO)
For new towns there is absolutely no AW in this game that comes even close to the power of a ToS. Even at lvl 1 it is an insane instant boost to supply production. In early game you can send multiple scouts per day! and the production is double of what for example an EE produces in 24h! If you send out 3 scouts the ToS makes 6 times the amount of supplies an EE makes and even on a smaller space! And the EE is still far superior to any WS or even MWS early on. So the first building that thas the potential to produce more supplies than a ToS is the PTowers at the end of faeries and it still depends on playing style which one is better at that point in time.

As to the long term prognosis for ToS: it gets slowly less and less efficient, so once the PTowers are available it makes more sense to invest there for future potential, but the ToS is certainly worth keeping through quite a few more chapters. When scouting time reaches 2 days, supply production is down to the same level as the EE (although still on smaller space), but still far better than WS. And in general supply producing AWs become less intersting upon reaching chapter 15, when (M)WS get a huge boost (triple efficiency!). At this point in time comes the time to say goodbye to the ToS (and EE). They are not needed anymore. But hey that still leaves chapters 2-14 (which is 13 out of currently 18 chapters) in which it is one of the best non-military AWs.

If you want truly and entirely useless AWs that need some major love by devs there are many choices out there... The new tourneys have utterly killed quite a number of them. My personal fav in this category is the Enar´s Embassy :D A very beautiful building! But as AWs go I cannot imagine anything more useless :p
Somebody must have thought an AW about mana makes sense (and I agree after all it is the chapter mana was first introduced as a new resource), but that is where the intelligent thought process ended. The building is huge! It costs silly amounts of resources to upgrade compared to its far more useful other AW siblings, it produces hilariously low amounts of the resource, kind of teasing you with all the mana you DON´T get and through a mechanic that worked well in chapter 2 for the ToS, but upon entering double digit chapters is already outdated when you build it lol. And that is the more useful of it´s 2 effects lol! The second one: 1 broken runeshard per week? It´s so funny, I would build the thing in my city as a joke to make fun of all elvenar players if it didn´t on top of all that increase my tourney costs (which is too high a price to pay for a joke).
I could go on like this for about 10 other AWs, but I feel like I have now rambled enough ...
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
I completely disagree with basically everything above. It is not one of the worst AWs, it actually is one of the few non-military AWs that reatains a certain measure of usefulness even under current circumstances.

Is this claim (that the Tome of Secrets is one of the few somewhat useful non-military AWs) one that you believe applies to most players ? I know that you focus on high tournament scores and abandon city progression and anything else which might interfere with that aim. That isn't necessarily typical though. I broadly agree with @Achaean, and I suspect that most players would. (I do concur with you though that Enars Embassy is a less worthwhile Wonder.)
 

DeletedUser12035

Guest
I completely disagree with basically everything above. It is not one of the worst AWs, it actually is one of the few non-military AWs that reatains a certain measure of usefulness even under current circumstances.
The only thing I could get on board with is to somehow try make it more useful for end-game players.

I could go on like this for about 10 other AWs, but I feel like I have now rambled enough ...

You may have rambled a bit, yes :D, however, discourse is what pushes things forward. You have a lot of valid points, but I would like to keep it focused on exactly what you said; making it useful for end-game players. As you said, it's useful for new accounts but should never really see the light of day beyond level 10 or 11. With this said, what exactly are the other 25 levels for, then?

While I can agree that it's not exactly useless, it is definitely something you wouldn't want late game... I know there are other Ancient Wonders that have issues as well, but this is the first that I'm addressing. I'm sure I'll bring up others later. :) No matter what you say about anything on any topic, there will be someone who disagrees, and I can respect that. Thank you for your input, my friend.

We do appear to agree on the fact that it could be more useful for end-game players. Wonders should be special and worth keeping. They ARE wonders, after all.

Hope everyone here has a wonderful day!
 

Gargon667

Mentor
Is this claim (that the Tome of Secrets is one of the few somewhat useful non-military AWs) one that you believe applies to most players ? I know that you focus on high tournament scores and abandon city progression and anything else which might interfere with that aim. That isn't necessarily typical though. I broadly agree with @Achaean, and I suspect that most players would. (I do concur with you though that Enars Embassy is a less worthwhile Wonder.)

Well if you don´t care about high tourney scores the ToS gets much better, as the only real downside (increased tourney costs) disappears, it becomes free supplies and KP on a 4x4 space. Not a game changer, but heck what´s not to like?

What I am trying to say, this AW has some uses (it sure isn´t the best in the game), but many other AWs don´t have nearly as much usefulness as this one. Those need changes first!

And the first step to tis would be to take them out of the tourney calculation, that would not make the AWs any more useful, but at least it would also not make them outright harmful.
 

AsterObelix

Alchemist
I'm starting with the orcs and goblins chapter now and I have the Tome of Secrets at level 11. And it really helps with my supplies. I only have 6 workshops at the moment and they are more than enough. So yes, the ToM is a space saver for me.
And i don't care about tourney results, except for the enchantments and KP's they give me. And the team bonusses of course.

Edit : I'm reacting on Far Reach's post here, that the ToM is only useful for players who concentrate on tourney results. Sorry should have quoted him.
 
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DeletedUser12035

Guest
So the things we can all seem to agree on so far is that the Tome of Secrets loses it's value endgame, that there are far better Ancient Wonders than the Tome of Secrets, and that the Tome of Secrets has about 25 levels that never see the light of day ( because why would they? ).

Overall, the point I'm making is that this Ancient Wonder could use some love. I don't see why anyone would vehemently oppose this. Are there others that could use some love too? Absolutely. One thing at a time, however. :)

Great conversation so far. Hopefully someone from the Elvenar team takes a look at this thread.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
Not all things are meant to be useful for all players in all chapters. If everything were useful, where would you keep it?
 

DeletedUser12035

Guest
Not all things are meant to be useful for all players in all chapters. If everything were useful, where would you keep it?

Do you have any thoughts on how to make it useful? Trying to stay constructive. :)
 

AsterObelix

Alchemist
Just to clarify my earlier post. I think this is already a great wonder. One of the best in the early game. That it is less useful in the endgame, in my opinion doesn't make it necessary to improve it.
 

DeletedUser12035

Guest
Just to clarify my earlier post. I think this is already a great wonder. One of the best in the early game. That it is less useful in the endgame, in my opinion doesn't make it necessary to improve it.

Maybe I'm just a bit off, but would this Ancient Wonder being a little better for endgame ( and potentially having people use it past level 10 ) really be that bad?

As with Sir Derf, I ask you the same question; do you have any thoughts on how to make it more useful endgame? I understand you believe it is unnecessary to improve it, but please bear with me. I'd truly like your input on this.

To clarify the purpose of this thread in general; it isn't an argument. It's about coming together to find ways to improve the Tome of Secrets, not so much to say that it's a perfect Ancient Wonder and should never be given the time of day.

As always, hope everyone is having a pleasant day. :)
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
I agree somewhat with @AsterObelix and @Sir Derf that it is debatable whether we should seek to improve the Wonder. That said there is one obvious change which could be made to both the Tome of Secrets and Enars Embassy.

At the moment these two Wonders give out resources per scout. As one proceeds through the game, the time taken to scout a province increases and thus so does the interval between payouts. That makes these Wonders unique in that the amount of resources they provide per day steadily goes down. The obvious way to address this would be to change the payout to depend on scouting time. (This would provide a steady amount resource stream provided that scouts were kept busy.)
 

AsterObelix

Alchemist
I agree somewhat with @AsterObelix and @Sir Derf that it is debatable whether we should seek to improve the Wonder. That said there is one obvious change which could be made to both the Tome of Secrets and Enars Embassy.

At the moment these two Wonders give out resources per scout. As one proceeds through the game, the time taken to scout a province increases and thus so does the interval between payouts. That makes these Wonders unique in that the amount of resources they provide per day steadily goes down. The obvious way to address this would be to change the payout to depend on scouting time. (This would provide a steady amount resource stream provided that scouts were kept busy.)

I have no opinion if your suggestion will improve Enars Embassy. Simply because I haven't played that chapter yet. But I like your suggestion for the Tome of Secrets. It would keep a high value for a longer period in the game (of course dependant on the way the developers implement it ...). At least till chapter 15 as Gargon667 has pointed out.

And I guess this also answers Achaean's question how the Tome could be improved.
 
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