AW reworked+bonus

[alsael]

We all agree that some wonders need to be reworked,because there is no motive to build them.Further more,you can also give each wonder "a special bonus" at milestone levels related to the wonder's bonuses.
e.g-endless excavation special bonus:+x% production to all workshops at wonder level-10.An additional bonus at level-20,at level-30 etc
That way,you give us an additional motive to build them,and this small bonus do not "unbalance" the game's mechanics

 

[RainbowElvira]

Although I am in favor of your idea, I think that the Endless Excavation is a bad example. The small players are happy to get a relic for every completed province, while the later chapters have a powerful supplies producer. An EEx level 1(!) in chapter 14 produces more supplies than a max level workshop (in every practical case, unless you use spells) and has a smaller footprint.

Enars Embassy, Maze of the Dark Matter and Blooming Trader would be my favorites for getting an increase in value.

 

[DeletedUser6935]

The only gripe I have with AWs is the increased KP requirement at higher levels but I understand this provides balance, so preventing them from becoming unfairly unbalanced in favour of the owner, making this point more of an impatience thing rather than an actual disagreement with the mechanics of the game.

The beauty of AWs is that each will appeal to different players depending on their playing styles and overall strategy, so whilst I see no value in building a Tome of Secrets or Endless Excavation the Endless Excavation is a godsend for low level players still learning how to keep up with the exponential drain on supplies. That is until they can finally get their hands on Prosperity Towers instead of or as well as.

There's no need for a special bonus at higher AW levels, as the bonus is the ever-increasing benefit already being given. For example, my level 17 Needles of the Tempest provides a huge speed boost on my Barracks and gives my light ranged units a 25% attack buff. These benefits were hardly noticeable at low levels, granted, but at the level mine is at I can tell how much easier tournaments have become for me. Bearing in mind I also have a level 17 Sanctuary, i.e. troop health buff. And the synergy between my Sanctuary, Watchtower Ruins and Thrones of the High Men means that I don't need big culture items at all, which means I have so much more space for stuff I actually want to build.

The answer wouldn't be to give players additional incentive to build more AWs, as there is more than enough incentive already and any extra would just contribute to the current problem, i.e. players having more AWs than they can level to high enough levels to feel the benefit. Players need to be choosey with what they want to achieve through using AWs, as KP is a preciously rare resource, so need to stick to their choices, which will let them reap the benefits later on. For example, have 10 AWs at level 5 is nowhere near as effective as having 3 at level 9. No, I didn't do any actual maths, this was just an educated estimate.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

For example, have 10 AWs at level 5 is nowhere near as effective as having 3 at level 9. No, I didn't do any actual maths, this was just an educated estimate.

I know it was just an example, but just FYI the exact opposite is true.
More=better. The higher you raise a wonder the less return you get. Level 1 is always the greatest increase, and it just goes down from there.

The exceptions are the less powerful wonders like the following:

• Maze/Enars-every event offers a building that is far far better per square at mana production.
• Thrones- not terrible for culture, but every KP invested would better be spent elsewhere.
• Blooming trader- if you win 1 trading post per event you are better off than having a level 11 BTG. And you save 17 squares. No, the wholesale reduction isn't great, go buy KP instead
• Pyramid-craft a vallorian vallor or 2 instead. You need a level 13 Pyramid to beat vallors per square.
• LoGN- very niche wonder with a fatal flaw: you need buffs on mana buildings which generally aren't your best culture buildings. If someone has a strategy where this wonder makes sense, I'd love to hear it.
• Sunset towers- Grabbing a couple of event seed buildings saves you space and KP.

 

[DeletedUser6935]

@SoggyShorts
You make a really good point. Purely from the viewpoint of KP cost/benefit more AWs is better. However, when you look at it from the point of view of qualitative and cumulative benefit it makes more sense to have less.

First of all, AWs are large, with exceptions, e.g. Golden Abyss. The more AWs you have the more space you have to forgo that could be used for other buildings. You could argue that once the AWs are high enough levels they will pay for the space sacrifice and more but that's going to take you longer the more AWs you have to level. Space is especially a premium when you're a smaller city and as you advance through the chapters your buildings get larger and you start to need (more) different types of buildings (e.g. settlement buildings and sentient goods), so despite the extra land expansions how much extra space do you really have in the last chapter compared to when you were, say, in Chapter 5?

The more AWs you have the greater the list of benefits you will receive, granted, but the size of those benefits will be smaller than if you only concentrated on select AWs. You'd end up with smatterings of different benefits, which will take you longer to feel the effects of. Whereas, if you concentrated on just a few, e.g. tournament-specific AWs, you'd feel the benefits a lot quicker and, arguably, make peace a lot quicker with the space lost by building the AW.

Which leads onto strategy and playing style. If you're a tournament-focused player why not concentrate on tournament-specific AWs? If you're not a tournament player why build tournament-specific AWs at all, with the possible exception of the Sanctuary/Martial Monastery? You could argue that a general-style player, that likes to dip their toe into every aspect of the game for a bit of fun, would benefit from building every AW. Again, with the exception of Sanctuary/Martial Monastery, if they're just playing a few provinces in the tournaments to hit a minimum of 600 or 1000 points, for example, will they really feel the effects of tournament-specific AWs? Would they not find their game more efficient to just concentrate on the Golden Abyss and Mountain Halls for higher population and goods production, which if you don't care that much for tournaments makes everything else easier?

And then you have players who play purely for the visual aesthetics of their city. In this case it doesn't really matter what they build, providing they can still progress, so arguably these are the only players that would benefit from building every AW available, as they are all, generally, rather pretty.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Again, with the exception of Sanctuary/Martial Monastery, if they're just playing a few provinces in the tournaments to hit a minimum of 600 or 1000 points, for example, will they really feel the effects of tournament-specific AWs?

There aren't actually any tournament specific wonders other than Time Warp since you can fight on the world map too, but yeah, building a powerful military for just the map would be very wasteful.

The more AWs you have the more space you have to forgo that could be used for other buildings. You could argue that once the AWs are high enough levels they will pay for the space sacrifice and more but that's going to take you longer the more AWs you have to level.

There are several wonders that "pay for themselves" space-wise at level 1

• EE, PT, ToS. Each of them are better than workshops at level 1(with extremely rare exceptions like making bread 24/7, cycling quests like a robot, only collecting from PT once a day, and 72H+ scout times)
• Shrewdly shrooms- this building is an absolute must-have if you want to use military. Even at level 1 it's better than a third armory, and it takes up zero pop.
• Dwarven bulwark-generally KP invested in the shrewdly is better than the dwarven bulwark, but you might unlock the bulwark months earlier which makes this a great wonder until then, and if you level it, it's not worth deleting.
• Mountain halls- any build that has at least 6 factories is better off building a MThall than building a 7th factory. The more factories the better it is, and that's not even counting the pop it gives you.
• Golden abyss-once this gives better pop per square than a house (around chapter 5/6) it's an obvious win.

So right there are 5 wonders space saving wonders that basically everyone should have and another 2 that most players should have.

The more AWs you have the greater the list of benefits you will receive, granted, but the size of those benefits will be smaller than if you only concentrated on select AWs. You'd end up with smatterings of different benefits, which will take you longer to feel the effects of.

Let's take the case of a player with moderate to high level of tournament activity:

First the military damage wonders:

For an investment of 6,200 KP, they could have:
Needles level 18 for +26% Light range damage
or
Needles Level 6 for +12% LR damage, and
Abbey Level 6 for +12% mage damage, and
Heroes Level 6 for +12% HR damage, and
Victory Level 6 for +12% HR damage, and
Toads Level 6 for +12% HR damage, and
Monastery Level 6 for +9% health all units

So 26% damage in pretty much just the steel tournaments, or 12% more damage and 9% more health all the time with every unit.

Then we look at the other benefits
Needles Level 6 vs 18 is a change from 130% training speed to 165%, so 27% more troops trained assuming you only use the barracks and run it 24/7(at an increase in supplies cost of 27%)
or
Needles Level 6 30% increased training speed, and
Abbey Level 6 for some mana per spell cast, and
Heroes Level 6 for free orcs, and
Victory Level 6 for faster training grounds, and
Toads Level 6 for free HM units, and
Monastery Level 6 for +12% culture

Is it worth the extra ~5 expansions? For the player with moderate to high level of tournament activity, I believe so. Having a more well-rounded military should equate to getting far more KP from the tournament each 9-week cycle which can be used on the 7 space-saving wonders listed above to easily make up those expansions.

Which leads onto strategy and playing style. ....... If you're not a tournament player why build tournament-specific AWs at all

A pacifist player (tournament or not) should probably just build the 5 core space savers and ignore all others including the culture ones and make use of hybrid event buildings so that they don't need any.

If you're a tournament-focused player why not concentrate on tournament-specific AWs?

Yes, other than the 5 core space savers, concentrating on military wonders makes the most sense for a tournament focused player.

And then you have players who play purely for the visual aesthetics

I'm fairly certain that I've seen every wonder called ugly and pretty, so I usually don't even address this subject

 

[Dr.nYo]

We had a massive AWs rework already around 2 years ago or so. That was 1 of the best update they made All those kps finally started paying off. After that rework became nerf.
We shouldnt push our luck to much and should stay happy with what we got. AWs now are really nice

p.s. they even increased cap lvl from 25 to 30 ...

 

[m4rt1n]

If only one wonder were to be reworked, Enar's Embassy has to be the one, one broken shard a week is a waste of the space now so many sets and event buildings can produce them daily.

@Dr.nYo I remember the great Bellspire/Lighthouse nerf and yet chests have still to be added to the app almost 2 years after release.