Should we change the effect of wonders?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Hi there,

should we change the effect of wonders? I often read, that it’s not fun to lose a game because opponents defend there base and go all in with the wonder.
My wish is, that everyone can build a wonder and after the timer is over you have a huge advantage (for example a lot of gold or a special unit spawning every minute, …), but the game is not instantly over. If a player goes brainless all in, he could lose the game although the timer of the wonder is finished. You can use the timer to press the opponent in his base and you have the option to counter the wonder with your own wonder. If the game is even, wonders should make the difference, but you can’t risk only go all in with the wonder.

For team games it would be nice, if every team can build exactly one wonder.

What do you think about it?

Best regards
NTL

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If it’s of any insight I will give you my experience and perspective on the matter. Do jump to the perspective if you don’t want to hear an epic story.

✯Experience: What happened to me once on Boulder Bay was that there was a 3v3 battle containing team 1 with HRE, Abbasid and Mongol and team 2 with HRE, French and China. One of them in team 2 built a wonder while the Chinese built layers of walls around it and chose a time to attack us together. All of them contributed with stone to those 4 layers of walls fully defended by 1 keep and lots of towers.

Their strategy was to harass so we would build normal counters to what they had, and obviously, we did. But the problem was that they did not have as many units as we assumed due to how they were playing. We were intimidated and got too prepared so they pushed a wave at us and it looked like we won the skirmish but then their China and HRE left the match and their units had to be dealt with one by one as apparently neutral units don’t work to be targeted instantly by ‘‘attack-move’’ command.

That was enough to give us trouble as we lost to a bunch of neutral troops. The trick was that, French was the only one with a full army and no civilians. Which made me suspect that while the skirmish was happening, they gave all resources they could to the french for a last stand.

In the time the wonder was there shaking its timer at our eyes, we had to make a new army and engage the knights and the defenses. And they wouldn’t engage away from their defenses. Seeing that, we didn’t risk an engagement so we put up a plan for the HRE to flank from the sea while we take the enemy attention at the gates.

That’s when we found out the French had an army of 200 knights full. We were overrun at the front gates twice and HRE’s flank got only through the first 3 walls while also being overrun by the french knights. Mind you this was before the latest patch.

So we made an army again and pushed again with mangonels and defeated our side of the knights but we had no siege force, only mangonels. HRE was again flanking but he was overrun yet again, punched through his last wall. Naturally the enemy had around 12 stables ready to make more knights so we had a face-off right at the last wall before reaching the wonder. His knights were reinforced, we ignored most of the towers just to get to the wonder as time was scarce and before you know it…we lost the engagement. 12 mangonels weren’t enough to split between knights and the gate, 2 of them even got stuck in the moshpit. The mongols had more settlers than horses and my HRE was out of boats and gold for another push as he forgot his transports on the shore while we were fighting and got burned. My spearmen were simply not good enough to hold all those knights and protect the mangonels at the same time.

The timer ran out, and defeat was announced. I have a fear of wonders ever since. It was just one wonder, and it was enough to win the game. We had the middle protected by our walls, I made sure we use the market from the beginning and not the enemy. But it was not enough.

► My perspective: Even a wonder per team is easy to defend because one of the players can simply just go turtle. The only counter to a wonder victory is early aggression, especially picking on the weakest enemy as they are usually the turtle who’ll build the wonder. Minutes allocated are also a problem because 15 is not enough for the attacker and more than 15 is too much for the defender. I’ve been on both sides of the barricade where either I or a friend went turtle and we played 3 people pre-made, or we had to face a pre-made team yet again. At the same time, only trebuchets can shoot a wonder down as it’s the only long range siege unit that can throw above walls, otherwise cannon balls go right in the first wall they touch so you can give a wonder 10x the amount of HP it has technically. When going through the enemy base, you have to deal with units otherwise there’s usually x10 barracks that spam units that mass up and will hop on your siege.

So technically, destroying the wonder means winning the game the standard way while also having an extra landmark that forces you to do that.

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Wonders are the cancer of team games. No way to balance it. just remove

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Lol how about the team with the wonder loses/doubles their pop limit at the end of the countdown.

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Three good wonder fixes in my opinion are shrinking map size, increasing wonder cost with player numbers, or having the ability to pause the wonder count down while sacred sites are captured.

The last of the three is my personal favorite since, it doubles down on sacred’s being the counter to a wonder victory. In addition, its a good comp to sacred’s being paused when they are contested.

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Wonders need to be feasible as a win condition, so Wonders probably should be left as is for 1v1.

The problem is in team games, Wonders become the default win condition on certain maps, the worst offender of which is the current Black Forest. Black Forest no longer has any sacred sites, which is the victory condition that is supposed to counter Wonders. I believe the original Black Forest had issues with sacred site location, where the sites were really close to one player vs. the other, so they got rid of it. I think the correct solution should have been to add more sacred sites to Black Forest.

There have been some relatively simple suggestions that may work and easier to implement:

  • increase the cost of Wonder by number of players
  • increase the countdown timer of the Wonder by number of players
  • increase the build-time of the Wonder by number of players
  • reduce sacred site victory time - even 1 minute would make a big difference.

Any one of these changes would make Wonders more balanced in team games and less of the go-to victory condition in team games.

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Age of Empires should be more then build walls, towers and castles and defend them. Therefore i think sacred sites was the right thing to implement in the game. You have to control the map and you should use defensive buildings and walls to secure your vulnerable base. You can try to destroy all landmarks or if the game is to even or your enemies defence is to strong, you have the opportunity to get all of the sacred sites and win the game.

I think the wonder alone shouldn’t be a standard win condition or you should have the option, especially in team games, if you want to play with or without the wonder as a win condition. I still think that a wonders should give a huge benefit for the player or for the whole team, but not to win the game directly. That’s boring and not the way i prefer playing AoE.
If the wonder stays as a win condition, I agree with some of your points to balance the wonder:

  • increase the cost of Wonder by number of players
  • increase the countdown timer of the Wonder by number of players
  • increase the build-time of the Wonder by number of players
  • pause the wonder count down while sacred sites are captured

The idea to pause the wonder count down while sacred sites are captured is really good and force the defenders to leave their masonry. Another option in team games could be a huge countdown for the first wonder and every additional wonder in the team halved the countdown.

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As I know, what was intended of the Wonders was to shorten games because they were too long, so based on that I say this:

► Increase cost of wonder by number of players: This would work and it would be effective even more if we’re looking at the discount the tribute option gives to the wonder in team games so the system can set the proper price otherwise add too much and it defeats the purpose for which they were still implemented or add too low and we have the current state.

► Increase the countdown timer of the Wonder by number of players: As I’ve said before on other threads, 15 minutes is not enough but more than 15 would be too much. As a defender, resisting more than 15 minutes is a hell and a gamble. As an attacker, if you don’t coordinate well, it all fails and it’s nearly impossible to win. This one suggestion is very delicate as a player could build 2-3 armies and can try 2-3 times to defeat the enemy defender. The defender could just build walls over walls and create an army the size of the Mongol empire. So for the moment I believe too many factors influence this suggestion’s success rate. Factors which I am not knowledgeable enough to complete.

► Increase the build-time of the Wonder by number of players: This one I’m most confident it will not fix anything, it already takes way too long to build a wonder without sacrificing economy or population space. That is because building time alone will not solve the issue as Wonder is available at Age IV, you are announced when they build it so you can try to built it as well or even prepare some minutes in advance for the first battle to win the game. That if the attackers keep up with age as well.

► Reduce sacred site victory time - even 1 minute would make a big difference: Here the game splits the idea of shortening itself by either sacred site or Wonder. Which one’s faster? Sacred site. Which one’s shorter? Sacred site. Which one would apply just as much pressure? Sacred site. And the level of defense you can apply to a sacred site really depend on playstyle and skill. It can be easy, it can be hard. But fewer minutes would be too less for sacred sites to be balanced for the purpose of just countering wonders in time.

Sacred is more risky but better for time and pressure already.
Wonder is safer but difficult to overcome because you cannot stop it so I’ll have to agree more on @NTL6062’s suggestion with sacred sites stopping the counter. It allows for way more flexibility in combat, adds strategic depth also and the effects of sacred sites, as I assume, change depending on the existence or not of a Wonder. However this defeats the purpose of the wonders being time bombs for the game to end faster. There will be stalemates so here the real question is, which sort of play-style do we endorse at the end of this? Strategic, long and time consuming games, or shorter more tactical ones? One would satisfy competitiveness, the other will satisfy the casual.

Or maybe we could think of a rework for the wonder’s purpose and probably by that we’ll give them a more unique Age IV purpose instead and leave the sacred sites to be the defining tools for how fast a game could be?

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I think we should remove the victory condition for wonders in competitve games. If a player is owner of a wonder he should have a strong and unique bonus to overwhelm his enemy. If you have the ressources, you can counter with your own wonder or take the sacred sites otherwise you are in big trouble. If a player or team goes brainless all in, the player or team could lose the game although the timer of the wonder is finished.
Using the Wonder as a victory condition has grown historically. I really think we should go new ways with the wonder, because winning a game only with the wonder is really boring and an overhauled game mechanic especially in team games.

Another option for wonders could be defining one single place on a difficult spot on the map where it is possible to build a wonder. You or the team have to scout to find the place for the wonder. You have to expand to defend the wonder outside the own base.

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After finally having hit something like 200 games in Quick Match, achieving a pitiful 1200 ELO average, I find wonders to be annoying only in situations in which my allies refuse to, or do not know how to, rush &/or produce an army early enough to make the enemy team incapable of safely aiming for a wonder victory.

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Maybe if it comes with unique upgrades or a global passive would be great, but when you have a complete stalemate and you don’t want to play for several hours, the only way to win is to build a Wonder and resist.

I believe the main problem of the Wonder is that it is exploited easily by players, so somehow we must make it less exploitable and at the same time viable for 1v1’s in such a way in which it can both be a stalemate breaker and a tough decision instead of an ‘‘ez win’’ type of building.

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IMO wonders should provides bonuses… such huge investment… Like in Rise of Nations

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I agree. That scenario is realistic and could be happen. For example we could start a 15 minutes timer after 1 hour and 15 minutes match time. If the timer ends and the game is not over, the game ends with a draw. It’s like in a soccer game. After 90 minutes the game ends no matter what the status is. That would be fine for me.

Yes, wonders should provide bonuses. For example gold income increases by 20% and your population limit increases by 50. Or you make it more individual and every civ becomes his own bonuses for the wonder like in Rise of Nations.

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What if Wonders provided a team bonus like faster train time, unit speed, eco boost?

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The newest patch make the wonder more expensive and in future the cost of wonders should dependent on the player count. I think that’s great, but wonders stays boring to me. I think to win with a wonder is mainly interesting for singleplayer games.

My wish stays: Make the wonder special and strong, but not only build a wonder, wait and win. That way i played a lot of games in my childhood but today and especially in Age of Empires i think there are more interesting ways to play the game and let a multiplayer game ends. Can you for example imagine to play SC2 and win a multiplayer game only with a wonder? (only as an example) I hope wonders will be more interesting in future, but the newest patch make wonders a bit better :slight_smile:

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Starcraft is way faster than this game in terms of action and all and there’s no way a wonder could work there because of that. It’s a way simpler situation that looks to satisfy a specific design, much like here. It’s very action oriented, this one isn’t only action oriented so it’s slower, there’s tons of upgrades, lots of minutes to wait.

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I like idea!!!.Zhat implemention would solve most problemas wit wonders…