One of the many upgrades that AOE2 had over AOE1, is giving each civ an unique wonder. Sadly, this wasn’t corrected for AOE1DE and doesn’t seem to be the case either for ROR. So, let’s speculate on which wonder should each civ get.
First, the current wonders :
Colosseum : Romans
Colossus of Rhodes ? : Greeks
Pyramid of Khufu : Egyptians
the Hanging Garders of Babylon : Babylonians
Temple of Heaven : Chang
Ziggurat of Ur (Babylonian style for the CD edition) : Sumerians, would need being remade for the DE.
That leaves us with 11 civs without a wonder (well 11 counting the Sumerians but they should have their ziggurat). So, whcih wonder should each have ?
Carthaginians : Grand Arsenal of Carthage
This fortified port sheltered their trade fleet (outer rectangular harbour) and their military navy (inner circular harbour). Its layout can still be seen in aerial views of Carthage, on the outskirts of Tunis.
Macedonians : Lighthouse of Alexandria
I feel this choice might be controversial as it is in Egypt instead of Macedonia, but the Ptolemaic Kingdom was the longest-living of Alexander’s successor states
Minoans : Palace of Knossos
It seems like an obvious choice. The labyrinth seems to be too mythological
Persians : Arch of Ctesiphon
Let’s adress the war elephant in the room : this is a Sassanid structure, while many would have expected a pick from the Achaemenids. This is their AOE2 wonder however, so just like the Romans and Chang/Chinese who have the same wonder in both games as they survived long enough, I picked this wonder again for ROR.
These are the 4 for which I have a good idea. The Assyrians should have something from Nineveh, but I don’t know enough about the city to know which exact structure it should be.
I think it’s actually Etemenanki, the ziggurat of Marduk in Babylon.
I suggest either the southwest palace (built by Sennacherib) or the north palace (built by Ashurbanipal). But both were pretty sprawling, so would take some artistic licence to squeeze the required size.
For Yamato, Daisenryo Kofun (or some other kofun). This would tie in nicely with the haniwa on their civ icon.
Fair enough, although it’s much easier to base a wonder on a building that’s been excavated and reconstructed, rather than one that’s never been found and might not have existed.
When I first played AoE1, I assumed the Babylonian/Mesopotamian was supposed to be the Hanging Gardens – despite its total lack of plants – because it seemed like such an obvious choice.
tbh, the Korean and Japanese wonder from AoE2 are technically barely old enough to be in RoR.
8th century AD should be fine.
800 years older then what they currently have.
