I am making this thread to submit my own suggestions for rebalancing wonders, and to have a centralized place for others to submit their own ideas as well. To start off:
Tier 1 Wonders:
The Problems:
This tier's issues are not as egregious of an offender as some others, but it is still problematic. There are three economy wonders and one defense wonder in this tier.
The problem with this is that the income potential and loss potential of raiding far outscales the income potential of economy at pretty much all levels of play. When 500 resources/hour is a lot to gain passively, you are able to earn 2000 resources in 2 raids, taking 5 minutes. When 5000 resources/hour is a lot to gain passively you are able to gain 30,000 resources easily enough in two raids.
Correspondingly, losses also easily far outscale income. At the point where you might be earning 5000 resources/day from income, you can also easily be losing 20,000 resources per raid while you're trying to earn enough for an upgrade.
All this means that defensive/offensive bonuses are always going to be far better than purely economic bonuses. It is pretty much universally agreed upon that the acropolis is the best wonder for this tier, and so we do not see much diversity in this respect (though we do see some, because at this tier players don't know what to expect).
My Proposed Solutions:
The only really suitable fix here in my eyes would be to give the economic wonders small bonuses to either defense or offense in addition to the economic bonuses. These bonuses can be very small or subtle, and should not really be large enough that they would make many players change which wonder they would have chosen, but it would be nice for each of the economic wonders to offer players something when it comes to the prevailing force in resource economy.
So here are my ideas to do this for each wonder.
Pyramids:
Proposal:
Farms in range gain +10% Health.
Explanation:
This is a fairly simple one. Farm HP is actually still relatively useless for defense, since farms are not your primary storage structures, and by later in the game most players do not really care about protecting them... But it is possible to have a greater and greater number of farms as the game goes on, and a 10% bonus to each of them will slightly slow down total destruction of your base, and can help to allow you to absorb damage from un-rallied units.
Stonehenge:
Proposal:
5% increase to the movement speed of all defending units
OR
20% increase to the influence of roads upon movement speed for defending units.
Explanation:
Okay, so I saw some other user claim that roads currently boost defender speed while they're running on them... This isn't something I have ever noticed, and I'd lean towards not believing that this is currently a thing, but it would be pretty cool if it was one... If it is an existing aspect of the game (or seems like a good idea to add), it would be nice if Stonehenge increased the degree of amplification provided. This would also highlight this feature to people like me who don't notice or use it.
If that isn't currently a thing, then it would make sense to simply make Stonehenge increase defender movement speed across the board by a relatively small amount.
Neither of these changes would be major game changers, but, again, they would contribute slightly to defense, and provide just enough of a contribution to balance out.
Hanging Gardens:
Proposal:
Wonder gains +5% Health for every wall built.
Explanation:
This wonder is probably the best of the current economic wonders of this age, so it needs a defensive bonus the least, if one needs one at all. Thematically, walls go with hanging gardens, so this makes some kind of sense. Since Wonders (and houses) are one of the few units which cannot be upgraded, they usually don't gain HP like other structures, and because of this it basically becomes possible to destroy them in one hit from one unit. It might be interesting to have a wonder which, unique among wonders, might delay you for briefly as you're moving through a base.
This may not be the easiest change to implement, so I'd be willing to forgo it, or take any other ideas.
Tier 2 Wonders:
The Problems:
This tier is actually in a much healthier state in my opinion, though Coluseum also seems to be by far the most popular pick.
The main problem with this tier is simply that Terra Cotta Army is a horrible choice relative to everything else. Its defensive bonuses are not particularly useful, because nobody really cares about protecting their barracks, and castles are defensive structures, but also, because they're large, are also less likely to be protected.
Meanwhile, the offensive bonus is initially pretty good, but it does not scale particularly well. You get units equivalent to a fixed number of unit slots, even as your total unit slots increase. Relative to Strength of the Gladiator, it gradually gets worse and worse over time.
I would also say that Notre Dame and Forbidden City could still probably use some work, they each have one bonus which is beneficial in the long term and not particularly useful in the short term, and one bonus which provides plentiful resources in the short term, which grow less and less useful in the long term... The problem is that the short term benefits do not quite justify waiting upon the longer term ones...
My Proposed Solutions:
Basically, the big one is to fix tera cotta army, its defensive ability needs a complete rework. Here are some hypothetical options:
1. Each Castle and Barracks gains [2 or 3] terra cotta soldiers on defense. These soldiers do not continue to spawn, and work similarly to alliance troops.
2. Walls gain 30% health. (This is a significant amount, but considering that every upgrade doubles wall HP, is not too large of an advantage to be unacceptable).
For Notre Dame and the Forbidden City, I would advocate increasing the daily rewards by an additional 50% to make the near-term stages better... Additionally, it would be nice is Forbidden City copied all of the properties of the Town Center (so it would work defensively for Japanese and Chinese nations).
I don't know enough about the tier 3 wonders to have any real suggestions there, but I strongly suspect that Temper of Tikal needs some sort of a buff.
Does anyone else have any proposals or suggestions for wonders? Any feedback on mine?
Tier 1 Wonders:
The Problems:
This tier's issues are not as egregious of an offender as some others, but it is still problematic. There are three economy wonders and one defense wonder in this tier.
The problem with this is that the income potential and loss potential of raiding far outscales the income potential of economy at pretty much all levels of play. When 500 resources/hour is a lot to gain passively, you are able to earn 2000 resources in 2 raids, taking 5 minutes. When 5000 resources/hour is a lot to gain passively you are able to gain 30,000 resources easily enough in two raids.
Correspondingly, losses also easily far outscale income. At the point where you might be earning 5000 resources/day from income, you can also easily be losing 20,000 resources per raid while you're trying to earn enough for an upgrade.
All this means that defensive/offensive bonuses are always going to be far better than purely economic bonuses. It is pretty much universally agreed upon that the acropolis is the best wonder for this tier, and so we do not see much diversity in this respect (though we do see some, because at this tier players don't know what to expect).
My Proposed Solutions:
The only really suitable fix here in my eyes would be to give the economic wonders small bonuses to either defense or offense in addition to the economic bonuses. These bonuses can be very small or subtle, and should not really be large enough that they would make many players change which wonder they would have chosen, but it would be nice for each of the economic wonders to offer players something when it comes to the prevailing force in resource economy.
So here are my ideas to do this for each wonder.
Pyramids:
Proposal:
Farms in range gain +10% Health.
Explanation:
This is a fairly simple one. Farm HP is actually still relatively useless for defense, since farms are not your primary storage structures, and by later in the game most players do not really care about protecting them... But it is possible to have a greater and greater number of farms as the game goes on, and a 10% bonus to each of them will slightly slow down total destruction of your base, and can help to allow you to absorb damage from un-rallied units.
Stonehenge:
Proposal:
5% increase to the movement speed of all defending units
OR
20% increase to the influence of roads upon movement speed for defending units.
Explanation:
Okay, so I saw some other user claim that roads currently boost defender speed while they're running on them... This isn't something I have ever noticed, and I'd lean towards not believing that this is currently a thing, but it would be pretty cool if it was one... If it is an existing aspect of the game (or seems like a good idea to add), it would be nice if Stonehenge increased the degree of amplification provided. This would also highlight this feature to people like me who don't notice or use it.
If that isn't currently a thing, then it would make sense to simply make Stonehenge increase defender movement speed across the board by a relatively small amount.
Neither of these changes would be major game changers, but, again, they would contribute slightly to defense, and provide just enough of a contribution to balance out.
Hanging Gardens:
Proposal:
Wonder gains +5% Health for every wall built.
Explanation:
This wonder is probably the best of the current economic wonders of this age, so it needs a defensive bonus the least, if one needs one at all. Thematically, walls go with hanging gardens, so this makes some kind of sense. Since Wonders (and houses) are one of the few units which cannot be upgraded, they usually don't gain HP like other structures, and because of this it basically becomes possible to destroy them in one hit from one unit. It might be interesting to have a wonder which, unique among wonders, might delay you for briefly as you're moving through a base.
This may not be the easiest change to implement, so I'd be willing to forgo it, or take any other ideas.
Tier 2 Wonders:
The Problems:
This tier is actually in a much healthier state in my opinion, though Coluseum also seems to be by far the most popular pick.
The main problem with this tier is simply that Terra Cotta Army is a horrible choice relative to everything else. Its defensive bonuses are not particularly useful, because nobody really cares about protecting their barracks, and castles are defensive structures, but also, because they're large, are also less likely to be protected.
Meanwhile, the offensive bonus is initially pretty good, but it does not scale particularly well. You get units equivalent to a fixed number of unit slots, even as your total unit slots increase. Relative to Strength of the Gladiator, it gradually gets worse and worse over time.
I would also say that Notre Dame and Forbidden City could still probably use some work, they each have one bonus which is beneficial in the long term and not particularly useful in the short term, and one bonus which provides plentiful resources in the short term, which grow less and less useful in the long term... The problem is that the short term benefits do not quite justify waiting upon the longer term ones...
My Proposed Solutions:
Basically, the big one is to fix tera cotta army, its defensive ability needs a complete rework. Here are some hypothetical options:
1. Each Castle and Barracks gains [2 or 3] terra cotta soldiers on defense. These soldiers do not continue to spawn, and work similarly to alliance troops.
2. Walls gain 30% health. (This is a significant amount, but considering that every upgrade doubles wall HP, is not too large of an advantage to be unacceptable).
For Notre Dame and the Forbidden City, I would advocate increasing the daily rewards by an additional 50% to make the near-term stages better... Additionally, it would be nice is Forbidden City copied all of the properties of the Town Center (so it would work defensively for Japanese and Chinese nations).
I don't know enough about the tier 3 wonders to have any real suggestions there, but I strongly suspect that Temper of Tikal needs some sort of a buff.
Does anyone else have any proposals or suggestions for wonders? Any feedback on mine?
