Disable Wonder Age

[Frettchen]

Is there a way to disable the wonder age? So that you can't go pass the mythic age?

[Star Paladin]

Are you referring to disabling the 4th age?

[Thor II]

There should be, not just disabling the Wonder Age, but there should be total control of the era you start and end in.

Including choosing the gods of the ages you've already passed through (which is why this system exists in other AOEs but not here), Stop at the 4th age, All 4th age technologies researched but without Wonder Age, and complete including Wonder Age. And keeping the current option of with or without titan independently of all these others.

[Stavrozium]

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

Are you referring to disabling the 4th age?

The 4th age is called mythic age.
Wonder age is enabled when you built a wonder.
The wonder age is now the 5th age. ;)

And yes, i do agree that there should be an option,
in the game lobby, to disable it, just like how titans can be disabled.
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Personally, i love the new wonder mechanic,
it is much more fun than the old "countdown to victory" mechanic.
But i do also think that the bonuses should be toned down,
and maybe make the wonder cheaper at the same time.

Right now the bonuses are:
* All myth units get +100% damage and hitpoints
* All myth units get +20% movement speed
* All god powers favor costs and cooldowns are divided by 4 (rounded up)
* Titan Gate power gets unlimited uses
(the 2nd titan gate costs 400 favor, and every new gate costs more favor than the last)
* The wonder generates 1 favor/second (for reference: 1 egy monument generates 0.1)

i would personally reduce damage/hp bonuses to myth units to +20%, (instead of +100%)
and favor cost/cooldown reduction of GPs should be -50%, (instead of -75%)
and the wonder should generate 0.5 favor/second, (instead of 1.0)
while the wonder should cost 2500 food/wood/gold, and 250 favor,
(instead of 5000 food/wood/gold, and no favor..)

[FireAgain]

Originally posted by Stavrozium:

i would personally reduce damage/hp bonuses to myth units to +20%, (instead of +100%)
and favor cost/cooldown reduction of GPs should be -50%, (instead of -75%)
and the wonder should generate 0.5 favor/second, (instead of 1.0)
while the wonder should cost 2500 food/wood/gold, and 250 favor,
(instead of 5000 food/wood/gold, and no favor..)

And thank god you aren't designing the game. 20% on myth units is barely enough to make half of them viable, let alone present a clear, game-ending threat for the player with the advantage. And God powers/Favour gen is exactly where it should be. If someone can spend an army's worth of resources, let them spam meteor. It's the opponents fault for not punishing it.

[Eric]

I think it's fine, the 5° age it is supposed to be a game ending to avoid endless game

[Angel]

yeah the way to disable it is to beat your enemy before they can build it

[Star Paladin]

Ok, I never built a wonder. I thought it was the same a AoE4 and ended the game. I like the mega buffs a wonder gives in this is much better sounding.

[Nito]

Wonder Age with greeks is fun you just spam Vault of Plenty and make a Zealot village

[Star Paladin]

Speaking of that, I think they should really limit those vaults more somehow. When I play Greeks those vaults pretty much make Vills unneeded, and then you send all your vills to pray, and have a thousand Mana to boot.

[Nito]

that is the point of getting a increase in 200 favor each use it is half of a a titan gate

[Stavrozium]

Originally posted by FireAgain:

Originally posted by Stavrozium:

i would personally reduce damage/hp bonuses to myth units to +20%, (instead of +100%)
and favor cost/cooldown reduction of GPs should be -50%, (instead of -75%)
and the wonder should generate 0.5 favor/second, (instead of 1.0)
while the wonder should cost 2500 food/wood/gold, and 250 favor,
(instead of 5000 food/wood/gold, and no favor..)

And thank god you aren't designing the game. 20% on myth units is barely enough to make half of them viable, let alone present a clear, game-ending threat for the player with the advantage. And God powers/Favour gen is exactly where it should be. If someone can spend an army's worth of resources, let them spam meteor. It's the opponents fault for not punishing it.

First of all,
the scenario you describe only really applies to smaller games, like 1vs1 or 2vs2.
The problem is: in smaller games you hardly ever see a wonder, anyways,
because it is so freakin' expensive, and so easily punished/prevented.
Building a wonder in 1vs1 either means you already won, or that you will lose.
Which is a bit of a shame, in my opinion...

In bigger games, like f.e. 4vs4 or 8 player FFA games, on the biggest map size,
(so the only times a wonder can realistically be built)
Wonders tend to be extremely OP at the moment,
up to the point where building a wonder is often an automatic win,
so the winner of the game is whoever who gets a wonder first.
In previous versions, with the timer, you still had a chance of destroying the wonder.
While right now, if you have a titan, (which you need to start building the wonder)
and with a larger army, compared to EE, it is much easier to defend it.
So then the lategame revolves about being able to build your wonder,
because without a wonder, you dont even stand a chance.

If the player with the first wonder is Set, then he can simply use his Vision GP,
and then cast meteor on your economy, or even your wonder as you are building it,
usually making it impossible to still win the game.

In team games you can also send resources to your allies, along with market trading,
allowing f.e. a Greek player to get a wonder extra early,
and then use plenty vault spam until he no longer needs villagers for food/wood/gold,
then put all the villagers on favor: 100 villagers equals 10 favor/second...
(with Zeus/Aphrodite, this even becomes 12 favor/second.. which is insane...)
So this eventually results in practically infinite resources,
and infinite favor makes any extra titans essentially free.
And then the Greek player can even send back resources to his allies,
to build their own wonders, and this team has infinite resources for the rest of the game...
In short: in team games, a team without Greeks will often lose to a team with 1 Greek,
even if both teams get their wonders, meaning the wonder age is currently unbalanced.

This is just a few hypothetical scenarios, i can give you more,
but i think i already made my point:
(TLDR) in games on larger maps, with a lot of players,
it is not always as easy to punish a player for building a wonder, like in 1vs1,
while the advantages of having a wonder can often be impossible to counter,
unless you also have a wonder, so whoever gets it first, often wins the game.
The lategame should still be about strategy/tactics,
and not about who can get the "superweapons" the fastest...
And it should be possible to counter these "superweapons", after they are built..
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As for "most myth units not being viable":
keep in mind that all myth units already get +20% damage and HP,
with every age up, but only myth units of previous ages;
so f.e. in mythic age, all archaic/classical/heroic age myth units get +20% damage/HP.
These bonuses are additive, meaning that having 2 +20% bonuses equals +40%.

So the age 2 and age 3 myth units are already made more viable in the late game,
in vanilla retold, and by lowering the wonder age bonuses to all myth units to 20%,
this should make age 2 myth units MORE viable, compared to age 4 myth units.
(i.e. the +100% damage/HP makes age 2 myth units LESS viable, in wonder age)

Allow me to explain.
Right now, in vanilla AoM retold, when you have a wonder;
an age 2 myth unit gets +140% damage/hp,
while an age 4 myth unit gets +100% damage/hp,
while with the changes i suggested, (+20% damage/HP instead of +100%)
this will become +60% for age 2 myth units, and +20% for age 4 myth units.
So in total, the bonuses to age 2 myth units now become 300% more powerful,
compared to the bonuses to age 4 myth units; instead of only 40% more powerful.

Also keep in mind, that all myth units have already received large buffs,
compared to AoM Extended Edition, even without any upgrades or bonuses.
Their abilities have been made a LOT more powerful, (some are like god powers..)
and some myth units simply have around x1.5 better stats, than before.
(some myth units did get a small nerf, because they were already OP, in AoM EE)
At the same time, most human units stay the same, and some heroes even got nerfed.
Combine all this with the age-up bonuses i described above,
then it should be obvious that ALL myth units have been made more viable, already...
Myth units can still be countered, sure, but it has been made harder to counter them,
and the point is: if your opponent has a wonder, and you dont, (yet)
it can become nearly impossible to counter myth unit spam... (=> you automatically lose)
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As for the god powers, a 50% reduction to favor costs and cooldowns is still HUGE,
while the current 75% reduction is way too strong, at least in my opinion.

As for the 1 favor/second from Wonders,
i actually agree with you, that this should stay,
and ill explain why with an example:

Meteor costs 350 (+5/cast) favor, and has a base cooldown of 240 seconds,
in vanilla, and the cost is lowered to 87.5 (+1.25/cast) favor, and cooldown becomes 60s.
With a favor income of 1.5, with 5 Egyptian monuments + wonder,
you can cast meteor every 60 seconds, and even have a little bit of favor left.
So if you then empower the monuments, and/or get Necropolis upgrade of Anubis,
you should have enough favor income left, to use it for other things.
And this only applies to Egyptians, that usually have the slowest favor income,
at least in theory, so with the other factions, you will have a lot more favor income;
more than enough to also spam myth units, and/or multiple titans.

If the favor cost/cooldown reduction becomes 50%, all this really means,
is that you can cast meteor every 120 seconds, instead of every 60s,
while still having just as much favor left to do other things.
(hence why i agree that the 1 favor/second should stay the same)
This would give opponents a larger time frame,
to still defend themselves, and to build their own wonder,
since the first player with a wonder will be targeted in FFA games,
the other players can still destroy the wonder fast enough, to stay in the game.
And by making wonders cheaper, (along with all the nerfs to its bonuses)
that first player can also still have a chance to rebuild the wonder.

Also, by adding a favor cost to wonders, it may even delay the initial construction,
as it would make it so that you cant get all the resources from your allies.
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As for wonders being a "clear game-ending threat":
isnt the possibility to get multiple titans a big enough threat already?..
Hell, even just 1 titan, before wonder age, is a "clear game-ending threat"...

With my suggested changes, the "clear game-ending threat" would still be there...
It would simply be much better balanced, at least in my opinion.
I believe these changes could make the game much more interesting,
as all players can get a wonder, allowing for more "wonder age chaos". ;)
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Btw, I am making a mod where i included the changes i mentioned,
but on top of many other changes; too many to list them all here.
And i can still add anything, or change anything back, if i want to.
So i do appreciate the feedback you gave. :)

I do admit that i still have to do more testing with my mod,
and its still unfinished, as i am still experimenting with all the things i can do.
But i have been testing these specific changes, (vs hard AI)
and so far, it already makes the game more fun, imo.

And i do admit that these changes to wonders could be too big, for vanilla,
in other words, these changes may not work as well in the base game, as in my mod.
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Just another suggestion:
instead of just a button to disable wonders,
the devs could add a new dropdown menu, (like f.e. the one for map sizes)
where you can choose how powerful wonders are,
maybe even make them even more powerful,
with the option to completely disable them.
(so for example, the options could be:
Disabled, 50%, 100%, 150%, 200%)
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Anyways...
i have now explained my thought process behind the suggestions i made, in detail.
My apologies for the wall of text, but i wanted to be thorough.

PS Thank Kronos for all the time i have put into this. :P

[Monokuma]

Not gonna quote that due to length, but couldn't you just scale the cost of the wonder with team size? If someone manages to build a wonder in an 8 player FFA that's more a problem of everyone ignoring one player for some reason long enough for them to get away with it, instead of that player being targeted by multiple players trying to prevent the wonder's construction.

And when there's not enough players left to stop the wonder's construction, then the wonder continues to act as it does in 1v1s, where it's functionally declaring a win.

[Stavrozium]

Originally posted by Monokuma:

Not gonna quote that due to length, but couldn't you just scale the cost of the wonder with team size? If someone manages to build a wonder in an 8 player FFA that's more a problem of everyone ignoring one player for some reason long enough for them to get away with it, instead of that player being targeted by multiple players trying to prevent the wonder's construction.

And when there's not enough players left to stop the wonder's construction, then the wonder continues to act as it does in 1v1s, where it's functionally declaring a win.

Well scaling the wonder costs with team sizes could indeed be one way,
to make it more balanced, at least for team games.

One player being ignored in 8 player FFAs is already the fault of the other players,
sure, but this usually happens because they are all busy fighting eachother,
(even when one of the losing players is shouting "go for that one guy, instead of me!")
and/or because players can set up temporary alliances,
so one player *could* enable another to build a wonder.
(that one player could then backstab the other as well though xD)

So yes, i do agree with you on this. But the problem is rather that,
without wonders, this would instead result in that 1 player having a larger army,
(which could have about the same cost as the wonder, depending on army composition)
and that army could be countered more easily than a wonder, if all players work together.
The wonder can be used to decimate the armies of opponents, with cheap god powers.
In other words: a wonder is a LOT more powerful, while having about the same cost.
In fact, if you include myth units in the army composition,
the wonder is actually cheaper than the army, because it doesnt cost any favor.

So another way to balance it, is making the wonders cost favor, which i also suggested.
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When there are 3 players left in an 8 player FFA game,
and 1 of them gets a wonder, then it would result in a 2vs1 game.

And the point is: the player with the wonder will most likely still win,
despite being outnumbered, because of the extremely cheap god powers,
that can decimate entire armies in a matter of seconds,
and because of the extremely strong myth units and titan, and/or even multiple titans.

So the point is: compare this to a game where wonders would be disabled,
and that 1 player wouldnt have nearly as much chance to win.
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In any case, im not saying the devs should do what i suggest.
It could simply be a mod, rather than in the base game.

The suggestions i made are simply the way i would do it; (and did do it, in my mod)
not only to make wonders a bit more balanced,
but also to make them a lot more fun. (for all players)
Bombarding players with meteors every minute may be fun for the one doing it,
but getting bombarded by those meteors, every minute,
with no realistic way to do anything about it, makes the game less fun, imo..
(In my mod, i am also adding more ways to block god powers,
in the same way as how isis monuments work, for this reason)

I would personally prefer it if wonders were just "age 5",
(so a large power spike, like any other age-up, but larger)
instead of just another "game ending super weapon",
because that is what the titans are already used for.
Hell, even just 1 age 4 GP, like meteor, can end the game, let alone 1 every minute..

Im not saying that the "game-ending" aspect of it should be removed,
but rather just toned down a bit, to still allow for *potential* comebacks.
(in other words, so that you still have a chance, rather than the game just being over)

There are other ways to make wonders more balanced, sure, that may even be better.
At least we are now talking about it, rather than just saying "its fine the way it is"..
This wonder mechanic is relatively new, so some balance changes are to be expected.

[Kalvin Sorrow]

You can forbid the unit tech "Wonder" in the scenario editor

[Star Paladin]

Stavorzium: Look up "Synopsis" in the dictionary. Also, TLDR definition has your picture next to it.