Hello,

I just bought the game and played a game with some friends yesterday. We were a bit uncertain about the mechanics of some of the wonders though, mainly the wonders that have abilities that happen at start of turn (i.e. The Collossus, Hanging Gardens, Panama Canal, Sidney Opera House).

The Hanging Garders says 'Start of turn: build a figure in the squrare containing the Hanging Gardens for free'. Does this happen every single turn as long as the wonder is active (and you have figures in your stack), or just once (the first turn after you build the wonder)? Same question for all the others. If you have the Opera House, do you advance on the culture track every turn? Do you get one coin every turn when you have the Canal?

We thought this was a bit much, so we treated it as though these wonders had a one time only effect, at the start of the first turn after you build the wonder. Did we interpret this correct?

Thanks in advance if anyone wants to answer.

krotznapopulov said:

Wonders are powerful items. Start of turn does mean each and every start of turn, not just once. This may seem way over-powered and broken, but there are ways to counter wonders - use Tech II Monarchy to obsolete any ancient wonder; Tech III Gunpowder to obsolete any ancient or medieval wonder. The canal and opera house are modern wonders; you won't see those until very late game, at which point, the idea is to accelerate to the finish. In the ten games I've played, a modern wonder never hit the board.

I concurr with civBob. Wonders ARE meant to be powerful. That's why they cost so much resources to build.

As CivBob says, there are ways to obsolete the ancient and medieval wonders. In regards to the modern wonders, they cannot be obsoleted. But you can, at least temporarily, stop their progress by blockading them. Or, if it is not located in a capital, you can nuke the entire city with the help of the Atomic Theory tech. This might seem a bit rash but if you really want to stop another player from winning, it is a viable way to go.