Board Game Arena

Curious to hear other people's thoughts about how the relative strength of wonders (and sides) changes with Edifice.

Some starters:
- Halikarnasos is much weaker; the timing of building wonder stages is off kilter. Whereas it was generally beneficial to wait to the end of a stage, you often now get cut out of the edifice.
-Many A sides are stronger (particularly for wonders that only have two stages on B):Rhodes and Babylon.
- Giza B is stronger because of added flexibility as well as everybody focusing on browns (the second age guaranteed caravansery can be a very nice fallback).
- Ur is very dependent on what Edifices are drawn and can be very volatile.
-Science as a strategy seems worse (?). Paradoxically, fewer people seem to pursue it AND it seems weaker.

Please add on other observations.

It adds another layer of randomness because you don't even know what Edifices you will get. This is very troublesome because the bonuses provided and the penalties for incomplete Edifices hit some wonders harder than the others. This is also another buff to wonders that elicit collection of coins and both Ephesos and Rhodos are among the top picks as it is.

I don't see how Gizah is stronger. Unless you get lucky with Caravancery your entire focus is on getting resources to build your stages. So much so that Gizah falls behind on both red and blue cards. The Edifice forces the Gizah player into getting coins as well which is incredibly restrictive.

About giza falling behingd on both red and blue, i played a Game where i played "perfect" basic strategy game with 64 points and winning all red. Third place finish. Giza won without red, scoring massive points on guilds and edifice, 78 points. A science runner took 66 and 2nd place. So, the point is, it might feel restrictive but it might add more opportunities. With edifice, luck plays a bit higher role, but then it comes a race for the 2nd place. In edifice you don't get to win that much, but the real game is avoiding the worst possible outcomes. In one game i won all reda and played a card each turn but finished last place, as edifice favoured other wonders. I like playing It, gives you More to think, but it is brutally difficult to get a perfect run and if you miss It, consequences are devastating. In the worst game i think i got less than 30 points because i was unable to build any stages.

Exactly. As someone who has found working patterns for wonders, strategies for all types of chains and how to counter other wonders having all that taken away due to sheer luck is not really an upgrade.

That is just what I witnessed, but it favors wonders that collect coins with their stages and those were already strong to begin with. I personally avoid games with Edifice, but I don't advocate for anyone to follow in my footsteps.