I'm just reviewing the rules and I saw a strange omission.

The rules state that initially the 4 ancient wonders should be put in the market, making them available to build.

Also it is stated that if one of the players are the Egyptians they should get 1 random wonder and that the now vacant place in the market should be filled with 1 random medieval wonder.

However nowhere in the rules (especially not on page 17 which details the building of a wonder) is noted what should be done to fill the empty place after a wonder has been built.

Now I guess the correct rule should be to draw a new wonder from the wonder pile and put it in the vacant space so there are always 4 wonders available to buy (until they really run out of course).

However this is not written in the rules and perhaps other ways were thought of to change the selection of the wonder market?

For instance, can you obsolete wonders that have not been built yet?

(personally I would say yes; this way a player who concentrates on wonders can make new wonders available even if nobody else builds them)

You are right, there is nothing said in the rules. I asked the FFG support for that.

At BoardGameGeek there is a video from Essen fairy and at roughly 7:40min it is said that entering the space to the second cultural level (2 columns), all remaining ancient wonder cards in at the market board are drawn off and replaced by the 4 medieval wonder cards, the same for cultural level 3 and modern wonders.

I hope the support can confirm that.

-Nick

That does sound like an option, it does pace the wonders more slowly than what I assumed.

However it is strangly inconsistent with the text for the Egyptians.

One advantage for this is that building a wonder does not mean you give other players access to a better wonder. This was actually the big problem for the last version of S.M. Civ. People stopped getting techs because the next player could get even better techs.

I think I'll play it like this, and will not put a 4th wonder in the market if the Egyptians are in the game.

Whenever a wonder is built, fill its empty space with the next wonder in the deck. Rick was mistakenly referring to a rule that was playtested, but ultimately rejected because of the negative effects it had on the culture victory path.

Why is this inconsistent with the text for the Egyptians? The civilization sheet for the Egyptians says:

Start with a free ancient wonder drawn at random in their capital. Once per turn, during City Management, the Egyptians may build an unlocked building for free by using an action.

Nothing more.

In my copy on page 8 it is described how you make a wonder deck with the modern and medieval wonders. The ancient wonders are placed in the market.

Then you get the text:
Exception: If Egypt is playing, Egypt receives one of the ancient wonders at random before the remainder are placed in the market. One of the medieval wonders is then drawn and placed in the market to replace the missing ancient wonder.

The making of the deck and the immediate replacement suggests the redrawing of the next wonder when a wonder is built.

Here's a related question. In a two or three player game should you reduce the size of each of the wonders decks to the number of players and only use that many spaces in the market?

If you don't then as each city can only have 1 wonder you are very unlikely to see the later wonders. Whilst randomly cutting the decks down reduces the options it means there's still a chance you'll get to build some of the Medieval and Modern wonders.

scimon said:

That sounds valid, though I'd like to hear what other people who have played the game have to say...?

Of course you can Mill wonders, if your city can build one chances are next turn you can build a new one trashing the previous.

My copy has seen four 4-player games and two 2-player games and wonder availability has been our greatest gripe concerning game mechanics.

That said my group agrees we need many more playthroughs before we will want to change anything but here is our experience.

Most players will not have multiple cities with wonders and at best the second city will have an ancient wonder. The hammers necessary for wonders usually mean techs like "Animal Husbandry," the culture cards in the line of "We Love the Despot," and/or excess trade is the only way to build one. This is in addition to creating a city with lots of hammers at the price of other resources, which is not a bad thing, but hard to get more than one city doing. Furthermore, not all players want to have so much hammers in any of their cities and won't build wonders at all.

Second, most players are seeking specific wonder and would rather build up military with their hammer city (especially with the "Engineering" tech) while they wait for their favorite to show up. Theoretically, if you really want a wonder you can buy cheap wonders like "Stonehenge" and other ancients if you have the tech and wait for your favorite to show up. However, there is nothing stopping another player from just nabbing it first even though you spent at least one turn (possibly more) tearing down wonders and building new ones.

These two factors are why we have only seen a modern wonder hit the market once in our six games.

I'm hoping either this is intended, or will be fixed. Hopefully after more games we might start to like more of the wonders so they stop clogging the marketplace. Right now my group ignores "Stonehenge" and "Angkor Wat" (my brother's comment is "More like Angkor Whyyyy?!").

Remember that there are techs to obsolete old wonders. You need a cloth for that, but still.

I would rule you can't just obsolete wonders from other players, but you can also obsolete wonders in the market.

So when you're ready to build a wonder, make sure you can obsolete a wonder in the market and then you're the first that can benefit from the newly picked wonder!

Also remember to respect the age requirement for the wonder to obsolete. The earlier tech obsoletes only ancient wonders, the later one obsoletes both ancient and medieval wonders. So the only time you cannot obsolete anything in the market is when all modern wonders are available.

Konradius said:

I agree with your house rule of obsoleting from the market and hope that it is the real ruling. After a few more plays we finally had our first modern wonder but it only came because two player finally ended their standoff knowing the other would build the modern one. The guy who built the medieval one handed the game to the guy who built the modern one, which is what I was afraid would happen.

 I am thinking about this house rule for introducing new wonders into the game (will work best after the first expansion comes out and there are more wonders available):

At the start of the game, shuffle all the wonders of each age and place them in separate piles.  The wonder market starts of empty.

At the beginning of each Start of Turn phase, move all wonders in the market down one space (discarding any wonder that "drops off" the end) and add a new ancient wonder to the top.

Once any player enters stage II of the culture track, or once any player has researched their 5th technology, start drawing from the medieval deck instead.

Once any player enters stage III of the culture track, or once any player has researched their 10th technology, start drawing from the modern deck instead.

Thoughts?

should have added the need for certin techs in order to build each wonder type.  Just like the PC.  stonework for Stonehenge,  bronze work for the collousses.  then it limits the "I'll wait for you to build the wonders 1st so that I can build the betters ones." Cause now they would need the tech aswell.  

Just my 2cents

Bleached Lizard said:

I read something very similar to this on the BGG forums...

CapnZapp said:

Yes.  On an unrelated note, I'm also a member of BGG.  Coincidence?  Spooky, eh?