Curious to know what you'd think about moving Olympia Day's free build to its first stage? (so the stages go Free Build -> 5 points -> 7 points, costs stay the same as base). I gave this a try with my friends and I think there's some interesting things you can do if you get your free-build ability in Age 1... avoiding yellows to get free caravansery, or reds to get a free Age 2 red... maybe you can even make use of a free green? I found there's more strategic choices you can make with it instead of relying on random chance for a free blue card and good guild in Age 3.
I think this is not a bad idea, but there are some problems with that and I think they outweight the gains. 1. The A side becomes more like the B side with 1st stage getting free builds. 2. I expect the playstyle to be very first stage focused, it would be the most powerful early stage and you'd desperately want to build that early 3. These are base game wonders, that all have 3-X-7 stages on the A side, there are no other exceptions and this would be the first one. And finally I would argue that cheap 2nd cost (1 clay as it is after my changes) would enable similar playstyle without the dangers I've just mentioned.
What would you think about simply removing the third stage of Hali B. It is rarely played, but it would make playing the second stage quite a bit riskier and therefore would slightly nerve it (in combination with other nerves of course).
I actually like this proposition better. Make it another two stage wonder, keep the same costs. It would definitely make the calculations of when to use it more vital; you either get to buff green before age 3 or get last choice of cards in the game, but not both.
I think it is a worthy consideration, but if we just make it 2 stage with the same points and costs I think it's still way too good. Either the cost has to go up or the points has to go away, but it's worth looking at. My biggest problem with Hali B is that it's very unfun for the opponents. The classic age1 counterplay of throwing that is very legit a lot of the time, it doesn't work at all. It also creates this paranoia of hiding last cards from hands etc. Just unhealthy environment for the game IMO, where you have multiple builds from discard. Your suggested change help remedy that, so yeah worth considering and testing for sure.
@@WonderfulPlays It sounds like the actual problem is the fact that it gets to dig through the discard pile and the changes that causes to the game when you have to play around it. So....what if we change the thing actually causing problems? It would require a lot more work and tweaking, but what if we flat out change what the effect is for Halikarnasos. Maybe instead of digging through the discard pile, they get to count the card put under the wonder as itself as well as for the wonder. That still has the theme of "digging up" a "dead" card, but now puts the pressure on Hali to bury a good card in the Mausoleum. They also still get the card for free, only having to worry about the cost of the Wonder stage. But it completely eliminates the problem of the other players having to play around it. People can still discard cards to keep them from Hali and don't have to change their calculations with regards to the last card of the age. Would require a lot of testing and tweaking to get the costs and bonus points right, but we'd end up fixing the actual issue.
Hello Jan! I love the changes overall. Especially the ones in Alex and Rhodos. One question though: Why do you still keep the 4 ores in second stage of Rhodos B? I mean it is still an atrocious cost and there are many cases where players around do not build single ore in the 1st age so you have to build ore and double ore as well to be sure you will build it.
Rhodos B have very powerful stages - the high cost is justified in my opinion. The idea is: you want to risk it or build for the high cost with high efficiency you go B, you want to play it safe you go A.
overall looks like great balances. thanks for posting the link for the petition. With halikarnassos B being so obviously strong, as well as other unbalances, I'm surprised to hear you say 7 wonders is the most balanced game youve played. Have you played twilight struggle or watergate? Those games are quite balanced, especially twilight struggle +usa2
I have not played TS or Watergate much, so I can't comment, but I doubt I would be able to play thousand of games and not get tired like I did for 7 Wonders :)
Nice changes to Hali. The additional clay cost would be a considerable burden in 3p where it's ridiculously strong now, but not much in 4p where I think it's weakest. Personally, I don't understand why people often go green seriously with Alex A. Alex A encourages us to bury early whlie green players often have trouble burying. I tried, but it often turned out that I didn't even have time to bury 2 stages by the end of age 2. The change would be a simple buff for me because I usually go normal red+blue with it.
The problem with going green with the B side is that for green you need to build greys already in the first age. This makes the second stage of the wonder on B side useless. Therefore if you want to go green, people sometimes/usually choose A.
Yes the A-side is a bit less risky, but I feel Alex A's heavy green is very underwhelming. People seem to think different way though. I often see people do that but rarely see it prove successful (including 2nd places) even without competition for green by other players…… The first stage of B-side helps with heavy green strat a lot more often than the 1st/2nd stages of A-side do. Saving stages for age 3 is less important because green strat is good at avoiding garbage hands, so the risk is not so high with the B-side. On the other hand, I think with the A-side you can occasionally touch green lightly in age 1, planning to take some in later hands of age 2. This helps you avoid getting stuck because you've already built stages. Switching to heavier green from this light one during the game is ok if your hands say you should. However, if in wonder selection phase you think you're likely to go heavy one, B-side feel better.
Do you still stand by all of these changes? Would you make any additional ones? I just discovered this video but I'll be printing all of these out to use. Thank you so much!
Yes, 2 years later I still think they would be a big improvement. There is potentially some better improvement, but that would require bigger changes. Revisiting them after some time, I was actually kinda surprised how much I like it, I am usually very critical of my own work after a while, because I see some better ways, but here I would be extremely excited to play this version on BGA.
I agree with most of the changes, except two: 1) With Hali B I think that you went too far - 3 clay for first stage is really tough and almost never doable in age 1. I would go for 2 clay and one ore or stone. And I would actually add some victory points to the 3rd stage - its hard to get, so reward it a little :) 2) Olympia - A side is fine as it is IMO, you are pushing it too much for my taste, those costs are laughable. And B side, I would left the rainbow there but made it 7 VP
Thanks for the comments, I thought about all those changes as well, but I mostly disagree. 1. Hali would still be okay here. That's how dominant it is right now. Rhodos has 3 stone on the first stage, Hali should have 3 of something on the first one as it is a better stage than Rhodos 1st one. We also had 10 years of Hali domination and playing against Hali B is the most unfun experience. I think A side being better would be great change. 1B. I do agree I could have added some points the third stage like 1 or 2, but I don't think it is needed and I really wanted to avoid a situation where despite the nerf Hali B would still be the best wonder. Now the decision is: do you want to play green with Hali B but make it risky with the 1st stage or do you want to play it safer and more open with Hali A. The math is also there A side has 10VP + card build. B side has 3 cards, that's 2 cards for 10 VP, with good green or red play you can outscore the 10. 2. Olympia A I essentially removed 1 clay, this is in the line wit old Olympia A which was never considered OP. I think you are being overly dramatic here 3. Olympia B is strong at 5P, but it is very bad in most other player counts, it desperately need more help than 2VP across the board IMO.
@@WonderfulPlays I can get behind your Hali points. Maybe my issue with your Olympia changes is more aesthetic than power level. Costs on your A side seen so low that they are basically free and it just looks weird. And rainbow is a cool cost to have on at least one wonder, so I would like to preserve that and boost it in another way
Rainbow is still on Hali B and Alexandria A (I think that's plenty). For Olympia the "cool" stuff is that the last stage is not 7VP for me. Bu tI agree your change would make it much better than it currently is. The different between changes is small (+1 bottle, +1 vp). I just like the option of not paying that bottle, I assume a lot of the time it would be +1 gold net.
@@WonderfulPlays We have different definition of "rainbow" it seems :) For me it is simply all three greys required. With Alex/Hali its only two. Olympia B 3rd stage cost is unique in the new edition
Hello. My take on Halikarnassos B. It is the best wonder, but it is not that much stronger than the rest. Not enough to warrant such a big nerf to the first stage. As you said yourself this makes it very easy to shut down the wonder. Similar to Rhodos B 1 bury in 3 or 4 player can literally kill the entire game for the player. While burying is a strategic move I also find it a design flaw to be able to shut down an entire player this easily. Lowering or removing the points is fine, but coupling it with the insane cost is too much in my opinion. For Rhodos - I enjoy playing it, but I do notice that it can be underwhelming in certain situations. Still, if the wonder is in need of a buff it should be added on both sides as you could argue that B side has less options to bury. Glass in itself is the weakest gray in my opinion and forcing it on such a high brown wonder is not that good. A straight reduction to 3 ores might be better.
@@WonderfulPlays Derp. You're absolutely right. I'd just rather play with these fixed wonders than the ones I have. I'll just homebrew it :) Sorry if I made you feel like I put you in an awkward spot.
I love most of the change, but I don't like: -What happened to Hali B, I honestly think the nerf hammer was too strong. That first stage is just so bad. Don't forget you just buffed all the other wonders. -Alex A and Hali A having very similar wonder stage. -The fact that stone is less important for wonder stage, as it is its sole selling point early.
The two second points are very strong thanks, about Hali B I think it is still playable EDIT: I thought a little more about it and I still think you brought very valid points, but I have some form of defense :) With the changes I would expect Alex to be still played on B for the most part, which should help prevent the samey feeling. For the stone I think Rhodos (B), Giza (B), Ephesos (B), Babylon (B) have early stone requirements and Hali (A), Olympia (A) have late stone. I don't think stone was hurt that badly, but I agree it could be an opportunity to switch 3 ore to 2 stone for Alex B mainly. We haven't done that, because we wanted as few changes as possible, but for the whole revamp it could be considered.
Which changes do you like the most?
I just discovered your channel and I love your content, I have learned a lot about 7 wonders and I hope you come back and upload more videos!
Curious to know what you'd think about moving Olympia Day's free build to its first stage? (so the stages go Free Build -> 5 points -> 7 points, costs stay the same as base). I gave this a try with my friends and I think there's some interesting things you can do if you get your free-build ability in Age 1... avoiding yellows to get free caravansery, or reds to get a free Age 2 red... maybe you can even make use of a free green? I found there's more strategic choices you can make with it instead of relying on random chance for a free blue card and good guild in Age 3.
I think this is not a bad idea, but there are some problems with that and I think they outweight the gains.
1. The A side becomes more like the B side with 1st stage getting free builds.
2. I expect the playstyle to be very first stage focused, it would be the most powerful early stage and you'd desperately want to build that early
3. These are base game wonders, that all have 3-X-7 stages on the A side, there are no other exceptions and this would be the first one.
And finally I would argue that cheap 2nd cost (1 clay as it is after my changes) would enable similar playstyle without the dangers I've just mentioned.
What would you think about simply removing the third stage of Hali B. It is rarely played, but it would make playing the second stage quite a bit riskier and therefore would slightly nerve it (in combination with other nerves of course).
I actually like this proposition better. Make it another two stage wonder, keep the same costs. It would definitely make the calculations of when to use it more vital; you either get to buff green before age 3 or get last choice of cards in the game, but not both.
I think it is a worthy consideration, but if we just make it 2 stage with the same points and costs I think it's still way too good. Either the cost has to go up or the points has to go away, but it's worth looking at.
My biggest problem with Hali B is that it's very unfun for the opponents. The classic age1 counterplay of throwing that is very legit a lot of the time, it doesn't work at all. It also creates this paranoia of hiding last cards from hands etc. Just unhealthy environment for the game IMO, where you have multiple builds from discard. Your suggested change help remedy that, so yeah worth considering and testing for sure.
@@WonderfulPlays It sounds like the actual problem is the fact that it gets to dig through the discard pile and the changes that causes to the game when you have to play around it. So....what if we change the thing actually causing problems? It would require a lot more work and tweaking, but what if we flat out change what the effect is for Halikarnasos. Maybe instead of digging through the discard pile, they get to count the card put under the wonder as itself as well as for the wonder. That still has the theme of "digging up" a "dead" card, but now puts the pressure on Hali to bury a good card in the Mausoleum.
They also still get the card for free, only having to worry about the cost of the Wonder stage. But it completely eliminates the problem of the other players having to play around it. People can still discard cards to keep them from Hali and don't have to change their calculations with regards to the last card of the age.
Would require a lot of testing and tweaking to get the costs and bonus points right, but we'd end up fixing the actual issue.
14:40 You forgot the link to the boardgamearena and geek threads on hali B stats
Thank you, I'll fix that soon.
Hello Jan! I love the changes overall. Especially the ones in Alex and Rhodos. One question though: Why do you still keep the 4 ores in second stage of Rhodos B? I mean it is still an atrocious cost and there are many cases where players around do not build single ore in the 1st age so you have to build ore and double ore as well to be sure you will build it.
Rhodos B have very powerful stages - the high cost is justified in my opinion. The idea is: you want to risk it or build for the high cost with high efficiency you go B, you want to play it safe you go A.
overall looks like great balances. thanks for posting the link for the petition. With halikarnassos B being so obviously strong, as well as other unbalances, I'm surprised to hear you say 7 wonders is the most balanced game youve played. Have you played twilight struggle or watergate? Those games are quite balanced, especially twilight struggle +usa2
I have not played TS or Watergate much, so I can't comment, but I doubt I would be able to play thousand of games and not get tired like I did for 7 Wonders :)
Nice changes to Hali. The additional clay cost would be a considerable burden in 3p where it's ridiculously strong now, but not much in 4p where I think it's weakest.
Personally, I don't understand why people often go green seriously with Alex A. Alex A encourages us to bury early whlie green players often have trouble burying. I tried, but it often turned out that I didn't even have time to bury 2 stages by the end of age 2. The change would be a simple buff for me because I usually go normal red+blue with it.
The problem with going green with the B side is that for green you need to build greys already in the first age. This makes the second stage of the wonder on B side useless. Therefore if you want to go green, people sometimes/usually choose A.
Yes the A-side is a bit less risky, but I feel Alex A's heavy green is very underwhelming. People seem to think different way though. I often see people do that but rarely see it prove successful (including 2nd places) even without competition for green by other players……
The first stage of B-side helps with heavy green strat a lot more often than the 1st/2nd stages of A-side do. Saving stages for age 3 is less important because green strat is good at avoiding garbage hands, so the risk is not so high with the B-side.
On the other hand, I think with the A-side you can occasionally touch green lightly in age 1, planning to take some in later hands of age 2. This helps you avoid getting stuck because you've already built stages. Switching to heavier green from this light one during the game is ok if your hands say you should. However, if in wonder selection phase you think you're likely to go heavy one, B-side feel better.
Do you still stand by all of these changes? Would you make any additional ones? I just discovered this video but I'll be printing all of these out to use. Thank you so much!
Yes, 2 years later I still think they would be a big improvement. There is potentially some better improvement, but that would require bigger changes. Revisiting them after some time, I was actually kinda surprised how much I like it, I am usually very critical of my own work after a while, because I see some better ways, but here I would be extremely excited to play this version on BGA.
I agree with most of the changes, except two:
1) With Hali B I think that you went too far - 3 clay for first stage is really tough and almost never doable in age 1. I would go for 2 clay and one ore or stone. And I would actually add some victory points to the 3rd stage - its hard to get, so reward it a little :)
2) Olympia - A side is fine as it is IMO, you are pushing it too much for my taste, those costs are laughable. And B side, I would left the rainbow there but made it 7 VP
Thanks for the comments, I thought about all those changes as well, but I mostly disagree.
1. Hali would still be okay here. That's how dominant it is right now. Rhodos has 3 stone on the first stage, Hali should have 3 of something on the first one as it is a better stage than Rhodos 1st one. We also had 10 years of Hali domination and playing against Hali B is the most unfun experience. I think A side being better would be great change.
1B. I do agree I could have added some points the third stage like 1 or 2, but I don't think it is needed and I really wanted to avoid a situation where despite the nerf Hali B would still be the best wonder. Now the decision is: do you want to play green with Hali B but make it risky with the 1st stage or do you want to play it safer and more open with Hali A. The math is also there A side has 10VP + card build. B side has 3 cards, that's 2 cards for 10 VP, with good green or red play you can outscore the 10.
2. Olympia A I essentially removed 1 clay, this is in the line wit old Olympia A which was never considered OP. I think you are being overly dramatic here
3. Olympia B is strong at 5P, but it is very bad in most other player counts, it desperately need more help than 2VP across the board IMO.
+1 For the 7VP full rainbow Oly B
@@WonderfulPlays I can get behind your Hali points. Maybe my issue with your Olympia changes is more aesthetic than power level. Costs on your A side seen so low that they are basically free and it just looks weird. And rainbow is a cool cost to have on at least one wonder, so I would like to preserve that and boost it in another way
Rainbow is still on Hali B and Alexandria A (I think that's plenty). For Olympia the "cool" stuff is that the last stage is not 7VP for me. Bu tI agree your change would make it much better than it currently is. The different between changes is small (+1 bottle, +1 vp). I just like the option of not paying that bottle, I assume a lot of the time it would be +1 gold net.
@@WonderfulPlays
We have different definition of "rainbow" it seems :) For me it is simply all three greys required. With Alex/Hali its only two. Olympia B 3rd stage cost is unique in the new edition
Hello.
My take on Halikarnassos B. It is the best wonder, but it is not that much stronger than the rest. Not enough to warrant such a big nerf to the first stage. As you said yourself this makes it very easy to shut down the wonder. Similar to Rhodos B 1 bury in 3 or 4 player can literally kill the entire game for the player.
While burying is a strategic move I also find it a design flaw to be able to shut down an entire player this easily. Lowering or removing the points is fine, but coupling it with the insane cost is too much in my opinion.
For Rhodos - I enjoy playing it, but I do notice that it can be underwhelming in certain situations. Still, if the wonder is in need of a buff it should be added on both sides as you could argue that B side has less options to bury. Glass in itself is the weakest gray in my opinion and forcing it on such a high brown wonder is not that good. A straight reduction to 3 ores might be better.
Where can we download this to print it and cover up the actual base versions? :D
I can't provide you with files, that wouldn't be legal, because unlike my custom expansion this is part of the game, sorry :(
@@WonderfulPlays Derp. You're absolutely right. I'd just rather play with these fixed wonders than the ones I have. I'll just homebrew it :) Sorry if I made you feel like I put you in an awkward spot.
Is there anywhere we could get the files so we could print them and play with them?
on the discord there should be pictures that potentially can be printed
I love most of the change, but I don't like:
-What happened to Hali B, I honestly think the nerf hammer was too strong. That first stage is just so bad. Don't forget you just buffed all the other wonders.
-Alex A and Hali A having very similar wonder stage.
-The fact that stone is less important for wonder stage, as it is its sole selling point early.
The two second points are very strong thanks, about Hali B I think it is still playable
EDIT: I thought a little more about it and I still think you brought very valid points, but I have some form of defense :)
With the changes I would expect Alex to be still played on B for the most part, which should help prevent the samey feeling.
For the stone I think Rhodos (B), Giza (B), Ephesos (B), Babylon (B) have early stone requirements and Hali (A), Olympia (A) have late stone. I don't think stone was hurt that badly, but I agree it could be an opportunity to switch 3 ore to 2 stone for Alex B mainly. We haven't done that, because we wanted as few changes as possible, but for the whole revamp it could be considered.
old olympia B is still my favorite of all the boards
Interesting, I really, really liked the old A side.
Hey man, what website can i play this on?