Attacking, Gold, and Legends in City of Wonder

Before we get started:  If you are reasonably strong, or want to create the appearance of toughness, you should try emptying out the middle of your map.  This creates great confusion in your opponent’s advisors when it comes time to attacking you or trading with you.  In many cases they will not take the risk, and in others they will potentially choose poorly and challenge you to something you are strong in.  Either way, it will not be a guaranteed loss each time.

Gold

I have decided Gold is a boring topic, so this Is going to be a short post.

First, we must assume that everyone visiting this page is here to increase their effectiveness and not the beauty of their civilization.  If you are interested in pretty things, then the Sphinx is defiantly for you!  I mean, who wouldn’t want the other majestic iconography of Egypt to go with their free Pyramid?  Well… me for one.

Lets break down the three new items:

Egyptian Chariot – Cost: 10G, Attack 60, Defense 30, 1 SQ

Sphinx – Cost: 25G, 118S/Day, 118 Culture, 2 SQ (interesting mix of Culture and Markets)

Angkor Tree – Cost: 20G, 1600 Happiness, 180 Culture, 1 SQ (I think)

Even the best of these, the Angkor Tree, is more costly and less beneficial than the Golden Palace.  The Sphinx is the worst, since it is both more costly and you get far less than any similar items.  The chariot is, at best, unremarkable; not even as good as a standard Cavalry purchase.

So this may lead you to the question, “What are the best items to purchase with my Gold?”  Easy answer.  Never waste it on a reduction in time for research, and don’t use it to purchase more land.  Add more friends and have a little patience.  If you consult the spreadsheet, you will notice that the best cultural item is BY FAR the Golden Temple, followed by decent investments in the Golden Sanctuary, Windmill and Lake.  The Foreign Theater is the best item in culture per square, but the bang for your buck is better elsewhere…

In Markets, the Egyptian Market seems to be quite the prize.  Good cash and HUGE Trade per square ratio.  I don’t have the 40G to buy it though, and like I said this is a guide to the game without buying more gold.

Goods and Military are both being ignored, as the purchases are only equal or slightly better than other items in the game easily purchased with silver.  Let’s just move on…

Legends

Legends are a fun part of the game, because it is the first attempt they have done at adding a degree of chance to the purchasing process.  You can purchase 1 Random for 3,500, 3 for 4G, 5 for 6G or this week’s special “Sheba” for 7G.  So far I have found a decent assortment from the 1 at a time purchase and will begin to update a spreadsheet to clarify what you can get here.  I will tell you that it is quite often Rare ones like Catherine or Lincoln which are much better than Sheba.  The necessity of spending the Gold there is not evident.  It is possible that these other packs contain some of the best scientists, etc.  I would be interested in hearing accurate reports of what you have found.

At any given time you can have three Legends assisting you, but never two working on the same topic.  This means you can’t have Sun Tzu helping twice for 200% increased attack power, etc.  Unfortunately, it also means you can only use one mathematician per research project.  If you have a decent number of friends, it is pretty easy to keep up at all times an Attack/Defense/Fog of War bonus, Culture bonus, and Research bonus.  I find that Population grows too fast for me to buy the needed cultural items, so I don’t usually bother with Population multipliers.

My only complaint so far is the ever increasing amount of them that are living in my gift box that I can’t get rid of.  If a developer ever reads this, please give me a way to sell off these undesirables, or even delete them.  No one needs 15 Lenins.  My recommendation for Playdom would be to list out the Legends which come ONLY from the Gold packs which would create an incentive for people to actually purchase Gold for the game.  I would also create a list of Legends and Equipment similar to the Castle Age Chests and make it random for people to get the highest tier items… I bet we would see a spike in game play as well as sales.