Sounds good to me..

I vote for great monuments.

Even if everything they do is just increase the faction prestige and influence (and bring some gold from tourism? Even ancient Romans went sightseeing in the ruins of Troy).

Yeah, things like the Parthenon (and its Athena), the Colossus of Rhodes, Pyramides, Mount Rushmore (you cut the mountain besides your city to sculpt it into a godly statue!   ), the Argonath. Things BIG and EPIC!

That way, not only the wonder does something but it shows (ala Caesar III)!

Isn't the Magic component of E:WoM to be the Wonder?

Just saying...

Have unique wonders for both kingdoms and empires can build, wonders only kingdoms can build, wonders only empires can build, (also each of the 10 factions gets something unique) and quests that reward you with unique wonders and or the means to build them. Maybe even wonders you can find that survived the great cataclysm that you can restore.

@StillSingle:  Oh, dude, that is quite the mental image...  Seriously, how freakin' awesome would that look with the GFX Engine turned on?  I'd spend every game doing nothing but trying to find those kinds of things, seriously....  And I'm pretty sure I'd have just as much fun doing that as actually playing the game.  =P

@John:  I can't say I care...  If I can get Floating Waterfalls and Volcanoes of Purple Lava in the middle of my cities, I'd do it just to have them.  (Yeah, Purple Lava, very random...  But it'd be interesting.  =P)  Even if there weren't any bonuses and it was for nothing more than flavor.

I like StillSingle's idea of the use of a magical plus mundane component to "upgrade" a waterfall to a floating waterfall.  The idea of having it take a long time to build, plus having a rare mundane component allows me time to find out (magically, of course) what the city is building, and then march over to that town and take his stuff, so that I can build it instead (since the limit won't be set by first to build, but instead who has the rare component and can hold onto it long enough to complete the construction/spell).

You might also consider that these Wonders were actually part of the landscape itself. The great Earthblood-Well, from which magic and honey pours forth would be a place people would very likely build a city near to.

Practically the city(or cities?) that are near enough to such a Natural Wonder, would gain the benefits from it, without building anything. Thus making them unique, and because you actually find them instead of building them, perhaps even a bit more likeable.

The problem with some of these wonders, (From the second set, not the first,) is that they're too closely related to a Real Life setting and not a Fantasy setting.  A generic Pyramid and the Astral Nexus I can't say that about, but the other two are (were) more or less real.  Now, I assume you'd (meaning Stardock,) would re-work those to fit into the setting, but I think it's beginning to borderline on being too Civ-esque with that batch.

However they would be implemented, it should be kept in mind that we should actually go out of our way to try to make the suggestions for Wonders pretty out there and far-fetched in the context of 'Would you see this in real life?'  With every Wonder we suggest, we should ask ourselves the following questions:

Has this been done before?  If so, how can we make it our own?  (Meaning, make it Elemental's own.)

Is it extraordinary or magical somehow?  (Not literally magical, but rather, the feeling you get from looking at it.)

Does it fit the context of both the game, and the setting in general?

Is it something that can be both useful and balanced, both in the short term and in the long term?

And last, but not least:

Does it actually look awesome? (Literally, inspiring some level of awe the first time you see it.)

These questions are what the Floating Waterfall made me think of.  While it is cliche, it fits into the setting, it is extraordinary and magical, it fits into the context of the game, and it would, in fact, look freaking awesome.

Usefullness and Balance, however, are mechanics issues and not conceptual issues, so maybe we can throw that question out for the time being.  It doesn't change though, that if/when something like this gets implemented, that will be a very necessary question, so best to keep it tucked away in its own special place on our brain-shelves.  (Along with all the other Elemental-related stuff.  =P)

Now, with all that said...  I will admit that I don't have any better suggestions for wonders/monuments.  I haven't been able to immerse myself deep enough into the world of Elemental yet to really get the imaginative juices going, and it may be a while before I can, so those of you that naturally have over-active imaginations or very visually visceral imaginations, please, feel free to pitch in with whatever crazy-A images your brains create.  The Floating Waterfall in one of your cities already set my heart to racing, and knowing this community, there are a ton more ideas right up that alley that you guys can create.  ^^

I'm with Istari up to  point regarding race specific Wonders.   However, I would be disappointed if these were the sole or majority of Wonders available to be built.  Just imagine having wars over the whole glowstone needed to make my floating waterfall idea.  Could be that both Sovereign's peoples' petitioned them to build for them this great place of wonder (who wouldn't want to wake up to waterfall in the sky everyday?? ), but only the one stone is available.

Sethfc's idea on the randomness of a technology being able to be researched to provide a Wonder structure I like very much.  I'm actually of the mind that research trees should only have random availability so that you need to work with your technological strengths and weaknesses on a game by game basis.  But I'm sure that should be discussed in another thread...

I think that Wonders should always be 'worth it' to have, but not be simple or straightforward to obtain. As you said, the combination of a specific (and preferrably hard to get) component, plus a tech, and a spell in addition to substantial standard resources (gold/food/population/essence/shards/turns) should make it difficult enough to not always be in play. But when it can be made to happen, it should greatly reward the player.

Well, this brings to mind the Unique Locations in Elemental. I know that they are currently just place-holders, but could they at least be good placeholders?

Also, I managed to build a Regiment (250 soldiers) ... yet what came out was only 120 soldiers??

It still felt pretty Uber though ... like the Regiment could kill anything on the map.

Anyways, currently the amount of effort required to train (and maintain) a regiment is exceedingly high. Im not saying that there should be a lower tech requirement, but I think that it should get "easier" as time passes.

Once gold is more plentiful (once markets are not the "end all be all" of gold producers), the problem should solve itself almost overnight.

However, I think that Elemental's current stance on Army Maintanence is still "too high". For all units to cost roughly 0.5 gold (all the time) is too costly. Let units cost 0.5 gold while they are marching ... in garrison they should only cost 0.1 gold (imho).

I think that the base upkeep for one soldier should be 0.1   When he is garrisoned in a city he is 0.1  When he is marching in claimed territory he is 0.2 gold per turn. When he is marching in unclaimed territory he is 0.3 gold per turn.

This means that an invading army costs three times as much maintenance (in gold) as a garrisoned army. And yet, we still have a basis for Army maintenance that is not chocking or restrictive. For instance, in the current build, A legion costs nearly 500 gold per turn to wield.

With my proposal, a Legion gives you maintenance discounts, so instead of 100 gold for a Legion, its 50 gold for a garrisoned legion, and then 150 gold for an invading legion.

In this way, gold income doesn't have to become "insane" to support troops. (I wonder, are troops going to cost any Food upkeep?)

In elemental, populations don't increase very fast (usually 15 people per turn at the fastest), so losing 1000 people is almost enough of an investment. Add to that Equipment costs (which aren't discounted), Maintenance, and the fact that a Legion moves "much" slower than an individual unit ... and you have a very feasible and balanced Troop management system.

Well the game already has one building that is unique, the Palace, so it's no like they couldn't add more. The question is would they be unique to just your empire or the world? As that might require a bit of code change to have it check all empire's cities so that only 1 empire can build it. Plus it seems to register buildings as being in the world once they start construction so you can't queue up more then your suppose to which means it would simply be a matter of who manages to start the Wonder first unlike Civ where it's whoever finishes first.

As for the idea of Wonders in general I have a love/hate relationship with them in Civ. I love having the bonuses they give but I always hated in Civ when other empires would beat you to the punch. I don't mind so much when they finish something I was not even working on but when I'm like 3-4 turns away from completing it and suddenly get a message, "The ***** have completed construction of *****. You can no longer build ***** at city *****." It's very frustrating as you lose all that time and progress. As a result I usually play my typical game of tech rush and only build Wonders I'm very curtain I can complete before anyone else cause they don't have the tech.

I did like the addition of National wonders in Civ4 though and found those to be much nicer as you can put them off until later when your ready to build. Plus since the national wonders seem to apply to only one city they are much more balanced. Many of the wonders apply to all cities on that one land mass. Which means in games with huge continents they are much more useful while in games that are island hopes many wonders becomes useless over priced city improvements. I mean what's the point of building the Pyramids for a Granary in every city when the largest isle only supports like 4-5 cities?