Wonder (Age of Empires II)

"Building a Wonder of the World demonstrates the superiority of your civilization. Constructing a Wonder that stands for a certain period of time is one way to win the game."

- Age of Empires II description

The Wonder is a civilian building in Age of Empires II that becomes available once the Imperial Age is reached. In certain game modes, the Wonder grants victory if built and defended for 200 years.

Each civilization builds a Wonder of historically relevant and unique appearance. They cannot be converted.

Tactics and placement
Wonders only serve as a victory condition, and as such they must be used only in game modes that allow that kind of victory. When a player starts to build a Wonder, every other player receives a notification with the location of the Wonder so they know where to steer their aggression.

Wonders should be placed in a well-defended area so it is better to first build up a strong fortification composed of Castles, walls, and towers, so basically perform a late-game turtling strategy. In any case, the player must be prepared to be the main focus of all enemy attacks and prepare to defend the Wonder. It is advised to have a huge army to defend against attacking armies, particularly siege units. Since the Wonder takes incredibly long to be built, it is advised to build it with as many Villagers as possible while also leave them near the area once they finish in case the Wonder needs to be repaired. In team games, the support of allies while defending is highly valuable.

It is possible (but costly) to build more than one Wonder so that if one does not stand, other Wonders can stand for the time required to win the game. In The Conquerors, if the player has multiple Wonders and one is destroyed, the timer will reset but still be displayed. Although highly unlikely, if multiple players finished their Wonder at the same time, the player in the highest slot regardless of the color wins once the countdown ends.

A Monument (an unconstructable building) can be found in the Scenario Editor and some campaigns. Its appearance varies being different for each civilization, much like the Wonder, and it has the same icon, although it merely functions as decorative. It has 9999 hit points, making it the bulkiest building in the game.

Britons
Wonder: Aachen Cathedral (up until Rise of the Rajas)

Campaign appearances:
 * The Fall of Rome

Wonder:: Canterbury Cathedral (in Definitive Edition)

Byzantines
Wonder: Hagia Sophia

Campaign appearances:
 * Barbarossa's March
 * The Walls of Constantinople

Celts
Wonder: Rock of Cashel

Campaign appearances:
 * The Fall of Rome
 * York

Chinese
Wonder: Temple of Heaven

Campaign appearances:
 * Into China

Franks
Wonder: St. Vitus Cathedral

Campaign appearances:
 * Agincourt
 * The Fall of Rome

Goths
Wonder: Mausoleum of Theoderic I

Japanese
Wonder: Tōdai-ji

Campaign appearances:
 * Kurikara

Mongols
Wonder: Great Tent of Genghis Khan

Campaign appearances:
 * A Life of Revenge

Persians
Wonder: Taq-i Kisra Palace

Campaign appearances:
 * The Horde Rides West

Saracens
Wonder: Great Mosque of Samarra

Campaign appearances:
 * The Lion and the Demon
 * Ruins of Empires

Teutons
Wonder: Maria Laach Abbey

Campaign appearances:
 * Jihad!
 * Pax Mongolia
 * The Lombard League
 * The Fall of Rome

Turks
Wonder: Selimiye Mosque

Campaign appearances:
 * An Arabian Knight
 * Black Guards

Vikings
Wonder: Borgund Stave Church

Campaign appearances:
 * York

Aztecs
Wonder: Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan

Campaign appearances:
 * Broken Spears
 * Dos Pilas

Huns
Wonder: Arch of Constantine

Koreans
Wonder: Hwangnyong Temple

Campaign appearances:
 * Noryang Point
 * Kurikara

Mayans
Wonder: Temple of the Great Jaguar

Campaign appearances:
 * Dos Pilas

Spanish
Wonder: Torre del Oro

Campaign appearances:
 * King of Valencia
 * La Noche Triste
 * Lepanto

Incas
Wonder: Temple of the Sun at Macchu Picchu

Campaign appearances:
 * The Amazones

Indians
Wonder: Gol Gumbaz (in The Forgotten and The African Kingdoms)

Wonder: Brihadeeswarar Temple (since Rise of the Rajas)

Campaign appearances:
 * The Burmese Tigers

Italians
Wonder: Cathedral of St. Lawrence

Campaign appearances:
 * The Sack of Rome
 * Cyprus

Magyars
Wonder: Hunyad Castle

Slavs
Wonder: Kizhi Church

Berbers
Wonder: Hassan Tower

Ethiopians
Wonder: Biete Amanuel

Malians
Wonder: Great Mosque of Djenné

Campaign appearances:
 * The Lion's Den
 * Ruins of Empires

Portuguese
Wonder: Belém Tower

Campaign appearances:
 * Estado da India
 * A Son's Blood
 * The Old Tiger

Burmese
Wonder: Shwezigon Pagoda

Campaign appearances:
 * The Mandalay Cobra
 * The Royal Peacock
 * The Old Tiger

Khmer
Wonder: Angkor Wat

Campaign appearances:
 * Nirvanapada
 * The Burmese Tigers

Malay
Wonder: Kalasan Temple

Campaign appearances:
 * The Pasunda Bubat Tragedy
 * The Old Tiger

Vietnamese
Wonder: Bút Tháp Temple

Campaign appearances:
 * Reaching South

Bulgarians
Wonder: Preslav Round Church

Cumans
Wonder: Sarkel Fortress

Lithuanians
Wonder: Ducal Palace of Trakai Island Castle

Tatars
Wonder: Ulugh Beg Observatory

Civilization bonuses

 * Byzantines: Wonders have +40% HP. Town Watch is free.
 * Chinese: Technologies that benefit Wonders are 20% cheaper.
 * Incas: Wonders cost 15% less stone.
 * Malians: Wonders cost 15% less wood.
 * Persians: Researching Town Watch and Town Patrol is 20% faster.
 * Spanish: Wonders are built 20% faster.

Team bonuses

 * A team containing Malians: Researching Masonry, Architecture, and Treadmill Crane is 80% faster.

The Forgotten

 * Indians: The Wonder is the Gol Gumbaz.

Rise of the Rajas

 * Indians: The Wonder now is the Brihadeeswarar Temple. The Gol Gumbaz is still available in the Scenario Editor.

Trivia

 * The original British Wonder is actually in Germany.
 * The Frankish Wonder is actually in Czechia.
 * The base of the Celt Wonder was slightly altered and reused as a base for the Mediterranean style Castles in Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten.
 * The same expansion reused the top of the Spanish Wonder on the Italian Wonder.
 * The Wonder is the only constructable building that does not have the standard building armor class, along with the Fish Trap.
 * The Wonder is the only item in the game to cost three different resources.
 * The Slav Wonder is anachronistic, as the Kizhi Pogost was not built until the 17th century (outside Age of Empires II 's timeframe). A more accurate choice would've been the Moscow Kremlin when it was a limestone citadel, the Dormition Cathedral, or the Ferapontov Monastery.
 * Notably, the Russian Mod that preceded The Forgotten and served as basis for the Slavic civilization used a model of St. Basil's Cathedral (near the Kremlin, and often mistaken for it by Westerners), which had been taken from the game Cossacks, and would be a more appropriate choice since St. Basil's was built in 1555-1561 (barely within Age of Empires II 's timeframe) to commemorate the Russian conquest of the Tatar khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan.
 * It is possible that Kizhi Pogost was chosen as the new wonder because it resembles St. Basil's but also looks different enough to avoid accussations of plagiarism. Similarly, the first Indian Mod actually used the Gol Gumbaz's contemporary but much more famous Taj Mahal (1632) as the Indian Wonder.
 * The design of the Malian Wonder is anachronistic by necessity. It is based on the current appearance of the Great Mosque of Djenne, but the mosque was rebuilt in the early 20th century. The original mosque would likely have looked different, but no records exist that describe its appearance, so it remains unknown. The architect of the original mosque was from Egypt, so it is possible that it would have been similar to medieval Egyptian mosques in appearance.
 * The Berber Wonder (Hassan Tower) is actually the minaret of an unfinished mosque and has only half of its intended height. Thus the Wonder is an incomplete building.
 * The Hassan Tower has two finished "twin" minarets in Seville, Spain (Giralda) and Marrakesh, Morocco (Kutubiyya Mosque). Giralda was reformed extensively in later centuries, leaving Kutubiyya as the only resembling what a finised Hassan Tower would look like.
 * A few Wonders are repurposed as other buildings in the Scenario Editor: The Arch of Constantine in Rome, edited from the Hunnic Wonder; the Gol Gumbaz, previously used as the Indian Wonder, the Mosque, identical in appearance to the Turkish Wonder, the Cathedral, which is a larger version of the British Wonder (and actually was created first during development), the Temple of Heaven, which is a larger and more decorated version of the Chinese Wonder; and the Palace, which is identical to the Wonder except in the case of the Malians, Ethiopians, and Portuguese, where it resembles previous Wonder models that were later discarded or reworked.

History
"One distinguishing cultural characteristic of the great Middle Age civilizations was architecture. Buildings in Japan, Scandinavia, Britain, Constantinople, and Arabia looked quite different and employed different construction techniques. In many cases, particularly noteworthy buildings stand as icons for the building civilization, marking it for all time as a culture that achieved greatness, if only temporarily. Examples of such Middle Age cultural icons are the Cathedral at Chartres, Charlemagne’s Palace, and the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople."

- Age of Empires II manual