I was snooping around the game files for Imperator Rome out of curiosity when I found a folder named ‘wonders’. Wondering what it could be, turned out it had some files relating to the wonders in game! [\Steam\steamapps\common\ImperatorRome\game\gfx\models\buildings\wonders]

Imperator: Rome has some cool looking world wonders! And the game supports 4K resolution! So I took some screenshots at 4k res and all high settings. Take a look!

(images have been slightly photoshopped)

TEMPLE OF JUPITER IN ROME

Traditionally dedicated in 509 BCE, but in 83 BCE it was destroyed by fire, and a replacement in Greek style completed in 69 BCE. With two further fires, the third temple only lasted five years, to 80 CE, but the fourth survived until the fall of the empire. Now only elements of the foundations and podium or base survive.

TEMPLE OF ZEUS IN OLYMPIA

Construction began around 470 BCE and is estimated to have been completed in 457 BCE. The temple housed the renowned statue of Zeus, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Chryselephantine (gold and ivory) statue was approximately 13 m (43 ft) high. In CE 426, Theodosius II ordered the destruction of the sanctuary during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire.

In game feature: whoever holds Olympia may host Olympic games every 4 years

TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS IN EPHESOS

The Temple of Artemis or Artemision was a Greek temple dedicated to an ancient, local form of the goddess Artemis. It was located in Ephesus (near the modern town of Selçuk in present-day Turkey). It was completely rebuilt three times, and in its final form was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. By 401 CE it had been ruined or destroyed. Only foundations and fragments of the last temple remain at the site. The earliest version of the temple antedated the Ionic immigration by many years, and dates to the Bronze Age. Callimachus, in his Hymn to Artemis, attributed it to the Amazons. In the 7th century BCE, it was destroyed by a flood. Its reconstruction, in more grandiose form, began around 550 BCE. The project was funded by Croesus of Lydia, and took 10 years to complete. This version of the temple was destroyed in 356 BCE by Herostratus in an act of arson. The next, greatest and last form of the temple, funded by the Ephesians themselves, is described in Antipater of Sidon’s list of the world’s Seven Wonders.

MAUSOLEUM OF HALICARNASSUS IN HALIKARNASSUS

A tomb built between 353 and 350 BCE at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and his sister-wife Artemisia II of Caria. The Mausoleum was approximately 45 m (148 ft) in height. It was destroyed by successive earthquakes from the 12th to the 15th century, the last surviving of the six destroyed wonders. The word mausoleum has now come to be used generically for an above-ground tomb.

LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA IN ALEXANDRIA

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (280–247 BC), which has been estimated to be 100 metres (330 ft) in overall height. One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, for many centuries it was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world. The lighthouse was severely damaged by three earthquakes between CE 956 and 1323 and became an abandoned ruin. It was the third longest surviving ancient wonder, surviving in part until 1480, when the last of its remnant stones were used to build the Citadel of Qaitbay on the site.

In game feature: Need to take a decision to build it. Costs some money. On completion, it gives local import routes +1, commerce income +20%, +10% local civilization level.

THE GREAT PYRAMIDS OF GIZA NEAR MEMPHIS

The Pyramids of Giza consist of the Great Pyramid of Giza (also known as the Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu and constructed around 2580 – 2560 BCE). It consists of a necropolis or mortuary complex of the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, it includes the three Great Pyramids (Khufu/Cheops, Khafre/Chephren and Menkaure/Mykerinos), the Great Sphinx, several cemeteries, a workers’ village and an industrial complex.

The pyramids of the complex have historically been common as emblems of ancient Egypt in the Western imagination, were popularized in Hellenistic times, when the Great Pyramid was listed by Antipater of Sidon as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is by far the oldest of the ancient Wonders and the only one still in existence.

COLOSSUS OF RHODES IN RHODOS

The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the Greek sun-god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes, on the Greek island of the same name, by Chares of Lindos in 280 BCE. It was constructed to celebrate Rhodes’ victory over the ruler of Cyprus, Antigonus I Monophthalmus, whose son Demetrius I of Macedon unsuccessfully besieged Rhodes in 305 BCE. According to most contemporary descriptions, the Colossus stood approximately 70 cubits, or 33 metres (108 feet) high—the approximate height of the modern Statue of Liberty from feet to crown—making it the tallest statue of the ancient world. It collapsed during the earthquake of 226 BCE; although parts of it were preserved, it was never rebuilt.

In game feature: Need to take a decision to build it. Costs some money. On completion, it gives local import routes +1, commerce income +20%, +10% local civilization level.

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON IN BABYLON

Described as a remarkable feat of engineering with an ascending series of tiered gardens containing a wide variety of trees, shrubs, and vines, resembling a large green mountain constructed of mud bricks, and said to have been built in the ancient city of Babylon, near present-day Hillah, Babil province, in Iraq.

The Hanging Gardens are the only one of the Seven Wonders for which the location has not been definitively established. There are no extant Babylonian texts that mention the gardens, and no definitive archaeological evidence has been found in Babylon. Three theories have been suggested to account for this. One: that they were purely mythical, and the descriptions found in ancient Greek and Roman writers including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus and Quintus Curtius Rufus represent a romantic ideal of an eastern garden. Two: that they existed in Babylon, but were completely destroyed sometime around the first century CE. Three: that the legend refers to a well-documented garden that the Assyrian King Sennacherib (704–681 BCE) built in his capital city of Nineveh on the River Tigris, near the modern city of Mosul.

UNIVERSITY OF TAXILA IN TAXILA

The University of Ancient Taxila or The University of Taxila was a renowned university in ancient India. It was considered the greatest center for higher education in ancient India. The city of Taxila was in the ancient Indian state of Gandhara. It was later the capital of the Achaemenid territories in northwestern ancient Indian subcontinent following the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley around 515 BCE. Taxila was at the crossroad of the main trade roads of Asia, was probably populated by Persians and many ethnicities coming from the various parts of the Achaemenid Empire.

Buddhist literature states that Chandragupta Maurya, the future founder of the Mauryan Empire, though born near Patna (Bihar) in Magadha, was taken by Chanakya for his training and education to Taxila, and had him educated there in “all the sciences and arts” of the period, including military sciences. There he studied for eight years. The Greek and Hindu texts also state that Kautilya (Chanakya) was a native of the northwest Indian subcontinent, and Chandragupta was his resident student for eight years. These accounts match Plutarch’s assertion that Alexander the Great met with the young Chandragupta while campaigning in the Punjab.

SIGIRIYA IN AVAKANA

Sigiriya or Sinhagiri is an ancient rock fortress located in the northern Matale District near the town of Dambulla in the Central Province, Sri Lanka. The name refers to a site of historical and archaeological significance that is dominated by a massive column of rock nearly 200 metres (660 ft) high. According to the ancient Sri Lankan chronicle the Culavamsa, this site was selected by King Kasyapa (477 – 495 CE) for his new capital. He built his palace on the top of this rock and decorated its sides with colorful frescoes. On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. The name of this place is derived from this structure — Sīnhāgiri, the Lion Rock.

The capital and the royal palace was abandoned after the king’s death. It was used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century. Declared by UNESCO as the eighth wonder of the world. It is one of the best preserved examples of ancient urban planning.

STONEHENGE IN CUNETIO

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England. It consists of a ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds. Archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BCE to 2000 BCE. Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BCE, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another five hundred years.