Most valuable unique tile improvement?
- Thread starter Disident
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Agreed. Get some mountains around and a river, a 6-7 food/2 production tile is just awesome.
kaspergm
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Kasbah doesn't come anywhere near Polder on Flood Plains:
Kasbah = +1
+1 
+1 
Polder = +3
+1 +2 Sure the Kasbah gives +50 % defence also, and you need Economics to boost the Polder but still, Polder is just insane if you roll a start near desert.
Overall, I think the Kasbah is decidedly average. The Terrace Farm can be great, but it requires special circumstances for it to really shine. Polder is somewhat more of general use, because desert areas are not that rare and generally will have long stretches of flood plains = polder paradise. Brazilwood Camp is also pretty average, the Chateau definitely shines compared to that one, because it's less situational and doesn't require awkward jungle locations. The Moai has the distinct disadvantage that you will need the food form the terrain unless you have lots of Fish around, so this makes them quite hard to use (plus again highly situational to get maximum yield). Feitora is sort of a dark horse because it's not in your own territory, so it's hard to compare this one to the others. My vote for best will go to the Polder because it's fairly easy to find situations where it will completely win the game for you.
kaspergm
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But you can only have Petra in one city, and only if you get it, which is quite hard on higher difficulties. Desert tile with Kasbah is still just a mediocre tile: 1 food, 1 production, 1 gold. That's less than a flat plain tile with trade post. Desert Hills with Kasbah is good, but not fantastic - yes it's a 5-yield tile where most normal tiles are 4-yield when improved, but it's hardly game-changing. Fact is you normally don't want to work (flat) desert tiles, and even with the Kasbah they just become poor regular tiles.
Yes, the Polder requires Flood Plains, but most desert sites suitable for settling have a river stretch and hence many flood plains (the odd exception with multiple oasis exists but is not the norm). Arguably, the marsh case is a bit more of an oddball, occasionally you hit a fluke start with many marsh tiles, but it's definitely the desert areas you want to aim for. The obvious (major) disadvantage with the polder is that Dutch don't have desert (or marsh) bias whereas Marocco does, so yeah, you can get unlucky, but I'll still take Polder any day over Kasbah, and if I start away from desert, well that means it's time for some conquest.
I think you are right that Polder is far better than Kasbah on Flood Plains. That would help to increase city's population with little effort. But I think Kasbah is also can be so effective if you have the Petra. E.g On a desert hill; 2 food 4 hammer 1 gold is extremely good, IMHO.
The thing is that Kasbah meshes well with Petra. Now you have desert tiles that have 2 food, 2 shield and 1 gold. If you have desert folklore, add a faith to that. If you have desert hills, you have 2 food, 4 shield and 1 gold. That's pretty awesome.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Polder doesn't become available until Economics right? And then don't you have to research another tech (like Flight) or something to maximize its full bonuses?
I've never played as the Dutch before, but I've considered it just because of the Polder. Still, I feel like the Kasbah gives it some decent competition.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Polder doesn't become available until Economics right? And then don't you have to research another tech (like Flight) or something to maximize its full bonuses?
I've never played as the Dutch before, but I've considered it just because of the Polder. Still, I feel like the Kasbah gives it some decent competition.
I also haven't played as Netherlands and I don't know much about Polder. Just checked and according to Civ Wikia it adds +1 hammer and +1 gold after "Economics" which is too late. Kasbah immediately adds +1 hammer +1 food and +1 gold and can be build in any desert tile. Plus 50% defense...
If you work a Polder tile, and since it doesn't give hammer, it reduces the city's hammer. It gives just 5 food, which Wheat on flood plains already gives. But Kasbah gives 3 food 1 hammer 1 gold. It doesn't reduces the city's hammer plus adds a gold.
So, Polder doesn't sound like that great.
Food without hammer is useless. You can get 5 food from wheat also. It doesn't sound that special, at least until research Economics.
Delnar_Ersike
Prince
It really, really depends on whether you're playing multiplayer or singleplayer. It also depends on starting location.
For example, Kasbah vs. Polders: Morocco have a Desert start bias, while Netherlands have a Grassland bias. Even if Polders are better on Floodplains than Kasbah, the chances of Netherlands starting in a location where they can reap the most benefits out of Polders is much lower than the chances of Morocco starting in a location where they can get the most out of the Kasbah. In addition, Polders can only be built in Floodplains and Marshes; the former is found in Desert (while Dutch spawns in Grasslands), while the latter forces the Dutch to keep Marsh tiles (which are bad) for the first third of the game before they get Polders, and that part of the game is when Marsh's -1 Food hurts the most.
Petra is nice, but don't forget that it's a) a world wonder (so you're not always guaranteed to get it, and if you do, it's only ever in one city) and b) it needs to be built in a city with terrible land (non-Floodplains Desert is terrible without Petra, though Desert Hills and Oases are OK), so you'll be stuck with a terrible city if you miss Petra and you'll often need to rushbuild it with a GE because your Desert city just isn't going to have enough hammers to finish it on its own. This is also where singleplayer vs. multiplayer comes in: the AI has a fairly low priority of building Petra, so if you rush it in singleplayer, chances are that you'll get it, while things will definitely be a lot harder in multiplayer, where most human players know the value of Petra.
I'm definitely going to agree with joncnunn on this one, the Inca Terrace Farm is amazing: it not only lets you build what are essentially farms on any hill tile (not just ones next to rivers), letting you get both hammers and growth out of them, but it's also buffed by nearby peaks to the point where what was an almost useless tile before (peaks are only really useful for Observatories and the wonders they unlock) to a tile that can potentially net the city as much food as Lake Victoria (6 terrace farms built around a peak = +6 food in total from that one peak). They're also unlocked at Construction to boot, which is a high priority tech anyway for Colloseums and CompBows. Remember that Construction is also an early classical tech, while Kasbah's Chivalry and Polder's Guilds tech requirements are both medieval.
As for the other unique improvements, they're either bad due to opportunity cost or just flatout bad. Chateau's usefulness is suspect (+1 gold is nothing, +2 culture is OK but not brilliant compared to the food or hammers you'd get out of a mine or a farm, +50% defense bonus is extremely situational), and the fact that it can only be built at Chivalry (when your culture game has advanced enough that +2 culture isn't as important anymore compared to +2 food from farms) and only on tiles next to luxury resources seals its fate. The extra yields after Flight are negligible, as Flight comes late enough in the game that the lost food/hammers from not having another improvement on that tile for the first 80% of a game is not made up for by the extra culture yield in the remaining 20%. Moai's are even worse than Chateaus on most maps: even if you can build enough of them next to each other to make their culture yield worth the missing food/hammers from not building farms/mines, the cities that can work those tiles will often have such low population due from lacking food that you won't be able to work all your Moai tiles anyway. The Maori bonus from Moai's are essentially useless (since warriors get phased out so quickly), and the bonus yield after Flight is not enough for the same reasons as the Chateau's yield bonuses after Flight.
Brazilwood camps are fine on paper, but they do have three major shortcomings that are more apparent in multiplayer than in singleplayer: jungle tiles, the need for Acoustics to get culture yield, and Free Thought. The problem with Jungle tiles is that their are a hindrance in the earlygame: if you settle a city in place where you intend to build a lot of Brazilwood camps, they'll generate a lot fewer food and hammers than if you settled a non-jungle city (exception being if you're really lucky with Bananas and Citrus). The problem with Acoustics is that it does not lie along the best tech paths to quick ideologies and factories, so you'll often find yourself picking it up after Banking, the tech that brings the gold yield from Trading Posts up to par with the gold yield from Brazilwood camps. Finally, the problem with Free Thought is that it's a Rationalism policy (so you'll always be picking it up) that grants Trading Posts +1 science, which makes the yield difference between Trading Posts and Brazilwood camps quite small (+2 culture is only slightly better than +1 science). These three combined don't make Brazilwood camps bad per say, they just don't make them so much better than Trading Posts; plus, Trading Posts unlock at a bit earlier at Guilds than Brazilwood camps' Machinery. The bonus from Terrace Farms is just so much better.
For example, Kasbah vs. Polders: Morocco have a Desert start bias, while Netherlands have a Grassland bias. Even if Polders are better on Floodplains than Kasbah, the chances of Netherlands starting in a location where they can reap the most benefits out of Polders is much lower than the chances of Morocco starting in a location where they can get the most out of the Kasbah. In addition, Polders can only be built in Floodplains and Marshes; the former is found in Desert (while Dutch spawns in Grasslands), while the latter forces the Dutch to keep Marsh tiles (which are bad) for the first third of the game before they get Polders, and that part of the game is when Marsh's -1 Food hurts the most.
Petra is nice, but don't forget that it's a) a world wonder (so you're not always guaranteed to get it, and if you do, it's only ever in one city) and b) it needs to be built in a city with terrible land (non-Floodplains Desert is terrible without Petra, though Desert Hills and Oases are OK), so you'll be stuck with a terrible city if you miss Petra and you'll often need to rushbuild it with a GE because your Desert city just isn't going to have enough hammers to finish it on its own. This is also where singleplayer vs. multiplayer comes in: the AI has a fairly low priority of building Petra, so if you rush it in singleplayer, chances are that you'll get it, while things will definitely be a lot harder in multiplayer, where most human players know the value of Petra.
I'm definitely going to agree with joncnunn on this one, the Inca Terrace Farm is amazing: it not only lets you build what are essentially farms on any hill tile (not just ones next to rivers), letting you get both hammers and growth out of them, but it's also buffed by nearby peaks to the point where what was an almost useless tile before (peaks are only really useful for Observatories and the wonders they unlock) to a tile that can potentially net the city as much food as Lake Victoria (6 terrace farms built around a peak = +6 food in total from that one peak). They're also unlocked at Construction to boot, which is a high priority tech anyway for Colloseums and CompBows. Remember that Construction is also an early classical tech, while Kasbah's Chivalry and Polder's Guilds tech requirements are both medieval.
As for the other unique improvements, they're either bad due to opportunity cost or just flatout bad. Chateau's usefulness is suspect (+1 gold is nothing, +2 culture is OK but not brilliant compared to the food or hammers you'd get out of a mine or a farm, +50% defense bonus is extremely situational), and the fact that it can only be built at Chivalry (when your culture game has advanced enough that +2 culture isn't as important anymore compared to +2 food from farms) and only on tiles next to luxury resources seals its fate. The extra yields after Flight are negligible, as Flight comes late enough in the game that the lost food/hammers from not having another improvement on that tile for the first 80% of a game is not made up for by the extra culture yield in the remaining 20%. Moai's are even worse than Chateaus on most maps: even if you can build enough of them next to each other to make their culture yield worth the missing food/hammers from not building farms/mines, the cities that can work those tiles will often have such low population due from lacking food that you won't be able to work all your Moai tiles anyway. The Maori bonus from Moai's are essentially useless (since warriors get phased out so quickly), and the bonus yield after Flight is not enough for the same reasons as the Chateau's yield bonuses after Flight.
Brazilwood camps are fine on paper, but they do have three major shortcomings that are more apparent in multiplayer than in singleplayer: jungle tiles, the need for Acoustics to get culture yield, and Free Thought. The problem with Jungle tiles is that their are a hindrance in the earlygame: if you settle a city in place where you intend to build a lot of Brazilwood camps, they'll generate a lot fewer food and hammers than if you settled a non-jungle city (exception being if you're really lucky with Bananas and Citrus). The problem with Acoustics is that it does not lie along the best tech paths to quick ideologies and factories, so you'll often find yourself picking it up after Banking, the tech that brings the gold yield from Trading Posts up to par with the gold yield from Brazilwood camps. Finally, the problem with Free Thought is that it's a Rationalism policy (so you'll always be picking it up) that grants Trading Posts +1 science, which makes the yield difference between Trading Posts and Brazilwood camps quite small (+2 culture is only slightly better than +1 science). These three combined don't make Brazilwood camps bad per say, they just don't make them so much better than Trading Posts; plus, Trading Posts unlock at a bit earlier at Guilds than Brazilwood camps' Machinery. The bonus from Terrace Farms is just so much better.
In a nutshell, and to offer a nod to the thread wondering about the average civ level:
The more veteran a player is, the more he or she realizes that food and hammers are everything. The tile improvements that offer neither, but merely extra culture or gold (but at the expense of food or hammers) are disappointments. If they offered the culture and gold on top of the food/hammer yield of farms and mines, then they'd be worth it.
As it stands, I even get frustrated with Kasbah's, at least on flood plains, as I want the extra food. And yes, on Immortal and higher, it's a tricky situation to get Petra.
We all want different things with the Balance mods, but I definitely wish many of the Unique Tiles were buffed, particularly France and Polynesia. Polders are fun, but do come awfully late.
The more veteran a player is, the more he or she realizes that food and hammers are everything. The tile improvements that offer neither, but merely extra culture or gold (but at the expense of food or hammers) are disappointments. If they offered the culture and gold on top of the food/hammer yield of farms and mines, then they'd be worth it.
As it stands, I even get frustrated with Kasbah's, at least on flood plains, as I want the extra food. And yes, on Immortal and higher, it's a tricky situation to get Petra.
We all want different things with the Balance mods, but I definitely wish many of the Unique Tiles were buffed, particularly France and Polynesia. Polders are fun, but do come awfully late.
Delnar_Ersike
Prince
Not to mention how so few tiles are eligible for Polders, since they can only be built on Floodplains (requires Desert next to river) and Marshes. I'd gladly accept lower Polder yields if I could at least build them in other tiles (eg. +1 food +1 hammer by default, extra +2 food on Marshes, extra +1 food on non-Marsh tiles after Fertilizers, +1 gold after Economics, can be built on Marshes and any flatland tile with Fresh Water).
I often find that balance mods often tend to become too ambitious for their creators to test properly. Coupled with the usual feature creep problem of most mods (including mine, I keep wanting to tweak every AI algorithm I come across, even if I'm in the middle of overhauling a bit that is completely unrelated), and you end up with balance mods that seem to fix a lot of the issues in the original game, but end up generating the same amount of their own problems due to unforeseen interplay between the mod's changes.
Man you seem to type long posts a lot lol.
You have some pretty good reasoning there. The one thing I might add though, is that Sacred Path pantheon with jungle is downright amazing.
But to counteract the poor hammers with the Dutch, you could use the massive food to load your workshops and factories with specialists. Keep in mind that 5 food per turn is still freakin awesome, and u can have one or two of those tiles freeing your other workers up to work mines and other high-hammer/low-food tiles.
Delnar_Ersike
Prince
Sacred Path triggers regardless of what improvement you build on your Jungle tiles: you'll get that +1 culture from a Brazilwood camp the same way you'd get it from a Jungle Trading Post, and culture isn't the type of yield that benefits from there being more of it on a single tile (like food).
It's still very hard to find the land to really exploit Polders compared to Terrace Farms; the +1 hammer and +2 gold also trigger way too late, since by then you'll be working enough engineer slots and have enough production boosts from buildings that even a +5 or +6 hammers in the best case scenario from 5-6 polders is negligible. If you're building Polders on Floodplains in the middle of a large desert, chances are that the other tiles you'd be working are Desert Hills at best, as Desert tiles are quite terrible. If you're building Polders on Marshes, you'll maybe have one or two of those tiles in your entire empire. It really cannot be compared to Terrace Farms, which can be built on any Hills tile and give extra food for neighboring peaks to boot: if you have at least one adjacent peak, they're essentially equivalent to a Polder that doesn't need Economics to give that sweet food/hammer mix. Plus they unlock at Construction, so an Inca play can have 8-9 terrace farms up before a Dutch player completes their first Polder.
Yeah, Inca really are the only exception. Then again, AFAIK, Inca were the first civ to feature unique improvements, so it might just be a case of Civ5's designers getting carried away with gimmicky abilities over time (Brazil is really the "cleanest" set of uniques I can think of out of the civs with unique improvements introduced in G&K or later).
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