Scout->Monument->Legalism->Delete Monument->Monument (FREE)?

Can that work?

You will indeed get the free Monument and you can sell the 40 hammers for the 6 gold or whatever. It will "work".

I haven't tried it, but you might have to sell the monument right before you pop the social policy or it won't work. But you usually get Drama and Poetry quickly enough (need it for Civil Service) that you won't want to spend the hammers on an amphitheatre in your capital later, so I think it's not worth selling the monument.

I make the judgment about Ampitheater vs. Gold on the turn I'm going to choose Legalism, and VERY often I need the 1GPT so I sell the old one and get the free one.

I'd value a free Amphitheatre more.

Me too, the Amphitheatre. Even in Dom games the culture/extra great work slot for free is a decent bonus. For all other victory conditions, even more so.

I don't see how 1GPT+gold for selling it could make that much of a difference, unless perhaps you're specifically saving up for a worker/library/etc. and affording it will be a close call. I'm very reluctant to sell a building that costs 40 early hammers, when early hammers are so valuable.

I also only just realised that the spelling is AmpHitheatre

Early game gold is one of the most valuable properties, since it allows snowballing at a key time. By the time you want Ampitheaters, a free one gives very little return. They are such terrible buildings, IMHO.

I really can't see how it could be worth it. Not only did you waste the 40 hammers from your old monument, you're wasting 100 hammers from the free amp. No early gold is worth that many hammers imo.

That argument assumes you actually want the Amphitheatre. I almost never build them, unless going for CV in which case they're a necessary evil. You didn't waste the 40 hammers. You still have a monument, and you got to Legalism faster than you would have without investing those 40 hammers. If your GPT is only +2 at Legalism, then until the next policy, you'll save a lot of gold.

Usually regardless of victory strategy you want to work a writers guild for some extra culture and the free amphitheatre will come in handy for your great work

Why would you use great writers for a great work in a non-CV game?
If not going for CV, I always pop my writers for treatises and artists for GAs. Musicians are the only ones I use for great works

vivalamexico said:

Why would you use great writers for a great work in a non-CV game?
If not going for CV, I always pop my writers for treatises and artists for GAs. Musicians are the only ones I use for great works

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Because:
The very first GW produced wouldn't produce that much culture immediately.
So there is either a wasted GW from an immediate bulb or alternatively it would incur a large maintenance cost waiting for 8 turns after finishing Worlds Fair. (An even larger one if you miss Worlds Fair and wait until late game)

Even a little tourism (2 per turn) if it starts early greatly decreases the likelihood that an AI will reach exotic (or worse yet familiar) over you, and so will allow you to ignore what ideologies the AI picked and pick whichever is best for you.

On the original post, you would have to sell the monument before selecting the policy as you aren't allowed to sell buildings that don't carry maintenance costs.

In any game that isn't early Domination, I think the Hermitage is worth building in your guild city to speed up social policy acquisition. For that, you need amphitheatres and opera houses. Otherwise it would certainly never be worth building opera houses, or even more than a couple amphitheatres.

I should say I turn all other VC's off that aren't Domination, so amphitheatres are never built.

Ideally I want the game to be over before I need things like ideology and rationalism where I could really use a lot of culture.

I would also argue that doing CS quests for culturals is a far superior way of getting a lot of culture than building culture buildings beyond monument, especially since they were nerfed to only give +1 culture.

revelation216 said:

I would also argue that doing CS quests for culturals is a far superior way of getting a lot of culture than building culture buildings beyond monument, especially since they were nerfed to only give +1 culture.

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Absolutely. And although Culturals are the best, all CS give good rewards. Doing CS quests is a really big part of my strategy.

consentient said:

That argument assumes you actually want the Amphitheatre.

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No, it doesn't. When somebody points out that Legalism can give Amphitheaters, they're usually pointing out that choosing to build a Monument won't make Legalism weaker.

Would you choose Legalism if it only gave you 3 free Monuments? I imagine you would. Because people don't just choose it for the free buildings, but also as a stepping stone to the Tradition finisher.

I wouldn't say the 1 gpt is meaningless. But I would say that if it's already built, I'd leave it be and take the extra culture and writing slot from the free Amphitheater over that 1 gpt.

How likely are you to really need 50gold and 1gpt at turn 80 over 1 cpt ?

It's not just 1gpt, it's a permanent 1gpt vs paying 1gpt maintenance for the whole game!

GerrardCapashen said:

In any game that isn't early Domination, I think the Hermitage is worth building in your guild city to speed up social policy acquisition. For that, you need amphitheatres and opera houses. Otherwise it would certainly never be worth building opera houses, or even more than a couple amphitheatres.

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Hermitage is a tough cookie. It's great but it has a such an enormous cost that you want to have a really good reason to build it.

On Amphitheatres - I agree with the consensus here. They are probably one of the worst buildings in the game and all the more annoying because you need them and the equally useless Opera House if you want a Hermitage or a spot to store writing/music. But something else that people here haven't mentioned is that working the musicians guild is a great way to build extra culture (even if you're not going for a CV) and once you're able to build Opera Houses & put Works in them it really helps with late game culture.

Hence that's why I value a free Amphitheatre from legalism even more. It costs an extra 60 hammers (so more than double a monument cost) for half the yield thus it is absolutely terrible to have to build - so why not take it if you can get it free?

And I always make at least 1 Great Work of Writings before bulbing them for culture so with a Great Work of Writing I at least get some value out of the building.

If you bulb 2 can swap them into the Oxford University to get a total of 6 culture & 6 tourism so the value goes up a bit higher. This gets better if you do decide to build Hermitage, Sistine Chapel, BroadCast Towers, Sydney Opera House.....

But if I'm going to whinge about Amphitheatres it's that they don't at all come close to doing what they did in Classical Greece. They were the Greek centre of culture and entertainment - the equivalent of 'the movies' in today's world. But in BNW it's just an annoying building that you have to build if you want to get to a Hermitage. It's role really overlaps with the Colosseum and in the ancient world there really isn't a practical difference between a gladiatorial arena & a drama theatre. The building is just a pit or stage surrounded by seating for spectators

I agree. Hermitage is a nightmare to build up, especially in a wide game. I generally wait around to have Aesthetics speed it up to simply get them out of the way. It also creates a bit of a vacuum, where if you miss out on culture wonders (and on Deity, you're very likely), your artists are a tad useless until you get the Hermitage up