Unique Improvement Elimination Thread

jlim201 said:

I tested the terrace farm. I built a city in the middle of the desert with hills and mountains nearby. There was little to no food for the city. Once I built terrace farms, it started growing really fast. At the end of the game. It was at 32 pop

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Yeah, the Terrace Farm is a great improvement - as long as there are mountains nearby. If there aren't any, you're basically just farming a hill, which, while giving you a few Food, ultimately loses you 2 hammers.

Chateau- 10

Feitoria-8

Polder-20

Terrace Farm- 23

No real problem with the Chateau, it's just the worst that is left.

Terrace Farm is solid even if there are no mountains to be had. Considering the start bias, there will almost certainly be mountains. If not right on your capital then close enough to expand into.

Chateau- 7 Not bad, but all of these UIs are pretty good. I just want the Feitoria to come in third.

Feitoria-9 This just plays so well in to what Portugal does, and I have limited experience with the Polder and Chateau.

Polder-20

Terrace Farm- 23

Chateau- 7 Not bad, but all of these UIs are pretty good. I just want the Feitoria to come in third.
Feitoria-10 I'm with redwing, these Portuguese mind-control devices that get plopped down on city states are better than those chateaux.
Polder-17
Honestly I fail to see why the polder got so many votes, sure, it's a good improvement, but it can only be placed in marsh, which is rare, plus even if you find marsh you have to put up with it for a long time until the actual polder comes along.
Terrace Farm- 23

Chateau- 7
Feitoria-10
Polder-14- The rarity of Marshes/Flood Plains hold this back.
Terrace Farm- 24- You can quite easily get a 4 food, 2 production tile and even more with fertilizer/civil service

Chateau- 4
Feitoria-10
Polder-14
Terrace Farm- 25

Terrace Farm gives some amazing tile yields. For the same reason salt is good, terrace farm is good.

I like the Chateau, but I'd rather have Feitoria, Polder, or Terrace Farm.

Chateau- 4
Feitoria-10
Polder-14 + 1 = 15 - 'Cause I can.
Terrace Farm- 25 - 3 = 22 - I'm still contrite, and it's still very fun!

Chateau- 1 - Never tried the new France yet, but they don't seem so appealing anyway.
Feitoria-10
Polder- 15
Terrace Farm- 23 - I do admit they are a bit situational but they're great when they're next to 2 mountains. Don't build them on isolated hills.

Chateau- 1
Feitoria-10
Polder- 16
Terrace Farm- 20

Chateau- 1
Feitoria-10
Polder- 17
Terrace Farm- 17

+1 to Polder. It's simply a great UI, unmatched by anything else if you get a good start... Or flood plains, in which case it's beyond amazing.

-3 off the Terrace Farm, mostly for the huge insincerity of it's voters, who typically downvote the Polder for being "situational", while an UI that only ''works'' near mountains (which I found more rare than marshes/flood plains) somehow is not. It's also overrated.

Chateau -2
Feitoria 10
Polder 17
Terrace Farm 18

I like all of those, especially Polder and Terrace Farm.
Between the Chateau and the Feitoria, the first one gets my downvote for being less powerful.

Chateau- 1
Feitoria-10
Polder- 14
Terrace Farm- 19

Terrace farm is just the best one, admit it. The polder is great but i downvote it because Enrico and others did the same for terrace farm.

Chateau- 1
Feitoria-10
Polder- 14 + 1 = 15
Terrace Farm- 19 - 3 = 16

Polder > Terrace Farm (still.)

[
Feitoria-10
Polder- 12
Terrace Farm-16


And wtf..polder? WHY? I usually only see 2-3 marsh tiles in the immediate area around me. ...WHY?

Hmm, I've been holding off on voting for the past week because I didn't want to have too much of an influence on the voting, but here's another vote for the Feitoria.

Chateau- 2
Feitoria-11
Polder- 9
Terrace Farm-16

I'll admit it, I want the Feitoria to come in second or win, and I like it more than the Polder. I'm not sure I would vote it over the terrace farm, but the Polder and Chateau come kind of late and are situational or not super great, and even though the Feitoria comes even later, it comes at a stage where Portugal really starts to shine.

Er, if you look at this thread, the Chateau was eliminated by Ellye. Teagen should get a free upvote.

Feitoria-11
Polder- 6
Terrace Farm-17

Polders are situational, especially since marsh is much rarer than hills or mountains. Even if the Dutch get a marsh start, they're still only likely to get 2 or 3 polders out of the deal. Plus they don't synergize well with anything else about the Dutch, unlike terrace farms which build on a strength that the Incas already have.
Terrace farms aren't just extra food, they're extra science and specialists earlier and quicker. Plus you can use this to work high production tiles(mines on hills not adjacent to mountains, for instance) faster and sooner. We aren't insincere. The Inca can put out massive amounts of food and production very quickly.

Feitoria-11
Polder- 7
Terrace Farm-14


Up for Polders. Its not just marshes, but works on flood plains as well. Those two terrain types are as common as hills next to mountains. A terrace farm without a mountain is a river hill....weak.

Feitoria-11
Polder- 4
Terrace Farm-15

Looks like Feitoria gets to observe the epic battle between the Polder and the Terrace Farm.

The Terrace Farm is not situational. It lets you farm any hill tile, which is good in its own right. Mountains just change it from good to extremely good, and with the Incan start bias...

Feitoria-8 The fact that so many city states have the same resource limits this.
Polder- 4
Terrace Farm-16 Makes early production power-houses so easy to make.

MantaRevan said:

Polders are situational, especially since marsh is much rarer than hills or mountains. Even if the Dutch get a marsh start, they're still only likely to get 2 or 3 polders out of the deal. Plus they don't synergize well with anything else about the Dutch, unlike terrace farms which build on a strength that the Incas already have.
Terrace farms aren't just extra food, they're extra science and specialists earlier and quicker. Plus you can use this to work high production tiles(mines on hills not adjacent to mountains, for instance) faster and sooner. We aren't insincere. The Inca can put out massive amounts of food and production very quickly.

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Okay, here we go again...
The Marsh is much rarer than hills or mountains, yes, but remember Polders can also be built on Floodplains. Once built, they immediately add +3 food (technically +4 for Marshes) which means that a single tile with a Polder grants 5 food. As you yourself stated, more food is more science and more specialists, and the Polder makes up for the rarity where it can be built by being so ridiculously powerful once constructed (that +1 Production and +2 Gold post-Economics is just a little extra goodness.) You need 3 mountains adjacent to a riverside hill tile for the Terrace Farm to grant the same amount of food prior to Fertilizer, and that's a condition far rarer than a Marsh or Floodplain. And sure, you can spam Terrace Farms on hills not adjacent to mountains - for a 1 food, 2 hammer tile. An improved Sheep tile is better than that (even after Fertilizer), and it just isn't worth sacrificing the extra hammers. Also, in the games I've played as the Inca, if I'm lucky I'll get one or maybe two hills near my start, and those are rarely near mountains, so, like with the Polder, you pretty much need to wait until your second city to start building these tile improvements to any advantage.
Now, I still don't understand this argument that the Terrace Farm synergizes well with the Incan UA. Yes, it certainly synergizes better than the Dutch UA and the Polder, but that still isn't saying much - the Incan UA lets you move onto a hill tile and start a Terrace Farm in the same turn, but that's it. Like I mentioned a few pages back, the Terrace Farm and Incan UA synergize like the Moai and the Polynesian UA - your start bias will, in theory, allow you to build more of these improvements, but otherwise...?
So yes, the Inca can put out vast amounts of food and Production very quickly - given the very specific proper conditions. In regards their UI, they're simply no better than the Dutch.