Legalism bug or feature with BNW?

I have a legalism strategy with Songhai, where I build 4 monuments and 4 shrines in my first 4 cities to get 4 free mud pyramid mosques. In the past, as long as the monuments were already built, it didn't matter when I got the required tech or policy, and I could also build the shrines after both the tech/policy were selected and the free building would appear.

In my latest game, I didn't have the final shrine built in my 4th city but I did have a monument in it when I got the policy and tech required. My 1st 3 cities all got the free building, but the mud pyramid mosque didn't appear in 4th city until several turns later, and I couldn't figure out what the condition was for it to appear.

Is there an extra condition I am missing, or did I experience a bug? The 3rd option is I am completely crazy, but this was a 3x3 multiplayer skirmish game with classical start, and I shared with my teammates as the game progressed.

On classical start I find this strategy effective with Songhai, as the +8 early faith (2 per city x4) ensures early religion (and +8 culture very nice, as amps are totally nerfed now.) Liberty to settler policy, trad to legalism, arrives just in time for last shrine finishing up usually.

Mud Pyramid Mosque is not a culture building. If you have build Monuments, you will get an Amphitheatre when and only when you research Drama and Poetry. Shrines don't influence Legalism as these are religious buildings.

Nice strategy. I have not played as Songhai yet, but when I do I will be sure to take a page out of your playbook. My main problem with it is I rarely build 4 cities in the classical era, so it may not work as well.

I like strategic choice of legalism to get free buildings, even when I am going wide down the liberty tree.

kaspergm said:

Mud Pyramid Mosque is not a culture building. If you have build Monuments, you will get an Amphitheatre when and only when you research Drama and Poetry. Shrines don't influence Legalism as these are religious buildings.

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?

Mud Pyramid Mosques provide culture. (Since G&K, they are temples that also provide culture. In Vanilla, back when temples only provided culture, the MPM provided extra culture).

They should count for Legalism just like how Wats (unique Universities which provide culture) do.

Halcyan2 said:

?

Mud Pyramid Mosques provide culture. (Since G&K, they are temples that also provide culture. In Vanilla, back when temples only provided culture, the MPM provided extra culture).

They should count for Legalism just like how Wats (unique Universities which provide culture) do.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's how the policy works. I'm pretty sure it's coded to give you the first building not build from the list Monument > Amphitheatre > Opera House > Museum > Broadcast Tower (or possibly unique equivalents). Even though Mud Pyramid Mosques do provide culture, they still belong to the religious building line being a replacement for the Temple, and thus I would belief it should not trigger with this policy.

kaspergm said:

Correct me if I'm wrong

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yes, you're wrong. any building that provide culture is eligible for legalism. the code chooses buildings with the least production cost first. this works even if you modded a building to generate culture, or even mod in a new building.

Ok I stand corrected then! Thanx for clarifying this for me.

Getting MPM with legalism is a waste of a policy, since MPM's are already maintenance free,

Yeah, Siam's Wats are good for this too.

I'm not sure about the Songhai though, part of the benefit of legalism is that the building is maintenance free. Isn't it kind of wasted on the maintenance free mud pyramid? I know you get them sooner but the long term benefits are pretty much tossed out the window.

JanghanHong said:

Getting MPM with legalism is a waste of a policy, since MPM's are already maintenance free,

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Yep. This doesn't help the OP's problem, though, and whether it is or is not a bug, but this is worth keeping in mind.

Out of curiosity, if you take choral music as a belief can you get free temples in cities that meet the req. for the culture?

JanghanHong said:

Getting MPM with legalism is a waste of a policy, since MPM's are already maintenance free,

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This is a skirmish team game classical start, every turn is critical. The 4 free buildings and +8 faith +8 culture is a big deal. These games turn into total war quickly and do not play like FFA.

There's a huge diffrence between building the four pyramids AND insta-getting them by Legalism fyi.

Silverfuturist said:

This is a skirmish team game classical start, every turn is critical. The 4 free buildings and +8 faith +8 culture is a big deal. These games turn into total war quickly and do not play like FFA.

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Ok that makes more sense in that context.

VicRatlhead5199 said:

Yeah, Siam's Wats are good for this too.

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I used to do this all the time before BNW. However, in BNW, mixing liberty and tradition only seems to work for me when I have Poland or some exceptional game condition. I prefer to finish tradition ASAP in FFA, maybe have 1 policy before rationalism or sometimes go trad right to rationalism if Ren era hit soon enough. The free and maint free Wats don't seem to make up for the extra policy cost combined with late tradition finisher and delayed rationalism.

Perhaps somebody can devise an FFA strategy to make this all work, I imagine it requires Oracle but if Oracle missed it might be a huge setback. In MP Oracle hard to get unless you have some kind of edge (same with popular wonders like HG and GL, the risk to go for them just so high unless you can be confident to get them.)

You didnt have shrine in your fourth city when you took legalism? MPM appears only after you build shrine

BlackWizard said:

You didnt have shrine in your fourth city when you took legalism? MPM appears only after you build shrine

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Correct. Tried it again today with Merle having Songhai in a 2x2 ancient skirmish teamer. We had the tech, he picked the policy, had monuments in his cities, and the turn after he built the shrines, the MPM appeared. It was nice, he got religion quickly after that while both teams were going almost all units, if he had to fit 4 extra buildings in his build order he would not have survived the onslaught.

While it is a bummer that because they have no maint cost, getting them without maint cost seems like a "waste" to answer a prev post, the fact is that +4 yield (2 cult 2 faith) is so much better than a +1 yield for a free building (monu or amp) that we just suck it up and enjoy our free +16 yield from 1 policy, hammer-free.