Question about Legalism

[PoweredBySoy]

So a free culture building in your first 4 cities. If your city already has a Monument, and you pop Legalism before you research Philosophy (a very common timing), your city seems to get nothing.

I used to think, a couple patches ago, that once you researched Temples then you would get a Temple proactively, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

If you choose Legalism while your city(s) have Monuments, do you get nothing then?

[Glassmage]

If you have monument and Temple available to be built then Legalism chosen then Temples will be free.
If you have monument and NO Temple available to be built then Legalism chosen then you get nothing!

[Gali]

If you don't have an available culture building when you pop legalism, you don't get a free building in that city. That city does not count toward your 4 city total, however.

[PoweredBySoy]

Originally Posted by Gali

That city does not count toward your 4 city total, however.

Ah, so it's not your first 4 cities, but more the first 4 cities where a culture building is immediately available.

[cccv]

Let me pile another question onto this one-- do puppet cities count? Right now I have one built city and all the rest are puppets. I'm afraid to pick legalism because I'm not sure if it will give me anything or not.

[kaltorak]

really? And if you don't have 4 cities when you get legalism, but you build them later?

[anandus]

So if I have philosophy and 4 cities with each a monument in it and I choose legalism, then I instantly get a temple in each city?
I thought it would be in the first 4 cities you'd built after chosing legalism.
(As you can guess I've never chosen legalism :P )

And does it also count for UB's? (eg. mud pyramids instead of temples in the above example? Which would mean a +16 (4x4) culture per turn bonus?)

[bhavv]

Its never a common thing for me because I know how to set up 4 cities with monuments before reaching philosophy and taking legalism.

If you find it that common that taking legalism gets you nothing, then why exactly are you taking the policy if you dont have your cities set up to take advantage?

The 4 free temples / burial tombs / Pyramid mosques are a hugely powerful boost early on, they get your culture developing really strong, and you can also fill the artist slots right away for even more culture.

Originally Posted by anandus

And does it also count for UB's?

Yes. And it also works on Siam's Wats providing that you have every culture building before it built in your first 4 cities.

[PoweredBySoy]

Originally Posted by bhavv

The 4 free temples / burial tombs / Pyramid mosques are a hugely powerful boost early on, they get your culture developing really strong, and you can also fill the artist slots right away for even more culture.

Well sure it is, but you have to go out of your way - like avoid Legalism - in order to set that scenario up. If your strategy is Tradition, then that's not really feasible. 4 instant Temples is also a good way to temporarily crash your economy.

[bryanw1995]

If 4 temples crash your economy then you need to drop back down to settler for some more strategai-planning sessions. The benefits of 4 very early temples + the artist slot for each is enormous, and you can of course build a synergy with this and a piety track immediately afterwards. I keep telling myself that I'll take piety but rationalism is just so much more important post-patch imho. My overall science boost from rationalism being completed in the early 200's is around 50%, plus you get almost as much happiness as piety, more beakers from RA's, and the last policy is quite possibly the best in the game.

[guenzak]

So, if you have monuments already but not philosophy for temples then Legalism gives you nothing?

If you have monuments AND philosophy then you get temples free?

If you only have say 2 cities and take legalism will monuments automatically appear in the next 2 new cities when you settle them?

Still real confused as to the mechanics of this

THX

[PoweredBySoy]

Originally Posted by bryanw1995

If 4 temples crash your economy then you need to drop back down to settler for some more strategai-planning sessions.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn

[bryanw1995]

Sorry, that was rude. A better way to say it would have been " 20 /t is worth a lot more than 8 gpt, especially in the early game or a cultural game. If you are correctly settling on/selling resources/luxuries you should have way more than enough gold to cover the 8gpt."

And if you grab monarchy + piety soon afterwards with your cultural bonanza then you can kiss any early game problems goodbye while you're at it.

[joyous_gard]

Originally Posted by guenzak

Still real confused as to the mechanics of this

I'll second this. Puppets get them? Do your next cities get a monument? It's not clear.

[ywhtptgtfo]

Originally Posted by bryanw1995

If 4 temples crash your economy then you need to drop back down to settler for some more strategai-planning sessions. The benefits of 4 very early temples + the artist slot for each is enormous, and you can of course build a synergy with this and a piety track immediately afterwards. I keep telling myself that I'll take piety but rationalism is just so much more important post-patch imho. My overall science boost from rationalism being completed in the early 200's is around 50%, plus you get almost as much happiness as piety, more beakers from RA's, and the last policy is quite possibly the best in the game.

I am not sure about you, but I rarely get the chance to take advantage of the 4 free culture buildings, since I usually rush buy them whenever I have the gold (and no commerce building to purchase).

I agree that rationalism can be very powerful, but it also comes very late. I don't know about Emperor difficulty or above, but even at King, the game's usually decided at late Medieval period for single player. It's probably decided even before that in MP. So by the time rationalism is half completed, the game's usually over. The advantage of RA is even more diminished in MP, since human players will probably think twice about doing an RA with someone with rationalism.

The advantage of taking piety is that it offers a great deal of benefits at a deciding period of the game, especially in early wars.

[bhavv]

Originally Posted by bryanw1995

If 4 temples crash your economy then you need to drop back down to settler for some more strategai-planning sessions.

The 4 free temples have never crashed my economy, I get them in every single game I play now and enjoy the massive culture boost I get with them and the artists.

Originally Posted by PoweredBySoy

Well sure it is, but you have to go out of your way - like avoid Legalism - in order to set that scenario up. If your strategy is Tradition, then that's not really feasible.

Do people actually fill out the Tradition policy tree first? I never have to go out of my way to avoid legalism just for 4 free temples, I normally take Tradition > Liberty > Citizenship > Collective Rule > Legalism. This is plenty of time to have 4 cities put up with a monument built first in each, and the free culture, worker and settler from those first four policies are far more useful than anything in the tradition tree other than the opener are.

The only limiting factor to this approach is not having space for 4 cities, but really if you havnt got space for 4 cities this early on in the game, you had terrible luck on your map generation.

Both Monarchy and Collective rule look completely poop to me now, the only policy I like in the tradition tree is Legalism. Everything in Liberty is a lot nicer to have first before filling tradition.

[PoweredBySoy]

Maybe you noobs should turn barbs back on then. Hahahaa.... no barbs.

[bhavv]

My barbs are always on, ancient ruins are not.

You only need 2 warriors to deal with all the barb spawns.

Another thing to point out -

If you are aiming to fill the tradition policy tree asap, you can take Legalism as your second policy and have it give you a free monument in your first four cities. But I dont see why anyone would do this instead of getting the free worker and settler from liberty first instead.

If you have actually built 4 monuments already, not reached philosophy and pick legalism after that, you've done something very wrong, and need to improve your strategy. You havnt tried to fill out the tradition tree as fast as you can because theres no way you can have 4 cities with monuments before your second or even third policy pick, and if you've built 4 cities with monuments and havnt yet taken legalism, then you must have already been avoiding it to be able to reach this point without taking legalism, in which case you should be teching for philosophy ASAP before taking legalism.

Theres nothing difficult about this strategy at all, its easy peasy to pull off on every difficulty level.

I set up an example game if you want to try it out - 4 cities placed by 2675 bc building monuments first, and then I train a couple of warriors in cities 3 + 4:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Policy path - Tradition > Liberty > Collective Rule so far, then Citizenship > Legalism.

Research path - Mining > Pottery > Calendar > Writing > Philosophy

[Polycrates]

So four free temples is awesome, granted. BUT, as pointed out here, you have to delay a while and really work to make the stars align to get them in reasonable time. This is particularly problematic when you want to rush through Tradition to get its very strong finisher. Last game I took Aristocracy and Oligarchy first and then the piety opener while I waited to get Philosophy and some monuments up (caveat: Philosophy was delayed by the Hanging Gardens). And I really wonder whether it was worth all the mucking around (and I still only got three temples - if you're taking Tradition, you're unlikely to be expanding to four cities that quickly).

I'm tempted to think you're going to get far more overall advantage by taking Legalism straight away and getting those monuments early. It's very quick to get to the second Tradition policy now, so you could easily delay the monument in the capital and build something else instead. And by not having to build a monument in new cities you get them up and running significantly quicker, and that's going to give you some really big turn advantage (you could buy them, granted, but now you get the monument and can buy e.g. a granary instead). Is a temple as good as accelerating a new city's development by that much? I don't think so, personally.
The other advantage is that you're generating more culture earlier, getting more policies more quickly - particularly Monarchy (or the piety opener so you can build those temples more quickly)
With the finishers, I don't think dabbling in multiple trees at once is the smart move it once was. If you're planning on going Tradition + Liberty, I can definitely see going for Tradition opening then Liberty then Legalism, but if you're focusing on Tradition, I reckon going straight for Legalism might be the smart move.

[bhavv]

If you want to fill Tradition first, then use legalism for free monuments.

If all you want to take from Tradition is legalism, save it for free temples.

I havnt yet changed my strategy with the latest patch to include building the Hanging Gardens, thats something I should really try to do, if its possible.