Another useless quest

[Bushface]

After getting two impossible Holy Mountain quests in earlier games, I've just been given the "Best Defence" one (strangely named, since it is well known that attack is the best form of defence). This asks me to build 11 Castles. Oh, har har har. Useless ! Why ?
(a) I have only 13 cities, of which 3 are new and hence producing 5 hammers or less, each. But I do have 2 Castles already, so I'd have to build another 9 Walls and Castles before getting Rifling or Railroad or Economics; at the very best, I could perhaps finish castle #9 in about 25 turns.
(b) I shall finish Economics in three turns.
(c) The reward is CG1 for my melee units; great ! That would affect both my ancient Warriors, an Axeman, and two Macemen who both have CR2; the rest of my army is Longbowmen and Knights. I don't give a hoot for the +3 foreign relations, though I wouldn't object to the +25 EPs from my Great Wall, especially if that is "per turn" and not just a one-off boost - I don't expect ever to know which.

Too much to do for too little, too late.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The reward with the GW is per turn. Got that quest once with Spain which was very handy especially as the GW was in the same city as my settled GSpy and SY.

 

[Rusty Edge]

After getting two impossible Holy Mountain quests in earlier games, I've just been given the "Best Defence" one (strangely named, since it is well known that attack is the best form of defence). This asks me to build 11 Castles. Oh, har har har. Useless ! Why ?
(a) I have only 13 cities, of which 3 are new and hence producing 5 hammers or less, each. But I do have 2 Castles already, so I'd have to build another 9 Walls and Castles before getting Rifling or Railroad or Economics; at the very best, I could perhaps finish castle #9 in about 25 turns.
(b) I shall finish Economics in three turns.
(c) The reward is CG1 for my melee units; great ! That would affect both my ancient Warriors, an Axeman, and two Macemen who both have CR2; the rest of my army is Longbowmen and Knights. I don't give a hoot for the +3 foreign relations, though I wouldn't object to the +25 EPs from my Great Wall, especially if that is "per turn" and not just a one-off boost - I don't expect ever to know which.

Too much to do for too little, too late.

A lot of life is timing, and a lot of CIV is situational.
Sometimes a quest triggers too late to be practical.
Maybe that's why they're called "quests" rather than "investments"

Of course, if you want to prolong an era ( for whatever reason) you can often switch to another tech just before your research is completed or change the sliders.

As a trade route junky, I don't mind building castles.


The only two quests I don't go for anymore are "The Blessed Sea", and "The Holy Mountain" , otherwise I indulge my sense of adventure and immersion.
If it sets my plans back, so be it- it adds to the late game suspense.

 

[Charonicus]

Ditto. I had that one recently. +25 EP per turn, in a city with the great wall, two GS and waiting on the Kremlin. 'Tis a nice boost.
+3 with all leaders would be handy if you're going for a diplo win.
CG for melee units is lame though. I had longbows and musketmen on defense duty.

 

[Crighton]

could be worse, I tend to get the chariot building quest all the time (I don't use chariots much, if at all) so for me it's another wasted quest.

 

[Bad Brett]

(c) The reward is CG1 for my melee units; great !

Actually it is. What do you do with CR melee units? You upgrade them to riflemen and attack the opponent before he gets riflemen, allowing you to conquer entire empires in a few turns even on Immortal! By completing this quest, your entire industrial era military force is now able to defend newly captured cities...! I wouldn't want to be your enemy in a multiplayer game, I tell you that!

You could also build some new Macemen without promoting them and wait for rifling, allowing you to get CG2 or CG3 rifleman.

Even though this seems worthless, there are still ways to make this really effective. If you are protective and uses trade routes a lot, this may definately be worth doing, however in most cases, it is not.

 

[GooglyBoogly]

The reward is also great for upgrading macemen into machine guns -5xp for CgIII OWNS

 

[^alon^]

useless indeed......