All Civ 4 BTS buildings ranked and explained - Henrik

[BornInCantaloup]

I didn't know about getting the commerce bonuses on those builds instead of hammer bonuses. That would seem to suggest building a market is kind of a prerequisite to building wealth in Vanilla?

The wording in the posts you refer to may have lacked in precision.
The answer is : no. If you're building whatever, including wealth/science/culture, only hammer multipliers are taken into account (and wealth does not count as Buildings for Org Rel bonuses .)

Also, I've been baffled at the Monument tier position. I'd probably rate it class D or so. I'll certainly build more Markets than Monuments in a regular game

Dang that seems like a high maintenance threshold for a courthouse

The reason to build Courthouses/Markets has probably more to do with what you are doing/planning at the moment than it has to do with their costs. Also, city sizes and happy caps.
Those are the types of buildings that you can consider when you are exceeding your happy cap and
Certainly, when you are not gearing for war.
If you are gearing for war, then the return from a Market/Courthouse does not have time to pay off,
Even worse, if you whip the building (which you should), then you lose pop that should have been whipped towards units.
In this case, building Wealth/Science may bring limited benefits but preserves the production for military units.
It's really about timelines and what you're doing. Do you need to grow ? Do you need to preserve the population ('cause war is impending) ?

If you're in a recovery phase because you invaded a neighbour and tanked your economy, whipping mass courthouses could be perfectly fine. Working commerce would always be better. Having higher pop would always be better (cap dependent). Depending on whether a city is more hammer/commerce inclined, then a courthouse or multiplier buildings (market/library) might prove better).

 

[pigswill]

Regarding markets its also a consideration that in the late game fur, ivory and whale all become obsolete (combustion, indus, plastics) so they only give +1 happy for wine.

 

[sampsa]

Also, I've been baffled at the Monument tier position.

Well, it's not like it's a great building and has a very short window, but on the instances you (need to) build it, it is very useful. It's relatively high on my list even if I build 1 monument per game on average, because many other buildings make no real impact in the game.

 

[Fippy]

CHA monuments i would prolly even rate A tier.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Well, it's not like it's a great building and has a very short window, but on the instances you (need to) build it, it is very useful. It's relatively high on my list even if I build 1 monument per game on average, because many other buildings make no real impact in the game.

That sounds fair
Although I suppose most of us do our best to tweak the city dotmap so that Monuments are a last resort consideration. I will often go out of my way to rush a Library instead of a Monument, if the hammer situation allows it (a couple of chops and a hammer special - leaving the question of Library or Granary first). If several cities are concerned, delaying the "Monument cities" until after 1000 BC, settling them in a wave and going for a Caste System switch is obviously a much better investment.
You get what I'm saying. When there are alternatives, the alternatives are better. And it can be really crippling to have to build a Monument in, say, city 2 or 3. These are really not desirable buildings early on.
We can use the expanding borders of another city that actually produces culture to claim that extra tile. We can set up cities 3 tiles away to set that tile in a 2nd ring, etc.

But yes, once in a while, the Monument will serve its purpose and help city 4-5 claim that fish (but could a Library be built instead ? Ha !).

CHA monuments i would prolly even rate A tier.

Sure ^^

 

[6K Man]

Dang that seems like a high maintenance threshold for a courthouse

About 12. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Building wealth can be more efficient a lot of the time. And there are always other factors like whipping off unhappy people into a courthouse, Organized trait, map size and number of cities. And if you're playing with Corporations, Courthouses are more or less mandatory IMO.

 

[mycophobia]

The wording in the posts you refer to may have lacked in precision.
The answer is : no. If you're building whatever, including wealth/science/culture, only hammer multipliers are taken into account (and wealth does not count as Buildings for Org Rel bonuses .)

I'm talking about Vanilla. Like, Vanilla Vanilla, no expansions. It seems to me like it does just add half your base hammers to your base wealth/science/culture as if you were pulling it from commerce yield, after which market/library/whatever bonuses apply, forges and stuff don't affect it.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

I'm talking about Vanilla. Like, Vanilla Vanilla, no expansions. It seems to me like it does just add half your base hammers to your base wealth/science/culture as if you were pulling it from commerce yield, after which market/library/whatever bonuses apply, forges and stuff don't affect it.

This is my bad, then. I had not gathered that. I have no information about Vanilla.

 

[sampsa]

Maybe it would not be a horrible way to balance the game to cut build wealth/research to 50% and do the same to fail gold. However, it not only makes buildings somewhat better, but also makes things like rivers, cottages, FIN way better.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Failgold : should not exist.
For National Wonders, plan better.
For World Wonders, spy better. Maybe add a "failed wonder" building to the city? +3 unhappiness, 1 free engineer specialist.

Build wealth/research/culture (why can't you build espionnage by the way?): this is one of the limitations of the "build queue" design. Your city must build something, all the time, and at some point you simply run out of useful stuff to build. Replacing the "build queue" design should probably have been one of the things the designers of CivNext should have focussed on.
Good old MOO "reserve building" was a nice idea, but here it would just postpone the issue: at some point, all of your cities run out of useful stuff yo build, so back to square one... Still would probably be the best alternative to wealth/research.

 

[Fippy]

High level play (i can only speak for deity) would be so so boring without failgold.
"spy better" is no option, at all. You can never put enuf espio into AIs to know who builds which wonder.

This would only result in 2 traits getting even stronger: PHI & FIN
(cos they are reliable big boosts)
..and IND being pretty bad.

And someone might get lucky with getting a wonder, while another player (on a map used for friendly competition etc) has an AI randomly start that wonder much earlier..
and gets nothing.

Failgold perfectly balances "more cities, more cottages, more bulbs" vs trying something like Pyras.
Teching masonry & settling a bad long-term city with stone.
We wouldn't try that anymore if we can be left very empty-handed.

 

[Thrasybulos]

Sorry for the confusion, by "spy" I don't mean using the espionnage system.
I mean stuff we're already doing: do they have a good coastal production city (ie, can I delay the GLH)? Do they have Nationalism + Marble? That kind of stuff... Plus why not a spy unit in their city building the wonder in case of an actual race.

Failgold is an example of a complete design failure: it was meant to answer the complaint of people who felt frustrated being left empty-handed after a failed wonder race.
... and it turned into a core system exploited for high level strategies, supplanting what was meant to be the core system. Intentionnally failing wonders is not how you're supposed to keep your economy afloat.
I suppose you could turn this around and call it a great design success: players have found an unintended way to use the system to develop new strategies and take the game further.

But I know my remark was kinda off-topic.
Sampsa was talking about tweaking the actual system, I'm talking about changing it. So... not the same subject, really.

This would only result in 2 traits getting even stronger: PHI & FIN
(cos they are reliable big boosts)
..and IND being pretty bad.

That's with the current system.
Industrious could be changed to adapt along. Make industrious the only way to get failgold, make building a wonder provide GE points when industrious, etc...

 

[antimony]

I think it's great that WastinTime's legendary BC space game was possible with clever usage of the game's more quirky rules, and left such a strong impression on people, but you cannot take that particular strategy out of the context. The context was a HoF start using the absolutely unbalanced quechua rush on marathon speed. Failgold is not the unbalanced part of this.

 

[Fippy]

Imo failgold isn't a core system.
(antimony just posted something too )

Even if i get ~1k for failgolding let's say Moai,
it's still "only" like a Great Merchant mission.

I see failgold as another "clever option" but it's rarely part of a main strategy.
There's only 1 tech line where it can really shine: Aest & Literature.
In Isolation that can be really good. Or you might wait forever until somebody builds Parthenon etc. and your finally arrives..
which is fun

 

[Thrasybulos]

We're basically talking past each other.

My bad, shouldn't have gone off on a tangent. Let's not hijack this any further.

 

[Fippy]

No worries..any activity is good here

 

[civac]

The failgold system is a great way to alleviate the issues with losing wonder races. (In older games you could switch from one world wonder to another without cost. Failgold is better by a lot.)

Now national wonders are a different matter. The argument they should not grant fail gold is much stronger for them. It's also quite reasonable to demand a world wonder can only generate failgold in one city.

 

[6K Man]

Failgold is an example of a complete design failure: it was meant to answer the complaint of people who felt frustrated being left empty-handed after a failed wonder race.

The failgold system is a great way to alleviate the issues with losing wonder races. (In older games you could switch from one world wonder to another without cost. Failgold is better by a lot.)

Do we actually know these things, though?

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Dang that seems like a high maintenance threshold for a courthouse

Courthouses are mostly for colonial maintenance.

///

There are technologies that improve the base yield of tile improvements. For example, guilds increases the production yield of workshops. Biology increases the food yield of farms.

One option is to "build wealth" or "build research" to reach those technologies sooner.

The payoff period for city improvements have to be short enough to help you reach those technologies sooner.

 

[mycophobia]

Maybe it would not be a horrible way to balance the game to cut build wealth/research to 50% and do the same to fail gold. However, it not only makes buildings somewhat better, but also makes things like rivers, cottages, FIN way better.

I feel like the more significant component of the difference in building wealth/research/culture in Vanilla is that the wealth/research/culture bonuses apply to the base hammers instead of the production bonus of forges, etc. Likely that shakes out to mean you'd run research more than wealth since you're more likely to have a library than a market but it probably makes the lesser built buildings at least a little more attractive, wouldn't it? Observatories, universities, etc