Amazingly bad buildings?

[Inspiration]

You do realize that you mention only 2-3 buildings per city while there are what... around 25 different buildings in the game? Also once your empire grows with more cities, you'll notice you only build a few of the same buildings in each of them apart from those cities you already mentioned.

Let me ask you a different question. Where is the logic in limiting the buildings in your empire? Or at least in this degree? Did the Roman Empire only have a market place and university in a few key production cities? You got to admit the maintaining-cities-part in Civ4 had a closer resemblance to how past empires were run.

Not to mention how unrealistic the effects would be on happiness in an actual empire... it has been mentioned how in Civ4 buildings had a high ROI. Hammer-wise I might agree, but it just makes more sense if a marketplace around 1000AD gives extra happiness as well as increased commerce. Universities do spread culture as well as increased education... etc.

In fact I think in Civ4 they should have given buildings even more importance. Not building a hospital in modern age? Happiness penalty just like emancipation civic.

 

[ashmizen]

Realism should not be the focus, just fun. In a realistic game you would have to build every single building in every single city, as that is how modern cities (or even ancient Romen/Chinese cities) worked. And that's just very tedious and unstratigic.

I do agree, though, that so many buildings are NOT worth it. The only times I find myself building any buildings beyond the basics (market, monument, library, maybe a bank) is when I'm REALLY ahead, in which case I start spamming buildings just because I don't need to build any more units and have so much gold income (200+!) that I don't care about maintance. In other words, already won the game.

 

[Rashiminos]

There is no reason to build a granary until you have every single CS on the map on your side. It gives a vastly better rate of return.

What if no maritime CSs are in your part of the world?

 

[Uncle_Joe]

Honestly I thought a lot of the buildings were pretty poor ROI too, but as I've played later into the games, I've begun to revise my opinion on a lot of them.

The ability to create specialists alone makes many of them useful. When your cities start getting up into the 14+ pop range, you want to be able to make specialists. Great People come an awful lot faster in Civ5 and each one is 3-4 turns of Golden Age (depending on if you have Chicken Pizza or not). And 3 turns of Golden Age is worth a LOT of money AND hammers...easily enough to help pay off the maintenance on many of those builds with room to spare.

At the beginning of the game when you are struggling for cash, many of them are just a drag on your econ, but that changes once you hit critical mass and cash is no longer really as much of a limiting factor. I found that time started to become more important than money (and often returned money anyways) so things like Workshops suddenly started looking appealing. Even Hospitals and Med Centers have their uses...those cities grow FAST and that means more Trade Route value, more specialists so more Golden Ages, and more science as well.

I wish more of the buildings pulled a little more 'double duty' (Stable/Harbor could maybe add some XP to mounted/naval unit etc), but I'm far less skeptical of the building/wonder balance now that I've played a handful of games out to conclusion.

 

[Uncle_Joe]

There is no reason to build a granary until you have every single CS on the map on your side. It gives a vastly better rate of return.

And if they aren't closeby, it's a pretty good chance that another AI nation will eventually punch out those CS's and leave you strapped for food. Dont get me wrong, I think the Maritime CS's are probably a little bit too good (especially compared to the others), but they aren't the end all be all that many people are touting.

Now what would be fun would be if you could blockade the transfer of Culture/Food from those cities if they had to trace by sea...

 

[strollen]

You do realize that you mention only 2-3 buildings per city while there are what... around 25 different buildings in the game? Also once your empire grows with more cities, you'll notice you only build a few of the same buildings in each of them apart from those cities you already mentioned.

Let me ask you a different question. Where is the logic in limiting the buildings in your empire? Or at least in this degree? Did the Roman Empire only have a market place and university in a few key production cities? You got to admit the maintaining-cities-part in Civ4 had a closer resemblance to how past empires were run.

Not to mention how unrealistic the effects would be on happiness in an actual empire... it has been mentioned how in Civ4 buildings had a high ROI. Hammer-wise I might agree, but it just makes more sense if a marketplace around 1000AD gives extra happiness as well as increased commerce. Universities do spread culture as well as increased education... etc.

In fact I think in Civ4 they should have given buildings even more importance. Not building a hospital in modern age? Happiness penalty just like emancipation civic.

I went and checked I have a total of 33 buildings and 5 wonders in my 6 cities by 1450. I am not sure that I'm going to get any more cities. I may annex Rome and Tokyo after I conquer them. . By this stage in Civ IV virtually every core city would have a temple, library, granary, forge, marketplace, courthouse and most cases a monastery. Some cities would have a barracks, stable, lighthouse, harbor, perhaps a theater or aqueduct where needed . I would actively be building University, Bank, and probably a Grocery in all core cities. I am guessing that by this stage in Civ IV I'd have 50-60 buildings. So roughly 50% to twice as many building as a Civ V.

My objection to Civ IV is that because the buildings are so good, I suspect that 90% of the good Civ IV players would agree with my list as must have for core cities. With the only disagreements being if you don't need happiness why build a temple and if you are running at 80+% science why build a marketplace. Obviously the conquest players would laugh and say forget buildings make an army. The fact that us builder agree makes it a not a very interesting strategy discussion. The only disagreement is the order of builds not the value of these core buildings.

In Civ V rather than having too few choices of good building, I am finding the opposite problem. I want to have a University, and Bank, and Colosseum in all of my cities because they are worthwhile buildings. My problems is I have to prioritize between these three (and a bunch of other buildings). If I don't have banks, I now I'll run out of money in a 1a few hundred years as army and maintenance cost increases, but if I don't build the university my science will stall. Finally I only have 3 happiness so must increase this with a Colosseum or I'll stop growing. Gosh there just isn't enough hammers to go around, forcing me to make tough strategic choices. I think is the essence of a good strategy game which is what Sid said.

You may right from an historical perspective, although I have seen plenty of the ruins of Roman baths all over there empire, I have never seen a Roman University ruin. Where is one. I also think there is only one Colosseum. Not mention Rome is a unfair example because of the special ability makes easier for them to duplicate buildings

Now I forget to add. I think the game would be enhance by lower the hammer cost of all the non science building (which all have 50% bonus larger than Civ IV) by 10% or so. I also agree mostly with particularly bad building posted by the OP. I think these would need to be cheaper and/or enhanced to make them worth building on a fairly regular basis. Overall I think the goal for Civ buildings is that all of the building should be worth building some of the time, and none or at least only a few should be worth building all of the time.

 

[need my speed]

There ae multiple amphitheatres though. Like, there is 1 Sistine Chapel, there are multiple cathedrals. And universities didn't exist back then (well, not our kind of universities).

 

[Inspiration]

Realism should not be the focus, just fun.

Of course I understand this is a game and should be around fun, and should not have a full realistic approach to it. But when you play the game and you constantly think "eh why is this happening" or "why can't I do this" or "this doesn't make any sense at all" it really takes away from your gaming experience. And thus from the fun I get from it.

And all of the fun of building and micromanaging your empire is gone in CIV5.
Love the hexes, love the 1UPT (for combat units) but the rest if just a constant annoying realization of what this game could have been.

 

[nebux]

i'm a long time player of civilization series, i have played all apart the first one. i do like and enjoy most of civ 5 aspect of the game, but as you all say in this post most of the buildings and wonders are useless. the reason for this, in my opinion, is very simple: make civ 5 playable on XBOX. that's why they destroyed the game. and that is the reason for most of latest game made with idea of a game-port

 

[bruntfca]

I assumed this thread refered to the graphics, well these are pretty terrible for the City buildings.

The are also terrible for the trading camp buildings, which by end-game make your eyes bleed and make invisible any unit standing on top of the trading camp.

 

[TheLean]

I like the new system. It makes me really have to think in which city to put what buildings. Unis are not useless for example if you have a research city, and if you have a military production city things like stables, granaries armories etc becomes important.

I think buildings becomes more important if you have smaller empires with fewer cities, where each city needs to be quite awesome. I really like firaxis making buildings more "optional" than essential. Look at a moden day town for example, cities with 100K of inhabitants doesnt always have their own uni.

 

[teks]

yeah this is a big problem at the moment, and I think it's the cause of a lot of hate.

My biggest concern here in the middle ages is money, so I don't know what to build. Every building costs 2-3 maintence, research is going by fast enough already. I cannot afford new units, so I don't know what to build...

 

[Thalassicus]

The ability to create specialists alone makes many of them useful.

True to some degree, though the total possible number of specialists you can have in a city feels much more limited now than in IV.

 

[MadRat]

One thing I haven't number crunched, is the actual benefit of a particular building contingent on a full set of specialists or is that just a bonus? For example if I put in a market do i get the full stated (tooltip/civilopedia) bonus or just a fraction of it, with no specialist in it.

Rat

 

[Rohili]

Is it really that bad to have cultural buildings that are only really useful if you want culture? Not everyone wins via domination you know...

Exactly. Even when I am not aiming for a cultural victory, I still spam cultural buildings because I love getting new policies every 10 turns even with a large empire. Some of the policies are pretty awesome and compensate for the maintenance costs of the culture buildings.