Ancient and Classical buildings Elimination Thread

[canadamufc]

Amphitheater (17)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (6) (9-3) I am convinced this is the worst classical era building. An arena, I maybe build. A consulate, I maybe build. This? I never build because the other 2 options are better in every situation. Also, the bonuses aren't that great if you're playing tall anyways. It provides amenities but they're not so hard to come by, and the Arena also did but it was eliminated. Housing isn't even hard to come by anyways. A granary and sewer gives the exact same housing. Let alone the loyalty debuff, this is really bad. Especially compared to Ancestral Hall and Warlords Throne, this doesn't stand a chance.
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (14)
Lighthouse (23)
Library (21)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (21) The key to religious victories. Excellent faith income and the ability to buy apostles secures it a good spot. Also, it opens up more of a relic play as well.
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (9)

 

[hhhhhh]

Amphitheater (17)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (6)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (11) (14-3) I have to admit I never built this but part of the reason is that I don't find a compelling reason to build it.
Lighthouse (23)
Library (21)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (21)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10) (9+1) Certainly it's not for every city, but if you settle cities with several rice and wheat etc. then this is great. Only upvoting because I think it's a bit undervalued. BTW there's 80-96 science associate to building one Water Mill (eureka for Construction, which cost 200-240 science), which makes building the first one more valuable.

 

[TCBB]

(Temple should be on 22 after post #41)

Amphitheater (17)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (7) (6+1)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (8) (11-3)
Lighthouse (23)
Library (21)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10)

Audience Chamber (7) (6+1)
There's quite a lot to unpick in the previous downvote for Audience Chamber.

I never build because the other 2 options are better in every situation

I find this disingenuous. Playing a smaller map where you're unlikely to build many cities? Audience Chamber. Hemmed into the corner of a continent with no land to expand into, but you're playing a Civ who wants a peaceful game? Audience Chamber. Playing a Civ with incentives to play tall, such as Scotland, Korea, Kongo, Khmer, or Maya? Audience Chamber.

A granary and sewer gives the exact same housing

Okay, sure. But Sewers don't come online until much later. And surely the point is: essentially, the Audience Chamber provides a free Granary and Sewer in every city with a governor. No extra hammers needed.

An arena, I maybe build

It provides amenities but they're not so hard to come by, and the Arena also did but it was eliminated

Again: Arena provides only +1 amenity, and only after you've invested the hammers into an Entertainment Complex and the building itself. But once you've built the Audience Chamber once, it gives you +2 amenities for free in every city with a governor.

Like I said yesterday, I certainly agree that Audience Chamber is the weakest of the three Government Plaza buildings. But people are acting as if it's useless, which is plain wrong. There are many situations where you can get great use of Audience Chamber, and for several Civs it's the first-choice Government Plaza building. For it to be eliminated second in this thread would be kinda silly. It has very powerful bonuses for a certain type of (tall) gameplay; if you refuse to try that gameplay, then so be it, but that's on you.

Grove (8) (11-3)
I'll keep it short and simple: it can give nice yields, but this comes at the cost of a valuable early district slot. Nine times out of ten, you're probably better building a Campus, Holy Site, or Harbour/Comm.Hub.

 

[Leucarum]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (4)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (8)
Lighthouse (23)
Library (21)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10)

At an early point in the game you likely don't need the audience chamber (7-3) while later on tbe boosts you get aren't huge and can usually be gained by other means, allowing you to prioritize whichever of the other two options you prefer. Since it's always in competition with the other two options its utility is restricted to games where conquest/rapid expansion aren't on the menu. I have used it in a one city challenge though so I see the above post's points on tall play - it's not useless but significantly more restricted in its utility compared to 2 building it is mutually exclusive with which is why it got my downvote this time.

If you are going for a culture victory chances are you'll build a lot of ampitheaters, and building them earlier lets some tourism passively stack up as you siphon up the earliest great writers. Not as potent as it once was but still strong. As such the ampitheater (17+1) .

 

[kaspergm]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (1) (4-3) - Without argument the weaker of the three options, and up against two very strong picks. I have build this one or two times when I build GP very late game and have finished both warmongering and settling new cities, but overall I feel this building is bad. The malus may be insignificant but still feels completely unnecessary.
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (8)
Lighthouse (23)
Library (22) (21+1) - surprised this one doesn't have any more upvotes. Nothing too flashy about this building, but considering how key science is, it's still a fairly high priority building.
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10)

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (20)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (1)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (5) (8-3)
Lighthouse (24) (23+1)
Library (22)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10)

Grove: Downvoting only because of how long it takes the ROI Yields to establish itself as useful. Also, Appeal is not that easy to come by.

Lighthouse: One of the most essential Buildings you must get if you settle Coastally. It contrasts the Grove with the fact its ROI is useful right from the get-go.

 

[ezzlar]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17) -3
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (2) +1
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (5)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (17)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (10)

I usually play on duel maps with extra AI:s where the Ancestral Hall is worthless. Once I can build it all land is settled. Audience chamber is great for some extra happiness and pushing up a city or two to inspire Civil Service at pop 10.

 

[kryat]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (3) (2+1)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (5)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (22)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (7) (10-3)

Audience Chamber - I almost down voted this. But, as I thought about my justification, I found more reasons in favor of building this building than against. Here's why you need an audience chamber: you need housing in the early game to build the districts you need. Your biggest cities have probably already built campuses, 2 out of 3 of a holy site or a commercial hub or a harbor, and one has built the government plaza. By now, you're running up against housing limits in your biggest cities. Enter the audience chamber: a relatively low cost building that gives you just enough housing to get your next districts out. For the low price of 150 production, at time of building, it's probably worth 2-3 ED's and arenas and 4-6 granaries in housing or amenities. And the longer the game goes, it's ROI just goes up as you get more governor titles. It nicely lets your biggest cities continue to have things to do. And as people have said before, if you opted for getting your settlers out before the government plaza, this is suddenly much more attractive than the ancestral hall.

Water Mill - The problem with the water mill is that it gives you what you don't need and doesn't give you what you do need. Extra food without extra housing is worthless. A single production is kinda useless. If it gave production for tiles next to the river, I'd be all for it. But my cities aren't usually wanting for more food.

 

[Buktu]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Audience Chamber (0) (3-3)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (5)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23) (22+1)
Stable (9)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (7)

Audiance Chamber - If you play on small maps with less space its likely you ware going to forward settle AIs. That is way harder if you get -2 loyality without a governeur. It's not like there are much early titles out there so this building gives you less flexibility. Also on larger maps it is worse than its two competitors since both of them kind of scale with the amount of space there is. Lastly this does not fit my playstyle by any means and I have build it like once in a couple thousand hours.

Shrine - The shrine is quite good early imo. You can get some faith out of it, which is an important currency in CiVI. It also helps you to get a religion plus you can start to spread your religion early only if you have shrine since you can't build Missonaries without it. It gets even better if you can manage a monumentality GA early or get a building related religion.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (18)
Granary (21)
Grove (5+1=6) I think people need to try this before dismissing it. Of course it isn't always good to build, but others here aren't either. And just because it's available early and "it takes the space of a campus," I mean people do understand they don't have to spam it everywhere immediately the second it unlocks, right? And if you want faith but don't necessarily want a religion I don't see how this isn't directly better (much better) than the shrine, (and often better than amphitheater).
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23)
Stable (9-3=6) Unless I have like an entire stampede of horse resources or something.
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (7)

 

[JhGf_123]

This is one of those occasions where I don't think these elimination threads work. There were just as many people in favour of Audience Chamber (5 separate voters, plus me who was about to upvote it, so 6) as there were against it (6 separate voters). But because three people in the latter group used repeat votes, and because the downvote is more powerful than the upvote, Audience Chamber has already fallen.

I'll only remark that if more people obeyed the 'no successive votes' rule, then this kind of anomaly wouldn't happen as often—and we would end up with a tier list that was actually representative of the communis opinio.

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (18)
Granary (22) (21+1)
Grove (6)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23)
Stable (6)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4) (7-3)

Water Mill (4) (7-3) Yesterday I nearly downvoted it, and now I will. Having experienced Babylon's Palgum, I realise how 'meh' a normal Water Mill is. In tundra or desert, it can be useful for a while; but in most situations, the extra food is just not worth the hammers.

Granary (22) (21+1) This, on the other hand, gives both extra food and extra housing. In many situations, it's what allows you to reach the population milestone required to build your next district (pop 4 or pop 7, typically).

 

[CoconutTank]

Stable (7) (6 + 1) It's not long for this world (and I've got plenty else to vote for after), but Stables are generally my preferred building over regular Barracks for Encampments, since I'm more likely to be deploying cavalry and siege through the latter half of the game. I'm at least more likely to build a Stable than a...

Grove (3) (6 - 3) I haven't built Preserves all that much, so maybe some time is needed for the Grove to catch up, but given the options from what's remaining, I couldn't really prioritize this building over the rest.

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (18)
Granary (22)
Grove (3)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23)
Stable (7)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

Again: Arena provides only +1 amenity

That was patched recently.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/february-2021-update-patch-notes-discussion.667823/

Arena and Tlachtli buildings provide +2 Amenities.

Edit: so just to add to the Audience Chamber dogpile, the +2 amenities and +4 housing it provides makes it pretty similar to the Temple of Artemis. Afaik, the ToA is also a revered world wonder for the giant food and housing boost it provides early game, along with the scattering of amenities, and the AC provides near similar benefits. Not really sure why the loyalty malus needs to be there, but the AC's other stats are quite competitive.

 

[Amrunril]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (4)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23)
Stable (7)
Temple (22)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)


Like so many polarizing options in other threads, the Audience Chamber falls victim to the asymmetric nature of upvotes and downvotes. +2 amenities and +4 housing is a huge bonus, and a much harder one to replicate than extra builders or production. As a point of comparison, 2 amenities in 6 cities is exactly what Zanzibar gives, and comparable to a well placed Temple of Artemis or an average Colosseum. And if the Granary's sitting at 22 points, presumably the extra housing is worth something too.

As for the loyalty penalty, I don't think there's any modifier I've ever seen generate so much discussion despite being so completely irrelevant. In any city with a governor, it does literally nothing. In any city with full loyalty and a gain of at least +2 per turn (ie. most cities), it does literally nothing. In a city whose loyalty is already falling, you probably want to move a governor anyway. And in the very rare case that none of these things is true, you're still looking at a loyalty loss slow enough that conditions are likely to change again before it starts to matter. Honestly, I think the developers should just remove this modifier, not because it would matter to balance, but because it matters so incredibly little that it's not worth having a longer tooltip.

Barracks (18-3=15) and Stable both take a long time to pay off. Whether you're pursuing a military strategy or just trying to defend yourself, building more units will usually have a better payoff than constructing a building to boost hypothetical future units (and I don't think +1 housing and production is enough to shift this calculus).

Grove (3+1=4) From a return on investment perspective, a building that's amazing in a few cities is more effective than a building that's good in all of them. If you want a building to put in every city, this isn't it (except maybe with a few synergistic civs). If, on the other hand, you want a building that will give you great yields in a couple cities while the rest of your empire invests in something else, the Grove starts to look really appealing.

 

[Vargas1]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (4)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument (26)
Shrine (23)
Stable (4)
Temple (23)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

Temple (23) - Generally the first Tier 2 building that comes available, and especially if you have a few religious city-states, can give a major boost in your faith income at a time when it will be most beneficial (still can have one or more monumentality golden eras, early religious spread, and/or heading into GMC to buy units). I don't think it's the winner but I'd put it near the top.

Stable (4) - Even in a domination game, I will generally only build or two of these for my cav/siege units (unless I'm playing as someone like Mongolia or Scythia). Otherwise most encampments will get barracks. In a non-domination game I'm likely to never build one.

Re Audience Chamber - I'm sad it got eliminated before I got one more chance for a save, and I'm disappointed that so many downvotes came from folks who said they've never built it. That's obviously within the game rules (it would be silly to say you needed to use something before voting on it), but I feel like I personally have had a different view of the Audience Chamber after actually trying it out. If you want to play as wide as possible then it's clearly not something to choose, but if you are going to play a taller game (either by choice or by draw), the benefits are actually quite substantial. +4 extra housing well before getting to sewers/neighborhoods is a huge benefit, since if you're going tall housing is likely what will limit your growth moreso than food. And amenities are not all that easy to come by early in the game, at least in the volume you need them to get multiple cities into ecstatic. But if you can get all or most of your cities ecstatic, you get a noticeable benefit. Finally, I agree with Amrunril and others on the "malus" - I don't think I've ever noticed having an impact in any game I've built AC. If you have a border city with wavering loyalty, you're going to send a governor there anyway. And -2 is unlikely to matter in all but the most borderline cases anyway.

 

[Arianrhod]

I find this disingenuous. Playing a smaller map where you're unlikely to build many cities? Audience Chamber. Hemmed into the corner of a continent with no land to expand into, but you're playing a Civ who wants a peaceful game? Audience Chamber. Playing a Civ with incentives to play tall, such as Scotland, Korea, Kongo, Khmer, or Maya? Audience Chamber.

I'm seeing at least two different incentives to build a Warlord's Throne tbh. If you're on a smaller map where you're unlikely to build many cities, that means each individual city is worth more. This in turn means that one of the strongest things you can do is take cities away from an opponent, and Warlord's Throne is great for getting that steamroll going. If you're cornered and can't expand? Peacetime is over, Laurier, it's time to fight before your disadvantage against the non-cornered AI becomes insurmountable. Conceivably it could be good for tall civs, but honestly, even they're still probably better off going wide if they can (aside from maybe Maya) just because wide is that much better.

Anyhow.

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (4)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (22)
Market (18)
Monument 26->(27) Inexpensive, accessible, and everything it offers is useful at the beginning of the game. I can't think of many situations where this isn't getting built; it's pretty much always going to be useful for something.
Shrine (23)
Stable 4->(1) I don't particularly like encampment buildings, but if I'm building them, the barracks at least feel more useful long-term (and if nothing else they're cheaper). By the time I have spare hammers to build a stable, I've probably already built most of the cavalry that I intend to use for the game.
Temple (23)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (4)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (23)
Market (18)
Monument (27)
Shrine (23)
Stable (-2): ELIMINATED
Temple (23)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

Library 23 (22+1): Whilst I think the Lighthouse is objectively a better building, it comes very late in the period, and even on a map with water, it might not be a priority. What will be a priority is the Library or Shrine. Since your first district will almost always be a Holy Site or Campus it comes down to them. You won't always be going for a religion, but you will always need science. +2 science is a lot in the ancient era.

Stable -2 (1-3): You're only building an encampment district this early if you're going to war, so it's the most situational district left. I vote for Stable over Barracks simply because it costs more.

I might have been one of the ones who voted for the AC consecutively so apologies for that. But I stand by my comments of never building it, +2 Amenities and +4 housing might objectively be "a lot" but I simply have never needed them in the ancient and classical era. Housing doesn't start to become an issue till much later in the game for me.

Edit: Arianrhod downvoted the Stable whilst I was typing

 

[enKage]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (1) -3 To make sure it goes before water mill and stable - useless, works only to unlock conservatory and this is quite late in game
Lighthouse (24)
Library (23)
Market (18)
Monument 26
Shrine (24) +1 I don't care great prophets as I don't find religion, but it is cheap = easily spammed by AI and when you capture HS you get faith + food/culture
Stable (1)
Temple (23)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

 

[Josephias]

Mixing all votes above, and adding mine.

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Grove (-2) Eliminated
Lighthouse (24)
Library (23)
Market (18)
Monument (27)
Shrine (24)
Stable (-2), Eliminated by Arianrhod + Mout Suribachi votes
Temple (24)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

Grove (1-3): As @enKage said above, must go before the Water Mill, if only by opportunity cost. Water Mill may not be awesome, but benefits from being a city center building. Grove may be indeed ok, but comes at the opportunity cost of having to build the preserve before.

Temple (23+1): Before the big votes come, lets keep in the religious line. Temple is needed to build apostles, and apostles are needed if you want to do something with a religion. Of course, if you skip that part of the game, temples are there only for the extra faith and may be not so useful, but having a religion is useful for more things that RV.

 

[Francel]

Here are my thoughts on the audience chamber. Firstly, I also thought it has an impact similar to Zanzibar and Temple of Artemis, and IIRC those were top 3 finishers in previous contests. Secondly, several wrote that it was clearly the worst of the three options. Huh. I literally always choose audience chamber. I am no warmonger, and would never make use of the five turn 20% boost to production, so that one's out. The other one doesn't offer anything you can't already do - build/buy settlers and workers. This doesn't appeal much to me. I just don't need a ton of settlers, and builders are easy enough to get. Extra housing and amenities are harder to acquire and there are limited avenues. You can't just build unlimited amenities like you can builders. Amenities are better than ever. Also, your best cities, where you likely slot governors, are almost certain to have more district capacity than they would otherwise. I saw sewers and granaries mentioned as alternatives. It should be obvious sewer comes much, much later, and in regards to granary, +6 housing is much better than +2 housing from granary alone. Finally, the -2 loyalty I see as completely irrelevant. It has never been an issue for me, even with city without governor (and you can move governor if you need).

Well, RIP audience chamber. Pour one out for you.

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (24)
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (20) (23-3) - Science is fairly useless outside of science victory and military victory, and plus 2 science isn't even very much. I'd much rather have some Wats and cross-cultural dialogue, if I felt the need to advance my research. The extra great person point is okay, but there are only 2 great scientists I'd want to patronize, and having lots of faith and gold seems like a more surefire approach.
Market (18)
Monument (27)
Shrine (24)
Temple (25) (24+1) - I originally intended to upvote temple, and I'm pleased to see one of my favorites doing well. What makes temple great? It's not necessarily the extra faith, although temples may be augmented to provide culture, food/housing, or gold. The key part is access to apostles. On deity, I often see the AI spam a ton of missionaries, and you can straight up lose a religion without fighting back. What do you need to fight back? Since you almost certainly won't be able to get as many missionaries, you need an apostle, ideally a debater. Knocking out missionaries is a superb way of spreading your religion as well. Also, apostles allow for evangelization of beliefs, whether you want crusade to go on the offensive or extra yields. The era score from having four beliefs and inquisition (up to +6) can mean the difference between golden age or not, as well. So yea, temples are important, and I get them ASAP.
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (4)

 

[bengalryan9]

Amphitheater (18)
Ancestral Hall (17)
Ancient Walls (25) (24+1) Increases your survivability a ton. The only walls I ever build, and it's easy to put them up cheap with Limes and the city center production bonus from World Congress that always passes.
Barracks (15)
Granary (22)
Lighthouse (24)
Library (23)
Market (18)
Monument (27)
Shrine (24)
Temple (24)
Warlord’s Throne (19)
Water Mill (1) (4-3) Eureka or not, it's still pretty bad. If I have enough wheat and rice to make this worth considering do I even really *need* the extra food (with no extra housing, I might add). But hey, you do get a whopping one production too...

Nice to see the Audience Chamber getting it's due... after it's been eliminated. I can probably count the amount of times I've benefited from the Warlord's Throne on one hand (due to my playstyle) but that doesn't mean it deserves a downvote - sad to see AC not get the same benefit of the doubt. And while the Ancestral Hall is probably the one I've built the most, I'd also point out that it's the only one with a benefit that doesn't last the whole game - you will eventually run out of room to settle and then you get nothing from it. AC worse than Barracks and Water Mill? No way.