Ancient and Classical buildings Elimination Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ancestral Hall (23)
Ancient Walls (19)
Granary (16)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (8)
Monument (33) (32+1)
Shrine (16)
Temple (20)
Warlord’s Throne (0) (3-3)

Monument is cheap, available early, and provides a valuable source of early culture.
In addition to the drawbacks given by previous downvoters, Warlord's Throne provides a bonus after you are already strong enough to capture cities, so the boost it provides helps you to win faster when you are typically already likely to win.
 
Ancestral Hall (24) (23+1) I'll throw it an upvote because I do build it in probably 8/10 games. If you get the timing right this is far and away the strongest building on the list... though I'll freely admit that won't always be the case.
Ancient Walls (19)
Granary (16)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (8)
Monument (33)
Shrine (13) (16-3) I'd take the shrine over a market but I've already picked on the market a couple of times so I'll downvote the shrine. Yes you need faith for a lot of stuff, but I find I can usually get plenty from my holy sites by themselves in most cases to buy what I need. At least the Temple gives you access to the much more useful apostles in addition to extra faith.
Temple (20)
 
Some thoughts: YouTuber saxygamer rated wonders along two axes - strong/weak and universal/niche. Ideal would be something considered "always powerful" but there are cases of many things that are situationally powerful. I agree this is a good way to think about things. In the context of this thread, warlord's throne was brought up as something that is strong, but obviously only if you are beating the drums of war. Should the fact that it is only situationally strong be considered a valid shortcoming? Once you've eliminated things that are universally weak, it becomes a reasonable consideration.

The next issue is personal preference. I happen to love religion in my games, so I think temples are essential. Someone else may completely ignore religion, and therefore downvote temples. Does that make temples strong or weak? I am not sure what the answer is, other than it depends on the individual.

With my digression out of the way:

Ancestral Hall (24)
Ancient Walls (19)
Granary (16)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (5) (8-3) - Commercial hubs always strike me as one of the weaker districts. A major argument in favor of market seems to be that it's not always possible to build harbors/lighthouses. This doesn't change the fact lighthouses are straight up better.
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (21) (20+1) - Giving another point to temple today. I would say temple and lighthouse are my personal top 2. Not sure what to say that hasn't been said already - temples give you apostles. Without apostles, you can risk losing the game to an opponent's religion, unless you go to war to condemn heretics. That is an important point. Reiterate up to +6 era score from apostles and evangelization of beliefs, plus any other potential benefits from spreading religion (frequently you can get envoys in addition to belief perks) and the temple itself, possibly culture or food+housing in addition to faith. Finally, more faith means more spread of your religion, more great people, more use of monumentality, and other uses as the game progresses.
 
Ancestral Hall (24)
Ancient Walls (19)
Granary (13) 16-3 Honestly, not sure how this is around as this is literally the last thing on the list I build, and sometimes not at all. Housing isn't useful on its own unless you lack fresh water.
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (6) 5+1 I think the Commercial hub is the 3rd best district next to the harbor and campus, because it always provides value and traders can make up for what the terrain lacks. Sure harbors are better, but guess what? Most of your average map isn't water.
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (21)
 
Last edited:
Strong options remaining, votes will start to get a bit weird, altough there's always some reasoning behind.

Ancestral Hall (25)
Ancient Walls (16)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (6)
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (21)


Ancestral Hall (24+1): Normally, I would not favor Govt.Plaza buildings, as stated in a thread recently open, I often fall in the dilemma between govt. plaza and other districts. While my build plan is normally to get it one of the district slots on the second city, I've forgot about that in my last games (and maybe I should have not). All this is to say if it is for me, AH will not make to the top, however I want at least to upvote it now to recognize its power, not only by the extra settler production, but for the free worker in every city. Without AH, you'll need to queue a worker as one of the first build orders (either before or after the monument) in any new city (or get one along the settler). Getting AH means you are saving this build queue slot, plus getting asap this additional production/food from tiles that is noticeable in small cities, or the extra luxury you need to keep happines. Therefore, AH gets a, imho, well-deserved +1 from me.

Ancient Walls (19-3): Downvoting them after upvoting yesterday, mainly due to relative position. As commented yesterday, upvote was deserved, but they were, along the granary, in "lack of priority" territory, which I think is the next to go, over other buildings, like the Shrine, that are already falling too low. Therefore, I'll downvote them today to balance their position.
 
Ancestral Hall (25)
Ancient Walls (13) (16-3) Most AI war declarations will come before this is even unlocked. This is when you have low military score and no opportunity to make friends with the AI. After this though, you can build a good military (AI wont declare war if you have military score near theirs) and make friends with them for the entire game since they will never refuse friendship after you've already had one in the past.
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (6)
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (22) (21+1) Are people forgetting that they need faith for Culture Victories as well? Are they also forgetting how OP Monumentality is? This can be the key to rapid expansion of not only your religion, but your empire as well. Pair Ancestral Hall with this and you can also get a load of builders. @Drivingrevilo makes a fantastic point too, this is a low cost building meaning it IS spammable for more faith, meaning more Settlers and Builders.
 
Ancestral Hall (25)
Ancient Walls (10) 13-3 I find I don’t want to slow my momentum by building walls, and usually start spamming builders if I get to a city that has everything built but walls. I do like to engage in some warfare, and usually don’t build until one of my cities gets attacked and I’m not around to defend.
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (28)
Library (17)
Market (7) 6+1 For inland cities, this is high priority, and usually the first thing I go to for a new inland city. Getting a strong economy can then pivot into any victory type and allows purchase of other buildings in smaller cities that would take way too long to build, getting overall science/culture/faith up by mid game.
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (22)
 
Ancestral Hall (22) (25-3) - A great building, I just don't see it as the run-away that it is now. Some of it may be personal style - I usually build my GP in capital (highest population - most free district slots) where I slot Pingala, which works against spamming settlers from this city. Then there's the fact that monumentality means that in most games, the majority of my settlers are bought with faith by the time that I actually get the GP up, which arguably may be too late compared to optimal game style. Of course the free builder is still amazing, but again, if I have a strong faith economy, even that may not be game changing. Certainly a top building none-the-less, just not sure it's that much better than some of the other remaining options.
Ancient Walls (11) (10+1) - I see the argument against this, that "you only need a few along your borders". Am I the only one who's borders are not static the entire game? The protection added by ancient walls is much bigger than several military units, in fact I think it's too good, but that's a fundamental design flaw of Civ(6).
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (14)
Market (7)
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (22)
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8) (11-3)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (14)
Market (7)
Monument (33)
Shrine (13)
Temple (23) (22+1)

Ancient Walls (8) (11-3) Really struggling here to decide what to downvote. With walls, you miss them when they’re not there; but there are also some games (like my current one) where I build walls in one city, and that’s it.

Temple (23) (22+1) Inexpensive to build, easy to power up through envoys, a prerequisite for building Apostles, and enables you to make best use of the ridiculously powerful Monumentality golden age or the equally strong Grand Master’s Chapel.
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (14)
Market (7)
Monument (34)
Shrine (13)
Temple (20)

My thoughts on Ancestral Hall are that is a great building, worthy of a top 3 slot, but with a couple of issues - it comes too late for your initial settler rush and often by the time you are in a position to use it you have Monumentality and will be faith buying your settlers (the free builder is still nice though). Having written this out makes me thing it's probably in the right position!

The Shrine and Temple (23-3 = 20) require Holy Sites which you won't always be building unlike the districts for the other buildings on this list, so I'm going to downvote the latter as the T2 building.

Play a game as Rome and see how powerful the Monument (33+1 = 34) is, it's cheap, available early (first build normally in my 2nd, 3rd and 4th cities) and powerful.
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11) (14-3)
Market (8) (7+1)
Monument (34)
Shrine (13)
Temple (19)

Library (11) (14-3) I think the granary should be next to go, but I downvoted that last time, so Library gets my vote. Science is king, yes. But from my experience, the majority of your early game science comes from Campus adjacencies (doubled with Natural Philosophy). Libraries are nice, and I do eventually get round to building them, but I feel that once I’ve built my Campuses I can afford to ignore the district until it’s time to get Universities.

Market (8) (7+1) Id like this to hang on a bit longer. I normally build a Commercial Hub in every inland city, usually as the second or third district. The reason is for the Market—thats worth an upvote in my view.
 
Temple lost a point within the last three posts, here's the corrected scores:

Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (8)
Monument (34)
Shrine (13)
Temple (20)
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (13)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (9) Traders are invaluable. The overwhelming majority of cities are inland. GM are better than GA's.
Monument (34)
Shrine (10) Getting a religion on a higher level is in effect the entirety of your focus for turns 20-60. A religion is nice, but if it's not your VC then a campus and a city would be simply better. With monumentality perhaps could be seen as 1/4 of a settler, at some point far later. Terrible opportunity cost.
Temple (20)
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (10)(13-3)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (11)(10+1)
Temple (20)

Granary (10)(13-3) I didn't vote yesterday, so I'm surprised to see no movement for Granary. I'd have thought it was a clear favourite for next elimination. No doubt that housing is important, but there are also many sources of it (including several buildings we've already eliminated).

Shrine (11)(10+1) 'Terrible opportunity cost' seems very harsh. Grabbing a religion is a great investment; it rewards you with tonnes of era score and a monumentality golden age, and it continues to reward you as the game progresses with bonuses like grand master's chapel or Valletta or rock bands. And that's not even mentioning work ethic. I think it's no coincidence that all my fastest victories have been culture victories when I decided to found a religion.

Now, shrines may not be particularly important in earning that religion, but they are certainly still important. They're cheap, they're spammable, and they give you early faith income for monumentality.
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (8)
Granary (7)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (12)
Temple (20)

When you need a granary (10-3) you need jt but the vast majority of cities won't face that need. On the other hand if you're trying for a religion the shrine (11+1) is unavoidable.
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (5) (8-3) Of all that's left, ancient walls might be the most unnecessary building left. I'll often build it simply when I'm feeling a border city is too tempting a target for the AI and don't feel like getting a DOW... And early game if map looks dangerous. Otherwise, pretty much everything left here is more tempting. Of course, Shrine and Temple is really only when you decide to get a religion, but when you do, then they're a must.
Granary (8) (7+1) see note below
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (12)
Temple (20)


in reference to @Archon_Wing comment on granaries, I feel compelled to add that I SO disagree with this: Honestly, not sure how this is around as this is literally the last thing on the list I build, and sometimes not at all. Housing isn't useful on its own unless you lack fresh water. As a player who barely ever builds any farms and likes to build up population in order to build Districts, Granaries are simply a staple in each and every city I build. If I don't build it, I buy it with gold. EDIT: To me, the 4 builder charges and the lost opportunity to build something better on the 4 tiles needed to even the 2 housing you get with granaries is a no go for farms
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (6) (5+1) Yeah, I don't know... the only way I'm actually going to lose a game is if the AI steamrolls me early on, and walls help with that. I'm almost always able to get them up by the time I need them, and they have some pretty strong advantages that people are glossing over - they're cheap, they almost always have a boost to production (either through Limes or the WC vote that makes them cheaper... or both!), and not only do they grant you an extra ranged attack from your city center, but they also do the same for any encampments you build. The counter argument seems to be "just train a bunch of troops and that's all the defense you need", but unless you're planning on eventually going on the offense that seems way less efficient to me - I can almost certainly build walls faster than I can train troops, the walls won't cost me any gold for upkeep, and I can eventually get tourism or diplomatic favor from my walls, too.
Granary (8)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (11)
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (9) (12-3) People seem to be arguing that you need to build these to found a religion... no you don't. Build your holy site and then run prayer projects. Even when I want to play a religious game I don't build my first shrine until after I've actually founded my religion. You do need them to train missionaries in order to *spread* your religion, but I typically wait until I've got temples before I make my push to do that since apostles are just way better at it IMO.
Temple (20)
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (6)
Granary (8)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (12)
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (6)
Temple (20)

Library 12 (11+1): Not getting the lack of love for the library here. Your first district will almost always either be a Campus or Holy Site, and unless you're going for a Religious Victory, it's going to be the campus and +2 science is a decent chunk in the ancient era, especially if you're not blessed with a high adjacency start or science city state, and your science is still in single digits.
Someone earlier said that you only need science for a religious or domination victory which is simply not true. Culture victories require the techs for flight, computers, Eiffel Tower, seaside resorts etc. Diplo Victories require Potala Palace, the diplo point future tech, GPP for World Fair points etc. Whatever you're going for, you're going to be building a lot of campuses, which means a lot of libraries. The only victory type that doesn't require science is Religious, but that's so damn easy to win I actually consider it broken, which brings me to......

Shrine 6 (9-6): I'm actually kinda torn on this. If you want to go for the most powergamy OP buildings, then anything and everything to do with religious victory should be upvoted to the heavens since it is by a country mile the quickest and easiest way to win the game. But then these threads would be utterly pointless. Now, faith is useful, even in my current Germany game where I have so much production I can build what I want in a few turns and have no faith generation, I realised I needed to build a couple of Holy Sites to generate the faith to recall my hero. So faith is nice. And if you're going for a religious victory you're going to beeline a religion which requires a shrine. And if you want a monumentality GA you want faith, but I find an Classical Era GA almost impossible (I'm always a couple of points short, no matter what). And I get that some people like a faith based playstyle. But I also find founding a religion a waste of time and resources if you're not going for a RV since you will spend the mid game wasting time and effort fighting off the waves of AI apostles to try and hold onto your religion. Sometimes if the last religion has not been picked up, I will take it just for the era score, acceptant of the fact that I will lose it to the AI at some point. So the shrine, it's nice, and in certain circumstances essential, but we're in amongst the big boys now and I can't downvote ancient walls again.

Edit: Bengalryan replied whilst I was typing
 
Ancestral Hall (22)
Ancient Walls (3) (6-3) The main problem with Walls is that you don't really need them at all. While Ancient Walls may be cheaper than proper units, friendships cost nothing and provide even more security than units or walls. Of course, I always chop one for the Eureka but at this point, that does not cut it. (On the other hand, do you remember the good old production overflow days? If those rulesets would be still active, Ancient Walls would be the easy winner of this conquest).
Granary (8)
Lighthouse (29)
Library (13) (12+1) You just have to keep with science, there's no way around that. Also, getting into the Great Scientist contention early is not a bad idea, especially if you can get your hands on Hypatia or Hildegard.
Market (9)
Monument (34)
Shrine (6)
Temple (20)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

FXS_Sar
Civ VI Monthly Challenge: King of the Wonder
Replies
9
Views
4K
Kryxal
K
bengalryan9
Civ Discussion - Antiquity Age Summary/Tier Lists
Replies
14
Views
1K
Boris Gudenuf
Boris Gudenuf
V
  • Sticky
TSG 268 After Actions
Replies
13
Views
976
Megalou
Megalou
megabearsfan
Polycast episode 428: "Freedom?" is now available on YouTube
Replies
0
Views
704
megabearsfan
megabearsfan
V
TSG 266 After Actions
Replies
16
Views
755
Skifff
S
Back
Top Bottom