Best synergy based on leader/UB/UU?

[Aaroc]

A little off topic here, but I found a leader with bad synergy for his UB, at least: Zara Yaqob.

He's creative, but his UB is a replacement for the monument. If I play a creative leader, who gets +2 culture per turn for each city, I usually completely ignore the whole mysticism/religion line until I either get a religion spread into one of my cities and I want to spread it further, which means I need Meditation for monasteries or monotheism for Organized Religion, or I don't get any happiness resources, which means I need to go up the religious line until I can get Monarchy and HR.

 

[McThomas]

A little off topic here, but I found a leader with bad synergy for his UB, at least: Zara Yaqob.

He's creative, but his UB is a replacement for the monument. If I play a creative leader, who gets +2 culture per turn for each city, I usually completely ignore the whole mysticism/religion line until I either get a religion spread into one of my cities and I want to spread it further, which means I need Meditation for monasteries or monotheism for Organized Religion, or I don't get any happiness resources, which means I need to go up the religious line until I can get Monarchy and HR.

you can go for the religious techs after the economic (CoL, Mon, Cur) and addopt Organized religion, its VERY helpfull if you are a Organized leader because, its not as expencive and you'll det a 75% bonus on Courthouses ect ect ect...

He is a devided synenegy; this one and the Cultural... but he is quite fun to play...

and the UU is well... not my taste...

 

[Aaroc]

As a general rule though, i don't like civs with the monument as their UB, especially since I like to play water heavy maps, which means I'll want to take astronomy early, which will obsolete them.

 

[Riot]

As a general rule though, i don't like civs with the monument as their UB, especially since I like to play water heavy maps, which means I'll want to take astronomy early, which will obsolete them.

Well, they don't go poof or anything. They still generate culture, you just can't build anymore of them.

I guess if you play Charismatic I could understand you hurting about them...

 

[mariogreymist]

Reading through this thread again, I saw a fair amount of bashing on the Roman Forum. While I don't see Prat/Forum as the best synergy in the game, there is some synergy in them. The synergy comes from the ability of the Praetorians' to take and maintain a very large empire early in the game. When you've taken all of a large continent, which can be done without even building a catapult in many cases, you will find several places where you could build GP farms. Don't. Seriously: don't. Just build those cottage cities, and put forums in them. Work some engineers and scientists (and priests if you have religions and/or angkor wat), but don't ever impede growth of populations and cottage development. With the bpt you get from a large kingdom, you won't need a stack of Great Scientists to win the liberalism race. This is particularly true of JC, whose Organized trait allows for a relatively high sci rate (over 50%) on the slider, even if you find yourself with 20 cities in the early ADs. When this happens, you will find yourself in the industrial period with a whole slough of cities with the ability to produce great people, with a little micromanagement. I've played games where Great people have appeared in over a dozen cities...I can't recall that ever happening with any civ other than Rome. This approach also allows for maximum growth in the very best cities.

This approach is better on larger maps and slower speeds, but when it lines up, the forum is a more helpful UB than it is often given credit for, and its helpfulness is directly related to the benefit of the UU. That's synergy.

 

[Fleme]

^ I almost feel like posting my math about the Forum all over again. The building is marginally useful in one city at most and even there it's nothing spectacular.

Any building whose "special" bonus comes into play in just one city is not a good building for an unique building.

To put it short, you won't gain more than one GP's worth in any game out of the Forum. And again, that's in one city - not your entire empire.

 

[mariogreymist]

Your math assumes a GP farm.

 

[Fleme]

? How is it any better when spread out? A city with let's say for example a free specialist from Mercantilism will not generate a GP at any point of the game - that's with or without the Forum. The building is so inconsequential that it would hurt if it weren't for the awesomeness of the Praetorian.

 

[Rittmeyer]

on sitting bulls super archers... build 10-12 with Drill IV and later promote then to gunpowder. Watch them eat hordes and hordes of cannons and cavarly in your opponent's countstack. And them take all of his cities at leisure. But I agree about the Dog Soldier, it's unecessary. Yes, sitting bull has two UU, but one of them is in fact his UB. So he has two UU's and no UB.

 

[mariogreymist]

? How is it any better when spread out? A city with let's say for example a free specialist from Mercantilism will not generate a GP at any point of the game - that's with or without the Forum. The building is so inconsequential that it would hurt if it weren't for the awesomeness of the Praetorian.

If you assume there are 2-4 cities which build wonders (and thus produce more gpp than other cities) then those cities will be the only cities which can generate Great People in a non-Roman game. In most games, non-wonder cities (even without a GP farm) never generate enough gpp to catch the top few cities. The forum means those cities that work one engineer and 1-2 scientists (I almost always have cities like this) will accumulate enough GP points to allow them to pop great people if I stop using specialists altogether (and thus rapidly grow) my top few cities. The great person that those dozen cities will generate will come earlier with a forum, leaving later GPP to the wonder cities and the NP/NE city. Basically, it means more great people during the middle portion of the game when their importance is at its height for the kind of game (early capture of a large continent) of which I speak. It's not a huge difference, and I am by no means calling the forum a top-flight UB. It does have synergy with its UU however, and can be beneficial. It does require good foresight, because if you build forums in your best cities long before you do it in the average cottage-spam city, then the cottage city will never catch the top tier cities, even with micro.

 

[Riot]

If you assume there are 2-4 cities which build wonders (and thus produce more gpp than other cities) then those cities will be the only cities which can generate Great People in a non-Roman game. In most games, non-wonder cities (even without a GP farm) never generate enough gpp to catch the top few cities. The forum means those cities that work one engineer and 1-2 scientists (I almost always have cities like this) will accumulate enough GP points to allow them to pop great people if I stop using specialists altogether (and thus rapidly grow) my top few cities. The great person that those dozen cities will generate will come earlier with a forum, leaving later GPP to the wonder cities and the NP/NE city. Basically, it means more great people during the middle portion of the game when their importance is at its height for the kind of game (early capture of a large continent) of which I speak. It's not a huge difference, and I am by no means calling the forum a top-flight UB. It does have synergy with its UU however, and can be beneficial. It does require good foresight, because if you build forums in your best cities long before you do it in the average cottage-spam city, then the cottage city will never catch the top tier cities, even with micro.

I don't think your statement(s) really hold water. Every time you generate a Great Person, the GPP counter resets backwards, making every succeeding Great Person cost more GPPs.

I just don't see how the Forum has any synergy with Praets. Keshis and Gers on the other hand hold obvious synergy.

Bottom line: Most UBs and UUs don't have any synergy at all - probably for balancing reasons.

 

[vicawoo]

The counter doesn't reset for each city. If multiple cities are producing equal GPP, your GPP rate is linear. With one city, it's sqrt.

 

[PutCashIn]

I agree with MarioGreyMist, many Forums in second half game citys DO seem have an impact, and a relevant one if:

1. You dont care what GreatPerson you get, coz theyre all shiny
2. You suck to much to run a great person farm early game
3. You suck to much to wonderspam early game coz your still listening to people ranting "dont build wonders and be amazed how you go up two difficulty levels"
4. You suck at specalists in general
5. You like to play a 'complete game,' a la Civ2, where you win by spaceship after teching lots of shiny improvements.

Replace 'You' by 'PutCashIn' if your upset with the above 'advice.'

I think someone once said 'spread out those great person points' which actually seems to work if you dont generally use a great person farm, coz I suck.

(Do I get a medal Troy, hardly any acronyms!?)

 

[mariogreymist]

I don't think your statement(s) really hold water. Every time you generate a Great Person, the GPP counter resets backwards, making every succeeding Great Person cost more GPPs.

I just don't see how the Forum has any synergy with Praets. Keshis and Gers on the other hand hold obvious synergy.

Bottom line: Most UBs and UUs don't have any synergy at all - probably for balancing reasons.

I did not, nor would I, suggest that Prats/forums have the same kind of synergy as Keshiks/Gers; they clearly do not. But Prats do allow a player to capture a huge continent (30+ cities; I've had over 90 in some games), IMP(A trait the caesars share) helps to settle it, and the forum to give it extra horsepower when GPP can be most efficacious in putting the game out of reach. If you take the time to read what I wrote, rather than just assuming "he's defending the forum, he must be wrong!" then you'll see I was talking about a specific style of play (Prat spamming) on a particular kind of map (large/huge) in which forums do have an advantage over markets, and which is made possible (or at least vastly simplified) by a dominating early offensive minded UU. Synergy.

 

[Iranon]

In theory, GPP bonuses do more (in terms of more/faster GP) if you have decent amounts of base GPPs to work on and few other multipliers. The argument that you get the most out of the Forum if you avoid a dedicated GP farm but spawn them throughou your empire is valid but, imo, not usually relevant:

Something like the Forum or PHI may be an incentive to split up food bonuses for several decent cities rather than make concessions to have one kickass GP farm; doesn't mean we do this.
The question usually isn't 'Which approach lets me squeeze the most out of my Uniques?' but 'Which approach is optimal taking into account bonuses from my Uniques?'.
Avoiding a good GP farm with Rome on purpose would be roughly equivalent to running 100% gold as Mali/England and buying techs instead of researching them - you maximise the effect of your UB but probably still lose out compared to a more conventional approach.

 

[mariogreymist]

This really isn't the kind of thing I would suggest in most games. It's for when you've taken a huge landmass before building the NE, and have a choice of how to proceed. If you forgo forums and build the NE/GL type of GP farm then you will certainly make more rapid progress in spurts. The truth is, once you've conquered a huge continent with either caesar (using Prats) the game is over, even if you are significantly behind in tech when you complete the conquest. This is particularly true of JC, whose ORG trait is a tremendous advantage when you likely have a 2-1 or better advantage in land.

So what we're really quibbling over here (and this is my fault) is how to twist the sword once it's sunken into the gut of the game.

I think the real deciding factor is probably game speed. I've seen very early (~1500) infantry using the approach I describe, and failed to see such a result using a more standard specialized city approach. This is probably a result of my preference for marathon games, which punish severely any impulse to rush anything.