Best UB?

[vivalamexico]

I'm curious to hear: what does everyone think the best UB in the game is?

For me it's probably the Hanse or Pyramid
Honorable mention to coffee house & candi for being so much fun to use

 

[hai 1]

Gotta be the Stele

 

[redwings1340]

For me it's the Stele. That building is basically the Civ way of saying, "Hey Ethiopia, have a free religion, the first religion, and awesome early faith per turn without even trying!"

The Stele makes Ethiopia an amazing civilization by itself, which is good, because their UA and UU aren't all that great.

 

[Teproc]

Stele is close, but I'm pretty sure it's the Pyramid. It's just insane. Why does it give 2 faith, wasn't the science enough already ?

 

[azzaman333]

Stele is very good, Pyramid is even better.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I agree, Stele in itself is amazing as you can get religion without Pottery, but the Mayan Pyramids are just downright awesome as they not only give you a twice as much faith per turn but also give you science!

 

[cpm4001]

The Stele's very, very good (Ethiopia is one of my favorite Civs because of it), but I have to put a vote in for the Bazaar. Want more Gold? You got it. Want extra luxuries to trade for more gold? You got it. Want extra Gold from Oil and Oasis tiles? You got it.

 

[sendos]

If you find the UB elimination thread, most people (or at least the most active daily voters at the time) agreed that stele and pyramid are the best UB's. Pyramid encourages the Mayans to go wide. The stele also encourages it, but I never really felt the encouragement and I choose a tall empire when I play as Ethiopia.

 

[reddishrecue]

The flying fortress (if there was one) or the stele.

 

[Vitruvius]

I like Candi, mud pyramid and coffee house.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

 

[GoStu]

Pyramid in my opinion: I like having a Pantheon and Religion, so a Shrine is often quite early in my build orders. Doubling the shrine's effectiveness and adding +2 Science on it is very, very nice. At the time of your first Pyramid or two, that +2 per pyramid easily represents a 25% or so boost.

Runner-up would be the Stele: a Monument is often the first thing I build, depending on whether or not I feel like a scout is necessary. Adding 2 Faith to the monument is a very strong addition; it pretty much guarantees you a Pantheon of your choosing and likely a Religion (unless you totally drop the ball).

 

[Sagax]

Everything points in the direction of Pyramid and Stele: they replace buildings that you build anyway in most games, and for their time (Ancient Era) their bonuses are great.

I think at this point we should change the topic into "The best UB after Pyramid and Stele" There is quite a competition in this tier.

 

[Teproc]

Hm, so, I think it's between Wat, Hanse and Bazaar for third place. Wat is strong but boring, Bazaar is cool but not incredibly synergistic with Camel Archers (which encourage you to warmonger which means you have less trading partners), so I'll go Hanse, which also happens to be very unique and cool as well as powerful.

 

[sendos]

Everything points in the direction of Pyramid and Stele: they replace buildings that you build anyway in most games, and for their time (Ancient Era) their bonuses are great.

I think at this point we should change the topic into "The best UB after Pyramid and Stele" There is quite a competition in this tier.

In this case, for me, it's between bazaar, Hanse and paper maker. Bazaar gives you diplomatic flexibility for bribes and/or lots of gold in diplomatic trades. Hanse provides a nice production bonus and encourages Germany to choose Freedom ideology to maximise the incentive the trade with CS'. Paper maker is great for warmonger China in expanding and negating gold deficits early in game.

 

[CraziFuzzy]

I love the Stele - taken with the Tradition social policy's free culture buildings, it's basically automatic culture AND shrine in the first 4 cities. Perfect for tall Ethiopia. Allows that single social policy to remove 2 buildings from the early production queue, almost guarantees the cheapest pantheon and religions, and lets you build that one more worker or scout instead early on.

 

[adwcta]

Besides Stele and Pyramids? (imo Stele wins by a narrow margin, and only because it actually guarantees religion on Deity, whereas with the Piety tree in BNW, Mayans will still miss it ~25% of the time without Piety/faith pantion/CS/wonder)

Paper maker and Bazaar are very similar, in that they give on average 4gpt per city. Wat's 3cpt is about the same value. Mud pyramid mosques is 2gold 2 culture, so again similar. Ducal stable will average out to the same deal. This is the standard UBs, and they're nothing special.

Special UBs:
3. Candi - +2 to 12fpt. This is not only the highest faith producer in the game, but it also can be built in any city, even if there is no river, so you'll get at least 2 extra GPs out of this if you go wide. This is an absolutely amazing building. Resource value-wise, it is the best UB in the game, by far. Unfortunately, this faith can never be used to actually get a religion because it comes so late, but it can help with spread or great person generation all the same. Coffee house pales in comparison. The Candi is also a bit burdensome to use and difficult to manage (coming sometimes at gold-opportunity cost).

2. Burial Tombs - +2gpt, +2happiness. The timing of this building is so clutch and key for both the gold savings and the happiness for wide empires. It literally changes the game in terms of what Egypt can do, versus what other civs can do. Ceilidh Hall and Satrap's Court come much later.

1. Floating Gardens - +15% food, +1gpt, +2 food for each lake tile. This is a broken UB. It is one of only two +food% bonuses (instead of plus surplus food%), and the other one is in Temple of Artemis, which is the best wonder in the game. All of these should be food surplus if the devs realized what they actually meant to do. If you have an 11-pop city (granary + floating garden) with 2 citizens working bananas, 1 citizen working a lake or river farmland, 4 citizens working jungle trade posts, and 4 other citizens working 1-food tiles, this building provides +4.5 food. By endgame, with a 30-pop city, if you have 14 citizens working trade posts instead of 4, you'll have +8 food per city (assuming hospital as well). These are very conservative estimates, and you can easily get 10+ food per turn by mid-game if you concentrate on food. With the jungle and the NC, this UB really gets out of hand in terms of science/gold snowballing.

 

[redwings1340]

After the top two buildings, there's some competition. In the right city, the floating gardens can be by far the best building. The paper maker may not provide the best bonuses, but you get this building early, and small early gpt bonuses means you can support a much better army. It also helps that you want a paper maker in every city anyway, so it's a bonus with little effort involved. The wat is helped out by a similar phenomena, and is stronger in BNW when culture buildings are generally weaker (in my opinion).

The bazaar is special because if you trade away your excess luxuries it gives you an insane amount of gpt, or additional happiness if you can get additional AI luxuries this way. The Candi is very dependent of your position and what religions are around you, but in the right city can get insane yields. It's probably the only religious building that really isn't geared towards getting a religion, which is kind of cool. It is much better since they stamped out the river requirement on cities that can build it. It also works well with the UA, as you have motivation to plant that perfect city on a different continent midgame and send trade routes from it to other holy cities to maximize your religious diversity in those cities. I've never tried this strategy directly, but it sounds fun.

Mud Pyramid mosques and Burial tombs are nice, but aren't always easy to take the opportunity cost to get, especially if you didn't found a religion (they come too late to guarantee one). They also get buffed by piety, which comes at another large opportunity cost. They're still good, but not always on an optimal path. Egypt's UA is also probably better for tall empires, even as the burial tomb is better for wide ones, so there's that tension there.

The Hanse can get pretty insane, but takes a while to really develop and become its strongest. Still worth a mention in here too though.

I'd probably say:

3) Bazaar
4) Floating Gardens
5) Paper maker
6) Hanse

But... I could see arguments for switching those around. Civs with UBs are generally pretty good.

 

[redwings1340]

Hm, so, I think it's between Wat, Hanse and Bazaar for third place. Wat is strong but boring, Bazaar is cool but not incredibly synergistic with Camel Archers (which encourage you to warmonger which means you have less trading partners), so I'll go Hanse, which also happens to be very unique and cool as well as powerful.

If you warmonger well and don't take cities by force, I think it can leave you with more trading partners. The game definitely punishes city taking, but warring with the help of a friend or a group of friends can push up neutrals to friends, and can get you a solid group of civs that will be your friends for a while.

 

[SnowKomodo]

Huge fan of the Floating Gardens. Especially when it's by a lake

 

[Navelgazer]

I can't really refute anything anybody has said, and the Stele is probably the best UB in the game, but I'll throw in some support for something else:

I love the Royal Library.

Early slots for great works, plus bonuses for units when you know you'll be building them, and those stack with barracks? And in a sense the bonuses are "free" since you'll definitely be building a library anyway?

It might not be the stele (which is the best thing about Ethiopia in this version) but it's very handy.