Best/worst buildings/improvements

[jtb1127]

Best:
Bazaar

Worst:
Floating Garden

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Post your best/worst buildings/improvements here!

Armory Lame, unnecessary bulding.

Uh... doesn't barracks -> armory give you 2 promotions out the door? I'd say having to build the 3rd & 4th XP-based [costly] buildings are more unnecessary. After all, if you've devoted all those hammers (or gold) to barracks/armory, you might as well war to get the experience points past that point.

Best
Public School (building) - as previously stated, this is pretty obvious.
Trading Post (improvement) - gold is good. Not to mention (this IS circumstantial) the jungle/trading post/univ/Free Thought combination provides a 2 2 3 tile. If riverside, add another to that. This makes that trading post-spammed city extremely powerful. I had a 12 population city working 1 food resource, 1 gold hill, 5 trading post / 5 jungle riverside trade post that was providing me with about 45 and about 51 with only Lib/univ and market/bank.
Big Ben (wonder) - in combination with Mercantilism basically makes nearly obsolete.

Worst
I don't have a worst building/improvement as every improvement works the land in some way and each building has its place based on land/victory path.

 

[Mark the Bold]

Best:

Burial Tomb: +2 happiness +2 culture with no maintenance. Usually get it in the ancient world so it lasts all game. And can be gotten with Legalism. AND here's the kicker, that most people don't know about it: Its one the first buildings all puppet cities build on their own too, which offsets their happiness and increases border growth.

Worst:

Mughal fort. Meh for a unique building. I usually don't even bother until all my Universities, Markets, Aqueducts, etc. etc. buildings are in place. THis one could use a buff in the next patch.

 

[black213]

Best:

Burial Tomb: +2 happiness +2 culture with no maintenance. Usually get it in the ancient world so it lasts all game. And can be gotten with Legalism. AND here's the kicker, that most people don't know about it: Its one the first buildings all puppet cities build on their own too, which offsets their happiness and increases border growth.

Worst:

Mughal fort. Meh for a unique building. I usually don't even bother until all my Universities, Markets, Aqueducts, etc. etc. buildings are in place. THis one could use a buff in the next patch.

Try VEM. In it India get's an unique Aqueduct.

 

[Babri]

I don't get it why some people think that Floating Gardens is a bad building.

 

[qemist]

This list is just like the other Unit one -- there's no real explanation for them, and, to be honest, the list isn't true at all.

These lists are boring. Without context "best" has no meaning.

 

[awesome]

i usually assume "best overall and in general" for the context, so things like "hydro plants in a city with only like 3 river tiles" or "a terrace farm on a hill that's actually nowhere near a mountain" don't really work for me.

but uh, i'll do the same thing i did for the units list and have one of each for the early and late game, maybe middle game too:
i like libraries because they're the first science buildings and dislike walls because they only add a little bit of defense to the city.
i like aqueducts because of the food carry over and dislike castles for the same reason as walls.
i like broadcast towers because they give a really nice boost to culture and dislike stadiums because i feel like they don't really give enough happiness for when they come into play.

oh, and let me edit for improvements:
i like farms because of the food.
i dislike custom houses because i don't think they're really worth the great person when you can just build a trading post in that same spot and get just a little bit less gold.

 

[comatosedragon]

A proper list:

Best:

Wat: The University is the best vanilla building in the game. Doubling your output and getting GPP for the low, low price of 160 is a very good thing. But free Universities via Legalism that give you +3 per turn are considerably better.

How does this work? In my (albeit limited) experience, Legalism provides 4 cultural buildings in the first four cities. I understand that the wat gives 3 culture, but is it not recognized by the game as a science building (since it replaces the University)?

I'm going to try this now with a beeline to education, making sure to have monuments and temples (and Monastary, if applicable) in my four core cities. If this does indeed work, a whole new strategy will be opened up . . .

 

[Ellye]

How does this work? In my (albeit limited) experience, Legalism provides 4 cultural buildings in the first four cities. I understand that the wat gives 3 culture, but is it not recognized by the game as a science building (since it replaces the University)?

If you already have all available cultural buildings (including Monastery where it applies), it will give you a Wat.

 

[comatosedragon]

^
This is awesome! I never realized! Thanks Alvito for letting us know about this. (Unless I'm the only one who didn't!)

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The University is the best vanilla building in the game. Doubling your output and getting GPP for the low, low price of 160 is a very good thing.

While it would be pretty sweet to have a university DOUBLE your output and give Great Person Points, it does nothing of the sort.

University adds 50% of your raw (unmodified) science input. So if you're getting 10 from population and, therefore, 7 from library, you will receive 8.5 more from the university (not 17 more). And it only opens up a slot for a scientist specialist. It doesn't directly provide GPP.

 

[bcaiko]

I think you're right here, but I would say that the Barracks and Armory are still pretty weak buildings. Sure, they'll give you that boost, but are only going to be at all useful in unit producing cities, and only when you are actually producing a unit. By the time you get the Armory, you could be to the stage of upgrading a lot of your units, rather than building them. In which case the two promotions to start off with are comparatively weak.

I understand your position, but I, for one, think it's very nice to know that, should I lose a troop in a particularly vicious battle to take an opponent's city, I can easily replace him with a city-attack bonus samurai. In fact, I can spam those so long as I have Iron.

It gives me a warm, stabby feeling.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^ Not to mention the fact that you can gold rush Armory as soon as it is available. It's not like Armory comes with Steam Power or Assembly Line... it comes in the early-mid medieval era.

Some strategies (like the Big Ben/Mercantilism/Militarism which makes purchasing units in cities a total of 73% cheaper) allow you to make ANY city into a unit pump making it worthwhile to have barracks/armory in quite a few cities.

 

[BranjoHello]

Best:
Granary
Market
Broadcast Tower

Worst:
Stable
Spaceship Factory
Nuclear Plant

 

[sstger]

i dislike custom houses because i don't think they're really worth the great person when you can just build a trading post in that same spot and get just a little bit less gold.

Really, do someone really use GM to build custom house... just, when i get one, its mainly a mistake, and i'll use it only to start a golden age.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Really, do someone really use GM to build custom house... just, when i get one, its mainly a mistake, and i'll use it only to start a golden age.

I have an ice settled city surrounded by ice and 5 fish resources. Oh... and a 3 coal tundra tile. I popped 2 great scientist and 2 great merchants and had them build their great tile improvements on ice. The city is currently my second best gold city and my research powerhouse bringing in about 115 on its own. It's pretty crazy to see an ice city being the second largest and best in my empire.

Don't knock great tile improvements. In a city with decent food, you can turn a completely crappy tile (like ice, tundra, or desert) and turn it into a powerhouse. Although, I think the custom house could use a little boost. Perhaps 2 more would make it more attractive.

EDIT: Granted, the scientists might be better used for bulbing techs, but I was blowing the AI away in tech, so I experimented with this. If you build an academy with an early GS, he will provide far more than bulbing ever could. Don't forget that each time you use a great person to generate a GA, the amount of turns goes down.