I just extrapolated his argumentation. He literally said that it is okay to do something illogical, because the game already has illogical elements in it. No strawman to see anywhere for miles. Maybe it wasn't necessary to insult this point of view, but I don't think highly of this argumentation and I wasn't the first one to call something silly. So your intervention wasn't really called for. And also I didn't see you make any point at all, unlike me. Maybe start by explaining how it makes sense to you that exactly one arbitrary profane building can't be obtained by supercharging energy.
EDIT:
Balance trumps lore, yes. But again, this doesn't mean that any arbitrary decision that seems illogical lorwise should be permitted for balance reasons. Completely suspending lore in one specific decision certainly doesn't seem like the way to go.
Sorry, missed your post.
He said it was okay to permit illogical behaviour in one aspect of the game because that aspect of the game is already illogical. You misread his intent, and extrapolated to something absurd that would never happen. That's why I called fallacy.
I joined in because I disagree with you and we already had a debate going.
It makes sense because buying building with Energy isn't a realistic in-universe action that happens within the confines of the lore. Just like purchasing items in Civilisation 5 (or rushing them in earlier Civ games) works (but makes absolutely no sense historically).
If you accept it as an in-universe event,
you need to explain your reasoning - you haven't done so so far.
I'm pretty firmly on the "it's an inelegant chainsaw" side for making Trade Depots non-buyable. It's an ugly hack. Either trade routes are still OP, where making Trade Depots non-buyable won't do a whole lot, or they aren't OP, and then let 'em be purchased. Design should be going for maximal clarity; right now, "buildings are buyable, Wonders / end-game victory conditions aren't" works fine. It's certainly possible they could sell some kind of a distinction here within buildings, e.g. "All Supremacy buildings are not buyable", but "certain buildings that were too good in the previous patch are not buyable" is weird and breaks the mechanical expectation that buildings are buyable.
If they really want to nerf Depot / early cities, give Depot a prerequisite building requirement - e.g. Thorium Reactor. At least there is a strong tradition & expectation that certain buildings have prerequisites.
Making users unable to purchase a building may seem inelegant, but in fact it's a completely underused method of delaying the creation of an element in gameplay terms.
Design doesn't
have to aim for maximum clarity; that's
a design goal, not
the design goal. Nor does this argument work when you're not complaining about Mind Stems (or w/e their name is) which are non-Wonder buildings that are also no longer purchasable.
Adding a prerequisite for the Trade Depot doesn't fix the problem of buying the building - all it does it increase the Energy needed to buy both at once. Presumably, that is the key issue here. Especially since Trade Depots provide Production, making it a very cheap instant boost to Production for a small city (I'd know, it was my go-to buying choice for any new city due to the incredibly low cost and the decent Production bonus it provides). Furthermore, the relevant Quest can also increase Energy or Production output further.
Firaxis' fix may seem inelegant to you, but you've just demonstrated with your suggestion that you don't even understand the core problem behind the building in the first place.
