Col is overrated

[oyzar]

I see so many ppl here advocate col asap at the lower levels. This is just plain wrong to me. Before monarch you basically don't need courthouses if you have any economy whatsoever as libraries / markets / grocers / etc will allways be better for your commerce cities. Of course once you get past monarch courthouses get quite alot better but even then they are a huge hammer investment for their return. Do anyone else feel col is overrated for no organized leaders? As organized it become a whole lot better and might even be worth to get somewhat early at prince. This is not counting the spy bonus though. Is there something i am missing? I can often get 10+ cities at lower levels before it get even remotly profitable to start thinking of courthouses. I do play mostly mp if i play lower levels though. Would this influence it somewhat? Isn't it better for players who just can't beat noble to build cottages and farms than worry about huge projects like courthouses which give minimal return?

 

[Rissiel]

I think the reason COL is advocated so much, has less to do with courthouses, than it does with COL being a nice tech to grab by building the oracle. Not only does grabbing it early guarantee founding Confucianism, but it brings you much closer to nifty stuff like Civil Service. There are some other good techs to grab with the Oracle, but COL provides plenty of bang for its buck.

 

[Gooblah]

Code of Laws is a starting point for virtually all techs in the Modern Era. it enables Civil Service, as well as Confucianism, normally the first religion founded w/ a free Missionary, enabling a greater spread of said religion. Courthouses are useful post-war, and since you're gonna be warring a ton, your economy's gonna be lagging quite a bit, resulting in a huge drawback in the research slider (I sometimes bring it to 30% or below). Courthouses alleviate a lot of the costs involved with an empire when put in all cities. It makes your commerce cities more efficient, and frees up post-war money for teching to ensure you're not a sitting duck.

One of the best Gambits outlined by Sisutil's article is the Civil Service +Oracle Gambit, where the Oracle is finished at the same time or after Code of Laws is done researching. Since Priesthood is a prereq for CoL anyways, you can research CoL at the same time you start the Oracle. Thus, you can get CS for free, helping out good cities with bad food around them.

 

[slobberinbear]

Courthouses are an economic and espionage tool. In some situations (city has low commerce output, city is far from capital), you can make more money with a courthouse than a marketplace, and their passive EP generation really adds up. I agree that they are expensive, but they are usually worth whipping or chopping.

Currency gives more economic bang for the buck up front from the increased trade routes and access to markets (though markets are quite expensive too), especially in your commerce cities.

All of the late classical age economic/civic techs are powerful, especially in combination wtih each other. You can easily quintuple your economy, triple your cities' size, and double the number of cities you had with these techs.

 

[lilnev]

I think oyzar is really arguing that courthouses are over-rated as a cure for economic ills. CoL as a tech certainly opens up some important branches of the tree. But Currency+Courthouses is the standard answer to the standard "Help, I crashed my economy!" question.

And I, too, question whether courthouses are the best fix. In particular, I often prefer to get happiness under control (typically through HR) and grow my cities to larger sizes on more cottages. I don't think it's worth whipping citizens off cottages to put up a courthouse until my happy- or health-cap is limiting and I don't have a reasonable way of raising it. Under HR, the happy-cap is never limiting, and hopefully the health cap is high. I usually do get around to courthouses eventually, but I prefer the "more cottages" approach to staying solvent.

peace,
lilnev

 

[r_rolo1]

I think that most of the " CoL first " response is still a conditioned response of the times of the CS slingshot... In those times, it made sense to beeline Col like a mad man, to have it ready when the Oracle GPhrophet arrived ( other times... ). Of course that the caste civic ,the Confu religion and the courthouses are nothing to sneeze at, but they don't make "CoL first " aproach mandatory...
As with all techs and buildings, people should think what they need in that game at that time instead of pursuing clichés... A small example: if you have less than 2 gold in maintenance in a city , researching currency ( that gives a extra trade route, yeilding atleast 1 gold ) is a wiser move than researching CoL and building a courthouse. Or, in a coastal city with 2 foreign trade routes of 2 gold each, it is better to research compass and build a harbor ( +50% to the trade routes, or in this case 2 extra gold ) than getting CoL and building a courthouse ( and cheaper too ) if the city have less than 4 gold in maintenance...
Other thing that sometimes passes unseen is the whipping of courthouses.... if it is a recently conquered city with a lot of red faces, it is almost mandatory to do that ( otherwise you're wasting starving citizens ). But I would not do that in a city with mature cottages: most likely the city would lose more than it would spare with the courthouse...

 

[gettingfat]

Two major ways to relatively easier victory are REX (rapid expansion) and early rush. Either way you will have cities getting maintainence over 5 very quickly. Without courthouses your research will drop too low to survive. For specialist economy CoL opens up caste system. If you get a well cottaged commerce capital then CS means a lot. So considering only the economy CoL is still extremely valuable.

 

[shyuhe]

CoL opens up caste system. You can hire merchants to sustain a flagging economy (which I've done numerous times). I use it to cure my economy through that, rather than courthouses. Courthouses are only useful if you have a massive pre-AD empire (or in the mid-late game).

 

[cheffster]

Prioritizing CoL really depends, I usually grab metal casting from the Oracle, and often can trade it for CoL, but on some games, even with early conquest I've found I don't need courthouses till much later on. If I can manage to build GreatLighthouse/Temple of Artemis and settle some great merchants/priests, my economy will run 80% science without going broke and not having 1 courthouse, and this is on Immortal +. However, if you have large cities that are very far from your capital (like 20 squares or more) then I would build courthouses asap, it depends, but for me, unless I settled waaay out there to block AI expansion or conquer some distant cities, I don't bother with it till later on.

 

[futurehermit]

col is the best tech in the game after bw. i see no need to delay it.

caste system
courthouses
phil lightbulb (with medit, math and GS)
unlocks cs (with math)
religion (possibly)

as you can see deviating for math is not necessarily a bad thing (another good tech!) but in general col does a lot for you.

 

[Archaelicos]

Courthouses are often a decent fix. I find that after sufficient expansion I've got -50 to -60/turn in city maintenance, cutting all that in half is huge. I just rarely have the chop or whip capacity to put them where they're most needed.

 

[Tennyson]

Many of my cities do much better from courthouses than from markets.

 

[Elandal]

Comparing courthouse to market: if you have slider at 50%, then market gives you gold equal to 25% of 50% of your commerce, or 1g per 8c. This is equal to courthouse at maintenace of 2g.

The ratio is thus 4c income to 1g maintenance with slider at 50%. If the slider is higher for research, then you aren't in economic slump but OTOH market doesn't do much either - courthouse is better most of the time (but as said, you aren't in economic slump so probably not necessary). If the slider is at 0% research, then the ratio is 2c income to 1g maintenance - market will certainly win.

Of course we can add merchant specialists - market allows that without caste system. Market might bring happiness (have furs? ivory? silk? whales?). Courthouse OTOH brings EPs and allows running of spy specialist. Market costs you about 25% more hammers than courthouse.

Of course markets aren't the only good thing from currency, and courthouses are just one small point for CoL. Above only considered the buildings.

 

[pigswill]

In the OP oyzar was questionning CoL at lower difficulties (presumably prince or lower). At higher levels (monarch+) CoL has many benefits to do with increased city maintenance costs and the liberalism beeline (sets up philosophy lightbulb and on the way to CS).
At lower difficulty levels a relatively experienced player will comfortably out-tech the AI and so lightbulbing isn't important coz the AI won't have many techs to trade and you can win liberalism race through straight research. City maintenance costs aren't as high at lower difficulties.
In conclusion I have to agree with Oyzar: at higher difficulties CoL is important, at lower difficulties its less important (though still a nice tech to have).

 

[futurehermit]

The thing is though, what tech is going to be better at lower levels? CS is still great, getting COL gives you one religion and bulbing phil another one, which you can surely put to use. Caste system and pacificism are still great civics and you don't have to lightbulb with your gp you can build academies, settle them, build shrines for the religions you got, etc. etc.

CoL is a great tech that gets better at higher levels but is certainly not a bad tech at lower levels and it still leads to CS (unless you go up through theology) which is a great tech at any level.

 

[Sjaramei]

If you got 3-4 cities close to your capital you don't need CoL that bad true, capture/found a couple of more and your economy crashes. So if you are using few cities don't bother that much getting it, for warmongering and fast settlements CoL is a must and you want it as soon as possible. And in those distant cities your courthouse wont save you just a couple of gold, it will be much much more.

 

[Phrederick]

Like anything else, you have to think about how it will benefit you, and what else might benefit you more. I think CoL really is much stronger in games with a lot of early expansion, because your maintenance will skyrocket. If you play a game with fewer better-developed cities, then it will naturally be of less importance.

 

[Kennigit]

I think oyzar is really arguing that courthouses are over-rated as a cure for economic ills. CoL as a tech certainly opens up some important branches of the tree. But Currency+Courthouses is the standard answer to the standard "Help, I crashed my economy!" question.

And I, too, question whether courthouses are the best fix. In particular, I often prefer to get happiness under control (typically through HR) and grow my cities to larger sizes on more cottages. I don't think it's worth whipping citizens off cottages to put up a courthouse until my happy- or health-cap is limiting and I don't have a reasonable way of raising it. Under HR, the happy-cap is never limiting, and hopefully the health cap is high. I usually do get around to courthouses eventually, but I prefer the "more cottages" approach to staying solvent.

peace,
lilnev

Bingo. I usually always go for hereditary rule before CoL and grow my cities. Currency is generally better short term as it has immediate bonus w/o having to build stuff, and for an early CE I find my first scientists comes a little after CoL, which is perfect timing to pop philosophy and trade while researching civil service.

This is more for Warlords/Vanilla as I haven't played that much BtS, but the espionage points can be ignored for a while, and whipping out courthouses doesn't appeal to me (much rather would work cottages or production).

 

[futurehermit]

Horizontal expansion is the key to winning at any level. Land is power.

(unless going for cultural win)

 

[cabert]

Horizontal expansion is the key to winning at any level. Land is power.

(unless going for cultural win)

true enough, but it doesn't mean that courthouses are better than free trade routes or the ability to trade for money.

I'm not as good as lilnev in the cottage spamming business (although I understand the concept, I never have enough workers), but I found that when you conquer (or worse, settle) a lot of cities, most are bound to be small. Especially the settled ones.

I try not to keep size 1, 2 or 3 cities, but sometimes, the city is well placed or if you raze it you have to settle your own.
Those small cities have a low (!) production ability, and you certainly can't whip a courthouse there. Thus, the free trade route from currency, even a domestic one, is better.
And the ability to sue for peace earning enough gold to pay your maintenance while researching and improving your conquered land is pretty good too .
Then the ability to extort (or ask politely) for all the AIs gold is good again.
+ currency opens up the path to CoL.
I must say it's pretty rare that I go for the oracle, so I'm not one of those who have the "CS slingshot syndrome".