Comprehensive UB Guide

[cabert]

French Salon (Observatory):

The Salon is an observatory which gives a free artist. It might not seem like much, but for cultural victories it can be quite nice.

Possible Synergies:

Okay, first of all, with the patch, Louis can now build cheap theatres and libraries! He is creative and the +2 culture is only a small amount, but the cheap buildings is great. In fact, Louis gets libraries, theatres, coliseums and forges at half production cost. Not too shabby.

Given the anarchy caused by switching to Mercantilism perhaps going from liberalism to astronomy makes sense. Of course you have to build these Salons, but they are cheaper than universities and with Notre Dame the free artist gives more culture for the same amount of science boost (+25&#37. Not only that, but you get GGP. Maybe you do want to switch to Mercantilism and then you have got two free artists with the library, salon, (and university) the Statue of Liberty is not that far away with his cheap forge and quicker building of the Statue of Liberty. Either way you could have 2-3 free artists. And speaking of science boost, why not run Representation with those free artists? Use the library, salon and uni to beeline for the ECWs and you are laughing. C'est formidable! C'est magnifique! D'accord?

Possible Drawbacks?

Not sure what Napoleon would do with the free artist other than maintain culture borders on resources on a crowded map, but then again you could build a cheap theatre in the likely small city first. You could however have your larger cities with these GAs and go and culture bomb you new acquisitions.

Summary:

There are likely some other possibilities to be discussed as there seems to be lacking a certain "je ne sais quoi?", but this UB should not be taken lightly.

I didn't read all your entries, but having just finished a SG game playing Louis, I thought I'd give you some more insight.

First, I don't understand what you say about mercantilism, anarchy and such.
It's pointless IMHO. You can still go mercantilism if you feel the need.
And democracy isn't just next door. It's still a good deal away from astronomy.
I would simply mention that with mercantilism + SoL, a salon and a theatre, you could have 3 free artists.

I don't know why you mention Notre Dame. It's a nice wonder, but it has nothing to do with the salon.
Maybe you meant Sistin Chapel , giving +2CPT for every specialist?

One more thing to notice is that artists give 4 cpt and 1 beaker, even without representation. Under representation, it's 4 cpt and 4 beakers. +25% science boost, it's 5 free beakers in every city (+ library, it's 6 free beakers)... La vie est belle!

Beware : The salon is very helpful in a cultural game, but it can be damageable if you want other specialists (it pollutes the GP pool). In fact, in the GP farm, if you build a salon, you have 2 sources of artists.
So even if you run 4 scientists, you still have 33% odds of getting an artist.

 

[Quetzal513]

There are a lot of great ideas on this thread, major props. I like that there isn't a firm ranking. While some players have their pet civilizations or strategies, one of my favorite things to do is play with all random parameters then see how I can use the hand I’ve been dealt to win the game. UBs and this guide fit exactly that; “how can I use ‘this’ to my advantage in this game?”

Now for the point (which will fly in the face of what I just said). Has anyone else noticed while playing as the Incans when you conquer other cities their granaries are converted to terraces? Unlike other culture building, that are automatically razed, terraces produce culture right out of the gate. In a recent game I wiped out Isabella and what to my delight to find I already had terraces producing not 2, but 4 culture in most of her cities (probably owing to how long ago they’d been built). Giving how many turns it usually takes to build, or the cost of rushing some culture building to get things rolling again it was a very nice head start. So yeah, terraces are pretty good.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I still don't see how the pavillion is a nice building for anything but a cultural victory, and even then, there are more important factors for cultural victories for 25%, such as being able to get religions, or being able to defend yourself. That's a rather weak building, even compared to the dun (at least guerilla III gives +25% strength when attacking enemies on hills).

I never noticed that the sacrificial alter costs less hammers. This is going to have large ramifications on Aztec strategy, namely, bloody awesome.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Glad to see there is still interest in this thread. I haven't played CIV4 since my Christmas vacation but will get back to it soon I am sure.

I was going to wait for more comments before publishing a final form, but other than what's here and some PMs from way back there hasn't been much.

Maybe I should just go ahead and do it then?

 

[cabert]

Glad to see there is still interest in this thread. I haven't played CIV4 since my Christmas vacation but will get back to it soon I am sure.

I was going to wait for more comments before publishing a final form, but other than what's here and some PMs from way back there hasn't been much.

Maybe I should just go ahead and do it then?

check the views of the thread.
If it's growing, you could write an article (articles subforum) from what you already have + modifications.
I was thinking the same (= no interest) for my happiness article, since I had no replies, but after a while it was rated 5 stars and over 1000 views. So it seems there was interest.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

There is a new spreadsheet out which can be found at this thread.

I have updated this thread with everyone's suggestions up to now. I plan on releasing this to the Strategy Artilces section soon, so I encourage any more input and corrections.

Thank you.

 

[Yeosol]

This is a great thread, I don't really know why people haven’t contributed ideas so far so I’ll start.

Pavilion: This building can be used for more then cultural victories. I use it in domination/conquest games. What you do is very early decide which way your going to expand militarily. Then on your opposite boarder build really forward cities and pump out max culture and pavilions. Your basically playing a mini "Always peace domination victory" on that boarder. This can be done although I can't find the link to the games where it has. (anyone have them?). This way you can steal 3-5 cities from your ally which won't cause diplomatic problems between you. And then they will also be weaker latter.

Odeon: I’ve been trying to work this strategy. The goal is to get 2 or 3 unhappy people in your cities(basically working till stagnate growth) right before you get construction and then spend a couple turns building a 1/3rd or so of the Odeon then whip the rest. This should give you a quickly built Odeon and population boost. The +2 happiness allows you to do this. This could also be done with the ottoman building, the Hamman.

Salon: The power here comes from running representation. With that you have a base +4 sci. 5 with the Salon 25% bonus. 6 with library, 7 with university. 9 with academy. etc. even at 7. with 10 cities that’s a free 70 sci. plus the culture. Napoleon uses them by putting them in new conquered cities before or after a courthouse, granting him culture without needing a theater.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

I have updated this article to include what we know about the new UBs. I likely won´t be able to get BtS for a few months, but took time out from my vacation in Peru to do this because I am so excited about this expansion.

Hopefully people will see what I have written for the new ones and be able to comment as soon as this glorious new expansion is released.

 

[Bursk]

I don't understand this part regarding the Dun:

"Upgrading your Gallic Swordsman, they would likely lose the Guerilla I, but if they were given Guerilla II or even III before being upgraded, then they would likely keep it. Some shrewd mainpulation of the promotion chart would prove most rewarding."

I thought that Gallic Swordsman always kept their Guerilla I promotion, even when upgraded.

 

[Roxlimn]

I just finished a Culture Victory game with the Zulu. The UB is an absolute monster. The Impi can be situationally useful. Not great at all against Monty, it's a killer against Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan. However, the Ikhanda is really, really good.

The best use for the Ikhanda is to spam it on all your cities. They'll cost cheaper to maintain and produce better troops. While it's not a 50% reduction like a Courthouse, it's substantially cheaper because of Shaka's trait, and that makes it worth it. That and because it stacks on top of a Courthouse's maintenance reduction.

The best synergy, IMO, comes from Nationalism when you can use all your cities to blast out a ton of CR 2 Riflemen. That's a serious advantage. If it made happies, it might just be broken. However, to my knowledge, the Ikhanda does not. Inspite of that, having as much as 2 Pinch promoted Riflemen for each of your 12 cities (for 24 units) in 8 turns, plus whatever other units you produce, (easily 4 more) plus your standing army can easily allow you to just overrun a neighbor with brute force in short order.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

I don't understand this part regarding the Dun:

"Upgrading your Gallic Swordsman, they would likely lose the Guerilla I, but if they were given Guerilla II or even III before being upgraded, then they would likely keep it. Some shrewd mainpulation of the promotion chart would prove most rewarding."

I thought that Gallic Swordsman always kept their Guerilla I promotion, even when upgraded.

I don't believe so, since they are melee units, and not eligible for the Guerrilla promotion.

 

[bovinespy]

Hi, WilliamOfOrange. Just checking back on your excellent thread, and thought I'd give you a heads-up about one of the new UBs in Bts: the Sumerian Ziggurat.

While it's true that these babies are cheaper than normal Courthouses (90 vs. 120 ), you've neglected to mention the best thing about them, which is that they don't require Code of Laws to build - all you need is Priesthood! This is simpy put, huge! On most of my games where I'm not snagging CoL from an Oracle/GP slingshot, I can get Priesthood dozens of turns earlier than CoL.

Simply put, as Gilgamesh, you will be the first to effectively slash your city maintenance costs in the early game. The only other leader who comes close is Shaka with his Ikhanda. Charlemagne's Rathaus is also great, but it too requires CoL. With effective use of the Vulture, Gilgamesh can be the first leader to conquer a decent-sized empire and not tank his research. A great UB, IMHO.

Keep up the good work! I look forward to more updates as you and the rest of us figure out all the twists and turns of BtS.

 

[Virulent]

Nice thread but one thing to keep in mind is that now in BtS Stonehenge/Monuments and their corresponding UBs now obsolete with Astronomy which makes them much more useful.

 

[uppi]

I think you missed a possible synergy for the Viking UB: Because your ships already have a +1 movement bonus, you have a better shot at getting the circumnavigation bonus. And if you get that, your ships will have a +2 movement bonus over your enemies' ships. That means that you can easily outrun enemy ships, sometimes even with a slower type of ship (for example your ships of the line will be faster than enemy frigates )

 

[rtfischbeck]

On the Ziggarot : I think the biggest advantage is that it's available with priesthood instead of CoL. You also get forbidden palace early, so if you don't need the religion or caste system, you can bypass CoL.

 

[WilliamOfOrange]

Hi, WilliamOfOrange. Just checking back on your excellent thread, and thought I'd give you a heads-up about one of the new UBs in Bts: the Sumerian Ziggurat.

Thanks Bovinespy! I was wondering why the screenshot of the tech tree showed it back a bit.

i am hoping my friend will mail me a copy this week so I don't have to wait until October when I visit home to get it. I have done the update based on what I have seen in the forums and people's great screen shots. Man, I cannot wait to play this baby. Back in the Civ2 days I called in sick at work for a week. I wonder what BtS will make me do!

 

[Slobadog]

Here is further detail on the strength of the Viking Trading Post. If your not on an island map long distance warfare has a tendency to bog down even when victory seems inevitable. Armies are constantly slowed down by the need to heal. The need to bring along slow moving artillery. The need for reinforcments. Boats however make this tedious situation more tolerable. You can send your whole invasion force by sea quickly up the coast or send just the slow units by sea and the fast ones by land. Even if your targets are far inland sea travel may still save you some turns if the land mass width is less than the length. Faster travel means your units will have more chances to fight before they become obsolete. Marinetime transport by itself is a extreemly useful tactic. Having a UB that makes all boats 1 point faster makes this tactic even more effective.
Yes the more boats you build the more money you have pay out but thats is made up by the fact that the sooner you get to attack citys the sooner they will fall and the sooner they fall the sooner pillged gold ends up in your hands. Ragar's financial trait also provides boat funds . So this
strategy is logistically plausible.


On a peaceful note settlers could also use boats to beat the AI to lucrative coastel spots.

 

[Slobadog]

I've been testing the Baray in a few games and i've noticed this:


1.) A Baray adds +1 food. This allows 1 citizen to be reassigned from a +1 food tile to anywhere else.

2.) If a city is producing +1 excess food then adding a Baray leads to +2 food which allows 1 citizen to be reassigned from a +2 food tile to anywhere else

Anywhere else could be a a hammer only tile or a specialist slot. If you absolutly gotta have faster unit production right now or more gold from a merchant etc. then this is a way to do that. The drawback is that this will likly result in zero future population growth. A Baray could instead be used to speed up population growth, but it doesn't add much. A Baray has synergy with the Supermarket as it adds +1 food. Supermarket + Baray = 2 food. The benifit of this combo is similar to what has already been mentioned above. A Baray is most useful for a city that has medium or poor food growth. Cities rich in food likley won't notice the difference. A Baray makes formally useless tundra cities a little bit less so. Baray construction can be rushed into a city even if it has low production if forest chopping is used. Fortunatly Barays are made available with Mathematics which also allows improved forest chop yields. Overall it is a highly situational UB that is almost useless at least 50% of time. To make it effective at all one has to really wrap their strategy around it. Thus some strategies will not work with it. Never the less one would probably build it anyway for the health bonus.

 

[Slobadog]

The Feitoria is actually better than the financial trait on island maps. Financial only gives you 1 additional commerce on coastal tiles. The Feitoria provides 1 additional commerce to coastal and ocean tiles. The colossus provides the benefit of a Feitoria in the early part of the game. So having a late UB is not necessarily a problem.

 

[Polycrates]

Great analysis
Just thought I'd throw in my own thoughts about a couple of the UBs

Obelisk:
I really like this UB and I've never had the slightest concern for culture (I play Hatty as the bloodthirsty warmonger that she really is).
Its major non-cultural benefits are threefold:
One is bulbing theology super-early. You're almost guaranteed Christianity if you want it, and you get very early access to theocracy (and OR since you need monotheism first anyway). Early Theocracy is great for giving War Chariots a renaissance since you can easily mass-produce them with Flanking II and make them essentially slightly-watered-down-but-half-price horse archers and use them pretty much as early siege or raiders waaaay after normal chariots have reached their use-by date.
If the circumstances are appropriate, it also lets you beeline liberalism without being slowed down by Civil Service on the way, since it also allows Paper.
You also get first crack at the Apostolic Palace if you want it.
The second benefit is building a shrine in the mid-game, when priest limits make it very difficult and slow to generate a prophet if you've already been heavily running specialists.
The third is building Angkor Wat and running priests as engineers in hammer-poor cities. I'm less fond of this but it's an option.


Indian Mausoleum:
With BtS, the jail has turned into one of the very best buildings in the game. Assuming you've got a courthouse, you're getting +7 free espionage points per turn just from building it. And suddenly you can run three spy specialists, who are the best value specialists out there anyway, and with a jail are producing 6 EPs per turn each. Not to mention that it comes at the same time as Representation, which makes spy specialists very productive little chappies indeed. Plus Great Spies are fantastic great people.
What's nice about the Mausoleum is that Rep can introduce happiness problems with the loss of Hereditary Rule, so it becomes an even better building for exactly that time. And from that point on, it really becomes the default go-to building for when a city is experiencing happiness problems (especially, but not only, war-related problems).
I've always seen Gandhi and Asoka primarily as warmongers, since Spiritual is such a warmonger's trait, and they're both extremely well-suited to running a SE. So the war-weariness bonus is also nice (and with Rushmore and a quick Spiritual switch to Police State, you can eliminate war weariness completely).

It has a massive synergy with the Intelligence Agency and the Security Bureau, and mausolea are best focused together with these two to give obscene amounts of EPs per turn, and up to seven spy specialists.

Perhaps still not a top-of-the-line UB, but since the jail is now so very good and a worthwhile use of hammers pretty much anywhere, it certainly has become a much better UB.