Culture games: Monasteries, Universities - worth it?

[lindsay40k]

My gut feeling is without Sistine Chapel, monasteries might be a waste of hammers. Maybe build one of the AP faith for extra hammers, if it's in play before I've got my Cathedrals in place. Universities... three culture doesn't seem like worth such an expensive building, even with a +300% multiplier, but they can help you Lib Nationalism and get Taj Mahal. Likewise the Monasteries, I suppose. What's the general take on this?

 

[strijder20]

Monasteries are worth it. What else would you build? You don't need wealth or research, and the culture per turn is worth more than just building culture.

 

[Antilogic]

I think they are completely worth it. Even in non-culture games, I build them everywhere for border pops until I get theatres.

 

[babar]

Yeah, neither are worth it for the culture they produce alone. As you say, monasteries are only worth it with Sistine (and for research if you build them early enough). The 3 culture from a university is meaningless when you could be building culture anyway. In a city with lots of settled GPs under Representation they might be an ok build, but research is the lowest priority at that stage (although not completely useless).

 

[lymond]

Monasteries are ok, especially since they come earlier. Also, you may want some if you don't run OR, but I usually try to run OR early in culture games to speed all the buildings needed.

Unis are a waste of hammers in culture games. By the time Edu is in and soon after Lib, you should pretty much be in full culture mode or expending all hammers on finalizing the important things you need for culture. Otherwise, build culture in L cities or wealth to keep culture slider up, which is probably more valuable if you are having gold concerns.

 

[Funky]

My gut feeling is without Sistine Chapel, monasteries might be a waste of hammers.

The Sistine Chapel should be among the top priorities in culture games anyway, so monastaries are more than worth it for that reason alone.