[R&F] Government Plaza Dilemma

I build it as soon as I can just to get AH. Love getting free builders.

I usually build multiple HS. Faith is invaluable. By the time the GP with rushing spaceships come around, I have plenty of faith to buy them.
 
It took me a long time to learn to love the GP. I started liking it a lot more once I realised I didn’t need to waste gold and effort trying to maximise adjacencies. Honestly, if you just place it next to your City Centre, that’s +2 for at least one or two districts. With a mountain or some jungles etc that’s a +3 Campus, with a Wonder that’s a +4 Theatre Square. Or it’s part way to a decent IZ. That’s a good enough return for adjacencies.

Other thoughts. Three Governor Promotions is very strong. It’s really hard to go past two Magnus, one for the chop and one for settlers, and one Liang for the extra builder charge. That basically lets you grab Pyramids plus one or two other early wonders[0], and yes does let your really pump out settlers with Ancestral Hall. Indeed being able to spam settlers that all give a free builder (with extra charges via pyramid) is incredibly powerful. Really hard to pass it up.

Of course, there are lots of other ways to spend your first three promotions. Not going to debate which are stronger or weaker openings, but there are many very fun ways to go.

For the reasons above, it’s very hard to go past ancestral hall. It also the easiest building to use because it does what it says on the tin - the other two buildings are a bit more contingent when they work. AH also really helps if you want to settle mid game using eg Pac Draconis or whatever it’s called.

In terms of timing, your first government and you gov plaza are a bump in era score, so I sometimes might move things around a little to maximise that. Completing T1 buildings can also be a timing issue because I’m often in Autocracy to grab wonders and build units, but don’t want the Autocracy Legacy Card. So, I sometimes build up to one turn short, then flip to Oligarchy or Classical Republic (better), complete to get the card I want and then get AH and spam settlers.

I don’t have views about T2 or T3 Buildings. I really struggle to play past about turn 150 at the moment, just because it feels like there’s more content coming that might shakeup the mid and end game. But, yeah, hard to go past the spy building just because it’s so easy to use. The Grandmaster Chapel is probably the best because it lets you buy units, but I rarely like going that direction precisely because it is so powerful particularly if you have Medieval+ unique units. The city state one might be a bit underestimated on these forums just given Levy troops is often underrated.[1]

You also have the option of not building it at all. Not saying that’s optimal, but it is a fun variation. I do find the game can have a different dimension if you just deliberately ignore certain mechanics - eg no commercial hubs, or no campuses or theatre districts, or whatever. The game also does encourage that a little bit with governments - you pretty much have to upgrade from Chiefdom to T1 government, but some T1 and T2 governments do have a bonuses that might make you not upgrade to the next level too quickly, and then there is also the negative modifiers for T3 governments.[2]

So, yeah. Love the Gov Plaza. It’s been a slow burn, but it really has been one of the best mechanics added to the game.

[0] Side bar. It’s just crazy to me that even at Immortal I can basically grab any Wonder I want Magnus (except for the Super early ones like Great Bath, or Colosseum because of how much set off is required). Chopping is a great Mechanic, but it really doesn’t play well with Wonder mechanics or SV mechanics for that matter.

[1] Hey, has anyone else notice the GP T2 buildings are also focused on military? T1 are obviously meant to be the “wide / liberty” one, the “tall / tradition” one, and the “war / honour” one. But, yeah, I’ve only just realised all the T2 ones are about war. Does FXS want everyone to be murdering each other once we get to the Medieval and or Renaissance era? Hmm. That’s kinda cool...

[2] One reason I hope a third expansion gets into stuff like ideology etc, is that it might make moving between government tiers more of a trade off. The game should really encourage play where you sort of deliberately don’t move to more advanced technologies in some situations. Indeed, you can see that idea in Humankind where there are bonuses to staying nomadic or whatever. That sort of thing just encourages asymmetric play.
 
Intelligence agency is undeniably great, but grandmasters chapel buy land units with faith can be pretty clutch sometimes too. My play style tends to have a lot of faith production so that weighs into it. If you just skip faith altogether I can see why intelligence agency is an auto-choice.

If I have a religion, and I usually do, then I always go for Grand Master Chapel. It's just too convenient to create an army in a moment's notice. Especially for stuff like artillery that take forever to build.

The city state one might be a bit underestimated on these forums just given Levy troops is often underrated.

What I dislike about levying is that you lose the army (and the money you spend) the moment you lose suzerainty. I rather faith buy a 100% loyal army.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I really love the governor promotion you get once it's built -the adjacency bonus is nice, but getting that extra promotion is critical. A very reliable go to is Magnus + settlers with no pop drop + growth in city and boosted trade routes. Your capital (where I prefer to build the GP) can keep growing while building settlers and those traders going back to your capital really help your new cities take off. As soon as a trade route is done, I relocate it to another city and let that grow.

T1
I don't ever want to just to build Ancestor's Hall before I make settlers - it's fine making a settler or two - but it's important to get that up and running. A free builder in every city, especially early game is just so helpful to get your new cities off the ground. I might just build Audience Chamber if I don't get around to building the T1 early and I'm pretty much settled. If I only have space for one or two cities, I'd only get one or two builders, so that extra housing is more valuable I think. The loyalty penalty is pretty irrelevant. If I plan on going full-on domination from the get-go, I'll do Warlord's Throne.

T2
Intelligence Agency is best for most games, no matter the victory type. Grandmaster's Chapel is really good for civs that have good faith generation though, like Russia, Poland, India etc. It synergizes so well with Pillaging, so as your troops pillage your enemies, you get even more faith to buy more troops and pillage more. It creates an positive feedback loop. That's probably my favorite way to play domination. Foreign Ministry is pretty much only for Hungary and Sumeria. And if you're Sweden, you pretty much should just be building your Bibliotheque, otherwise why are you playing her?

T3
These are the most simple by far. If you're going cultural, National History Museum. Science, Royal Society. Domination, War Department. Don't think any of them matter for diplomatic. Same goes for religious, but your religious games should be pretty much done by that point, anyways.
 
Last edited:
Gov Plaza also lets you build the Casa de Contratacion. I mean, by the time this unlocks (Cartography), it's bonus probably isn't that valuable. But the extra yields for Colonial Cities can be situationally really good. The extra great merchants points and governor promotions are also fun. I often try to keep a space for that Wonder when I build my GP and place my Theatre district.

The other Wonder I like along the same lines is that Apadana. But that is very hard to get on higher difficulties, and is adjacent to Capital City rather than GP (but given I build my GP in my Capital, it's all a bit of a wash).

I think some of these posts, particularly @Victoria 's post, just shows what a fun and dynamic the GP is.

On settlers, it's really never sensible to delay building settlers for the AH. There's the occasional edge case where I have the settler and I hold off placing it for a few turns because the AH is almost built. But given the delay getting the AH, you're better just squeezing out settlers and using the AH for maybe a second or third wave of settlers.
 
Double Magnus with ancestral hall is crazy op. PITA to get it online in a timely fashion, but when it works even a high level game is decided in the classical era. The problem with early GovP is that you have to be relaxed about being miles behind in everything for a while in the knowledge that the snowball will start rolling harder and faster.

A lot of people are talking about getting +3 districts. Now that we need +4 for cards the extra +1 from GovP is worth a lot more.

With all of that in mind, buying a third ring tile early for ideal GovP placement is now a real dilemma.
 
I always go for GP as second district in the capital. My strategy is always the same for every game.

Capital + HS/Science + Government Plaza + Magnus (Surplus logistics + Provision).

This allow the capital to produce settlers insanely fast, but also make these new cities grow to a rate that they can produce new districts in no time.
I normally make a commercial district in the new cities, so I have more traders to send to the new cities, making it a loop.

The Goverment Plaza gives +1 food/production that is super useful at the start of the game. If you add it to Surplus logistics, all traders going to the capital receive +3 food by the face! + extra yields from other districts (easy as the capital growth is now +20% too).
What is a constant is the need of the Government Plaza as second District, because it gives the 2 government titles (to reach surplus+logistics) and the +1 F/P for internal trade routes!
I normally do not place it in another city for the loyalty bonus so I lose it always, but as loyalty is closely tied with population, making the cities growth at such an speed tend to give them enough loyalty.


Ideal scenario:
The ideal scenario for me, is managing to have earth goddess +monumentality as it spares you the production of workers and traders. But this optional.
 
Last edited:
I like the idea of building the GP in a colonial city in the mid-game, leveraging the +8 loyalty to ensure the city remains loyal and productive, but I can never bring myself to delay those two addition governor titles that long and thus I invariably build the GP in my capital as soon as I'm able to do so.
 
I usually forget to build it early to be honest. I also feel like Ancestral Hall deserves a nerf- either it gives bonus production to settlers OR the builder in new cities, but NOT both.
 
Since we're discussing the GP, did the recent change to the Foreign Ministry (+3 diplomatic favor) or Audience Chamber (+4 housing and +2 amenities in cities with governor) do anything to move you away from the Ancestral Hall or Intelligence Agency/Grand Master's Chapel.
 
I would also like to mention that GP, and the Tier 1 Building, the Palace and Autocracy gives +3 Food, Production, Gold, Science and Culture and that is really, really good early game and is usually why I choose Autocracy over Classic Republic. The Wonder Boost in general is also very nice and allows you to chop wonders out at a decent pace (Ancient and Classical) with Corvee for a total of +25%.

Since we're discussing the GP, did the recent change to the Foreign Ministry (+3 diplomatic favor) or Audience Chamber (+4 housing and +2 amenities in cities with governor) do anything to move you away from the Ancestral Hall or Intelligence Agency/Grand Master's Chapel.

For Audience Chamber, yes, I had a tall game as Kublai Khan recently. I could only expand to 4 cities, and there weren't even any neighbors to sack aside from Russia. 4 became 6, but the extra amenities really helped with continuous growth. Also helps I was able to nab Artemis in my second city and with all the amenity bonuses, they were ecstatic all game and those bonus yields were *very* nice. Being able to get Pingala in a Pop 15 City by T100 or so was so nice.
 
I normally built it pretty earlier, especially if I plan to build 7+ cities, as the cheap settlers with builders thrown in for Ancestral Hall is mega powerful.

I always find it such a tough call to balance. Like, I want to get it out early and have that bonus for my expansion. But if you don't have huge production, it feels like it can take forever to get out that I can never justify waiting for it to complete.

But yeah, the games that I delay it, I definitely do miss those early governor titles. I have recently taken to not worrying as much about where to build it to get the most out of its extra +1 adjacency - while that's a great bonus, and is really sweet to immediately turn a horrible spot for a district into a +2 with a little triangle, more often now I tell myself "just get it done", and then I worry later about building near it.
 
Top Bottom