Is Spiral Minaret really worth it?

[mangamancer]

Divine Rights is a dead end tech that cost 1520 beakers on noble(some source say 1200?).
It also did not unlock any other useful buildings/units/wonders.
Then Spiral Minaret itself cost 550 hammers.
All this investment for 2 gold per temple(unless you delay Scientific method on propose)

Is it really worth it.

 

[yyeah]

Not worth it.
Better take it from ai.

 

[Lennier]

If you have stone and can trade for DR, then maybe. Even better if your state religion is the AP religion and you have the UoS as well.

 

[shpeka]

If you have stone .... and if your state religion is the AP religion and you have the UoS as well.

I would say - only then.

 

[Tatran]

Close to never.

 

[6K Man]

No. Lennier pretty much nailed it – the only time it would be worthwhile would be under a set of fairly unusual circumstances. You can try to run a religious economy, get the AP, SM and the UoS and spam Temples and Monasteries everywhere, but that’s less efficient than Libbing MilTrad and building 40 Cuirassiers, etc.

 

[BigBizkit]

Back in the days I used to think it was awesome. Now I never build it for pretty much all the reasons you stated: dead end tech prerequisite, hammer intensive (I rarely build temples nowadays anyway), obsoletes a bit too quickly.

Also, by the time it comes around I am already in mop-up mode usually.

I guess it is of the "nice to have" category if you are playing a culture game since in that case you'll have loads of religious buildings anyway.

 

[Major Tom]

Think I have played close to 100 games during all these years. Never built it. Not even close. Divine Right is a tech I usually get as small change when trading modern era techs. Dont feel I have missed something.

 

[Gr8scott]

I played a grid game (every new city has to be 3 squares either NSEW from an existing city), where I built the Spiral, but that was the only time!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Personally, I love to get Divine Right in trade and then I unlock 2 World Wonders for Failure Gold purposes. There's a period of time in the game where you finally have several Cities that can afford to stop building Settlers, Workers, Missionaries, Military Units, Buildings, etc and have them build Failure Gold, and that period of time usually comes just when most of the earlier World Wonders have been completed (at least on high enough difficulty levels). It's also the time of the game where if you didn't start with Marble or Stone nearby, you've probably acquired a source of at least one, if not both of them, either through expansion (militaristic or peaceful) or through an AI who has hooked up 2 such sources and has traded one of those sources to you. In comes Divine Right to save the day!

So, yes, The Spiral Minaret is worth it for converting Forests into Failure Gold all across of the empire, and it tends to be a Wonder that gets built sooner than Versailles due to Versailles not being buildable in AI capitals (and also not being buildable in the rare AI Cities with a Forbidden Palace in them).

When might I self-tech Divine Right? Perhaps when Philosophy has already been traded around by technologically-advanced AIs but 0 or 1 AIs know Divine Right and I need some "cheap" trade bait (cheap relative to other techs that one might have for trade at around that time, such as Education if you follow the approach of going for Liberalism).

 

[Philobulbus]

I might build it if I randomly get a Great Engineer at the appropriate time.

 

[Tephros]

I don't think I've ever researched divine right on my own, so the few times I've built it were then. Like Lennier said, except I'd add that spiritual and incense makes a big difference here, as well as going for a cultural victory in which case you'll be building lots of temples and cathedrals that will never obsolete, in addition to the short-term benefit of the monasteries that you built anyway.

 

[iggymnrr]

I've used it in some of my sub 1000 AD settler HoF space games at standard speed as Asoka. I'm not sure I ever got a financial leader like Darius to be that fast without it. (Or with it.)

 

[Katie Boundary]

I invariably ignore the entire Polytheism -> Monotheism -> Theology -> DR pathway unless I'm playing Gods of Old. I generally ignore anything that doesn't give me a military unit or boost my output of food, hammers, beakers, or gold.