Is the Apostolic Palace hammer bonus too much?

[JohnMK]

I build the Apostolic Palace mainly for the hammer bonus. The diplomatic possibilities I do make use of but they are secondary to me. Do you think the hammer bonus is at all too powerful?

Let's see:

+2 hammers per religious city (Temples, Monasteries, Cathedral(et al.), and Shrine), which is basically at least +4 hammers per city. +6 hammers in important cities (i.e, Heroic Epic, capital). At least +6, and up to +8 hammers in the holy city.

I've never understood this hammer bonus. It has what I consider to be a dubious historical foundation in addition to a gamey feel, and/or IMO, should be reconstituted as something more akin to a national wonder, i.e. every religious sect should be able to build it. Since a vast overhaul is probably out of the question the least I can ask for is that we consider nerfing the hammer bonus. How about we cut it by half? Even at such a reduced effect I'd still favor building it, in most situations.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Gresharas]

I found it to be a nice bonus, but in fact it add hammers only were you HAVE those buildings and not all cities have them - for example a productive city rarely use both temple and monastery since didn't need neither happiness [it's small] nor +% research [it do not produce enought commerce].

Shure, as you say it is nice to have a +4 hammers on each city, but think of how much hammers you need to invest in those two buildings - aroud 300 in marathon - it means that you will "get them back" very slowly and most times by then the monastery became obsolete.

Of course on your main manufacturing centres [say, 20+ hammers unmodified] it became a nice add, but most time again, it is no more than the one you get from Caste System or massing +% production buildings, and thus it is not THE strategy but just another one: sometimes viable, sometimes not.

For me, I never build it. Nation's come at my door asking silly stuff and suddenly found themselves at the wrong end of a pike.

 

[stagnate]

I don't think it's too much, but I have to say I really like it for high-food low-hammer cities. I'll pop rush temple and monastery as soon as possible for the +4H which can be a big difference from 1-2 hammers otherwise available.