Medieval and Renaissance buildings elimination thread

[blok]

Armory (6) (9-3) It's only useful in Domination games or for military engineers, and a really unnecessary build otherwise.
Archaeological Museum (13)
Grand Master's Chapel (20)
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (8)
University (26) (25+1) Sweet sweet science, and an easy way to get it

 

[KingPiggyXXI]

Armory (3) (6 - 3)
Archaeological Museum (14) (13 + 1)
Grand Master's Chapel (20)
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (8)
University (26)

Archaeological Museums aren't just for a Cultural Victory, but for other victories as well. If you're going for a Science or Domination Victory, you're likely not going to be able to obtain very many Great Artists, but you still want to get Culture. Archaeological Museums require a good deal of production and get online in the Industrial Era, but that's far better than Art Museums, which may not get online ever if you're not focusing on generating Great Artists. A single Archaeological Museum, themed or not, can give Culture that is comparable to a small city and can be one of the largest sources of Culture you can get in a non-Culture game.
Even in a Cultural Victory, an Archaeological Museum may be better if you happen to have enough Gold on hand to buy Archaeologists, or if you have a city with enough production to handle it. It provides a bit more Tourism, and it's definitely easier to get Artifacts than Great Artists, even if it's a bit more expensive.

The Armory isn't a very good building. It costs the same as a Workshop, it gives the same Production as a Workshop, but it gives a far less useful Great Person Point and it's in a District that's not very useful. At least for a Workshop, it allows you to build Factories and Power Plants - the Military Academy is probably as useless as the Armory.
It's true that Military Engineers are extremely useful, but you only need a single Encampment to get them, and that's usually all that I build. Even then, I only use them to rush Flood Barriers - boosting Aqueducts is overall net negative production, and there usually are not enough Dam locations for me to justify an Armory.

 

[JhGf_123]

Armory (0) ELIMINATED
Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (21)(20+1)
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (8)
University (26)

Grand Master's Chapel:
I do passionately believe it should be top 3, so I will keep upvoting until then.

You can already buy military units with gold! In my experience, even with the discount that the GMC offers, I find it much easier to buy units with gold than with faith, because I accumulate gold so much faster with trade routes. Once you have an army of sufficient size, the advantage of the GMC goes away

While none of this is incorrect, I still think it misses the mark. Surely the point is that there are lots of other things to spend gold on—for example, Shipyards or Workshops or Universities or even Settlers—and that is why GMC is so good. It allows you to spend your gold on those things, while ensuring that you have a sizeable army either for defence or offence.

IN ADDITION: it gives you a way or converting your faith into science, culture or envoys which you otherwise wouldn't be able to do. Need the eureka for Metal Casting, Siege Tactics, Replaceable Parts or Composites? Just purchase the relevant units with GMC. Need the inspiration for Mobilization? Just purchase three corps with GMC. Need to fulfil some city-state missions which require a specific unit? Just purchase the units with GMC. Similar argument can be made for era score, too: GMC lets you immediately buy things you need for era score, whilst leaving you free to spend your gold on something more important.

Armory (0) ELIMINATED. Correct time for it to go. Encampments are usually lower priority.

 

[bengalryan9]

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (22) (21+1) I play as peacefully as just about anyone. I basically never declare war and abhor combat in this game. I'll build the Intelligence Agency the vast majority of games I play, but I *still* think it's kind of silly why people are downvoting GRC already. Being able to faith buy units even in the entirely peace based game I play is still incredibly powerful and useful, and it's also WAY more efficient than buying with gold... IIRC a field cannon costs something like 1160 gold but only like 720 faith, and you can make faith purchases cheaper earlier than you can do the same for gold purchases.
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22) Someone who downvoted this suggested that it screws up the +1 production you get from unimproved coastal tiles... that's not why you build this, though. You build this because it converts you harbor's (easy to obtain) adjacency bonus into production *without* you having to work any tiles to get it.
Workshop (5) (8-3) I'm honestly shocked that this building made it this far. It's bad. If I didn't have to build them to get to factories and power plants, I wouldn't. People knock the armory over the fact that you might only build a couple of encampments, and that's true... but I'd say the exact same thing about IZs. I might build 2 of these all game, and even then not until much later.
University (26)

 

[InsidiousMage]

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (19) (22-3) There are so many ways to get what this offers. Don't want to be attacked? Make friends with your neighbors. Not to mention the fact that a ranged unit in a city with walls is usually enough to stop the AI. Need an army? If you are going domination you should have a good enough way before you get to this. If you are going for a science victory then you should have enough production and probably aren't generating enough faith to make good use of this. If you are going for a culture victory you want to be spending your faith on things that win the game and you should have walls anyway for the extra tourism.
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (6) (5+1) Production is king and this gets you more production immediately and in the long term with Factories and Power Plants. Great Engineers are useful in any game and change to Invention makes the Workshop even better.
University (26)

 

[fy00sh]

Looks like back on post #72 Workshop had two points added instead of just one. Corrected scores below:

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (19)
Intelligence Agency (21)
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (5)
University (26)

 

[Francel]

There's not many left, so it's time for repeat votes:

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (19)
Intelligence Agency (22) (21+1) - Not much to add to what I have said previously. Spies are universally useful. They are one of the few peacetime tools for stifling the AI. This gives you a free spy, and permanently boosts all spy missions. Succeeding at the start of espionage earns promotions, which gets the snowball going.
Shipyard (22)
Workshop (2) (5-3) - The armory gives equal production, right? And, it also grants access to military engineers, increases unit XP gain, and increases strategic resource capacity. If the armory is gone, then this should be gone too!
University (26)

 

[fy00sh]

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (19)
Intelligence Agency (22)
Shipyard (23)
Workshop (ELIMINATED)
University (26)

Shipyard (22+1=23) As many have already stated, the Shipyard is great for making coastal cities productive, allowing you to settle cities that'd otherwise not be worthwhile to settle, often getting me at least +6 production in the cities where I build it just from the unimproved coastal tiles gaining production - not to mention the bonus production the shipyard gives based off of the Harbor's gold yield from adjacency, which in most of the cities where I build a Harbor in the first place ends up being an additional +3 to +5 production, which alone at least ties with the Workshop.
Workshop (2-3=-1) On the other hand, I feel like there's only 3 reasons why I'd build a Workshop: 1) I got Leonardo da Vinci and I'm building it primarily for the culture 2) I want to get a Factory but I have to get a Workshop first 3) I'm running behind on techs and I'm desperate for every Eureka I can get, so I build/buy just the 2 necessary for the boost to Industrialization.
There's a bunch of sources of production of land-based cities, so the 3 production you're losing from not making a Workshop can be supplemented elsewhere. And for coastal cities, a Shipyard is far and away the better choice. Glad to be able to do the honors of eliminating this one, it's earned it to get this far but it's time for it to go.

 

[kaspergm]

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (20) (19+1) - I don't really care if it's objectively the stronger choice or not, this is my pick in 9/10 games because of its versatility and convenience factor.
Intelligence Agency (19) (22-3) - In most of my games, I don't really bother to use spies offensively. You may say this is a luxury that can be afforded by not playing on diety - which is arguably true - but fact is I feel using spies is tedious and involves a lot of micromanagement; the most valuable mission (siphon funds) has fairly high base chance of success and generally succeeds without building this, the other missions either have quite limited impact (steal one eureka - ok, but worth the trouble?), only happen very late game (disrupt rocketry) or take too long to be useful when they are really needed (like taking out a governor, which could be really useful when warring, but the 8 turn wait + additional travel time is way too long for something that's generally needed more or less on the here-and-now basis. Not to mention the random spy promotions which I hate with a vengeance and makes spying a turn-off feature for me in general.
Shipyard (23)
University (26)

 

[Josephias]

Archaeological Museum (14)
Grand Master's Chapel (21)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (26)

Lot of changes since my last vote! So many less options left. OK, it should be easier to pick, or not...

Grand Master's Chapel (20+1=21). Haven't upvoted it yet, so let's push the upvote now. Most of the reasons have been already said. It opens a strong option in the faith economy, freeing up gold for other things (units by gold are expensive, and you might want to use your coins better in buildings/civilians/tiles, or in emergencies if you push for a diplomatic win). In what is a paradox, you'll probably won't benefit as much of the GMC in a religion-heavy game, as you'll be spending the faith in religious units, but provided you do not care much about these, your faith does just stockpile until naturalists and rock bands appear.
The alternative is the intelligence agency, with is not bad itself but fails in the spy game not being worth the effort in most cases (I was playing more with spies earlier, but the Art Thief bug, added to the fact there is no way to stop a SV in a huge map with the limited number of spies you have, make spy strategies quite unrealiable -- I'm under the impresion people favoring spies play small sizes of map, ¿is this right?), so...

Intelligence Agency (19-3=16) : it was a choice betwen the Intelligence Agency and the Arch Museum, but this last one is already quite low in points, is a more balanced alternative against the Art Museum, and before of after you will want at least some archeologists to remove ruins blocking district placement.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Archaeological Museum (11) 14-3 In Vanilla, this was THE cultural building but it really hasn't kept up with the power creep and Archelogists are really expensive. Still useful, but only in cultural victories and maybe 1 for the boost to Combustion.
Grand Master's Chapel (21)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (27) 26+1 It's Science, and one of the best sources of it, especially if used with a Great Scientist.

You don't build it you buy it, exchanging gold for production and G/E points

You can buy most of the buildings on the list except the government ones, so that's not really an argument for or against. Though I would say it's worse. If you make it with production, at least you have the excuse of saying you have nothing better to build, but instead you're spending gold on this than on the other buildings.

Also buying it for GE points makes no sense whatsoever. The first few GEs cost 2000-3000 gold. A workshop costs 780 gold and only gives you 1 point. Why would you pay 1/3 of the cost of a GE upfront to get it in 120 turns and it's not even guaranteed because it's just 1 ge point. And if you buy more, you might as well just buy the engineer itself.

Even later in the game, GEs don't cost that much; maybe 10k gold but cost 600 GPP.

Workshops simply cost too much gold/production/w.e per Great person point compared to other similar buildings. It's almost 2.5x as expensive as a library, so basically you are only getting 40% of the value for that.

Basically, I find it easier to get GEs with faith or gold than building the actual zones.

People knock the armory over the fact that you might only build a couple of encampments, and that's true... but I'd say the exact same thing about IZs. I might build 2 of these all game, and even then not until much later.

The humorous part is the Armory provides the same yield and does much more.

Also Encampments are also good for Science Victories even if you never declare war because of the Integrated Space Cell, and also the fact that you need a massive stock of Aluminum to run Lagrange. Honestly, I consider Encampments only a bit less important than IZs, and you can get power with hydroelectric dams, solar farms, and also an entire government devoted to it too.

Of course, if you can build multiple nice IZs, it's always wanted but the gulf isn't that big IMO. If you can get 30-40 production from an IZ (not too hard if a factory hits 5-6 cities, it is worth the while)

Anyhow, I suppose dead horse until we talk about factories next time.

 

[Siddharth Venkatesh]

Archaeological Museum 8 (11-3)
Grand Master's Chapel (22) (21 + 1)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (27)

Aside from the Archaeological Museum, I think the remaining four buildings are in fact the most important ones in these ages and my personal ranking of them probably goes Shipyard > University > Grand Master's Chapel > Intelligence Agency.

The Archaeological Museum is a bit weak imo. I think at this point, given the cost of Archaeologists and the poor timing of both the Museum and the civic unlocking Archaeologists, I prefer Art Museums. I primarily build Museums for the culture, if I've found a number of cultural cit states, and both museums provide the same culture. The Art Museum doesn't require further investment to get additional value, whereas the value added by Archaeologists is not sufficient to overcome the extra cost. But I don't think the difference between the Museums really matters. They are both largely negligible when it comes to tourism, and they both provide similar levels of culture. Here, it is just by far the weakest building left and should be the next one out.

Since I upvoted the Shipyard last time, I won't repeat the upvote and will instead prop up the Grand Master's Chapel. It is impossible to not compare this building to the Intelligence Agency, and I think the benefits it provides are at this point superior to that of the Intelligence Agency in the majority of games. In a domination game or just any game with medieval era war, faith buying supplements gold purchasing very nicely to replenish your forces on the front lines. This allows you to keep up momentum and not worry about loyalty issues at all. In more peaceful games, it allows you to play extremely greedily. I know this thread isn't supposed to take multiplayer into account, but the Grand Master's Chapel is one of the biggest reasons faith based civs are so strong in multiplayer, and a lot of these benefits translate to single player as well. I don't agree with the arguments saying you can replace the faith purchasing with gold purchasing. You can always find avenues to spend your gold, so being able to buy units with faith just means you can more quickly buy infrastructure with gold. Most of my gold is earmarked towards shipyards and universities at this time anyways.

Moreover, my biggest issue with the Intelligence Agency is that not being able to spy on allies has almost completely killed spies for me. I tend to play on small or standard sized maps only, and in peaceful games, I'm allied with half the world or more. So my spies often end up not being able to find a good source of gold to siphon, and I don't think any other mission is really worth it in peaceful play. In more aggressive play, I like the diplomatic visibility that spies provide, but the Grand Master's Chapel just provides more utility in those games anyways. I think since this update for spies, I went from building the Intelligence Agency in 60% of my games to building it in less than 20% my games.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

This thread shows once again how many ways there are to play this game which influences how we value buildings!

Armory (6) (9-3) It's only useful in Domination games or for military engineers, and a really unnecessary build otherwise.

For Space/Science you want larger stocks of Aluminium and larger stocks of other strategics are always useful.

Archaeological Museum (5)
Grand Master's Chapel (22)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (28)

We're getting close to a decent top 3 though - the Archaeological Museum (8-3=5) simply does not belong in this conversation and should be long gone, even in Culture wins I rarely build it these days - it just takes far too long to pay back the investment (and people dumped on the Workshop for that lol).

Because of these threads I've switched off my "No Spies" mod but still don't see a lot of value in them, I tend to war early for expansion then play peacefully to Space or Culture and often will be Allied with all the remaining Civs so I think the IA should be the next to go after the Archaeological Museum.

The Shipyard is outstanding on a water map and useless elsewhere.

The GMC is pretty good and certainly the best of the T2 Plaza buildings but no matter your victory condition Science matters and the University (27+1=28) comes reasonably early and at a good cost.

 

[TCBB]

Archaeological Museum (2)(5-3)
Grand Master's Chapel (23)(22+1)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (28)

Archaeological Museum (2)(5-3) Even though I'd like to see the Shipyard lose some points (it's great, but undeniably situational), I'll go for the un-controversial downvote. Archaeologists are a good source of culture, tourism and era score, but they're also really expensive.

Grand Master's Chapel (23)(22+1) Still flogging this horse. Cheaper than purchasing with gold and, more importantly, frees you up to spend your gold on other things.

Also, anecdotal evidence time: I've just finished a game as Brazil, where Kongo was going nuts with science generation and needed to be stopped. I had been planning a peaceful game so hadn't built a sizeable army yet, but Grand Master's Chapel let me purchase a horde of Bombards & Cuirassiers with which I was able to brute-force my way through Kongo. Would have taken roughly 40 turns to hard-build those units, but with GMC (& the classic combo of Brazil & rainforest pantheon) I was able to faith buy them all in around 10 turns.

 

[Leucarum]

Archaeological Museum (ELIMINATED)
Grand Master's Chapel (24)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (28)

Repeating the previous post. Archaeological museum (2-3) seems like the weakest one left to me. So let's bring it to a top 4. And while I can see if you play a faith-poor game you wouldn't get much out of GMC (23+1) it is one building that I always miss if I don't have it.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Grand Master's Chapel (21) (24-3)
Intelligence Agency (16)
Shipyard (23)
University (29) (28+1)

University: Science is incredibly important. The only building that gives Science more consistently is the Library.

GMC: Not bad, and would actually work very well with Georgia thanks to the new faith on kill ability, but I need to downvote something and I like coastal cities too much to touch the Shipyard.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Grand Master's Chapel (18)
Intelligence Agency (17)
Shipyard (23)
University (29)

Grand Master's Chapel 18 (21-3): A lot of people keep saying something along the lines of "well if you choose to play a faith-poor game you won't use the GMC" and "well, there are so many other things you can spend gold on". Yet the corollary is also true - you can play a faith rich game and not use the GMC, and there so are so many other things you can spend your faith on! Religious buildings, religious units, great people, heroes, rock bands, naturalists, walls, monuments, trade routes, builders, settlers......and the single most important building in the game, FLOOD BARRIERS!

Also I haven't actually mentioned my biggest bugbear with the GMC - it only builds land units! So the most useful, most effective conquest units - Battleships & Bombers - you can't build with it. And that annoys me every single time.


Intelligence Agency 17 (16+1): Again, I find some of the arguments against this odd. Spy missions take too long? 6 turns is too long in a 250-300 turn game? To steal 1000+ gold, or a great work, or pillage a district, or a tech boost, or eject a governor? Spies are versatile and they actively damage your opponent whilst benefiting you. Yes, they nerfed them so you couldn't spy on your allies, it just means you have to be a bit choosier about who will be an ally and who will be a friend.

 

[kryat]

Grand Master's Chapel (18)
Intelligence Agency (17)
Shipyard (24) (23+1)
University (26) (29-3)

Shipyard - The shipyard is great for cities. Typically, this nets me about 8 production from the adjacency bonus alone. Add in the stray 3-5 production from unworked tiles, and you've got a beast that helps the city get things done.

University - The university is clearly top 3 good, and probably will win this. I'm not as sure that it deserves the runaway lead. It's a very reliable source of science, but has seen a bit of a nerf recently thanks to the changes to Rationalism. Before, sure. These days though, I get more science from Natural Philosophy than from Rationalism showing how big of a hit the university has taken. Another thing against them is that even though they unlock early, and are cheaper than most of the other buildings on this list, they feel more expensive because they often come before lumber mills, boosts to mines, IZ adjacency shenanigans, armories, and shipyards. I'll build these when I get around to it, but usually something that boosts production takes priority so that they're fast to build later.

 

[Vargas1]

Grand Master's Chapel (18)
Intelligence Agency (17)
Shipyard (21) (24-3)
University (27) (26+1)

University (27) - Probably the only Tier-2 building that I will build at least some of in every game, no matter the map, civ, or victory type.

Shipyard (21) - On the other hand, while the Shipyard is very good and I personally love coastal cities, I will often find my cities do just fine with a harbor and lighthouse for long stretches of time while I focus on other districts, units, wonders, etc. The shipyard ends up being a helpful but not necessary bonus.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

Grand Master's Chapel (19)
Intelligence Agency (17)
Shipyard (21)
University (24)


Grand Master's Chapel (19) +1: The definitive top spot for me. I disagree with @Mount Suribachi in that an argument against it is that you "can spend faith on other things". Yes you can, but the same is true for gold (and faith is by far the most efficient resource in terms of income to value). But this thing lets you balance both income sources and spread them out more optimally. Yes, buying some Knights with faith is not ideal if you want to pool all that faith for Naturalists, but it is less of a waste (in terms of turns saved before the win) compared to buying and maintaining an army and other defenses. As for the benefits of Intelligence Agency (which is a natural contender, seeing as they are mutually exclusive) - my games typically don't last until T300, even on Deity. I recently had a T17x CV (my fastest by far, without cheesing), and GMC was absolutely vital in that game. Pushing such fast win times, I absolutely 100% depend on running an extremely greedy play to get myself set up in infrastructure fast, and GMC is the one building that lets me get away with it and remains a core component in that type of play. As for the Intelligence Agency, I wouldn't have been able to get much benefit out of it as by the time my first spy would be trained to a decent level, he would have approximately 0 impact on the rest of the game until the win (a couple of spy missions at best, and even if he stole a great work, it wouldnt affect the win time as the tourism came as usual from natural parks, not individual great works). Other than that, I tend to get win times between T200-T240 (only exception is RV which can be gotten a lot faster but I don't play that, same for DV), and GMC is a key component in getting those times. Either as a supporting tool for Domination (pillaging for faith, and using GMC to buy a second army "for free" to branch off to kill multiple AIs simultaneously, while all my cities produce infrastructure), or for allowing extremely greedy peaceful play, where I typically don't invest in walls or other units than those few I built in the Ancient Era (occasionally a Horseman from the Classical Era to get my city combat strength up while I beeline the GMC) in favour of more infrastructure.

University (24) -3: I think this one is good, and gets built in a majority of games across the board (with only some exceptions for RV or certain CV games). I am downvoting it mainly because I think it's gotten a bit too far ahead at this point. It's definitely a good building to have, but I'm fearing that it's rated as high as it is not because of how "awesome" it is, but because everyone builds at least one during the typical game (usually multiple ones). This makes it an example of a "least common denominator" - it's not absolutely fantastic in it's own right, but since everyone builds them, noone cares to actively downvote it either. This is an essential building, but not particularly mindblowing either. Gives science, some GS points, and that's it basically. Not great, but certainly not bad either. But imo, the top spot should be "great", which this one just isn't by itself.

As for Intelligence Agency: I won't downvote this one yet, as it's a good building when the time calls for it. Can be decent for SV games and some domination games (Mongolia comes to mind especially) where you don't have much of faith and want to save some time spent on pillaging. However, the benefits (while certainly better than those you can get from a University or Shipyard by it's own), are usually a bit mediocre in the grand scheme of things, and it doesn't "break the game" like GMC does. Siphoning funds has recently been giving me very bad returns (often in the 100-200 range), and stealing Great Works isn't that good anymore after the tourism changes. And personally, I just tend to buy Great Works if I really need them, the AI will often part with a large portion right out of the gate, and it's a lot more consistent and a lot faster to pull off. Stealing Eurekas is almost never worth it, as I tend to get a solid lead in science at that point anyway. And pillaging districts is just lol, almost never worth it, same with removing governors The only real good use usually comes from removing envoys in city states, but that need is usually not acute and I can do that later without the Intelligence Agency as well. It's nice, and I still build it in around 20-30% of my games, but in some games I regretted it quickly afterwards as I had "forgotten" that my greedy play now required to actually build and maintain an army and defences, whishing for a faith option instead as my neighbours were clearly preparing for war.