Obelisks obsolete with Calender?

[cleverhandle]

If obelisks persist after Calendar...

They do.

...then you are in a bad spot if you built Stonehenge, since you only ever had phantom-obelisks in your cities. Not only that, but you were prevented from building concrete ones, since an obelisk "already existed" in the city. So then when you get Calendar, all your cities suddenly lose their early main culture-generator.

If an obelisk is your "main culture-generator" then you're in a pretty sorry state already, Stonehenge or not. The whole purpose of Obelisks is to get that first border expansion. But if you're actually competing with an AI for cultural control of a tile, you'd better get some more substantial culture buildings (Theatres and Monasteries being most cost-effective) down quickly, because it won't take long for those borders to get pushed back by the AI.

 

[Rellin]

So do Stonehenge created obelisks produce culture once Stonehenge is obsolete?

 

[cleverhandle]

So do Stonehenge created obelisks produce culture once Stonehenge is obsolete?

No, because Stonehenge created obelisks disappear once Stonehenge obsoletes. Sorry if that wasn't clear - my quoting pulled some things out of context.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

If an obelisk is your "main culture-generator" then you're in a pretty sorry state already, Stonehenge or not. The whole purpose of Obelisks is to get that first border expansion. But if you're actually competing with an AI for cultural control of a tile, you'd better get some more substantial culture buildings (Theatres and Monasteries being most cost-effective) down quickly, because it won't take long for those borders to get pushed back by the AI.

I was referring specificly to fringe-cities, especially those in production-poor regions, where it is 30+ turns down the line to get any other culture-producing buildings. The loss of the phantom-obelisk eliminates entirely their culture-producing ability. Nothing can give you 1-2♫/turn cheaper than an obelisk ('cept chance-conversion to your state religion, or missionaries made in richer regions), so you are at a much larger disadvantage once you get Calendar.

Like I said in my dilemma, this yields a "wonder with a down-side".

 

[cleverhandle]

I was referring specificly to fringe-cities, especially those in production-poor regions, where it is 30+ turns down the line to get any other culture-producing buildings.

I don't understand the "30+ turns" bit. Calendar is a long ways up the tree. You have to at least have Libraries to get there, and you would almost always have monasteries and temples as well. Possibly you could even have theatres before then. Even without the theatres, that's 6 culture points per turn before doubling and before religion. So realistically it's more like 8 per turn. Besides which, the accumulated culture from the obelisks doesn't disappear, you just lose the culture per turn after Calendar. And again, if you're competing for tile control you're going to need that stuff before then - a fringe-city in a production poor region is going to have serious problems unless you're running caste system and can farm for artists there. I mean, I see what you're getting at, I just think the magnitude of the issue is rather smaller than you think. Keeping up culture at your borders is a significant issue that requires planning and resources, Stonehenge or not. All Stonehenge is doing is saving you the (valuable) time needed to build an obelisk for your first expansion.

BTW, how'd you get the little music note symbol in your post? That's cool.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

In general, the loss of the stone-henge obelisks is, as you pointed out, inconsequential. It only really came up in a multiplayer game I played recently, where I had through sheer idiocy, lost my first 2 settlers to barbarians (I use protection now! though that self-same tribe destroyed half my military...). This slowed my expansion enough that I was just planting my final cities in my region when Calendar became available. No religion had spread to them, and they were there in order to secure resources in the frozen north. I was also a creative civ, and so I got a significant benefit from these free obelisks. I did in fact delay the acquisition of the Calendar so that I could milk more culture out of them. A particular city was surrounded by tundra and ice-hills, and it needed to expand another increment to nab me some marble. I generated my 30-turn stat (20 is more reasonable, sry) from this city, based on the fact that it could only reasonably generate 2-3 production, and a theater (which I still had yet to research for) would take about 17 or 25 turns to complete.

That is what I meant by "fringe city".

As for the awesome ♫ symbol, in most interperetations of ASCII code, typing "alt+14" will produce it. You have to use the num-pad, and it has to be "14", not "014", the latter will deliver an ancient formatting command.

These are alternate-characters 1-32 (#32 is a space):
☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙♂♀♪♫☼►◄↕‼¶§▬↨↑↓→←∟↔▲▼
I blew them up to forum-size 5, because smaller than that they get compressed.☺☻♥♦
♫ looks fine though in normal size, and is the only really useful one here.

 

[Zombie69]

Well, i don't see the note, only a white square. Same for half of the symbols you posted. You'd be safer posting images or emoticons, because unless the reader has the same character font as you.

I do see the music note after the male and female symbols in your list though. If you'd use that everywhere, i'm pretty sure i could see it, but another user might not be able to.

As for your fringe city, you should slave rush whatever it is you need there. You'll get it pretty fast that way.

 

[obsolete]

Aye, i can confirm that stonehenge obelisks disapear the second you get calandar. Another reason why I dislike building stonehenge.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Yes, some of the many things I should have done differently in that game...I never realized how horrendously effective pop-rushing is.

All in all, I guess Stonehenge is just a judgement call, something you want for early border expansion and resources. And culture. You're only ever going to have it benefit about 7-8 cities anyways, and you're right that if 1-2 culture/turn is gonna cripple you, something else is wrong besides Stonehenge.

But hey, what did you expect for only 120 production? (The acceptance phase: my grief-cycle is complete... Really.)

 

[Zombie69]

Remember that the city that built Stonehenge will still receive lots of culture from it after it goes obsolete. Because of this, i like chop rushing it in the city that needs culture the most. Stonehenge gives something like 8 culture per turn, which is huge for just 120 production, notwithstanding the effect on your other cities. And there's also the 2 GPP towards Great Prophets.

 

[apdavis828]

I have never, ever, built an oblesik - why would anyone bother? Either build Stonehenge (added benefit of GP to build shrine, way cheap and even cheaper with stone and applies to all cities), be a creative leader, or use organized religion for +1 culture pt in all cities with state religion and +5 culture pt in the holy city i believe.

 

[druidravi]

You can also use the artist specialist in caste system for 3 turns for border expansion. This works when you chop out the oracle to get code of laws early for the confusciasm relegion awesome courthouses and caste system civiv.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

So let me get this straight. I'm away from the game at the moment, but I can't wait to fire up a saved game where I have Stonehenge and just finished calendar.

We're saying the following happens once calendar is researched:

Without Stonehenge:
1. Obelisks will remain and continue to produce their cultural bonus (they don't have any other bonuses to go obsolete).
2. You cannot build Obelisks anymore anywhere.

With Stonehenge:
1. Obelisks built without the help of Stonehenge will remain and continue to produce their cultural bonus.
2. Obelisks created by Stonehenge's bonus disappear from the city (and certainly don't produce culture therefore)
3. You cannot build Obelisks anymore anywhere.

If this is true, this is quite a surprise. At first this seemed to go against the obsolescence rules to me, but looking again it makes sense. When a wonder goes obsolete, it retains only the cultural bonus. Technically the "free obelisk in every city" bonus disappears then, taking the Obelisks with it.

 

[Fieryphoenix]

You've got it correctly there, _alphaBeta_.

 

[eric_]

Yeah, this makes sense. I think the tradeoff of losing the +2 culture/city (I think it is) post-Calendar in exchange for saved production time in pre-Calendar cities is reasonable.

I think the only fair way to change this would be to make it so those cities that existed pre-Calendar retain the culture bonus for the phantom Obelisk, but any cities created after do not get it. That would be in line with the fact that you can't produce new Obelisks, yet retain the culture bonus for old ones. I think athropologically that would even make sense. For instance, Egypt in general is known for its pyramids, and therefore the whole country receives the "cultural bonus" of that structure. Same goes for England and Stonehenge, imo. It isn't just the cities where these wonders were built that are associated with the wonders, it's the whole country.

All that said, I agree with this as the bottom line:

...if 1-2 culture/turn is gonna cripple you, something else is wrong besides Stonehenge.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

I think the only fair way to change this would be to make it so those cities that existed pre-Calendar retain the culture bonus for the phantom Obelisk, but any cities created after do not get it. That would be in line with the fact that you can't produce new Obelisks, yet retain the culture bonus for old ones.

Yeah, this is what bothers me. If Stonehenge causes obelisks to appear, I think they should remain. I don't like the idea of an obsolete wonder simply removing buildings from cities.

While I can argue it either way, I still think the obelisks should remain and continue to produce their culture. I mean, we're only talking about one culture per turn here. This behavior is good to know, but as I just pointed out, isn't the most important thing either.

Thanks for the clarification Fieryphoenix.

 

[eric_]

Well, fwiw, I think it is more a case where Stonehenge "radiates" the bonuses of obelisks out to as many cities as you build prior to figuring out how to abstractly demarcate the passage of time. I don't think there's an actual obelisk in each city...but I honestly haven't checked. Am I wrong in this assumption?

 

[satcho]

Woah, never realized this. Something to fix for the next patch.

So when they say, "makes obelisks obsolete", they don't really mean they stop producing culture, they mean you can't build them anymore. They are implying the former.

I think a better system would be, "Stonehenge produces +1♫ in all cities.", and still allow you to build obelisks. There won't be a need to include them too, since they have no effect besides producing culture.

Maybe they could replace "obsolete" with "loses special abilities" too, and put an end to a lot of confusion.

 

[_alphaBeta_]

Well, fwiw, I think it is more a case where Stonehenge "radiates" the bonuses of obelisks out to as many cities as you build prior to figuring out how to abstractly demarcate the passage of time. I don't think there's an actual obelisk in each city...but I honestly haven't checked. Am I wrong in this assumption?

I am pretty sure that an actual obelisk shows up in all of the cities built or being built. I am going to check into this whole issue when I get in front of the game later today.

 

[Desert-Fox]

I usually build obelisk when the city have nothing else to do... the +1 culture is almost nothing. I build stonehenge for +2GPP to prophets... when I get a great prophet I can build my shrine to get more money

But yes... when building becomes obsolete it doesn't mean it disappear... it still gives culture... in real life you can visit a lot of castles ... they do not have that effects what they had in the past but they still have their cultural value... so I don't see any problem here... But the stonehenge... the people in other cities are so influented about this ... so they think that they have obelisk in this city... but they will get eyes opened when they have sence of calender.