# of monasteries that you use?

[odin1981]

Hey all I have started to venture into Deity. Played a couple test games to get the feel of certain wonder timings and such plus barb timings etc.

One thing I have noticed is I somehow can keep pace with ai in teching. Real early no obviously because of bonuses but with 1-2 luxuries and like 2 early cottages after food/mines are done. Eventually the library is up (I play marathon so say around 2750-2500 bc'ish. I normally go after oracle fairly aggressively so it isn't hard too grab up 2 religions (philo bulb+oracle col if not mc) around say 2000 BC and 1500 or so at the latest.

So I have noticed with tech that having 2 monasteries in commerce towns and gp farms only helps to eek out a 45% bonus to science (plus a library). Somehow this plus the library multipliers and a 4-6 cottaged Beuro Cap spot (often not the capital at that time obviously).

Now don't get me wrong I can not contend with God (mansa) in research. But that is mainly because he is just a moron on giving out techs like candy to know it all. But often him, lizzy, pacal, cathy, and zara I can get a one tech behind or alternate monopoly's to exchange and keep pace.

Now I often see monasteries pretty crapped on around here in the forums. And no I am not saying they are amazing. But it is pretty easy to crank a max 2 pop overflow on them with around 40-75 hammers depending on modifiers (remember I play marathon so base cost is 180) invested in them.. And I am also not saying that I pump every single one into my commerce towns either. The only town I really even contemplate that on is oxford/ne and that is just to pump out as much % of my research from that town.

 

[sampsa]

Dunno, maybe there is more room for them on marathon. On normal speed, I build them usually only in bureau cap.

 

[Fippy]

Adding some thoughts to Bic's nice sumup, they are situational and i usually want one or more in those situations:

* Reli spreads needed for Paci (GP generation), not always lucky with auto spreads or AIs doing them.
In this case hammer cities are actually better, or just overall cities that can build (or chop / whip) missios fast enuf. 1 city covering that is usually enuf.
No Reli in high food cities for Paci means missing on a 100% bonus, and also 1 less happy which can be important with much food.
GP generation is rarely limited to just 1 NE epic city.

* Bur Cap and / or really high commerce cities have time to get one, yup 10% more science is always nice but they are not as good as libraries and if hammers are limited you may want something else. Or in some commerce cities you may not want to focus on hammers at all.

* If i expect an AI with my Reli to build AP (can often be guessed by looking at the tech screen), +2 hammers (hopefully soon ) makes them good almost everywhere.

So overall, i doubt anybody dismisses them as bad buildings.
They are like most others imo, hammers dun grow on trees (or maybe they do ) and it's part of playing skillful Civ to figure out what you use them for.

 

[odin1981]

I usually prefer to have 4, 8, or 12 cottages for my commerce cities and gp farms. A gp farm will generally have only 4 on flood plains preferably in addition to the farms for specialists. With a Library and a university + 2 sci around 500ad or so it usually works out to about 50 or so sci commerce. I prefer the multiples of 4 for # of cottages due to the most common increase being 25%. 8 or 12 cottages are for my capital and full commerce towns. So my gp farms can get up to around 100 commerce due to caste, rep, + scientists.

I normally run 2-4 gp farms in my empire size dependent.

 

[Dewii]

I posted some back of the envelope calculations on an earlier thread. My conclusion was that if you're getting 24 science per turn in the early game in a city pre-library and pre-academy it will pay off to build a monastery. It goes up to about 40 science per turn if Scientific Method is on the horizon. The Apostolic Palace cuts those to 20 science per turn if Scientific Method is on the horizon and to about 5 science per turn if it's still a while off. If it's the Apostolic Palace religion you'll want to have monasteries to spread it in any case unless you're committed to staying in Organised Religion all game.