The Sistine Chapel

[AndrewN]

Dose anybody else think the Sistine Chapel is not very useful in CivIV?

In previous versions it either gave you a cathedral in every city or doubled the effect of those you built. Either way I have found it one of the better wonders to build.

In civIV it gives you +2 culture per specialist (plus the usual 2GPP and 10 culture by itself) and costs 600 hammers. Given the multitude of ways of gaining culture in the new game this seems vastly underpowered to me.

 

[Belboz]

Depends on what strategy you are using. If you are going for a cultural victory, the Sistine Chapel can be very nice, particularly if combined with Mercantilism, the Statue of Liberty, Caste System, etc. It's cheaper to build for industrious Civs who have marble. Admittedly, it was nice in Civ 3 to have a cathedral in every city, but the new religion system and all of the new ways to make citizens happy forced a change in how the Chapel operates.

 

[Exavier]

Personally if i have a very productive city and am not useing it (buildings complete, and not building military for whatever reason) I will build any and all wonders just to keep the AIs from building them

 

[Kid_icoris]

I always try to build the sistine chapel no matter what kind of victory im going for, whether im going for cultural or conquest its very helpful if you can get a couple of artists in your cities and sistine chaple just adds to their effect. its not key to my strategy i just like having it if i can. especially since it means that the AI isnt getting those bonuses lol

 

[Wodan]

Sistine Chapel is almost essential for a cultural victory. It's +10 in the building city, yes. On top of that in your 3 victory cities you'll have 5-10 specialists (mostly great artists) so that's avg of +15 from the SC in each of those cities. They will have +300-400% from bonuses, so when all is said in done, you have +100 culture in one city and +60 in the other two cities, from the Chapel alone.

If you're not doing a cultural victory, and thus don't care about culture (except perhaps in newly conquered cities, which are smaller and can't support any specialists), then yes, the Chapel is pretty much useless.

(I'd even say the AI will gain little to no benefit from it, because I have yet to see an AI go for a cultural victory. I think it's not smart enough to figure out how to min/max properly. So, I wouldn't even bother making it just to keep it from the AI.)

Wodan