University of Sankore

[varus]

Every single one of my cities has Buddhism, and all of them have Buddhist temples and Buddhist monasteries, I worked very hard to ensure that after I completed the University of Sankore.

However, now that I have liberalism I am inclined to switch to Free Religion.
That, however, would negate the nice +2 beakers for all my temples and such.

The question, then, is how do I determine which civic would be more effective?
Should I go with OR and keep the build bonus and the +4sci/city bonus, or should I go with FR and get the 10%sci/city bonus and happiness bonuses (as well as the somewhat trivial diplomatic stress relief of not having state religion).


What numbers would I need to crunch and how so, to figure this out?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

If you have monasteries in all cities you already get +10% research in them.
So stay with OR until scientific method, then change. OR is high upkeep though.

EDIT: Of course you would get another 10% bonus from FR though.

If you are not playing a HOF game you could always save the game, revolt, and have a look. I always play with the HOF mod though so I don't do that. Sometimes I make a choice I regret.

If you are spiritual you can always change back after 5 turns anyway. You have to factor in the anarchy turn anyway if you aren't.

I wish there was a way to see the effects of a civic change without all of this shenanigans.

"Math(s) is hard" - Barbie.

 

[gunkulator]

I never bother with University of Sankore because its useful lifespan is so short. Free Religion is the way to go since you can get open borders with everyone, not just the civs with your religion. More open borders = better trade routes.

 

[automator]

I wish there was a way to see the effects of a civic change without all of this shenanigans.

Agreed.

Just a little pop up that would show before and after of beakers, total trade, hammers -- it'd sure be nice. I don't know of anyone who puts pen to paper and does an entire empire's worth of math before changing civics.

 

[varus]

my kingdom for a calculator

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The worst one is calculating when to move out of beurocracy for free speech. You have to count how many towns you have. All the others you can make a rough guess from the domestic advisor screen.

 

[nimling]

Sankore is something I find more useful in games where I expect to run Theocracy, or other civs share my religion and I can build good relations with them (such that FR's diplomatic effect is less of a factor).

I'm not sure about the raw beaker advantage of switching to FR or not, but it's likely very negligible. The deciding factor should be FR's happy/diplo bonus, or the bonuses of whatever religious civic you'd run in place of it.

 

[mice]

I'm not sure about the raw beaker advantage of switching to FR or not, but it's likely very negligible.

It's ten percent for each city isnt it? In mid game that can easily be 100 beakers/turn. You would need 50 cities with Sangkore and the state rel. to make that.

 

[varus]

No, 25 actually, because each city can produce 4 beakers with Sankore (6 for the bigger ones)

(Two from Monastary, two from temple, and two from cathedral)

 

[Antilogic]

Personally, I always liked Sankore if I had a solid state religion that I was going to keep for awhile. But I'm not sure exactly how to crunch the numbers for it.

My own strategy would be to revolt to see what happens, and then reload if it hurts you. Or have multiple save games going. Some call that cheating, but that's how I learn the game and some of the tricks I can use to win it.

 

[Yeekim]

It's ten percent for each city isnt it? In mid game that can easily be 100 beakers/turn. You would need 50 cities with Sangkore and the state rel. to make that.

Hm, actually no.

I believe, that "Sankore beakers" are also subject to Library etc multipliers, whereas "10%" from FR is not.

So, a city with Monastery, Temple, Library, University and Observatory would actually net (4*1.75 = 7)beakers from Sankore. Gain from FR would start exceeding that from the moment the city is producing 70 "raw" beakers (hover your mouse over the total beakers shown on city screen). However, it is true that diplo bonus should be the most important incentive for adopting FR.

 

[Xerol]

I usually try to get Spiral Minaret as well to compound on having lots of state religion buildings. This is really nice at wartime because if you keep a bunch of missionaries on hand, and have slavery, you can whip a temple + monastery in newly captured cities and have them pay for their own maintenance cost; the UoS just compounds this by letting them produce beakers as well. It's part of a "Religion Economy" strategy I've been working on, which in addition to UoS and SM relies heavily on shrine income - the primary idea being getting enough 'free' gold to run at 100% science almost all the time, usually while gaining gold.

As far as diplo bonus goes, in any Religion Economy game you'd be spreading your religion to as many AI cities as possible from the start, at least half and usually closer to 3/4 of all AIs having your religion as a state religion. Also, once Free Religion becomes available, a lot of AIs will start switching to it, and there's no penalty between FR and a SR.

 

[The Navy Seal]

FR is always the best way to go. Because most other religion neighbors warm up to you and strat trading w/ you.

 

[lutzj]

my kingdom for a calculator

you have a computer

 

[Antilogic]

I believe, that "Sankore beakers" are also subject to Library etc multipliers, whereas "10%" from FR is not.

You are quite correct. The 10% from FR simply adds onto your current bonuses, so a city with a library running FR receives +35%, not +25% then +10%. The beakers from UoS is added before the multiplier is factored in.

 

[obsolete]

Well the nice thing about monasteries, is even if you switch to a different religion, one build for hinduism will still function even though you are running confucasion. I often have numerous monasteries in my cities all running, adding in multipliers. Though I remember in old threads here some people claimed you shouldn't do this as they didn't think the resources to do that was worth it.

 

[Dnomal]

My favourite exploit of Sankore/Minaret was playing as Arabia in Rhye's mod, each time i took a city, two religious buildings would be built, giving me 4 beakers and 4 gold for doing nothing .

I'd stay with Sankore, or trying reloading, etc. shame really FR won't give you 2 beakers from all temples.... *shrugs*.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I'm an org religion addict (can't stand losing that 25% building bonus), and since I've normally 25-30 ish cities at that time, many undeveloped, I generally need it.

Those posters are correct about the Sankore Uni bonuses being subject to building multipliers. Free religion is not always a good choice, if you have converted enought trading prtns to your state religion, it normally ruins 1000s of yrs of hard missionary work...

My recently ever increasingly noncommital reply; it's more than hard numbers, the individual game situation must be also taken into consideration, ergo:- "It depends" .........

 

[Colossian]

I'm an org religion addict (can't stand losing that 25% building bonus), and since I've normally 25-30 ish cities at that time, many undeveloped, I generally need it.

Those posters are correct about the Sankore Uni bonuses being subject to building multipliers. Free religion is not always a good choice, if you have converted enought trading prtns to your state religion, it normally ruins 1000s of yrs of hard missionary work...

My recently ever increasingly noncommital reply; it's more than hard numbers, the individual game situation must be also taken into consideration, ergo:- "It depends" .........

I agree with you.

 

[Antilogic]

My favorite game is when I convert to a late religion that I have founded, and am completely alone. Then, I go on a little crusade, subjugating as many opposing Civs as possible.

It's fun to be against the entire world sometimes.