What are our Thoughts on the Hippodrome?

[Zechnophobe]

Namely the 5% culture per

Horses are already more common than Dye's, so I think that is just a nice benefit. But I've been considering the merits of using the cultural slider to increase happy cap. My reasoning is this:

Slider at 10% culture is 3
I am at, basically, 90% of my normal economy. But if the 3 allow for more than 11% growth, then it is to my advantage to do so.

This will only occur if my cities are close or at their happy cap, and the new tiles they work are worth it. In addition, this allows for more valuable trade routes and greater production.

Additional production mitigates cost of Hippodromes
Additional worked tiles mitigates 10% economy loss
edit: Also, if you gain more happiness from other sources, you can decide later on to keep the existing population.

At least, that's what I've been thinking. You also get a Globe Theatre out of it for a food happy Great Person Farm.

I'm assuming that I'm not the first to think or try this. How have others found it? Oh, and I guess this isn't limited to the Byzantine, just that they have a building most specifically dedicated to making it more efficient.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I have found that I use the slider mainly only to fight war weariness, emancipation or (rarely) unhappiness from defying an AP edict (rarely, i mean, because i try to set up my games so I don't have to defy them... it's not always possible)

I think the slider is a bad way to combat unhappiness in general - I'd rather be in HR and use a unit.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Are Hippodromes Colosseum replacements? It might make Colosseum worth building.

Its effectiveness depends on # of happy resources you can get. And whether you have Representation, or not.

EDIT: It's something that you can definitely consider at Marathon. Using troops to raise happy costs a lot in maintenance.

 

[coanda]

Theater replacements, actually - so you're probably going to want at least 6 of them anyways!

If you're relying on specialists and hammers, the hippodrome is going to be very powerful. Relying on cottages, it's much weaker - by the time you have actually built hippodromes in your major cities, your happy cap is high enough it's probably not worth upping the culture slider.

It doesn't combo. particularly well with either of the leaders though - CHA Cyrus is less likely to need happiness, and FIN Darius is more likely to want cottage-spam, and neither are CRE. Give that UB to Pericles and you can see some scary vertical growth after Drama is discovered.

Edit: Some people are suffering from brain-freeze. Byzantine, not Persian. Still doesn't combo particularly well with SPI + IMP though.

 

[Um the Muse]

No, they're theatre replacements. Edit: sorry, cross-post correction, and Coanda used the spelling used in the game (whereas I used the correct spelling )
I've thought of using this too, but as Automated Teller pointed out, you don't normally raise your cultural slider. Otoh, I guess that would mean that you could afford to trade away your happiness resources. The computer seems to value your last of a kind (your last furs resource, for example) higher than the others, which are already highly valued. Sounds like it might be ok for a specialist economy, or possibly a cultural victory. I suppose you could also use it for whipping; one pop whips are hammer-efficient if you don't have to worry about unhappies. You might use it for your cycles--you're SPI, right?
You should give it a try and tell us how it goes

 

[AutomatedTeller]

It's a good point that troops cost maintenance.

I would guess that it's more efficient to convert commerce to gold and pay maintenance than it is to convert commerce to culture and get free happiness in the cases where you are still running HR, mainly because not all the cities will need the happiness. Say your civ is making 200 commerce a turn - a 10% drop means you can support 20 MP's, and you can do it in the cities that need it (some may not need any, while other's may need 4), and if you have extra, you get to keep it. And, of course, some of that gold will be multiplied. Of course, maintenance costs are subject to inflation, so it's a little more complicated than that.

that said, I think the hippodrome is a fine improvement. Besides the fact that you want enough to build Globe, it gives +1 happy even before horses (the theater does not) and is a cheap source of culture. the ottoman hamman gives 2 happy straight up, but costs twice as much. The Mall can give 3 happy, but is both expensive and comes very late in the game. The mausoleum gives 2 happy, but is more expensive than the Hamman and comes later. And the 5% isn't nothing - it's a great way to fight off war weariness, like I said.

 

[Archon_Wing]

My love of default theaters went down the gutter when I realized they don't do crap without culture slider or dye, and relegated them to culture pressure.

So it's nice the Byzantine one gives happiness by itself; becomes a nice and cheap happiness structure.
Also I find calendar resources extremely annoying (usually they are in the jungle) so horses are so much better.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

They are mediocre at best. I don't usually build theaters anyways.

 

[tinstaafl]

Every once in a while you start in isolation with no happiness. I find that in this situation theatres, collosseums and a 20% culture slider are a good way to go. They also work better with farms than cottages.
That's just if you have room for many good big cities. If your land is mediocre, except for a huge GP farm and a bureaucracy capital, hereditary rule happiness is probably better.

 

[Grassland Farm]

As Byzantium you will want to be warmongering as soon as you have Cataphracts, and the cost of WW will be high. The Hippodrome is an urgency solution against WW: Just one clic or two on the culture slider.

 

[Ghpstage]

I have no problem using the culture slider as a main source, even with standard Theatres, so the Hippodrome is a big improvement to me.

Its also quite a lot more efficient at providing bulk to deal with whip and draft unhappiness, emancipation, resolution defying, war wearriness and other things that can lead to widespread , like wars with an important trading partner.
Using the culture slider also helps other things, like captured cities, by giving and culture immediately.

Still doesn't combo particularly well with SPI + IMP though

It works very well with Spiritual, which already makes farms, whipping, drafting and specialists more attractive. Also it has immediate effect in common with Spiritual civic switches.

 

[Sian]

No, they're theatre replacements. Edit: sorry, cross-post correction, and Coanda used the spelling used in the game (whereas I used the correct spelling )

arguebly wrong ... you used the Classical and English spelling whereas Coanda used the American Spelling

 

[vranasm]

they are great in unrestricted leaders games with Creative leader and marble start (you will want to go with aesth).

With Justy i don't have the feeling that I should beeline Drama.

 

[UncleJJ]

The hippodrome allows Justinian to play what used to be called a "pure SE" type of game, that is one based on specialists and with very few cottages. Using the cultural slider to give lots of mid-game happiness and Spiritual to switch civics frequently an aggressive warring game can be played. This is a food based game using whipping and drafting to generate large armies. Imperialistic means that getting GGs is easier and settling them can mean astonishingly good troops from one city in the late game.

The early research, in a pure SE, is dependent on lightbulbing to Liberalism and tech trading, using Spiritual to switch religions for diplomacy as well as economic reasons. Running lots of specialists, often starving the city, in periods of Caste System and Pacifism generates GPs fast, and then switching to other civics like Slavery and OR for buildings in other cities and Theocracy for better troops is way to make the most the leader and his UB. Played on a Pangea or Continents map this can give an interesting warmongering game. You can choose to beeline make use of the Cataphract or avoid the research detour and get Liberalism (and thence to Constitution for Representation) and use draft muskets (and later rifles) and cannons to conquer the world. The hippodrome and raising the cultural slider fits the warmongering theme and helps in conquered cities for an attempt at a domination victory nicely, if that is to your taste.

 

[iDagon]

My love of default theaters went down the gutter when I realized they don't do crap without culture slider or dye, and relegated them to culture pressure.

So it's nice the Byzantine one gives happiness by itself; becomes a nice and cheap happiness structure.
Also I find calendar resources extremely annoying (usually they are in the jungle) so horses are so much better.

Holy Sh1t!! I allways thought that they provide +1 by default!! Dear god! My eyes are opened!

 

[Archon_Wing]

Did they just get a lot worse for you?

 

[Um the Muse]

Holy Sh1t!! I allways thought that they provide +1 by default!! Dear god! My eyes are opened!

You know another eye opener? Figuring out that temples cost just as much as colliseums. Never used to build the latter, but it's not like I neccesarily want the priest slots, so I might as well...especially if I'm cre and not spi.

Another eye opener is that moving the slider will grant extra happies w/o either theaters or colliseums.

Now, Justinian may be spi and not cre, but I'm thinking colliseums might actually go better. Let's see: at 100% cultural, the hippos will give me +20 :happy:, I'll get +10 for the slider itself, and +6 from colliseums. Ok, colliseums might be overkill . It's like every city is a globe theatre city

Just be careful about when you want to do this, as you end up killing major parts of your economy. It can be useful in moderation for spi cycles or all out for endgame domination, but it trashes your economy in the mean time, and you can't even use anarchy if you've reached the strike zone (can't pay maintenance costs). Trust me, I'm speaking from experience here.

 

[iDagon]

@um the muse: I now about those two.. But you may use the temple for the missionaries of you don't use organised religion. Also, they grant more culture, I think..

I didn't know that golden ages stacked till I read it here some time ago, though..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They are mediocre at best. I don't usually build theaters anyways.

How about something a bit more useful, like giving us a numerical reason *why* they're mediocre at best? One's usage of any in-game option may or may not be a good idea...

Some common sources of :

1. Default (5 capitol, 4 elsewhere)
2. Resources (obviously you want as much of this as possible)
3. Buildings (variable from market/forge/theater/etc, not variable from things like temple)
4. Slider
5. Units (HR)
6. Civics (rep)
7. Religion

Okay. So virtually every opening/build will want to get that can be had from resources available in the empire or via trade. They apply to all cities with minimal investment and have direct tile benefits to work in most cases. It practically doesn't matter what else you're doing. Default is always there too obviously.

After that, every option has a significant cost of one kind of another, be it diplo relations, , % commerce allocation, maintenance or alternative civics (or simply anarchy).

Are you going to tell me that you've run the math and found, for example, that HR units in every city that needs to grow is actually more cost effective than theater/coli + slider? I Find it hard to buy that's always true, and for the UB in question I doubt it's true even in the case of heavy cottage use at times. In a 9 city empire you'd need to bankroll 27 units to achieve the same result as running 10% slider in culture. At a time where multipliers are scarce and sometimes not cost effective, I'm doubting a slider notch is going to drop you 27 gold, or even 20.

It's possible to calculate cost of for each option once you have a real map in front of you and do some scouting. I'm betting people under-use stock theaters, let alone this UB.

The hippodrome allows Justinian to play what used to be called a "pure SE" type of game

Used to be. At this point the more useful approach in regard to theater or even in terms of farms vs cottages is to consider which gives the best output given a goal.

Hippodrome is an interesting UB in that its benefits are strong enough to make it potentially useful even in situations where one might not look toward a stock theater for that . Theater/slider is a lot more flexible/less transient than HR based , and sometimes even deliberate commerce based games it can be attractive, especially with such high returns. 3 /city mimics the boost of rep, but in more cities, and the investment is very competitive to virtually anything else!

Also, if one is bankrolling deficit research through tech sale, gold multipliers are pretty weak and alternative sources of maintenance reduction beyond courthouses are rare.

Weighing cap boost options is ALWAYS important no matter what you intend to do with it, and sometimes the best answer isn't obvious.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'd forgotten about the 1 you get for the 10% on the slider.

Of course, you also get 1 happy from the MP you have in each city to keep it from wanting protection.

I often don't build regular theaters, though I am going to start more, to take advantage of Globe. I find that when war weariness hits, though, those theaters are great.

I actually think they work well with Byzantium - you are gonna have horses for your awesome cataphracts, anyway, so 10% on a hippodrome would give 5 happy!! (hippodrome, horse happy for hippodrome, 10% slider, 2 * 5% for hippodrome and slider) - which will pretty well offset most weariness.