What buildings are not worth it?

[Quoth the Raven]

I play on Noble. I have a habit of wanting to build every building that I have unlocked in my cities before I start beefing up my military, which usually means I don't get a very large military before I research new techs and unlock new buildings. I have been wondering how useful a market, bank, or university is though. Are they worth it for the hammer cost? I have attached a save game if anyone wants to take a look at it. (no mods)

 

[lymond]

I think the better logic here is consider those buildings that are pretty much must builds. Granary, Lighthouse (seafood), Library, and Forge. Even then, some of those buildings are situational. You need at least one Library early - usually in your cap - to get some scientists running and boost research. Forges are great, but..again..very situational depending on the city and what you are trying to do overall. Granary is most important building, but I think you probably already know that..but a city with no growth (i.e. food) potential likely doesn't need one, but generally the goal is to settle food. (sometimes cities are settled for a particular resource)

I'd say the "wildcard" building is the barracks (and stable if mounted). Nice to have but you don't always need them and not everywhere.

Outside of those buildings, everything is either very situational or useless. Unis..sure, if going for Space and needing Oxford. Markets are hugely expensive buildings relative to the time they are available...simply not worth it....maybe later in a Space game some cities may need one for the happies when you can build it in a turn or two. Banks have a nice return on the buck, but..again..what are you trying to do here. At that point your better turn hammers into wealth or research or armies.

While I do recommend proper empire management in the game (including judicious approach to buildings), you really limit yourself on Noble not going out and killing peoples early on..often very very early...like warrior rushing.

 

[Quoth the Raven]

You would not even recommend Aqueducts?

 

[SittinDown]

aqueducts are also not that great.... except maybe to build one to Hanging Gardens. maybe late in space when you have health issues, but probably not.

 

[Izuul]

I can't remember the last time I built a regular aqueduct. Its OK sometimes in a bureau capitol, but 100H for 2 health is generally a really bad deal.

Hammams are good though and barays are ok occasionally.

 

[Fippy]

As Lymo pointed out, it's mostly about your goals in games (or Civ in general).
Building mentality and just having fun with that is ofc perfectly fine, especially if playing on Noble.

If your goals change towards competitive play, reaching higher diff. levels and so on, it's time to look at investment vs. return (also known as snowball effect)
We can do this building by building.

* Granary
Doubles your growth rate (26 food needed for the next size turns into 13).
For 60h (or 30 with expansive) you can now whip more, or grow onto hammer & other useful tiles so this pays back very quickly.
Unless there's an urgent need for something else (like an unit for cities in danger, or a workboat), it's usually your best first build.

* Aqueduct
Continuing with health buildings, those are not increasing your food like granaries do.
We can say they allow 1-2 more pop if your city is unhealthy, but if you connect your food resis unhealthy normally comes later than unhappy problems.
+ granaries also boost health from some common resis.
Unhealthy cities can still work all their tiles, so we can say not much changes besides not reaching another pop eventually.
We are looking at 100h cost, in what time will those pay back? Slowly usually, let's say you can now work a new 4h mine = 25 turns.
When comparing this to granaries, Aquas look highly unefficient.

* Harbor
Those are more interesting, we have +3 health possible if all seafood resis are connected & increased trade route income (if those routes are good enuf).
80h cost, and those can pay back faster..let's say we gain 2 commerce, permanent gains are always nice cos they stay even after whipping or otherwise changing your cities. If we look back at Aqueducts, they are more expensive and it's possible you will not need the extra health anymore after for example connecting more resis or trading for them.

So we can say it's 1. Granary, 2. Harbor and 3. Aqua, but their hammer cost would suggest a different order.
And there's no trait bonus for Aqua, harbors can also be cheap with expansive.
With many other things to build, Aqueducts are often ignored for good reason

 

[Fizz'l]

I go for an aqueduct often if I need the extra health and there are no other more important things to build and if I do not have access to the seafood resources (or have already built harbor). If you run the hereditary rule or representative civic you may find the extra happiness you receive means that health is the limiting factor in your growth.

 

[elitetroops]

I go for an aqueduct often if I need the extra health and there are no other more important things to build and if I do not have access to the seafood resources (or have already built harbor). If you run the hereditary rule or representative civic you may find the extra happiness you receive means that health is the limiting factor in your growth.

This depends on what you consider important. Are you playing to win the game, or to build a large impressive empire? Growth in itself is usually not that important for the purpose of winning the game. You rarely need cities to grow beyond the health cap you get from granary and resources (+trades). Then it is more important to build stuff that help you on your path to victory.

To OP, on noble you can try playing a pangaea map and build nothing but granaries, possibly a barracks or two (but only in select strong production cities) and offensive military units. Chop and whip liberally. That should give you some perspective on how important buildings are.

 

[Fizz'l]

This depends on what you consider important. Are you playing to win the game, or to build a large impressive empire? Growth in itself is usually not that important for the purpose of winning the game. You rarely need cities to grow beyond the health cap you get from granary and resources (+trades). Then it is more important to build stuff that help you on your path to victory.

To OP, on noble you can try playing a pangaea map and build nothing but granaries, possibly a barracks or two (but only in select strong production cities) and offensive military units. Chop and whip liberally. That should give you some perspective on how important buildings are.

True I don't normally play to win. Mostly just build a bit of an empire and go on a few rampages against other civs. If I do win, it would be domination or even time (I turn off space race). Though most times I get bored and start a new game once I've satisfied myself that I could have won.
Unless you're expecting to win in the near future, I'd have though the added bonus of one or two extra citizens over the course of the game would justify the initial outlay of hammers.
With regard to the OP's question I've never built a nuclear power plant as I normally just accept the 2 health hit from coal if hydro is unavailable. Plus I don't want to find out what a meltdown looks like...

 

[Snowbird]

I've built some aqueducts, bu typically in the late game under state property. This allows to change one farm to workshop, since +4 hammers at that time go through forge/factory/power, they seem to pay in passable time.

 

[rah]

Yeah maybe the core of my empire gets a few while I'm waiting to whip down for the appropriate rush. My cap and GP farm are usually the only sure candidates or a large specialized city. But not many.

 

[SittinDown]

It's also important to consider not just Return on Investment, but Opportunity Cost. that is, what could you have done instead.

Let's look at some of the other ways you can get health:

* Trading
If you have 2 Corn, and 0 Wheat, trading that to an AI gets you a +2 in cities with granaries in ALL your cities with 0 hammers spent. Always be on the lookout for trades. On higher difficulty levels, you'll often be looking to trade resources for Gold, but on lower levels the AI rarely has much gold to trade, so swapping for resources you lack is just fine.

* Expand
Usually when you get more land, you get more health resources. On many maps the health type resources are clustered, so you have to get farther away from your capital to diversity, and of course, diversification is the key, since any number of the same thing still just gets you +1 health. Settling a new site that opens up a new health resource is better than building an aqueduct.

* Buildings
@Fippy did a great write up on Granaries, Harbors, and Aqueducts. Let me add in a similar analysis of Grocers, Supermarkets, and Hospitals to round out the health buildings. Note that Fippy didn't even mention those buildings... we'll see why.

* Grocer
Costs 150 hammers.
Benefits - a potential of +4 health but it's not guaranteed, +25% G, lets you run 2 merchants.
- The +25% G might seem like a good passive effect, but generally your goal is to run the slider as close to 100% science as possible, so, the +25% G is really much less in practice. You're better off running Merchants, building wealth, Fail Gold, or getting money from conquest. Investing in gold buildings is very situational, and usually limited to banks in shrine cities, for example.
- The option to run Merchants is nice. If you're running Caste System you can do this already. Merchants get you a +3G, plus they contribute to Great Merchants, which can be worth +1000 G.
- The passive effects on this building are effectively none. You have to choose to run the merchants, and if you're running Caste System, you get that benefit anyway. The +25% is minimal if you're managing your spending via building wealth or running merchants, or FailGold.

* Supermarket
150h, +1 from Cow, Deer, Pig, Sheep - potentially a +4. Passively +1 Food.
It's not bad really, but its available so late it just doesn't factor in that heavily. Still - chances are you'll have a lot more access to Cow Deer Pig and Sheep than Bananas, Spices, Wine, and Sugar. And the +1 Food is a passive guaranteed effect, so it really can net you +5 Food in a big city in the late game after factories are built and labs if going to space. I'd build it before I built a grocer or an aqueduct if it was late and I was having health problems. ...late game, you're probably better off just investing in spreading around the Sushi corporation for the raw + Food rather than worrying about health.

* Hospitals
200h
+3 Health
Heals units extra per turn.
..the passive effects are poor, and the building comes in late game, and it's even less efficient than an aqueduct. (66h per health versus 50h).

So, in this order for health you'd generally want to build:
Granary, Harbor, Grocer, Supermarket, Aqueduct, Hospital.

Most cities, I stop at Granary, or Harbor.

...in the order you want to acquire health I think it's more like:
* Expand to capture resources.
* Build Granaries.
* Conquer opponents to take their stuff.
* Trade with opponents to fill out your gaps.
* Build Harbors.
* Build other stuff.

...the main thing I've learning going up from a 50/50 Noble player to a 50/50 Immortal player in the last 2 years is that return on investment and opportunity costs of buildings is quite high. Those 100h you could put into an aqueduct could be another city in the form of a settler or 2 catapults, could mean better tiles worked from extra workers, or just gold or beakers, all of which have more benefits.

 

[gaash2]

I rarely ever build aqueducts until late in the game but I build unique building aqueduct replacements a lot (Baray, Hammam)

 

[contempted]

I think the better logic here is consider those buildings that are pretty much must builds. Granary, Lighthouse (seafood), Library, and Forge. Even then, some of those buildings are situational. You need at least one Library early - usually in your cap - to get some scientists running and boost research. Forges are great, but..again..very situational depending on the city and what you are trying to do overall. Granary is most important building, but I think you probably already know that..but a city with no growth (i.e. food) potential likely doesn't need one, but generally the goal is to settle food. (sometimes cities are settled for a particular resource)

I'd say the "wildcard" building is the barracks (and stable if mounted). Nice to have but you don't always need them and not everywhere.

Outside of those buildings, everything is either very situational or useless. Unis..sure, if going for Space and needing Oxford. Markets are hugely expensive buildings relative to the time they are available...simply not worth it....maybe later in a Space game some cities may need one for the happies when you can build it in a turn or two. Banks have a nice return on the buck, but..again..what are you trying to do here. At that point your better turn hammers into wealth or research or armies.

While I do recommend proper empire management in the game (including judicious approach to buildings), you really limit yourself on Noble not going out and killing peoples early on..often very very early...like warrior rushing.

Forgive my ignorance, but why does the game recommend that you build a bunch of stuff thats useless. Should you ever listen to those recommendations? Why does the game make them?

 

[SittinDown]

Forgive my ignorance, but why does the game recommend that you build a bunch of stuff thats useless. Should you ever listen to those recommendations? Why does the game make them?

That is a great question. This game has a UI that pushes and encourages sub-optimal play. The best ways to play the game emerged by the community here over years of play, and I don't think the original designers knew how to play the game optimally. I think that's also why there are mods out there that make the AI smarter, by better applying the strategies that emerged.

 

[lymond]

Forgive my ignorance, but why does the game recommend that you build a bunch of stuff thats useless. Should you ever listen to those recommendations? Why does the game make them?

Ha...yeah, don't assume the developers were actually good players. They made great design decisions with this game, but now 10 years later a lot experience among players exists with these design features. Yes, I would completely ignore the "tips". In fact, you can turn them off in the settings. The blue circles will still appear though when your settler is selected, and while generally not actually ideal spots, they can at least serve a purpose in a) noting possible hidden resources in vicinity b) AIs always settle those blue circle spots since the AI essentially is guided by those "tips" in the code, so you know where they might potentially settle. Humans though, should make settling decisions based on their own analysis of the map and what is optimal for the empire.

 

[Pedro78]

b) AIs always settle those blue circle spots since the AI essentially is guided by those "tips" in the code, so you know where they might potentially settle.

Are you sure about that? I'm not saying that AI cities are well placed, but to me the blue circles look even worse (maybe it's just an impression)

 

[elmurcis]

Are you sure about that? I'm not saying that AI cities are well placed, but to me the blue circles look even worse (maybe it's just and impression)

You are not that good player as majestic AI who knows more... In 1500 BC it might be stupid placement but 1500 AD that city might be reason for AI to get access to Uranium and ICBM!

 

[Anysense]

Ha...yeah, don't assume the developers were actually good players. They made great design decisions with this game, but now 10 years later a lot experience among players exists with these design features.

I'd put it this way, the developers created the game mechanics, but had only a vague idea of how the game will be played. A very good example of such approach is chess. Whoever devised the rules (centuries ago), they did not mean people to use, say, the Grunfeld Defence, it's up to players to develop the theory.