What is the best UB?

[plasmacannon]

Yea.
We probably need multiple polls or at least have some of the moderators/content staff or other highly knowledgeable players come up with a list of all the UBs in order from best to worst. If anyone would know by now, it would be them.
We could vote on which list we think is the most correct.
Just leave an "Other" option for those who may have a differing opinion.
What do you think TMIT?

 

[Doshin]

I don't understand Fippy's antipathy towards the Sacrificial Altar.

A single chop or carefully managed OF enables a 2-pop whip of a good building. The SA itself removes one of the two constraints that limit Slavery: happiness and food. It also reduces maintenance, which if you are using the UB correctly should be a main concern.

From that point on, 2-pop whip in food-heavy cities, 1-pop whip in food-poor cities. Spam units and win the game. It's not difficult to combine this while a HA rush or Catapult rush is already underway, because the building only costs 90H.

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The Cothon is the best UB on certain maps, and ranges between very good and good on most others.

 

[traius]

I don't understand flippy's antipathy towards it either. Globe Theatre whip/draft is a well-documented strategy, and this building essentially allows all of your cities to become GT cities for whip purposes. It is a great building because even if you're losing, it can allow you to take over several/all of a rival's cities (indirectly). How many ub's can make a difference like that?

 

[noto2]

Some of these are just laughable. The dun? The cothon? The mall? The research institute? Kidding me? Also, a forge isn't a unique building. It loses it uniqueness when all the civs can build it. Where's the gerrrr? Great synergy with the Mongol Keshiks. The Spanish citadel is a fantastic unique building. The Persian apothecary is another highly underrated UB, but instead we've got things like the obelisk, trading post, madrassa, and pavillion. Come on OP, how about a little effort next time.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Cothon isn't too bad. I honestly think 90-95% of the UB's in this game completely suck. A lot of them are so bad that they make zero difference in a game. I usually build a harbour in every coastal city. It's a cheap building that gives you extra health and additional trade income... did I mention how cheap it is? It's one of the best buildings in the game, imo. So the cothon gives your coastal cities even more trade route income. You're going to build it anyway, in many ciites, it could boost your commercial output by 5-10%, I think that's probably at least an average UB.

 

[noto2]

I wasn't trying to drive an argument for the sac altar by pointing out that the cataphract is actually a good unit. I was just pointing out that the cataphract is actually a good unit, especially since it has no pure counter in its era (much like the praetorian, but later so not quite as good).

It just isn't as good as the quecha, war chariot, immortal, or keshik. It's just behind the top tier units.

Sac altar is a lot more interesting for the buildup. In the vast majority of cases, if you're taking a bunch of cities you've the game in hand. Hippodrome getting a ton of there isn't particularly interesting (though after 3-5 back-to-back whips it might be comparable unless you're really gouging the slider).

What we care about are the early-mid game benefits that help us secure a winning position. A discount courthouse that increases production to a degree is exactly that. In reality, the strength of most UB is quite low, and I can see how in some cases one might prefer the terrace or ikhanda.

Claiming that the slider magically makes all go away and the 5+ reduced from sac altar and chain whipping is insignificant is ridiculous though. The slider costs money, and if you're really whipping down there's a good chance you don't have it. That it also comes at a discount is what puts it over the edge as #1 in my mind, but you're selling the whip aspect of it short.

I always saw the sac altar as a building that allows one to get a lot of production out of small/crappy cities when playing as the Aztecs. Later in the game I don't whip so much. I've never really tried to whip using bio farms, I guess I could try that some time, but that that point in the game if I wanted hammers I'd be more inclined to do something like spam mines and feed them with bio farms and build factories/coal plants, or run SP and spam workshops/watermills.

But yeah, as the Aztecs, you can settle a city that only gets to work 2 grasslands, a fish, and some water, and still end up pumping out a lot of military from said city.

 

[noto2]

I like to pick people's brains for modding ideas, so if it's not too off topic, what do you think it would take to make markets more appealing? A lower cost perhaps?

EDIT: This is a curious topic for me because it took me quite a while to realize why Forums aren't that good and regular markets aren't always worth it. I tend to forget just how much money you can get by building it.

The gold multiplier buildings in Civ are inherently weak because the player is naturally going to opt to maximize beaker output most of the time, thus raising the science slider as high as it can go. Thus, even if your city is producing 100 commerce, if the slider is at 80% the city is really only producing 20 gold, so a 25% boost is only a 5 gold boost, whereas the library in that case is giving a 80 x .25 = 20 beaker boost. Add to that a library is far cheaper.

Gold multiplier buildings are thus most useful only when you want actual gold (maybe for upgrading or rush buying units) or when you've rapidly expanded your empire and have had to drop the science slider very low.

At the very least markets should be cheaper. They are INCREDIBLY expensive.
If you were going to make a mod you could even think of some more creative solutions, like a market could increase commercial output itself, say by 10-15%. Be creative

 

[traius]

I always saw the sac altar as a building that allows one to get a lot of production out of small/crappy cities when playing as the Aztecs. Later in the game I don't whip so much. I've never really tried to whip using bio farms, I guess I could try that some time, but that that point in the game if I wanted hammers I'd be more inclined to do something like spam mines and feed them with bio farms and build factories/coal plants, or run SP and spam workshops/watermills.

But yeah, as the Aztecs, you can settle a city that only gets to work 2 grasslands, a fish, and some water, and still end up pumping out a lot of military from said city.

Nice triple post, lol

Anyway, when you get factories and coal plants, those factor into the whips too. Sac altar late game, should you be going for it, should also focus on getting the kremlin. Kremlin factories and coal plants allows you to whip a lot of infantry artillery etc. I will admit that you are very possibly better off long term going railroaded mines, but some times the best long term pay off is what pays off immediately, ie immediately crippling an enemy etc. Kremlin and sac altar and a few double digit pop cities = a dead opponent if you're at all competent militarily.

 

[noto2]

Nice triple post, lol

Anyway, when you get factories and coal plants, those factor into the whips too. Sac altar late game, should you be going for it, should also focus on getting the kremlin. Kremlin factories and coal plants allows you to whip a lot of infantry artillery etc. I will admit that you are very possibly better off long term going railroaded mines, but some times the best long term pay off is what pays off immediately, ie immediately crippling an enemy etc. Kremlin and sac altar and a few double digit pop cities = a dead opponent if you're at all competent militarily.

Hey I took a 3 month hiatus from civ and civfanatics, I'm allowed a triple post
Yes, I guess that is all true, it's just that at that point in the game I'm usually producing military through straight up hammer bonuses, drafting, or rush-buying. And even with drafting, I don't use it in my productive cities, only the ones that have few base hammers. Late in the game I'm quite hesitant to whip/draft down population in productive cities, they take a long time to grow back.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I don't understand Fippy's antipathy towards the

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The Cothon is the best UB on certain maps, and ranges between very good and good on most others.

I disagree with this.
I like the Cothon, don't get me wrong, but even on a map where every city is coastal I'd rather have a terrace then a Cothon, due to the hammers+time it saves.

 

[Fippy]

Not sure what's so hard to understand about sac. Altars
We are talking about some happiness, but only after CoL and spending 90h where you might not normally (for example in your Capital, normally needs no CH).

How does this *maybe* benefit (totally useless if happiness is no issue this game, or you would have needed it earlier than with CHs, or Caste System would be nice..) automatically result in an UB that makes a top 3 list?

 

[traius]

Because when you whip hard, and you should, it adds more happiness than any other ub barring ones where you need to be running 30% plus culture, which is very bad. And it costs less than its counterpart building. It lets you war like no other building in the game AND gives you a discount.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

We are talking about some happiness, but only after CoL and spending 90h where you might not normally (for example in your Capital, normally needs no CH).

If happiness is absolutely not an issue before your breakout war, you have a great position and won regardless lol.

One wouldn't ordinarily whip in the capitol much anyway. Most cities do in fact benefit from a discount courthouse with a fast whipping cycle.

 

[Fippy]

It lets you war like no other building in the game AND gives you a discount.

Just not true, your last worry on most breakouts is happiness..
this beats no Ger that directly makes your mounted army stronger for example, sorry.
And it also beats no UB that helped you getting towards this war a bit earlier, at least in my opinion and that's the beautiful thing isn't it...we all have one

 

[Fippy]

If happiness is absolutely not an issue before your breakout war, you have a great position and won regardless lol.

What? A map can be hard with enough happiness around, your arguments are getting more silly I'll give you a nice Deity map, boxed in by Shaka and Toku, you get plenty happiness thou and there your game is already won i'm sure.

 

[traius]

I don't know if you think TMIT and I are the same person, (we're not) but he can take whatever map you can beat and beat it faster... he has a whole series of videos on youtube of him beating immortal and deity...

 

[drewisfat]

Fippy is a very experienced deity level player, as is TMIT.
Ranking people's skill based on who is more famous on YouTube is absurd.
Furthermore the notion that you should capitulate any strategic discussion to someone just because they are a better overall player would defeat the purpose of the forums.
Your last post promotes a childish pissing contest that neither of them asked for and is awkward to even respond to.

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Cothon is really nice, it's often underrated just how much trade routes can change your game. Ofc, Cothon is useless with inland cities, and useless if you have no trading partners. On the other hand I don't always need monuments to border pop cities. Sometimes your earliest cities don't need border pops, and you could wait for religion/libraries/artists for later cities. Similarly sometimes cities don't get a granary super early.

 

[traius]

I got the feeling he wanted a pissing contest. Maybe I'm reading too much acidity into it that isn't there. But whipping more always seems good to me, and it's frequently a concern for me personally. I whip and draft like mad at cuirs and or rifles, and my cities are always pissed until I take over more happiness resources from my fallen enemies/ kill them and remove WW.

 

[Fippy]

yep i def. won't get into discussions like that, if tmit is your hero...cool, he deserves that for all his videos and stuff, but he can probably appreciate some discussions still.
He's not shy with getting his thoughts onto this board as well, so i don't think others should just bow and agree with everything. Little reality check here.

 

[azzaman333]

In isolation, the Sac Altar is the best UB. Unfortunately to get it you have to take an awful starting tech combination and a very niche UU.

Terrace, Rathaus and Ziggurat round out the top 4.

 

[maurcus]

the sac altar is good for what it is and i can see how it would be useful in certain stratagies but it almost never fits with mine as i am rarely if ever in slavery (caste FTW)