What is the best UB?

[plasmacannon]

Salon worse than Dun? Louise has good traits for a run at a cultural victory and salons help with that. The salon could end up making your culture win 10 turns earlier than it otherwise would have been. Weak...but at least that's something. What are you going to do with a dun? Make G2 crossbows???

What's wrong with G2 xbows?
Remember Archers, LongBows, XBows, Musketmen and Grenadiers will all benefit from the Dun until Rifling is researched. G3 Grenadiers attacking a city defended by Riflemen with their +50% withdrawl rate are something to be feared. Considering both Celtic leaders are CHA, gaining promotions doesn't take long. Boudica giving her units the bonus Combat1 also, makes them powerful units, especially on Marathon game speed and/or hilly terrain.
I'll take that option vs a Ballista Elephant UU with No Ivory resourse.
But this sounds like a discussion for another thread.

 

[Antilogic]

Aqueducts are really bad buildings imo, even less tempting than markets in most cases..later when factories and such make health more important, you still have harbors too in coastal cities and grocers usually give more health by then...they really bad.
If +1 food would be on anything else, Baray would get more attention and love.

Granaries. Can you say orgasmically good?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

It's entirely situation (and leader, obviously) dependent for me. I like the Dike for water maps. England's Stock Exchange can be powerful, as can the Ikanda and the Mint.

I suppose I lean more to the financial side of things in my choices...

 

[The Rook]

Salon worse than Dun? Louise has good traits for a run at a cultural victory and salons help with that. The salon could end up making your culture win 10 turns earlier than it otherwise would have been. Weak...but at least that's something. What are you going to do with a dun? Make G2 crossbows???

The problem with the salon is that the GA contamination can make it even worse than the basic observatory in some circumstances. At least the woeful dun always beats walls.

 

[Gwynnja]

The problem with the salon is that the GA contamination can make it even worse than the basic observatory in some circumstances. At least the woeful dun always beats walls.

But, when and where do you build walls? Like, ever? Maybe, maybe when you've got an aggressive warmongering neighbor and you settle a lightning rod city on a hill, but that's pretty situational. An observatory is at least useful in your bureau cap and other commerce cities. But I guess it's a poll about UB's not regular buildings, but they definitely both suck.

 

[babar]

By the time you can build Salons, GP pollution is a non-issue. I don't think they are great or anything, but with Rep they are strictly better than Observatories.

Sacrificial Altars are great I'm sure, but like some better players than me here, I've never got them to do anything spectacular.

I really like Ikhandas, but they almost need Aggressive to be cost effective maintenance reduction.

For me it's between Terraces and Gers. Gers + keshiks + CHA are crazy, and they help with OP elephants and the popular cuirassier/cav breakouts too.

I guess Terraces win though. Paired with EXP (and not CRE), there is no question. Otherwise, it is certainly debatable, but I have fewer reservations about them than any other UB...

 

[noto2]

why is everyone forgetting about that shale plant? +10% hammers ftw!! And that's not even mentioning the assembly plant. Those extra engineer slots guarantee a victory. Finally...what every true civver knows to be the UB that makes late game leaders shake in their boots and run to their mothers - the feitoria! It makes Joao's water tiles think he has the financial trait! Sheer magnificence

 

[The Rook]

But, when and where do you build walls? Like, ever? Maybe, maybe when you've got an aggressive warmongering neighbor and you settle a lightning rod city on a hill, but that's pretty situational. An observatory is at least useful in your bureau cap and other commerce cities. But I guess it's a poll about UB's not regular buildings, but they definitely both suck.

Yes, walls are pretty situational, but I would sooner that my new land units have Guerilla1 than not have it, so I consider the dun to be unarguably superior (although still weak). An observatory is useful, and that's precisely why it can be potentially annoying to have the artist pollution the salon brings. Unless I am playing for a culture win, or running rep with lots of cities, it is unlikely that I'm bothered about a freebie artist. I'll happily keep my basic observatory thank you.

By the time you can build Salons, GP pollution is a non-issue.

Not true. Many times I have drawn an artist when I focus on merchants (through caste) for late game trade missions, and that's just with NE pollution. Also, sometimes you want that specific great person for a final golden age to conclude a space race, and you can be sure that any unnecessary pollution will bring the wrong one.

Seriously, the salon might not be bad enough to lose a game. Probably the best thing about it is the fact that it arrives too late to really matter!

 

[babar]

Not true. Many times I have drawn an artist when I focus on merchants (through caste) for late game trade missions, and that's just with NE pollution. Also, sometimes you want that specific great person for a final golden age to conclude a space race, and you can be sure that any unnecessary pollution will bring the wrong one.

Seriously, the salon might not be bad enough to lose a game. Probably the best thing about it is the fact that it arrives too late to really matter!

I too know the pain of Great Artists, but the added chance of one from a Salon is usually very small. I've never had one from a Salon. The chances of getting multiple Artists to mess up your Golden Ages is even smaller. Without Rep, Salons are indeed useless. But on the plus side for Salons, they give you about 5(?) extra , extra culture, and extra GP production. I have to admit though, if I ever did get an Artist from a Salon when I was desperate for something else, I might change my tune.

 

[The Rook]

I too know the pain of Great Artists, but the added chance of one from a Salon is usually very small. I've never had one from a Salon. The chances of getting multiple Artists to mess up your Golden Ages is even smaller. Without Rep, Salons are indeed useless. But on the plus side for Salons, they give you about 5(?) extra , extra culture, and extra GP production. I have to admit though, if I ever did get an Artist from a Salon when I was desperate for something else, I might change my tune.

I have to confess that I have never received a Great Artist from a salon too. However, I've had enough pain from the minimal contamination of the NE to know that I wouldn't want one in my GP pool. Last month I played a game and received 3 consecutive Great Artists at < 4% odds due to the NE. In theory the chances of that happening were less than 15625 to 1! One artist would have been fine for my late triple GP golden age, but three! I'm sure that if a salon were added then "I" would never see anything other than Great Artists again.

From memory, the salon is the only UB that in some circumstances could be worse than its basic building. At best it can provide marginal usefulness for culture and slight science benefits if running rep. While at worst it can be a potential source of annoyance for GP contamination. I think the best thing that can be said is that it arrives so late that it can't mess up the bulbs to Liberalism. Surely this must rank amongst the weaker UBs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

why is everyone forgetting about that shale plant? +10% hammers ftw!! And that's not even mentioning the assembly plant. Those extra engineer slots guarantee a victory. Finally...what every true civver knows to be the UB that makes late game leaders shake in their boots and run to their mothers - the feitoria! It makes Joao's water tiles think he has the financial trait! Sheer magnificence

Pretty recently I ran the numbers for people and showed that shale plant is often better than the dike (the 10% is only part of it, the other part is 4 less , and 6 less if you trade the coal for a resource...basically having shale means you have the to work 1-3 extra tiles in addition to the 10% boost).

In other words, it's still mediocre because it's late, but no reason to single it out when it's often better than the joke #3 building voted on this poll.

 

[lymond]

For some reason, I have a feeling that noto's entire post was meant as a joke

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For some reason, I have a feeling that noto's entire post was meant as a joke

Of course it was, he was obviously listing some of the worst UB's in the game. Shale plant doesn't belong there though. It belongs in the mediocre range with the dike, not bottom-of-barrel tier like failtorias and assembly plants.

 

[noto2]

Pretty recently I ran the numbers for people and showed that shale plant is often better than the dike (the 10% is only part of it, the other part is 4 less , and 6 less if you trade the coal for a resource...basically having shale means you have the to work 1-3 extra tiles in addition to the 10% boost).

In other words, it's still mediocre because it's late, but no reason to single it out when it's often better than the joke #3 building voted on this poll.

Yes, yes, I know... unhooking coal from your empire drastically reduces pollution at the slight cost of reducing the efficiency of your iron works. I was having fun...shhh

 

[Qgqqqqq]

I just saw a game where an artist spawned at 0.34% odds - the heroic epic was completed on the same turn as the GP.

 

[VSarius]

Granaries. Can you say orgasmically good?

Expansive Granaries that give +1 food+Creative. Hahahaha, holy that would be great!

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Granaries that give +100% food if you really want to break the game (try it by comboing terrace and granary in a city).

 

[4thvar]

I like the Rathaus personally, but I suppose it's only useful in large, spread out civs, where the maintenance is high.
Of course that's on its own, combined with the Holy Roman Empire? Yeah, nothing really makes that any better.