What is the best UB?

[BornInCantaloup]

I can't find any ~200 BC deity or immortal saves of Shaka to do the same experiment. But I've yet to see a value of >1 Gold from the BUG mod for building it BC. Generally it says something like .27 Gold or some such weakness.

Might be time for a Deity Graduate School with Shaka as Der Leader so we'll have more saves to look at?

There you go. Not quite 200 BC, my bad, I'm sorry. I hope 100 AD will do. Mapsize is Large, difficulty is Deity, speed is Normal.
13 cities, 13 Ikhandas. Global maintenance for cities is 61gpt. Gold/turn saved is about 15gpt (75 x 0.8 = 60). As cities grow, gpt saved increases.

It's always time to play Shaka

 

[drewisfat]

You really telling me you've whipped back to back nukes, looked back at your city and thought oh no, the unhappiness!! If only I had the sac altar!!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

You really telling me you've whipped back to back nukes, looked back at your city and thought oh no, the unhappiness!! If only I had the sac altar!!

You had me laugh at first ("huhuhu! indeed, nice joke!"), but... thinking about it,
If they say so, why not? They said Kremlin.

Kremlin = -33% hurrying cost = +50% production for whips ('cause one can't whip 0,67 citizen). That is before production multipliers are applied. So, normal speed, a base whip becomes 45 hammers.
Assuming Kremlin and +75% production multipliers, 1 pop whipped = 78 hammers. (!)

ICBM costs 500 hammers. Ok, maybe that one's a little costly to chain whip.
Tactical nuke costs 250 hammers: that is, conceivably, a 2 pop whip with very little overflow, or a 3 pop whip with a lot of overflow (resulting in a certain 2pop whip for the next).

Now, if we assume Police State for +100% production multipliers (90H a pop! Conceivable, if one's gonna whip nukes), the Tac Nuke becomes quite the reliable 2 pop whip: it only requires 70H invested.

Assuming Biology farms (no reason not to), most cities that are whipped to death (down to size 6?) will grow back a size in 1-2 turn, 3 turns at most (when mismanaged?). That is more than enough to stack whip anger to extremely high levels. Of course, for this to be relevant, one has to be building a tad more than 3 dozens of nukes

 

[traius]

I voted for terrace, but it's probably the sac altar.

 

[Fippy]

Cuirassers, Cavalry, Cannons are all 100% valid "whipped" military units. So are most medieval units, elephants, and catapults. With AGG Monty has some small bias against HA rushes anyway.

...and for all of them you usually turn off research, and run culture slider a bit once you can mass your armies. Which actually makes Hippodromes much better than Sac. Altars, much much better. Esp. in new captured cities, that 5 turns less from your first whip will not make this city happy..Hippodromes easily can.

Nope really, Sac. Altar looks good on paper...like hmm Cataphracts, but it's mostly an illusion. Costing 30h less is actually better than the whipping thing.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nope really, Sac. Altar looks good on paper...like hmm Cataphracts, but it's mostly an illusion. Costing 30h less is actually better than the whipping thing.

Cataphracts have some excellent finish dates recorded, even in high level play, incidentally.

 

[Fippy]

Cataphracts have some excellent finish dates recorded, even in high level play, incidentally.

And if i take a good start with Egypt, i can rock with WCs..hardly an interesting point.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

And if i take a good start with Egypt, i can rock with WCs..hardly an interesting point.

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.

 

[Skipity]

There you go. Not quite 200 BC, my bad, I'm sorry. I hope 100 AD will do. Mapsize is Large, difficulty is Deity, speed is Normal.
13 cities, 13 Ikhandas. Global maintenance for cities is 61gpt. Gold/turn saved is about 15gpt (75 x 0.8 = 60). As cities grow, gpt saved increases.

It's always time to play Shaka

Good stuff!

 

[rfcfanatic]

Salon is da best! Free specialists are always awesome because of free beakers with Representation and no wasted time for specialist micromanagement.

 

[Drakarska]

Salon is da best! Free specialists are always awesome because of free beakers with Representation and no wasted time for specialist micromanagement.

No offense rfc, but I'm not really seeing the logic in this. In what context are you stating that salon w/rep is ideal? just a little confused towards your reasoning's.

 

[rfcfanatic]

No offense rfc, but I'm not really seeing the logic in this. In what context are you stating that salon w/rep is ideal? just a little confused towards your reasoning's.

Free artist from Salon....well...it's free! It doesn't consume any food and because it's free - inept city governors will not be able to play around with them. Representation adds 3 to them, so it would be really useful for large empires with 40+ cities whose slider-dependent research would be bogged down by heavy maintenance costs.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Step1: win the game;
Step2: get saloons;
Step3: enjoy and have a drink!

 

[AW Arcaeca]

I say dikes, because i'm very production oriented. Realistically, the small bonus does little to increase my cities' production, but honestly I care more about my cities getting their projects done in less than 50-or-more turns than having good health or faster population growth

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I say dikes, because i'm very production oriented. Realistically, the small bonus does little to increase my cities' production, but honestly I care more about my cities getting their projects done in less than 50-or-more turns than having good health or faster population growth

When you're using forge/factory/coal plant to power your cities to 100% boost, lets you work more workshops. Dikes let you work...water tiles for 1 , if you can find a way to take care of the without putting EVEN MORE hammers into it.

One of the biggest red herrings in the game. I'm glad the community has evolved enough to not rank it #1 anymore. It's not even a top 10 building.

 

[drewisfat]

BiC, after your blasphemous disagreement I have discussed it with the other Ikhanda signatories and we've decided to suspend your membership pending a full investigation of your loyalties.

I still don't think happiness from slaving late game can be an issue, there's just so many sources of happiness at that time and the last ditch back up of the culture slider. If you've got nukes and are running police state, why do you care if you have ANY economy... unless you also have cristo or something.


I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I did not know that the Sac Altar is 25% cheaper than a regular courthouse. That's such an insane fail by failaxis. That means the Sac Altar is a pareto improvement over the ziggurat?!?

I don't regret my vote though, as Ikhanda needs to be stand out more from the worthless UBs. Also I've switched to playing quick speed the past few months and I'm convinced after my recent win with shaka that it's better than the sac altar with my settings

 

[Fippy]

Ikhanda is a great vote
It's not situational, often you build barracks when nothing else makes much sense.
I would have voted for that since no Ger is here, but i had to go with Hippodrome cos it's always overlooked. You can really cover every crazy happy situation with that fine building..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I did not know that the Sac Altar is 25% cheaper than a regular courthouse. That's such an insane fail by failaxis. That means the Sac Altar is a pareto improvement over the ziggurat?!?

Zig comes at priesthood. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, but usually it's slightly helpful.

I don't regret my vote though, as Ikhanda needs to be stand out more from the worthless UBs.

It could easily be my #2 although the terrace is right there also. I'm not going to argue AGAINST it; it's really powerful. It's not like you chose the dike, assembly plant, or the failtoria.

 

[Iranon]

Overall I'd still put Sacrificial Altar > Rathaus > Ikhanda > Terrace > everything else.

In the absence of traits I'd put the Rathaus far above the Ikhanda:
I wouldn't want regular barracks in most cities, and as an economic building the Ikhanda is weak-ish for the list price - early availability doesn't matter if we don't want to build them.
With the AGG discount, they work well as a cheap mini-courthouses without tech requirements and it's definitely close.

If we can cherry pick traits, EXP-discounted Terraces would also be very very good. Note that not all UBs benefit from this, the Sacrificial Altar in particular gains no real benefits from ORG... but is still a contender for No1.

 

[drewisfat]

1. Barracks is a more common build for me than courthouse and especially true with Zulu.
2. Ikhanda's "side effect" of +3 exp is much more valuable than Rathaus +2 espionage most (maybe all) of the time.

3. Rathaus is 120h for -75% maintenance.
Ikhanda is effectively 30h for -20% maintenance.
Ikhanda is cheaper and has a slightly better ratio.

4. Ikhanda AND CH costs 150h for -70% maintenance (and +3xp) compared to
Rathaus 120h for -75% maintenance.
Rathaus wins maintenance ratio here.

5. Ikhanda comes before Rathaus, cue cliche snowball speech.

6. By breaking maintenance into two parts, you can greater optimize with some cities getting just ikhandas and others getting both ikhandas and courthouses.

Only point 4. helps Rathaus in the comparison. I think Ikhanda is clearly better.