What is the best UB?

[BornInCantaloup]

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 fully understand and appreciate you letting me know.
I rest my fate in your good hands, assured that the cygnet committee will take the appropriate course of action. My most sincere wish is that such an unfortunate case will never happen again.

 

[GreekAnalyzer]

I like the Forum. Not the best, maybe, but still pretty good. +25% GP generation is a great boost to the market, already a good building.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I like the Forum. Not the best, maybe, but still pretty good. +25% GP generation is a great boost to the market, already a good building.

Markets are awful builds unless you have 3+ of the resources.

 

[rah]

Or if it's in your cap or a shrine city. But yeah, the building looks good but how many cities are you going to build it in.

 

[maurcus]

Or if it's in your cap or a shrine city. But yeah, the building looks good but how many cities are you going to build it in.

3/4 the building might not be stellar but the most efficient way to core reach is to have a wildly strong core and outlying cities. infact the only cities I wouldn't build it in is a city producing >10 and those would be little more than military outposts anyway.

 

[rah]

Did you mean <

 

[Fippy]

Forum is decent if your GP farm grows beyond it's happy cap, and you whip it (long) before you can run Caste..or maybe even whip into NE. But that situation doesn't happen often enough
It's too bad no trait gives prod. bonus towards markets, would make that building more interesting.
Would be perfect for a protective boost, even if that doesn't make much sense..

 

[rah]

I'll admit that I end up building more markets for the happiness than for the money boost.

 

[Iranon]

For the Forum it doesn't matter much whether you want to build markets in most cities because one or two cities will probably do most of the Great Person generation, and they should manage to whip/build it just fine without undue concessions.
What matters is that +25%GPP isn't terribly powerful.

 

[6K Man]

The biggest drawback with the Dike &#8211; well, along with it coming late, and the hammer cost &#8211; is that the benefit isn&#8217;t really all that great, when it comes to generic water tiles. 2F 1H 1C is a pre-Biology riverside plains farm, something nobody wants to work many of. The same criticism could be levelled at Moai, except that because there&#8217;s only one Moai, you can choose to build it in the rare spot where you can get the extra hammer on multiple seafood or lake tiles, which are worth working.

One thing I do like about the Dike is that you don&#8217;t need to be riverside to build it, but can still reap the benefit on river tiles. That&#8217;s handy when you&#8217;ve captured a coastal AI city that is 1 tile off the river, but would otherwise benefit from a Levee.



I like the Terrace, particularly on Epic/Marathon, where even a whipped/chopped Monument means 15 or 30 turns to the border pop. Cutting that time in half feels like a huge boost. And for a lark, I once played an unrestricted leader game as Pacal of the Inca. Emperor felt like Noble.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

3/4 the building might not be stellar but the most efficient way to core reach is to have a wildly strong core and outlying cities. infact the only cities I wouldn't build it in is a city producing >10 and those would be little more than military outposts anyway.

At 10 , you get 2.5 /turn from the market. Now, compare this to what you'd get if you simply put the from the market into wealth directly, and the amount of time before you get gold (present value is a VERY real concept in civ). You need a really strong gold city to actually care about the market...or enough resources where it becomes an acceptably-priced structure in addition to the money.

 

[Jabarto]

Markets are awful builds unless you have 3+ of the resources.

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.

 

[drewisfat]

The problem with the market and grocer is kind of inherent to civ's commerce design. It's better to run slider at 100% as often as possible and fund your empire selling resources for GpT, techs for gold, building wealth, and fail golding wonders, . Then once you start doing this, you're running the slider even less often on gold, and the market becomes an even worse deal. Dropping the gold buff entirely and cutting the cost might be a more honest change, but also more boring.

As for the forum both the GP effect and the market effect are still probably going to be worth it in the capital, and if it means getting one extra GP it's nothing to scoff at given how bad most UBs are.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

+25% commerce?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

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 problem with the market and grocer is kind of inherent to civ's commerce design.

Tech trades murder both structures. Tech trading is the source of a lot of high level play's , but also allows you to simply ignore when it comes to bribing for war or other swaps. Getting to 100% multipliers actually becomes available MUCH sooner than 100% in most cities, but standard settings leave little incentive to make use of that.

All that said, I don't see a huge need to change it. SOMETIMES, it's a good build. Not every building should be a good build everywhere. There exist conditions where picking up a market is a good call, such as when you have 3-4 of the resources, are opting to rush buy a lot, or have shrines/corp HQ that are worth big money.

Situational builds aren't necessarily a bad thing, but they make UB's based upon them questionable.

 

[Culture Bomb]

While we're in a thread about UBs, what do people think about the Cothon? I'm not suggesting it's the best, or even top tier, but would you be building harbours anyway? (If you have the GLH?) and is the cothon worth it for the extra trade route?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

While we're in a thread about UBs, what do people think about the Cothon? I'm not suggesting it's the best, or even top tier, but would you be building harbours anyway? (If you have the GLH?) and is the cothon worth it for the extra trade route?

Depends on the quality of the trade route added and the amount of seafood you have.

3 makes cothon a priority build after the most basic buildings. Even without it, if you can get foreign, intercontinental trade you're looking at at least 3 , which is solid even if you're only getting 1-2 .

Seafood is generally pretty easy to acquire, making harbors the #2 building after granaries IMO, although of course they're only available in coastal cities. Obviously some maps are exceptions.

 

[Fippy]

Cothon is 50% GLH that will not go obsolete, ofc it's good..same quality as stuff like Rathauses easily, just for some reason only certain ones get all the love.

 

[plasmacannon]

Cothon is 50% GLH that will not go obsolete, ofc it's good..same quality as stuff like Rathauses easily, just for some reason only certain ones get all the love.

The question was asked "[BTS] What is the best UB?", so our 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th choices are not relevant. The Cothon is good on maps with lots of coastal cities. Who wouldn't want another trade route, but Inland cities gain 0 benefit from it. So, pangea and huge world maps will have many interior cities gaining nothing from this UB.
So personally, I would not consider it the "Best UB" per the OP's question.

 

[Fippy]

Dikes are sucky, and still got 7 votes :b
Sac. Altar is just above average..and so on.
Was more in general, just like Willy might even win best leader polls (if there's no HC), some others don't get the same love (while actually being better).