which buildings should never go obsolete?

[Stoney the I]

I can make this a poll, but i suspect its not neccesary.

For me, monestaries going obsolete makes perfect sence. scientific method changed the way people thought in a drastic way and started the modern world. monestaries are being preserved mostly nowaways, not build that much. (they ARE however REBUILD when a vulcano damages or destroyes them lol)
I did however made them last forever for gameplaying purposes.

the buildings I feel are pretty stupid to make obselete at a certain tech are :
(and i modded them to last forever)

1: walls
if i have a huge techlead but my neighbour values their highly developed spearmen elite army and pester me with huge stacks of crap, i want a wall!

2: stables
sure i can build a tank. maybe i cant even build horsemen anymore. if i build it its useless. but i want the option

3: castles
controversial i bet, since this building gives considerable gameplay bonusses for the time its usefull. and thats the main reason i modded it, i think its too shortlived. the tech that obsoletes it (economics) gives a free great merchant which is popular due to the corps it can found shortly after. i.e. i usually rush economics and never got many castles build, let alone enjoy the bonus. i modded it to get some castles up. and in late game the fact i can still build them isnt that grand a bonus imho.

monuments i didnt mod, but i can imagine ppl would want them around?

any thoughts on these or other buildings? suggestions for better techs to make a building go obsolete? pls post your thoughts.

(im looking for inspiration to mod a bit again)

 

[Genv [FP]]

I disagree with all counts. It's fine as it is

 

[oranges]

I have no particular gripes with the time they go obsolete, I just wish I could still build them even though most benefits are lost, mostly monasteries and on occasion walls/castles. Not sure how to mod just building them, so I play with what we have. Making castles obsolete somewhat later is not a bad idea IMO.

 

[Strato]

Monuments remain relevant when in police state! I want the citizens to bow down and cry out in praise "All hail our mighty despot" around the handsome stone and marble figure of my magnificent likeness.

 

[say1988]

Oranges:
The simplest method would probably be to create an identical building, only lacking the parts that go obsolete. The problem with this is in cities that already have the obsolete building constructing both, and AP hammers in new vs. old.

 

[r_rolo1]

For me, monestaries going obsolete makes perfect sence. scientific method changed the way people thought in a drastic way and started the modern world.

I have two words about this: Gregory Mendel

 

[frekk]

I have two words about this: Gregory Mendel

Gregory Mendel happened to be a monk, but that doesn't mean that monasticism was important in terms of 19th century science. He was trained at the University of Vienna, where he started thinking about inheirited traits. That he happened to be a monk is not really all that relevant. Albert Einstein happened to work as a clerk at a patent office when he published some of his most important work, but it doesn't mean that an office full of patent clerks is necessarily going to produce anything of scientific merit.

1: walls
if i have a huge techlead but my neighbour values their highly developed spearmen elite army and pester me with huge stacks of crap, i want a wall!

Walls make sense to me too. They're still used as defensive structures (eg Berlin Wall, Israeli Wall, even the naval base at Guantanamo has a huge wall - not primarily to keep the prisoners in, they'd never get that far, but as a defensive measure).

monuments i didnt mod, but i can imagine ppl would want them around?

I'm not sure why monuments go obsolete. It's not like people ever stopped building them, or they ever became less signifigant. They're still built for many of the same reasons, to commemorate great victories, sacrifices in war, important leaders, etc.

 

[Balderstrom]

I believe walls - at the very least - should not obsolete until castles do. It's more than annoying to see castle greyed out in a cities build options, just because you didn't get around to building a wall in time.

 

[Willem]

I have no particular gripes with the time they go obsolete, I just wish I could still build them even though most benefits are lost, mostly monasteries and on occasion walls/castles. Not sure how to mod just building them, so I play with what we have. Making castles obsolete somewhat later is not a bad idea IMO.

Walls wouldn't be a problem to mod. The flag that makes their defensive bonuses useless in a battle are tagged to the unit, not the structure itself. Same thing with Castles in fact.

 

[r_rolo1]

Gregory Mendel happened to be a monk, but that doesn't mean that monasticism was important in terms of 19th century science. He was trained at the University of Vienna, where he started thinking about inheirited traits. That he happened to be a monk is not really all that relevant. Albert Einstein happened to work as a clerk at a patent office when he published some of his most important work, but it doesn't mean that an office full of patent clerks is necessarily going to produce anything of scientific merit.

Well, we could debate the influence of monasticism in the XIX century science ( that is far bigger than some would like to admit ) or that science should not walk by trends and fashions , but by results ( science is the result of the use of the scientific method in search of the Truth ( capital letter is intentional ) and not necessarily what scientists do ) and that Mendel results were probably one of the two big breakthroughs of biology in the XIX century ( I'm still debating with myself if I put it in front of Darwin-Wallace work or not... ), and that most likely no one in the XIX century could had made that work besides someone with a big library ,lots of free time and a taste for hard work ( you have to admit that finding that in the XIX century outside of a monastery would be hard )....

But we're debating Civ IV And what Civ IV rules say is that monasteries do not add anything to the scientific progress after Sci met, and that in RL is false, like Mendel example shows clearly. Of course that they should not produce as much science after the intrangisent posture of the Churches against science ( not necessary scientific method in it self ), but saying that a place with people with lots of free time and good libraries will never discover anything useful is .

All of this to say that I would be glad if they had added a "Gregory Mendel " event

 

[frekk]

that most likely no one in the XIX century could had made that work besides someone with a big library ,lots of free time and a taste for hard work ( you have to admit that finding that in the XIX century outside of a monastery would be hard )....

No, not really. There were plenty of people in the 19th century who made important scientific discoveries which required access to a library, lots of free time, and a taste for hard work - only one of the notable ones was a monk. Faraday, Haeckl, Hertz, Gauss, Maxwell, the Curies, Kelvin, Mendeleev, etc. It's a really long list, actually.

 

[r_rolo1]

^^ ... none of the above quoted was in the scientific mainstream of the time of their major discoveries, you must reckon ( that is why I said "hard" and not "impossible" )

 

[Ammar]

^^ ... none of the above quoted was in the scientific mainstream of the time of their major discoveries, you must reckon ( that is why I said "hard" and not "impossible" )

What are you talking about? Of course people like Gauss and the Curies were importants member of the scientific communities in their times and universally acknowledged as such.

In the 19th century universities had already become the centerplaces of scientific research.

 

[r_rolo1]

The Curies, working on a abandoned greenhouse that leaked water form every possible spot on the roof , were mainstream members of scientific community? Given that radioactive matter studies were really badly seen at the time ( "there is nothing more to discover", remember? ).....

 

[frekk]

^^ ... none of the above quoted was in the scientific mainstream of the time of their major discoveries, you must reckon ( that is why I said "hard" and not "impossible" )

Are you kidding?

-Faraday was awarded the position of First Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, for life, in recognition of his achievements. He was also consulted frequently by the government and organizations like the Royal Mint and the National Gallery.
-Ernst Haeckel, during his 47 year tenure as a professor, published over 13000 pages of scientific literature, and as a consequence was eminent in the scientific world.
-Heinrich Hertz only lived to age 36, but was well-known in the scientific community for his work in electromagnetism (as indicated by the measure that bears his name). Another professor, too.
-James Clerk Maxwell was awarded an entire array of professorships, honours, and awards for his work, including membership in the Royal Society, during his lifetime.
-Marie Curie not only won the Nobel Prize, she was the first person ever to win two Nobel prizes in two different fields of science. Hardly an obscure personage.
-William Kelvin was awarded a title as Baron for his scientific work; later, he became extremely well-known to the general public for his wealth, his work in telegraphy, and his involvement in the Trans-Atlantic Cable, amongst other things.
-Mendeleev carried enough weight as a scientist that he was able to convince Russia to convert to the metric system, won medals from the Royal Society, founded the first oil refinery in Russia, etc.

ALL of the above were well known in the scientific mainstream of their time.

By contrast, Mendel was completely unknown by his contemporaries, and only rediscovered nearly two decades after his death and over four decades since he had done his work on pea plants.

The Curies, working on a abandoned greenhouse that leaked water form every possible spot on the roof , were mainstream members of scientific community?

They won multiple Nobel prizes in the sciences ... generally, that's a good sign that someone's fairly mainstream and well-known don't you think?

 

[r_rolo1]

ex post facto argument....

The Curies were mainstream members after they changed the mainstream. Remember that when Piere and Marie Currie started their works, radioactivity was a fringe phenomenon with no scientific enquadrement and they worked hard for over a decade to get some recognition of the importance of their findings....

And I could say the same of Maxwell ( don't force me to quote some of what was said of him at his time ,because it would give me a yellow card from the mods ), Hertz, Mendeleev.....

And if you are going to dismiss people for their works being in the trunks for years, you'll will have to dismiss people like Ohm.

But this is going way off-topic...

 

[Ammar]

ex post facto argument....
The Curies were mainstream members after they changed the mainstream. Remember that when Piere and Marie Currie started their works, radioactivity was a fringe phenomenon with no scientific enquadrement and they worked hard for over a decade to get some recognition of the importance of their findings....

Yes, and so they did and earned themselves places where the actual scientific research was done - universities. Or are you trying to claim that they after getting recognition they moved to a monastery?

And if you are going to dismiss people for their works being in the trunks for years, you'll will have to dismiss people like Ohm.

No one dismisses Mendel. His work was important. But that has nothing do with the fact that the overall scientific contributions of monasteries was insignificant in the 19th century. Mendel being a monk is more a coincidence than being related to lots of actual research being done in monasteries.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ammar, read my 2nd post in this thread....

All of this to say that I would be glad if they had added a "Gregory Mendel " event

Like I said in that post, what irks me is that in Civ IV is that after sci met monasteris have not even the slightest effect on research, not even a rare study on peas breakthrogh, like if monks were physically unable to use scientific method ( c'mon , we all use sci met in our lifes in a daily basis )..... a thing that it is not true.

And if you want my opinion, Mendel work is one of the more important scientifical findings of the XIX century, only comparable with Maxwell's , Gauss, Mendeleev and Faraday's works. All of the XX century Biology is directly dependent of it ( far more than from Darwin: you can deduct Darwin's findings of Mendel's laws easily ).....

 

[Ammar]

Like I said in that post, what irks me is that in Civ IV is that after sci met monasteris have not even the slightest effect on research, not even a rare study on peas breakthrogh, like if monks were physically unable to use scientific method ( c'mon , we all use sci met in our lifes in a daily basis )..... a thing that it is not true.

True, monks are able to use sci-met. So are bankiers, grocers, doctors and virtually everybody else. Since the 19th centuries hospitals and banks had a greater influence on science than monasteries and yet they don't give any bonus in the game.

And if you want my opinion, Mendel work is one of the more important scientifical findings of the XIX century, only comparable with Maxwell's , Gauss, Mendeleev and Faraday's works. All of the XX century Biology is directly dependent of it ( far more than from Darwin: you can deduct Darwin's findings of Mendel's laws easily ).....

I tend to disagree. It's important but not on the scale of Gauss or Maxwell.

Besides, you can in no way deduct Darwin's findings by Mendel's laws since Mendel dealt only with hereditary and not with selection and adaptation (i.e. mutations).

This being said, I have no problems with including Mendel in some way, either as an GS or an event. I could easily accept the event requiring an monastery, but they shouldn't give a science bonus at that time.

 

[r_rolo1]

Ok, we are agreed....

Except in one thing: Darwin works have nothing to do with mutations. It simply admits that changes somehow appear as a fact , exactly as Mendel. Mendel + Malthus can give Darwin, but you can't pull the existance of a "quantum" of genetical information out of Darwin's theory, no matter from were you pull it.