Why can't I play Militaristic?

[Bllasae]

Alright, thanks everyone. And I like the matrix in your signature, too.

 

[Bucephalus]

The happiness slider beats Temples for happiness, hands down. If you have Temples in 40 cities, thats 40 gold per turn that can be used for nothing else. Thats 40 troops, and if they are quality troops, that can win the game.

Indeed Overseer. The luxury slider can also produce happy citizens, which raises score even more.

I really hate absolutes; what you are saying is true most of the time. But it depends a lot on other game factors - desired VC, level at which the game is played, number of luxuries, stage at which the game is at........

I cannot envisage a game where I would have 40 temples to support, but if I did I'm pretty certain that 10% less on the lux slider would amount to better than 40 gpt.

 

[Optional]

I find especially when a temple helps to get a town to city-size (without having to raise the luxury slider), thus supporting 2 extra units in Republic that otherwise would have cost 4gpt, that it can be good economy to have some temples.
In the early game, before loads of lux is available, I still find it essential to have some towns at city size - even more so when commercial. I do usually end up building temples in my better towns.

I believe I've once seen a screenshot of a game of Bllasae where the spacing was very wide. Then you do become more dependant on temples, but you should try to space in a way that you're not too dependant on cultural border expansion.

 

[Spoonwood]

Good point Bucephalus.

 

[ecuwins]

I find especially when a temple helps to get a town to city-size (without having to raise the luxury slider), thus supporting 2 extra units in Republic that otherwise would have cost 4gpt, that it can be good economy to have some temples.

This bears repeating. Temples are not inherently bad. They just need to be built with some tact.

 

[vmxa]

I say they are neither inherently good or bad. Like all structures, you need to justify building them. In some cases you can and in others you probably should not. That you can justify it in one town does not mean you can in the next one.

Once you have build some structures, you do not have to keep it for ever either. Temples and barracks are good examples. Their justification may change with circumstances. Maybe all I need was to pop borders or to help pacify, now I do not need that service. The border barracks may no longer be required after the borders shifted far away.

I think Buce said something about not thinking in terms of absolutes or iron clad rules, rather Rules Of Thumb. Like all generalization, there are exceptions, else it would be a law.

 

[TheOverseer714]

I wouldn't call what I said absolutism, because I do build Temples on occasion. I just wouldn't build one in every city. Besides that, this is an advice thread, and one thing that most people starting these threads do wrong is build too many Temples. There are good reasons to build most structures and units depending on circumstance, but learning when to do them is the hard part. If you see 2 Spears in every town, it's either a person needing help (built for the wrong reason), or early in an AW game (built for the right reason). I didn't say "never build Temples for any reason", I just said don't build
40 unless you are wanting culture. I may come across as an absolutist, but I'm not. However, I do stand behind what I wrote. I have played n-thousand hours of this game and never have I found Temples in and of themselves to be more effective than the lux slider.

 

[Optional]

In some ways civ is very much a game of economic calculations. You more or less always need to analyse before building ANY kind of structure. I believe in our recent 'Brits in Space' game, which was a science game, we would have been better off with temples instead of libraries. A town like Stockton on Tees could then have become a city, bringing in some 6gpt extra, that could have been used flexably. But with libraries we were committed to a research policy, and that wasn't viable at 20 - 40% science. Too much was going to the lux slider and unit upkeep to justify the libraries in that game.
Not to argue singularly for temples here, I'm just saying we shouldn't assume we know this game, we should always analyse where we are in the game.

 

[TheOverseer714]

The Brits in Space game was a game where a zero-science or single scientist approach might have worked better than the path we took. A few Temples might have helped in the right places. We used Emperor strategies, and those don't always work at DG. I think that Temples are fine as long as they don't become a massive money-pit.

 

[Bucephalus]

I wouldn't call what I said absolutism, because I do build Temples on occasion. I just wouldn't build one in every city. Besides that, this is an advice thread, and one thing that most people starting these threads do wrong is build too many Temples. There are good reasons to build most structures and units depending on circumstance, but learning when to do them is the hard part. If you see 2 Spears in every town, it's either a person needing help (built for the wrong reason), or early in an AW game (built for the right reason). I didn't say "never build Temples for any reason", I just said don't build
40 unless you are wanting culture. I may come across as an absolutist, but I'm not. However, I do stand behind what I wrote. I have played n-thousand hours of this game and never have I found Temples in and of themselves to be more effective than the lux slider.

Fair enough, Overseer, no offence intended.

I think it started with Bede's 'temple rant', but a whole generation of players seem to have grown-up repeating the mantra, "temples are bad....". As vmxa said, temples are neither inherently wrong or right - there are times when there is advantage to them being built, times when there is not; this is true of all improvements.

Rather than just saying 'never', I think new players should be encouraged to recogniize that.

 

[Spoonwood]

Come on Bucephalus, temples are clearly a tool of Sokar (the devil).

On a more serious note in my demi-god histographic game I have going right now, I had only built some temples at the borders. Early on I somehow managed a culture lead and got an AI city on a flip... from *just* having temples, the Palace, and The Pyramids (maybe I had the Heroic Epic then also) as my culture. Granted, I wouldn't expect flips for most games, but you never know.

 

[Optional]

Granted, I wouldn't expect flips for most games, but you never know.

It doesn't need to be that uncommon either. I think your culture in this game will have mainly come from the Pyramids (scientific leader, I guess?), so it's probably not such a good example to show the strength of temples. You say you had only temples in your border towns, so they won't have been very early.
In my most recent game I had built an early temple in my capital, and my capital was from then on always number 1 in the culture rankings, without me building a single wonder there. Only when I switched government for the second time it lost the number 1 spot briefly to Madrid, which had some wonders (I forgot which, but at least the Colossus). But building just one early temple, say around 2000BC, can make a whole lot of difference. I also had a town flip to me that game, no surprise.
I saw fit to build the temple in my capital because it was a settler factory without much surplus food, and I needed to build something so that it could grow before producing the next settler.

 

[Bucephalus]

Come on Bucephalus, temples are clearly a tool of Sokar (the devil).

On a more serious note in my demi-god histographic game I have going right now, I had only built some temples at the borders. Early on I somehow managed a culture lead and got an AI city on a flip... from *just* having temples, the Palace, and The Pyramids (maybe I had the Heroic Epic then also) as my culture. Granted, I wouldn't expect flips for most games, but you never know.

Hmm... you know what, I've been thinking, and I cannot remember having flipped any town/city; I guess I must have done back in my Chieftan days, but certainly not since.

I wonder if that's down to playing style or just poor RNG?

 

[Spoonwood]

I think your culture in this game will have mainly come from the Pyramids (scientific leader, I guess?), so it's probably not such a good example to show the strength of temples.

Yes, an Alphabet SGL for the Pyramids. I only had 4 opponents (on a standard map), so maybe that has something to do with it also.

 

[capnvonbaron]

Hmm... you know what, I've been thinking, and I cannot remember having flipped any town/city; I guess I must have done back in my Chieftan days, but certainly not since.

I wonder if that's down to playing style or just poor RNG?

I'd say both. I've managed culture flips on towns at Monarch, but definitely not as many as and never cities as with cheiftan/warlord games. I think my best time was a OCC 20K game on monarch where the same town tried to flip to my control three different times

Boy, you'd have thought the rebels woulda got the hint after the first two rebuffings

 

[Bowsling]

The money that you save using the lux slider is usually more then you spend using it.
It means you don't need as many temples, saving a lot of upkeep, and entertainers aren't needed that much, meaning they can work the tiles and make more gold, shields and food.