Why is the colosseum better than the circus, theatre, stadium?

[jabbawackybacky]

I don't get it, the best per gold is the earliest building. It's not the building which requires horses/elephants, its not the building which requires maximum tech, it's the first tier entertainment building! Why is that?

Also, shouldn't the Circus function like the monastery and mint, and create +3 happiness per source of horse/elephant in addition to its starting happiness?

 

[AfterShafter]

I think it's a diminishing returns idea. Your first building performing function X gives you the most for the least, then each successive one beyond that costs more for a similar effect. It's like granaries VS water mills - same food output, but the water mill has a higher upkeep. Their intent (I believe) is to have the first one be cheap, but each time you want to expand on a particular benefit, the cost gets steeper per unit of improvement.

Also, circus comes from a very powerful military tech, while colosseum not so much.

 

[Humakty]

Nah, colosseum = bloodsport, so much more fun to watch !

 

[jabbawackybacky]

diminishing returns might make sense, but it seems a little overboard. There's often as much of an incentive just to build a new city and buy a col and theater as much as there is to build the circus or stadium. Problem is, since happiness is civ-wide, i'm not ever going to build a theater until ALL of my cities have a colosseum, even tiny little 1 pop corners, as long as I have the gold. That takes the principle of diminishing returns too far IMO

I still think the circus should be better; perhaps give it 2 upkeep?

 

[AfterShafter]

Well, every time you build a new city, it ramps the cost of new social policies, so your method comes with a hidden cost attached. Not to mention... I think the numbers are +4 happiness at 3 gold and +3 happiness at 3 gold for colosseum/circus... The first population point in a city costs 2 happiness and every population point after that costs 1 happiness - building a new city and putting a colosseum in it nets you the same total happiness gain per population as just putting a circus in an existing city. Your method jacks the policy costs up though. So, it's give/take.

 

[Celevin]

1 happiness late game is actually worth *more* than 1 happiness early game. This is because of multipliers on production/gold/science. I would still buy stadiums even if they had 10 gold maintenance, yet I can't say the same for a colosseum early game.

 

[jabbawackybacky]

You're correct about the civic policies, but despite that in every other case its the same regardless of tech level; for instance, markets, banks and exchanges all give the same bonus. If I'm already fine in regards to policies, then there's no other cost to me building tons of new cities (unless I'm India, which has an added disadvantage from number of cities unhappiness)

perhaps 1 happiness early game isn't worth as much, but on the flip side, you need more happiness late game since your cities are much larger and you often have some occupied cities w/out courthouses yet

 

[DaveGold]

1 happiness late game is actually worth *more* than 1 happiness early game. This is because of multipliers on production/gold/science.

This is the reason and it demonstrates a clear weakness in CIV5. Buildings provide much greater value for their cost/maintenance in the late game so in general the end game buildings are weaker than their early game counterparts. Unfortunately all the early game buildings are still available and become fantastic value outside their era.

This means the game scales really badly through the eras leading to players often ignoring a building in the era it becomes available, but building it later well outside its era. Some buildings can be ignored completely as a predecessor can be built in a new city to better effect. This gives low immersion in the game as the buildings don't feel realistic and constantly seem to need maths to determine benefit. It also means players aren't excited by new technologies as so few buildings are urgently needed at the time of research.