Worst Unique Building

[Gliese 581]

The Feitoria is usually bad, however, play on a water heavy archipelago map and it's useful. No wait, save yourself the pain, don't do that.

 

[The Almighty dF]

The Feitoria is usually bad, however, play on a water heavy archipelago map and it's useful. No wait, save yourself the pain, don't do that.

Yeah, I hate those maps.
Aerial and naval combat in Civ4 isn't very good, except when you're building both to go against the AI's planes/ships.
I -hate- trying to invade another continent in the late game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Late game is the easiest time to spring intercontinental attacks. You have viable amphibious options, a fast transport unit, and the ability to come up with enough production to head off even high-level AIs.

Some people like airlifting too but I prefer transport chain-waves.

Often intercontinental war just becomes: get a vassal, shuttle troops in, then attack from his territory though. Even a crappy vassal will stop the AI up for a few turns in its culture. If you have siege, you get to completely wreck their stack in vassal territory (try to take out their navy turn 1 of war in port if possible). Then, intercontinental excursions are really EASY.

 

[champ82]

@champ82

Some good points on the strengths of the Salon in warfare, but I think the benefits the Salon offers in comparison to other UBs is nothing special, and that's discounting the GA polution issue. There are some UBs that are almost worth an extra trait, so when I used the term "marginal" I was working in the context of what else is on offer. 4 base beakers under rep is nice, but in the scenario of a capital producing the equivalent of 200+ raw beakers every turn, it doesn't amount to much. If this capital also happens to have the NE installed (early GP farm combined with GL), then you most definitely want the +25% research bonus of an Observatory, but might be happy to sacrifice 4 beakers (assuming Rep) to avoid the GP pollution.

Yeah. It can certainly be put in the marginal catagory. I didn't mind them when I played as France though.

Coal is +50% production of hammers for an assembly plant. Organisation is +100%. So the total is +150%, or 2.5x as fast, not 4x. Note if you have the +25% from both Forge and Organised Religion you can get up to 200%, or 3 times as fast at best.

I stand corrected. Good to know.

 

[StrategeryBush]

I feel like voting for Sacrificial Altar just to see people's incredulous, " how could someone vote for that" posts. Which is, I assume, the reason most of the votes for things like that come in.

 

[Halt]

The Dun is a wall... How can any other UB be worse?

How many walls do you build?

 

[The Almighty dF]

The Dun is a wall... How can any other UB be worse?

How many walls do you build?

Citadel is a castle.
Those things last for almost no time whatsoever. The tech that enables them is too close to the tech that obsoletes them.
At least walls become available early on and aren't obsolete till rifling.

 

[Loki Strikes]

Dun is marginally useful occasionally, Feitoria replaces a relatively useless building to begin with and it is freaking expensive so on an archipelago where it might help, it costs way too much...

And I build plenty of walls... Castles are great buildings, free trade route, +25% esp, with stone, ridiculously cheap

Don't understand the Hippodrome bashing though, its one of my favorites.... double happiness off culture slider... super draft/whipping/mitigate WW so you can tech through long bloody warfare....

 

[shyuhe]

citadel + barracks + theo (or vassalage) = CR3 trebs out of the gate. It's like having a second UU.

 

[Gliese 581]

The Citadel can help you to CR3 Artillery as well.

 

[DigitalBoy]

I'm probably going to have to go with the dun. Even ignoring the fact that they replace walls, a free guerrilla promotion is rather underwhelming and hard to leverage.

 

[champ82]

Don't understand the Hippodrome bashing though, its one of my favorites.... double happiness off culture slider... super draft/whipping/mitigate WW so you can tech through long bloody warfare....

You don't understand as in there's no way you could agree with it, or as you literally don't understand it? I made my case on page 2 pretty clearly.

BTW, I don't like using the culture slider. I lean more towards CE than SE and can not get myself to cut into science, money, or espinoage. I guess you could correctly guess most of my wins are not domination

 

[The Rook]

Another great thing about the Citadel is effortless access to the Heroic Epic. The fact that Isabella is also Spiritual for optimal war civics switches takes the biscuit. If memory serves correct Isabella is the only leader who can access the HE with a fresh unit pre-Assembly Line without using BOTH Theocracy and Vassalage. Sometimes the religion situation makes Theocracy problematic.

 

[The Almighty dF]

You don't understand as in there's no way you could agree with it, or as you literally don't understand it? I made my case on page 2 pretty clearly.

BTW, I don't like using the culture slider. I lean more towards CE than SE and can not get myself to cut into science, money, or espinoage. I guess you could correctly guess most of my wins are not domination

I go for domination and I still don't use the culture slider. I never move the culture slider unless I'm going for a cultural victory, and I've never -touched- the espionage slider.

 

[Roxlimn]

Yeah, I don't often intentionally avoid getting key techs in the game in a timely manner, but the Citadel is one of those few cases where I'll delay Economics significantly if I think I can pump out a good number of CR3 siege units in the time frame. Even if I can't use them immediately, the power of the things is such that you cannot just ignore the opportunity.

The trade route from the Citadel helps to lessen the blow of delaying the related techs.

Of all the choices, I think Feitora is my pick for most useless.

 

[J-man]

The salon seems like utterly useless to me.

 

[DampRain]

I too protest the choosing of sacrificial altar! Even on name alone it is pure awesome, slitting the throats of your people to fuel your massive empire? ARGH!

On other news, I would "really" like to vote for stock exchange >.>

It probably doesn't help I don't know what 25% of those buildings do, making me look ignorant .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You don't understand as in there's no way you could agree with it, or as you literally don't understand it? I made my case on page 2 pretty clearly.

BTW, I don't like using the culture slider. I lean more towards CE than SE and can not get myself to cut into science, money, or espinoage. I guess you could correctly guess most of my wins are not domination

The food:hammer ratio conversion on the draft is insane for muskets and rifles. You can get away with several more drafts using the hippodrome. Why not draft if you can double up on your cottage cities?

By the way, cottages are fine for domination, I use them to that effect routinely.

 

[JTMacc99]

One benefit of the shale plant is you can build it in your National Park city. I read this on some thread about a week ago, I didn't realize it on my own.

You don't build coal plants? For me it's the opposite - it's basically an every city ASAP building. Are you an early domination winner, a health freak, or something else altogether?

I also see this guy a lot but my general rule of thumb is that if the city is growing or is close to the happy cap - screw it.

Well, I think what happens is that at the exact time the Coal Plant becomes available, I am usually in a full blown push for the domination victory. In the games that are going to a late victory, it's more likely that I'll prioritize my technologies to shoot for the Hoover Dam.

(Note, all of this is a result of tho things. First, my love of the Hoover Dam carried over from Civ II, and I still can't shake it. Second, I clearly play a level or two below where I should, because it is very rare that I wouldn't get the Hoover Dam in a game when I wanted it. If I'm going to the late game, I have no interest in any scenario that doesn't involve me out teching everybody and rolling over them with sophisticated weaponry.)

 

[brades]

I never find myself in danger of having my land stolen by AIs, actually. And I -still- don't use great artists, nor do I ever go for a conquest game.

I imagine you play on an easier difficulty level than you should be. You will never understand the games intricacies if the AI is never pressuring you. I've beaten the game with every leader on emperor and about 6 times on immortal. Maybe that's the reason why I've found uses for artists .