Monasteries are Obsolete -- I consider this a bug

[Doktrjerms]

OK,

So, Monasteries give you three affects:

1) You can build missionaries of said type.
2) You get culture.
3) +10% Science

Now, Scientific method makes the #3 option obsolete. So the game considers monasteries obsolete and you can't build them.

When I am going for a culture win, I find not having 1&2 because of 3 horribly inconvenient. This doesn't make sense either. Monasteries were built in the real world long after the scientific method. Religion is still important today.

Does anybody feel the same as me?
Anybody feel differently?

-DoktrJerms

[madmaxxam]

Yeah, I find it odd that they obsolete monastaries mostly because of the inability to build missionaries in new cities. In cities with pre-existing monastaries you can still build the missionaries and spread the religion after scientific method, but if you manage to conquer your first city of a specific religion after you get Scientific method you won't be able to build a monastary or any missionaries for that religion, and hence won't be able to spread that religion at all (except maybe by chance). It seems pretty silly to me.

[LzPrst]

cause it is silly. this obviously hasnt been playtested properly, only the 10% bonus should have become obsolete, but lo and behold, we get civ4 a month early and BUGGY!

[rayw69]

Originally posted by madmaxxam
Yeah, I find it odd that they obsolete monastaries mostly because of the inability to build missionaries in new cities. In cities with pre-existing monastaries you can still build the missionaries and spread the religion after scientific method, but if you manage to conquer your first city of a specific religion after you get Scientific method you won't be able to build a monastary or any missionaries for that religion, and hence won't be able to spread that religion at all (except maybe by chance). It seems pretty silly to me.

This is not 100% true. You can switch to the organized religion civic and build missionaries after the discovery of scientific method.

I for one, agree that you should be able to build monastaries after the discovery of scientific method, as to enable to building of missionaries. I also agree with the notion that your 10% research boost should be eliminated after the discover of scientific method.

However, whether or not you should keep the culture bonus is somewhat tenuous. From a real world perspective, you could argue that monastaries cease to become centers of culture after they are no longer considered centers of learning, due to the discovery of the scientific method.

So monastaries built post-scientific method should generate no culture. Existing monastaries should retain their culture generation due to their age. This is based upon the same logic, that would be used for obelisks, and the discovery of calendar. Existing obelisks still generate culture due to their age. Newly built obelisks would generate no culture. And seeing as how the entire point of the obelisk is to create culture, the game simply doesn't allow them to be built, as to not allow the player to waste production on a 100% useless building.

[Solver]

LzPrst, you're now becoming ridicilous. Now you're going to claim that every single gameplay feature you don't like is a bug because of bad testing.

By the way, at least try to get your facts straight. Civ4 was released on Oct 26. The original date was supposed to be Nov 5. I somehow fail to see how that is a month.

[Nikolai]

I agree he is getting somewhat silly, but still I agree that there should be possible to build monasteries after Darwin too.

[Senethro]

Regarding the culture win, as the game is over 100 turns after SciMeth due to SpaceRacers you should get your skates on and worry about more important things.

Historically, new monasteries were not so commonly built after the time it was developed and they stopped producing contributions to science about the same time. Gregor Mendel was probably the last monk doing important scientific work, though he didn't know it at the time.

[LzPrst]

ach. maybe i've lost some marbles. just frustrated...

[Solver]

BTW, you can build Missionares in all cities with Organized Religion, even post-Scientific Method. So it's also a good thing to keep this civic useful later in the game.

[Azuarc]

So if I'm playing with Theocracy, Pacifism, or Free Religion, I need to change civics *just to build missionaries*? That's absurd. The game should either let us continue to build monasteries in the late game, or make missionaries possible without them. If nothing else, for Free Religion's sake where you are going to want to spread all your religions around as much as is reasonable. I rarely have time to build a bunch of monasteries in cities early on, and this just means I am forced into playing with Organized Religion in the late game. The 25% building bonus should be the reason to want to play this in the late game.

[vmxa1]

I have no idea why they choose that path, but it was a choice. You know, becasue the doc said that is how it works.

I am guessign it was done for balance, but don't know. Does not matter it is the way it was intended, hence not a bug.

To be legit, you can say you dislike the feature, but to call it a bug, is let others dismiss you.

[Solver]

You can still build Missionaries in cities that already have Monasteries. I find that not being a problem. Scientific Method is late, by then all my core cities have the Monasteries anyway, plus Missionaries take 3 turns at most to complete in these times.

[Fidel]

it makes sense
at certain point in time, monasteries did in fact contribute to culture and, to a limited extent - science. once you kicked in with enlightment this was not so. in addition, the number of monasteries built nowadays is nowhere near what it used to be, nor are those 'monasteries' (you should see some of them) on par with the old ones as culture centres.
you may not like the design, but bug it is not. i reckon it emulates real life well. but surely, make a mod and let us know how it plays out...

[Cabbagemeister]

Originally posted by Solver
You can still build Missionaries in cities that already have Monasteries. I find that not being a problem. Scientific Method is late, by then all my core cities have the Monasteries anyway, plus Missionaries take 3 turns at most to complete in these times.

Sure, it's not like this feature means that monastaries are broken, or that it causes serious problems, or anything like that. I think my big issue is this: the fact that you have a limited (though large) time-window in which to build monastaries, with failure to do so resulting in the inability to pursue a religious strategy in the late-game, seems somehow inconsistent with the feel of the rest of the game. Civ is demanding and complex, but it's not usually so...unforgiving. Changing strategies over the course of the game (say, from a warmongering phase to a building phase) is, for the most part, easy to do. In no other strategic area are your actions in one era so constrained by your actions in another. I feel like it's the equivalent of being unable to build any helicopter units if you never built any catapults before they were obsolete, or being unable to use a Police State civic if you never adopted Slavery before 1000AD.

Of course, you can always switch to Org. Rel., and pump out missionaries that way, so a religious strategy is never completely eliminated. But this doesn't change the feeling that I'm being punished (say, by being unable to run Pacifism and use missionaries) just because I didn't anticipate that I would want to convert people after Scientific Method came along.

[Sava]

Re: Monasteries are Obsolete -- I consider this a bug

Originally posted by Doktrjerms

When I am going for a culture win, I find not having 1&2 because of 3 horribly inconvenient. This doesn't make sense either. Monasteries were built in the real world long after the scientific method. Religion is still important today.

Does anybody feel the same as me?
Anybody feel differently?

-DoktrJerms

well, if you are going for culture win, you only need to build monasteries in your top 3 culture cities

so if you have not built monasteries in these cities by the time you discover Scientific Method, it is your own damn fault...