Unique Building Appreciation Thread

[couerdelion]

Here’s a thread for you all to use to sing your praises for your favourite UB. I’ll get the ball rolling

The best UB in the game is the Zulu’s Ikhanda. Its strengths are

- Available from day one
- Benefit of 20% city maintenance reduction is very good (can be considered as 40% if you have a courthouse)
- As AGG civ, Shaka builds it at half price
- It complements the AGG trait perfectly

OK, let’s here some other candidates.

[Cort Haus]

For OCC, Peter's Research Institute is the bees knees. A late-game Great Library, free with the Laboratory - marvellous.

[Blake]

The Ikhanda is definitely best, IMO.

However all UB's are pretty nice, even if some are fairly situational (ie Dun and those rather awful chinese things).

Some I like more are the Mali Mint, Ottoman Hamman (Regardless of your health/happy situation, this is guranteed to give you +2 SOMETHING), Japanese Shale Plant (I likes me power!), American Mall (guaranteed to give some happy/health boost).

Any UB which is pure health, or pure happy, may not be useful depending on your resource rolls. Health is arguably more generally useful since h.rule provides "unlimited" happiness. I like the Hamman so much because it provides such a well-balanced boost to your population and it's early, on a keystone tech and cheap, altough a relatively boring effect it's an extremely solid performer and is not at all situational.

[Swiss Pauli]

Hammam's my personal favourite, but Seowons and Stock Exchanges are quite strong. Have not played Zulu yet...hmmm...looks like I know who I'm playing next Warlords game.

Situationally, I found Salons very handy when going for a culture win with Louis.

[Thedrin]

Re: Unique Building Appreciation Thread

Originally posted by couerdelion
The best UB in the game is the Zulu’s Ikhanda..

An awesome building.

The Ger is a nice one combined with the Keshik and the Madrassa provides some nice rflexibility along with added culture.

[smbakeresq]

I like the Mall, but it comes late. The Forum is good also, since markets must be built anyway, but you must focus on GP to take full advantage.

[couerdelion]

Personally, I think the Forum is overrated and merely “supplements” GP generation. Because of rounding, it often does very little while in the highest GPP cities you’re likely to have National Epic so the forum only gives +12.5% GPP.

The proportionate benefit gets even smaller when you have Pacifism or Parthenon.

Overall, it might get me one or two GPs a turn early but not much more than that. And that sort of advantage is rarely earth-shatteringly strong.

[CerberusIV]

The Hammam is really nice - an aqueduct with 2 free happy faces can't be argued against.

I haven't played Carthage much but am just starting to appreciate the Cothon. It does depend on having coastal cities to build them but an extra trade route is never a bad thing.

The one time I played a game through as Rome (Augustus) I built the Parthenon. Combined with forums that produced noticeably more GP's than I usually get. That leads to another factor concerning UB's - how some of them interact with wonders. I mentioned the Cothon and whilst I haven't built the Temple of Artemis yet in any game that seems like a useful combination.

[Arrian]

I've been meaning to try the Zulu b/c of the Ikhanda, but I keep putting it off. Next game

I like the mint b/c I build forges all over anyway. The English Stock Exchange is a solid mid/late game one.

I do like the forum. I don't think it's great, mind you, but nice.

Good point by Blake about the Hamman.

-Arrian

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
The one time I played a game through as Rome (Augustus) I built the Parthenon. Combined with forums that produced noticeably more GP's than I usually get. That leads to another factor concerning UB's - how some of them interact with wonders. I mentioned the Cothon and whilst I haven't built the Temple of Artemis yet in any game that seems like a useful combination.

Combining buildings/traits/civics/wonders with purely additive benefits does not work as well as those that combine additive and multiplicative effects.

he examples you give are Parthenon + Forum = +75% GPP which not really such an ideal combo. The +50% from the Parthenon sort of “devalues” the +25% from the forum

However, the +1 trade route, +100% combo ought to complement each other very nicely because if it works exactly as described the +1 trade route is now worth +2 trade routes.

The most common example of this sort of relationship is the Bureaucracy + Academy bonus. Here the +50% commerce gets added first to base commerce for the capital and – after allowing for science slider, get’s another 50% on top for 150% x 150% = 225% commerce to science rate.

[Common Sensei]

The Carthaginian Cothon, Ottoman Hammam, Mali Mint and Korean Seowon are my favorites.

I have a soft spot for the English Stock Exchange, Russian Research Institute, and American Mall though.

I haven't fully explored the Aztec Sacrificial Altar, but I am intrigued by its possibilities.

[Diadem]

Hamman seems to be the best building hands down. They provide two extra happy faces for a building you already build anyway (aquaduct).

Compare this with the Malinese Mint for example, another good UB. The Mint provides extra happy faces as well. One each for gems, gold and silver. There won't be many games where you have each three of those resources (at least early game). So hamman will almost always beat the mint. Forges lower your health as well, so there are many situations where you don't want them.

The zulu Ikhanda is interesting, but only if you build a lot of cities. And even then, two happy faces vs. 20% less maintenence. Seems an easy choice.

[Virdrago]

I haven't played as the Zulus or the Ottomans yet, but the hamman and the ikhanda both looked like top-notch UB's when I saw their traits. The mint looks very good, as well, though I would rank it just below the other two.

Another one I really like is the terrace. A granary that helps with culture? As a builder, this helps me get my pop growing as well as my borders early on, without sacrificing one or the other.

[Risa]

Cothon is quite overrated. More trade route usually means running out of foreign trade routes earlier. Effectively a cothon = a habour and +1 commerce. The synergy of cothon and the Temple of Artemis is not dismissable, though.

My favorite is Zulu Ikhanda. It almost grants Zulu Org trait. Incan Terrace and Persian Apothecary are also good. Terrace has the same top culture/hammer ratio as Monument and Monastery, while it is not religion dependent as Monastery, and it has an actual use, unlike Monument. Apothecary is good for its additional health bonus, since health is the limitting factor of city growth at that stage of the game.

[Rancidlunchmeat]

WOW. I must REALLY SUCK at this game. Because I can't believe that nobody offered up the Obelisk as the best UB.

It gives you the immediate ability to assign TWO priest specialists, which gives you the QUICKEST route to GPP production.

If you go all the way down the tech path in order to build a temple, even that only gives you the ability to assign ONE priest!

And if you combine the Obelisk with the temple and with Angor Wat, you've got three priest specialists per city that are pounding out huge hammers.

I agree with what everybody else has said abot the other UBs and how wonderful they are... UBs have totally made this game 'balanced', and the late UBs have actually made me try to play through the industrialized age in some situations.

But I still believe that CIV is a game that is based upon maximizng EARLY RETURNS. Because of that, the Obelisk wins my vote, because it gives the quickest path to GPP.