Unique Building Appreciation Thread

[Thedrin]

I do like the obelisk and when I first started playing Warlords it was the first with which I experimented a lot but I have a number of issues with it.

1) Both Egyptian leaders are spiritual so they would have easier access to the one priest offered by a temple than many other civs.

2) The obelisk becomes obsolete with calender. That's not awful since its possible to leave calender alone until you need astronomy but doing so can restrict your options when trying to increase your happiness and health caps.

3) Hatshepsut is creative so the obelisk is a building I wouldn't ordinarily build if I miss out on Stonehenge. I haven't played as Ramesses.

4) Saladin gets the same bonus plus an extra 2 culture for building the Madrassa.

It's a good building but not one of the best in my mind.

[couerdelion]

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

Sounds strange to me. I tend to rely on resources and building multipliers for happiness and health. As a result, buildings like Aqueducts tend to fall way down the scale of important buildings unless I am seriously short of a variety of food resources - and I am not expansive.

In my current game I am in the industrial era and have yet to build one of them.

[Diadem]

A city with a fatcross that consists of grassland and coasts will grow to size 21 even without any improvements. If you found your cities at good sites, with some food resources etc, and you build some farms, you can easily get bigger still.

You're not going to tell me you had over 30 food and happiness from resources alone, without building any building for them?

[Virdrago]

No, he just hasn't built any aqueducts in his current game. At least I think that what he meant...

[LordShiva]

What about a worst UB?

Mausoleum - Doesn't improve the vanilla building very much, and nobody builds jails anyway. Awesome!

[Solver]

Originally posted by LordShiva
What about a worst UB?

Mausoleum - Doesn't improve the vanilla building very much, and nobody builds jails anyway. Awesome!

How can you consider a building that gives extra happiness bad? Plus, in large cities, there's often a point where you can build Jails/Mausoleums simply because there's nothing more to build.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Solver
in large cities, there's often a point where you can build Jails/Mausoleums simply because there's nothing more to build.

That's true. But usually, if I'm at war, my big cities are working overtime on military, and if I'm at peace (which isn't very often), I wouldn't need a jail. The +1 happiness is nice, I guess.

[Solver]

Which is why you're supposed to have peaceful periods when you build up stuff in preparation for war.

[LordShiva]

Well, anyway, they come pretty late in the game, and since jails aren't as widely built as Harbours, Aqueducts, Markets, etc., it's one of the weaker UBs.

[Solver]

I can agree that it's in the lower tier. However, UBs must not be balanced - some have to be weaker and some have to be stronger, as they're attached to civs with different traits and UUs. Therefore, civs with better trait/UU combinations should get a weaker UB. India is an amazing builder civ already, so it absolutely has to have a weaker tier UB.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm a big fan of the Mint and the Cothon.

[LordShiva]

Forum for me

It's the only UB that gives you access to Praets

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Virdrago
No, he just hasn't built any aqueducts in his current game. At least I think that what he meant...

Correct.

Up to the industrial era and now the growth potential of my cities is almost fully unlocked - Biology will be along soon.

With my largest city at or near to 20, the basic resources provide 14 health with a granary, 17 with a granary/harbour and 21 with a granary/harbour/grocer. Add +3 for Expansive and it’s easy enough to get +20 on any non-coastal city (-1 for forge).

By the time most of the cities get too near their health limits I’ll have another +4 from supermarkets so the upper limit would look to be around 30 population without the need for an aqueduct.