Free religion and shrines, Scientific Method and monasteries, and bears

[Diadem]

When you look up a word in dictionary.com it gives you results for different dictionaries. The one yourdictionary.com uses, the American Heritage Dictionary, has it with 2 r's on that site as well. Other dictionaries have it with 1 r.

So most likely it's an error in the American Heritage Dictionary. However of all the online dictionaries I know, that one is by far the most complete. So it's still possible that all other dictionaries are in error

[sjm]

Originally posted by Diadem
So it's still possible that all other dictionaries are in error

Hardly; the English language is defined by current usage; dictionaries in English purely play catch up. That's a very different situation to say, German or French, where there are institutes that regulate the language.

Seeing as no one seems to use "monasterries" (type it into google, and discount all the foreign sites; you get a handful of hits), but "monasteries" produce 5M+ hits: there's no doubt in my which one to use

Sorry for the thread hijack

[Wishbone]

Well, it's my thread and I like distractions (they are very good for the confusion) so hijack all you want. And in re that spelling distraction, I too was fooled by Yourdictionary.com and having checked elsewhere am inclined to agree with sjm. OED online has the plural with one r as do all the dictionaries in my house including my Random House unabridged and my 1908 Webster's International Unabridged (though as you are right about current usage, that one is probably not the best of sources).
As for my question about the Spiral Minaret, I see now that I was overlooking the little praying hands icon inserted between the words "state" and "buildings" (and, as we all know, pictures are worth a thousand words though in this case one word, i.e., "religious" should suffice).
And another revelation from Arrian! All this time I have been thinking that when it says "Double production speed with" (stone, marble, etc.) that that city would thereafter produce everything twice as fast. Well, as President Bush so nimbly put it, "Fool me once . . . uh, won't get fooled again."
So, this has been a good thread for me. I've learned several important things including the definitive spelling of the plural of monastery.
I am, however, a little disappointed at the lack of support for my hatred of bears.

[binTravkin]

I am, however, a little disappointed at the lack of support for my hatred of bears.

Bears r teh roxxorz!

[absimiliard]

Originally posted by Wishbone I am, however, a little disappointed at the lack of support for my hatred of bears.

Are you Stephen Colbert? Cause I just know he's playing Civ4, he has to be. And the whole bear thing ... . .. .

Well . . .. . it is kinda incriminating.

So I think you're Stephen Colbert.

Not that you're wrong on the bear-thing, they are hungry killing-machines. No doubt about it.

-abs

[popejubal]

Not that you're wrong on the bear-thing, they are hungry killing-machines. No doubt about it.

Man, I could have used some hungry killing today. I was really hungry and needed that hungry killed in a big way.

Cathedrals also give a happiness bonus with incense. If you build a few Cathedrals, then the happiness bonus from incense and Free Religion more than makes up for the loss of the Cathedral-religion happiness bonus.

...and the culture is enormous.

[Wishbone]

I am not now nor have I ever been Stephen Colbert.

[Crossfire]

To the best of your knowledge...

[couerdelion]

Well I for one like Spiral Minaret and Sankore so will rarely run with Free Religion until the wonders are spent – Computers. Those wonders are one excuse for a late game city spam because each city not only generates the basic trade but also can be converted (that’s 3g in shrine city) and have a temple +2g or +2b from the wonder. If you have SoLiberty then each city also gets a free specialist too so you can’t lose.

I don’t think the culture bonus of Free Religion is that great though. Just +1 for each religion compared to +1 for state religion.

[sjm]

Originally posted by couerdelion
I don’t think the culture bonus of Free Religion is that great though. Just +1 for each religion compared to +1 for state religion.

That largely depends on how many religions and holy cities you have, and whether you are trying to get the holy cities legendary or not. It's +5 for the religion in a holy city. And of course the more religions you have, the better the extra cultural bonus for all religions. If you've been spreading religions willy nilly, and have a couple of holy cities, free religion could be adding +10 instead of +1 culture for those cities. Throw a couple of cultural modifiers into the picture, and it can make quite a difference!

[Diadem]

If you want a culture victory you're much better off with pacifism to generate lots of great artists.

Having many religions is very nice if you want a culture victory, because of the cathedrals, but I don't think free religion helps a lot there.

[sjm]

Do you actually get the happy benefits from cathedrals with free religion? By the time I've gone free religion in my games, I've had so many happiness-boosting buildings and resources, it's never been an issue - so I've never thought to check.

I've never been that impressed by most great people myself. They tend to give you a bonus that (on my marathon games at least) is the equivalent of 5-10 turns of normal playing (in terms of beakers, commerce or culture bombs). Of course, building a shrine, an academy or rushing an important wonder can be great, and settling great artists early is great for cultural victories. But by the end game, it takes so long (for me) to generate GP anyway, I might as well go FR - especially with numerous holy cities.

I've played a couple of games where I've had 3 holy cities and 6-7 religions in each. These were my top culture cities. Free religion was almost the equivalent of an extra settled artist in each of those cities (10-11 extra culture over pacifism), which was a very welcome boost, at least towards the end game, when I was unlikely to pop that many more GP (and there's no guaranteeing that they'll all be artists). At, say, +450% (and that's pitiful with 7 religions!) to culture, FR is a culture bomb around every 70 or so turns under that constellation; or every 25-ish or so turns if you add up all three cities together).

i.e. that's 10 x 550% = 55 per turn per city; a great artist is 4,000 at normal speed right? That's one culture bomb every 70-ish turns; but you've got three cities, so you'd need three artists in those 70 turns; or one every approx. 24 turns. Are you really getting that many artists? Then again, I generally suck at generating great persons anyway , so maybe you're generating them every 5-10 turns in the end game (or every 20-30 turns on marathon)? I never have managed that though - and definitely not consistently artists Maybe it's just because I shy away from caste system in the late game against 13 AI's all running emancipation - half my cities could probably never handle it!

Of course, great people are much better than FR if you have the sistine chapel, but I always seem to miss it

By the end game I find I generally just need one more artist to put my third city on par with the top two (there's always one lagging behind). Successive great artists don't help that much, as it's the last city that surpasses legendary that counts. Getting two cities to pass legendary earlier is no benefit. If you culture bomb in one city, the other two still need to play catch-up; so essentially, I'd need another 3 artists after the first one for it to make any difference (I'm almost only ever one culture bomb behind in my third city). The more one city is lagging behind the others, the more useful the artists become of course!

[binTravkin]

Do you actually get the happy benefits from cathedrals with free religion? By the time I've gone free religion in my games, I've had so many happiness-boosting buildings and resources, it's never been an issue - so I've never thought to check.

No you don't.

[Nacht]

You do get the +1 from incense, if you have any.

[Diadem]

You can easily generate a few hunderd GPP in your primary city, as a philosophical civ with pacifism. Under such circumstances 20 turns (normal speed) for a GP should still be possible even late game.

Of course, without pacifism you will still generate them in 27 of so turns, so the difference is not *that* great. But the bonus from GAs just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, every GA adds to your bonus. After 3 GAs your bonus will be equal to free religion (under ideal circumstances for free religion), but if you generate 6 GAs and *then* switch to free religion, your bonus will be much, much bigger.

Late game pacifism is not that useful anymore, you are certainly right about that. But Free Religion becomes available in the mid-game. And during that time pacifism is still much more useful, imho.