Culture, should we invest in it

[alva]

For me it depends how good the city is.

ex. all grass, and no shields (1pop=1shield per turn)
then I will rush it.
changes are the is better land after the borderjump.

[Randolph]

Temples are one of my favorite rush subjects, a lot of bang for the buck.

[DeepO]

Yeah... for me too. Plus the added advantage is that the temple negates in part the effect pop-rushing has: instead of making one happy citizens unhappy, it will make one citizen content for 20 turns. But still, rushing is something to be very careful with, it has quite a few problems.

DeepO

[alexman]

IMHO, in general, there is no need for an early temple, even as a religious civ, unless all of these conditions are met:

1) There is no millitary action expected in the immediate future, thus no need for a barracks and veteran units.

2) There are already enough exploring units running around. Hopefully scouts!

3) There are sufficient defensive units (in MP).

4) The city is too small to start building the next settler, or there is a need for a border expansion so the city can start working a better tile.

Otherwise I believe an early temple is not worth its maintenance cost.

[DeepO]

alexman, you forget the biggest reason why we would need one: one early temple does as much to culture in 2000 years as 3 temples do, built 1000 years later. Economically, the equation is quite simple, the upkeep of that lone temple is a lot lower (even if it comes earlier).

But I agree, if we are too close to a human, offensive, civ, we should protect our cities first, thus having to divert more resources to culture later on. It would be a disadvantage, but if the situation says we can't build an early temple, we can't....

Oh, and don't worry about the barracks, as a religious civ temples are as expensive as a single attacker... they won't mean you don't got barracks, but you will have one unit less. (or 1.5 unit less)

DeepO

[alexman]

Originally posted by DeepO
alexman, you forget the biggest reason why we would need one: one early temple does as much to culture in 2000 years as 3 temples do, built 1000 years later.

Well, I didn't forget, it's just that culture by itself doesn't do much for us besides prevent flips. There is no way we will actually win by culture (double theirs - tough) with those builder teams out there. As long as we have a respectable (approximately equal?) culture compared to any neighbors or victims, we should do fine.

On the other hand, perhaps we do need early temples to get a "respectable" culture in this MP game. Who knows... we need to keep an eye on that F8 screen!

[DeepO]

Well.. let me repeat what I said one page before: culture is no goal at all, but we will need it if we want to avoid problems. IMHO, we don't need to be equal, but the least we should do is have half the culture of the biggest culture freak.

The early temple is a good thing here: build one very early, and we don't have to worry about it until we see we're starting to seriously lack culture, or we need a border expansion. It's, in my mind, the easiest, most economical solution to prevent cultural problems later on.

DeepO

[alexman]

DeepO, we're actually in agreement here.

We should build a few temples early, for sure, and culture is the reason why. But I still think we should wait until the four conditions I listed above are met, which I don't think is very restricting. Of course, it all depends on the definition of "enough units".

[Arrian]

To comment on the use of poprushing for temples, I typically only do that in fringe towns which will only produce 1 shield for a looong time. They get a temple rushed as soon as they hit pop2. Why not?

In towns that can produce at least 2 shields, I will build the temple normally (it's only 15 turns).

-Arrian

[Arrian]

One other thing, I don't know if you all do this too, but my capitol often doesn't build a temple for quite some time. It's too busy building settler, spearman, settler, spearman, etc. Only once I'm done pumping settlers do I build a temple in the capitol. I suspect some other early temple lovers sneak one in earlier.

-Arrian

[Dominae]

Ah, I actually have someone on my side! I think alexman's four conditions are right on. Basically the point is that no "cultural investment" should be made until quite late in the early-game (if you know what I mean). Does anyone think that Temples should be built before those conditions are met? IMO that's the real question at issue here.


Dominae

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Dominae
Ah, I actually have someone on my side! I think alexman's four conditions are right on. Basically the point is that no "cultural investment" should be made until quite late in the early-game (if you know what I mean). Does anyone think that Temples should be built before those conditions are met? IMO that's the real question at issue here.


Dominae

I agree.

I would add that a temple would be necessary when we can see new resources that might be one square away from control.

[Arrian]

Alexman's 4 points are fine. There is no point in having a temple if you can't defend it, and I certainly would not advocate temple-building that would hamper expansion (much).

-Arrian

[DeepO]

Alexman, I can live with your rules, except with the 'early warfare means immediate barrack' thing. In my games, that temple gets built before barracks are available. But of course, this is in SP, and it generally means you don't have a lot of defensive units present (or you don't have many scouts). The trick here is that if you do it really early, you can't be attacked anyway... and after the first temple you will get a chance of building loads of defenders, as you will have the cultural lead for at least 2000 years (without any new temples being built)

Originally posted by Arrian
One other thing, I don't know if you all do this too, but my capitol often doesn't build a temple for quite some time. It's too busy building settler, spearman, settler, spearman, etc. Only once I'm done pumping settlers do I build a temple in the capitol. I suspect some other early temple lovers sneak one in earlier.

-Arrian

Here's one early temple lover alright
I've experimented with building temples before my first unit, and it simply rocks. Of course, the problem is that you don't have any scouts, and your second city is a bit of a gamble where to place. Other setups have included building one warrior, immediately followed with a temple, a settler, a warrior and again a settler. The capital is undefended until after the second settler is build. I suffered a few defeats where either the Germans or the Aztecs found my capital before my first defender, but other then that I could outREX the AIs on emperor, which is extremely powerful.

Of course, all this when dealing with AIs, not humans, that won't work here (although if we don't find anyone with a scout, it could very well work, and come as a total surprise)

DeepO

[DeepO]

To those who think we should follow alexman's rules: fine, but you have to consider that this will mean we have to invest more resources into temples later on, as it will deny the early temple strat. I'd say we take some military risk here, and reap the cultural benefits of it later (up until 500 BC)

DeepO