Temples, Cathedrals, theatres Hospitals Whats the Use !!?

[faded glory]

Me and Birdman were debating this earlier, at his suggestion I made a thread to get a wider opinion of all the people here.

ok, I think most of you know were I stand on this issue. I dont build any Scientific/Happiness improvements.More often then not, people will build an academy in a far off city and forgot to even appoint scientists, so it does not have any effect. Occasionally tho I will build a University, Academy, Publishing house all in one city and max its scientists, which can be pretty effective scientifically if the city is pretty large(size 10+). Its even better when the galileo telescope is in the city, like I have in another world. (+400% science, +50% +25%+25%= lots of science points)

My Arguement:

Ok but really whats the point in Temples,theatres and Cathedrals

Anybody can keep there people happy with simple sliders. So why bother building these improvements? I have inherited a few civs with Theatres in size 1-4 cities, which are blatantly useless unless you appoint entertainers (which there never are any). More often then not, smaller civs with less money tend to build Cathedrals,temples, and Hospital in most of there cities. But do you really guys know how much these structures cost?

I certainly do! To maintain a half dozen cathdrals costs 80 gold a turn. To maintain a temple in all 50 cities, costs 50 gold. To maintain Hospitals, Incubation centers, Colisuem's costs even larger bundles of cash. So where does the cash come from? Where else! Your overall budget. You will notice as soon as you start building these things, your science surplus shrinks right away. Thus is why people often get into negative cash flows at times.

of course if you have London Exchange and 2000 gold surplus, you can afford it. But anything under this makes it a burden wether the player knows its a burden or not.

my idea- Save the money for more important structures, Airports, Oil Refinerys, Factorys, Recycle bins..etc

So what do you think?

[St Jon]

I would certainly agree with you over the Science Improvements, especially the real big boys, and would always choose Marketplace+Bank over Academy+University. I only ever build Universities/Research Labs in high population/low production cities that can genuinely support the number of specialists needed to make them worthwhile. It is yet another flaw in CtP's design that Gold is worth far more to science than Tech Improvements are!

I disagree with you over Temples, very cheap, and Hospitals; you did not even mention Aquaducts! This is probably a legacy of my Civ2 days but I am a great believer in rapid population growth, especially in the early stages, and you just cannot do this if you are forever cranking up the rations and employing ever increasing numbers of entertainers. Increasing the wages lessens your science rate just as much and a rioting City is worthless on any level. Cathedrals, I agree, are a waste of space unless you are running under Theocracy, where I regard them as a must, but keeping the punters happy is still very important.

It is really rather the same as the question of optimum City size in that I avoid overlap like the plague go for fewer, but bigger, whereas most players I have encountered in CtP seem to prefer to go for more but smaller. If your ultimate aim is a 25+ City these 'Happy' Improvements pay for themselves, as do the Universities you build there, so it really comes down to playing style.

[Keygen]

I personally would avoid using the sliders to adjust happiness. Adjusting the sliders greatly and globaly influence positively or negatively your production, gold or food output therefore I wouldn't decrease any of them to increase happiness while with some improvements, wonders or worker allocation I could avoid that.

Temples are certainly very usefull for retaining happiness in acceptable level and with small cost. I don't like either temples but they are nessesary in Deity level for cities above size 5 near capital or above size 3-4 far away from capital.

Cathedrals are also usefull in large cities at list above size 10 especially under theocracy but under Communism is a total waste.

I never build theaters or Hospitals unless I have to handle very large cities above size 15 or 20 without having any happiness improvement wonder built.

As for the aquaduct Jon mentioned is indeed one of the most important city improvements of the game but I think Saddam didn't object for this particular one

[J Bytheway]

Temples are good in small-medium cities, but theaters are the single most important happiness building if you intend to have large cities, they often make the difference between 10 entertainers and 5 in my cities, when those extra 5 population could be other specialists the theater easily pays for itself.

Cathedrals are pretty useless value for money (unless theocracy / hagia sophia) and hospitals are only to be used in dire need.

Science improvements always worse than gold (unless scientists or MedMod - there I go again plugging the MedMod, I just can't resist it).

That pathetic +2 happiness you get from the sliders is never good value for money unless your avarage city size is very low. You get the same effect from placing a temple everywhere, and that temple upkeep is certainly going to cost less than increasing your wages a notch.

But mostly I agree with Jon, it all depends on playing style. If I played a little more expansionist then I'd probably get away with just temples.

Oh and I love the way you may special attention to those recycle 'bins' - got to make sure your citizens can recover their lost files, eh ?

John

[Swissy]

Every city gets a temple/aqueduct/academy. Then I selectively build other improvements. Of course the big pop cities get a hospital, which you NEED if your going to make a real big city. The production cities a drug store. Universities are reserved for interior cities that have 10+ pop. Trade centers get the market/bank combo, as do the cities I think will make 10+ pop (which will also get the city clock). You have to keep gold production in mind in everything you do. Sudden loss of income in the number one reason for revolt

This seems to work for me.

[blackice]

people will build an academy in a far off city and forgot to even appoint scientists, so it does not have any effect

Plus 50% science and one half per citizen you jest right?

Look each thing has it's use Hospitals with commie a must over 10 size city so is univ etc. I will not go on but I am with Keygen on this one never change your sliders adjust with buildings.

You should also know dropping the science slider at about 3 turns saves you big bucks sometimes I can good three or four or more discoveries with science at 10% or less ...

[TheBirdMan]

As I am guilty (at least partly) for this thread here are my prefs (as how I would build improvements if no-one distrubed my circles):

aquaduct
marketplace
citywall (changed to a much higher priority after Lung's visit on my roman empire).
granary
academy/public house whatever comes first (but both!).
temple
theater
bank
courthouse
drugstore

often universities.

and of course mill, factory, oil refinery comes first whenever those are possible.

Never hospitals, cathedrals or colliseums.

rest of the improvements - no real plan, I just do what I find is best.

[Dugrik]

When playing straight (out-of-the box) CTP, I rarely use the advanced happiness improvements.

However, when I play the Apolyton Pack, I find I have to use them. I start with colleseum and cathedral. I try to avoid building hospitals, but sometimes it's necessary. The Sensorium becomes much more important as it eliminates Overcrowding.

My recommendation is to start playing more AP games.

[J Bytheway]

I thought I'd try to quantify this a little, so I started up a game, built a city on the start square and cheated the population up to 4. This was under Tyrrany with the default slider settings for that govt.

Now the city was built on a grassland and was using three forest/river squares and one grassland/tobacco square. This puts the base prod/food/gold at 100/54/23, happiness at 74 and crime at 11%.

With a granary and an aqueduct (which everyone seems to agree are vital the income is 101/65/23 - In case you were wondering why the production incerased it's because the aqueduct increases happiness which decreases crime. The total maintainance is 4 and wages are 12, so profit is 7 (3 science)

Now, a marketplace would give +50% gold (to 34) at a cost of 5, so that brings surplus up to 13 (6 science). So a marketplace can actually double your science rate .

Now, if I were to build a bank next then gold reaches 45, but maintainance is now 19 so surplus is 14 (7 science). So, the net effect of the bank was to increase science by 1 - it didn't affect gold profit.

Scrap the bank and place instead an academy and a publishing house then gold drops to 34 once more, the city generates 7 science but maintainance stays at 19. Now surplus is 3 (1 science). So building these two improvements increased science by 2 at the cost of 5 gold.

So, which would you prefer? +1 science with a bank or +2 science, -5 gold with a publishing house & academy.

Of course, if you put the city on max science in the latter situation then you can increase science to 59, but production drops to 17, food to 33 and gold surplus to -17. Or you could put it on capitalization, which would certainly confuse the issue.

There's a whole spreadsheet of this kind of information which you get with CDs mod and the MedMod regarding the old & new improvements.

[J Bytheway]

Also, just wondering how many people actually bother to go through and sell all their pollution prevention buildings when the Gaia Controller is built, and the same for overcrowding reduction with the sensorium?

[faded glory]

Of course Jon Aquaducts are a neccessity for growth. I build a granary and aqurdcut in every city