Temples

[element]

So all who have the game know that there are different temples for the Roman factions, each with their own benifit. When you sack an enemy city howerver, the enemies temple still stands. Is there a benifit to keeping their temples? In my oppinion there is not, because you cannot improve upon them. But i wonder if destroying the indeginous temple enflames the population? Anyone have information on this?

If any of you brits have any questions ask away too. I have been playin non stop for the last 2 days.

[Lemur]

I've knocked down the Carthiginian pagan idols three times now, and each time the dusky heathens get upset. They will kneel before Jupiter or die!

I'm a builder, so having a non-upgradeable temple is a no-go for me. Yes, the happiness face goes from green to red, but what do I care? I'm an imperious, overweening, prideful Roman, and they'd better watch themselves if they want to live in my new world order.

Of if I may quote Superman 2: The son of Jar-El will kneel before Zod!

[zentuit]

I captured a Gaulish town and was going to knock down their temple to their (I think) War god when I noticed that it gave a +1 to some attribute on the troops (not sure which and don't have the game up right now to check). So I decided "hey Romans assimilated other gods didn't they? I'll let this one stand."

[element]

lol you tell those gauls whats up man!

[Ulstan]

"Is there a benifit to keeping their temples? In my oppinion there is not, because you cannot improve upon them."

I took a greek town. It had a temple to aphrodite or something? Anyway it added + to population growth.

Now it's possible romans can also build this temple - but I only ever seem to be able to build jupiter.

Anyway something like that might be worth keeping around, even if you can't improve it.

Is there a one temple per city limit? Now that I think about it, once I build the inital temple to jupiter, the other temples no longer show up as listings.

[Sisco Americanus]

Well, since Aphrodite is a Greek goddess, I'm fairly certain the Romans cannot build a temple to her. It's possible they can build a temple to Venus, whom I believe is the Roman equivilant, however. I'm not sure what this would mean in game terms, though.

I was actually wondering about existing temples in captured cities myself. It would sort of make sense if the continued worship of the old Gods (and thus continued identity with the old culture instead of assimilation into Roman culture) would increase squalor, but I'm not sure if the game mechanics work that way. As far as I can tell, leaving the temples there still provide you with the benefits listed in the building description, but they can't be upgraded (as some have mentioned) and therefore you can't reap the benefits of larger temples. Since these benefits usually include increasing public order, this can be a big loss in those particularly malcontented provinces, because you'll have to maintain a much larger military presense there, which is very expensive. So I guess the answer is that knocking down existing temples hurts in the short term, but can be very beneficial in the long run (assuming you replace them with a string of larger Roman temples).

[Blodrast]

Keeping the pagan/whatever temples may be good for the obvious reasons.
However, I'm wondering if having other cultures' buildings in your city doesn't add to the "culture penalty" (which decreases public order), and which, in my case, is pretty significant in a few towns. So I am really considering destroying those temples and building roman ones, at least I'll see if I get rid of some of that culture penalty thing.