Quote Originally Posted by RLucid
I did not attack the person at all, it is wrong of you to suggest that, and your quote certainly does not support that view. You are mistaken.
I was reacting to this quote:
Quote Originally Posted by RLucid
I guess it's just easier slagging farm upgrades, than it is to produce a list of generally recommended settlement farm-tech levels, which permit settlement management.
...which I thought dismissed my entire argument out of hand without qualification, instead implying that I was just holding an opinion out of convenience. But I suppose I over-reacted, sorry.

The point about buildings not being "equal" limiting strategy is irrelevant and erroneous, if they all were "equal", it would not matter what you build and there'd be no strategy at all, one decision would be as good as another. You need differences, for there to be meaningful decisions, and that means investigating the circumstances, which make an option beneficial. Most comments have wanted to see something as bad or good in general terms, and avoid explaining applicability as it's more time consuming to express detail.
What about my examples?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
Case for some buildings just being better than others: trade temples versus markets (the former -the first two tiers- provides the same trade bonus as a market, takes the same three turns to build, but also have a 10% happiness bonus that markets don't), or academies versus execution squares (both provide a similar law bonus, but academies gives more retinues). There are many other examples like this in the building roster-- some buildings are just better.

There's no equivocation at all: a trading shrine + temple is simply just better than a market, period. There's no downside to choosing to build shrine+temple over market. It's cheaper, and gives a happiness bonus that a market does not. A temple even gives retinues, a market does not. It's better in every way except for role-playing, that is, if you feel that it's unrealistic.

To give another non-building analogy, it's like comitanses versus plumbatarii in BI. They are from the same tier, they have the same recruitment and upkeep, the same melee and defense stats, clones in every way but that the plumbatarii has a slightly higher missile attack. So optimally speaking, you should not build comitanses at all but build plumbatarii. I just don't because I think it's unrealistic, and also because I like the comitanses unit card better.

So frankly I don't really see where you're coming from when you speak of 'applicability' or 'investigating the circumstances' or 'meaningful decisions'. It's like, if you'll forgive me for saying so, weighing the pros and cons of receiving a two-dollar banknote or a five-dollar one -- a no-brainer.


Quote Originally Posted by Guyus Germanicus
Now here's my economies of scale point, I fear I'm just repeating myself, and I apologize . . . (then I'll drop the issue): If I played the game with a policy (basically advocated by early game guides) that after land clearance I simply don't build any farms anywhere, and I occupy 25 cities, I am depriving my treasury of roughly 1,750 to 2,275 denarii per turn per improvement. (70 denarii x 25 cities, or 91 denarii x 25 cities, generalizing on possible differences in game difficulty levels). That projection assumes that all cities are equal performers, harvest performance is always the same every turn for every city, and no governors are penalized with poor farmer traits. Yes, I'm generalizing a bit.

2,275 per turn for one improvement for 25 cities may not seem like much. It's 4,500 (+or -) denarii for foregoing two improvements. In truth the actual amount of treasury loss is probably a great deal more. Think about this: the carrying cost of 10 Principes for a Roman faction is 1,700 denarii.
I see what you're saying, and there's probably the taxes from all those extra people too on the plus side, but you haven't factored in extra garrison costs, lower taxes resulting from squalor, games, etc. The first (extra garrison costs) alone is already 25 x 100, assuming you only need one more peasant garrison per city. That's 2500 denarii. The second (lower taxes) is a little hard to count, but it's safe to say that the numbers are not negligible. The third (games and races), well..... it's 400d per monthly game/race, and more for daily ones.