increase tradeable goods or law bonus?

[I of the Storm]

In the long run I'd always go for the law bonus. It lowers corruption, thus you lose less money in that city. IMO the trade goods bonus of the temple of hermes will soon be eaten up by corruption and the need for bigger garrisons once a city has hit the 12000 mark. Plus your governors get this refined tastes trait thread more easily in Hermes cities and you don't want that.

Anyway, war has to feed itself I say, so conquer and loot. Good for the mens morale also...

Edit: damn, too slow

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I, like many others, always go for the law temple, unless I'm close to the capital, within two provinces. This is mostly to prevent nasty old corruption and to increase public order. I have found that, in most cases, however, it may be better to, nearer the capital, not bother with law temples and go for the trade instead - this is due to cities near the capital not having any large corruption problems or happiness issues.

[guineawolf]

I, like many others, always go for the law temple, unless I'm close to the capital, within two provinces. This is mostly to prevent nasty old corruption and to increase public order. I have found that, in most cases, however, it may be better to, nearer the capital, not bother with law temples and go for the trade instead - this is due to cities near the capital not having any large corruption problems or happiness issues.

then,it just support me to run new plan,build those temple base on different situation(more flexible),i will build HERMES at capitol and cities with 5-15% distance to capitol,then NIKE at cities with 20-30%,rest build ATHENA at cities with more than 30% distance to capitol........

many thanks to you guys........yours opinion help me to decide!

[Severous]

Before you make the building choice you should open the detail city screen. Then add a building. You will see the icons of law/income/corruption change as you add the building to the que.

Greyed out icons show the new income once the building is complete. Look at the values. Easy to work out which is better in the short term.

I tend towards the law bonus temples. I run very high tax regimes and need the better public order such temples provide to offset the unrest caused by the high tax.

[Phoenix]

I only build Trade Temples if their distance to the capital is 25% or less and if the city gets most of its income from trade. AFAIK, the money you save from reducing corruption is generally more than the amount you'd make from increasing trade outside high-trade areas like Greece, Asia Minor, Carthage, and all the islands, but it's easy enough to check like Severous said.

[Caius]

I use Increase tradeable bonus in some places that I have a really negative income.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Hi Caius Flaminius (and happy B-day BTW),
It may seem terrible a settlement being in negatives, yet it is not especially terrible at all. Surprisingly, if a settlement is in minus figures then it is not actually losing you money at all - instead it is preventing other cities from taking the strain of your empire's expense problems! Unfortunately, in R:TW the income of each individual city is almost irrelevant as it does not represent the income that it the settlement is actually providing - this is because the income that the game calculates includes military expenditure which increases the larger the population become. Instead, I have found that the financial scroll is a much more accurate depiction of what is going on within one's empire. Should anybody desire to work out a more reliable income of a settlement then it often is best to just add up the positive side of the complex settlement details scroll and then subtract the negatives from the end result excluding military upkeep costs. Good luck with understanding this complex post which even I cannot understand, hope this helps you, good luck, cheers!