So where's the documentation on Unit upkeep costs?

jpinard

Martian
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Jan 18, 2002
Messages
760
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Enceladus, Saturn
I've looked everywhere and I'm kinda irritated there's NO information on it anywhere except a generic X gold. You have no idea what individual units are cost, if there's a unit overage penalty, nothing.

BTW, I looked up "upkeep" in the manual... that word doesn't exist in the manual. Do a search for "upkeep" in the civilopedia and no reference there either.
 
I am also dismayed by the lack of documentation. But look on the bright side, since there's little in-depth information available, I suppose it's not such a shame the civilopedia search is pathetic and there is no hyperlinking between entries.

"What is a city?"
 
I hate to admit this, but the manual's so useless I took a chance and ordered the strategy guide on Amazon. It was only $19 so if it's not much better, no big loss.

I wanted to find some tables or general guidelines on civ growth vs happiness, and see if there's any advice on how to avoid over-farming your tiles to control pop growth. My current civ is getting really big and I just know the Unhappiness monster is going to bite me any turn, now.
 
Unit maintenance is an abomination at the moment. I've had -23gpt for the same 6 units that cost me 10 some turned earlier...

Also it appears units don't cost varying amounts, which diminishes strategies of quality vs quantity.

Basically you end up noticing that your income is going down and down and down every turn even though you've built nothing new. And eventually you'll be going into negatives (as almost every person who has posted a story has mentioned)
 
I deleted two workers in my current game it it didn't free up any gold.

In my last game I deleted a worker and freed up 5 or 6 gold per turn.

Thinking to myself "good deal" I deleted a 2nd...which had no effect.

I agree that unit maintenance needs to be more transparent.
 
They definitely have to get some more statistical detail out about how this game works EXACTLY

they also have a ton of entries and tooltips that are wrong... and make the civiliopedia not a piece of crap
 
My initial thinking on upkeep is that it's a tiered system based on unit supply (a window I haven't studied very closely). Sometimes deleting a unit changes the unit upkeep, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's eight gold per turn, sometimes it's three. The only method I can explain this is if it functions like this:

5 units = 5 gpt
10 units = 15 gpt
20 units = 60 gpt

Those values are arbitrary, but my point is that each unit doesn't have an upkeep so much as the total units might have plateaus of upkeep. Like Warcraft 3 or Sins of a Solar Empire.

I'm very interested in figuring out this system, also. The game manual says the info is supposed to be in the appendix, but it obviously isn't. :)

Monitoring this thread for more info.
 
I've looked everywhere and I'm kinda irritated there's NO information on it anywhere except a generic X gold. You have no idea what individual units are cost, if there's a unit overage penalty, nothing.

BTW, I looked up "upkeep" in the manual... that word doesn't exist in the manual. Do a search for "upkeep" in the civilopedia and no reference there either.

It's right after the documentation on diplomacy and before the break down of happiness, page 245 of the manual.
 
My initial thinking on upkeep is that it's a tiered system based on unit supply (a window I haven't studied very closely). Sometimes deleting a unit changes the unit upkeep, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's eight gold per turn, sometimes it's three. The only method I can explain this is if it functions like this:

5 units = 5 gpt
10 units = 15 gpt
20 units = 60 gpt

Those values are arbitrary, but my point is that each unit doesn't have an upkeep so much as the total units might have plateaus of upkeep. Like Warcraft 3 or Sins of a Solar Empire.

I'm very interested in figuring out this system, also. The game manual says the info is supposed to be in the appendix, but it obviously isn't. :)

Monitoring this thread for more info.

Nice solution but it is too good to be real.

I suspect there is a bug behind the mechanics of unit maintenance

I will also try to monitor this thread hoping it won't sunk like a trireme hit by a battleships ;)
 
Count me in, I've got ~270gpt unit maintenance costs that are killing my economy, even though the military advisor says I have lots of surplus unit supply. I've also got over 200gpt building maintenance, but that's fine, as I understand how that works. I've just no idea what's going on with my unit maintenance.

I too tried disbanding workers, haven't noticed a difference, and disbanding a scout did make a difference, but only small. I also realised why it's bad to go negative when you've got no gold left - I lost a unit... :cry:
 
In my game i captured one of the AI`s workers. 4 gold per turn. Already had more workers captured than i needed to i just dismissed that worked. A few turns later i captured another worker. No change in maintenance. Kinda confused.
 
Almost 100% positive great people don't count for upkeep. As for workers, I just deleted one and it freed up 9 gpt.....
 
Count me in, I've got ~270gpt unit maintenance costs that are killing my economy, even though the military advisor says I have lots of surplus unit supply. I've also got over 200gpt building maintenance, but that's fine, as I understand how that works. I've just no idea what's going on with my unit maintenance.

I too tried disbanding workers, haven't noticed a difference, and disbanding a scout did make a difference, but only small. I also realised why it's bad to go negative when you've got no gold left - I lost a unit... :cry:

Unit supply are your strategic resources, so while your Military Advisor is telling you that you have lots of Iron, Coal, whatever else, your unit upkeep may be much more. What did your Economic Advisor say?
 
I am also dismayed by the lack of documentation. But look on the bright side, since there's little in-depth information available, I suppose it's not such a shame the civilopedia search is pathetic and there is no hyperlinking between entries.

"What is a city?"

I was hoping that they would incorporate the entire manual into the civilopedia but instead got something very simple.

I hate to admit this, but the manual's so useless I took a chance and ordered the strategy guide on Amazon. It was only $19 so if it's not much better, no big loss.

I wanted to find some tables or general guidelines on civ growth vs happiness, and see if there's any advice on how to avoid over-farming your tiles to control pop growth. My current civ is getting really big and I just know the Unhappiness monster is going to bite me any turn, now.

Do tell if the strategy guide is better. But do they update it as patches come along?

Almost 100% positive great people don't count for upkeep. As for workers, I just deleted one and it freed up 9 gpt.....

I think they have some food upkeep.
 
In my game i captured one of the AI`s workers. 4 gold per turn. Already had more workers captured than i needed to i just dismissed that worked. A few turns later i captured another worker. No change in maintenance. Kinda confused.

The maintenance costs appear to scale in pairs-of-units. If you delete one and get no reduction in maintenance, delete another one and you normally will.

Aside from that, actual units maintenance costs scale exponentially with number of turns.
 
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