Maintenance costs are killing me!

C

CalGal

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 13, 2014
Messages
48
Location
Monterey, CA
I am losing 20 gold per turn due to high maintenance costs of units and buildings. Do I need to let go of some of my fighters?? I do have an awful lot. Surely I shouldn't remove any buildings?!

Also: I just got the screen of doom telling me I had lost my civilization! Makes no sense, i have not lost any cities to anyone, plus I just annexed Seville and Cordoba. I made peace with Isabella and I am not at war with anyone. I clicked "one more turn" and I am back in there still playing.

????

(I know, I'm a pain in the neck!)
 
The reason why you received the screen of doom is because one of the other opponents achieved a victory condition before you.

If you are able to take a screenshot of your units or post a saved game we can help you out with your Gold loss
 
Unit costs go up rapidly once you reach a certain number of units. I'm not sure on the exact cost curve, but you'll notice that early units may cost 2g, and as you add more units, they'll start costing 3g, 4g and 5g per unit. I've had it go so bad I gain 7 gold per turn back from one gifted unit. Autocracy does have a tenet that reduces the cost of unit maintenance. You may want to look into that if you are going for a large army. Otherwise, you can gift some units to city states for some influence.
 
Due to one unit per tile, unit maintenance costs go up over time until they reach something absurd like 8 gold per turn per unit in the Atomic Era, so you may find your maintenance costs suddenly reaching unmanageable levels even without building any new units. In my experience, this was much more noticeable in vanilla, where gold income was less. Now, trade routes provide lots of gold, so it isn't as much of a problem.
 
LoneRebel said:
Due to one unit per tile, unit maintenance costs go up over time until they reach something absurd like 8 gold per turn per unit in the Atomic Era, so you may find your maintenance costs suddenly reaching unmanageable levels even without building any new units. In my experience, this was much more noticeable in vanilla, where gold income was less. Now, trade routes provide lots of gold, so it isn't as much of a problem.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is true. If it is, it is not the only mechanism for increased unit costs. The more units you have, the most costly each units maintenance is (Take a game where you have a massive amount of units and start disbanding them and watch your gold per turn costs go down at lower increments the more you disband).

Edit: I'm certain that isn't true, as I almost never lose 8 gold maintenance when I disband units at the end game. It's usually like 3 gold per turn unless I'm warmongering.
 
LoneRebel said:
In my experience, this was much more noticeable in vanilla, where gold income was less. Now, trade routes provide lots of gold, so it isn't as much of a problem.
Click to expand...

When river tiles gave 1g and basic tradding post were 2g?
Honnestly, it was much easier to have gold on Vanilla, almost everybody found BNW early game hard on this section.

Late game BNW gold maybe > Vanilla but i'm not even sure. Wasn't uncommon to reach 1000gpt on vanilla with a decent puppet empire.
 
I found I had lots more gold in vanilla, but then I tended to warmonger more, as the game mechanics rewarded you for doing so. With a huge puppet empire with markets spammed on all my puppets, I'd have 500-1500 gold per turn rolling in.
 
Unit maintenance cost is based on era, and late game it is 4 gpt per unit. Disband some units, send a cargo ship to another civ, work more trading posts, and/or work more merchant specialists to get back into the black.
 
I went in and disbanded a bunch of my lower level units, and indeed saw my maintenance costs go way down (yay). But a couple of turns later I agreed to go to war against Isabella (with Theodora) and my gold immediately went to -87 Gold per turn!! Is that what happens when you go to war? arghhhhh!
 
Uzael36 said:
I don't know if this is true. If it is, it is not the only mechanism for increased unit costs. The more units you have, the most costly each units maintenance is (Take a game where you have a massive amount of units and start disbanding them and watch your gold per turn costs go down at lower increments the more you disband).

Edit: I'm certain that isn't true, as I almost never lose 8 gold maintenance when I disband units at the end game. It's usually like 3 gold per turn unless I'm warmongering.
Click to expand...

It is true, unit costs go up by era. 8 was an exaggeration. It's probably 4 at the most like Gamewizard says, though I kinda remember it being higher than that.

4N4C0ND4 said:
When river tiles gave 1g and basic tradding post were 2g?
Honnestly, it was much easier to have gold on Vanilla, almost everybody found BNW early game hard on this section.

Late game BNW gold maybe > Vanilla but i'm not even sure. Wasn't uncommon to reach 1000gpt on vanilla with a decent puppet empire.
Click to expand...

Yes, actually. I have more gold now than I did back in vanilla, despite the loss of river gold. I practically only build trading posts on jungles and puppets anyway. I guess you could say that in vanilla gold was easier to come by in the early game, while in BNW gold is easier in the late game, unless you're warmongering.
 
LoneRebel said:
It is true, unit costs go up by era. 8 was an exaggeration. It's probably 4 at the most like Gamewizard says, though I kinda remember it being higher than that.
Click to expand...

I just tested it, and at the very last era, it is 4g. I believe I'm thinking of vanilla or Civ 4.
 
LoneRebel said:
It is true, unit costs go up by era. 8 was an exaggeration. It's probably 4 at the most like Gamewizard says, though I kinda remember it being higher than that.
Click to expand...
The costs grow, but it's not by era, it uses a formula.
Some variables can be found and changed in:
Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\Assets\DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML\GameInfo

<InflationPercent>45</InflationPercent>
<InflationOffset>-60</InflationOffset>

I think on Standard Speed you're at 6 maintenance (not 100% sure if I remember that correctly) when time victory kicks in - and the longer you play, the higher the maintenance goes, basically making it unplayable after a while. ^^
 
Ryika said:
The costs grow, but it's not by era, it uses a formula.
Some variables can be found and changed in:
Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization V\Assets\DLC\Expansion2\Gameplay\XML\GameInfo

<InflationPercent>45</InflationPercent>
<InflationOffset>-60</InflationOffset>

I think on Standard Speed you're at 6 maintenance (not 100% sure if I remember that correctly) when time victory kicks in - and the longer you play, the higher the maintenance goes, basically making it unplayable after a while. ^^
Click to expand...



Since that is true I wonder if revenue does the same...
 
1) Work improved luxury tiles
2) Caravans to other civs
3) Build markets asap, even fill the merchant slot
 
CalGal said:
I went in and disbanded a bunch of my lower level units, and indeed saw my maintenance costs go way down (yay). But a couple of turns later I agreed to go to war against Isabella (with Theodora) and my gold immediately went to -87 Gold per turn!! Is that what happens when you go to war? arghhhhh!
Click to expand...

You might have lost some trade routes because of this war. Also, Isabella might have been sending you trade routes which would also cancel upon the war declaration.
 
CalGal said:
I went in and disbanded a bunch of my lower level units, and indeed saw my maintenance costs go way down (yay). But a couple of turns later I agreed to go to war against Isabella (with Theodora) and my gold immediately went to -87 Gold per turn!! Is that what happens when you go to war? arghhhhh!
Click to expand...

Did you check your trade routes?

And easiest way to fix that -87 gpt deficit is to spend your units in the war against isabella :)
 
Plan ahead for war. Stockpile gold. Burn a GA to kick off a goldenage, sell everything you can to your friends for hard cash. Once you have a nice stockpile, then go to war.

In my current game I was next to Songhai, and when he was done clobbering the civ on the other side I knew my turn was next, I saw him coming about 10 turns ahead, had about 1000gpt socked away when he declared, which was good. ALL my trade routes went through his territory and I immediately went to like -100g per turn for the duration of the war.

I was able to sell off lux's a few more times while his attacking army got wiped out, and then on the counter attack I took his two nearest cities but was forced to make peace before I could get to Gao because my slush fund was running out. So I made peace, rebuild the trade routes, socked away gold and then once I had my fund built up again, declared and took out Gao.

You have to plan for war sometimes.
 
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