Using Gold to Rush: what a difference!

[remconius]

I am sure everyone has been in the situation in civ IV that you build a small niche city with a specific purpose and you were thinking: " One day this city will have a good size and some buildings it will be great. " But then you spend for ever waiting for this to happen.

When thinking about civ 5, I have the feeling the new rushing mechanics with gold from early on will make a huge difference, for 2 reasons:

1. No waiting - You dont need to wait till you have one hammer (or shield) in the build before you can buy/whip it. So you can buy a building every turn as long as you have cash.

2. No city dependence - The gold is generated in the empire, but spent where you choose. In previous games, you could rush in the beginning only if there was forest nearby, or if you had high food with slavery. Both were at a high price of unhappiness, population or forests.

Where it will make a big difference is in small filler cities with a specific purpose. Such as, small islands with only food and no production. Buying a lighthouse & granary in the first 2 turns will make a big difference later on libaray and market. Or the tundra cities with low food and a couple of resources that you want to work, beaver/silver will be much better if you can buy a granary, courthouse.

I am even wondering if a high focus on gold will not be overpowered.

[Shurdus]

It looks like a nice addition, buy why would it be overpowered? I would think a focus on gold will net a few extra gold got one extra unit our building every few turns. This will hardly pull everything out of balance, and I suspect there will be a nation our two who focus on gold.

[warpstorm]

Well, gold spent buying units and buildings is gold not spent on buying land for resources, bribing City-States to increase your culture or food, or spent on research pacts.

[remconius]

Overpowered is too be seen, but I think it will be very much worth it to build banks and markets.

In civ IV, running at 90-100% science it was not really worth it. Only in religious capital or if you wanted to build wall street.

I do think if you have powerful income position you have high flexibility to make changes, improvements, corrections, diplomact, etc. Of course you'll need a powerful science and culture position too.

[Cyberian]

I think it is a huge benefit.

In Civ4 I had nothing to do with gold in late game because I always needed to apply police state against war weariness. So no universal suffrage. I just used gold for diplomacy and unit upgrades.

Now with civ5 gold will really matter I hope.

I think the biggest impact rushing will have is for expansion and happiness. When you are playing expansive you will be hitting the happiness cap and will have to use gold reserves to rush happy buildings in newly found cities.

So my assumption is no expansion without a decently filled treasury.

[SeismoGraf]

A focus on gold and rush-buying will certainly give you flexibility. The power of it will largely depend on its cost. Do we already know the cost of rush-buying things? Didn't find the word "rush" in the confirmed features thread.

For my taste a ratio of 2 or 3 coins per 1 hammer would be good. There is the Mercantilism SP, giving "-25% cost to purchase items in Cities"; speculatively, this could indicate 4 coins for 1 hammer, later 3 for 1.

In Civ4 a city often had insufficient food in its small borders or even permanently. A granary would help a bit for growth, but not allow to work several bonus production tiles. With the new granary now giving +2 food flat, i see it as a good candidate to rush-buy. Also walls in border and choke cities, that only cost maintenance in peacetime, could (in some circumstances) be bought on-the-fly, only if and when a war breaks out.

[12agnar0k]

Yeah I'm really glad that the gold buying feature comes at the begging, I always hated that I couldn't use it until the late stage of the game.

Gold is so much more important, making it and spending it, games can be vastly different depending on how you spend your gold, do you want to build buildings in production poor cities, or just rush buildings needed sooner rather than later in normal cities, or rush units to aggressively conquer, or defend against an agressor, or bribe city-state officials into friendship, or trade with other Civ's, or buy up land around your cities, or stockpile it, greedy scrooge style .

Suffice to say, Gold Buying buildings/units is only one way to spend your stockpiles of gold, but one thing for sure, well those of us who are not uncle scrooge, we will be spending it in bucket loads. No more Civ style Slider, putting all of your gold(commere originally) into Science. It can now be spent on umpteen different things.

....

When the "Wealthiest Civ's" list probably comes up in this game, we will all know who the uncle scrooges are .

[Schuesseled]

I vastly preffered rush buying in civ rev, to civ 4, buying stuff with gold, is cool.

[Gath]

Originally Posted by remconius

I am sure everyone has been in the situation in civ IV that you build a small niche city with a specific purpose and you were thinking: " One day this city will have a good size and some buildings it will be great. " But then you spend for ever waiting for this to happen.

When thinking about civ 5, I have the feeling the new rushing mechanics with gold from early on will make a huge difference, for 2 reasons:

1. No waiting - You dont need to wait till you have one hammer (or shield) in the build before you can buy/whip it. So you can buy a building every turn as long as you have cash.

2. No city dependence - The gold is generated in the empire, but spent where you choose. In previous games, you could rush in the beginning only if there was forest nearby, or if you had high food with slavery. Both were at a high price of unhappiness, population or forests.

Where it will make a big difference is in small filler cities with a specific purpose. Such as, small islands with only food and no production. Buying a lighthouse & granary in the first 2 turns will make a big difference later on libaray and market. Or the tundra cities with low food and a couple of resources that you want to work, beaver/silver will be much better if you can buy a granary, courthouse.

I am even wondering if a high focus on gold will not be overpowered.

Yeah. The same way it was in Civ 1,2, and 3, except you could only do one building per turn in those.