Why do Great People cost money?

[Cajamarca]

This has been bugging me for a while now. I recently went for an Honor start with Attila on a Great Plains Duel map (I am lazy and hate losing). Upon picking Warrior code and spawning a Great General, I did some math and realized that this one guy was sucking up over 14% of my entire civilization's GDP (not for long, though. Heheheh).

I'm not sure if it's the case now, but i think at one point unit maintenance per unit went up exponentially (albeit with a very shallow ∂/∂x) as the number of units increased. Saving the Great Scientists from the PT and the LToP for a late-game bulb would easily cost several hundred gold, since each of those two dudes costs just as much as a work team or military unit and counts towards the total.

Should Rosalind Franklin really cost as much per turn as an Infantry platoon? The opportunity cost of saving them rather than immediately planting them for the improvement is trade-off enough, in my opinion.

Also, I don't think they should count against your Unit limit (not that that comes up frequently).

And my number one complaint: Barbarians shouldn't instantly kill Great People (especially merchants. Grrrr...). Barbs should take them back to camp like any other civilian.

 

[ldvhl]

Great People need a lot of money to stay loyal and working I guess.

 

[Catan_Settler]

It's just another choice you have to make. Is it worth it to pay the gold to keep them aruond for later, or would you be better off planting them and saving the gold? For my part I tend to plant all great people ASAP if it's the early to mid game (before turn 250 on standard speed) except for maybe one general that I'll keep around if I'm involved in some wars. If you think about the General's bonus it's 15% to all nearby troops so... You could work out the math on how much combat strength you are getting on average from a general, and I think the math would favor the general over, say, purchasing an extra few melee troops to 'equal' the same amount of combat strength.

Well, it's up to you of course. If you don't think it's worth 1 gold per turn for that buff, then make him into a citadel. Nuff said.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

Great People need a lot of money to stay loyal and working I guess.

For example, look at what happened to the Great Artist Lars Ulrich (Metallica) when Napster started infringing on his record sales, reducing his annual returns from millions to millions minus a few tens of thousands.

 

[mintcandy]

I think the more pertinent question is more about unit cost.

My assumption: units basically have the same cost, which means that an aircraft carrier costs as much to maintain per turn as a Scout does.

However, the cost per unit escalates based on how many units are in a civilization, which means that 8 Warriors costs more to maintain per turn than a single Giant Death Robot.

If my assumption is correct, I question the logic of determining unit maintenance purely based on how many other units have to be maintained.

 

[joncnunn]

My best guess as to actual reason is that because great people also counted as units in Civ IV; so it was copied over.
It's just a lot more noticeable in Civ V because the free unit threshold was greatly reduced and your army is a lot smaller. (In addition, Civ V eliminated the surcharge on military units from IV; but even that had 1 warrior costing the same maintenance as a Mech Inf. I think the idea for both Civ IV & V is that they want to encourage you to upgrade your army instead of keeping stone age units around into the modern age.)

 

[Cajamarca]

For example, look at what happened to the Great Artist Lars Ulrich (Metallica) when Napster started infringing on his record sales, reducing his annual returns from millions to millions minus a few tens of thousands.

Lulz.

 

[Arachnofiend]

For example, look at what happened to the Great Artist Lars Ulrich (Metallica) when Napster started infringing on his record sales, reducing his annual returns from millions to millions minus a few tens of thousands.

Lars, a Great Artist? Thanks for the laugh.

All units cost the same maintenance, IIRC, so yes they are expensive. Generally worth the money though so it doesn't bother me.

 

[apocalypse105]

Because they are civilian units and in civ 5 civilians (workers , great people) cost money

 

[Walter R]

My best guess as to actual reason is that because great people also counted as units in Civ IV; so it was copied over.
It's just a lot more noticeable in Civ V because the free unit threshold was greatly reduced and your army is a lot smaller. (In addition, Civ V eliminated the surcharge on military units from IV; but even that had 1 warrior costing the same maintenance as a Mech Inf. I think the idea for both Civ IV & V is that they want to encourage you to upgrade your army instead of keeping stone age units around into the modern age.)

I'm not clear on what you meant with this: Did you mean that old units with lots of promotions and upgrades cost more upkeep than new recruits of the same class?

 

[joncnunn]

I'm not clear on what you meant with this: Did you mean that old units with lots of promotions and upgrades cost more upkeep than new recruits of the same class?

Nope; there's neither Civ IV nor Civ V has a surcharge for promotions.

I was referring to people having a tendency to never upgrade their ancient era units in safe locations performing MP duty to more modern units in previous versions of Civ; and so the last thing firaxis wanted was to do something introducing disincentives to modernize the army. (And so a Tank costs the same gold maintenance as a Warrior in Civ III, IV, and V.)

 

[Light Cleric]

Do you know how expensive it is to maintain Sun Tzu's 1600's jeep?

 

[pilot00]

Do you know how expensive it is to maintain Sun Tzu's 1600's jeep?

Or those kettle things Mr Hypatia, Eulucid and John Dalton cruise around....

Btw I want to thank the op for this because I....Well I ll say it: I though that every time I planted a great person it granted some gold per turn due to a bug or something.....Never had it crossed my mind that you pay for the buggers....