Budget Shortfall

[Charles 22]

I have seen something that I thought didn't occur in this game. If you upgrade a unit, shouldn't you only have to pay the price of the upgrade itself? I thought that's how the system works, but in my current game, and I think it has always been happening and I never noticed, but for each upgrade it's also taking a chunk out of your budget. Let's say you're +8 for the next turn's budget, with you changing nothing else, you upgrade a unit and suddenly it's only +2. I have seen it take larger chunks out too. Is this supposed to happen? It sure makes upgrading a fairly stupid thing to do. Man I have upgraded as much as a 100 units before; what a waste.

I just don't understand the rationale behind this, unless the budget becomes back aright within a few turns (I have no idea if that occurs). Afterall, each unit over the maximum is adding to the budget, and each unit, unless I'm mistaken, adds the same amount as any of the your other units (not including captured units), so why should the budget go up when I didn't add any units? To back this up, when I delete a unit the budget goes up. The only thing that makes any sense is if somehow the more expensive units also have a very large cost to the budget beyond what I see stated in the game. For example, a mech inf might cost 10gp per turn on the budget, while a rifleman might cost just the basic 1gp.

I believe I saw this happening when I was in republic as well, but I am currently under fascism.

 

[Charles 22]

I don't know, but i think I figured this out. Naturally the total gold will drop as it always does to upgrade a unit, but if the science level stays the same, and I wasn't changing it, then the surplus it looks like you are getting shrinks because with a smaller overall budget the science will have less to deal with, therefore it also affects the surplus for that turn. Does that sound reasonable or am I paying more than one way for the upgrade as I feared? I just found it sort of shocking, because I had never notice the plus or minus gold for the turn changing because I upgraded but just the total gold.

 

[Quintillus]

Each unit has the same support cost - a tank costs no more to upkeep than a Warrior.

Here's my guess: Have you built Wall Street? If so, you're getting 5% interest on the gold in your treasury up to 1000 gold. So if you spend 150 gold to upgrade a Spearman to a Rifleman, all of a sudden you have 7 or 8 less gold per turn in profit (depending on your starting gold). If you were just upgrading a Musketman to Rifleman, you'd be minus 1 or 2 gold per turn. And if it were a Warrior to a Modern Armor, you'd be minus 16 or 17 gold per turn. Of course when you upgraded 100 units your upkeep didn't increase by 600 or 800 GPT, because you only get interest on the first 1000 gold - the "upkeep" rose by 50 gold at most (actually lost interest). And it wouldn't depend on government type, either.

And since you're in Fascism, it's certainly possible that you have already built Wall Street.

Seems like the Wall Street idea covers all the bases of your problem, let me know if I guessed right.

 

[Charles 22]

Each unit has the same support cost - a tank costs no more to upkeep than a Warrior.

Here's my guess: Have you built Wall Street? If so, you're getting 5% interest on the gold in your treasury up to 1000 gold. So if you spend 150 gold to upgrade a Spearman to a Rifleman, all of a sudden you have 7 or 8 less gold per turn in profit (depending on your starting gold). If you were just upgrading a Musketman to Rifleman, you'd be minus 1 or 2 gold per turn. And if it were a Warrior to a Modern Armor, you'd be minus 16 or 17 gold per turn. Of course when you upgraded 100 units your upkeep didn't increase by 600 or 800 GPT, because you only get interest on the first 1000 gold - the "upkeep" rose by 50 gold at most (actually lost interest). And it wouldn't depend on government type, either.

And since you're in Fascism, it's certainly possible that you have already built Wall Street.

Seems like the Wall Street idea covers all the bases of your problem, let me know if I guessed right.

Oh yes, I had built Wall Street. It's good to know the answer to that mystery. No wonder I hadn't noticed that in the early game, but my upgrading is pretty few and far between before the tanks come out anyway. Thanks.