Building Wealth

[Howard Mahler]

I consider building wealth to be one of the nicer features of HR.

It gets rid of the BTS "strategy" of building a wonder for the "fail gold."
It is silly that one would have to do this in BTS.

Building wealth makes sure that you always have something useful to build.

I think it is a bad idea to make building wealth only available much later in the game when Finance is researched.

As usual ones opinion depends on playing style, difficulty level, map type, etc.

I build wealth in several different situations:
1. As a stopgap for a turn or two when a new technology will allow me to start building an important building or wonder.
2. To keep my research moving forward when my economy is not doing well.
This may be for about 10 to 30 turns (marathon speed) and could be in more than one city. (This can be particularly important if one has an isolated start.)
3. When I have nothing useful to build right now in the particular city (and I do not want to build a military unit.)

In no case, did I find building wealth an unbalancing strategy.
It is just one possibility among many, which can be a useful choice in some situations.
Building wealth for a long time means you are not using those hammers to build military units, buildings, wonders, etc. There is clearly a trade-off.

I could see making building wealth a little weaker than currently early on, maybe 3 hammers for 2 money rather than 1 for 1; then it could go to 1 for 1 with Finance.

On balance, I would just leave building wealth alone.

Other opinions would be useful.

 

[Xyth]

I still have mixed thoughts about this potential change. I would really like more opinions on it. Is building wealth early too strong, and why?

 

[Xyth]

A question: does it have to building wealth that's available early? What if building wealth was shifted to Finance but building culture was brought forward more or less in its place?

I realize that culture is not as versatile as wealth overall but I completely agree that there should be something for early cities to build in the 'gaps' before a new tech or when you don't need military units and having everything else. This is why I moved wealth building so early in the first place.

To keep my research moving forward when my economy is not doing well.

This is where the issue lies. It is handy when you're struggling but when you're doing reasonably well it can become very powerful, covering all your costs and letting you buy
your way via diplomacy. Later in the game its less of a problem your costs are so much higher and you'd need to dedicated many more cities to wealth building for such a strategy to be effective.

I could see making building wealth a little weaker than currently early on, maybe 3 hammers for 2 money rather than 1 for 1; then it could go to 1 for 1 with Finance.

I did some experimenting with this, it seems possible but it's complicated.


I would still like more feedback on all of this. It's not something I have a defined opinion on yet.

 

[Simon_Jester]

A question: does it have to building wealth that's available early? What if building wealth was shifted to Finance but building culture was brought forward more or less in its place?

I realize that culture is not as versatile as wealth overall but I completely agree that there should be something for early cities to build in the 'gaps' before a new tech or when you don't need military units and having everything else. This is why I moved wealth building so early in the first place.

The problem is that this would be a largely useless gap filler- the one advantage would be that you could rapidly build 10 points of culture to expand a city radius to full size, and that's about it, because for most other purposes the added culture just doesn't make that much difference. You need it in border cities and in any culture-metropoli you're building for a Culture victory, yes. But in ancient times you can't produce enough culture to significantly speed the day when you reach 50000 culture or whatever, and most of your cities in the very early game aren't going to wind up close enough to a neighbor that you urgently need to reach the 100 and 500 culture milestones RIGHT NOW.

This is where the issue lies. It is handy when you're struggling but when you're doing reasonably well it can become very powerful, covering all your costs and letting you buy
your way via diplomacy. Later in the game its less of a problem your costs are so much higher and you'd need to dedicated many more cities to wealth building for such a strategy to be effective.

Hmm. I'm really, really not sure this is a big enough problem to justify changing the system.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Agree with Simon Jester with respect to culture.

I do not see your issue as anything important for the games I play.
At the let us say 6 city stage, building wealth may help me cover my costs, at the expense of building something else useful. But then so could all of the other civilizations.

I do not understand how "one can buy ones way via diplomacy."
(I just never do this with the AI, as I think it makes for a poor game.
I also do not play with goody huts.)
I believe if you gift an AI 10 gold you get a diplo bonus.
(I assume HR is the same BTS.)
I can do this without wealth.
Can you get more of bonus by doing it again?
Again, I am ignorant.

Yes building wealth can be useful.
Other things are more useful in the early game, such as Slavery, Monarchy, chopping forests, etc.

I would leave things alone.

A question: does it have to building wealth that's available early? What if building wealth was shifted to Finance but building culture was brought forward more or less in its place?

I realize that culture is not as versatile as wealth overall but I completely agree that there should be something for early cities to build in the 'gaps' before a new tech or when you don't need military units and having everything else. This is why I moved wealth building so early in the first place.



This is where the issue lies. It is handy when you're struggling but when you're doing reasonably well it can become very powerful, covering all your costs and letting you buy
your way via diplomacy. Later in the game its less of a problem your costs are so much higher and you'd need to dedicated many more cities to wealth building for such a strategy to be effective.



I did some experimenting with this, it seems possible but it's complicated.


I would still like more feedback on all of this. It's not something I have a defined opinion on yet.

 

[Xyth]

Okay, I've decided to leave wealth building at Property for now, but I'll look into splitting it into two or more 'ranks' (1:2, 1:1, etc) in the future.

In slightly related news, how often you receive an interest payment from the Financial trait will scale with gamespeed. Every gamespeed will now get 300 payments in total per game. I'm unsure if this could allow removal of the interest payment cap or not.