Citizens / Specialists - They cost more than you think

[Stalker0]

Something I realized recently was just how much a Citizen/Specialist actually "costs" in terms of resources, and once you actually look at the numbers, its pretty high. Now the population costs go up as culture goes up.

Lets look at Strong culture, aka one of your solid big cities, but not like a capital.

The cost is: -4 Money, 3 Food, 1 iron, 1 stone

For those curious, here are the lists of all costs across culture levels:

Spoiler :

All Levels: 4 money
Weak: 1 Food
Developing: 2 Food, 1 Iron
Strong: 3 Food, 1 Iron, 1 Stone
Legendary: 4 Food, 1 Iron, 1 Stone, 1 Wood

So lets convert that into money. On a typical map a bit later in the game, these are some rough trade numbers I see. Food = 1 money (we sell it at 1, and we will assume a surplus) Iron = 1 money (we sell it at 1, and we will assume a surplus) Stone = 12 money (we buy it at 12, and we generally always want more). Now these various slightly per game, sometimes its iron that's the needed resource, and sometimes its food (god help you then), but these are good values I see vary commonly over many games played.

This means 1 citizen in a Strong culture city cost ~= 18 gold.

You could argue the price is even higher earlier in the game when the sell prices of Food and Iron are 3-4ish, but again it gives us a ballpark. Now specialists come with much better yields and of course the +1 science, so you get a lot more bang for your buck. I think they are more than worth the big of money. But in terms of just raw citizens, I used to think that growing fast to get a bunch of them was worth it for the .1 orders. But now that .1 order has an 18 gold cost price tag....so is it worth it? I don't actually know myself, orders are quite valuable, is 1 order worth 180 gold most of the time? Is a raw citizen strat (with some specialists of course) a good idea, or should you not focus on growth past your capacity to turn them into citizens?

 

[Stalker0]

Now that we may the "price" of a specialist, its interesting to look at the Shopkeeper more closely.

So if we assume that a .1 orders is at least worth 18 gold (aka citizens have a net neutral value to us), than that means that a shopkeeper "costs" us a full 36 gold (cost of the citizen + the loss of .1 orders, as specialists don't generate orders). In return the master shopkeeper gives us 20 gold. So in total, the true value of a shopkeeper is (not even accounting for the base food cost to make the specialist):

+1 Science
+3 growth (we assumed strong culture before with our cost values, so +1 per culture x3)
-16 gold

So shopkeepers don't actually generate money, they just generate growth (and the normal specialist science). That is a bit weird when you think about it.

 

[PiR]

I didn't know about those per turn cost. Thanks, it definitely changes my perspective on citizens. Maybe this thread belongs to the strategy section?

 

[Ellye]

I think this highlights an issue of game systems where you have unlimited access to a infinite "global market" to buy/sell resources at any time, at any quantity.

Shopkeepers would work well as a way to trade Food for Gold - but you don't need them, you can just sell your food directly anyway.

 

[Taefin]

I think this highlights an issue of game systems where you have unlimited access to a infinite "global market" to buy/sell resources at any time, at any quantity.

Shopkeepers would work well as a way to trade Food for Gold - but you don't need them, you can just sell your food directly anyway.

So I guess only build shop keeps in cities that have at least grocer and hopefully a disciplined governor.

 

[nolegskitten]

I think this highlights an issue of game systems where you have unlimited access to a infinite "global market" to buy/sell resources at any time, at any quantity.

Shopkeepers would work well as a way to trade Food for Gold - but you don't need them, you can just sell your food directly anyway.

shopkeepers are about growth, not money

 

[Heathcliff]

Thats not right. You only pay money "maintanence" for citizens and not for specialists.
For every citizens you pay 4 money in maintanence, so it is good to convert them to specialists as soon as possible.

Also the food cost isnt as much as you have written but I dont know the exact formula.

 

[Stalker0]

Thats not right. You only pay money "maintanence" for citizens and not for specialists.
For every citizens you pay 4 money in maintanence, so it is good to convert them to specialists as soon as possible.

Also the food cost isnt as much as you have written but I dont know the exact formula.

So the specialist cost is "sneaky" because it doesn't tell in the main screen when it shows you the bonuses, but yes you are paying for them. If you go to the money area of a city, and drill down on the maintenance, you can see your paying 4 money for every population, whether that's a specialist or citizen.

As far as food goes, you may be confusing some changes with food costs that happened a few versions ago. The numbers I quoted you I pulled from literally looking at my cities in a current game on the most recent version.... so they are as accurate as you can get.

 

[Stalker0]

So I found one way to compare shopkeepers to another specialist was to compare it to the Doctor Specialist, as they both have very similar bonuses.

So if you assume that a doctor is a "good specialist", than we can do a direct comparison between a Master Doctor and Master Shopkeeper. If we remove all of the bonuses they have in common and simplify it down, we get this ratio:

1 science = 6.7 money

If you would easily pay 7 gold for another science, than shopkeepers are comparatively weak. If you trade science for that kind of money, than shopkeepers are in a strong place.

 

[Heathcliff]

I see didnt know you could get information there. It doesnt say anything about that specialists costs money if you hoover over them on the world map, but it does for citizens.

 

[PiR]

So the specialist cost is "sneaky" because it doesn't tell in the main screen when it shows you the bonuses, but yes you are paying for them. If you go to the money area of a city, and drill down on the maintenance, you can see your paying 4 money for every population, whether that's a specialist or citizen.

Which means you're gonna pay for them either way, so we should take that -4 money out of the equation and it might be better to convert in a specialist no?

 

[Heathcliff]

It also means that Apadana which gives -50% maintenance is very good.
It will save alot of money - best wonder, worth rushing for?

Also improvements without a specialist also cost maintenance which is another reason to build specialist, and give you a reason to not spam improvements.
Which is nice game design, it makes what is best to build a very complex puzzle.

 

[steveg700]

Also improvements without a specialist also cost maintenance which is another reason to build specialist, and give you a reason to not spam improvements.
Which is nice game design, it makes what is best to build a very complex puzzle.

Let's not go nuts here. If it was a very complex puzzle, then an AI couldn't play lol.

It's better design than in Civ, where they they don't give players credit for managing their empires, so you get loaded up with bonuses that come at the expense of nothing. But of course, the AI does spam. It certainly spams units with reckless abandon and heedless of maintenance.

 

[steveg700]

On a related note, how heavily do you guys utilize markets? They're so low on any build list I ever have that the benefit of shopkeepers rarely comes up. I'm using hamlets to push out borders and allow more urban expansion, and they usually wind up being more than adequate at generating income.

 

[PiR]

Hamlets generate a fixed amount of gold. Markets a % of your city's output. So if your city is already doing a lot, then the market will definitely be worth it. Although it often arrives long after I've solved the gold problem, it's still a nice addition to the gpt.