Disbanding old workers vs. disbanding new workers

[Magic1264]

I've been noticing a certain trend in passing that if I disband and older worker crew, I will get a large boost to my GPT, yet if I disband a newly captured worker, even multiple per turn, I won't see the GPT boost (or the subtractions to your gpt).

I know workers have maintenance attached to them, so I was just curious if other people were experiencing the same thing, what kind of math is behind worker maintenance, or anything else worker related that is drastically different from civ 4?

 

[MuteWolf]

I've been noticing a certain trend in passing that if I disband and older worker crew, I will get a large boost to my GPT, yet if I disband a newly captured worker, even multiple per turn, I won't see the GPT boost (or the subtractions to your gpt).

I know workers have maintenance attached to them, so I was just curious if other people were experiencing the same thing, what kind of math is behind worker maintenance, or anything else worker related that is drastically different from civ 4?

I had a situation where I had way too many workers so I disbanded several and the results seemed to vary. Some gave me more GPT but others actually just gave me a small chunk of gold. I didn't know which were captured and which were made maybe that made the difference but it seemed to me that every other one was GPT. Wasn't sure what was going on with that.

 

[Spatzimaus]

I've been noticing a certain trend in passing that if I disband and older worker crew, I will get a large boost to my GPT, yet if I disband a newly captured worker, even multiple per turn, I won't see the GPT boost (or the subtractions to your gpt).

That's not actually what's happening, but it's an easy mistake to make. Unit support, in Civ 5, goes as a function of every TWO units. That is, the "odd" unit is free, but the "even" unit might cost you 12 gold per turn. Unit support does not depend on the age of the unit, or how powerful it is; your ancient-era Scout takes as much gold as a brand-new Battleship.

When you disbanded your "old" worker, you'd probably had an even number of units at the time, so you gained a large amount of gold. But when you disbanded your "new" worker, you'd had an odd number, so all you were losing was a "free" unit and you didn't gain any gold back.

Don't believe me? Load the game up, and disband them in the reverse order. You'll see the exact same effect.

 

[neptune2000]

That's not actually what's happening, but it's an easy mistake to make. Unit support, in Civ 5, goes as a function of every TWO units. That is, the "odd" unit is free, but the "even" unit might cost you 12 gold per turn. Unit support does not depend on the age of the unit, or how powerful it is; your ancient-era Scout takes as much gold as a brand-new Battleship.

When you disbanded your "old" worker, you'd probably had an even number of units at the time, so you gained a large amount of gold. But when you disbanded your "new" worker, you'd had an odd number, so all you were losing was a "free" unit and you didn't gain any gold back.

Don't believe me? Load the game up, and disband them in the reverse order. You'll see the exact same effect.

So it's totalUnits/2 * gpt, not pairs of units of the same type? This would also indicate that it's slightly more efficient to keep an odd number of units where possible.