disbanding units for gold - misunderstood?

[chazzycat]

I keep reading about people disbanding scouts & workboats in order to generate gold as opposed to building wealth, and I feel like I am seeing a different result.

Ok, here is the scenario:

- My gold income is at 7/turn (paltry, I know) with 1 turn left on building the scout
- Let's say gold reserve is at 100 for simplicity
- I have established that unit costs are at 7/unit at this stage in the game, by disbanding units and seeing the per turn go up by 7.

With +7 GPT and 100 in the bank, after ending my turn I expected the total to go up to 107 and the GPT to drop to zero because of maintenance. However, it did NOT go up at all. At the beginning of the next turn, GPT is 0 and my total is still 100.

So this made me think, does it subtract the maintenance cost for units that finish building that turn? That's really the only reasoning I could think of. If this is the case, building units would not seem to be very beneficial since you are paying for the maintenance right off the bat, negating a substantial portion of the gold you gain from disbanding.

I have a feeling I am just totally missing something....can someone let me know??

-Chaz

P.S. Yes this piqued my curiosity enough to create an account and make my first ever post.

 

[Ahriman]

Disbanding a unit gives you the gold instantly, not in between turns.

Maintenance costs are bugged in that only every second unit increases your (displayed) unit maintenance cost.

Welcome to the forums!

 

[morss_4]

Disbanding a unit gives you the gold instantly, not in between turns.

I think he understands this.

He is saying that maintenance costs will get applied before you get a chance to disband. In other words net revenue is calculated immediately after unit production. You hit end turn, the unit is built, and then you pay maintenance. Then you get to disband it on your next turn.

Whether this is true or not I don't know as I don't have the game in front of me. Obviously you could get around it by making your sacrificial scout an odd numbered unit, giving it a maintenance cost of 0, but that does seem quite annoying to have to manage.

 

[chazzycat]

Thanks for the quick response. I know that the disbanding give you the money instantly, my point is that it seems to subtract the maintenance on that turn it was built as well. So if I am making 10 Gold off disbanding, but paying 7 in maintenance, the benefit is not that great.

Also, I see what you mean that only the 2nd unit will show the cost. So I suppose that means that the actual cost is only 3.5 per turn? Either way, if my observation is true, it would still mean that disbanding units is less useful than previously thought. If the profit is still 6.5 instead of 3 that is still less than the 10 people think they are getting.

 

[morss_4]

Thanks for the quick response. I know that the disbanding give you the money instantly, my point is that it seems to subtract the maintenance on that turn it was built as well. So if I am making 10 Gold off disbanding, but paying 7 in maintenance, the benefit is not that great.

Also, I see what you mean that only the 2nd unit will show the cost. So I suppose that means that the actual cost is only 3.5 per turn? Either way, if my observation is true, it would still mean that disbanding units is less useful than previously thought. If the profit is still 6.5 instead of 3 that is still less than the 10 people think they are getting.

It is not that only the 2nd unit shows the cost, only the 2nd unit INCURS a cost, at least so far as I am aware.

In other words if you have 1 unit in your case your mainentance cost is 0. 2 gives you a cost of 7. 3 is again 7, 4 is 14 and so forth.

(To be honest I don't know if costs are incurred on odd or even unit numbers, but the point is the same, only every 2nd unit "counts.")

 

[Zechnophobe]

Thanks for the quick response. I know that the disbanding give you the money instantly, my point is that it seems to subtract the maintenance on that turn it was built as well. So if I am making 10 Gold off disbanding, but paying 7 in maintenance, the benefit is not that great.

Also, I see what you mean that only the 2nd unit will show the cost. So I suppose that means that the actual cost is only 3.5 per turn? Either way, if my observation is true, it would still mean that disbanding units is less useful than previously thought. If the profit is still 6.5 instead of 3 that is still less than the 10 people think they are getting.

I suppose that is an interesting point.

Build a unit
Pay maintenance on that unit
Disband for 10 gold.

That loop isn't as efficient as it looked since you pay for it that extra turn. Good find.

 

[chazzycat]

Interesting...didn't know that. That's a big difference because like you said you can micromanage it to avoid that cost, so long as you are only doing this with one city at a time.

(i'm still curious about the maintenance)

 

[Cuzno]

According to my experience almost everything turn related happens at the beginning of each round, at least research and city food work that way, so I'd assume gpt does too. Found out when the food gets added the hard way when I was microing my capital's worked tiles in between turns right after it grew to 3 pop and the new turn started while i had 1 citizen unemployed, which put me at -2 food per turn, and the capital shrank to 2 pop...

 

[chazzycat]

Well, I just read the post about the upcoming patch. Looks like wealth is getting a buff, hopefully rendering this question meaningless

 

[Veshta]

Maintenance is deducted at the end of the turn as far as I am aware, the fluctuating numbers doesn't mean that you actually paid for the unit you just built just indicates what you will pay if nothing else changes (like disbanding units).

Apparently Firaxis realised the same thing and will be increasing the 'build gold' option to 25% which is a nice midpoint of the disband gimmick.