Does anyone else....

[RonMar]

RE: AI's buying luxuries when they don't need them.

Remember it helps them to get Golden Ages.

 

[Lay_Lay]

You sell luxuries for the cash but also to cripple the AI. If it were optimal play, the human would be spending tons of cash buying up the AI's luxuries, but we don't do that because it is poor play.
So for the AI to be buying up your luxuries at a premium instead of trying to sell his (for the cash to run some gambit) is shoddy play.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

RE: AI's buying luxuries when they don't need them.

Remember it helps them to get Golden Ages.

But
1. Happiness doesn't help you get more Golden Age if you are in a golden age
2. paying 2 gold for 1 point in the Golden Age Happiness bucket is probably a bad deal gold wise

 

[jerbacca78]

But
1. Happiness doesn't help you get more Golden Age if you are in a golden age
2. paying 2 gold for 1 point in the Golden Age Happiness bucket is probably a bad deal gold wise

But for buildings, you have to invest a significant number of hammers and time. That's why you pay a premium for luxuries, they are instant and require no hammers. Think about what else you could have done with all those hammers & turns if you hadn't built the coloseum.

Considering the above two points, Let's examine the case where you rush buy a colloseum (400). Assume you get 200 turns of use out of that colosseum for 2gpt (added to the 1gpt upkeep). That will net you 3gpt for 2 or 1.5gpt per .
Obviously this is not as efficient as building the colosseum with hammers, but it could be argued that rush buying is a better approximation of selling resources than building slowly over time. If we absolutely needed happines immediately we would consider buying resources, and we could also rush buy happiness buildings.
This brings the 2gpt cost of buying 1 closer to what one would be paying to rush buy . Now there is also a significant markup, but it is not 4 TIMES!! , and all is fair in love + war (and business too).