How do discounts works? Are all the related UI bugged?

[bumpyglint]

I don’t understand how discounts work. At first, I thought the game was just poorly translated into my language (Italian), but after checking the wiki, I found the same issues in English.

For example, if something receives a discount, I would expect a description like "-50% cost for buildings." However, leaders like Augustus instead have "+50% Gold towards purchasing Buildings in Towns."

Reading "+50% Gold" suggests that buildings cost more with this ability, not less.

Initially, I assumed this was just a (hard-to-miss) UI issue, but then I noticed that a town focused on Factories provides "+100% toward purchasing factories." If I interpreted this as "-100%" instead of "+100%," I would expect factories to be free. Yet, they still cost around 50% of the "normal" price.

So, in a strange and convoluted way, it seems that "+X% toward purchasing Y" actually means "Buying Y without this ability would cost X% more," rather than "You get an X% discount on buying Y." It’s a really odd wording, but based on the calculations, this seems to be the only possible interpretation.

Did anyone else noticed this? Eventually I definitely think it should be changed and/ or worded in a better way.

 

[rocksinmypath]

It was like that in 6 with production. +15% production toward wonders means wonder construction cost is divided by 1.15. It was just that gold bonuses were never in that form and always in the form of discounts (i.e. subtract x% from base const). The only change they made in 7 is to make gold bonuses work the same way production bonuses did and still do.

 

[rocksinmypath]

The only real inconsistency is with growth because +25% growth actually means -25% to food requirement.

 

[Aurelesk]

I don’t understand how discounts work. At first, I thought the game was just poorly translated into my language (Italian), but after checking the wiki, I found the same issues in English.

For example, if something receives a discount, I would expect a description like "-50% cost for buildings." However, leaders like Augustus instead have "+50% Gold towards purchasing Buildings in Towns."

Reading "+50% Gold" suggests that buildings cost more with this ability, not less.

Initially, I assumed this was just a (hard-to-miss) UI issue, but then I noticed that a town focused on Factories provides "+100% toward purchasing factories." If I interpreted this as "-100%" instead of "+100%," I would expect factories to be free. Yet, they still cost around 50% of the "normal" price.

So, in a strange and convoluted way, it seems that "+X% toward purchasing Y" actually means "Buying Y without this ability would cost X% more," rather than "You get an X% discount on buying Y." It’s a really odd wording, but based on the calculations, this seems to be the only possible interpretation.

Did anyone else noticed this? Eventually I definitely think it should be changed and/ or worded in a better way.

This is more easily understood if we replace it with “Purchasing Power”. +100% Gold towards purchasing, would mean +100% Purchasing Power. For the same quantity of Gold, it will be possible to buy twice as much. Which means a 50% discount.

But I agree: "+50% Gold towards purchasing" does not make sense. It almost sounds like a penalty: that everything will cost 50% more.
I think they introduced this mechanic to avoid the problems of Civilization V and VI:
- In Civilization V, Mercantilism (-25%), Big Ben (-15%) and Skyscrapers (-33%) resulted in a 60% discount. The Mercantilism and Big Ben discounts were cumulative (-40%), but those for Skyscrapers were independent and came after. Math was not instinctive.
- In Civilization VI, all discounts added up. This led to aberrations where it was possible to have -100% (therefore free) on all units with Mali. They "fixed" that by limiting Democracy, and a maximum of -95%. Which...is still a problem?!

This new calculation makes it possible to avoid exponential accumulation. The designer will be able to play on this parameter without fear in the future. This is why having 5 Gold resources (5 times +20% Gold) does not allow you to have everything for free, but "only" halves the purchase cost.

So why didn't they simply call it "Purchasing Power" instead? No idea.