Is there a way to purchase partially completed units?

[nuschler22]

I thought I remembered that you use to be able to purchase partially completed units that's not available in Civ 5.

For example, if a unit costs 200, but you've worked on it for five out 10 turns to complete it, the cost went down to purchase it to like 110 or so. Which makes sense because you're able to pay for extra work, resources, etc to complete it.

Is there a mod that allows for this, does anyone know?

 

[Mutineer]

No, there is not

 

[Civsassin]

No. You will purchase a new unit, and the unit in production will continue to be produced. If you change production, you'll have lost the hammers you put into it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm definitely interested in hearing about it if there's a mod that changes this.

A different but related question to the OP's:
What is the design reason for disallowing the purchasing of partially complete units or buildings (not wonders)?

To me it seems highly unintuitive to have to juggle build orders in order to avoid wasting hammers. If it's going to take me 30 turns to build a library, or I could buy it in 10 turns with the gold I've accumulated (and I want the library asap), the best course of action is to build now whatever it is I want after the library, and then buy the library in 10 turns time.

This is in fact the opposite of streamlining. It leads to more number-crunching than before (what civ4 and IIRC every previous civ game did - allowing discounted purchasing of builds based on already invested hammers, or 'shields' as they were known before civ4 ).

 

[MonkeyStank]

yes, it doesn't make any sense at all on why you do not get a discount. When I was building a specific thing, then wanted to switch production to a unit because I was at war, I noticed that my production stayed with my previous thing. All that time spent did not earn me a discount on what I was switching to. If I stopped producing a building with 21 turns left till it finished, it stayed at 21 turns till I picked it up again, meanwhile, I have to start from scratch on the unit.

Technically, the time spent is still there, it just does not get reallocated like in previous civs. Personally, I preferred the old way. If you put the time and hammers in, it shouldn't matter what you spend it on. The game forces you to stick with one thing, or the other now.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

IIRC, there was an attempt at altering the Build-Queues (Improved_v7 by DireAussie) to somehow tie the Purchase button to the current items listed for production... when i realized it wasn't working as intended (or claimed) i simply deleted that mod in November.

But... if you indirectly plan for a stash and can keep tabs on pending items - it might be "perceived" as a delayed purchasing process.
Risky though, since it uses CityView.lua & ProductionPopup.lua

 

[Jatta Pake]

I don't lose hammers when I switch production mid stream. I use production changes as a way to manage maintance costs.

For example: In the early game I will put production into a variety of Units but not complete them (what good is an Archer if you are not in war?). I also build buildings partially and switch back when it's economical to complete the building. For example: A coliseum isn't worth the maintenance costs until your city reaches a pop 4. But you can put invest hammers into it while your city grows in population.

I'm surprised folks don't know this.

 

[Rince]

Don't the invested hammers degrade over time?

 

[Michl2602]

I thought I remembered that you use to be able to purchase partially completed units that's not available in Civ 5.

For example, if a unit costs 200, but you've worked on it for five out 10 turns to complete it, the cost went down to purchase it to like 110 or so. Which makes sense because you're able to pay for extra work, resources, etc to complete it.

Is there a mod that allows for this, does anyone know?

In the vanilla game you can change build order, build something else and go back to the first build afterwards[0]. As I read, you lose some hammers even then, but those are marginal.

[0] eg. you have 3 moves left to finish a warrior, when you get to writing. So you switch to Library --> National College and afterwards finish the warrior in 3 moves.

 

[Superluminal]

Don't the invested hammers degrade over time?

No. They remain in place until the project is finished.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Technically, the time spent is still there, it just does not get reallocated like in previous civs. Personally, I preferred the old way. If you put the time and hammers in, it shouldn't matter what you spend it on. The game forces you to stick with one thing, or the other now.

It doesn't make any sense if you spend 10 turns building a library. Then switch to say building an Archer and have some kind credit in hammers toward the Archer.

I would think what makes more sense (and what I though happened) was that if you spend 10 turns building a library, then switch to a new selection, the library retains the 10 turns worth of hammers, while you build the new selection

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It doesn't make any sense if you spend 10 turns building a library. Then switch to say building an Archer and have some kind credit in hammers toward the Archer.

I would think what makes more sense (and what I though happened) was that if you spend 10 turns building a library, then switch to a new selection, the library retains the 10 turns worth of hammers, while you build the new selection

That is what happens (although the 10 hammers will start to decay if you leave the library alone for ~50 turns)

For units the partially completed buying isn't much of an issue though...
Archer with 10 hammers, buy an Archer... Now I can still finish building the other Archer.

However it doesn't work with a Library because you only have 1 Library/City...
So Library w 10 Hammers, But Library.... now those 10 hammers are lost (I think. do they become Overflow?)

 

[Creepy Old Man]

That is what happens (although the 10 hammers will start to decay if you leave the library alone for ~50 turns)

For units the partially completed buying isn't much of an issue though...
Archer with 10 hammers, buy an Archer... Now I can still finish building the other Archer.

However it doesn't work with a Library because you only have 1 Library/City...
So Library w 10 Hammers, But Library.... now those 10 hammers are lost (I think. do they become Overflow?)

If they became overflow, that would be such a huge exploit we'd know about it.

Build 9/10 turns of building A. Build 7/8 turns of building B. Build 14/15 turns of building C.

Discover new technology.

Start building wonder unlocked by new technology.

Rush-buy buildings A, B, and C. Get 30 turns overflow instantly. Insta-build wonder.

 

[eris]

I'm definitely interested in hearing about it if there's a mod that changes this.

A different but related question to the OP's:
What is the design reason for disallowing the purchasing of partially complete units or buildings (not wonders)?

To me it seems highly unintuitive to have to juggle build orders in order to avoid wasting hammers. If it's going to take me 30 turns to build a library, or I could buy it in 10 turns with the gold I've accumulated (and I want the library asap), the best course of action is to build now whatever it is I want after the library, and then buy the library in 10 turns time.

This is in fact the opposite of streamlining. It leads to more number-crunching than before (what civ4 and IIRC every previous civ game did - allowing discounted purchasing of builds based on already invested hammers, or 'shields' as they were known before civ4 ).

To me, it is simply the extra money you pay for being impatient. Either plan ahead or waste money. Your choice. It is a different choice set than Civ 4. Civ 5 lets you buy your way out of a whole lot of situations. This just isn't one of them. From my observation you can either adjust your strategy or adjust the game. I am attempting the former. It sounds like you are looking for the latter.

 

[Bibor]

Coming from a SMAC + Civ4 background I can see where this is coming from, but I personally don't mind the change. If you need the unit - rush buy it completely. You can still continue building the other unit. If you need one out that quickly that you'll spend cash rush buy it partially, you probably need the other one as well.

 

[JohnnyW]

To me, it is simply the extra money you pay for being impatient. Either plan ahead or waste money. Your choice. It is a different choice set than Civ 4. Civ 5 lets you buy your way out of a whole lot of situations. This just isn't one of them. From my observation you can either adjust your strategy or adjust the game. I am attempting the former. It sounds like you are looking for the latter.

This is what he was talking about.....He is saying it's a "gamey" type of strategy; you know, the type of thing civ5 lovers hate about civ4?

Coming from a SMAC + Civ4 background I can see where this is coming from, but I personally don't mind the change. If you need the unit - rush buy it completely. You can still continue building the other unit. If you need one out that quickly that you'll spend cash rush buy it partially, you probably need the other one as well.

And buildings? Oh wait, I forgot war is still the only important thing in this game.

 

[PieceOfMind]

To me, it is simply the extra money you pay for being impatient. Either plan ahead or waste money. Your choice. It is a different choice set than Civ 4. Civ 5 lets you buy your way out of a whole lot of situations. This just isn't one of them. From my observation you can either adjust your strategy or adjust the game. I am attempting the former. It sounds like you are looking for the latter.

Making rules different for the heck of it doesn't appeal to me. This is exactly why I ask in my post if anyone is aware of a design reason for the change.

You're getting worryingly close to telling me I want civ4. I can assure you that's not the case. I'm more than happy to embrace change, but changes that make the game less intuitive or more 'gamey' for no good design reason I will sometimes question.

I don't have this obsession with hating everything in the name of 'streamlining', as it seems a lot of people on this forum do. In fact I'd argue that one of civ5's biggest improvements over civ4 is its attempts to streamline the game further (many of those attempts being successful, some of those attempts neither here nor there).

The most streamlined game in this instance is the one where when your city is asking for a new build order, you build what you want now or want as soon as possible. Building what you want next and buying in a few more turns what you want now adds more calculations to the process and more requirements on the player to remember to buy the thing in 10 turns time.

It's entirely possible to have a game mechanic in this case where the penalty for rushing a building or unit early (perhaps each of the two could be treated a bit differently) has a penalty that depends on how early it is. Remember that in civ4 if you rushed something on the first turn of putting hammers towards it you paid an extra penalty (50% or so extra IIRC). After the first turn, there was no longer much incentive to delay the rushing (other than situational ones), so it was still fairly gamey in civ4 and could have been done better.

One could make the cost of rush-buying a unit or building be based on a gold-to-hammer conversion 3:1 (or whatever the rough ratio is in game at the moment) with a penalty that decreases either linearly or exponentially (or any other suggestions for how rapid to decrease it) with how many hammers have been invested. This way you would pay a premium for rushing something, but not be penalised (any more than the inherent inefficiency of the base gold-to-hammer conversion) very much at all if you've already gone some way to completing it.

So getting back to what you said, yes I'm more than happy to make suggestions on how to modify the game. So far I have not seen any good reason for the way this feature has been implemented in civ5 other than it being a 'different set of rules'.

Just like I strongly advocated the re-introduction of the beaker overflow mechanic after it was bizarrely left absent in civ5, I do a similar thing here.

 

[magnus333]

The obvious reason it was changed was to help the AI accurately determine war score.
In civ4 it didn't really matter if you partially worked on 10 units and then rush-bought them all on one turn because 10 units was 1/10th or 1/20th of your army.

In civ5, instantly rushing just 5 units can double your army and thus your war score, which the AI uses to determine whether it can or can not effectively wage a war against you. If partial rush-buys were possible in civ5, the AI would have to expect this to be the case and double it's forces before considering a war in every case. If that happened the poor joe who didn't exploit a rush-army would be crushed every time (assuming the AI could wage a war...) That creates an extremely narrow style of 'correct' play, which wouldn't be ideal.

The last thing civ5 needs is more ways to game the AI.

 

[Bibor]

And buildings? Oh wait, I forgot war is still the only important thing in this game.

Taking out of context is always bad journalism.

There's a clear line between "planning ahead" and "needing now" instead of the blurry in-between.
It's the developer's choice of what can be rushed and what cannot.
If you need a building out without paying - emphasize hammers.
There's a 50% rush-buy discount possibility in this game, plan for it and use it.
This is true for both buildings and units.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

There's a 50% rush-buy discount possibility in this game, plan for it and use it.
This is true for both buildings and units.

BigBen is such a cheat - just say it.