maintenence - how does it work

[Shillen]

I'll add some data. Here's a modern era game.

18 units, 108 maintenance
17 units, 95 maintenance
15 units, 81 maintenance
13 units, 69 maintenance
11 units, 56 maintenance
9 units, 44 maintenance
7 units, 31 maintenance
5 units, 20 maintenance
3 units, 9 maintenance
1 unit, 0 maintenance

edit: This game was on prince normal sized map normal speed.

 

[Drakken]

This is one of the subjects that has me raging mad. The upkeep costs are insane. As you go through the ages the upkeep costs skyrocket but your trade posts don't make any more money. Upkeep costs seem to have quadrupled yet we are given a market and bank that increase income by 50% when you have both built.

I am in the medieval age 1000 AD on a marathon game. I have 4 cities of 11,10,6,4 population. I have 6 military units, 2 triremes, and 4 workers. My unit upkeep has destroyed the game. I am playing on a huge map and 6 units to defend and attack is way too few to cover a map like this. My trade routs barely pay for the road upkeep and harbor upkeep.

I guess I can't start a game unless I happen to have a lot of grassland with rivers.

It is crazy you don't have upkeep for each unit but for every other one. Who's idea was that? What an idiot.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It is crazy you don't have upkeep for each unit but for every other one. Who's idea was that? What an idiot.

This is similar to charging you double the toll for crossing a bridge going in one direction, and charging you nothing for going the other direction. You can game the system marginally, but in practice it's effectively the same system.

The real issue here (as already noted) is that the mechanics aren't transparent. The game needs something like the F2 screen ($ icon) from Civ 4. That screen told you when you were going to have to start laying out cash for unit upkeep. In Civ 5, you have no idea what you will be paying when.

When you can't anticipate the consequences of your decisions, that's not fun. If the formula isn't obvious, then the players need information that helps them understand the likely consequences. Compare the way upkeep is treated to the way combat information is presented.

We should expect to see a similar improvement in presentation for upkeep as compared to Civ 4's F2 screen. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it has to be clear and accessible at a glance.

EDIT: cembandit, The AI cheats. Always has, always will.

 

[cembandit]

I'm still trying to figure out how Germany has 30 puppet cities in prince, and can still afford a massive army.

 

[Arathorn]

Transparency is key. The costs also seem/feel high to me, especially late-game, where everything else is also conspiring to keep cash down (limited cash buildings, no increase in land improvements, building maintenance always increasing, etc.). But that might just be an opinion without sufficient backing and/or due to the aforementioned transparency issue.

The manual/'pedia is ... disasterrific. And that's being kind. I mean, I expect a bit of disconnect between the manual and the game, as the manual typically comes out first and tweaks may change things. The bad 'pedia is poor design, though. It should draw directly from xml files and have valuable information.

None of that means I'm less anxious to play again, however....

Arathorn

 

[Mannu]

Oh, and I would love if they introduced a 'automated workers don't clear forests' option.

And Automated Workers Leave Improvements!

Also, the AI should know that if you've locked a citizen to a tile not to change the improvement on that tile.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, the main problem is that the upkeep costs are not transparent. It would be nice to have a tooltip explaining it, maybe a gold cost besides each unit.

 

[kurtkage]

18 units, 108 maintenance
17 units, 95 maintenance
15 units, 81 maintenance
13 units, 69 maintenance
11 units, 56 maintenance
9 units, 44 maintenance
7 units, 31 maintenance
5 units, 20 maintenance
3 units, 9 maintenance
1 unit, 0 maintenance

Ok these types of examples are all well and good but where I am really confused is the apparent "inflation" tied to unit maint. I posted in another thread about it and have seen others post it as well that even if you Do Not build any more units your upkeep cost goes up without entering a new era. So is it not based on era but on turns?

So frustrating to have the same amount of units that you did 100 turns ago but have double the maint and have no clue in the UI or pedia as to why.

 

[Drevar]

I find myself dealing with massive swings in gold/turn. Barely scraping by with +3 or 4 gold per turn and then completing ONE single work boat and my gold output dives to -25 (minus 25 per turn). I only have a few units, usually under 10, so I have no clue why it cost so much.

I also find my gold sinking with no idea what is causing it. Perhaps the AI shifting citizens around on plots?

Drev

 

[DalekDavros]

And Automated Workers Leave Improvements!

You can set this one in the game's ini file.

 

[robk]

I may have found a clue to the unit maintenance mystery, though I don't know exactly how these fit in yet.

I noticed that the cache directory has some sqlite database files in it with just tons of stuff stored in them. One of the tables is called "Defines" and there are two parameters related to unit maintenance.

(if something is misspelled, its probably my fault because I can't copy-n-paste the output; I'm typing it by hand)

select * from defines where lower(name) like "%maint%";
UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_MULTIPLIER           8
UNIT_MAINTENANCE_GAME_EXPONENT_DIVISOR     7