Negative income disbands units, too

[gskyes]

I just found out the hard way, but If your gold reaches 0 and you have negative gpt, the game will start disbanding 1 unit per turn. I saw no mention of this in the manual or the civilopedia, they only mention the loss of science. So I was quite surprised when a pop-up appeared telling me my cannon had to go bye-bye because I had no money.

This happened late in the game where I was aiming for a cultural victory and my economy started to crash. I had already researched Globalization and was waiting for the last few policies to come in when my golden age ended, my income dropped to negative, and I had just spent most of my gold as gifts to city states. I figured I didn't need science anymore and made the decision to just let the economy tank and wait out the win. Then I started losing units.

Don't make this mistake.

 

[Ahriman]

AFAIL, it consumes science first before it starts disbanding anything. If you get all the way down where your gold deficit exceeds your science income, then your economy is truly in a shambles and yeah, you should start losing units.

Unfortunate that you can't disband buildings though.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I do agree you Definitely need to be able to remove buildings.
(some changes might need to be made, ie stables give gold boost when cavalry become obsolete, Give some better use for the Military Base: Airport with Flight?, so there is a reason to keep Walls/Castles)
And of course you couldn't sell buildings that were the prerequisite for another building (including National wonders?)

 

[Ahriman]

ie stables give gold boost when cavalry become obsolete

This is the most obvious one. There's even already XML ready, with the Mughal fort.

Give some better use for the Military Base: Airport with Flight?, so there is a reason to keep Walls/Castles)
And of course you couldn't sell buildings that were the prerequisite for another building

Well, these go together of course; military base has these as pre-reqs, so you'd be unable to sell them.
And make some buildings (courthouse) un-sellable too.

I don't even need you to be able to get any gold back from disbanding (could be exploitable for diplomatic victory!), just the ability to raze the building entirely and lose the upkeep cost would be nice.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

There is the exploit of ditching all the buildings in a city before it gets captured.

Perhaps if you had to Pay to get rid of a Building, 1 Gold for every 1-2 hammers charge.

That way if you wanted to "Scorched Earth" someone taking your city it would be costly.

And make it be your city or one with a Courthouse.

 

[Ahriman]

There is the exploit of ditching all the buildings in a city before it gets captured.

I would prevent "selling" more than 1 building per turn.
Most buildings seem to be destroyed on city conquest anyway.

And make it be your city or one with a Courthouse.

Yes, this seems reasonable. Clearly puppet cities would not be sellable (you can't even access the city screen, where you would do the selling), but its probably worth banning it from occupied cities too, to make sure you can't conquer, annex, and start disbanding when the city might be immediately recaptured.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I would prevent "selling" more than 1 building per turn.
Most buildings seem to be destroyed on city conquest anyway.

That would be annoying.....If you want to get rid of multiple buildings in the city, you have to remember to go back to it each turn. (I remember that from Civ 3)

If it is limited to 1 per turn.... Then you should be able to queue buildings up for demolition.

In which case the Better method would be to have a delay.... you 'deactivate' the building and it doesn't actually go away for ~10 turns.)

 

[Bibor]

Its fine as it is, just plan your building economy ahead. If you went into negative for a culture race it just means you planned poorly. Not unlike a botched invasion attempt or crippling (-80) unhappiness.

 

[Ahriman]

If you want to get rid of multiple buildings in the city, you have to remember to go back to it each turn.

So? Minor annoyance is better than imbalanced.

If it is limited to 1 per turn.... Then you should be able to queue buildings up for demolition.

That would be fine, but not super-necessary.

In which case the Better method would be to have a delay.... you 'deactivate' the building and it doesn't actually go away for ~10 turns.)

Why is that better?

Its fine as it is, just plan your building economy ahead.

So I should never build stables if I expect the game to go to late eras?
And I should have to deal with whatever junk the puppets built even if I annex and courthouse?

 

[mrt144]

I argue that there should be a way to mortgage the building for 10 turns at a time. You recieve no benefit, you pay no maintenance. This way you don't have exploits etc.

 

[Ahriman]

I argue that there should be a way to mortgage the building for 10 turns at a time. You recieve no benefit, you pay no maintenance. This way you don't have exploits etc.

Far too much MM.
If I don't want my stable anymore, get rid of it completely, don't make me have to come back and press a "mortgage" button every 10 turns.

 

[mrt144]

Far too much MM.
If I don't want my stable anymore, get rid of it completely, don't make me have to come back and press a "mortgage" button every 10 turns.

I don't think if you were actually managing your budget you'd have to click it more than once. Oh but is managing a budget too micro managerial for you. Maybe there should also be a mothball option that permanently takes away benefit and maintenance but allows it to be conquered by other civs.

 

[12agnar0k]

If you are over -5 gold per turn it will disband units, the first I heard of it was when my gold reached 0 and I was at -14 per turn, the game told me about it, so I then traded for gold per turn income diplomatically and survived .

Its not crazy like Civ4 maintenance where by you could lose everything for going into debt.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't think if you were actually managing your budget you'd have to click it more than once. Oh but is managing a budget too micro managerial for you.

Please describe what budget micromanagement tool can make my Stables not just drain gold in the modern era, or will let me get rid of an expensive building one of my annexed cities built when it was in puppet state mode.

Removing a building's maintenance cost for 10 turns is far too insignificant to be worth worrying about.

 

[mrt144]

Please describe what budget micromanagement tool can make my Stables not just drain gold in the modern era, or will let me get rid of an expensive building one of my annexed cities built when it was in puppet state mode.

Removing a building's maintenance cost for 10 turns is far too insignificant to be worth worrying about.

You want consequence free action. I guess that's keeping in line with Civ V though.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Ignoring ad hominem

Maybe there should also be a mothball option that permanently takes away benefit and maintenance but allows it to be conquered by other civs.

That would probably be the best option. The building disappears from your city Screen and is counted as not there.. (you would have to 'build it again' to reactivate it.) But someone Conquering it automatically reactivates it.

Note: the point is if it is Costing you money there should be a way to get Rid of it.

You can get rid of population that cost you Food and Happiness(unless you have too many Maritime states)
You can get rid of units.

Now Ideally, it would

Its not consequence Free Action....
Build Building=Get Benefits+pay maintenance each turn

Mothball/Sell Building= No benefits, No maintenance... MUST Rebuild if you want the benefits again.