No production option?

[Penwa]

Sorry if this has been posted already, I tried a search but alas to no avail.

I'm currently using the demo version, to see if I want to purchase the game on friday.

So, after finishing production in one of my cities early on in the game, I decided I didn't want to produce anything else because of maintenance costs. Thus I have a problem, it would seem I can't simply produce nothing, I must produce something. I played around with the controls and found no way to produce nothing; so I had to continually make a scout only to kill him off as soon as he was ready.

Is there a way to produce nothing? Is this a fault of the demo and can you produce nothing in the full build?

Also my two cents as to the 'which civ is better' discussion.

It's a different game; if you prefer civ 4, play that instead. They can't keep everyone happy and cater for individual desires.

 

[mercury529]

In the later game, you can convert production to gold/research. In the early game if you are worried about maintenance, you are still better off building 90% of a building then switching to something else. Or you can build a unit and gift it to a city state for an influence bonus.

I'd generally say you are wasting productivity if you want to build nothing.

 

[Penwa]

Switching to building all the different buildings to 1 turn away from completition is too much micro management for my liking, plus it wouldn't solve the problem as I would still have to eventually build something.

The reason I didn't want to create any other units was because I was involved in a war at the time. I had 0 gold and was on -4 a turn. I simply could not support anything else.

So i'm guessing there is no way in the full build to simply not produce anything, apart from wait till you have researched the gold/research production. That is rather annoyting.

 

[Ahriman]

Wow, have never encountered this, there is always stuff to build. If you're finding this a lot, then build more trading posts, and switch from hammer tiles to gold generating tiles.

 

[Penwa]

There was no shortage in things to build in the city; construction of a new building would have meant loosing a unit needed for the war, to pay the maintenance costs of the new building.

I've only played the demo for about four hours so I don't know how often i will encounter the problem.

Ahriman - good thinking, will try that if i'm in the situation again. Thanks.

 

[Malkaviel]

You could take all your tiles with hammers (orange dots) out of use and while harvesting enough food put citizenry in your specialist slots? Your tech order was wrong if you "don't want to build anything"? I guess it's possible you may be very new. There are creative ways to sack production. If nothing else, put it toward a wonder. Even if you don't finish it first you are reimbursed production spent with money.

 

[Penwa]

As I said, there was plenty of other buildings to construct; their construction would have meant a higher maintenance cost, which would be paid for by loosing a unit needed for the war.

 

[Ahriman]

Then your problem is insufficient gold income (do you have trade routes set up? very important), not lack of a "build nothing" option.

 

[Penwa]

trade routes with other civs? That would be a zero, as I was at war with them. As I said the only option I considered was to build a scout then kill him. Changing tiles around to produce gold seems to be the only remedy.

 

[Swift777]

Civ 4 has exactly the same issue until you research the ability to build research/gold/culture.

Manage your civ better!

 

[Penwa]

I remember there being a big round circle with a line through it to build nothing in civ 4.

 

[Swift777]

Hmm, let me check.

Nope, just loaded up a recent autosave in Civ 4 - wasn't able to set any city's production to "Nothing".

Perhaps you are thinking of civ 3?

 

[DarkMaster]

I remember there being a big round circle with a line through it to build nothing in civ 4.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

There wasn't. You had to beeline to Currency to get out of those unit pumping loops if you favored production too much in detriment of science.

You can do the same in Civ V. Currency to produce gold, Education to produce Science.

 

[Ahriman]

trade routes with other civs? That would be a zero, as I was at war with them. As I said the only option I considered was to build a scout then kill him. Changing tiles around to produce gold seems to be the only remedy.

No, trade routes linking your cities to your capital with roads or harbor. These provide a lot of gold.

There are no foreign trade routes in Civ5 (only trade through the diplomacy screen).

 

[Penwa]

erm, why did you post a wikipedia article about a psychological theory? I was asking about civ not a lesson into how my brain works lol.

The thing i am thinking of is when something has just been built and you have to select something else to produce.

All the cities were connected to the capital via a road. I suppose it must just be the new game mechanics which means it is more of a problem in civ 5, with changing shield production to temporarily alleviate the problem. Unless I was just unlucky with the first hour of game play to come accross this problem.

 

[Ahriman]

erm, why did you post a wikipedia article about a psychological theory?

Because people believe things they think they remember, even when they are remembering something that isn't true.

There was no ability to build nothing in the early game in Civ4 either.

I suppose it must just be the new game mechanics which means it is more of a problem in civ 5

I think its your playstyle. Not getting enough gold generators.
Everyone else is complaining about not enough production, not nothing to build.

 

[Penwa]

Because people believe things they think they remember, even when they are remembering something that isn't true.

There was no ability to build nothing in the early game in Civ4 either.

Well yes i know that, i was commenting on the lack of need to tell me something which does not apply to what I asked.

Everyone else is complaining about not enough production, not nothing to build.

Clearly you have not understood what the problem was. It's not a lack of things to build, it's a lack of ability to choose not to build. Even if I changed all tiles to gold, played with the buildings option so they were all 99% complete, I would still have the same problem. I would lose a unit to pay for some building I just made that I didn't actually want.

 

[Ricci]

...
Clearly you have not understood what the problem was. It's not a lack of things to build, it's a lack of ability to choose not to build. Even if I changed all tiles to gold, played with the buildings option so they were all 99% complete, I would still have the same problem. I would lose a unit to pay for some building I just made that I didn't actually want.

I see, this couldn't be a problem in the previous civ because buildings didn't cost maintenance; you would still produce something without wanting it but there was no harm taken. I would say the build nothing option will probably be added into the game to asses the issue.