Purchasing Discount Exploit(?)

[Radio Star]

New to the forums, so apologies if this has been posted already.

Purchase discounts (and I think all percentages) in Civ 5 are additive. This means you can stack up mercantilism, militarism (a total of 5 policies) and Big Ben for an 88% discount to unit purchases. In any and every city. You have to hold out until the industrial era, so it's not an instant-blitz-I-win button, but if you're even somewhat intact going into that era, that combo will make you basically unstoppable.

 

[King Jason]

I find myself almost always getting Big ben and mercantilism... with several hundred GPT, you can buy things in most cities faster than you could ever build them.

I personally wouldn't bother going for the 88% discount myself, too much policy saving; I'd rather have honor, piety, patronage, or rationalism policies. But that's just me.

 

[alpaca]

Welcome to the forums.

Yeah, I noticed it, too, but generally don't want to go for Autocracy. The number of units you really need to get an advance going is pretty low anyways (<10) so it's not worth the policy cost in my opinion. I'll just buy the units I need or produce them in a high-production city.

Having the Big Ben and Mercantilism bonus is pretty nice, though.

 

[ignite]

This isn't exactly an exploit if you think of it from the point of view of say, a coupon. Let's say one coupon takes off $1 and another coupon takes off $2. The original cost is $5, so together, you pay $2 for the product. Naturally, $1 of $5 is 20%, and $2 of $5 is 40%. If we look at it that way, removing 20% takes us from $5 to $4, then removing 40% (of $4) takes us down to $2.40. So although it gives percentages, just think of them as coupons for fixed costs... IE, the tank that costs 920, and you have a coupon for $184 and it stacks with your $303 coupon.

 

[Zechnophobe]

This isn't exactly an exploit if you think of it from the point of view of say, a coupon. Let's say one coupon takes off $1 and another coupon takes off $2. The original cost is $5, so together, you pay $2 for the product. Naturally, $1 of $5 is 20%, and $2 of $5 is 40%. If we look at it that way, removing 20% takes us from $5 to $4, then removing 40% (of $4) takes us down to $2.40. So although it gives percentages, just think of them as coupons for fixed costs... IE, the tank that costs 920, and you have a coupon for $184 and it stacks with your $303 coupon.

Heh, and that's why they never let you combine offers in stores .

It isn't an exploit in my way of thinking either, since it is pretty clear that's what it is supposed to do, and because it requires a lot of work to actually get. Wonders can't completely be counted on. The cost of no SP's until industrialism is not actually negligible.

 

[Radio Star]

Heh, and that's why they never let you combine offers in stores .

It isn't an exploit in my way of thinking either, since it is pretty clear that's what it is supposed to do, and because it requires a lot of work to actually get. Wonders can't completely be counted on. The cost of no SP's until industrialism is not actually negligible.

It's not as though you need to hoard all your SPs until industrialism. You can just hang on to 2 of them.

 

[Semmel]

Im not sure, but how does this 88% effect unit buying? Because if you can buy units for 12% of their original price and disband them .. you might even gain money out of that. Well.. just wondering..

 

[Knut_Are_M]

hm it is probably widely known by now that additive persentage reductions are very bad for gameplay.
And sosial policies are cheap if you go with alot of puppet states.
You need to consider that going with puppet states and tradeposts, the problem is building enough military units and not maintaince.

Civ 5 is very badly balanced, ai is broken on sea(they cannot do a naval invasion or even settle another continent).

also graineries and water wheels are very high cost per benefit. maritime city states are good, especially for siam.

if you are ever doing a game with persentage increases and reductions, use multiplicative reductions and additive increases.
it lessons the effects of stacking bonuses.