Resource exchange rate?

[EpicWestern]

I'm imagining a marketplace where you could exchange basic resources (production, gold, food, etc..), and I'm wondering what the exchange rate would be. Obviously this would vary wildly depending on the situation, but I'm just trying to figure out an average or super ballpark figure here. People say production is king and I agree, so we'll have that as a base. Another way to think about it is this: If you only had memento that added 1 production to your capital, what would a memento need to be for the other resources for you to choose that instead (or at least be indifferent)? IMO culture, science, and influence are pretty close to production especially with influence being nerfed in the last patch (since you can't spy as successfully). Food was buffed, but its still clearly behind. Gold is of course not nearly as valuable but I don't think its as bad as the 4 to 1 ratio that the building costs seem to imply. Happiness is where I think I'm most likely to be way off. I'm mostly trying to round to the nearest quarter since that's easier on my brain. Random civ, random leader on deity. A good answer to this question would provide us a way to get a total effective yield for tiles which should make it easier to choose them.

1 production =
1 culture
1 science
1.75 food
3 gold
2 happiness
0.75 influence

 

[vorlon_mi]

One can think about this figuratively -- how much production would be needed to increase a science yield or gold yield -- or literally, where one yield could be converted into another.

Previous Civ titles, e.g., Civ3 and Civ4, had mechanics that did explicit conversions. One could spend gold to *finish* producing a building or unit, with an explicit formula for converting gold into "hammers". This is known in the Civ3 and Civ4 forums as "cash rushing." Civ5/BERT/Civ6 changed this, so that a purchase with gold (or with faith in Civ6) produced the item, in total, rather than completing the remaining production.

Both of those games included sliders, which changed how the raw commerce yields were converted into gold or science. Both games included a mechanism for converting food into production. The mechanic was known as "whipping", where population would be sacrificed to finish producing a unit or building. Food would be used to grow back the population.

Civ7 is more like Civ5/6 where a unit or building is either produced or purchased. Production in towns is converted to gold, using the ratio; units or buildings can only be purchased using gold in towns. One could think about a Brickyard or Stonecutter in a town as trading X turns of production --> gold --> building purchase, leading to more production per turn. In a city, one could think about purchasing a Dungeon as spending X gold for Y production/turn. Purchasing a Temple has a similar conversion for happiness per turn, but producing a Temple converts production into happiness per turn.

The answer to your question -- what are the conversion factors? -- will depend on which age you're considering. I've noticed a happiness deficit as I start Modern, since the happiness buildings from Exploration have lost their adjacencies. I don't build as many happiness buildings in Antiquity, so I don't notice their lack when I start Exploration. Perhaps more importantly, I have fewer settlements when I start Exploration, so the resources can be distributed to address unhappiness more easily.

 

[pmarc]

You may want to consider that the flexibility to "trade" any yield for another should come at a cost, e.g. there should be a spread between the buy/sell price just like currency exchange IRL.

Also, if that trading strictly supersedes a conversion available in game, it might be a problem since it makes the existing mechanic useless. For example, you can already produce science or culture in a city, but it's a bad exchange (1 production for 0.25 science or culture if I remember well). If you want to offer a more generous rate that what exists, there needs to be additional friction or restrictions for balance.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The value of any resource in any currency depends ultimately on Scarcity. Any exchange value placed on named in-game Resources, then, should vary even in individual games based on how many are available for exchange.

This would be another place where the 'value' of Treasure or Distant Lands resources could come into play in a different context: almost by definition exclusively Distant Lands resources of any kind would be very valuable to Homeland Civs that haven't gotten direct access to them yet: First Come, First Profit, so to speak.

Likewise, the potential or possible Monopoly situation should be explored in-game. If you have settlements controlling all or most of the sources of, say, Rubies or Rubber on your game map, you should be able to get a very, very good exchange rate for those goods no matter what you are buying with them.

Of course, including any or all of these considerations would complicate any resource exchange considerably, and could also lead to game-breaking advantages to the human player who actively seeks out monopoly or near-monopoly situations. Playing John D. Rockefeller once might be interesting, but playing him every time makes for a one-dimensional game.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Civ7 is more like Civ5/6 where a unit or building is either produced or purchased.

Not really, Civ7 is somewhere in between Civ3/4 and Civ5/6
You can only purchase in towns and units are always paid full-price but for a partially built building (or wonder if you're Mughal) you only pay for the difference like in Civ3/4 (this used to be bugged at release but was corrected some patches ago).