selling off improvements

[mardukes]

I was making an unauthorized examination of Nethog's reference guide (please don't tell anyone) and noticed the statements regarding Aquaduct and Sewer System, "not required to maintain population".

Can I infer from that statement that once I'm comfortably beyond 8 or 12 citizens I can sell the Aquaduct or Sewer System, respectively?

What other situations arise where I should sell off improvements because their usefulness is satified and/or replaced by some other improvement or advance?

 

[Dark Ascendant]

Originally posted by mardukes
I was making an unauthorized examination of Nethog's reference guide (please don't tell anyone) and noticed the statements regarding Aquaduct and Sewer System, "not required to maintain population".

Can I infer from that statement that once I'm comfortably beyond 8 or 12 citizens I can sell the Aquaduct or Sewer System, respectively?

What other situations arise where I should sell off improvements because their usefulness is satified and/or replaced by some other improvement or advance?

Oh yeah, don't need them if you don't want to grow. You can also sell obsolete power, nuclear and hydro plants. To sell anything else is usually in a scorched earth scenario.

 

[mardukes]

Ah, I can sell the sewer but then the city can't grow anymore?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Correct,

However, keep in mind that if you sell it, even if your city shrinks due to settlers, losses to attacking forces (w/o walls) etc. Your city will not grow back beyond size 12 w/o the sewer.

 

[ElephantU]

You can sell anything you want (except the Palace?) to raise gold and reduce costs, you just pay the penalty of the improvement loss. For Aquaduct and Sewers, you need both to grow again in the future, if that is in your plans. Just getting enough food in the Food Box is not enough beyond size 8. When you have Power Plant and build Hydro or Solar you can sell the former without impact. Sometimes people sell research improvements once they have completed the tech tree so they can RushBuy spaceship parts. Up to you...

 

[Old n Slow]

I sell stuff all the time -- take for example, conquer a bunch of Mongol cities, then take over the Sioux -- but suppose that the Sioux had a couple of Wonders -- Pyramids & Woman’s Suffrage. Now the Granaries and Police Stations in the former Mongol empire are redundant -- and may even cost a few coins for carrying costs. Sooooo sell them!

 

[Dark Ascendant]

After switching to Communism, I sell off all my courthouses for money.

 

[yami]

huh...never knew i could sell improvements...not that i need to...

 

[funxus]

You can sell all improvements with a gold coin after it in the list of improvements in a city. I never sell improvements I might need in the future unless I badly need the cash or if I have a wonder (or other improvement that covers it) that covers it. I usually consider any such improvments (granaries, powerstations and policestations) extra money added to the gold I plunder

 

[Ace]

If an improvement is superceded by a wonder, sell it. You get the coins and you are not paying for a non-productive improvement.
It is always a good idea to "keep track" of your improvements. If you had build barracks for a short war, when the war is over, sell off the barracks, especially, at the second and third levels, when the cost is 2 or 3 coins per turn.

 

[Titi]

But if the cost for maintaining the improvements (meaning you have Adam Smith Co) is zero, don't sell the redundant improvements...
This way, your cash will not be as high as it should, and barbarians will not ask for too much when they appear in front of your newly built city (yes, sometimes you forgot to send someone inside... well, at least it happens to me !)
And when you need to rush buy a wonder or spaceship parts, you can afford to sell improvements without penalty to your cities...

 

[geofelt]

Remember, you can sell only one improvement per city per turn. If you need to raise gold quickly, it might take a few turns.
Courthouses give an extra happy citizen under democracy, an essential for we-love days unless you have hanging gardens or cure for cancer. An extra happy citizen also adds to your final score. I build them, and don't sell them.

 

[Ben II]

Only if the city cannot grow anymore

 

[Maximus I]

Once, when I was attacking the Russians, Moscow was the first city I took. I thought I'd be able to go on but soon found that they were too powerful and were sending about 50 tanks from all their other cities to converge on Moscow. I sold all the improvements in the city and pulled out all my troops. They liberated it. I circled around the island that they were on and landed. Since they had taken all (well not all, but most of) their troops to regain Moscow, conquering the other cities was a breeze. By the time I got back around to conquering Moscow it was pretty well built back up (not as good as it had been before, but still pretty good). I had enough troops to conquer the city by then and I took. It, I got the money for selling all the improvements, I got the city, and retreating actually helped me to conquer the island!!!!!!!!!

 

[mardukes]

Are we sure that citizen happiness effects the score. I just saved a game the turn before landing, landed then reloaded the saved version, cranked the luxuries all the way up to get max happiness and landed. Same score.

 

[Titi]

Maybe you need to wait one turn for the modification to take effect...
But it sure does increase your score : I checked it the same way you did (reload a previously saved game), but instead of changing the luxury rate I made many workers (not Civ 3 definition of course) happy with entertainers (Elvis...), so that the city pop. was only happy people and entertainers.

 

[funxus]

Yes, happiness affects your score. Just check F9 and slide the lux rate from 0 to max and you'll see that you get more points for population.

I think happies give you 2p, contents and entertainers 1p, and the rest 0p.

 

[ElephantU]

Originally posted by Titi
Maybe you need to wait one turn for the modification to take effect...

Lux changes to happiness take effect immediately, except for recovery from city disorder, which happens the next time the city is "processed" for taxes, research, & production. I think the same is true of upping happiness to force celebration. Someone over on Apolyton.Net exhaustively describes the exact order of a city being processed; ie. I think the celebration takes effect before the taxes are collected, that kind of thing.

(edit)

Aah, here it is:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49202