Switching Production

[SnipesOfStrife]

Sorry if this has already been covered before but I've poured over the forums and couldn't find an answer :-(

When you switch production before completing a building, what happens to the hammers spent on the previous project?

I know if you switch production on a world wonder and the ai builds it, you are reimbursed gold for the hammers you spent.

Say I am building a granery, and halfway through I decide I dont want it anymore and switch to a library. Is there any way to switch the hammers from the granery towards the new library? Or get refund in gold? Or when you switch they are automatically lost?

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Alulim of Eridu]

They're saved up; when you go to build the granary again, you'll be however far along you were before you switched.

 

[SnipesOfStrife]

Ahh I get that part, but what if I do not want to build the granery (just as an example) ever? Is there no way to get your hammers or the gold equivalent back so I can use them on something else?

 

[Melon Head]

There's no way to get the hammers back for use on another project; if you decide that you don't want the granary or axeman or whatever, they're lost. You should note that the hammers don't stay saved up forever, though. If I remember right, on normal speed they start to degrade after 10 turns. I'm not sure how quickly they degrade, but it does happen.

The only way to get something out of the hammers you put into an item if you decide you don't want it is if you're building a wonder, then stop and wait for some other civ/city to finish the wonder, at which point all the hammers you have remaining in the wonder are converted to gold.

 

[SnipesOfStrife]

Gah! Not what I wanted to hear :-( I guess it makes sense though

Thanks for the help

 

[lilnev]

I think I've heard that units start to decay after 10 turns, but buildings don't start decaying until 50 turns. The few times I've watched it, it was one hammer per turn. I don't know the details of the implementation i.e. if switching back to it for a turn creates a whole new 10 turn window, or if it's 10 cumulative unworked turns, whenever they came.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Sparta]

lilnev is correct, AFAIK - 10 turns not working on a unit before decay kicks in, 50 turns for a building (at normal speed). I believe that the actual decay amount is a formula based on a percentage of total production cost (i.e. more expensive projects/buildings will decay at a faster rate - I want to say 2.5% of total cost per turn but I'm not sure), but regardless it is capped, or rather the inverse I suppose and has a minimum of one hpt, so once decay kicks in, it will always be at least one hammer per turn until you either resume production or the previously accumulated production disappears.

Lastly, I'm pretty sure that queue-swapping items back in and out does not reset the decay counter - otherwise you could just swap two (or more) units in and out constantly and have effective military reserves which would cost you zero upkeep. As I understand it, basically once you've started any project, you have your initial [10 or 50] turns you can set it aside for if need be, and that counter of sorts will progress every single turn you are not working on that specific item, regardless of whether it has been actively worked on between iterations or not.

 

[cabert]

i think the 10 turns go back to 0 if you invest one turn of building.
Needs testing or SDK peering.

 

[Paeanblack]

Restarting construction of a unit or building will pause the decay clock but nothing will reset it. If a project is already decaying, it will decay every turn it's not worked on, regardless of any recent work.