The Great Building Gold Cost Discussion

[Thunderbrd]

We were getting a little too much conversation on this admittedly intriguing topic in the Bugs thread and I figured it should be moved to its own. Here's a summary of where we are so far:

I just changed from SVN 4859 to SVN 4918 and had a similar punch. My city maintenance jumped. I think there are lots of changes between these two SVN versions, but one thing I noticed, the cost of a School of Scribes went from <iCommerce>-3</iCommerce> to <iCommerce>-10</iCommerce> in SVN 4883 with a tweak by Hydro. It is twice as expensive as the Mathematics Academy, a more advanced science building. Is this a typo or is this intentional? (Assets\Modules\Hydro\Science\Science_CIV4BuildingInfos.xml)

But that wouldn't cut my income, that would increase expenses.

Ahh, good point. What was your old and new SVN?

I also found that for my case of increased city Maintenance, the Graveyard and Mausoleum had their maintenance increased 500%.

Ouch...
And a Wonder give Free School of Scribes (Temple of Toth? Not sure), we maybe need something to informe the player how many gold that can cost him...

EDIT
Strange bug : my cities having the max number of World Wonders can still build House of Wisdom... (SVN 4869)

Why then was School of Scribes made so expensive?

Glad to see it helped. Keep up the great work!



Water, Power, Garbage, Police, Fire, Health and Education buildings were all returned to their higher gold per turn values. With all the changes such as civics, traits, etc; I felt they needed to have higher gold per turn costs like what was originally planned.

The free-everywhere with a wonder issue strikes me as quite serious if the cost is to be increased this much. That's likely to be a Wonder that has a rather negative net effect in many situations as a result isn't it? The Wonder likely needs to be tweaked to give something different.

Regardless of the Wonder issue though - will anyone EVER (apart from maybe in a very research-focussed specialized city maybe) build something with +3 science for -10 gold? Can you explain how (after this change) this is much but a noise building hat will clutter lists but never be built? (i.e. - why would you build it? Maybe I'm missing a good reason...)

I have to agree.

I have considered creating a building that is free but a upgrade to existing for such but it is a great deal of work. Eg have an upgraded Granary that costs less maintenance and is given free by the national wonder.

One Civ III mod that I liked and that was completely different handled these things in a different way. Having replacement buildings cost less and having national wonders which reduced the costs over all. So the national granary would be expensive for small nations but cheap for large. iirc the national gave free and no cost granaries but cost as much as ten in maintenance itself.

I'm jumping on this bandwagon before it disappears.

I always thought we have some exchange at one bulb - one coin.

I didn't notice myself until today when it was mentioned that school of scribes skyrocketed from -3 to -10 (base value that is).

I would also like to know why the maintenance costs went up tis amount, especially if you consider that other early science building like mathematics academy or library remained unchanged.

FWIW, I agree too - it seems like overkill (a couple of times over )

However, I have to say that, in earlier versions, there are times when you've got so much money (never quite happened to me, but I've seen it in posted saves, screenies & LetsPlays), you're casting about for something to squander it on.

Personally, when I get to say 2000 gold and +60pt, I don't look at the gold cost of buildings/units anymore.

Of course, I would like a better solution to this effortless agglomeration of wealth, and I'm confident you've probably got it licked by now...

@Hydro:

Regarding the recent building cost increases I think that they are a bit extreme. I looked into my issues with gold and it turns out that the cost changes were enough to subtract half of my income, ie that my issues were not bugs. That is overboard. And putting them on buildings that already had costs and come in the Classical era where gold isn't as abundant is also bad. The costs should be scaled back to what they were before. There are other ways (tech commerce modifiers, maintenance on castle and culture stuff) to reduce gold in a more managable way.

I can tweak it back since an earlier building. However I would like to keep the late buildings more expensive.

Fine, so long as people will still build them, which is basically comes down to the gold to science ratio making sense for it's era.

@Koshling

I reduced it to -5 gold per turn. Note it was originally -3 so it now went up 2 instead of 7. Which actually makes sense compared to other buildings of that era. In short it tougher than before but not so out of wack like it was. Especially with all the gold producing buildings I have been adding.



I understand your concern but some of it was getting ridiculous with -1 gold no matter what benefits the buildings gave. I have been trying to scale them a bit better. I am still open to tweaking. Infact I want to also scale the money making buildings too.

Can I ask how it makes any sense at all to take your gold, which if you're doing as well as you can is being converted to research at a rate of 1 for 1, at a % which can be adjusted at your option, and build a building which not only enforces that more gold is being converted to research (without the option provided by the slider) but is converted at a rate of approx 5 gold for 3 research? How, in any sense of imagination, would this be a positive building to have when if you simply don't build it, your conversion rate can be 1 for 1 (a far better conversion rate!) instead?

I do realize that there's a difference between gold and commerce and its a subtraction of gold rather than commerce and its not actually gold that can be converted to research but rather commerce but still... when the slider is enabling a 1-1 conversion rate it seems silly that just because the commerce has been converted to gold which can then not be converted to research without such a building that the conversion rate would be so bad through the building. Seems like you're taking a hard hit forever after building the library. If you could turn the functioning of the library off or on at will then I could understand this better.

In short, what this means is, if I'm running at 100% research and I have a gold surplus coming in, then great, I'm quite glad to have the Library built as its helping to convert that surplus into further research than 100% would normally allow. BUT if I ever have to drop the research rate at ALL, then I'm immediately regretting the Library being there because it means that I'd be getting more research for not having it. (and those Libraries could well be the reason I'm having to reduce my research rate - which means, in the end, that the Libraries I've built are actually reducing the amount of research I'm getting... ugh!)

@Thunderbrd

I did not want a 1:1 ratio of science to gold. Mainly because many buildings improve over time. Thus the -gold can be sometimes worse or better than the science. Likewise many buildings have other factors not related to science. And like I said this is also applied to other types of buildings.

School of Scribes is in the case where its more expensive to get science at the rate of gold. Note this is independent of the slider and many other factors. Its a positive if you have maxed your slider and cannot produce any more science.

And yes commerce would be bad since it involves science and gold. And in your last paragraph that is right on. To benefit from the science buildings you need to have a balance budget. These are the types of dynamics in the Sim City games (specifically 4) where if you did not have a balanced budget then you could not pay for your schools and thus education would drop. If you balanced your income than schools could work right and your EQ would rise.

While we don't have exactly, that its close enough. This is one of the factors I loved in Sim City since it mirrors some real world dynamics. Such as government getting into debt and cannot pay for the nice things they built in more profitable times.

In short you have to be smart in how and what you build in your cities. There is a time and place for most every building, the trick is to build them at those times. For instance if you build only -gold buildings you are going to go bankrupt. But if you never build any then you are going to suffer from crime, disease, fire and other factors like low science and health.

At no stage should buildings that only give research ever effectively reduce your research. It's like learning how to write crippling your nations research (an issue I have occasionally) and such. If you can't find other gold sinks, perhaps have libraries, etc. take 5 gold *but* give an amount of research (small) per population point, making them a good idea in high population cities, but less important in rural nowhere.

Alternatively, the ability to turn buildings off would be acceptable - as a downside, perhaps unsupported buildings would have a chance of being demolished each turn - use it or lose it.

Its not that its reducing your research its reducing your ability to pay for research. Remember there are other sliders too such as culture and espionage. And having all the sliders down gives gold.

If you don't like a building don't build it. Likewise if you have it you can always delete it in your city with the Abandon Building menu.

As for % that gets a bit tricky and even more skewed. It was a conscious decision to make most buildings straight +/- with fixed values. When we tried those, you would either get way too much or way to little. Thus only major buildings like banks or wonders still have some %.

I am really surprised that everyone is freaking out over the -gold increase. Seems like only yesterday people were complaining about too much gold. Use some of that surplus gold to pay for these buildings.

The discussions of too much / not enough gold should be kept separate from discussions if a certain building is worth building or not.
A building has a hammer cost, an opportunity cost (you could have built something else instead) and running costs. The benefits of the building have to be strong enough for those costs to be worth constructing.

Ok specifically with the School of Scribes when you you think its not worth building? And don't be like Joe and say -1 , I want a serious answer. Because I think -5 for +3: is not too much.

Note you also get +1, Can turn 1 citizen into Scientist, New Diplomatic Units get +1 XP and It required for Plato's Academy and Brahman Library.

I have not played enough C2C in the last months to judge that well.

What gold and science percent modifiers do you expect to be in a city that builds this?

Optimal would be at 100% science. I think that a city that builds this would need either it or other cities picking up the slack in the way for gold. Note this is a juggling act on what you want to focus on. Such as unit maintenance and other -gold buildings.

I my experience it all depends upon the starting location, leader traits, civics and a bit of luck. Not to mention difficulty. In a Noble game I could probably afford these in every city with no problem. Especially if I build a market, bazaar and grocer too.

On deity level with terrible financial traits or poor production and a lousy location. Well science is the least of my priorities. However it is possible to get back to 100% if you don't over expand early on or have a butt load of subdued animals.

If I was building a new city I would not build it first. I would do food and production and work my way up. If I had enough money I would build the science next but if not I would do gold before science. And of course and trumps them since a sick and unhappy city is not going to help you.

In short science and culture become almost luxury properties that I only try to get if I can afford to. And it doesn't take a billion turns to make.

The actual gain of the building depends on:

• The maintenance modifier (lower is better)
• Inflation (lower is better)
• Gold modifiers in all cities (higher is better)
• Science modifiers in this city compared to science modifiers in all cities (higher in this city is better)

So how high is the maintenance modifier and inflation around the time you build this building?
To what gold and science modifiers do you have access to?
If your gold and science modifiers are considerably better (around 1.5 times the maintenance modifier and inflation), build this building. Otherwise increase the slider (of course if you have a surplus at 100% science slider then you can build it anyway but that is a situation we try to get away from anyway).

Considering education buildings specifically, look to the real world. An educated population is required not just to have research activities, but for industry, efficient agriculture (to a lesser extent), efficient government...

I'd say model the knock-on effects of education by having the (costly) primary education buildings (like school of scribes early on) be pre-reqs for some of the commerce/production buildings of the time (or to provide bonus modifiers to those buildings).

Thus school of scribes boosts output of (say) tablet maker by 20%. A school (later era) boosts factory output by 5%...that kind of thing.

School of Scribes worth -3 for me.
A building woth it if it cost less than half I gain from it. I dont care about the production cost and all : when it's built, it's built. Plus, a wonder give it for free in all city.
+3 :science +1 :culture worth 4 * modifier. When I have it, its at least a +30% each, so 5.33
I play heavily with Scientist (more than Priest), so lets' add +1. The XP bonus for diplomatic units... Still no Diplomats units, so I dont count it.
6.33/2 -> Worth a -3. The cost it had before...

And just a minor bug : all my cities have at least 2 lines "Some building are making us happy" when I pass my mouse to have the hapyness detail.


For me, gold is OK in prehistoric/Ancien and star to have a problem late classical/medieval. School of scribe is too early to have a big maintenance cost. It cost more than an Anthropoly Lab!
If you want more maintenance cost, I wonder why a castle is for free ^^

The gold concerns is to be carefull of overcompensation. I'm seeing multiple people applying differing 'soloutions'.

As Joesph will also note the gold situation is also very dependent upon the speed of the game and traits of your leader.

You actually, between this post and all the successive posts, make a pretty good case. It's just fairly counterintuitive is all but in the way you've explained it, I do like it. Much of the philosophy behind this should be put to Game Strategy text in the pedia to help clear up some confusion from new players who will look at this and scratch their heads in a desperate attempt to understand how the math plays out here (particularly since it will still be new for those coming in from Vanilla BtS that there's a difference between commerce and gold at all!)


I love this thinking. There are two effects of education, one is to promote and guide society into invention and discovery and pushing the envelope on what is known and understood (the way research is currently viewed in Civ) and the other is what you state here: Education levels of the people can vastly impact the skill and proficiency in which they perform the basic everyday jobs necessary for a functioning society.

This kind of thinking should perhaps not be based, however, on arbitrary assignments to adjustments to all sorts of buildings (works for now I suppose) but should perhaps become a measurable common value for the civilization (Call it Literacy or something along those lines.) Then we take the ultimate Yield and Commerce incomes and scale them according to a Literacy modifier.

Literacy would sit at a base 100 (for 100%) and would have a natural decay pattern in each city that grows with population (something like -1 per pop). The decay would decrease (or increase if its been pushed into the positive) the Literacy level each round. Truly intellectually useless (or even intellectually harmful) pursuit buildings (Brothels for example) could increase Literacy decay rate, while other buildings like School of Scribes and Libraries and such, would enable the civ builder to reverse the process. It'd be tricky in our building designs to get things to balance right in this system but we should make it difficult, but not impossible, to even gain a positive Literacy modifier (over 100).

I suppose all this could be done based on a bit of programming and the use of a property, no? Cool thing about using it as a property would be that it could be trade influenced and have a diffusion effect, which education does tend to diffuse throughout a population of social beings.

(side note: maybe this should all get moved to a new thread huh?)

Literacy is already calculated and reported on somewhere.

Why? No government puts that much of their tax income into science. They have to pay for defense and maintenance of their nation (military, police, firefighters, teachers and so on).

A balanced budget is not 100% science or even science+culture+espionage = 100%. It is having a positive bank balance and any positive income, even if your science is at 0% ( tax rate is 100%).

BTW I repeat - I hate the SimCity series.

But you are already paying for that with city maintenance, civic upkeep, and unit costs. Any surplus can be invested in other stuff.

Even so why 100% science as the base line. Why can't I spend some of that surplus on culture and not be penalised for it?

You aren't penalized. It is just that most playstyles focus entirely on science because that is more useful. But that balance point is not related to the too much/little gold argument.

If I inderstand well, it begins to be false wih the Leader Point and new trait system.
Focusing Culture, mainly at late Prehistoric/early ancien is a better choice than focusing Science.

In late Industrial and modern era, focusing Espionnage is a better choice : not a lot of building give Espionnage point, and more than 60% of your science come from buildings/civics/traits, not from yout commerce.

Well yes, that was part of the point of the Developing Leader system. Whether or not that investment will pay off in the long run though is up for debate for now.

 

[Hydromancerx]

School of Scribes worth -3 for me.
A building woth it if it cost less than half I gain from it. I dont care about the production cost and all : when it's built, it's built. Plus, a wonder give it for free in all city.
+3 :science +1 :culture worth 4 * modifier. When I have it, its at least a +30% each, so 5.33
I play heavily with Scientist (more than Priest), so lets' add +1. The XP bonus for diplomatic units... Still no Diplomats units, so I dont count it.
6.33/2 -> Worth a -3. The cost it had before...

And just a minor bug : all my cities have at least 2 lines "Some building are making us happy" when I pass my mouse to have the hapyness detail.


For me, gold is OK in prehistoric/Ancien and star to have a problem late classical/medieval. School of scribe is too early to have a big maintenance cost. It cost more than an Anthropoly Lab!
If you want more maintenance cost, I wonder why a castle is for free ^^

Ok I will move School of Scribes to be lower at -3 gold because its still an early building. For the most part I have early buildings that fall under this to either have no penalty or like -1 gold.

However I want to stick by the other later buildings. Especially by the Industrial and Modern eras and beyond. By then you should be rolling in $ and should not notice the negative gold impact too much.

 

[LumenAngel]

However I want to stick by the other later buildings. Especially by the Industrial and Modern eras and beyond. By then you should be rolling in $ and should not notice the negative gold impact too much.

Even Medieval one.
I think about Castle (or some castle "expansion"), barracks, archery range...
There are a lot of +1% with (a ressource), and even national wonder to give you them for free

 

[JosEPh_II]

@hydro,

And don't be like Joe and say -1 , I want a serious answer.

Thanks, this old elephant doesn't forget either.

JosEPh

 

[ls612]

As I've stated before please leave alone the Prehistoric thru Classical situation. The place where things begin to get out of hand is in the Medieval and Renaissance eras. After that unit costs begin to start eating up so things are OK then, but those two eras need some major gold changes, but not the others.

 

[LumenAngel]

So, because I have FAR too much gold, at late medieval, even building lot of University (with the heavy maintenance cost).... Let's see why
For information, I was not too unlucky with ressource. Horse, Stone, Copper, Tin, Lead and Iron. Some Corn later (randomly appears), Deer with an event and some others because of Subdued animals. A Shapphire on top of a mountain, so available far later. No pearls, no gold, no silver (until middle medieval).

I will try to understan why my income is more than + 5000 gold/turn and always increase...

Civics. Republic + Bureacratie + Guilds +Private give me +10% gold, +20% in Capital
Not due abour the bonus from Guilds. I think all these little bonus are not useful and make this Civics too strong (Guild Hall is really powerful too). The +10% gold from republic is not really needed...

Great Person. I dont understand why Great Military Instructor give +2 gold... I can understand this with some Civics like Mercenaries or Military Tradtion, but by default, the XP bonus is enough... Great Prophet give a lot of gold too... But well, I dont have too many of them to unbaanced anything.

Free buildings. Yes, I use Guilds... So, I have a LOT of free buildings. And lot of them give crazy +X% bonus and a flat +1 gold. With no maintenance cost. Only the wonder have a +5% maintenance cost, not enough. Of course, without any ressource... As an example, Grocery dont give me a lot. But with them, and nearly Medieval and Renaissance, you will trade lot of them, it's far too many gold, with no maximum. I know, there is no tag like "Maximum : +8% gold", but maybe it's needed
Housing give some money too. In a typical city, thath give +9 gold. Let's not forget trading post and his +10% gold bonus. For free, because it's autobuild... Now this is an autobuilding that give +25% from trading routes and is neded for lot of building, I thing remove this gold bonus can be a good idea... Same for all buildings oh this line.

Buildings : Medieval, you answer.... Castle! We all know how castle was hard to build and of course expansive to maintain. But not in Civ where Castle dont cost a thing. You even build them in all your city : it's one of the only building without maintenance that increase defense and reduce crime. And +25% espionnage.... A 5 gold maintenance cost is a minimum.
The Wall Line of building and thye Torches one all have minor maintenance cost. -1, for all. i think this must increase. yes, palissade are not really expensive to maintain. But a stone wall is. The Town Patrol line is good for that : the maintenance cost increase a little at each step
I will not talk about the slave Market. It's even easier to build it now and his +10% gold...

Wonders Seriously, I think there is a problem here. OK, they are Wonders. Ok, El Dorad will give you lot of gold. In fact, +10, +25% and +10% in each city. I understand this, you build Eldorado for gold. Buit it's maybe a little too much...
And nearly none have a Maintenance cost. Yes, some are not true buildings, so it's normal. But some others are. I dont know the maintenance cost of Siwtine Chapel, but I think it's expensive...
n the same line... Why treasury increse gold in all cities? it looks like "It's a little national wonder with no prereq, free gold for everyone!". 10% gold in capital is enough... You will still build it.

City Maintenance. With nearly no more malus from civics, they are really low. For 25 cities (one is a colony), I pay 3513. 3432 for Numbers and 81 for Distance... I think an increase cost from distance is needed. It's 81 with only a -30%, so even without it, it's not a lot

Spend money. I nearly NEVER spend money... I dont need to buy any building and event will cost me... 21 to repair a gold? Of course I will repair it! it's less than 0,5% my income/turn. The cost of event are far too low after classical era.


Well, that's all! In my next post : why 2 of my cities are already legendary and why I already have lvl6 Leadership ^^

 

[Taxman66]

All I know is that units in v28 are (or seem to be) much more expensive to upgrade. The only way I can afford to upgrade them is to reduce my slider to get more gold (but with my current civics I have to be carefull, because this causes unhappiness) or to sell techs to the AI CIVs.

 

[LumenAngel]

I dont upgrade a lot. Yes, it's expensive. But I nearly upgrade only my experienced offensive units. It's often better to build a new defensive units than upgrade one
But yes, I m agree, it's the only thing where gold is really used

 

[Taxman66]

I see your point about defensive units... but still I presume you want to upgrade your police units (since it increases defense and crime prevention), if not your defensive archers. Even just those are expensive and can eat up gold reserves fast.

My biggest worry is overcompensation. I'll readily admit that gold in v26/v27 was out of control. I've just started the medevial eara and I can't do all the upgrading I want, even taxing at 15% commerace to gold. Now maybe it gets out of hand later... but I keep seeing so many people saying they are cutting it down (more expensive buildings, straight -3% gold at certain techs, less gold/more expense from civics).

 

[Hydromancerx]

Free buildings. Yes, I use Guilds... So, I have a LOT of free buildings. And lot of them give crazy +X% bonus and a flat +1 gold. With no maintenance cost. Only the wonder have a +5% maintenance cost, not enough. Of course, without any ressource... As an example, Grocery dont give me a lot. But with them, and nearly Medieval and Renaissance, you will trade lot of them, it's far too many gold, with no maximum. I know, there is no tag like "Maximum : +8% gold", but maybe it's needed
Housing give some money too. In a typical city, thath give +9 gold. Let's not forget trading post and his +10% gold bonus. For free, because it's autobuild... Now this is an autobuilding that give +25% from trading routes and is neded for lot of building, I thing remove this gold bonus can be a good idea... Same for all buildings oh this line.

So you think Guilds should have higher than 5% maintenance? If so what should it be raised to?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Soon, defensive units will almost always be worth keeping and upgrading rather than building new ones. Ongoing Training in the combat mod will make forces that have stood in a city for a long time quite valuable to keep as they will have accumulated a gradual xp increase over time. Will probably be an option in and of itself but one I think would very much benefit the game as a whole.

 

[LumenAngel]

So you think Guilds should have higher than 5% maintenance? If so what should it be raised to?

It's the problem of these "Free buildings in all city". hen these building have Maintenance cost, like Courthouse or Shcool of Scribes, it's more fair. When they have no maintenance but dont give gold, impacts are harder to see. But a free gold building...
In a big map, when you are able to have lot of cities, what you gain far more from a guild than in a smaller map. To balance that, you need or a penality in ALL cities (just like the free building in all cities), or something scaling with the number of cities.

If I think "realist", the guild would take a wage from all these free building. Witjout adding new tags, I only see onepossibility.
Instead of Free Bakery (just an example), the Bakery Guild HQ will give a Bakery Guild, a lower version bakery (of course, Bakery Guild replace Bakery) with lower gain in gold (-1% per ressource) because this money will go to HQ.
For the the guild without gold... well... HQ need money, so each ressource will give a -1% gold too.

And yes, it's the problem of all the "%gold in all cities" of some wonders. The more powerful you are, the richer you will be.

but still I presume you want to upgrade your police units (since it increases defense and crime prevention)

No. Having lot of City guard is more effective against crime than less Sheriff. And 3 Police Squad are more effective than 1 Police ACP, with the same cost.

 

[Taxman66]

Sorry, I like fewer better units. It's less to manage and less taxing on the computer.

 

[ls612]

Soon, defensive units will almost always be worth keeping and upgrading rather than building new ones. Ongoing Training in the combat mod will make forces that have stood in a city for a long time quite valuable to keep as they will have accumulated a gradual xp increase over time. Will probably be an option in and of itself but one I think would very much benefit the game as a whole.

Only if you have the combat mod enabled. And, that will play havoc with the unit gold cost structure we have currently, especially once we get to the Industrial Era when units start routinely costing extra to maintain.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Only if you have the combat mod enabled. And, that will play havoc with the unit gold cost structure we have currently, especially once we get to the Industrial Era when units start routinely costing extra to maintain.

I'm interested in hearing more about what you mean about playing havoc with the unit gold cost structure. Could you explain that statement in greater detail please? How do you see that creating a problem with Ongoing Training?

 

[Koshling]

Only if you have the combat mod enabled. And, that will play havoc with the unit gold cost structure we have currently, especially once we get to the Industrial Era when units start routinely costing extra to maintain.

TB said it will make it worth keeping AND UPGRADING old units. That means (once they are upgraded) they will ALSO be costing gold, so I don't think I will matter in that respect.

 

[ls612]

TB said it will make it worth keeping AND UPGRADING old units. That means (once they are upgraded) they will ALSO be costing gold, so I don't think I will matter in that respect.

Doh, I missed the part about upgrading. But then how is that different from upgrading units with lots of XP normally?

 

[Thunderbrd]

Doh, I missed the part about upgrading. But then how is that different from upgrading units with lots of XP normally?

All it would mean is that far more of your units would be worth keeping and upgrading rather than replacing. You'd rarely have a unit that would be worth disbanding to rebuild a new version. Thus you'd have more gold demand and a bit less production demand and units that've been around for a long while could be fairly powerful simply from continuous ongoing training, allowing the defending armies to gain some power without having to first survive against an often highly promoted invading army to do so, putting some of the strength balance back into the defensive end (not that offenses can't slowly benefit from ongoing training as they sit idle either but fill a city with too many units and the value of ongoing training benefits diffuses quite a bit throughout all stationed units.)

 

[ls612]

All it would mean is that far more of your units would be worth keeping and upgrading rather than replacing. You'd rarely have a unit that would be worth disbanding to rebuild a new version. Thus you'd have more gold demand and a bit less production demand and units that've been around for a long while could be fairly powerful simply from continuous ongoing training, allowing the defending armies to gain some power without having to first survive against an often highly promoted invading army to do so, putting some of the strength balance back into the defensive end (not that offenses can't slowly benefit from ongoing training as they sit idle either but fill a city with too many units and the value of ongoing training benefits diffuses quite a bit throughout all stationed units.)

Wait, that's a strategy currently? I've never done that, I always leave old units lying around until I have money to upgrade them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

lol... yes it most definitely is a current strategy. Even the AI uses it I tend to keep my fodder too though.