The net profit of the civic?

[Konietzko]

When changing the civic for example from "Protectionism" to "Free Market", it's very difficult for me to say which one is more profitable for me - unless I test it with "a savescum". Can the game calculate net profit of the civic somehow and show it to me before changing the civic - or is there a mod for it? Like if the new civic gives "+1 gold to Merchants", the game would tell me directly that the civic would give me currently "+4 gold" (let's say I have four Merchants currently) when I am "choosing" the civic. So I don't change the civic and be like, whopsie, now my gold gain has dropped significantly to negative.

I used to play Civ 6 and it had this mod ("Extended Policy Card"): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2266952591

It showed directly how much yields you will gain from a certain policy card. It was best mod to use in my opinion. Kinda wishing Civ 4 had something similar.

Or is there any "tips and tricks" way to deal with this issue in Realism Invictus I'm not just aware of?

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

There is nothing like that in Civ 4 that I'm aware of, and I wouldn't personally undertake to create it, so saving-loading is probably your best recourse. You aren't playing on Ironman or competitively, so I see no reason not to "savescum". Ultimately, you'll learn to eyeball it.

To elaborate, the calculations involved in your hypothetical example are very involved, as they need to check not only your civ, but all the others (whether they are able to trade with you) - basically, recalculate the entire game state.