morchuflex said:
I think there's a little flaw in this logic: when you use the luxury slider, it's true you make one happy face with one gold... But all gold coins aren't equal. You have to make a distinction between
base gold and
actual gold (could find a better name, but I'm lazy). Base gold is what you get from tiles. Actual gold is what you really get after base gold has been modified by all these buildings that have a multiplying effect (MP, Bank, Lib, Univ etc).
In the situation you describe, you're talking about one BASE gold; but if the city has a Library, each base gold dedicated to research is transformed into 1.5 gold actually going to science funding. So, your argument is only valid in the early game when the city has none of these buildings that multiply gold.
Conversely, buildings (like temples etc) do cost gold to maintain, but this time we're talking about "actual" gold. If the city has a MP, then the maintenance of a temple only costs 2/3 of one base gold... So, it's slightly cheaper than using the lux slider.
You have a very valid point. I didn't think of that. It is a very good reason for building the happiness buildings.
In my games, I always build the economic buildings first. After the economic buildings, I then determine if I need to get started on happiness buildings. Some times I need them, sometimes I don't. I did not know why I should do it this way. I just knew through experience that this way is better. Well, you just pointed out the reason why it was better.
* * * * *
A lot of people pointed out that because lux tax is calculated in increments of 10%, you waste a lot of money by using lux tax. My argument against that is:
1) The waste is temporary. As your city grows, you slowly eliminate that waste.
2) Buildings have wastage too. A building that completes too late forces you to use specialist for a few turns; a building that completes too early wastes its maintinance for those turns. It is a lot harder to time building completion exactly with growth than it is to simply raise the lux slider.
And 3) It really comes down to a trade off between gold and shields. In this case, the trade off is between:
- the amount of lux tax waste, between now and the end of the game
- the shield cost of building the happiness buildings in each of your cities. The exact cost of shields depends on if you're Religious or not, and what kind of buildings you're planing to build.
For instance, if you're none-religious, and you're planning to build temple + cathedral in each of your cities, then your shield cost per city is 60+160=220 shields. If you have 20 core cities that you're planning to grow to size 12 w/o specialist, then the total shield cost is 220 * 20 = 4400 shields.
How much would the lux tax over-shoot cost? Let's say that each notch on the lux slider is 50gpt. That is the maximum amount of money that lux tax can waste. And let's say that you have 300 turns until end of the game (the game lasts a total of 540 turns). The total amount of wasted lux tax money is 50 * 300 = 15000 gold.
Now, would you be willing to spend 15000 gold to buy 4400 shield?
Consider, the normal "price" of shield is 4 gold per shield, that's how much it costs to hurry production.
Consider, you're likely to waste much less than 50gpt in lux each turn.
Consider, the game is not likely to last 300 more turns.
Consider, once Navigation comes along, and you're able to trade for lux goods, you will likely lower your lux tax, maybe even to 0. The over-shoot wastage in the purchasing price of lux goods is much lower than lux tax.
edit: consider one more thing
. Once Industrialization comes along, shields become really cheap. Every core city can knock out 60 shields per turn easily. If it is really important to you to eliminate lux tax, then at least delay the cathedral construction until after factories, and use the lux slider before that.
