What are GPs for?

[Zespri]

I apologise for a completely newbish question, but I'm sure that because of this nature of the question almost everyone knows the answer. It seems that GPs are needed only for three things in civ4.
- To pay expenses such as unit upkeep, civic upkeep, city maitanace
- To hurry up production under a certain civic
- To trade with other ppl or AI.
I can't see how GPs are important in the game. As far as I can see GPs are not important in trade at all because AI won't sell you anything worthy for your GPs, and you as well as other players don't want to get GPs out of trade just because you don't have a place o spend them. Hurry up production use is doubtful as well because it costs insane money to hurry up. Giving that I see no point whatsoever for keeping any surplus at all. All money that you have after paying your expences should go either to resurch or to culture, there is no point to pile them up (unless you want to keep a buffer if you anticipate temporarily increase in upkeep costs) because you simple have no sensible way to spend them.

I'm sure I'm missing something herem because it was mentioned many times on tese forums that GPs are important, so could someone please enlighten me?

Thank you in advance

 

[BeefontheBone]

They're important for the uses you just mentioned - you've answered your own question there.

 

[JadeDragon87]

Well I think you also need GP to do spy missions. (in civ 3 I spended a lot of money in this).
Sometimes the AI demands a tribute which I prefer to be a bit of money rather than a tech.

 

[snepp]

Spies. Their actions are expensive, save some coin. Lifesavers in a space race, especially if you're losing.

Unit upgrades. If you have alot, it's expensive.

Hurry production, as you mentioned. Yes, it can be expensive. Can't have your cake and eat it too...

Trade. I had one game with no oil, and no realistic chance to acquire it through war. The one thing I did have: Cash. I bought my oil, made my army, and proceeded to destroy the civ that traded it to me.

 

[Vraslosken]

Unit upgrades is the most important use for me. When I'mplaying a peaceful game I don't care too much about GP.

 

[Willowmound]

Why are you calling it "GP"? It's gold.

 

[Gargoyle]

When you have no Iron and the only way to get it is to pay another Civ 140 gold per turn for it, you'll realize how important it is.

 

[Psyringe]

Personally, I think they finally got the "gold" aspect of the game right. It was way too overpowered in Civ1+2, where you could just buy any foreign city. It was needed in ridiculously high amount to get anything going in Civ3's one-shield-cities, where (due to corruption) you had to rush every single building.

In Civ4, you do need a healthy economy, but you can't buy everything if you hav much gold.

 

[Stuie]

All money that you have after paying your expences should go either to resurch or to culture...

And that's why income is important. Pay city/unit/civic upkeep, then pour it into research.

Having a stock-pile of gold allows you to run research at 100% even if your income goes negative.

 

[Martinus]

Yup, unit upgrades are probably the most important use, especially for a smaller, defensive civ. This is especially important, when you consider that units keep their promotions from upgrades, so a rifleman that you upgraded all the way from warrior is likely to be much stronger than a rifleman that you just built.

 

[dh_epic]

If you have a surplus of gold, you can run a defecit for faster research... or switch to expensive civics for a while.

Upgrades are the big thing.

And if you plan on having a surplus of gold, you should make use of universal sufferage.

I like how gold is in Civ 4.

 

[MrCynical]

A gold stockpile is always handy for allowing you to run at a deficit for 100% research. Upgrades are hideously expensive, but a good use for gold as well. the importance of trading and rushing construction in universal sufferage should also not be underestimated. Having lots of gold no longer makes you quite as powerful as it did in Civ 3, but is still important.

Oh yes, and as someone else pointed out, it's generally just called gold. GP is an abbreviation for 'Great Person', so it could cause confusion unless the context is clear.

 

[Zespri]

If you have a surplus of gold, you can run a defecit for faster research

Uhm, not sure how this will work. One thing that I mentioned in OP that if you have some gold in treasury your expences may surpass your income and you'll still survive a few turns because the deficit will be covered from treasury. On the other hand I can't see how the treasury money can speed up research. The percent allocation that you set for your research is a percent from your surplus on the current turn. There is no way to make it more then 100% so that treasury would fund your research. In other words you can take some money out of research to put them to treasury, but you can get any money from treasury to speed up your research.

Thanks for everybody who has replied my OP. To recap, what I've missed is unit upgrades, and to some exten I inderestimate the power of buying a missing resource.

 

[Gargoyle]

On the other hand I can't see how the treasury money can speed up research.

If you run at 100% Research, your going to be in a deficit. Your treasury will cover that if you have one.

 

[Zespri]

Why are you calling it "GP"? It's gold.

I can tell you why I personaly call it GP, but I'm not sure for the others. I call it GP because that's how people seem to call it on these forums. I haven't played civ much before (I just played a little bit with older versions) so I don't know what is accepted and recognized slang in this community. So I picked my best guess.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Uhm, not sure how this will work. One thing that I mentioned in OP that if you have some gold in treasury your expences may surpass your income and you'll still survive a few turns because the deficit will be covered from treasury. On the other hand I can't see how the treasury money can speed up research. The percent allocation that you set for your research is a percent from your surplus on the current turn. .

Well that is the way that Treasury goes into research... now if you have science at 100%, and are still earning a surplus, (only method is if you have plenty of Shrines, Merchants, or gold from diplomacy) then you are right.

ps It's not often called GP, but you will often see references to gpt (gold per turn)

However, with certain techs/civics I believe you can set the slider to more than 100%, or at least the total of culture and research an be more than 100%, I forget which.. That allows you to turn Treasury into Culture if nothing else (assuming you were already at 100% research)

 

[upstart]

Uhm, not sure how this will work. One thing that I mentioned in OP that if you have some gold in treasury your expences may surpass your income and you'll still survive a few turns because the deficit will be covered from treasury. On the other hand I can't see how the treasury money can speed up research. The percent allocation that you set for your research is a percent from your surplus on the current turn. There is no way to make it more then 100% so that treasury would fund your research. In other words you can take some money out of research to put them to treasury, but you can get any money from treasury to speed up your research.

i think you are missing the point, if you have science cranked up to the max, your income usually goes in the negative(at least at the moderate difficulty levels). so instead of amassing wealth, you are amassing technology. also a point that nobody mentioned, culture is another thing you can crank up at the expense of your treasury. what i like to do is get a huge stockpile of money, either by a great merchant or other means, become at peace with other nations, then crank up culture to say 20% and watch the other nations weaker cities flock to my civ. another good use of capital.

 

[Zespri]

If you run at 100% Research, your going to be in a deficit. Your treasury will cover that if you have one.

Oh. Right. I thought that the 100% Reasearch means 100% of money that you gained on the current turn after you paid your expences. So if your expences on given turn is more then your income then you pay all your income and then some from treasury and 100% of the rest will be plain zero - no research. But after thinking about it, it probably makes no sense. The game probably takes so-many% of your turn's income and put it into research and then pays your expenses from unallocated percents and treasury. and if you have no treasury then you can't have high percents with your research because expenses still has to be paid. Let's make an example.

Let's say that your income is 100 and your expenses is 20. your research is 50%. In my original thinking it will leave you with 40gp going to research and 40gp going to treasury. But this is probably not correct. More likely that 50gp goes to research and only 30gp to treasury. And if your expenses are 70gp instead, then 50gp goes to research and the deficit of 20gp is taken form treasury. And if you have zero treasury then the game won't let you have your research set to 50% it will automaticaly lower it to 30% so you have no deficit. Right?

I just wonder what happens if even with 0% research you have deficit and no treasury, what then?

 

[AER]

You guys are missing three major sources of surplus gold, which can allow you to run your science at a point higher-than break-even for quite a while:

1) War. War brings in gold better than Chinese WoW-farmers. Usually, at the end of a mid-game war, I will end up with 750-2.5k gold. Each city gives 100-300 or so, * the number of cities. It adds up quick.

2) Goodie huts. Goodie huts seem to give in the area of 30-100 gold, but I am not sure of this. I know that I often end up with around 150-200 gold in the early stages of a game, which can allow me to run at -1 or -2 gpt much longer than someone with the usual 10 gold stockpile.

3) Great merchants. I have only had two sucessful Great Merchants, but they each brought in 1.9k gold in a single, 1-turn shot. I imagine it probably go much higher than that.

 

[Billy Rubin]

I personally consider it as quite imprtant and usually pile up lots of gold depending on the era and previous unit upgrades - so as long as noone attacks me, I save my money (or spend it on research, but I allways keep a considerable amount on my account), but as soon as I'm attacked, I'm easily able to upgrade all frontline city units and the second line as well as reinforcements - it's an easy way to flexibly keep your power where it's needed.
I've had macemen on one side of my empire and mech inf on the other in some games just due to needed upgrades due to AI aggression - having mech inf everywhere is plainly unnecessary when you have enough money to upgrade your good old macemen to it when really needed.
Having a stock also proves usefull when you know an enemy has some certain tech needed for a wonder and you probably could lose the wonder-race: I just rushed the three gorges dam after a few turns of production for instance - cost me about 10k gold, but at least I was sure I made it and not those damn mongols .

[edit]: Another usefull situation I just encountered: I've just made a permanent alliance with the english on a different continent, when they were attacked by the japanese - so until my "expedition corps" got there, I helped them hold the line with money - they were a little backaward before we made the alliance, but got the techs anyway and I gave them the ressources and money to upgrade their musketmen to mech infantry within the first few turns...