What is the true value of gold?

[tedhebert]

To answer @Victoria 's question, in a totally non-scientific way ;-)

From all that I've read in here, I think I'd go with 2.5/1

In reality it's probably a little lower than that, but... I feel it's need is just a tad situational, with a little link to the map and faith production and CS owned, whereas all other units are not...you always need cogs, science and culture, no matter the map and the civ

But that's just my 2 cents ;-)

 

[Pietato]

I loaded up the game to check, and it seems that 1 gold is worth 1 gold, in gold.

Seriously though, its value is not static throughout a game, and even differs between civs. Extremely difficult to quantify.

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

this question has gotten me really thinking and i believe we have to think about it in 2 different main scenarios.
the first one being without any special circumstances such as CS bonuses or civ&leader bonuses to gold and faith production and exchange for buying stuff.
in that case gold to production exchange is rated as 4 to 1 by the game as evident by the pricing of units&buildings whereas you dont get anywhere on any tile or improvement a 4 to 1 ratio of gold to cogs it is more like 1 to 1 . so i assume that the game designers dont want us to get an easy answer and i dont believe there is a golden single formula they use. my assumption is that they have different formulas for units , buildings , GP etc.
the second scenario is with special bonuses such as buy with faith or get extra gold from various sources , in such cases of course the gold value skyrockets since you get immidiate effects instead of waiting multiple turns or direct your production to more longterm gains such as wonders/settlers/projects etc.
in conclusion we should not try to find a golden ratio for exchange but look at each game and map situation to get an idea how valuable gold vs cog is

 

[Victoria]

we should not try to find a golden ratio for exchange but look at each game and map situation to get an idea how valuable gold vs cog is

I know there are different situations and that changes the value but I was just wanting to know peoples view of their aggregated value based on the way they generally play.
You also have to appreciate that the value of gold changes as the game progresses, early gold to me is worth a lot more than late gold.
I tend to spend a lot of gold on buildings and tiles so for me its more like 3:1n if I include upgrades into the mix. %wise upgrades just are not a large part of the gold spend
I appreciate all replies anyway, thanks everyone.

 

[cvb]

Thou shalt not try to find the golden ratio for exchange. Do not eat the forbidden fruit.

In the beginning you can look on the earth and you can see it is good: Copper, Crabs vs. Deer, Stone: +2 Gold vs. +1 Production (2:1)
Also Cocoa, Cotton, Diamonds, Silver, Truffles vs. Mercury, Tea / Coffee, Jade, Marble, Silk / Dyes, Incense, Pearls, Tobacco: +3 Gold vs. +1 Science / Culture / Faith (3:1)

.

 

[EgonSpengler]

You also have to appreciate that the value of gold changes as the game progresses, early gold to me is worth a lot more than late gold.

Right, good point. At the beginning of a game, I sometimes have to consider whether I really need to spend 35 on visiting each new Civ I meet, as soon as I meet them, because I know I'm going to want to upgrade my Slingers to Archers, or maybe buy a hex or two, or maybe a building in a strategically-placed city, 15 turns down the road. Late in the game, I'm drowning in gold with not much to spend it on that's meaningful, and there's a curve in-between. So in those early turns, gold can be at least equal to Production, 1:1. It can take forever to build an Archer in a 3-pop border town - slightly less-than-forever to build one in your Capital and then run it over there - but upgrading even a single Slinger could save your whole country from invasion. otoh, eventually the "value ratio" could be 100:1 in favor of Production, for things that you can't even buy, like Wonders and Districts.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Gold is the most valuable commodity because spending it early gets you all the others earlier and can save your ass when getting bum rushed. I should say actually that Diplo Favor is more valuable, but only because it gets you tons of gold.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Gold have two major advantages over production:

• It can be stored
• It is global

If you for example want to get all science buildings in all cities, gold may be more helpful than production because all cities together can combine their gold to achieve that goal while a city can not transport its production to another city.

The bank may not look good but that 5 gold can help you get buildings in another city while the production used on the bank can not help the other city with buildings (if we don't consider builders for choping and such).

Everything also get more powerful the more you produce per turn because you get stuff sooner which mean the useless downtime is less and less. Producing 100 production is more than twice as good as producing 50 production and that applies to gold as well.

I would say that golds value vs production increase the larger you become because the advantages of gold, that is being global and can be stored get more pronounced the larger you are as you can use it to get units at the frontline or buildings in undeveloped cities and also being a global resource it is easy even with rather poor cities to produce enough of it per turn that it become of use.

 

[Gloompy]

I use it to buy settlers early and mid game. No maintenance for cities (which I kind of think is dumb) means I need more settlers.

 

[Markus5]

The other thing gold has is the gold rocket. Once the rocket ignites, gold rolls in. When you get +500 every turn, its easy to spend it without considering its relationship to production. Production doesn't have that rocket.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Well you can't swim in a giant room full of faith, so . . .

 

[Sostratus]

After thinking about this for 2 weeks, I would say the answer that Ed Beach might give is a "two part" one.
Ignoring the particulars of game balancing, gold has functioned very similarly in both civ5 and civ6. In both you can rush buy units and buildings. It is also the currency for upkeep. *Unlike Faith, which has no drain!
Thus, gold's value is conditional on whether or not you have enough to meet expenses.
If you're in the red, gold is suddenly one of the most important yields there is. The penalties for running a deficit are substantial. However, once you have a positive gold income, the value declines to something similar to what's discussed in this thread.
The main difference between gold in civ5 and civ6 is that civ5 is balanced such that upkeep and maintenance are very big drains on your treasury, while in civ6 it is relatively easy to be flush with income.
Both even have a 4:1 rush buy ratio!
I personally think gold in surplus mode is ~2:1 with production, because I value the ability to buy something right here right now to be worth about a 2x penalty. And I think that aligns with what we see in terrain where gold is always shown as 2:1 with production and food. It's just really hard to put a definite number on how valuable that convenience is. (I think it's 2:1 personally.) That's about what I would pay as a penalty if it meant I could transfer hard production from city A to city B for stuff like districts or wonders or sea walls.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Very valuable for war. Because of the lack of production, it's never a good idea to build later tier units. Gold is necessary to build early tier units and then upgrade them to late tier.