What is up with Pre-Medieval military unit costs/ build times?

[mikeg]

Sorry if this has been brought up before but I didn't see it anywhere. There seems to be a clear bug or at least a massive inconsistency in the displayed cost of these units versus the time it takes to build them. For instance a 10 production city can seemingly build a 40 cost Warrior in two turns. This is independent of any civic/CS/GW/religion modifier - I have tested this by deliberately playing games with no added modifiers and it still seemingly occurs. Even taking into account the maximum possible overflow between builds it still doesn't even roughly add up.

This doesn't seem to affect non-military units, or indeed any Medieval or later unit, hence the huge increase in time needed to build CB compared to say a Swordsman.

I have also seen this happen in a lot of let's plays videos on YouTube so I know it's not just an issue with my game. It is either a bug or there is some hidden modifier coming into play. I can't understand why this has not been flagged up so far.

 

[mikeg]

OK, here's what I mean. A test game I started up, building nothing but Warriors and ignoring any production-based pantheons/civics etc. Everything started off OK for the first 20 turns or so, then suddenly I get this:

With 8 production, a 40 cost Warrior takes 2 turns to build. Quite simply, what gives?

 

[Greshym]

It appears to either be a bug or a very well hidden "feature". I've already made a thread about it here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/different-build-speeds-in-same-city.601204/

 

[Matthew.]

Interesting. Now that I'm reading this, I do recall the turn times being very low on early era units but haven't had enough time to play the game yet to even consider or look to see if it is even right. I just assumed some production kicked in somewhere, and left it at that.

 

[Sascha77]

. A test game I started up, building nothing but Warriors and ignoring any production-based pantheons/civics etc. Everything started off OK for the first 20 turns or so, then suddenly I get this:

Kinda off topic, but...:
I have to wonder... you have 8 warriors and nothing besides your palace to generate gold. No gold-producing buildings in the city, no trade routes and (unless unimproved tobacco produces gold) no tiles yielding gold either. Even if you have the -1 maintenance cost policy enabled, how can you be making +6 GPT?

 

[mikeg]

I think that's just the 5 from the palace and 1 from the god king policy. Warriors don't cost any maintenance.

 

[isau]

Any chance you're running unit discount policies?

EDIT: Nevermind, I see you accounted for that.

 

[Our_DeCay]

Kinda off topic, but...:
I have to wonder... you have 8 warriors and nothing besides your palace to generate gold. No gold-producing buildings in the city, no trade routes and (unless unimproved tobacco produces gold) no tiles yielding gold either. Even if you have the -1 maintenance cost policy enabled, how can you be making +6 GPT?

Warriors cost 0 upkeep, as do slingers and scouts.

 

[Sascha77]

Ah, ok.. that explains the lack of financial trouble in the early game. Is it just me or does no maintenance for early military seem a bit too generous?

This might also be one of the reasons why the AI seems reluctant to upgrade their old units and why they can spam out unit after unit. If they don't have to pay upkeep, they can easily fill up the entire map with slingers, warriors and scouts..

Plus: I just checked my own current "Prince"-game and saw that you're getting +5 gold from difficulty there.

S.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Ah, ok.. that explains the lack of financial trouble in the early game. Is it just me or does no maintenance for early military seem a bit too generous?

This might also be one of the reasons why the AI seems reluctant to upgrade their old units and why they can spam out unit after unit. If they don't have to pay upkeep, they can easily fill up the entire map with slingers, warriors and scouts..

Plus: I just checked my own current "Prince"-game and saw that you're getting +5 gold from difficulty there.

S.

It seems the biggest reason for AI not upgrading is they don't focus on the military techs (because the military techs are all on the "no economy booster" branch.