Stupid Bank/Wall Street Question

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Ok.. I'm still confused on commerce VS gold.

I know squares make commerce, nothing makes gold directly except for goodie huts (or AI trades).

Commerce is then split into 1) Research 2) Culture or 3) Gold depending on your sliders.

You only have one slider to start, you get the culture slider at Drama. Is there ever a gold(tax) slider? Or is it just the balance of the two so that all three equal 100%?

On to my questions..

If I have a bank, which makes 50% gold (not commerce.. correct?) in a city.. or all of my cities I guess it doesn't matter, and I'm running at 100% research... or 80% research and 20% culture, what is that bank doing?

Is that bank doing NOTHING because all the city's commerce is being spent on research and culture?

In order for a bank to give you that 50% yield or for markets or grocers to give you the 25% yield, do you need to have your two sliders at a sum of no greater than 90% in order for any individual city to have 10% of it's commerce left as gold so that 10% can be multiplied by the bank, market or grocer?

Next question... 'building wealth' Half of a city's production will be turned into wealth. So if the city makes 40 hammers, does that mean it makes 20 gold or 20 extra commerce when building wealth? Also.. do bonus structures apply? If the city has a forge or iron works, do those count into the production bonus?

Finally, whats the impact of Wall Street when building wealth? Is it better for the city that has wall street to build wealth rather than build research? Does Wall street only help if your sliders are at 90% or under (combined research and culture)?

Thanks!

[Unimatrix11]

1) Yes, if the sum of your slider settings (research and culture) is below 100% the rest of your commerce is goes as gold in your coffins.

2) Yes, in order to use banks (and the wall street) effeciently the sum of the slider-settings (culture and research) should be below 100%

3) If you build wealth in a city 50% of the hammers are transfered into gold and, as far as i know, mulitpliers do come into effect. So a forge, a factory, a power plant and iron works first multiply your production and markets, grocers, banks and the wall street multiply the resulting gold... So say 40 hammers basic production with a forge and a factory make 70 hammers -> 35 basic gold +25% for gorcery and +25% from market and +50% from bank and 100% from the wall street (+200% total) makes it 105 gold per turn in that city if it produces wealth... the same goes for research and libriaries, universities and the like... so yes building wealth in the wall street city instead of research generally makes sense.

[xxFlukexx]

Actually I notice that forges/factories do not contribute to the gold/science/culture you get by building wealth/science/culture.

You are correct on the differences between commerce and gold. Usually people like to build Wall Street in their city with a religious shrine or in a city with lots of food (farmed floodplains, farmed grasslands, food and sea specials) to make citizens into merchants. You can make a lot of cash while still maintaining 100% science, at least at some difficulty levels.

[Unimatrix11]

seriously ? are you sure ? i mean, you might be right, i never actually checked it, but it wouldnt make much sense to me... If you are right, i think i need to apologize, for giving wrong info... sorry...

[Ari]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else miss the multiplicative effects that multiple bonuses had in SMAC? For that matter, didn't all previous civ games also use multiplicative bonuses? Certainly in SMAC, three 25% bonuses gave a 95% bonus total (1.25*1.25*1.25). Here, you only get 75% (1.25+1.25+1.25). Seems like a minor departure from how it's been in the past.

[Unimatrix11]

i am not even 100% sure how it works in civIV, but i certainly like the 75% better than the 95%, just because it makes things easier to calculate

[Todd Hawks]

Re: Stupid Bank/Wall Street Question

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
Ok.. I'm still confused on commerce VS gold.

I know squares make commerce, nothing makes gold directly except for goodie huts (or AI trades).

Correct, except specialists who can make gold directly (hover over them to see the effect) and some other things (holy city + shrine, great merchant on trade mission,...)

Commerce is then split into 1) Research 2) Culture or 3) Gold depending on your sliders.

You only have one slider to start, you get the culture slider at Drama. Is there ever a gold(tax) slider? Or is it just the balance of the two so that all three equal 100%?

Gold = 100% minus the two sliders (+above mentioned specialists & co). You can hover over it to see where exactly the gold is coming from.

On to my questions..

If I have a bank, which makes 50% gold (not commerce.. correct?) in a city.. or all of my cities I guess it doesn't matter, and I'm running at 100% research... or 80% research and 20% culture, what is that bank doing?

Is that bank doing NOTHING because all the city's commerce is being spent on research and culture?

It's doing nothing unless you have other gold generating things in your city (specialists, holy city with shrine,...)

Next question... 'building wealth' Half of a city's production will be turned into wealth. So if the city makes 40 hammers, does that mean it makes 20 gold or 20 extra commerce when building wealth? Also.. do bonus structures apply? If the city has a forge or iron works, do those count into the production bonus?

50% of your hammers are being converted to gold (not commerce!). Since forges and iron works increase hammers, they do count for this.


Hope I got that right, feel free to correct me.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Ari
Just out of curiosity, does anyone else miss the multiplicative effects that multiple bonuses had in SMAC? For that matter, didn't all previous civ games also use multiplicative bonuses? Certainly in SMAC, three 25% bonuses gave a 95% bonus total (1.25*1.25*1.25). Here, you only get 75% (1.25+1.25+1.25). Seems like a minor departure from how it's been in the past.

The bonuses were additive in Civ3 and Civ2.

[Willem]

Re: Stupid Bank/Wall Street Question

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
I know squares make commerce, nothing makes gold directly except for goodie huts (or AI trades).

As has been mentioned, specialists and shrines make gold directly.

If I have a bank, which makes 50% gold (not commerce.. correct?) in a city.. or all of my cities I guess it doesn't matter, and I'm running at 100% research... or 80% research and 20% culture, what is that bank doing?

Is that bank doing NOTHING because all the city's commerce is being spent on research and culture?

That's right. That's why it's not always a good idea to build one when you're running a high research rate. You have to look at the city's output and determine whether it's worth it or not.

[playshogi]

The bank is doing nothing when running 100% science, but if you have a shrine in that city, OR specialists that produce gold (like merchants) the bank will add 50% to that gold output. You need 6 banks to build Wall Street though, so it may pay to build "useless" banks for that reason. You may also want to raise cash by dropping research to 0% for a few turns, then you'll be glad you have extra banks.

[xxFlukexx]

Yup, pretty sure I'm right. You would think forges/factories and stuff gave you more while building wealth but nah:

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by playshogi
The bank is doing nothing when running 100% science, but if you have a shrine in that city, OR specialists that produce gold (like merchants) the bank will add 50% to that gold output. You need 6 banks to build Wall Street though, so it may pay to build "useless" banks for that reason. You may also want to raise cash by dropping research to 0% for a few turns, then you'll be glad you have extra banks.

There are many times when selling tech allows 100% spending (deficit spending), during which period, banks are useless and markets and grocers only produce the happiness and health effects. But there are plenty of times when 100% spending is not possible, e.g., the AI has insufficient money, so these improvements provide great savings then.

I frequently check the city screen (F1) for my big financial, science, and production centers, prioritizing which cities get banks, universities and factories first. Most science comes from the big six cities or so, likewise finance and production, generally not being the same six.

The trap that's easy to fall into is to try and build everything in every city and not have enough military units, so the AI just comes and takes your cute civilization away.

So the smaller cities can be primarily used to produce military units, perhaps having only barracks, granary, library, theater, while the biggest 6 to 10 cities can ultimately have most improvements to bring in the lion share of cash, research and production.

[Unimatrix11]

Nice evidence, fluke. And a big 'mea culpa' for talking bull**** from me - i hate it when people do what i did - so: SOOORRRRRYYYY. I just assumed it would be the way i described it, cause the way it is just didnt seem to make sense (and still doesnt) to me. Anyone else who thinks they should change that ? Or do you agree with the way it is (and why) ?

shaka - the libraries for culture ? Because my little military cities (most times conquered crappy placed ex-AI ones) most times do without. If the commerce is worth a library then its also worth a university and so on...

[MrPhil]

Question along this topic. What does a large sum of money actually do for you?

I am at about 1850 AD in my game, have about 7,000 gold with a +145 or so per turn. My research is set at 80%. What are my options for spending all that money besides increasing research and unit upgrades?

[Unimatrix11]

if you have the last of the governmental civics (forgot the name right now) going you can hurry city improvements with it. If you have spies and wanna use them to sabotage enemy production or tile improvements you need cash for that also... And you can use it for diplomacy