Financial Advisor screen

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I am sure this has been asked before, but what do the following numbers mean (and are there known formulae behind them)?


Unit Cost - is this the support cost of the existing units? How is it modified? I know you get X number of free units depending on difficulty level, but sometimes I will delete a unit and my cash flow will go up; other times, it will not go up.

Unit Supply - have no idea what this is. How is it modified?

City Maintenance - I gather this is the total of the "Maintenance" costs at the top left of the city screen. Seems straightforward.

Civic Upkeep - I understand this to be the cost to run the current set of civics, as displayed on the Civics screen. Seems straightforward, but see below.

Inflation - What is this number? How is it modifed? Is it based on the number of elapsed turns, or what?

Beyond those numbers, I'm trying to get a feel for what changing civics will cost me (or benefit me). I've noted the received wisdom that "when you have a huge sprawling late-game empire, State Property will save you money". But there's no way to tell how much money it will save me in advance. Mousing-over the various civic options gives me the Civic Upkeep costs, but
- it doesn't tell me how much City Maintenance I will save, if I switch to State Property (or lose, if I switch out of State Prop);
- it doesn't tell me how much my Unit Costs will go up/down if I switch to/from Pacifism;
- it doesn't tell me specifically how much I will save/lose by switching to/from Vasselage (X number of free units is helpful, but without knowing how many units I have now, how many free units I have now, and how much my Unit Cost is impacted by my current forces, it isn't helpful enough.)

It also doesn't tell me how much trade I'll gain/lose by switching in and out of Free Market/Mercantilism, although I concede that this might be hard to determine and would depend on other factors, perhaps.

Does anyone have any insights into determining the specific financial costs/benefits of switching among the various civics?

[Jaybe]

In the Unit Cost category there are usually two listings:* The first is the expected, but the second is usually zero; choose Pacificism and it is no longer zero. You typically spend less than 1 gold per unit -- at Noble it is 0.5. When combined with inflation, loss of a unit may or may not bring a profit. Switching to Pacifism will cost you an additional flat 1 gold per military unit (plus inflation, of course).

Unit Supply is based on units outside of your (or your vassals') borders. I understand it to be 0.5 gold after the first 4 units (at Noble).

Inflation is turn based, but remains at zero for a predetermined number of turns (probably in the GameSpeed xml). I think it's linear. Multiply your other costs by the inflation percentage and you get the amount of inflation cost.

I don't understand your confusion with State Property. With it you pay your usual number-of-cities maintenance and you pay ZERO for distance-from-capital maintenance. You HAVE seen these figures by hovering over the city maintenance numbers, haven't you?
The problem with State Property is the difficulty in calculating how much your science will drop.

Otherwise, civic changes is (and SHOULD be!) a stab in the dark. While Mercantalism is maybe 1 or 2 gold per route, Free Market might be double that -- or a multiple of 5 or 6! The highest I remember is 13 in a harbor city.

*Many of the numbers will be broken down by hovering the mouse over them (e.g., how much your net trades are with each civ).

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Otherwise, civic changes is (and SHOULD be!) a stab in the dark.

I don't see why a civic change should be a stab in the dark. It's a strategic choice and should be made by evaluating the options. If the impacts of these changes are not explicit in the game, you build up a a memory from past games or save prior to a change and look at the result.

RJM

[couerdelion]

Re: Financial Advisor screen

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man

Does anyone have any insights into determining the specific financial costs/benefits of switching among the various civics?

A few, yes. After the event you can always compare the financial advisor screen and see what your “break-even” science rate would be

1) State Property takes a huge slice out of costs if you have a large empire or one with several cities that are far from your capital/forbidden city. You’ll just have to trust us on this one but you can always take a “rule-of-thumb” by selecting the “middle” city from the Domestic Manager screen and then looking at its city manager screen to find out the Distance cost (net of courthouse). If you’ve got a two-tier empire (developed vs undeveloped cities), select a city that does not have a courthouse. This will be a “per-city” cost so can be multiplied by the number of cities.

But State Property also gives a sizeable food bonus if you’ve done your improvements rights

2) Vassalage.

Not sure about how the unit costs figure is calculated. But I thought it told you on the civic screen anyway. Even so, the main benefit of this is the +2 XP

3) Pacifism

Expensive with a big army (goes without saying), and you know how big your army is from the military screen. But worthwhile if GP are still quite cheap and you are running specialists in several cities (or have lots of wonders). Just beware that the financial screen does not show you the benefit that this civic brings

4) Free Trade v Mercantilism

Often a judgement call although the general rule is that larger empires (or those at war) prefer mercantilism. Just look at a few city screens and see what proportion of you city commerce comes from trade and work out the benefit of extra trade routes. My personal preference tends towards Free Market but it can be very circumstantial and I’m not averse to switching to Merc/Pacifism/Rep around renaissance time to a serious specialist economy.

[guermantes]

Of course it's just my opinion but I kind of like the stab in the dark character of civic changes.

Perhaps because I still haven't wrapped my head around how everything is calculated and multiplied etc in this game (and probably never will) but I like the fact that I cannot control my empire by just sitting and running mathematical calculations.

As a PolSci person I appreciate how this brings a layer of domestic politics into the game. Your ministry of finance may be able to calculate down to the last eurocent how a civic change affects the empire's coffers *all other things remaining equal*, but it will never be able to calculate or predict how the population will behave in the face of these changes. So by keeping it from direct view it simulates the populations responsive behaviour.

But I should stop before this turns from game mechanics into a critique of current-day economistic political thought. Great game though, and yes, I usually save my game before big civics changes...

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by rjmatsleepers


I don't see why a civic change should be a stab in the dark. It's a strategic choice and should be made by evaluating the options. If the impacts of these changes are not explicit in the game, you build up a a memory from past games or save prior to a change and look at the result.

RJM

Exactly.

Before initiating combat, we click the attacker and mouse-over the target and get a fairly good idea if the attacker will win. Blue circles suggest where to settle cities. The science advisor tells us how many turns it will take to get X tech versus how many turns it will take to get Y tech. Moreover, we know that if we research X, Y will then become available to research. I would say that it makes just as much sense that any of the foregoing be a 'stab in the dark' the way civics changes are.

I guess what I would like to see is a means by which to mouse-over civics and display the effect on science, overall cash flow, and perhaps relations with AI leaders or happiness/food production rate (these ones from the demographics screen?). It shouldn't be that hard to do - after all, the game calculates these things after a civic change is effected.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by guermantes
I usually save my game before big civics changes...

I probably will start doing that.