Source
r/civ•
HighClassGuy

The power of the cavalry economy in Civ 6: aka how to perfectly convert production into gold.

Discussion

So, I just figured out an interesting strategy anyone can employ. If you haven't noticed yet, selling a unit gives back half of its cost in gold. So, you can sell two units for gold equal to the units production cost. Strong, right? Go ahead and spam all the eagle warriors, hoplites, or other uu units knowing you can convert them pretty effectively into gold when you're done with them.

Now for the really fun part. know that policy that gives you 100% production to cavalry units? Yeah, really good one. Well, you can also basically use it to provide a 1:1 production to gold trade based on what I said above. For example I'm currently playing a game as sumeria where all of my cities just produce war carts; which i then sell, and then buy builders/settlers/buildings wherever they're most needed throughout my empire. Gold is immensely valuable and being able to perfectly convert to it at will from production is always preferable to just producing things.

Anyway I haven't tried this next part yet myself, but I assume scythia can do this with their light cavalry. Except in their case, they produce two units at once, for half cost. Sell these and you double your production output. Probably a bit broken, gonna have to test it out.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that the value from selling units needs to be balanced a bit. Or the +100% production to cavalry policy. either way it's a bit ridiculous. But I'm certainly having fun with it while it lasts.

Posted Oct 23, 2016, 6:21 AM UTC

6720
tmffaw•

Scythia is completely borked due to this. Spamming the horsey archers with the correct policies makes doing anything else stupid.

I just did it in a game to try it and I avoided teching to make them obsolete and with 5-6 cities churning them out you can get 1000-1200 GPT wich you can just put in to every building/unit you want bar the distritcts.

Im not knowledged enough about mechanics but is there a point when that is not better then using production for anything else?

Edit* It did make me want to stab myself in my eye after a few 100 turns of having to kill of 6-12 units ever.damn.turn.

38
HighClassGuyOP•

One situation it's inferior to production, as any other civ at least, is when there is another policy boost, e.g. if you have a 50% boost to settler production its better to produce than buy via horse production. As scythia though I don't think this is the case even with another policy activated, since you're making double your production worth of gold.

I avoided teching to make them obsolete

also I don't believe you even have to do this, scythia can produce cavalry and all subsequent light cavalry upgrades (I think helicopters even) 2 for 1 as well so it's just as effective. Plus you can continue to maintain a powerful military cheaply throughout the ages this way.

edit: and with regards to your edit, with later upgrades you would be making the same amount of gold but since it would take longer to make each unit it would be less painful.

8
CYOA_With_Hitler•

Yeah it works all the way to end game, I was pumping out double attack copters at the end of man what a game

6
stanglemeirDeath Hugs•

Scythia is just completely borked. I came at them with a massive army that was much more technologically advanced. 15+ Musketman, 10 Field Guns and 10 Calvary roughly. I ended up taking massive casualties because they could pump out 8 units every other turn.

Things only turned around for me when I had like 4 field guns with the end promotion one-shotting half a dozen horseman every turn.

1
krneki12•

For the horde!

2
dogecoins•

Yeah, I saw that on a twitch stream. TSM Theoddone called it the "cash for clunkers" strat, and he also said it's probably gonna get nerfed soon.

15
ericmm76•

This is NOT my design.

-Devs, nerf

5
Mande1baum•

The one thing you can't do is speed up or buy districts unfortunately (fortunately?). But that's the only speed bump. That excess gold can also convert into great people

4
Ya_like_dagsBoern to run•

How does converting gold into great people work?

1
Tuner89•

You can just straight buy them with gold or faith if you bring up the great people list

5
Ya_like_dagsBoern to run•

And here I've been waiting to have the right number of great people points.

2
Mande1baum•

you gain GPP (great people points) over time from buildings. You can also buy great people by paying the difference of how many GPP you still need with either gold or faith (with right social policy). So when you have two civs, one at like 95% the way to a great artist and another at like 90% and it's an artist that the latter player REALLY wants, they can drop a thousand gold or something to ninja that artist from under the former player.

It's more expensive the more GPP you still need, but maybe this build will have SO much excess funds they just buy GPP at like 60%.

2
pgm123Serenissimo•

I remember back in Civ II, you'd get something like half the production of a unit back when you disband it in a city. I would build units in one city and then send them to another city building a wonder.

1
myshieldsforargus•

you could just use caravan which will provide 100% of its shield to a wonder.

1
pgm123Serenissimo•

I was 10, so I didn't know that. I figured out unit disbanding gave you shields because I disbanded for other purposes.

I did do that with caravans, though, but I think it was just when I didn't know what else to build.

1
Durangoent•

They should balance it out by sending all the sold units to other civs or barbarians instead of just not existing.

1
NoButthole•

This is an easy fix: no gold reward for deleting a unit until it's level 2.

Edit: downvote button isn't for disagreeing, guys. Let's, I dunno, spark some discussion.

0†
Snoopy_Hates_Germans•

Nah, fuck that, sometimes you need to immediately reduce your maintenance costs per turn. Just make it so that you can only sell within your civ borders, and reduce the gold payout.

1
NoButthole•

I never said you couldn't delete the unit, I said you wouldn't get gold for it. Deleting the unit would still reduce cost, it just wouldn't fill the bank.

3
Snoopy_Hates_Germans•

I misread your comment, my bad.

That being said, I still don't agree that you'd get NO gold for a unit. Maybe you over-anticipate your military needs, but you shouldn't be punished that harshly if you build a unit but don't have a chance to get it into the fray.

2