Why Urban Development is cool

[Dreamweaver]

The percentage discount that you get from banking is cumulative (not compounded) with your discounts from character traits.

This mieans that if you are a cheapskate, developer and adminstrator, you get 35% discount. If you own 3 banks on urban development, you get another 60%. In cumulation, you get a whooping 95% discount.

For the price of a luxury hotel under normal circumstances, you can now build 20.

[BigTroutz]

have you figured out how much the banks cost to build, house bankers, and staff? bankers arent the cheapest doods to employ! 20/mo * 12 * 5 bankers = 1200 / year staffing cost per bank , etc, etc  plus you lose your slush fund income, but i spose you could change the setting, build, then change it back.

[Dreamweaver]

Good point about the maintainence cost of bankers. This means that bankers should not be used for urban development purposes until a point have been reached where you are building on average $6000 or more worth of buildings.

I guess a good rough guide to when it would be good to build banks is just before you begin plonking down cathedrals, colleges, high-end factories and hotels.

[Crandaddy]

I never make banks a priority.  By the time I get around to building them, I usually have a strong enough economy that I'm not worried about building costs, and I don't think banks are very cost-effective in that regard given the salaries (as BigTroutz points out).  I only build them if I'm 1) trying to score yanqui bank accounts, 2) building up my Swiss account, or 3) trying to get more touchy-feely with the Capitalists.  Banks are nice sometimes just to draw more male students into college, so if you lose a doctor/general you can just fire a banker to replace him.

[suedenim]

But remember, even if the particular effects of the bank aren't all that great for you, there's an excellent reason for having a fair number of bankers around.  They're the only people who can give out bribes!

[electriceel]

I like to use the Urban developpment setting early on, but I only allow one banker to work there to cut costs. You still get the full 20% with only one banker.  It keep the Yanquis off your back, and helps with building tourism (by improving relations with the US).  Once I have 200-300k in the account, I change it over to Slush Fund or offshore banking (I always like to build it in the area where my tourism will eventually go; the banker is still "working" during his two month commute).

The big problem I have with Urban Development is that after the first 10 or 15 years it starts to cut into the take on my Construction Edict.  

[Malovane]

You can also get up to 50% construction subsidies from trade delegations. This combined with banks and the developer/ cheapskate/ administrator thing could get you a 145% discount. Never tried this.. so, urm.. anyone ever get money for building? =)

[Junta_Joe]

A percentage of a percentage is always greater that zero. You can take 10% off of 1 an infinite number of times and never get to zero. I've loaded up on all the wizzbang discounts at one time or another. Best I ever got was 70% off. I'm sure I might have missed something. Try this math on for size. A bank gives you 20% off. You have three banks

100 x .8 = 80 (bank 1)

80 x  .8  = 64 (bank 2)

64 x  .8  = 51 (bank 3)

So three banks giving 20% off does not give you a 60% discount, it gives you a 49% discount.

Add a 50% subsidy and you still pay 26% of the original cost.

[IDontHaveAName]

Have you verified that empirically with a sandbox test, Joe? Most people I have heard have claimed that banks and character traits subtract a proportion from building costs, not multiply it by a proportion. This is easily verifiable with the character traits part, although I haven't done it with the banks yet.

If you click on developer, cheapskate, and administrator, according to you it would give you 0.95 * 0.9 * 0.8 = 0.684, so -31.6% building costs. On the other hand, by just going to the summary screen, the game claims that you get -35% off of building costs. I'm not sure about banks, though, although most people I've heard have claimed that it also subtracts a fixed proportion. As for the seemingly implausible result of being paid with cheapskate + developer + administrator + banks + trade delegation, I'm not sure about that. I do know that with development aid, it isn't like that: of you get Russian development aid, and get special buidling permits, your apartment price is $3,000 ($5,000 * (1.2 * 0.5), not $5,000 * (1.2 - 0.5), or $3,500). This seems to support your position for development aid, although I don't know about trade delegations. Anyway, someone who knows whether the costs of buildings can go negative (or even to zero), say so.

I don't mean to accuse you of not knowing what you're talking about, Joe, especially since I know far less about this stuff than you do (I haven't even recieved the full version yet.), but I wasn't clear about whether you have verified this experimentally.

[Junta_Joe]

Idont! Good to see you back.

The answer may be worse than we expected. It may be a combination of both styles. I am just pointing out what I got with three banks and a subsidy.

I would take the time to test some more combos. Alas, I have another Tropico project going. Check out the Bugs board early next week for details.

[Railnut]

I did a little testing and have some hard data on this matter.

My first test was on a simple map with no adjustments to building costs based on dictator characteristics. I was only testing the effect of having five fully staffed banks set to Urban Developement. I monitored the cost of an Apartment Building to gather data.
                             
Initial cost      5000     Reduction
After 1 year    2206       55.88%
After 2 years   2014       59.72%
After 3 years   2000       60%

As the Urban Developement setting states, the maximum reduction in cost is 60%, and it took a full three years to achieve that savings. I did notice that some buildings reached the maximum savings sooner. But I wasn't paying close attention to them and so cannot draw any further conclusions.

On the same test map, but with only one fully staffed bank the the rate of change was much slower.

Initial cost      5000     Reduction  
After 1 year    4056       18.88
After 2 years   3978       20.44
After5 years    3858       22.84
After 7 years   3561       28.78

And that is where I stopped.



In setting up the final test I used a random map with default settings. I also chose the following characteristics which had the listed effect on building costs.

Developer   -20%
Administrator  -10%
Cheapskate   -5%
Total    -35%

I also chose Religious Appointee which saved an additional 25% on churches. This made the cost of the church 2925. So the 25% was not added to the 35%, but factored in after the 35%. The cost of the church was
(Full price * 65%) * 75% or 48.75% of the full price.

And chosing Financial Genius for 25% on banks and shops had the  same effect on the cost of the bank. The bank cost 3900 or 48.75% of the full original cost.

In this final test the effect of having five fully staffed banks was the same as in the first test, and additional savings of 60%. By the end of the third year, the buildings cost only 40% of what they cost at the beginning of the test.

Apartment   1300
Church        1170
Bank           1560

I did not test the effect of having understaffed banks. Yet.

[Railnut]

I've returned to summarize. The Dictator Characteristics adjust the root cost of the buildings. The in game adjustment for banks then affects that root cost. This directly contradicts Dreamweaver's first post claiming that you will get a 95% reduction in building costs. The effect of the banks mimics that of a scripted event in that it only makes adjustments as a percentage of the root cost.
I also did not test the affect of trade delegations or subsidies. However, I would be willing to bet that they will adjust the root cost before the banks' adjustment is figured in, or they will adjust the most recent value. And since multiplication is associative, either one will result in the same final product. And as Junta Joe pointed out earlier, you can reduce by a percentage an infinite number of times and you will never reach zero.

[Railnut]

Oh, one more thing for Junta. Will running the game for testing reasons be sufficient to call off the bludgeon hound? I'd like to slip into some other threads without fear of losing any skin or my lunch money.

[Junta_Joe]

My mistress has already decreed you absolved of sin. That makes you safe. Someone had better tell Timmy.  He doesn't need much excuse. As far as I'm concerned, if you power it up twice a month to remember your roots, I'm cool with it. Half of my games are tests anyway. I still try to get in 1 complete regular game a week. I tend to learn the weird things in the regular games. Usually when I'm about to nod off at 1am.

Go in peace brother.

[Mike]

The switching of bank accounts from Urban to Slush Fund probably still works for good effect.  I usually get about two banks on my island, one for slush/urban, and one for rich Yanquis...
BTW Railnut, however much I would love to take your lunch money, Tish has ordered me not to.  *Sigh*
Would have been fun, too...

[Railnut]

Ahh, perhaps she has called you off for your own protection. You don't know how much I enjoy my lunch money.
And, truth be known, I've been playing Tropico this evening. Once my machine recognizes the cd, it's a shame to take it out.

[Junta_Joe]

We just had to nudge you back from the darkside. No charge for this one.

[Coconut Kid]

... The Dictator Characteristics adjust the root cost of the buildings. The in game adjustment for banks then affects that root cost. This directly contradicts Dreamweaver's first post claiming that you will get a 95% reduction in building costs. The effect of the banks mimics that of a scripted event in that it only makes adjustments as a percentage of the root cost.
I also did not test the affect of trade delegations or subsidies. ...

Railnut uses the term "root"; I would use base.

The initial base cost is an amount in the 'bldg.dat' file. So the dictator characteristics change that base to a new\adjusted base base for the individual game. Then the in-game effects are applied.

There are some key threads about scripting which discuss what base is used for operator numbers when multiplying. I suggest they should be consulted.

For me it is not intuitive, and I believe it is not sequential on a changing base.

[Rum Baron]

What about when you throw in the Russian Development Aid edict?

[Coconut Kid]

@ Rum Baron, Perhaps I need to mention that I have been watching what the "guests" are reading. When one (or more) of them look at a thread which I have not posted in (recently) and I think a useful gameplay point can be made -- I try to update the thread in a way which might help the guest.

The base money cost of buildings is established in the 'bldg.dat' file.
    >> Some of the dictator characteristics modify that base and thereby create:
  > A new base cost which applies only to the individual game.
    >> Speculation: the aspects of game play which modify the individual game base are applied in a fixed sequence on the fly (when construction is ordered).
  > Edict(s) in effect applied = first level spot cost;
  > Possible Random Effect applied¹ = second level spot cost;
  > Urban Development effect computed & applied = third level spot cost.

On urban development: first off, it is not attendance based. The rate does max out at 60%, but this does not seem to be by bank, but rather the number and skill of individual bankers doing it. I found that 9 highly skilled bankers can get the full 60% after a few years. It does not seem to matter how many banks are doing it, just how many bankers, their skill levels, and for how long [they have been doing it].

http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=5679.0

I have not taken the time to test this speculation. It seems that for a few buildings it may be possible to get a very cheap spot price; however, I suspect there is a fail-safe in the algorithm that they will never be free.

¹ I don't know that there actually is a random effect concerning building costs.

There are two script operators which may be used to change building costs - maybe, I don't know that there have been any reports. Most scripts have been concerned with giving out free buildings.

• BungalowPrice
• ConstructionCosts