hrhj2

Join Date 12/2007

building "obsolete" improvements ?

Hi all,

Almost sure the following has been asked before, sorry for that, but couldn't find such info quickly. Sorry.

Playing DL vanilla, newbie. Having made some tech advances, I find that I can no longer build 'obsolete' buildings (such as Basic Factory, but only a more advanced form of factory, which are much more expensive and take a lot longer to build). However, I get the feeling that if it were still possible to build the obsolete versions as well, I would be able to get newly colonized planets up to speed much more quickly (e.g. first build a few basic factories, then the more advanced versions). I imagine this problem gets worse later on. Hence, am I being penalized for becoming more advanced ? Or am I missing something here (e.g. you can still build them/ there are efficient alternatives)?

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Philocthetes

Join Date 10/2003

+153

I forget whether it was in an expansion pack or an update, but in later versions there are three tabs for your build queue choices: New, Old, and All (or words to that effect). If you're running the latest updates for DL, then you'll probably see it when you move on to DA or TA.

I remember playing without the ability to choose the older improvement types, and it did make things different in terms of what techs I chose to research or buy. And there was nothing to do but suffer if I stole something like Industrial Sectors via spies or an invasion. You either had to turn off auto-upgrade or deal with a build-out you didn't plan.

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Mumblefratz

Join Date 07/2006

+139

No, you've got it totally right. I'm virtually certain that you get full credit for the cost of lower level buildings of the same type so if you build a Manufacturing Center on a tile that had a Factory then the production cost of the Factory is subtracted from the cost of that Manufacturing Center and that's what it costs to upgrade.

I think that this applies even if you upgrade a new type of building on a tile with a previous building but if the types are different you might not get full credit but on the other hand you might get full credit even then.

Even if your intent is to build a Manufacturing Center from scratch if you're able it costs the same to build a lower level factory first and then upgrade it but because you'll get the lower level factory earlier and it will actually speed the construction of the Manufacturing Center that will be upgraded over the top of it then you come out way ahead.

Regrettably, the only thing you could do in DL is to have the lower level building already under construction and then have turned off auto upgrade on all your planets then you could continue to finish construction of the lower level building before later manually scheduling the upgrade. Or you could wait until you get the tech and then manually kill the upgrade. Either way this is not real practical and it doesn’t help you for anything you want to start after gaining the tech that enables the new building.

However for DA and TA you can do this and most likely should.

Another somewhat related point is that there are probably some upgrades that are *never* right to do. For example Industrial Sectors. A number of people (myself among them) think that Industrial Sectors cost way more than there worth for the minimal benefit they give you over Manufacturing Centers. That’s not to say this applies in all games under all circumstances but there are many times where I never want Industrial Sectors and so I try to delay them until I’ve constructed all of the Manufacturing Centers that I want and then once I research the tech I go in to all the planets and manually kill the upgrade.

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This won't help you for DL, but as GW Swicord mentioned, the option to build old improvements was added in a later expansion.

Yes, you are credited the cost of the older building when upgrading, even if it is not related. (On my Research worlds, I upgrade the Recruitment Center to a Neutrality Learning Center once the pop cap is reached.)

Killing the automatic upgrades is a good thing. Often your civ's economy cannot pay the maintenance of 150+ Tier 3 factory upgrades. A few on key production worlds, yes, but not on every world in the empire.

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

To my knowledge, you are credited with the amount of MP you put into the building, not the actual cost of the building. You also get credit for overkill production - if you spend 50mp building a 45mp building, you get the full 50 as credit when you build over it. If you rush-buy the building as soon as you place it in the queue, you will pay full price to build over it.

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