Deplete Money before a building is complete.

And why not not a "per/turn" cost ? You would be paying each turn an amount of the total price.

Isn't that the way it works in the real world?  You do the work, then a year later you get your check from the government.

From the guy who wants to build his house point of view, you don't pay everything on start nor on the end.

You pay the guys for the foundations, then you have to pay for the electricity and all those things, then you have to pay to get a roof, then to etc. You don't pay the whole price in one shot.

The real world's irrelevant on this one for me. It just seems easier (more player-friendly) to take the money from the treasury upon commissioning the building. Whether it goes to the builders promptly, stays in 'escrow,' or gets paid in per-turn installments is secondary.

In supreme commander it's a bit hard at first to get used to a per/sec payment, but when you get accustomed ... it's just so usefull : you can strat projects even if you don't have the money ! If you don't have enough on a turn, then the project will pause.

Gonna have to say I agree with the OP. In a turn based game that's the way I prefer it as well.

Vieuxchat, I don't think we can really apply the Supreme Commander method here. Supreme Commander was a RTS. Every second the building was going up was draining part of it's cost until completion. It's a great system, I just don't see how it can be worked into a turn based game other then to devide the cost of the building by how many turns it takes to complete it.

So it sounds like no matter what that we all agree that the current system does infact need to be changed. Stardock, do you want to weigh in on the matter?

You need 400 gold to do the job. Then you can spend 10 gold per turn in the project .. then you'll need 40 turns to finish the project. I would prefer that instead of the "You must have the 400 gold before the project starts".

Something does need to be done I think.  When you are managing a huge empire you want to know how much money you really have to spend, otherwise you would end up losing tons of money when buildings finish and not have enough cash for other important things.  I can imagine it getting very frustrating.

At the very least, it seems like the UI should flag 'unspent' money in some form analagous to how bank/CU web sites indicate that there are pending transactions against the current balance of an account. A treasury total with no future obligations should look different from a treasury with a known future outgo.

Almost anything would be better compared to the current system. I'd prefer to pay upfront, but could also live with a 'per turn' cost until the building is completed.