DeletedUser
Guest
You're still ENTIRELY misconstruing expenses. $$ and Diamonds have very little to do with the costs of your city or buildings. Cost is a GENERAL term that covers ALL of the resources that are consumed.
EXPENSES are everything that you put into a city, or a construction project. Man hours, material, key/mouse clicks, graph paper time, spreadsheet development, head scratching time, and yes a few diamonds if that's your playing style.
BENEFITS are what you've accomplished. How far you've progressed along your tech tree, plus the level of your Ancient Wonders. Your inventory of goods are also considered an asset but ONLY if you could actually sell everything.
The Game Score indicates how EXPENSIVE your city is, which has very little to do with how much you've accomplished.
Score = Required Culture + Required Population + distance weighted Relics.
EXPENSIVE is NOT a good thing in a city builder.
Now, to be entirely fair, my forum activities are VERY expensive. That counts too; I'm not any sort of purist.
But all of my cities are well-balanced, and they thrive nicely with very little maintenance, and THAT'S the soul of a city builder.
Just muddling through is probably the least expensive way to develop your city. Solve problems when they arise, and don't try to rush things.
CAN you play the game to maximize your Score=Expenses? Of course you can, but don't get all huffy when the developers block you at every turn. This game is about building cities that thrive on their own, even though you're trying to turn it into just another arcade game.
You are defining the terms according to your own will and then impose them on other players, claiming they are not playing in the right way. How absurd that sounds?
Now let me do the definition: the game score indicates how DEVELOPED your city is, and THAT'S the soul of a city builder.
CAN you play the game to minimize your 'man hours, material, key/mouse clicks, graph paper time, spreadsheet development, head scratching time, or a few diamonds'? Of course you can, but don't get all huffy when you learn that new beginners have LESS expensive cities than you do.