The Significance of Zero?

[piratefish]

I have noticed that I am sometimes offered trades of 0.0 money for, say, 1.6 energy.

Does anyone know if this is truly an example of a free "handout" (such as when executing a diplomatic deal with another nation and you select to "gift" a quantity of a natural resource to another nation) that just happens to be ongoing, or if one actually receives an amount of money smaller than 0.05 (I am assuming that if it were greater than 0.05, then the convention of rounding up to the next tenth would be employed)?

I have also noted that zero values are not limited to just trade offers. There are many events and technologies that provide increases/decreases of 0%.

Is it truly 0%, and if so, why bother with including it in the description? If not, and it is an amount smaller than one tenth of a per cent, perhaps the increment of measurement could be decreased sufficiently so one can readily see the actual benefit/penalty.

 

[JRHINDO]

The game dont take into acount numbers after the 0.0........
Meaning if you have a tech with a defense bonus of 0.0, it probably means a bonus of 0.05

 

[piratefish]

So if I accept a trade for 0.0 money, I will be getting soemthing, but just won't know how much exactly unless I watch my cash pool increase and see how many days it takes before I get the benefit of the "invisible" hundredth decimal place?

And can I assume the same is true about the 0% modifiers? Seems like a lot of trouble to watch everything necessary just to see if there actually is a benefit or penalty. I suppose they (devs) wouldn't refer to the modifier if it did not have at least some value, but how hard would it be to extend the decimal position out one more place if the game uses hundredths of a point as often as it seems to?

And this also begs the question Is it really even worth while to have bonuses or penalties that modify a score by a few hundredths of a point? Or will there be enough of these types of modifiers to have a significant cummulative effect during the course of the game?

 

[JRHINDO]

If those 0.005 bonuses are usefull is a whole other debate!