I've played for a while, but am still struggling with a few things.
I'm playing the Warlord level and I experiment with different leaders.

My problem: Money. I'm fine if I have one city, but as soon as I create another, my money decreases. The more cities I build, the more my
money decreases per turn. Of course, I do not want to decrease my science. I'd like both science and money to be high.

If I add a merchant, the food supply is too low and the city remains stagnant.
I've tried that with an emphasis on food, but it doesn't help. Building farms doesn't seem to help, either.

Also, I haven't grasped the concept of cottages, I guess. I've "spammed"
my capital with them and I still don't see a difference in my money output. Emphasizing money doesn't help despite how many "gold coins" I have in the city.

Any ideas?

Thanks almighty gurus. :)

Two things to try while you are still learning the game:

1) Expand more slowly. When your science drops to 50% it is time to stop expanding for a while.

2) Cottages -- and lots of them. You have to be patient though -- it takes a while for them to grow into towns and become really valuable.

Also, I haven't grasped the concept of cottages, I guess. I've "spammed"
my capital with them and I still don't see a difference in my money output. Emphasizing money doesn't help despite how many "gold coins" I have in the city.

Any ideas?

Thanks almighty gurus. :)

Just in case that you do not know, you only profit from tiles that are really used by the various cities. It is not useful to build cottages in tiles that aren't being used and will not be used for a while.

-cottages grow, so it takes a while before they become very profitable
-cities cost more and more money. You should take a while to build up before you expand further. Whether you do this once your research level reaches 50% is up to you. In my games, it can go as low as 10-20 % before I really stop expanding for a while.
-you need a percentage of your income to go to upkeep. You can't have 100% research when you have a sizeable empire. Cities cost upkeep and someone has to pay for it.(well, you might be able to if you have a lot of religions and holy cities and play on a very low difficulty level)
-the research percentage does not determine the speed of your research.
REPEAT: the research percentage does not determine the speed of your research.
The number of research points that you create in all of your cities determines research speed. An empire of 10 cities with a 20% research rate will probably research faster than an empire of 1 city with a 100% research rate.

Obviously you need to work on those cottages.
Then you need to bring the science slider down a bit.
Then you need to build units and go to war ;)

If I add a merchant, the food supply is too low and the city remains stagnant.
I've tried that with an emphasis on food, but it doesn't help. Building farms doesn't seem to help, either.

Also, I haven't grasped the concept of cottages, I guess. I've "spammed"
my capital with them and I still don't see a difference in my money output. Emphasizing money doesn't help despite how many "gold coins" I have in the city.
Apart from the advices already given to you, which are very correct, I think that you haven't grasped the mechanism of the game correctly and you try to gain gold while having the slider in 100%:

"Commerce" :commerce: (the coins you see in the city tiles) are just a "temporary" measurement. In fact, they do nothing by themselves: they are just transformed to something really useful through the science slider (the science percentage that you set). The two "useful" things are Gold (money) and Science (Beakers).

Example: Let's suppose we have a city (the capital) with population 5, where all your tiles are cottages near a river. Let's also suppose you aren't a Fin civ. In this case the COMMERCE output of our city is:

5*2 (from cottages) + 1 (from central tile) + 8 (from palace) = 19 commerce

To this amount you must add also the commerce from the trade routes (you can see them in the city screen). Let's suppose we have 1 commerce from trade routes, thus we have 20 commerce totally.

Now the science slider enters the game: according to it this commerce is divided in gold and beakers. If you have the science slider on 100%, that means all 20 commerce are transformed in 20 beakers and 0 gold (after that they are furthen modified through city improvements, like libraries, etc.).

The important thing is that, don't expect to gother any gold from commerce as long as you have your science slider at 100%. The only way to gother gold in this case is through a merchant, or through a Shrine in the city, or through some super-specialist (like Great Merchant or Great Prophet in the city).

If you need gold to cover-up your increased expenses, you must decrease the science rate - that means you also decrease the number of beakers you gother, at least temporarily. The only solution is to EXPAND (get more cities), otherwise you will not be able to keep up with the others. Don't be afraid to lower the science slider - as long as you have more and more commerce coming in (that's the role of the growing cottages), you will eventually have BOTH more gold and more beakers. As Roland said, the science slider is saying nothing - only the beakers and the gold counts in the end.

The usual response to anyone bringing up money issues is cottage spam cottage spam...

For those of us that like to land grab in order to secure a good base from which to go for tech wins and to deny or gain resources (or warmongers seeking territory gains) cottage spamming simply does not work.

The reason is the rate of city placement far exceeds the growth of income from the cottages... there is simply way too much waiting for the cottages to mature before expanding out again.

In the short term it means watching the ai gobble up all the territory we had our eyes on and reduces us to 3-5 cities before we have border issues which is combined with an ai having more cities than us.

Those going for cottage spamming tend to tech up then war in later periods or axemen rush against a neighbour to stop losing the territory whilst they wait for the cottages to grow.

For the war mongers or the rapid expanders this approach simply takes way too long so we want an alternative.... and yes there are options other than cottage spamming.

The answer... merchant specialists...

Hear me out before you dismiss this..

In the early game and when your setting up your intial ring of cities the costs tend to be 2-3 gold per city. Conviently each merchant brings in 3 gold so 2 merchants in a city funds that city and one extra. Because of the instant nature of this gold as long of you ensure you place "merchant" cities in equal numbers to your "cottage" and "production" cities you should balance out.

Assuming your trying to maintain a 70-90% science rate you will generally find cottage cities need approximately 5-8 cottages to get enough gold to pay for themselves. Factor in the time it takes for the pop growth and cottage development thats a huge delay in being able to plant another city.

Alternatively +4 food for a city and you can grow a couple of merchants in 12 turns minimum (im assuming first 6 turns go to the food source then once you hit pop 3 you make 2 merchants).

Sure if you do that (an extreme example i admit) it remains pop 3 for a long time but what it does is funds itself and a cottage city until the cottage city can fund itself and the key point is your trying to acquire more land without bankrupting yourself.

As the game progresses and maintaince costs skyrocket you tend to find the cottage cities self funding and the merchant cities can increase merchant numbers to 4 (market /grocer) enabling you to maintain settler momentum.

The question becomes though how to get the intial merchants to help this exapnsion drive.

For the war mongers if your going after metal casting for forges then consider working for the great lighthouse and colossous wonders as these generate merchant points and both in one city will generate a great merchant pretty fast. You can then use the merchant as a super specialist which will buy you some time to work towards either code of laws or currency for either caste system or marketplaces.

Alternatively if your already at war then you can rely on razing and pillaging to tide you over as you research iron working then beline to code of laws or currency.

Incidently if you go for metal casting then construction (a usual route for me if war mongering) then you can use a merchant great person to immediately acquire currency once mathmatics is discovered which can be useful.

Building the market places can be an issue early on so be mindful of available forests for chopping as specialist cities tend to want clear tiles anyways.

The key point is when your eying up new locations (assuming your doing the usual place as close possible but minimal overlap) is ask yourself... how much extra food can it gain? up to +2 and thats 2 specialists up to +6 and that up to 4.... how many cottages could it support? less than eight and i would not consider it as cottage city material (note cottages on plains are useful to burn extra food) and if it has little extra food or space then just how much production would i get?

In a way these questions can help you determine what the city becomes and which direction you may expand in.

The key point is to maintain early momentum you cannot simply rely on cottages.... you must maintain rapid expansion with specialists until the cottages mature and then take over.

One other issue to point out in favour in specialist cities is the amount of tiles they need to work... assuming you aim for 4 specialists then at best you only need to work 2 food bonus tiles... everything worked thereafter becomes a bonus so you could grow it into a production or cottage city later.

Should you decide to simply leave it as a gold generator 4 specialists with all the gold boosts (marketplace / gorcer / bank) is generating 24 gold which is nothing to be sneezed at considering if you leave it at the minimum pop to do this it requires no other buildings to forfill its purpose. (As an aside if you really to increase its gold generation you can use the rest of the tiles for production and make wealth which will get boosted by the commerce buildings so it makes forests and hills worthwile rather than always trying to convert them to cottages or commerce generation)

The main thing to bear in mind about these specialist cities is that they fund themselves and another city... it is not always necessary to have every city dedicated to cottages and wait till suffrage before you can do anything...

Incidently you can reverse this and go for scientist specialists in place of merchants and so go for 20% research rate and all commerce from cottage cities funnelled into gold. This does enable the generation of great scientists instead and quite often a rapid tech gain especially in the earlier periods. This would likely be a better approach for the non war mongers.

Very good post, infanta.

And if you're willing to do a bit of micro-management, then you can try "binary science," which minimizes the effect of Civ4's "round all fractions down" policy and thus maximizes your research and gold. "Binary" refers to keeping your science slider at either 0% or 100% each turn. Keep it at 0% for a while until you build up enough gold to afford to run at 100% for a few turns, and then repeat. One of the side benefits is that after a few turns at 0%, you'll have enough cash sitting around to buy something from another civ or upgrade some troops (as an alternative to going to 100% right away).

The usual response to anyone bringing up money issues is cottage spam cottage spam...

For those of us that like to land grab in order to secure a good base from which to go for tech wins and to deny or gain resources (or warmongers seeking territory gains) cottage spamming simply does not work.
Actually I beg to differ. In most of my games I play a rather aggressive expand game untill the 'grab the land game is done'. If I have copper readily available, I usually try an axe rush.

The trick is that you use 1 city for commerce only. It will start paying for your whole empire soon enough. It just needs some time to grow. Also don't overexpand (kind of obvious) and try to trade as much as possible so you don't have to get all the tech yourself.

Cottage spamming does not mean you can't play a warmonger type of game. It's just a strategy to fund your empire. This is also one of the keyfeatures at higher levels: specialize your cities. You can determine pretty quickly what a good production city is, or a good science, or a good commerce. Try to plan ahead, that will improve your game.

Last note: it's ok to run at 10-30% science for a while if you're landgrabbing. Your economy will stabilize over time. You just have to find that certain 'balance' in which you don't go completly bankrupt, but still expand a lot.

Many players try to get to Code of Laws pretty early on in the game; a relatively expensive technology that offers Courthouses, the Caste System, (Chichen Itza for what it's worth), and the possibility of founding Confucianism.

Code of Laws can be acquired quickly through building The Oracle (CoL must be available on the turn that it's built, prerequisites being Writing and Priesthood or Currency), or burning a Great Prophet (prerequisites Writing, Meditation and Priesthood plus not Masonry) that can be generated through Stonehenge.

Courthouses halve the city's maintenance cost, can be chop-rushed, noting that Expansive (Edit: "Expansive" ... did I say "Expansive" ... I meant "Organised"!) tribes get half-priced Courthouses also. Cities with smaller populations also cost less to run, so building Workers, hitting the City Governor’s 'avoid growth' button, or even whipping can help in the financial management of sprawl. While I'm a little dubious of the City Governor at times, putting cities on 'emphasise commerce' can help too, although the best thing is to manually place your city civilians on preferred tiles. The Caste System stemming from Code of Laws allows for infanta's Merchant Specialists.

Cabert's suggestion of going to war is a very workable tactic also, and not only gives you pillaging funds, creates future city placement opportunities, but also obviously puts a long-term dent in you competitor's/s' development.

Courthouses halve the city's maintenance cost, can be chop-rushed, noting that Expansive tribes get half-priced Courthouses also.

I believe it's organized civs not expansive

OFFS ... thanks Dusty, you're right. :wallbash:

Anyway ... Courthouses! Don't forget Courthouses!

Its worth noting most of my experience of using specialists in preference or in support of cottage spams comes from going for conquest and domination wins.

As it implies momentum is everything which is why waiting around for cottages to mature is so deterimental to early expansion.

Although i have been advocating the merchant route another option for war mongers is the production route.

When i go for merchants this is my usual pattern. When war mongering on the tech front i go straight for iron working then sailing and masonary to begin the great lighthouse and researching pottery to go for metal casting. Once metal casting is acquired i make the colossus in the same city as the great lighthouse and head tech wise to construction. During this time the great merchant that spawns will be used to gain currency (wait until mathmatics is unlocked)

This continues with me heading towards gunpowder then chemistry. Assuming you build a market and make specialists in the great lighthouse / colossus city for 10 great merchant points per turn you will usually get merchants whilst your researching machinery (pop him to gain code of laws) then one during feudalism or guilds (pop him for civil service). You will also likely spawn ones during research into gunpowder and chemistry (pop them for banking and paper).

In effect what this does is allows you double what limited research potential you do have by gaining two tech branches at once. The net effect is to gain a tech advantage on military (you will have long periods of being one stage ahead in military power- expect macemen facing archers and grenadiers vs longbows) whilst gainiing techs to allow you to wage war and expand.

A production route is slightly harder because you are relying on engineers for tech gains. It means going for pyramids for great engineer points then metal casting to make a forge in the same city and create an engineer to increase the great person points to 5. Whilst doing this you research writing / mathmatics to unlock hanging gardens and make that in the same city (now you have 7 engineer points per turn). Once you have mathmatics you research the techs you usually acquire from the great merchants and pop the great engineers for machinery / engineering and so forth.

One reason i do not usually go this route is because the pryamids can be a pain to build as its a wonder most civs go after whereas if you beline for the metal casting you can almost be certain of the colossus because the ai is going the monarchy / calender routes. Its the competition for the pryamids which tends to put me off going for it but it has some serious advantages if you go for great engineers (at least up the renaisance period).

The big bonus is being able to increase you tech rate via representation civic. The early game advantage this can generate is huge when relying on specialist approaches and can put you on equal parity to the science rate with cottage spams. Indirectly the other bonus is that you do not have to go down the philosphy / nationhood tech branch to gain it and being to ignore that tech branch allows you to focus on the military techs. Its also worth pointing out that popping a great person for machinery rather than currency is more economical as machinery is hideously expensive early on.

If going for great engineers keep a careful eye on the various cities to ensure their great person points do not exceed the great engineer points being generated by the pryamid / forge / hanging gardens city. It can be very easy for you to accidently gain a scientist if the city govener allocates two scientists when you turn on avoid growth (assuming you building libraries to expand culture for borders).

Although most people assume you use specialists in the short term and prior to the middle of the game you can use alternatives to cottage spamming for the late game aswell.

One major issue i have with the cottage technique is that it railroads you into using emancipation / universal suffrage and if im war mongering the last thing i want to do is reserch non military techs or techs that are not prerequisites for them.

For the late game assuming you have all the gold generator building for 100% bonus and you want a tech rate of around 80% you need to be looking at generating 20 gold for the city to maintain itself (this is just an approximate based on observation and the 20 gold is the value after the gold bonus).

This means that as long you can generate 10 gold from the city (that is 10 gold before the % mods which will take it to the 20 mark) it should be self suffient and not be a drain on your bank balance.

Getting this from cottages at 80% science usually means roughly 8-10 cottages which for many city sites is simply not feasible or it would mean its production potential would be marginal at best (which is why suffrage and slavery tend to be used so frequently to compensate).

Commerce wise 8-10 cottages is around 50 commerce (thats just a ball park figure im using) and im averaging a cottage value to around 5 each.

Looking at the various terrain improvements you can plan to either make up this 50 commerce or 10 gold in ways other than mass cottage sprawls. Three cottages usually musters three gold at 80% (one per cottage). One merchant specialist generate 3 gold and takes 2 farms (or one bonus or one biology level farm) so for the sake of city maintence you can replace 3 of the 8-10 cottages you usually need with one merchant (if it only takes one tile to support a specialist then from a gold perspective its more productive to replace 3 cottages with one specialist and one food tile assuming you cling to the 80% tech mark).

On a commerce basis 2 windmills will later on generate about the same commerce as one cottage and 3 ocean or 3 watermills will also replace one cottage and generate more production on top.

It means rather than religiously seeking out 8-10 grasslands to cottage for a city site you can generate the commerce under less than ideal city placement (for example 6 coastal / ocean tiles with two windmills and 5cottages in stead of the "i must have 8 cottages minimum" attitude)

A more interesting aproach for the late game war monger who goes for state property is to use workshops or other 3+ production tiles and produce wealth or research. If producing wealth one workshop or lumbermill ( 3+ production tiles) will be the equivalent of one merchant specialist (3 production halved for wealth then multiplied by 100% for the gold building generator bonus). If going for producing research then 2 workshop / lumbermills would generate the equivalent in science as one cottage. Bear in mind though that you do not get the production bonus from buildings like forges to the production converted when building wealth / research.

The net effect of substituting cottages with other tiles is more flexibility and removes the reliance on suffrage for any kind of production.

If a combination of 12+ workshop / lumbermills / mines can generate the same science or gold as cottages you have the ability to temporarily take a gold or research hit in order to use that production for units or buildings as and when you feel the need. Having the ability to crank out 36 or more production (this value prior to any production bonus buildings) compared to a cottages 8-10 with suffrage can mean the difference between maintaining military momentum or having your assaults stall.

Consider the difference is having to rush a unit compared or simply taking a 20 gold loss from one city for 2-3 turns whilst it creates the unit (and lets not forget the 25% bonus to unit production from police state). Compare the difference of having a city with 30 or so production which is then multiplied by 100%+ (forge / factory / police state and so on) for around 100 production for units per turn. Producing units in 2-3 turns for a 40-60 gold hit compared to how much for rushing it with gold and the research loss in stockpiling the gold supply....

By refraining from using suffrage you do not end up in the familiar situation of waiting 10 or more turns of low research % in order to stockpile gold to amass units or to generate reinforcements.

What im trying to achieve here is point people away from the massive reliance on the cottage / suffrage routes and make people aware other options exist (admittedly it takes more effort and planning and micromanagement) and that in some case (war mongering in particular) the cottage / suffrage route is actually less efficient than some of the other methods available.

As well as all the good stuff mentioned above, If you have a few costal cities the Collosus can be a great source of income.

I don't rely much on the governor, and particularly not on the "avoid growth".
If you've got too much population (happiness cap, and lesser problem health) just whip something (a theatre, a temple, a colloseum, a unit) that could give you +1 happiness.