I always seem to have the following problem: if I wage war early, I am hopelessly behind in technology and gold latter, even if I'm winning. What drives me nuts about this is that I do all of the following:

*Beeline to Code of Laws and make a courthouse in most every city I can.

*I do build cottages, but normally only near rivers...I'd say I have about 5-7 mature cottages depending on the size of my empire.

What I don't do:

*Focus on merchants/specialists. I'd rather work cottages.

Any advice/tips for how to keep your economy going, even if you have to wage an early war or three? I'd appreciate the help. And sorry, I know that this must be a common question, but I couldn't find anything on the topic.

One new trick I tried in my last Monarch game...I was Monty and just finished up an extensive war. I couldnt make money past 10% but even with captured techs (I got six techs when Cyrus offered peace) I was still lagging in tech race. So I just kept my research at 10%, but in a couple of my cities, I set them to "build" research. I was suprised how effective this was...I was able to get Currency in 13 turns with three cities building research and 10% (with the cities it was at 28).

I saved some money this way, then researched in the red while my markets came online. So I guess what Im trying to say is...research at a low % (even 0%) if you have to in the short term. Its not the end of the world... I ended up being the first to fusion and winning the space race.

You need to raze cities. When you're waging an early war often you only want to keep your opponents capital. Its usually a great spot and has decent population so it can support its costs. But the smaller cities should just be burned. This will allow you to research code of laws in a reasonable amount of time.

Also you shouldn't limit cottages to just rivers. For financial civilizations its advantageous to build them there. You hit the 2 commerce jump point and gain a bonus point of commerce. For other civilizations though thats not a factor and you'll often want to farm those tiles to give you a net +1 food tile. Besides a river isn't always handy and you'll need those cottages to support your war.

After code of laws you should also try to get currency. A few markets can go a long ways towards keeping your economy afloat.

What level are you playing at?

While everyone tends to just say "cottage spam" as if that's everything you need to do, I've found it to be only part of the equation.

First off, you need commerce and science multipliers to really make the most of the cottages. In and of themselves, they actually don't contribute much. One thing I really like about those buildings is that they are among the few that have double benefits: markets multiply commerce and increase happiness, for example. In addition, having at least one holy city and its shrine really helps economically.

Second, Great People are invaluable for keeping up in the tech race. Great Prophets pop some invaluable early techs, while Great Scientists can contribute to research in so many ways: popping techs, Academies, super-specialists...

And tech trading is also invaluable. It's tempting to just panic and research a tech you see the AI has because you need it too. A better approach is to research techs the AI does NOT prioritize, because then you have something to trade with.

if you are going to be doing a lot of city-capturing, then you'll need to build more cottages, and a bit more infrastructure.

This game is fairly well balanced in that you can't just expand via military conquest. You will have to have stages where you stop expanding and develop your infrastructure before moving on.

if you are going to be doing a lot of city-capturing, then you'll need to build more cottages, and a bit more infrastructure.

This game is fairly well balanced in that you can't just expand via military conquest. You will have to have stages where you stop expanding and develop your infrastructure before moving on.
True, though you can remain at war while you do that. While playing the Mongols I'll often stop taking cities but continue to pillage my next target. This nets you some gold to offset unit costs and keeps your target weak.

I'd say I have about 5-7 mature cottages depending on the size of my empire.
I have that much in one city! :eek:

You should be covering half your cities with cottages!

What I do on monarch level is to have One GP Farm, and One Production City (along with the Heroic Epic Later) to built Millitary and Wonders. All the other cities go for Gold/Science with a lot of Cottages. At least 1 true Science City with most Gold to be in Tech race faster. All the science related wonders are build in this city. There are around 2 to 3 hills in this city that I don't use regularly but only for wonder production. No other city than the production usually built units and just 2-3 cities have barracks. Other cities when don't have to build a building just go to research and don't produce a unit (unless I have a barrack built over there by mistake or some purpose). This even goes during the war. I never keep a war alive for a long time. Just take 1-2 cities and then stop the war, build more units, which obviously take more than 10 turns and then if I need, declare war again.

Is it good to automate your workers? I hate the hassle of keeping them and telling each one what to do. I just set it to automate in the beg. I think that's why my economy has been dying everytime.

I'm on Prince level and can hardly beat it. It's mostly my technology. They're alway atleast 5 tech's ahead of me, and near the end, it's insanely more. I can easily beat all of them on Noble, it's just Prince is much harder. I have to rely on Permanent Alliance with one of them :blush:

I have that much in one city! :eek:

You should be covering half your cities with cottages!

Half? More than half!!!!! I tend to have 3-4 commerce cities for every production city.

Is it good to automate your workers? I hate the hassle of keeping them and telling each one what to do. I just set it to automate in the beg. I think that's why my economy has been dying everytime.

I think that you've just answered your own question.

Is it good to automate your workers? I hate the hassle of keeping them and telling each one what to do. I just set it to automate in the beg. I think that's why my economy has been dying everytime.

I'm on Prince level and can hardly beat it. It's mostly my technology. They're alway atleast 5 tech's ahead of me, and near the end, it's insanely more. I can easily beat all of them on Noble, it's just Prince is much harder. I have to rely on Permanent Alliance with one of them :blush:
What Cam said. The AI will build too many farms and not enough cottages. Cottages provide money and money finances research. Automation is fine on the lower levels, but the higher you go, the more micro-management you'll need to do to stay competetive.

I still leave my workers on AUTO on monarch, and don't run into problems.

I still leave my workers on AUTO on monarch, and don't run into problems.

I guess you're doing a lot of other things very well then! ;)

I know that there's criticism that automated workers produce too many farms and not enough cottages, but again I think that it's finding the right strategy for the city in question.

Farms per se are not bad, and lots of farms per se are not bad if you're working to a plan such as running a Great Person farm or some form of specialist-oriented strategy or love the whip.

If you however believe in developing specialist cities with select objectives in mind, the computer may not be able to automatically direct its efforts to your plans instead over-farming commerce-oriented cities or not farming enough production-oriented cities ... unless you're a :borg: (I've been trying to find an excuse to use that smiley).

Use your future victims to pay for your current wars!

Constantly check the power graph, and if anyone is lower than you, demand money, money, and more money. If anyone is higher than you, crack that whip for more troops so you can start bullying them.

Having a huge army is a major source of income. You need to be extorting, pillaging, and sacking everyone and everything in site...constantly.

Commerce multipliers, focus some cities on commerce to the detriment of their production (including farming for merchants). Markets and grocers are examples of the commerce multipliers. A holy city with a shrine is a good commerce city but any city with river tiles or coastal commerce are other candidates.

Make at least one production city with production multipliers to make up for the fact that you are focusing some cities away from production. Forge is the early production multiplier (+25% :hammers: ).

If you are falling behind on research before you get courthouse and currency, then you need more money. Early on, don't be afraid to raze every city that is not a capital or holy city (meaning anything other than the really good sites, naturally profitable on their own), pillage every town around cities that you expect to die. You really need to have the financial techs researched out to mercantilism and/or banks by the time you will be able to afford capturing most cities without worrying about sinking your civ and tech progress in city maintenance costs.

Also remember that losing money is not neccesarily a bad thing if your compensating your economy by pillaging/razing opponents cities. For the majority of my games i'm running at minus gpt but still raking in the cash and therefore staying adequatly along with the AI at tech.