I have been playing in warlord mode for a while. I was losing a lot at first then read building cottages and increasing my gold production would keep my resources up for research for gaining new techs.

Now that I've been beating Warlord mode regularly I thought I'd move up to the next tier, I think Noble, and now when I build cottages my gold production wouldn't go up, in fact after building a dozen or so I noticed my production went from -1/Turn to -4/Turn. I tried several things to increase my gold but my gold surplus was depleting too fast. I then switched my workers to auto mode and they recovered to +1/Turn just as my money ran out. about 20-30 turns later.

I then tried to expand and build a small army and soon my research was down to 50% as my gold production kept going down with my expanding. after a while the AI opponents all were out pacing me and were way ahead of me in everything. everything took several turns to build and my expanding was way too slow.

I even tried to build slow and try to keep my research at 100% and soon saw the AI kicking my butt again. even the barbarians were more powerful than me. lol

any suggestions for the newb?
-=Mark=-

p.s. i just noticed my game had an update. I guess when I was in Gold mode it didn't update BTS with it. I have to upgrade BTS seperate.

are you sure you are actually working the cottages? just having them doesn't help your economy at all. cottages also aren't really good, but as they grow they become the longer the more powerfull. you may not feel the boost to your eco immediately, but if you're working them they should really help you in the long run.

Maybe a savegame would help, since we see what you're actually doing wrong. I think too you might not work your cottage tiles... Another point is what civics you're using. For example when you use OR and have your state religion in say two of your five cities, then that doesn't really pay off because OR's upkeep is high. Or using caste system and neighter have workshops nor using specialists.

Yes , you might have to work the cottages assuming you already know how to micromanage your FC . Try settling near a coast for some extra commerce . Being financial has its uses .

Then again , you might be more comfortable with an SE rather than CE .

Cottages and such don't help if your cities don't have the population to work them.

Some people say that in Civ land is power, but in Civ IV, that's not true. Expanding beyond a certain optimum city number is actually counterproductive.

In Civ IV, people are power. Even if you have the land, if your cities don't have the population to work them, you're going to LOSE. Land is nothing if it's not being worked. Furthermore, people can be Specialists, who don't even need land to contribute to your Empire.

What you need to do, is grow your empire as large as you can, as fast as you can. You want happy resources, as much as you can get your hands on, and then some. Get multiples of a resource so you can trade it to others for resources you don't have. You want health resources, too. Once you have those in hand, you want food. Lots of food. Food enough to grow your cities to the limits of happiness and health, ASAP. And Granaries, don't forget the Granaries.

Here are easy sources of food:

1. Food Resources and improvements: a no brainer. You ideally want one or two food resources in every city. Barring that, you want option 2.

2. Fresh Water. Farms help your cities to grow. Even Cottaged Cities need population. You can't take advantage of ghost towns! You need people to live in those things, the earlier the better. If you have a problem securing Fresh Water in a location, you may want to hold off founding that city or else beeline Civil Service (for chain farming) ASAP.


Once you have the people, you need Commerce. Of course, you already know about towns, but there are other sources of instant Commerce.

Gold
Silver
Dye
Sugar

are some tile specials that immediately give you the Commerce as soon as you work them. If your stupid Governor isn't working those tiles and you need them, override the Governor and place the population as you need. Of course, I rarely have a problem with just using the "Prioritize Commerce" button.

Large Population Size can get you a long way, but it won't take you all the way. If you have a sprawling empire, you need to supplement your large cities with buildings that improve fiscal spending (and maintenance spending).


Courthouses reduce maintenance in your far-flung cities. Build them there first if you must prioritize, but you generally want them everywhere. If the city has low production, you can use Slavery whipping to rush the Courthouse. Of course, the city needs lots of food to grow.


The Forbidden Palace serves as a second center of government. If you have a large Empire, place the Forbidden Palace and Palace judiciously so they have good coverage. The Versailles wonder helps here, too.


Markets and Grocers increase the money you get from the slider, and they also help grow your cities with additional happiness and health, respectively. If you have Gold, Silver, or Gems, the Forge also gives extra happiness.


Coastal Cities have great Trade Routes. You want to explore the world as much as you can to maximize the return you get from Trade Routes. Harbors and Customs Houses boost these. Free Market gets you another Trade Route, The Great Lighthouse adds two extra Trade Routes to every Coastal City, The Temple of Artemis adds +100% to Trade Routes. Castles add an extra route, too. Lest you underestimate Trade Routes, please reivew the return you get from a nice, big Coastal City. Intercontinental Routes are particularly juicy. Just make sure you have Open Borders.


The Great Prophet, if settled, gives you +5 gold that's filtered through whatever multipliers the city he settles in has. That's quite substantial.


Finally, use cheap Civics - Civics with Medium or Low upkeep. Changing Civics can mean the difference between solvency and backruptcy. I suggest using Spiritual for a few games to get a handle on which Civics work best in particular situations.

I then tried to expand and build a small army and soon my research was down to 50% as my gold production kept going down with my expanding...

I even tried to build slow and try to keep my research at 100% and soon saw the AI kicking my butt again. even the barbarians were more powerful than me. lol

any suggestions for the newb?
-=Mark=-

Research rate depends on raw science :science:, not the percentage in the upper corner. Take for example your first undeveloped city with 100% research rate versus a 50% research rate with four large and well developed cities... the 4 cities will probably research MUCH faster, even with maintenance costs increasing rapidly after your third city.

Second, if you expand too fast (easy to do on the lower levels), your city costs might rise faster than your income. Adding too many undeveloped cities to your empire at a time actually slows down your research! You have to develop and grow the cities you already own at the same time that you are expanding your empire, or you can accidentally stop your technological progress.

Pace your expansion if your current cities need to grow. Maybe you took away too many farms to make room for all those villages. Without the farms, you won't have the population growth you need to support all the villages you built. Those high food sources like corn and rice are awesome to feed lots of population. Prioritize food improvements first. Once growth is adequate, add cottages after. (hint: you will need at least one production city focused on building units to guard those cottage cities. Cottage cities have much higher commerce output, but lower production.)

You can only work as many tiles as you have happy people... for example, at emperor difficulty, you can only work 3 of those villages per city, or 5 for the capital (due to the palace). You need to add happiness sources before your cities can work more tiles. Keep this in mind as you grow your cities, since unhappy people just cost you food and gold, and give you nothing in return.

wow, thanks for all the helpful advice. matbe I need to find a good newb article/post. Most all of this is over my head. so far I have been using the slavery up until war. I like being able to lower my population to speed production and make my cities happy. sounds like there is a much easier way to do this. I need to learn how to micromanage my cities and learn what to build in each city and why. I am constantly over populated. I can never get the cities to mellow out until I get a pop-up from the game saying my cities needs something or else...

some little questions I have:

How do I find my state religion and how do I get it to spread to other cities? I remember the computer recommend to make, I think, a missionary. I took my missionary all around to different cities to try to bring the same religion to all my cities and nothing seemed to happed. I even took them to my newly conquered cities to help them recover faster with no luck either.

what can I do to keep my cities from being overcrowded? I always have smoking cities and even have lost cities to an enemy without them even attacking me. They just abandoned me. lol

I see people taking about the right civs? not really sure what is meant by this. are they the ones that ask me to revolt all the time? I just always say yes anymore, and usually don't keep slavery anymore. I just keep advancing hoping it will make my people happy. at least when they revolt I get flat zero's across the board and all seems happy for a quick turn.

let me see if I got research down. It is not the percent as much as the #/Turn amount? if I have 100% at +15/turn then is 50% at +30/Turn the same? I know when I expand big I can get over 100 easy at 50%, but when building slow and try to stay at 100% I run under 50/turn at about the same point in the game.

Thanks again
-=Mark=-
p.s. I start off usually with building my first city right where the settler starts, then automating my warrior to scout about. Then I build a settler right away. Do you thing I should build a worker at this point? or something more important. when my second settler is done, then I create a worker and then I move my new settler to a recommended site by the game and have it build a third settler. is this too fast?

It is definitely too fast. That'll stifle your economy and also your city growth. A city producing a Settler or Worker will not grow. Build Stonehenge or another early wonder or a Warrior for defence for the city before moving onto Settlers. When the city reaches 3 or 4 population, start with the Settler, or a worker. Make sure you have an early wonder or something first to help you out

I'd definitely build a worker before a settler.

Probably build warrior/work boats up to pop size 3 then a worker. Make sure you have the techs (ie agriculture/mining/etc) for the worker to do something useful.

ok, I got the reference sheets from the sticky and it helps a lot. I'm now trying a slower start and seem OK. I'll need a couple trys at it, but I seem to be doing a little better.

Thanks
-=Mark=-

Remember the first rounds are crucial. Take it really easy at first, and be sure not to expand to fast as it really cripples your economy.

Read all the Stone Age technologies. And the links to the Civilopedia. And the Improvements you can make on the tiles. Tiles are the little squares that the world is essentially divided into.

If you already have a technology for the right improvement and a useful square to improve right from the start, then go Worker first. Otherwise, Warrior-Worker.

After Worker, Warrior, Warrrior, then Settler.

You can deviate from this once you know better, but it'll take you up to Warlord at least.

1) NEVER USE AUTOMATED WORKERS... they are stupid.
2) Every cottage you build you should check that it will be worked on. No need to build them on tundra when you have no food resources nearby. Also when you have a lot of hills nearby... better is to build farms instead because otherwise your mines will not be worked and make it production city. Later, if you have Sid Sushi, then you can easier turn farms to cottages if you do not want the city grow very big.

let me see if I got research down. It is not the percent as much as the #/Turn amount? if I have 100% at +15/turn then is 50% at +30/Turn the same? I know when I expand big I can get over 100 easy at 50%, but when building slow and try to stay at 100% I run under 50/turn at about the same point in the game.

Close. 100% :science: at +15/turn is the same as 50% :science: at +15/turn... you are adding 15 science to your research. Other than that, looks like you got it. (Apologies for the stickler-ness.)

The percent is how much of your commerce :commerce: is diverted to one of the slider choices. Each city generates commerce (:commerce:), and this is split up into :science:, :gold:, and :culture: (oh, and espionage points :espionage:) based on the percent slider.

Each city is also generating gold, science, and things from specialists, from trading with AI (gold per turn), and from other sources like holy cities (holy cities with a shrine produces :gold:). These other sources are not modified by the slider, but are direct contributions to each resource.

The number next to the percent (where you get "+15/turn") shows the total income of that resource, whether it's from the slider or not. The slider is only part of your income, the part from commerce :commerce:. You prove this by forcing a scientist specialist to work and drop your science rate to 0%. It should still say "+3 :science: from specialist" when you hold the mouse over the "+3/turn".

OK, I just got done with a game. was losing so bad I quit, but I had a great start thanks to everyone's help.

I had the AI attacking me, then I paid for peace and all was good. I had research to almost 400 around turn 250ish and then the other AI started attacking me, unfortunately I hadn't fully recovered from the first attack and was struggling the whole time.

I did learn I could sacrifice my population even if it was happy. then that got me going pretty good. but then a horrible thing happened. I think I over whipped my guys and my city popuation was at 1 and wouldn't go up any more. The AI had driven a wedge into my empire and cut off my souther half. Luckily I was able to get a peacee treaty by giving away a city. but then for the next 30 turns my city population wasn't regrowing and i noticed that half my other cities were also at 1 population.

I tried assigning worker to the city and build only for that city and it still stayed at population 1. btw... this is my capital city that went bad. soon the first AI that I had peace with started war again. and after 25 or so turns I surrendered as my cities were staying at pop 1 still.

I was using the A Beginner's Guide to the Specialist Economy (SE) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=197818) tutorial since I was using a lot of the similar strategies already. This was my first try at it and made several mistakes along the way, but it was quite the learning experience.

Thanks for all the help everyone!
-=Mark=-