I'm having a real hard time implementing the strategy of using loads of farms + Caste system. I find that in spite of my large country, I'm always short of cash and behind everyone else in technology no matter what I do. What are your suggestions to this strategy?

I attached my saved game...

I just finished conquering Saladin on my island.
Anakara is my military city
Bursa is my science city.

I'm playing to win domination on Prince. I wanted to try this for real, so I decided to disable the spaceship.

As you can see, I'm still very behind in tech, and I'm quite certain that at this point the other continent has been discovered as someone has recently proved that the world is round.

Any advice would be good!

Oh, I forgot to mention, it's a marathon game.

Your tech path is off. It's badly off. You're researching Printing Press which is fun, but the only reason I can see for teching that is you've bulbed it with a scientist and feel obligated to finish it (this does not apply), supercharging your towns (this does not apply) or going for Rifling.

Rifling, right? Forget it. Jannisaries and trebs are what you want to walk over Hammurabi. I assume tht's how Saladin found himself off the mortal coil.

Also, you're not really running many scientists. In some cities merchants (smoe spies but that's a product of the governor).

You're not that behind on tech to be honest. Why didn't you shoot for lib? You haven't even got Philosophy or Education. Research Philosophy, then Nationalism, switch to Nationhood and draft the everloving christ out of your massive cities. Then use those and the trebs you'll have been building everywhere to beat Hammurabi.

Oh, and while you're doing that get Optics. Maybe if you're quick enough you can take the other continent with the leftover Jannisaries.

AppleTheMan,

I haven't downloaded your save, but let me offer up some advice.

One of my biggest mistakes when I was first learning a food economy was thinking I had to grow my cities to the happiness or health cap before they became useful. This was a HUGE mistake on my part, and it sounds like you're doing the same.

A small city can be very productive to even a large empire. Something as little as a city with a granary, a library, working two farms, running two Scientist Specialists building gold will produce a fair amount of Science and gold for your empire. Heck, a size 4 city working two cottaged flood plains can support two Scientists like this for a very high amount of science output.

These small cities have many advantages.
Lower city maintenance
Short time to usefulness (no need to wait for cottages to mature)
Less structural improvements needed

Of course the disadvantage is that you're sacrificing long term usefulness for a short term gain. But when executed properly the short term gain is very worth it in my opinion.

If you like, I'll try to provide you with some examples.

when running a SE and feeling behind on tech you need to run more scientists. you might think you are running enough, but probably not. representation and biology are priorities.

I can't look at the save but here's some input that may be of use:

On using pre-biology grassland farms to support specialists (scientists) with.

You'll be running 2 grassland farms for each scientist. That's 3 pop for every scientist you run in this way.

First thing to consider: if you're at a health deficit, at least one of your farms won't be producing any food. You'd be doing something wrong in a major way.

Second thing: if you need Heriditary Rule guards to keep your pop happy... Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs of the stationed units. Guards for 3 pop cost 3 coins/turn... Whoa, where'd my 3.75 beakers go? You must value great people points very highly if you still want to go on with this. Ok. Every 4 pop in your city increases free unit rate by 1, so the cost of a HR guard is actually 0.75, but after factoring in civic maintenance, we get depressing values again.

Third thing: try to work out what kind of gains you get from simply cottaging the grassland tiles instead, then compare with the above considerations in mind.

The first thing you should probably do in your current game, is to switch to Mercantilism immediately. Both your neighbors are already in it, so your cities' trade routes are all internal already.

Also, Monsterzuma guessed correctly: you're hitting and passing your health caps and losing food that should be feeding more scientists. Those cities should be capped off with specialists, not continuing to grow farther and farther into unhealthiness.

In my opinion, you also have way too many workers. I generally stick to a "one per city, or less" rule. You've got 18 cities, and 26 workers - and they're costing you coin in unit upkeep while roading unused jungle tiles at the fringes of your cultural border. I'm guessing you just got a bunch by militaristic means - I would thin the herd with the delete button.

And futurehermit is right on as well: beeline for Representation to boost your specialists. Running both Representation and Mercantilism will get you a minimum of (18 *3) = 54 more beakers per turn, or as many as 108 if you decide that all cities should get a scientist.

Anyway, biggest thing for you to change about your approach, is the size/health cap ratio issue. You have quite a bit of surplus food (and lost food!) that should be feeding scientists - instead of pushing city population past what you can keep happy and healthy.

I'm having a real hard time implementing the strategy of using loads of farms + Caste system. I find that in spite of my large country, I'm always short of cash and behind everyone else in technology no matter what I do. What are your suggestions to this strategy?

You need to build cottages in your capital and run bureaucracy. That should provide enough gold. I suggest that you read A Beginner's Guide to a Specialist Economy (http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/specialist_economy.php) in the War Academy.

Merchants are a poor way to generate cash - you need to come up with other approaches.

I like cottages for this - they are very efficient at generating cash and then you can use scientists for research in cities with science multipliers and cottages for cash in cities with cash multipliers.

If you must avoid cottages because of some kind of masochism then you should look at other alternatives for cash:

- Building wealth is more efficient that merchants - a farm supported merchant gets 3 gold and a farm supported plains hill mine gets 4.

- Holy cities are very efficient - the cost of missionaries is paid back many times.

Merchants are a poor way to generate cash - you need to come up with other approaches.

I like cottages for this - they are very efficient at generating cash and then you can use scientists for research in cities with science multipliers and cottages for cash in cities with cash multipliers.

If you must avoid cottages because of some kind of masochism then you should look at other alternatives for cash:

- Building wealth is more efficient that merchants - a farm supported merchant gets 3 gold and a farm supported plains hill mine gets 4.

- Holy cities are very efficient - the cost of missionaries is paid back many times.

-Isn't the conversion rate for hammers to gold less than 1->1? And even if not, they are multiplied by different buildings, so they cannot be compared that easily (hammers would also usually be useful otherwise anyways)

Merchants are a good way to generate gold compared to using cottages, if your science rate is high (CE). That is because you can again specialise your cities with the gold multiplier buildings (only those with merchants get them). In SE, this will tend to be the other way round (high taxes, low science), so cottages are predominantly generating gold and scientists provide the science.

Good advice, thanks!

I took the advice of REALLY cranking up the science specialists. I laughed at the idea of getting Liberalism, especially when a few turns later I got ranked as the least hopelessly advanced civ. Lucky for me, the "new world" found me and was willing to trade much tech, including Education. I lightbulbed liberalism with an artist, cranked up the tech for a few turns and got it! I'm now the most or second most advanced.

I built about 14 trebuchets, switched to representation, (and mercantilism) and am now ready to go to war with my good friend Hammurabi!

I also managed to get the Taj Mahal built in Istanbul (just before Hammurabi), although it was very costly, as I needed to switch to workshops to get it done quick enough. I now have a sweet 24 turn golden age.

Merchants are a poor way to generate cash - you need to come up with other approaches.

I like cottages for this - they are very efficient at generating cash and then you can use scientists for research in cities with science multipliers and cottages for cash in cities with cash multipliers.

If you must avoid cottages because of some kind of masochism then you should look at other alternatives for cash:

- Building wealth is more efficient that merchants - a farm supported merchant gets 3 gold and a farm supported plains hill mine gets 4.

- Holy cities are very efficient - the cost of missionaries is paid back many times.

It does change a bit merchants vs building wealth mid game, when gold multipliers are more readily available than hammer.

Still, merchants don't seem like a good way to generate cash, it would be different if their GPP pool was different from scientists - but I'd rather have scientists anyway.

-Isn't the conversion rate for hammers to gold less than 1->1? And even if not, they are multiplied by different buildings, so they cannot be compared that easily (hammers would also usually be useful otherwise anyways)


Its exactly 1:1 I thought. Yes they are multiplied by different buildings, so there is a mid game period where you have better cash multipliers available, but I doubt many cities will get the market+grocer+bank - thats a LOT of hammers compared to a forge.

Grassland mines are even better since they halfway feed themselves.

Lets say a city has +6 food surplus.

It can run three merchants for +9 gold.
Or work 3 plains mines for +12 hammers = +12 gold
Or work 6 grassland mines for +18 hammers = +18 gold.

Even if we compare the multipliers it will take the merchant city market+bank+grocer to beat the plains mine city with a forge. Market+Grocer alone won't do it. And the merchant city will never beat the grassland mines city (until representation where you can probably consider it equal).

Merchants are a good way to generate gold compared to using cottages, if your science rate is high (CE). That is because you can again specialise your cities with the gold multiplier buildings (only those with merchants get them). In SE, this will tend to be the other way round (high taxes, low science), so cottages are predominantly generating gold and scientists provide the science.

I would agree only in the Wall Street city where you want to totally maximize cash production because of your high cash multipliers. Elsewhere they are pretty inefficient compared to simply working more cottages (even with less efficient multipliers) or working mines for wealth.


So I can only see three reasons for running merchants:

- In your Wall Street city.
- Because you want to generate a Great Merchant in this city
- Because your economy is in desperate straits and you don't have time to switch to a more efficient way of generating cash - hopefully you won't be running them for long.

I can't look at the save but here's some input that may be of use:

On using pre-biology grassland farms to support specialists (scientists) with.

You'll be running 2 grassland farms for each scientist. That's 3 pop for every scientist you run in this way.

First thing to consider: if you're at a health deficit, at least one of your farms won't be producing any food. You'd be doing something wrong in a major way.

Second thing: if you need Heriditary Rule guards to keep your pop happy... Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs of the stationed units. Guards for 3 pop cost 3 coins/turn... Whoa, where'd my 3.75 beakers go? You must value great people points very highly if you still want to go on with this. Ok. Every 4 pop in your city increases free unit rate by 1, so the cost of a HR guard is actually 0.75, but after factoring in civic maintenance, we get depressing values again.

Third thing: try to work out what kind of gains you get from simply cottaging the grassland tiles instead, then compare with the above considerations in mind.

You should not be in HR if you are running a SE--at least there is no good reason to be. You should be using the culture slider for your happiness since the science slider is mostly empty.

Through the medieval era, you can get away with smallish numbers of scientists, but once you start wanting to tech expensive renaissance+ techs, you better be running a LOT of scientists across your LARGE empire and you better prioritize constitution (representation) and biology.

Doing this you can still tech extremely well. Admittedly, a CE will outtech a similar-sized SE empire in the latter 3 eras, but the SE has the advantage imo in 1) getting the large empire in the first place; and 2) transitioning into hardcore whip/draft mode during the renaissance to pull of an earlier domination win in many cases. Good SE games shouldn't go past the renaissance in tech making late-game tech comparisons a moot point in many cases. However, I have won very nice SE space wins with Ramesses and Cathy, so it is certainly possible.

You should not be in HR if you are running a SE--at least there is no good reason to be. You should be using the culture slider for your happiness since the science slider is mostly empty.

Through the medieval era, you can get away with smallish numbers of scientists, but once you start wanting to tech expensive renaissance+ techs, you better be running a LOT of scientists across your LARGE empire and you better prioritize constitution (representation) and biology.

Doing this you can still tech extremely well. Admittedly, a CE will outtech a similar-sized SE empire in the latter 3 eras, but the SE has the advantage imo in 1) getting the large empire in the first place; and 2) transitioning into hardcore whip/draft mode during the renaissance to pull of an earlier domination win in many cases. Good SE games shouldn't go past the renaissance in tech making late-game tech comparisons a moot point in many cases. However, I have won very nice SE space wins with Ramesses and Cathy, so it is certainly possible.

Isn't using the culture slider just as "leaky" as running HR and paying troop maintenance? You still get a reasonable amount of commerce - +1 per river farm, goldmines and trade income. Using +10% on the culture slider to get 1 or 2 points of happiness will probably cost as much as the troop maintenance to do the same thing. At least the troop maintenance can be concentrated in only the cities that need it. And having more troops is helpful in other ways :)

The extra maintenance costs to maintain big cities is usually easily covered by the extra commerce that they pull in from trade and worked tiles.

Good SE games shouldn't go past the renaissance in tech making late-game tech comparisons a moot point in many cases. However, I have won very nice SE space wins with Ramesses and Cathy, so it is certainly possible.

This depends on the map. If you play on a map that needs galleons before you can start attacking the other main players it is very hard to win a domination before the Industrial age, unless you purposely turn off research so you stay in the Rennaissance. But you can easily win on that map with just Combustion and Flight, you don't need to research far into the industrial era, so you're close to being right with your assertion. On a Pangea map you can win in the Medieval age if you're vigorous and have a good early UU.