OK people, I'm new to Civ4 (only just converted from Civ3 and it took ages to get to grips with that :blush:). Basically a quick first question - I struggle with finances. Does expanding too quickly earlier on in the game ruin your finances or am I doing the right thing by expanding quickly and proactively?

Cheers,
Cheesey

Civ 4 is quite a bit different than civ 3 in regards to city maintenance and expansion.

In Civ 3 if you built a new city, it would add little in terms of production or commerce to your empire until you developed it. So a little plus but no real negative (other than needing to defend it). If you added buildings to needed to have the commerce to support their maintenance if you wanted the city to stay in the black. Depending on the distance from your capital you would loose shields and commerce to corruption.

In Civ 4 if you build a new city, you immediately have to pay gold to support it. The maintenance fees can be seen in the city screen. Most often the maintenance fees are larger than the commerce the city produces and so creating a new city actually produces a drain on your economy, unlike in Civ 3. Maintenance fees are based on distance from capital and other factors (which I don't know exactly but I might expect size would be part of a city's maintenance fee equation).

If you want to expand you have to do two things. Improve the economic conditions of your current cities and concentrate in your new cities on producing more commerce and reduced maintenance fees.

Maintenance fees can be reduced by producing courthouses, and in appropriate circumstances the Hidden Palace. Late in the game one can use the State Property civic.

Its important to concentrate on improving the commerce tiles in new cities and build a few cottages so that the city starts to bring in more gold. Trade is also a significant way to offset maintenance costs in new cities. On watery maps, owning the Great Lighthouse can put one in a position where initial city maintenance is offset by trade route income. The Currency tech also increases the amount that can be made through trade.

When I first started playing Civ 4 this was one of the biggest adjustments that I needed to make. If one wants to be successful in growing one really has to pay attention to their commerce development, devote workers to new cities an manually direct them toward commerce improvements and build courthouses as soon as practically possible.

One could write a small textbook in response.

You do want to expand quickly, but you have to do it properly - cities cost more in maintenance as you make new ones. After a couple these costs multiply very quickly so you need your tech path and improvements to be optimized to make it.

The strategy articles are a good starting point.

I would recommend building cottages in newly founded cities. These cottages will help to offset the maintainance costs of that new city.

Also, check out http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/ it has a lot of helpful articles.

The short version: Expanding very quickly causes your economy to take a dive, but you should still do it anyway.
Your finances will recover once you build infrastructure (courthouses especially), your cottages mature or you research techs that unlock additional trade routes. At this time, your head start on production pays off.

I've played with a deficit at 100% before and think I was playing correctly, but this is mostly applicable for high-level games (in short: lagging behind in research for a while is almost impossible to avoid but you can catch up. Getting enough land to work with before the AI chokes you in infinite settlers is a higher priority).

Alternatively, you can do well with a compact empire. 6 cities is enough for a normal-sized map if you don't wish to go manage dozens of them - this allows you to build the national wonders (most have prerequisites of 6 buildings of a kind) and, if you go for a cultural victory, to build cathedrals in 2 out of your 3 culture powerhouses.
Since you save hammers on expansions that go into infrastructure and aren't burndened by high maintenance costs, your initial research will be a lot better - this makes it possible to collect world wonders, giving you more substance than your compact empire would imply at first.

I hope this is somewhat helpful and I didn't drown you in useless details :)