BNW unit maintenance cost in early eras broken?

funkymunky said:
Need some advice for how to manage economics & military in early eras (particularly classical & medieval). The latest game playing Persia on Prince level, I have been finding that no matter what I do, I cannot manage to have a positive bank account at all and have a decent military (meaning around 6-10 units, & a couple of workers). Every time I check with my military advisor, he keeps telling me all the surrounding civs are stronger than I am, and even when I maxed my trade caravans (2), built roads to all my cities (6), markets in my main cities (top 3), & oligarchy for free garrisons, I still cannot get out of the red!

Can some of you explain how you manage to keep a decent military comparable to rival civs? I think I need to shoot for about 8-10 units to keep rivals civs from constantly attacking me (which kills my caravans & makes matters worse), but I can't seem to be able to even afford that, and the lost gold is killing my science. :mad: Any useful advice would be appreciated (or even workarounds if the mechanics are broken). Also, is anything about early economy/ early unit maintenance being address by the new patch (didn't see any notes regarding that)?
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1) Don't build roads to cities until their pop is equal to or greater than their distance to the capital.

2) Sell excess luxuries to AIs for 7 GPT each.

3) Research Sailing/Engineering for a 3rd trade route.

I'm seriously honor in my latest Deity game with 4 Swords, 3 Comp Bows, 2 Battering Rams, 4 Horse Archers, and 2 Horsemen, and I have +23 GPT. No Tradition at all. Why do you have 6 cities with Tradition? Should've gone Liberty.

It also helps immensely to build a Caravansary in your capital and have it send all your trade routes to other capitals.
 
Antarion said:
why does noone hint at trade routes especially to city states if u want to wage war to your neighbour....:king:
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Because this is terrible advice if you want your science to stay afloat on high difficulty. CS don't give science, and on high difficulty, trade route science is easily 40-50% of your science. Just make sure you have more than one neighbor and trade with the one that you like.
 
i waged a pretty good early war in my last game (my army was 2 swords, 1 cb, 2 cats and a spearman)
you can support your army by extorting gold from other players and CS, pillaging improvements and selling buildings in cities you raze.
selling stuff to ai i dont like as it feels cheesy :)
 
plokoon9619 said:
Guys his problem isn't managing road maintenance, its a game problem where you can't sustain a decent sized army in the first few eras.
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If other people manage to do it, I'd say it's not a game problem.
 
You can take cities comfortably with an army of four composite bowmen and two siege towers, and that's an eminently affordable force.

The problem is not taking cities - the problem is taking cities and actually ending up better off than someone who didn't take a big risk and a warmongering hit. In many cases you might warmonger against a guy on your continent and conquer his cities and get courthouses in them and then realise that on the other side of the world Siam has been peacefully building up and has a far better empire than yours and is ahead of you in science entirely through peace.

I don't think warmongering is sufficiently rewarding to a successful warmonger in the early eras. Early war seems far more suited to tearing your opponents down rather than building yourself up, and building yourself up will generally be a better strategy in a game with numerous opponents.
 
Yeah, I'm not sure if the roads were my problem so much. In general they were my lowest expense between units, buildings & tiles. It just seemed that in order to maintain an army that wasn't going to get ransacked by my AI neighbors I had to keep running deficits, and there seems to be lack of SP and alternatives to make money. I think the suggestion to give free units in Honor would be good. Something like 4 maintenance free troops with Discipline seems like an appropriate change, because economy seems hampered in early game.

In my case, I was selling all my extra luxes to ai players (though I could not get 7gpt, more like 3-4), I had 3 caravans, oligarchy for reduced maintenance, commerce starter & monarchy for extra gold in capital, & several markets, and it seems all that could not make up for the cost of about 8 military & a couple of workers.

By the time I got to Rennaissance and got banking & meritocracy it seemed that finances finally improved, and now I'm into the modern era and making 120+gpt, but the early era has been frustrating about that. I wanted to make a strategy of early conquest with Persia because they have those early immortal UU (tried the same strategy with Rome in a previous game to same effect), but it seems early economy is somewhat hampered. I mean, I'm not looking to get rich, just want to break even because all that deficit spending hurts science and keeps one from being able to upgrade troops. And science is already hurt by city count modifier, so it doesn't need to be worse, for sure! Actually, though, loosing science isn't what bothers me so much, but not being able upgrade high xp units is really annoying.
 
plokoon9619 said:
Guys his problem isn't managing road maintenance, its a game problem where you can't sustain a decent sized army in the first few eras.
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My problem is never maintaining the army, it's building the army fast enough to enable any real warmongering.

Gort said:
You can take cities comfortably with an army of four composite bowmen and two siege towers, and that's an eminently affordable force.
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Not on Deity. I mean, sure, you CAN take cities comfortably with that, IF the AI doesn't have an army. Deity AIs will overwhelm you with unit spam before you get anywhere near their cities. If you leave Quick Combat on, your screen will be a wall of text informing you that your siege tower got slammed by 30 crossbows and died in one turn.

The problem is not taking cities - the problem is taking cities and actually ending up better off than someone who didn't take a big risk and a warmongering hit. In many cases you might warmonger against a guy on your continent and conquer his cities and get courthouses in them and then realise that on the other side of the world Siam has been peacefully building up and has a far better empire than yours and is ahead of you in science entirely through peace.
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This is why you need to only consider keeping cities that have good wonders in them until later eras. Puppets are useless early on. Better off re-settling the spot yourself.

I don't think warmongering is sufficiently rewarding to a successful warmonger in the early eras. Early war seems far more suited to tearing your opponents down rather than building yourself up, and building yourself up will generally be a better strategy in a game with numerous opponents.
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This, however, is true. Warmongering early often gets the AIs angry enough at you to start ganging up on you, as well, unless you get a joint war going.
 
funkymunky said:
Yeah, I'm not sure if the roads were my problem so much. In general they were my lowest expense between units, buildings & tiles. It just seemed that in order to maintain an army that wasn't going to get ransacked by my AI neighbors I had to keep running deficits, and there seems to be lack of SP and alternatives to make money. I think the suggestion to give free units in Honor would be good. Something like 4 maintenance free troops with Discipline seems like an appropriate change, because economy seems hampered in early game.

In my case, I was selling all my extra luxes to ai players (though I could not get 7gpt, more like 3-4), I had 3 caravans, oligarchy for reduced maintenance, commerce starter & monarchy for extra gold in capital, & several markets, and it seems all that could not make up for the cost of about 8 military & a couple of workers.

By the time I got to Rennaissance and got banking & meritocracy it seemed that finances finally improved, and now I'm into the modern era and making 120+gpt, but the early era has been frustrating about that. I wanted to make a strategy of early conquest with Persia because they have those early immortal UU (tried the same strategy with Rome in a previous game to same effect), but it seems early economy is somewhat hampered. I mean, I'm not looking to get rich, just want to break even because all that deficit spending hurts science and keeps one from being able to upgrade troops. And science is already hurt by city count modifier, so it doesn't need to be worse, for sure! Actually, though, loosing science isn't what bothers me so much, but not being able upgrade high xp units is really annoying.
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Perhaps you built useless buildings. I try to avoid the watermill till mid game because of the 2 gpt maintenance, and I don't build the stable unless I have at-least 2 pastures, although 3 would be more my liking. The forge I handle similarly. And unless I have a chance to be a dominant religious player, I don't build temples because 2 gpt for 2 faith is just not worth it when money is tight.

If you went tradition then all your cities should have a garrison as well.

And make sure you improve your resources before making trade-routes to maximize the route's output. Cargo ships over caravans when possible.
 
Strange question... is 7gpt the new standard for AI luxury trades after the patch? I haven't played since the patch but pre-patch I never got more than 6gpt at any point in the game no matter how good friends we were. (Standard Size/Speed Emperor)
 
Gort said:
Dude is playing on Prince. Four composites and two siege towers is totally doable.
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Oh yeah, on anything Immortal and below, four composites and two siege towers is plenty. Might even be able to conquer a capital with that.

In my case, I was selling all my extra luxes to ai players (though I could not get 7gpt, more like 3-4), I had 3 caravans, oligarchy for reduced maintenance, commerce starter & monarchy for extra gold in capital, & several markets, and it seems all that could not make up for the cost of about 8 military & a couple of workers.
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No, see, when the AI refuses to take 7 gpt for your luxes, you find someone else. You're getting ripped off and you shouldn't have to take that. 3 GPT is either a deadbeat with no money, or someone planning to backstab you soon. If he can't afford 7 GPT, you keep your luxes until he can pay up.

If you have 3 Caravans, build a caravansary at your capital. ONLY your capital, unless you have a great trade city that needs it, because they are expensive. That will enable you to send your caravans to better cities, and get more gold when they get there. 8 Military and 2 workers seems very low to me. How much are each of your trade routes worth? If all your options are terrible, it could be that the AI is holding you back by not knowing how to properly grow a city.

Also, here's a very helpful thing I discovered watching MadDjinn: click your trade routes number to bring up the trade routes, click "Available Trade Routes," and then sort it by highest GPT. This will show you every trade route you could possibly make in your entire empire, so you know what city your caravans should start in, and which city they should be sent to.

Strange question... is 7gpt the new standard for AI luxury trades after the patch? I haven't played since the patch but pre-patch I never got more than 6gpt at any point in the game no matter how good friends we were. (Standard Size/Speed Emperor)
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Yes. More accurately, if you're friends you can get exactly 8 gold + 7 GPT for a lux. 7 GPT is standard for anyone that's not your friend.
 
Gort said:
I don't think warmongering is sufficiently rewarding to a successful warmonger in the early eras. Early war seems far more suited to tearing your opponents down rather than building yourself up, and building yourself up will generally be a better strategy in a game with numerous opponents.
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Yeah, conquering a city from someone should not only give you a bit of gold (which is often not very much) and culture (I don't even remember, do we get culture from capturing cities?) but also some science if the civ in speak knew of some tech you didn't know of. I mean, if you conquer a city and the people know about writing, wouldn't that help you to learn about writing? A handful of maintenance from units with Honor also seems like a no-brainer.
 
Well, in earlier versions of civ you used to steal a tech from anyone you conquered a city from, now it's only Assyrians that do that.

I would like to see Honour get some sort of reduction in unit maintenance and more happiness. Anyone remember the +1 happiness from Walls and Wall-type buildings it used to get that was removed entirely without fanfare? That made perfect sense for Honour but got moved to Autocracy.

Perhaps it should be +2 happiness from garrisons? Or +3 happiness in annexed cities, or something?
 
What are you building in your cities? What kind of improvements are you building around your cities?
 
Gort said:
Well, in earlier versions of civ you used to steal a tech from anyone you conquered a city from, now it's only Assyrians that do that.
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Exactly, and go figure, with Assyria early warmongering IS a viable path to take, and it's a great fun civ to play.
 
Well, I appreciate the advice given here. After playing a couple of games, these are what I found to be most helpful:

1) Don't build roads to cities less than size 5. Apparently city connections are not as lucrative in BNW as in previous expansions until cities get this large or more.
2) Focus building up capital and getting monarchy help a lot, especially in early game.
3) Food caravans are useful to grow cities quicker, which makes city connections more lucrative. Seems like caravans don't give good gold until cities get around size 5, so might as well have them grow cities first, and then use them for money later.
4) Seems I can ignore barracks and save some cash until medieval period because barbs give me good experience. Legalism saves money on monuments too, which helps.
5) I also was ignoring having workers build up tiles. This seems more important than before. The combination of food caravans and workers improving tiles helps cities grow faster so they can use tiles more efficiently and get gold from them.

In all, BNW seems to require that I make sure cities grow as fast as possible so they can get to size 5 or 6, and then they seems to start paying for themselves. G&K and vanilla seemed more forgiving in this respect, so it took some getting used to, but I think I got it now.
 
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