Why am I always broke?

caralampio

Chieftain
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
8
I've played all the civs from 1 to 4, and done well. However now I'm playing BTS and I'm always broke! Every city I build the red number gets worse and worse, eventually I have 0% research, disband most of my troops (or have them disbanded by the advisor) and still red numbers. Sometimes I can survive and make it into a later era, when I start building banks and stuff the economy slowly recovers, but the question is, how to avoid that early- and mid- game economic depression? It is "depressing" :lol:
 
Courthouses. Also cottages.

Running specialists should help keep your research afloat even at 0%-20% until you can reach code of laws/currency.

If you're losing money at 0% and can't immediately war for plunder to keep yourself afloat, that's typically a good sign to stop and heal your economy.
 
I do like to overexpand (it worked in the previous games). My main worry is to have enough territory so that there's a good chance that there will be horses, iron, oil, uranium etc. inside my borders. It is such a pain to play a lot of turns only to find you don't have oil and there isn't even an oilfield within reach of your armies. Or horses, or whatever.

OK I get that, but I still don't understand how money works. Suppose I'm at -1 gold economy. I build a cottage, which supposedly should give me an extra gold piece and nullify the -1, but it does not happen and the -1 continues. :confused:
 
Cottages give extra commerce, not gold. Commerce is turned into science, gold, culture and in BTS, espionage through the sliders (the percentages). So if you're running 100% :science: and add more :commerce: then you'll get an equal amount of :science: but no extra :gold:

Courthouses, as mentioned above, are your best bet at improving the economy
 
Also, in peaceful expansion make sure you only have a minimal number of units outside your cultural borders. Unit supply costs are added to your basic unit maintenance, and it can be very expensive leaving a bunch of units carelessly outside your borders for no good reason (something I didn't understand in the past :mischief:)

~Benford's Law
 
You can afford almost limitless expansion if you key your cities towards commerce - connect them with roads (so you get commerce from trade routes) and work multiple commerce tiles with each.

Production often takes a higher priority though - cities that are raking in the cash won't have the production to build the infrastructure to make them even better in the long term. For this reason, many players abuse their economy on principle - pretty much nothing has the same returns on invested hammers as settlers and the very basic infrastructure, apart from units if you have the opportunity to wage war with no/modest losses. Research can wait.

Pushing the limit - where you break even or lose money at 100% gold - isn't a problem and will feature in many of my games. However, you need to plan ahead for this and be able to recover before you start losing units (which defeats the entire point of maxing production first).

By the time you have modern-age resources available, there is no such thing as overexpansion; you have enough tools to make every city profitable. The likely culprit is underdeveloped cities not connected to the trade network.
 
I do like to overexpand (it worked in the previous games).

Then that's definitely your problem. CIV was designed specifically to avoid ICS which was *the* ultimate strategy in the previous Civ. Maintenance linked to the number of cities means that each new cities you build is at first a net loss to your empire, so expand carefully.

After that, as the others said, cottages, libraries, markets, courthouses...
 
It's easy to confuse :gold: and :commerce:.
What difficulty are you playing?
What leader/civ are you playing? Try a Financial leader.
As has been stated above, don't overexpand. REX (Rapid Expansion does not work.
A general rule of thumb for the early game is to expand until your :science: drops to 50% or 60% and you are still making a little :gold:.
Libraries allow you to run two Scientist Specialists in your city and lower your :science: rate.

Welcome to the Forums caralampio. :beer:
 
So in early game the priority should be :science: over :gold: or vice versa?

My constant worry throughout a game especially early on is that I don't want to fall behind and be subject to invasion or even have to barter or ask for technologies from other civs.
 
So in early game the priority should be :science: over :gold: or vice versa?

My constant worry throughout a game especially early on is that I don't want to fall behind and be subject to invasion or even have to barter or ask for technologies from other civs.

Science is pretty much the highest priority throughout the game.

Its always good to have some emergency funds in the bank, but for a vast majority of the game extra cash simply means you can burn it by running the science slider higher on negative cash flow. You only really need to stockpile money in preparation for unit upgrades (for a war) or towards the end if you plan on rush-buying buildings or spreading corporations. For most of the game you'll never want more than a few hundred bucks in the bank.

Also you say you worry about having to barter for techs from other civs, but past noble or prince good trading skills is pretty much the only way for you to keep up in technology! The key is to trade to same tech to multiple civs, so you get a lot for a single technology.

For example, you could beeline Code of Laws and then be the only civ with that and enjoy it all to yourself... or you could trade around and give it to everybody but for the same amount of beakers have Code of Laws, Currency, Aestethics, Monotheism, Metal Casting, Monarchy, and Horseback Riding. :goodjob: Depends somewhat on the AI situation though, but its not too hard to get monopoly techs to share.
 
So in early game the priority should be :science: over :gold: or vice versa?

My constant worry throughout a game especially early on is that I don't want to fall behind and be subject to invasion or even have to barter or ask for technologies from other civs.

Like Joshua368, I emphasize :science:.

Welcome to the Forums Bechhold. :beer:
 
OK I've been "not expanding" and I'm doing quite well. But with a small kingdom it is improbable that you will get all the critical resources and the AI nations very rarely have two of them to trade you one (and even if they do, they won't). :nope:
 
I do like to overexpand (it worked in the previous games).

This is not earlier games, change your tactics. Every city costs maintenance and that cost increases as you build more cities and they get further away from your Palace. This is the first Civ game that have used money and not corruption to set limits on your civ's growth. You need to adjust to the change.
 
Expand, but do not expand to fast, create your next city when your previous city breaks even or loses only a 2 gold or so per turn, and ensure that your nation is one solid unit, it also keeps the cities close enough for you not to wory too much about distance. Also, many times the game gives a commerce spot with 2 or 3 gold or gems together closeby, settle that first. But I haven't found a code that says that, so it isn't the hard and fast rule
 
OP:

Some general tips:

1. Watch your flow of beakers, and not necessarily the % of the science slider.
2. In general, settle towards the AI civs and block off territory for later expansion.
3. Build cottages, especially along rivers.
4. When at war, do not capture every enemy city unless you can afford to do so.
5. Make a priority of learning Currency and Code of Laws, then build markets and courthouses where appropriate. If you have Calendar resources, learn that tech. Most of them give a lot of commerce when harvested.
6. Learn Alphabet and Currency, and sell your techs for cash
7. Settle good cities, with lots of bonus resources.
8. If your economy is crashing from overexpansion, make sure you have learned writing and built libraries, then put your citizens on commerce mode making just enough food to feed two scientists. Your production will tank but you can usually avoid a strike and keep your research going.
 
Stop playing Civ all the time and get a job instead. Then you won't always be broke.
 
Stop playing Civ all the time and get a job instead. Then you won't always be broke.

Good luck finding one in this economy, I suggest skip looking for a job, remain broke, and play civ.
 
I like to use merchant specialists whenever I can to prop up the economy. Just a few merchants is good to get a nice boost.

In addition don't underestimate the financial boost of a holy city with its holy building. If you spread its religion well that is another source of gold direct to the coffers.
 
F2. You'll see where your commerce is going.

Then, either increase your income, or decrease your expenses, whichever you deem is going to be more effective. Or both.
 
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