Economies in ruins!

StarWorms said:

I've had problems in the past with my economy and overexpansion. Try and get Code of Laws quickly. My economy can go into negative but if I get courthouses in my cities, my economy rockets up to be the best by a long way. Because you hve so many cities with less maintenance, you can catch up with and overtake other civs in technology until you're unstoppable.

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Why stop there?

One more expansion tech that everyone seems to ignore, but is as powerful as Code of Laws, is Currency. Once you have writing (everybody goes after writing), you are only one tech (Mathematics) away from Currency and an automatic +1 trade route in every city (+1 or +2 in EVERY city without needing to build a single building, which at this point, is what you would have gotten with a bunch of courthouses).

Currency is an automatic two or three extra cities of city maintenance you have at your disposal (or faster tech rate). Then once those three extra cities have courthouses, that's another two or three cities maintenance you can afford. Four to six extra cities working tiles (cottages, mines, etc.) can really speed up your research and production alot (and cover more happy and health resources within your borders for larger cities to boot). Once you have those two techs, mysticism will most likely take no more than two turns to research and your expansion limit is more than doubled.

You are talking about an almost gauranteed win on Monarch if you have enough space to place ten profitable cities counting the opponents you destroy to get hold of that many cities, with no slowdown in tech pace. Your next tech lead will come quick as a jackrabbit.

Yep, I am a science junkie/warmonger in this game.

Its harder to see currency effects since its doesn't save you gold so you have have the sliders low to have make some money. But it does allow to trade for money which is can be helpful (not to many AIs are willing to trade GPT when you get it but you can sell techs). But since a currency is a optional prereq for code of laws I'll take currency route if I don't want the religon.

CivDude86 said:

Its harder to see currency effects since its doesn't save you gold so you have have the sliders low to have make some money. But it does allow to trade for money which is can be helpful (not to many AIs are willing to trade GPT when you get it but you can sell techs). But since a currency is a optional prereq for code of laws I'll take currency route if I don't want the religon.

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The game's not about money, it's about research. Additional routes gives you commerce. According to you, you're running at high slider, so the routes = more research, which is good.

I agree with stolen-rutters... you get immediate commerce (trade routes). Shrine income is a bass-ackward way to boost your research, no more, no less. From that perspective, your argument applies more to religions (it's harder to see its effects).

Wodan

CivDude86 said:

Its harder to see currency effects since its doesn't save you gold so you have have the sliders low to have make some money. But it does allow to trade for money which is can be helpful (not to many AIs are willing to trade GPT when you get it but you can sell techs). But since a currency is a optional prereq for code of laws I'll take currency route if I don't want the religon.

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Currency also enables you to start demanding tribute from AIs (if they have currency and you don't it works too). This is often a valuable way to catch up on science when you are a backward but huge nation, and have the intimidation factor of a very high military power rating.

Its best done with nations you know you are never going to get on with, because of the "-1 you made an arrogant demand" for each tribute demand. Grab the cash, set research to 100%, and you can forget about the crippling no of cities and dist from palace penalties for a while, and research your socks off. When the tribute runs out, go demand some more off someone else. Leave some nations alone for a while to get rich again, then back to them again. Its a bit like crop rotation, 'cept I call it cash rotation

As soon as you have courthouses and the necessary techs / civics to run a decent science rate yourself, you can start repairing relationships with the nations you wish to trade with.

Oh and if an Ai is pleased with you, just asking them nicely for a wedge of cash often works too, and no harm done if they decline.

Currency is a very powerful tool in many ways, especially for the early fast expander / conquerer

Wodan said:

The game's not about money, it's about research. Additional routes gives you commerce. According to you, you're running at high slider, so the routes = more research, which is good.

Wodan

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Yes, but it is the money that allows one to research. Without the flo-po, there is no research. Just like the real world, baby.


Therefore, cash is king, and prioritized. Commerce is, in effect, money. Then that money is turned into either Gold pieces or SPENT on research and turned into beakers.


It's not the money.
It's the money.

drkodos said:

Yes, but it is the money that allows one to research. Without the flo-po, there is no research. Just like the real world, baby.


Therefore, cash is king, and prioritized. Commerce is, in effect, money. Then that money is turned into either Gold pieces or SPENT on research and turned into beakers.


It's not the money.
It's the money.

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I don't buy all that, drkodos.

You've got a point. But only up to an extent.

Money is like closet space. The more you have, the more you find uses to spend it on. Many of those uses are often not wise purchases.

For example, many players do cash upgrades of their military rather than build new ones. On the other hand, some experienced players swear by the policy of having a military city constantly pumping out experienced troops, halting only to build west point or whatever, and obsolete units are often disbanded or used as cannon fodder.

There are plenty of other areas to spend your cash. Again, many of those ways are probably things that you could do without. Given that gold means that much less research you could have had, this is a critical point.

In addition, there are ways to get gold that don't affect your research (shrines), and there are ways to get research that don't reduce your gold (scientists, Sankore, etc).

Wodan

Wodan Great Analogy.

build bank, marketplace, gocer, hamlets and alot of roads

you mean, build too fast and too large and end up like USA now.....too poor 99%

Wodan said:

Money is like closet space. The more you have, the more you find uses to spend it on. Many of those uses are often not wise purchases.

For example, many players do cash upgrades of their military rather than build new ones. On the other hand, some experienced players swear by the policy of having a military city constantly pumping out experienced troops, halting only to build west point or whatever, and obsolete units are often disbanded or used as cannon fodder.

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Is upgrading troops usually considered a waste of money? I've been upgrading almost all of mine (except the ones I use against impossible odds to hopefully soften the defense and better the odds for my good troops).

I was thinking about this the other day as I played since I didn't really have the gold to upgrade when I wanted to. I'm thinking that probably the best answer is to upgrade the promoted troops and remake the rest but I was wondering what people thought.

I didn't bump this old thread but I'm glad the previous poster did since I also run into the problem of balance between expansion and research/gold levels so it was interesting reading.

Jenarie said:

Is upgrading troops usually considered a waste of money?

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Depends on who you talk to. Generally, I'd say that cash is interchangeable with research. Yeah, not always 1:1 but it's in the ballpark. Hammers, however, is a more complex issue.

Basically, when you pay cash to upgrade, you're spending money (research) to get hammers.

The alternative is to build new units, which saves money (giving you more research), at the cost of hammers. Your cities could be making infrastructure. The earlier you have a bank (etc) the more benefit you get. If nothing else, you could be producing Research, which turns hammers into beakers at a very good rate.

What turns the argument for me is when you consider the benefits of having a military academy city. Basically a pure production city in which you put the odd great general, heroic epic, and west point. It's nice to make this on the coast, though you don't want a lot of water. Farms and mines. Regardless, this city shouldn't bother making most buildings except as needed for health or happiness. It can then be churning out military units in a steady stream, which can be used to steadily replace your aging units. My last game I was churning out Cossaks with 18xp out of the gate! Barracks/Stable/West Point/military instructors.

Considering that you usually have to have a few production cities anyway (because of terrain constraints it doesn't work for them to be cottaged or specialists), it makes perfect sense to have one of these production cities be your academy city.

As for upgrades, I'm not too wild about it. Since your XP gets dropped all the way back to 10, you're basically saying "I'm going to freeze this guy and never promote him again". In addition, this also means that combat you "waste" on that unit is throwing the XP away. Wouldn't it be better to have a unit get the XP that will actually get promoted?

Usually, after every war, I mothball my army and assume I'm not going to be using those units ever again. Oh, there are some exceptions, such as the cavalry with blitz (blitz gunships are simply too awesome) and cannon or artillery with CRIII (which simply bust enemy cities wide open... essential before you get bombers).

Wodan

I've had a strategy with Washington of firing off cities (Warrior / worker / settler, then repeat in each city) and mass building cottages, especially against rivers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's hit or miss.

If you have a specialist economy instead of the cottage economy, then you can set the rates to whatever you want without having a huge impact on your economy.

I like to have a few cities with specialists, and a few commerce cities.

Wodan said:

Usually, after every war, I mothball my army and assume I'm not going to be using those units ever again. Oh, there are some exceptions, such as the cavalry with blitz (blitz gunships are simply too awesome) and cannon or artillery with CRIII (which simply bust enemy cities wide open... essential before you get bombers).

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Another very good deal is upgrading Berserkers. They come with Amphibious, barracks etc. can give them City Raider promotions, and you can choose to upgrade them to either Rifles of Grenadiers for a relatively low price. Nice (y)

This thread is a veritable minefield of good and bad advice. Much of the advice is dependent upon the difficulty level you decide to play on.

the overexpansion penalties is simply Civ IV's way of telling you "you can't have you're cake and eat it too". As you move up in difficulty level you will be forced away from your comforting must-have wonders/religions/tactics. I've moved from noble to prince to monarch, and back to prince with the BetterAI mod

So buy into whatever advice you choose, but caveat emptor! And find a level that's challenging, but still fun to play.

in the late 1900s i was at 1oo% and i was MAKING aobut 2oo gpt. i was playing on warlord, so that might be a factor.

p.s. i built every wonder but one, the parthenon, not including things like the chruch of the nativity and the mahabodi

Everyone should have kids. They are the greatest joy in the world. But they are also terrorists. You'll realize this as soon as they are born, and they start using sleep deprivation to break you.
-- Ray Romano

Ereiid said:

2) The early game ran just fine, until I ran up to about a dozen cities.

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/bonk

Unlike previous incarnations of Civ the fastest way to tank your own economy is to over-expand. The others advice is solid (cottages etc et al) but the biggest thing is to just -slow down- Barring some miracle that let you bank scads of cash early having 12 cities by Classical era is just way way too many.

If 4 cities are adequate (at least in the early game) why does the advisor constantly badger me to build settlers (to expand my civilisation)?

My problem (Noble level) is that I generally lead until the latter stages, at which point someone (usually Hatti, Asoka or Roosevelt) suddenly take off like a rocket! Before long, I find myself in 2nd or 3rd place, falling far behind on tech nd wonders.

Vizzini said:

/bonk

Unlike previous incarnations of Civ the fastest way to tank your own economy is to over-expand. The others advice is solid (cottages etc et al) but the biggest thing is to just -slow down- Barring some miracle that let you bank scads of cash early having 12 cities by Classical era is just way way too many.

Click to expand...

12 cities in and of itself is not such a bad thing. If you haven't got Currency yet, set 6 of them to build 'Research' until you get it. If you have Currency, then set 6 of them to building 'Wealth'. That's just an example, but I expand like crazy and over time (after I get Currency), have many cities just building 'Wealth'.

Which would you rather have.

4 regular Cities

6 Regular Cities (with another 6 creating a bucketload of gold to make up for expenses)

?

Cheers.