Lack of Early Game Gold is...OUCH.

Try to get the mausoleum of Halicarnassus wonder even you don't have stone or marble because every great person used will give 100 gold. So if you get a FREE general walk him over to some unused tile and build a fort. This gives instant 100 gold. Same if you get an artist or great prophet.

Novu said:

Try to get the mausoleum of Halicarnassus wonder even you don't have stone or marble because every great person used will give 100 gold. So if you get a FREE general walk him over to some unused tile and build a fort. This gives instant 100 gold. Same if you get an artist or great prophet.

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IMO this is a terrible waste of great people.. 100 gold? You can plunder cities for more, or even extort AI by beating them silly, PLUS get GPT. Be aggressive, it pays way betyter than being peaceful, and if world council hates you.. start killing them off. Can't vote if you're dead.

The early game is definitely very different, gold being more difficult to come by. I've failed a couple of games and now I have dropped to Prince from Emperor, to tray and learn more about the game.

I don't think it's that hard, and I play with raging barbs even, still on immortal. Get archery quickly, buy an archer and build another. The time before you build a caravan you spend clearing out camps around the chosen CS. Basically with the troops you would defend yourself with against an AI rush.

The other Civs will still pay your 5 gold per turn for a luxury, which should pay your unit maintenance untill you get a caravan up. Nah I don't think it's all that hard, you just can't rushbuy much.

Playing my first game of BNW, without too much research into the changes. King difficulty, random everything (except map size Standard). So far I haven't noticed gold being too much of a problem.

I got the Netherlands, built a caravan only had a choice of two cities to trade with. Noticing that you cannot get lump sum gold without a DoF I was happy to exchange embassies (didn't realise they provide gold as well). I stayed with one city until I could afford a settler (which did take a long while). Before that I bought a couple of archers (I still lost a caravan to barbs tho.)

I was 2nd in gold when the wealthiest players pop-up appeared. I have a small force (6th) of 3 comp bows and a Pikeman at turn 200 (epic pace). Only 1 of 2 trade routes active, +22 gpt (41 gpt total, 7gpt from the caravan). I have two coastal cities now so time for my first Cargo Ship.

I think being surrounded by other civs may be a good thing in BNW, I am out on the edge of what looks like a Pangaea map as there is really only one good city to trade with (a CS that was purchased by Venice).

I've dealt just fine, I did notice the problem, but after my first trade route and currency, I was in huge profits.

I think there is a problem, but I also think people are over-reacting a bit. There seem to be a sizable camp complaining that the early game has changed, and the old G&K builds no longer work, and a sizable camp saying that everyone who thinks there is a problem belongs to this camp, so I hope everyone can ignore people in both of those camps, while we work out what the best way to fix things is...

The early game lack of gold does hurt the AI, but it also hurts human players somewhat. Early-game pushes are almost impossible, and there are more efficient ways to play. What we need to do is make early-game pushes *viable*, but not the most efficient way to play all the time.

Ultimately, I think the problem is early-game unit maintenance, and *NOT* the AI. Once you have 4-6 trade routes, and each of those is pulling in 20 GPT, it isn't a huge issue, but in the early game you don't have the economic flexibility to even float a standing army, let alone an offensive force which includes siege. So it isn't a problem with the AI, but rather with the mechanics of the games which make it so early-game pushes are *NEVER* a viable strategy.

There are two possibilities I can think of to fix it:

1) Reduce early game city strength significantly, and make the AI more likely to go to war [I don't like this option overly much, as it harkens to the days of old where you could launch warrior-rushes against cities]

2) Give a small number of free units for each era. I was thinking 3-5 free units in the Ancient era, 6-10 in the classical and medieval eras, and 3-5 free units in the reineccance. This way Builders (like myself) can build a tiny standing army, and not have any economic drawback, while people who want to launch an early rush can go over the cap, take an economic drawback exactly proportional to their offensive capabilities, and (hopefully) capture some cities, or hurt a neighbor enough to make it worthwhile.

Disclaimer: I am a Prince player, and haven't managed to win a game at King difficulty (the reason being that I could not cope economically with the G&K early-game pushes)

digitCruncher said:

2) Give a small number of free units for each era. I was thinking 3-5 free units in the Ancient era, 6-10 in the classical and medieval eras, and 3-5 free units in the reineccance. This way Builders (like myself) can build a tiny standing army, and not have any economic drawback, while people who want to launch an early rush can go over the cap, take an economic drawback exactly proportional to their offensive capabilities, and (hopefully) capture some cities, or hurt a neighbor enough to make it worthwhile.

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I like this suggestion!

I had to do a suicidal warrior rush against india during ancient era just to ensure I have access to the ocean. That suggestion would let me build an actual proper army during ancient era xD

I have not had a gold income problem yet, selling lux for 5-6 gpt and embassy for 1gpt works fine, I find myself not having cash to rush settlers or workers early but I like that change. It makes liberty more appealing as the free settler is valuable as 500 gold is hard to come by. I really enjoy the new setup I just wish AIs would be more aggressive. Maybe giving everyone few units free of maintenance would help. As it is it s ridiculously easy to CB rush them and dominate. I dropped down to immortal to test the waters and no one has put up a fight yet

The system works as it stands. Really. It works exceptionally well and I much prefer it over the old system. I have to think my strategy through more carefully. It's made the first 100 turns far more enjoyable than it used to be.

If its not working for you, then really, think through what you're doing. Ask yourself, do I need these buildings, ,do I need these units? I'm only on my second start and still havent' worked out the mechanics properly yet - i recently got a 3rd trade route and for the life of me I don't know what opened it - so I can't give any solid advice. however, building an army is possible. But you need to make sacrifices to do it. And don't expect to be getting 8 archers all upgrading same turn to Cbows.

I had to sacrifice buying workers/ settlers (I had only one worker for three cities). my growth was almost neglible. My army was 4 Cbows and 3 archers, and a pathfinder. But Siam my neighbour was becoming the runaway and I had no choice. I needed to take him down before he got the elephants. Now, siam is history, my economy is back on track. And I had an awesome opening 100 turns. perhaps some of the best I've had with Civ V. It was difficult - and tricky, but really really enjoyable when it worked.

It can be a bit painful in the early game until you get some trade routes and lux tile improvements going, but it makes up for it in spades in the mid-late game when trade routes (plus other bonuses like gold buildings and religious beliefs) can net you a massive amount of gold even with a fairly small civ.

I tried using Liberty as my first policy tree and found things much tighter, it didn't help that the other civs cities were more than 10 tiles away.

Just like ancient rulers you have to make a war chest, take the extra gold from working luxuries. Buying buildings and units is not something to be taken lightly but needs to be part of your early long term planning. Likewise you may need to bee line Currency (or even guilds) if gold is tight.

I like that the tech tree is now something you need to adapt to your situation.