Why is maintenance killing me in this game?

For whatever reason suddenky it seems maintenance is killing me in this game and I can't work out why. Crime is under control but in my gold advisor screen the "number of cities" maintenace seems out of whack

Am I missing something? Very frustrated!!

It is the secondl ast SVN update I think

Mod name "code"? As in "SVN code"? *grin* Ok.

As for maintenance:
Some 21 of those stem from crimes. That Shoplifting crime really needs looking over (I have pointed it out in several posts already)
Some 14 of those stem from Building Maintenances. Of those really only the Chief's Hut will help you (maybe the Sentry Posts for Espionage when you can afford it too). Try Crtl+a when in a city screen to demolish a few of them. Do you get them from auto-builds in My_Mods?

So after deducting those you are left with 31 Number of Cities Maintenance. Not impossible on it's own, but possibly a little overextending when you have one pop 5 city and the rest at 1 pop (and one at 2) each without having built up anything in them to contribute to the nation in yet.

In fact, hmm, you have not built much in way of producing buildings at all even in your capital. The increased maintenances and the jump from Anarchism to Chiefdom does require a bit of preparation unless one usually tries to stay a bit ahead in income anyway.
You can still save it though if you remove (and stop building for a while) the - maintenance buildings (except Chief's Hut as that also reduces Maintenance with -10%), set any 2 cities (except Cuan Bhinn) on building Wealth while the other cities build buildings that give .

In short: you need to work it a bit more, but it is not impossible. Crime reducing buildings in your other cities so they do not get Shoplifting, though always wary of the costs. Perhaps you could save the Capital too, the Sentry Post and the Crucifixion Crosses could be enough, just be careful not to grow too much higher too fast so the crime does not bounce back up again.

Cheers

Thanks BG.

Some good points. I find myself having to build anti crime buildings which incur maintenance to prevent the Shoplifting crime.

I haven't built too many godl buildings but then again I haven't built many buildings at all

I think I have gone too far into the red with this one but will bear in mind using Wealth in future

I have never sold buildings before. I understood it was considered a cheat because the AI doesn't do it?

PS I was comfortbale making gold ever turn before Chiefdom and thought I had calculated the jump well enough. It worked fine for a while but then everything seemed to get on top of me

The selling of buildings, well, if only doing it to correct a mistake then it is all-right I think, the AI should not do those mistakes after all. *chuckle*
It is when doing it to a captured city and then abandoning it that could be considered a cheat.

Hope your frustration levels are reduced after some understanding of the mechanics (though I still think that shoplifting comes too early and is too costly).

Cheers

MacCoise said:

I have never sold buildings before. I understood it was considered a cheat because the AI doesn't do it?

Click to expand...

That is a matter of opinion. The AI gets all kinds of economic bonuses to compensate for generally poor playing. So I assume that the player is supposed to micromanage his buildings to be on par with the AI.