Economies in ruins!

This thread will probably keep coming back as it is on civiv.com and it doesn't look like it will be updated (civiv.com)
 
Hi,
I have just started playing Civ4 recently. I am not sure early expansion is a sin as some are suggesting. The last 3 games I played at the Noble level and all I did at the beginning of the game was build lots of cities.
I have played India in these games, so I research polytheism first and then target pottery and preisthood, build lots of cottages and temples in every city. I manage to stay afloat with 70-200 gold at 50-70% science, and in the medieval era I really take off in the tech race and simultaneously make piles of cash.
Stonehenge is a wonder that I target only if I have stone. I have stuck with Hinduism in all the games and concentrated on building temples, mandirs and monasteries and my religion spreads to my neighbours.

On a different note, India was a puny in Civ3. Germany and Persia were my favs in Civ3. Civ4 has changed that and India seems to be a good bet now.
Ps - I cheated on a couple of occasions by reloading from the autosaves ;)
 
Hi,
I have just started playing Civ4 recently. I am not sure early expansion is a sin as some are suggesting. The last 3 games I played at the Noble level and all I did at the beginning of the game was build lots of cities.
I have played India in these games, so I research polytheism first and then target pottery and preisthood, build lots of cottages and temples in every city. I manage to stay afloat with 70-200 gold at 50-70% science, and in the medieval era I really take off in the tech race and simultaneously make piles of cash.
Stonehenge is a wonder that I target only if I have stone. I have stuck with Hinduism in all the games and concentrated on building temples, mandirs and monasteries and my religion spreads to my neighbours.

On a different note, India was a puny in Civ3. Germany and Persia were my favs in Civ3. Civ4 has changed that and India seems to be a good bet now.
Ps - I cheated on a couple of occasions by reloading from the autosaves
 
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
Thank you; good point! :goodjob: I recently realized that going for lit & putting Heroic Epic on my best producing city was a good war tactic (who would think literature -guess "the pen is mightier than the sword".

Now putting West Point in the same place makes sense :cool: (can't wait to get "Warlords") and putting it on the coast makes troops readily available for transport.

Just switched to Noble which really motivates stategic thinking. I've been playing Civ 3 for a year before Civ 4 came out which makes me think others who started with Civ 1 or 2 may have quite an anvantage -I play almost every day & can't yet imagine someone at Monarch or higher, but, I think I'm getting the flow now.

Don't neglect using all your advisors & manipulate everything to your advantage is my advise. Remember what it says sometimes as the game loads: "Don't neglect cottages, you'll be glad you did later". BTW, just had a historic battle at Thermopoly -history does repeat :cool: , & Sparta was my best soldier output last game -Go figure, -guess I already did the math?:scan:

One question: Last game I built a few farms with 1 or 2 hammers & they (the hammers) disappeared upon completion of the farm, could this be a quirk in the engine, memory problem or something -I never noticed this happening before. After 2, I just built cottages on hammer tiles JIC. Any light you could shed would be appreciated! :confused:

Oh! Concerning "the question not asked is the dumbest", what exactly do you mean when you say, "mothballing" (with respect to your army)?:D
 
Now putting West Point in the same place makes sense :cool: (can't wait to get "Warlords") and putting it on the coast makes troops readily available for transport.
The reason you want your military production city on the coast is so you can make ships there too (I don't agree "faster transport" is a big consideration).

One question: Last game I built a few farms with 1 or 2 hammers & they (the hammers) disappeared upon completion of the farm, could this be a quirk in the engine, memory problem or something -I never noticed this happening before. After 2, I just built cottages on hammer tiles JIC. Any light you could shed would be appreciated! :confused:
I have no idea of what you're talking about. By "hammer tiles" do you mean a plains tile?

Oh! Concerning "the question not asked is the dumbest", what exactly do you mean when you say, "mothballing" (with respect to your army)?:D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothball

What I meant was simply that I turn my previous front-line troops into garrisons. Say you have a Maceman army, and you have a Axes and Chariots as your garrisons one each in all your cities. Send one maceman to each city, and as it arrives, disband the axe or chariot that was there.

Again, this is an alternative to spending cash to upgrade your axes and chariots.

Wodan
 
One question: Last game I built a few farms with 1 or 2 hammers & they (the hammers) disappeared upon completion of the farm, could this be a quirk in the engine, memory problem or something -I never noticed this happening before. After 2, I just built cottages on hammer tiles JIC. Any light you could shed would be appreciated! :confused:

Maybe you farmed a grassland tile with forest ? :confused: forest gives 1 hammer to the tile, if you farm it or chop it you lose the hammer since grassland as default just gives 2 food.
 
The reason you want your military production city on the coast is so you can make ships there too (I don't agree "faster transport" is a big consideration).


I have no idea of what you're talking about. By "hammer tiles" do you mean a plains tile?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothball

What I meant was simply that I turn my previous front-line troops into garrisons. Say you have a Maceman army, and you have a Axes and Chariots as your garrisons one each in all your cities. Send one maceman to each city, and as it arrives, disband the axe or chariot that was there.

Again, this is an alternative to spending cash to upgrade your axes and chariots.

Wodan
Yes; a plains tile, with fresh water -well, you know: production hammers, for building things (you see them with Ctl + Y), the things usually more prevelant on hills for mining or windmills, these needful things, sir, they up & vanish -1 or even 2 o' em gone soon as a make a farm. Din't remember it hapnen in Warlord level. Happens all the time now on Noble level.

But anyway, thanks again. I'm starting to kick uh (R U alowed to say), thanks to this thread. Almost ready to try for Prince and really kick some royal (uh) tea.

Alexander is da Man!:cool:
 
you have to build cottages and courthouses, a market helps too and sence ur about 12 citys in the classical era, overexpanson could do it too...
 
to OP: Wow Ive had that happen a few times and had to learn to balance everything a little bit more before I hit Economic Crash.

See the first few times I suffered a similar fate you did, was I expanded too quickly, Built to much military, with not enough infrastructure. through most of this I was lucky and didn't have a vast amount of gold, because everytime I've gone thru this, I've pretty much had to file for bankruptsy lol, Eventually I'd hit 0 gold 0 research 0 culture ect. somehow, my economy started to go back up real slow, first it was 1 gold per turn, then 10 then 20, I was able to get my research at 50 and culture at 10 with 1+ gold. I started looking at the other civs economies all were doing strong with 20+gold some with 50+ so.. I traded until they were making AT most 3 gold per a turn. this swung my economy back into gear, and I was able to rebuild my financial status, Slowly other civs would run low on money and cancel deals, Id trade them same resource for lower amounts per a turn, not because it effected my Economy anymore, but because it hurt theirs. in most cases I would be able to ridee a 250+ gold economy, in wartime 80% science and 20% culture.

The only problem is during the reorganization effort.. you have to be nice to everyone, cause you will be invaded. you just gotta hope that before you went bankrupt you built up a large enough military.

in more recent games, I've been able to adapt better than before, by seeing the market flux, sometimes I'll still get with with going bankrupt but I usually can recover, by pulling money out of the other Civs, then bring back my economy to support itself.

Now If I do start seeing problems, Ill watch, if I dip into Red at all for more than 5 turns I turn down a slider onetime. then I Trade some resources for gold. then once I can get to atleast +10 gold(depending on the era) aafter raising my slider Ill leave it raised. It takes alot of managing to fix the problem, usually build cottages and more windmills and such
 
yeah it sucks man, it just happens because the era changes you know your techs advance but the misery doesn't decline, well fk it it's just more money more problems anyway, id suggest robbing gold from other countries
 
actually winning on prince with kinda over expansion (8 cities in 1 AD 4 conquered) without building a single cottage.

If you miss gold, just ask for your rivals tribute. Just get better army than them.


They refuse, u counquer. You counquer you get gold. Until i got to -27 because inflation:blush:, i could run 100% research without a single cottage built on.

:hammers: destroys :gold:

Even if you lag behind in science, just get some of your cities to produce research. So you can develop your huge shield capacity.

Then you get police state, vassalage, caste system, state property and theocracy.

Might happen you are just so noob you cant do with those huge civic upkeep (true they are frustating with inflation). But remember something. A spearmen beats a tank. 10 Spearmen vs 1 tank takes empire. :goodjob:
 
Dear friends..

Waht you all say is true.Expansion needs lots of cottages and reduced manityenanc costs. Absolutely.

HOWEVER you're all forgetting something that goes very well with it: war and pillaging is a good way to keep your enemies/neighbors on the continent down while being able to research even while in deficit for some rounds, or even to build a city near an interesting resource or strategic position even though you normally wouldn't be able to afford it: razing enemy cities, especially rich ones can help you expand one step quicker, and also improves your breathing space and future expansion perspectives.

If you also got pyramids and great wall, you actually don't need to have hardly any soldiers within your borders once you use representation or universal suffrage...think about it.

A problem with this strategy is the respect you're losing, attacking rivals all the time. Going to war once is ok, but once you raze one or two medium major cities, the other guy will actually never forgive you, and this will call for more war in the immediate/medium term...that could of course exactly be what you want, but it could also be dangerous and cost you IF you're not prepared and consequent about being a warlike nation ans sticking to that "fate".

Works best with organized nations. Combinable with charismatic (invincible armies), aggressive, financial(even more expansion) or imperialistic(great generals). Augustus (org+creative) is nice aswell, since no neighbioring nation will ever be able to block your way or intimidate you geopolitically.
 
Bah.. reputation... If you are not trying to get diplomatic victory and am one of the top powers, bullying the lesser civs is rather profitable.
 
Hello,

I am in the closing stages of a game of Civ IV, and my economy is losing money - unless I set research to 20%. On my financial advisor's page it says inflation is running at around 200% - this is the main outgoing I have! does anyone no why this is happening?
 
Hello,

I am in the closing stages of a game of Civ IV, and my economy is losing money - unless I set research to 20%. On my financial advisor's page it says inflation is running at around 200% - this is the main outgoing I have! does anyone know why this is happening?

Welcome to the forums, tommygeezer!

Inflation is an arbitrary value based on what turn you are playing. It is not modified by events in the game. Some of the costs are multiplied by the inflation rate. This effectively means that the earlier you win a game, the less important inflation is. (edit - I'll see if I can find a link with more details.)

Anyway, 20% science isn't that bad if your empire is huge. 20% of a really big number can outpace 100% of a small number. Your research progress is based on number of beakers per turn, and the cost to obtain any given tech doesn't scale by the size of your empire.
 
Tommygeezer -- you might need to install the official patch 3.13 and the unofficial patch from Bhruic. Depending on what version of the game you're running right now, you might have the Inflation bug which would be causing the problem you have right now.

Wodan
 
Greets, all.

4) I can't for the life of me, figure out why the economies are crashing so hard, so reliably. Any thoughts? Bug? Am I just overdeveloping too fast?

Too many warriors, too early in the game can cause this probelm. It's hard to afford a strong standing army before the discovery of currency.
 
Well, over time I have discovered that over-development is not quite as bad as many make it out to be. What you have to do is learn how to manage your over-development. There are certain techs, and related improvements, that are very important. All these are helpful to one degree or another:

Polytheism & Monotheism. Shrines make money. Founding religions is very, very important if you want to land grab as you can generate extra income. And infect your neighbors, allowing better relations.

Pottery allows you to build cottages. You need to split your food production land between cottages and farms. Yes, it will slow down growth, but when you build the granary improvement in the city, you'll gain a lot of it back.

Alphabet allows you to idle cities and convert the production into research. You'll need to juggle this through your empire to maintain a reasonable research rate while you're stuck at a lower-than-100% research allocation and to build necessary improvements.

Code of Laws allows the Courthouse improvement. It is one of the most important city improvements and will cut the maintenece cost of each city in which it is built by 50%. Also allows the Caste System civic, which while more expensive, allows you to force merchants who generate additional gold and great merchants.

Currency allows the Market improvement. It also allows you to ide cities and convert some of the production to gold.

Civil Service allows the Bureaucracy civic which is usually cheaper than Vassalege, even with the unit difference. Plus, it doubles the commerce and production out-put of your capital. If you idle your capital under this civic, you can really get a good boost in gold production.

Certain Wonders help:

Pyramids allows you to select the Representation Civic. It is a "Low" cost civic and provides a research bonus. The Great Lighthouse and Colossus help with ocean-related gold production. The Parthenon to double your Great Person rate.

Stonehenge really helps to generate Great Prophets. These are used in conjunction with (first) founding the Holy Sites of religions. Later, you use them to discover techs and more religions!!! which then allows you to found more Holy Sites. I have, at times, discovered up-to 5 religions and have had a HUGE religion-based gold advantage over the AI.


By doing most of these things, I've won many a tech-race at Noble, or higher, despite frequently dropping down to the 50% or lower research level on a temporary basis.

I always chop rush stonehenge for prophets. And while I play rome, I still try and rush to found Jesus or Jews. Then I spam missionaries to spread my religion to as many cities as possible. The religion you start should be in all your cities and as many foreign cities as possible. Once you have built the temple of soloman or the church of the nativity you get +1 gold per city that your religion is in. Religion is the single most important sourse of gold in the game IMO. I tend to have 100% science by 1200AD ish on monarch with having my religion in 50% of the world's cities. Granted, I tend to have a small army and less cities than most but religion is very powerfull in civ4. And ya cottages, lots of em, as early as possible ;)

and hey if you can found two religions, the more the merrier. Just make sure your main one is the dominate religion in your rivals as another benifit of religion is the love your spirtual brothers have for you....
 
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