Broke

I'm playing the Babalonians, I have 45 cities, but it seems like I never have any gold. Am I building too many units? I can't seem to sell anything to the AI, the bums don't have any money either. I've got my major cities pumping out wealth in a vain attempt at getting even. Huge pangea map and we've just left the ancient age. HELP!!

Which goverment are you in?
What costs you so much? Check the F1 page, is it corruption on unit costs?
Where are your sliders?
Did you road every square?

With that much cities, corruption hurts a bit.

I would want to look very hard before dumping units. I would rather go to combat and use them. The F1 shows your income and expenses.
Science
Entertainment
Corruption
Maint

I will ignore the other two. See what the cost are for them and then find a way to correct it. If you do have too many troops and some are very obsolete, then go ahead and disband them in a city that is building a structure.

If you can find places that could make a courthouse to gain some net, start there.
You may have to drop your research rate for a time.

Lux may be adjusted, if you can gain some lux items. Look to see if the least corrupt cities are fine with lower slider and use specialist in the corrupt towns, if that makes sense. Get markets in larger cities.

Reduce maint, by selling off temples in towns that have already expanded their borders and do not need the temple for happiness and will not grow (stuck at size 6).

Sell of cath, you do not need them and should not build them.

Look at libs and see if the are a bargain in that town. If it is making 1 beaker, sell of the lib, unless it is the only culture item and the borders have not yet expanded.

Sell of and never make walls unless you are at least at demigod and that is a beachhead.

Sell of barracks in towns that are not in danger or are not making troops. If you have the Sun Tzu, sell of all contiential barracks. They will be repalced free.

Do the same for granaries, if you have Pyramids. Do it anyway it towns that will not go to more than size 6 or if at max size and will not be use to make workers or settlers.

Truckster,

I'm basically going to repeat what VXMA said, just in different words. I used to be out of money all of the time, and there are a few reasons.

First, be careful about overbuilding structures. When you first start playing the game, you get all of these interesting choices to build -- some are not a good idea. If you are building all of the buildings in a city, you will find yourself running out of gold for maintenance.

If you haven't been selective, consider looking at which cities are productive and what helps. If you have a city with hills, you may have a lot of shields and little gold -- so don't buy libraries or universities; but do build courthouses and factories later. Build granaries where you will get workers and settlers, but not everywhere. Get temples and cathedrals only if you really need the happiness or culture. If you are strong enough to have a lot of luxuries, build marketplaces instead of religious buildings.

Conversely, if you play for an 100K culture victory, then you must build all cultural buildings and be ready for it!

Of course, always build roads. Make sure you have enough workers -- once you stop pumping out settlers, make sure you have 1 1/2 or so workers per city. Some people play 2 workers per city. This will keep roads in place.

Get out of Despotism!

Unit support may be an issue, especially if you are in republic and you have a lot of troops. With republic, where you get more commerce income coming in, building marketplaces is important to get those boosts.

At this point, it probably makes sense to disband troops if you have too many, have obsolete ones, and are paying a lot of support. Sell buildings if theses buildings aren't useful.

Finally, trade resources -- they can be a nice source of revenue. To trade, you must build trade networks with other civ's, a good idea.

Breunor

What level are you on truckster? I play on regent myself and have found in my current game that only now toward the end of the middle ages do the other civs have any $, especially gpt. Also, like the others have said make sure you have workers developing your territory...roads boost commerce and are essential for managing your empire...look for bonus tiles like gold, fish, etc. for the commerce boost. Also, if you haven't yet, build the FP...it will help with the corruption coming along with those cities.

Sad to say I'm a newbie, so I playing on chieftan. I'm in republic, I have about 90% of my tiles roaded. My research slider is at o-10 and my happiness is a 0%. Is that the luxory slider? None of the AI seem interested in doing a fair trade for luxories(sp). I've stopped pumping out settlers, The AI have not. I'm trying to limit myself to 2 GW, Sun Tszu and Leonardo's workshop(have both). I have plenty of workers. I'm using the governor, isthis a problem? I have a granery in every city and now barracks. I thought building culteral buildings would help me get cities peacefully by culter flip. I disbanded some of my early rock throwers( hoping to upgrade to artillery later). My MA says my military is strong compared to all the AI. I don't feel I'm ready for any major wars yet. I now have a little in the treasury, but can only move the reasearch slider to 10% without losing money. Oh yeah it's 640 AD and the tech tree seems to be about equal.

Whenever you're even or stronger than the AI (according to Mil Adv) you should attack... assuming you built your military wisely. What's your military like? It could be too big because you built way too many defenders.

BTW the AI bases the value of its luxuries by how many happy faces it will produce for you.

The luxury slider is what you're calling the happiness slider, it sets how much of your $ is going to make folks happy.

I tend not to use the governor as it usually doesn't have your cities as productive (shields or gold) as they can be. It's a good idea to cycle through your cities at least every other turn to make sure that the most productive...or the tiles that most suit your current needs are the ones being utilized. This can take a while...especially with a lot of cities but it does pay dividends. If going through all of them sounds too much at the very least check your most productive cities.

Are you controlling your workers yourself or are they automated? If their automated, you need to take control of them...and maybe rework a good deal of your territory. Automated workers are bad.

With a granary and a barracks in every town your paying a killing in upkeep. Each one of these is one gpt...so with the 45 cities, that's 90 gpt for these two structures alone. If you have cathedrals or colossums...they're another two (2) gpt each. (I would sell any colosseums you have, btw, they really don't do a whole bunch for you compared w/what they cost.)

If you press F1, in the upper left you'll see a breakdown of how much gpt is going to the different parts of you empire...military, science, upkeep, etc. This a good place to get an accurate picture of what's hurting you the most. Then you can selectively go through and "prune" your empire a bit. You don't need all of those granaries and barracks...but you do need some of them. You may not need all of your army, but you want to keep the best of it, etc.

I'm playing a huge map right now, as Greece (Monarch difficulty). I am in the mid-Medieval age, and have "liberated" the cities of three of my rivals. I have around 60 cities and a large-ish military (~50 Cavalry/Knights, 70+ native Workers, and assorted but not too numerous foot units and artillery). I am in my Golden Age (triggered by a Hoplite killing a red-lined enemy Archer), and have a few turns left to go.

Cashflow has never been an issue for me, though.

1. Greece are Commercial, this really helps (it bumps the OCN up by 25%, thus reducing corruption empire-wide).
2. Republic.
3. I have built my Forbidden Palace.
4. Roads everywhere, Marketplaces everywhere they're useful, Courthouses in cities >15-20% corrupt.
5. Limited defensive units. Remember what tin-head says, Offence is the best form of Defense!

What I don't have:
1. Granaries in every city* (+1gpt per Granary not built)
2. Barracks in every city* (+1gpt per Barracks not built)
3. Temples* (+1gpt per Temple not built)
4. Colosseums* (+2(?)gpt per Colosseum not built)

Multiply the above by ~50 cities, and it's 200-250gpt. That's a lot.

* As with every rule, there are exceptions. I have the Pyramids (SGL); I hand-built only two Granaries, for my Settler/Worker pumps. I have one Temple, in a city I needed the culture in. I have one Colosseum, a pre-build for a University that I missed. I have just completed Sun Tzu's so have Barracks, but I only built Barracks in cities that would be producing my military.

I think you're right, I might have way too many defensive units. I've just started making musketmen. Is there any way to convert to more offensive units? that is without disbanding and building new ones. I have a majority of spearmen and warriors with a scattering of horsemen and some bowmen, 2 catapults, a trebuchet and 2 galleys(after 1 sunk in unsafe seas). Any body got any method of determining the right mix of buildings and military units?

Barracks are free under SunTzu. Go around and sell all the barracks that you built by hand and they will be replaced for free and you get the 10 or 5 gold.

Only build them in cities that are under threat or are making troops. Granary is best in a few core cities, no need to make them all over the place.

As was mentioned, it is likely the Gov has citizens working tiles that are less productive. Look at them to see if you have some that can be moved. You will see a tile yielding 1f 1s 0c or some such and a nice mine on a river unused or something like it. Shuffle till they are at the best tile and send in a worker to improve any unworked river tiles. If you have size 12 and make more than 24 food, mine a hill or a mountian and move a pop to that spot.

truckster said:

I think you're right, I might have way too many defensive units. I've just started making musketmen. Is there any way to convert to more offensive units? that is without disbanding and building new ones. I have a majority of spearmen and warriors with a scattering of horsemen and some bowmen, 2 catapults, a trebuchet and 2 galleys(after 1 sunk in unsafe seas). Any body got any method of determining the right mix of buildings and military units?

Click to expand...

After a while you will get the hang of what to expect form the AI and can take some liberties on defense.

At Chief, you will have little to worry about in terms of an attack. At least not for the early AA. In the main, if they have land to grab, that is what they will be doing.

This means you can skimp on defense. You also do not have to fear barbs at this level as you have an 800 bonus. This means a barb can almost not kill any of your units. So again a few warriors can handle the job, until you get horses or swords.

Just don't build spears at all. By the time uprisings come around you will at least have Swords and they have the same defense as spears, but three times the attack.

Now you will have to start building your best attacker. Go ahead and bring in some of those old warriors, especially non vets and disband them to speed up the new units.

You can look to see if you have more than enough spears and disband them as well, if they are non vets. To me non vets are not worth upgrading cost. You find yourself with lots of money put into the unit down the road and are afraid to use it. I mean a 3hp rifle is not as good and has now cost you a lot.

truckster said:

I have a majority of spearmen and warriors

Click to expand...

As the Babylonians, your unique unit is the Bowman which is basically an archer with the same defensive strength as a spearman plus defensive bombard...for the same cost of a regular spearman...so you shouldn't build spearman.

I usually find that, with a few exceptions, the cost of upgrading from Pikemen to Muskets is just way too expensive (90 gold, I think). So I do a build and replace program where I build a new unit then disband the pike in a city that needs the production boost. It's not much, 7 shields?, but every bit can help.

Also, if your in Republic or Democracy you don't get any bonus for MP's in your city so you can reduce the number of defensive units AND move them to your borders...further reducing the amount you need. I like to have a couple of def units to resist the first push I might receive, then a bunch of offensive/artillery units to throw it back and go over to the offensive.

Here is my .02:

1) Build marketplaces. These increase gold
2) Use the governor to manage citizen moods. If you are playing chieftain the last thing you need to worry about is micromanaging citizens.
3) Check the F3 screen to find out how much you are paying in unit cost. It is probably alot - since republic charges 2gpt per unit after the allowed number of units. If the per turn cost is above the number of units you have you probably have too many units. Babylon is religious - try switching to monarchy. It might be better to support your military. You can switch back to replublic after you have a war and reduce your unit counts.
4) How many luxuries do you have? You might be losing productivity in larger cities if your citizens switch to entertainer.

I've got Leonardo's workshop so upgrading my warriors to midevil infantry only cost 22 gold. Is it worth it? Upgrading spearmen to musketmen cost 30 gp, again ? I sold my hand made barracks and only got 5 gp each(I only had 5) as I was anticipating Leo's shop( I meant Sun Tszu' A of W). I'm trying to ween myself away from wonder addiction. I'm only going to try to get Smith's trading post, if I ever get there. My research funding is now at 0(from lack of gpt. My unit support and corruption are killing me. I never researched monarchy, is it too late. I'm an interminable 10 turns from chemistry. If I keep my research at 0 at least I'm not losing money. I don't understand defensive bombardment/how to trigger it. I've never been able to use it with commandos and didn't know Bowman had it. How do I switch off the governor? I tried and when I went to move a citizen I was asked if I wanted to stop the governor(which meant it was still on).

On the cost of upgrading units, my personal threshold this early in the game is 30 gp...as I usually am only making somewhere around 30-60gpt after research and unit support. So I can upgrade 1-2 units a turn "free of charge" so to speak.

With your research at 0, do you have a scientist or two in a corrupt city? This is slow but will at least keep you on the road to the next advance.

You can go back and research an earlier tech that you don't have by going to the tech tree and clicking on the previous age in the bottom left corner. It may be easier to buy it from another civ if you can get some positive cash flow.

Defensive bombard occurs automatically when a unit having the ability is attacked.

I can't recall exactly how to turn off the gov...I'll have to check.

Why don't you post a save game and let some of the folks around here have a go at turning you economy around. You'll get a lot more specific (and probably more helpful) advice.

I gotta admit I'm clueless. How do I post a saved game? There doesn't appear to be a means of attaching a file to these replies or posts. Don't I have to turn off the governor in order to change an entertainer into a scientist? I've checked the AI (6) and I can only see chivalry. I don't think I need that as I don't have a high opinion of knights or knights templar. Do you have to pay upkeep on Templars or Ancient Cavalry?
If I keep my research at 0 then I make 40-55 gpt is that about average. I guess I should research communism to bring corruption under control. I usually go straight to democracy after republic. I really appreciate all the replies and help, as soon as I figure out how to I'll post a saved game. I think I'm addicted, is there a treatment center or 12 step program? I don't want to know if there is.

Choose Reply , not quick reply. You will see additional option below the window for text. One of the options is to manage attachment. Select that and follow the yellow briock road.

The save must be less than 500K. This is normally fine, if you do not use the autosave. If it larget, you may be able to zip it. If it is still to large they have an upload fucntion.

truckster said:

Don't I have to turn off the governor in order to change an entertainer into a scientist? I've checked the AI (6) and I can only see chivalry. I don't think I need that as I don't have a high opinion of knights or knights templar. Do you have to pay upkeep on Templars or Ancient Cavalry?
If I keep my research at 0 then I make 40-55 gpt is that about average. I guess I should research communism to bring corruption under control. I usually go straight to democracy after republic. I really appreciate all the replies and help, as soon as I figure out how to I'll post a saved game. I think I'm addicted, is there a treatment center or 12 step program? I don't want to know if there is.

Click to expand...

Just move a citizen and it will say nothing if you are in control. Otherwise it will ask you and you say yes. From then on you are running it. You can change a joker to any specialist that you have knowledge of.

Yes those units are part of your unit support cost. How much you make has too many variables for any rule of thumb.

Yes it is worth upgrading to MDI from warriors, if you are still in the middle ages and the warriors are vets and you intend to use them soon.

I do not care for upgrading archer to LB. They are not worthless, but with only 1 defensive are easy prey if caught in the open by any MA units. The zero bombardment is already in the archer. I would use them for that or maybe even disband them, depends on my strength.

Knight types (Riders and other UU) are very useful and often that is the end of the research for games at emperor. You can win at this point. They are your first fast mover with any real attack and some defense, whats to not like? Don't you have all those horses ready to upgrade?

I never go to demo, even if religious, which I seldom play. One switch is all I will do in the main. Demo implies at least 2 switches.

I do not like commie either. I know lots will tout its uses in large empires and its communal corruption. To me it has little value. Again I have to suffer yet another switch, no thanks. Communal corruption means my core cites will now gets some, do I want that?

The worse part is rushing is forced labor. I do not want that late in the game. What are the things I am going to be rushing? Temples/Barracks in newly captured or founded frontline towns. Some will have the pop and others will not. Latest troops, they will cost a lot of shields and be built in my best cities. I do not want to pop rush in those cites now.

I usually switch to demo for the increase in productivity. I became leary of the horse boys because they seem to lose to almost anybody I attack regardless of terrain. I've become a big fan of artillery, thank to Zerksee's catch up article. I have taken the steps I've been told about, thanks. I haven't seen the results yet. Maybe I'm too impatient. I keep hearing about all these early age victories, at much higher levels. and also want nukes in midevil times. Tech envy I guess.
Well here's my post, remember I'm a newbie, be gentle with old people, we're fragile.